Thursday, October 8, 2009

My Goodwin Needs

Need - 4,23,77,96,98,121,123,135,150,153,154,159,160,165,
171,172,176,177,182,183,190,193,194,195,196,200,201,202,205,
207,208,211,213,215,216,217,219,222,223,224,227,228,229,230,231,232,
235,237,238,239,240,241,242,246,247,248,250,251,252

A tribute to Kevin Youkilis

Since umpires clearly hate Kevin Youkilis, with not one, but two lousy calls, I thought I would show a Youk a little love...



Moonman Youk. I am actually disappointed how much detail the scanner picked up on this. To the naked eye, Youkilis appears to be flying through nothingness in this Wal-Mart Exclusive.


ToppsTown Youk. Bring Youk to life and watch him proceed to destroy your living room and sweat all over the place.


pre-bearded Youk - Nope, I like my Red Sox bearded and grizzled, ala Caveman Johnny.


"Who, Me?" Youk - saw this face a couple of times tonight as Youk got screwed on a runner tag off the first base line on an errant throw from Gonzales, and again on a high throw from Lowell in which Youkilis CLEARLY landed on the bag before the runner touched the base. RIP OFF. These plays turned out to be non-impacting on the scoreboard, but mr. first base umpire man, for shame!

watchin, waitin, wishin....

Sorry folks, no shiny images to share with you this time around. Truth is that I have not scanned a darn thing for several days. I did the Library thing on Monday (home in time for Big Bang Theory, of course....Bazanga!), did the Doctor thing/innings 9-12 of the playoff game on Tuesday...oh wait I guess I opened up some TTS also. Whoops. Gotta love sedation! Then on Wednesday I celebrated my 3rd anniversary with the wife will Grandma took care of the squirt.


So I have not really ripped anything new to discuss in the last couple days. There are still lots of things to talk about though. The Red Sox begin their playoff run tonight. After a shaky couple of weeks, the Red Sox finished up strong and had a pretty dominating September. The bats are looking good and the Sox have a legitimate 4-man rotation to get them through. Of course Divisional series are always a bit wacky and AGAIN the Sox open up on the road in LA, but we know how history goes there. My guess is that if Boston jumps on them tonight, LA will once again go into panic mode. We'll know soon.

The other cool thing about playoff baseball is that the games are so long and slow that I can justify sitting at my laptop and doing schoolwork while watching the game. You simply could not make it work during a football or basketball game, but baseball? No problem!

I am also pushing to get my work done quickly this week because the wife and I are headed to Seattle to go get some seafood and check out the Seahawks this weekend. They look terrible this year. They have once again committed to a dinged up quarterback, aging wide receivers, and a terrible offensive line. Walter Jones is hurt...plus he is about 80 years old now. I honestly don't know how long the Seahawks figured he could maintain his dominance. And if the Seahawks wear those god-awful green jerseys again, it could make for a long afternoon. Nothing beats live NFL though.

Oh yeah, cards...well, I am at a bit of a crossroads here. Consider this a "choose your own adventure". Where do you want me to take the blog? Do you want to see some postings of available Goodwin Minis and work some deals? Most mini's and all base dups are up for trade. still dont really give a rip about minis, ALTHOUGH the one mini I am seeking is a VLAD GUERRERO Foil which would give me every one of his cards in the series (does he have an auto card too? I must haves it so I can line them all up like some big dreadlocked family. Do YOU have either the auto or the foil?

Anyways, if you guys want to see that stuff, just let me know. I know I slammed you with Goodwin for weeks and probably cost myself some readers in the process.

I also have a stack of TTS that I can scan for you. These are awesomely bad, and a good review is harder to find than a Chipper Jones Goodwin card! I will scan some more though if you wish.

Maybe revisit some of the best and worst cards of Topps 2009? Bad is obviously more fun, but there are some nice cards in the set.

