Oh, there you are!

Papi Power!



Well, it was just about a week and a half ago when the Red Sox were just up-chucking a Papelbon induced loss to the Yankees, when the announcers