CHOOSE!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Seeing Stars

Occasionally I like to give you a little insight as to what is going on in my life. Yesterday I had a Endoscopy done to me (that is where they knock you out and stick a camera down your throat and take a look around). I have been having cramping and stomach issues occasionally and suspected an ulcer. Well, no ulcer found, but they found a palup (or something like that) in my stomach and cut it out, don't even ask me HOW they did that, and are running a biopsy to see what it is all about. Funny thing is that they were not even looking for it. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Anyways, the FUN part about the whole thing is being a little looped up for the rest of the day. This entailed going to Red Robin to eat, since I had not eaten in almost 20 hours, and then I coyly recommended we hit up Target to buy Jacoby some baby food (plus it would give me a chance to check out the cards section, even looped up I am one clever cat!). This particular Target has been pretty lousy with new stuff, so I was surprised to see this little treasure.
Tickets to Stardom blaster! I have seen some incredibly wacky reviews of this product, and after seeing these in person I have to agree that they are not a very quality offering. But seeing as I was looped up, I gave them a go, at the very least to score a few Red Sox out of the box. Plus 8 cards in a pack is virtually unheard of anymore.


Firstly, check out the backdrops on these superimposed images. Why throw in empty, smog filled stadiums into the background. Obviously these are not the actual spots where the photo was taken, because that would put Lowe up right around the 200 level or so. Doubt he throws too many fastballs from there. Plus I have seen that stupid Pettitte pose on about a zillion cards. It looks like Phil Coke stole the "Pettitte Pose".


Delgado made my scans simply because the back tells the story of his 10 RBI rip against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium. Hunter Pence is a prime example of a WTF?? pose. If Topps is going to superimpose images ala Upper Deck, WHY would they choose this photo?



It is very hard to tell from this scan, but there is one card in each pack that has perforated top and bottom edges...again I cannot figure out why only some of these cards have this type of edge, but maybe you know something I don't.



Has the PNC ever been this full, for reals?




Sorry so teeny tiny, but the blaster did allow me six Red Sox cards, so to the binder they will go.



I guess these are the hits, but I have no idea the ranking (that is one thing I love so much about Topps Chrome, the border color tells the story). So while I won't complain about Price and Berkman, and the Home Run Sluggers up top, I really don't get that "ooh, ahh" feeling when pulling these.



Just a couple extras worthy of mention. Evan Longoria and Cole Hamels. One phenom and one pony that I am going to hitch to my hitters post. I collect mostly pitchers, everybody knows that. But a couple guys that I think are worthy of keeping tabs on are Longoria and Braun. I have a feeling they will be names of great importance some day and I am jumping on the train now.

You can read other reviews that explain this product further, but in a quick wrap-up: Yes, the photos look blurry, yes the cardstock is really thin, and in my packs even the foil looks kinda scratchy and imperfect. and YES, of course I pulled a Johnny Damon! It would not be a blaster break without one now, would it. I will post some more examples of these soon!





Congratulations!



Way to go Twins! That was a gutsy performance, and if I a fan of either team I would have had about four heart attacks during extra innings. Tough break to Detroit. They gave it a helluva fight.

Go Twins, Yankee Killers!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Goodwin Updates

Well, I have been busting through the wife's repacks fairly quickly over the weekend. I basically realize that I don't have a lot of extra time past school right now, so I would rather spend my efforts trying to complete the set through trades...which I cannot do until I know what I have and what I need. I will give you the major highlights of the pack rips...I have unearthed my final two auto cards and three of the four relics so far...

UPDATE: Ripped them all. Just want to be done with cards and boxes laying around. Becoming a bit dischanted with worthless relics and autos and loads of minis spilling out through every crack, so wrapping up Goodwin rips and will next go on to the trading phase once I get my needs posted. Here are the hits...with an extra surprise.



Another Jeremy Bloom Autograph! I really am hoping this guy goes bananas in Vancouver, because I now have two of these. It's still a pretty sweet card if somebody wants to do a auto swap.

I don't even care enough to look up any information on this guy. His autograph is pretty odd though, it almost looks upside down...


Wait a tick...whats this? A third auto?? How in blazes did a third auto get in two boxes. Defied the odds! Its too bad that it is James Shields, but of the three that I received, this one is the coolest by far.

Here are the relics...


Phil Hughes! A Yankee relic. What a suprise!

Prince Fielder! This is actually pretty cool because of the added texture to the material.



Travis Hafner! Cool deal. If only he was already in Red Sox gear.
Mike Schmidt. A HOF relic!

Another anomoly....I also received a Vlad Guerrero relic! So basically there was an extra auto and and extra relic within the two boxes. Loaded!
There was also a bunch of mini craziness, I have several of the set exclusives, even gypsy variations. The most notable of all though is that I am one foil vlad away from having one of each of his cards. I have the base, regular mini, gypsy backed mini, and the magician mini #8/8, and a relic to boot. Now all I need to locate is a foil mini and then I can line them all up on the scanner and feel special!
One more tiny hit that I received in the second set of boxes was this night variation of Tiger. Apparently Tigers are nocturnal (ba da bum).









Yankee Swap! Your Assist Needed!

Every now and again I go a little crazy and I throw down a twenty spot for a nice pack of guaranteed SOMETHING. My rationalle is that i would rather get something guaranteed than four or five chances of getting nothing and winding up with some unneeded base cards that sit in a box.

From previous posts you will see that I have had unusually good luck with Sweet Spot. I have pulled an Alexei Ramirez Rookie Auto, a couple auto's baseballs (although I am saying goodbye to one of them), and a pretty sweet Johan Santana patch. I have had dillusions of pulling my first Evan Longoria autograph from one of these boxes,and with that spirit in mind I grabbed a couple of boxes of these after five long hours at the library yesterday.

(side note on the library...it has been years since I have been in one. Normally if I have ever wanted a book I either go to Costco, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon and just get my own copy. Basically I am just using the space to use my laptop, have internet access, and be away from chaos to write my paper. So yesterday I was a bit thrown off to see and hear people with crying babies, people talking on their cell phones, crazy people talking about killing cops or something looney, and a guy sitting a table behind me that was well versed in the art of belching. When did this start happening at our libraries)?

So here is my predicament. The pack break REALLY did not go as planned. There were two packs left in the box and my first assumption was that at least one of them would be an auto...WRONG. I received two swatches. Here is the deal. this first swatch is actually a Yankee Legacy swatch. You actually hope to get these because they are rare enough that they only fall one per case of Sweet Spot. This is the actually case hit and the first and only case hit I have ever received.

Where the problem lies is that it is NOT a Babe Ruth, NOT Joe DiMaggio, NOT even Derek Jeter, but here we have... Randy Johnson. The Big Unit. Now Randy is a future HOF for certain, but his tenure in New York was temultuous at best. Nevertheless, this is a case hit Yankee Stadium Relic. I am hoping somebody might be interested in bailing me out and accepting this relic for some relicy of a Red Sox or phenom in return. I can also sweeten the deal.

Here are a couple of the Yankee Legacy cards. Again, nothing earth shattering about these, but they do have the defunked Roger Clemens and the hero Derek Jeter.

The other box contained a dual relic. No autograph, and yes, yet another Yankee.

Again, nothing to write home about, but at least this one contains Papelbon, and at least there is a theme going here. Maybe some day when both Rivera and Papelbon are in the HOF, then this card will be worth something. I am happy with this pull, but just wanted to demonstrate how good I am at pulling Yankees!

But back to the Yankee Stadium Relic. Let me sweeten the deal a bit. I also have a couple Sweet Spot base cards of Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera to throw into the pot. Sweet spot base are actually really nice cards, so if you collect Yankees, these are a nice little addition.
Is there anybody out there that will participate in the Yankee bailout plan?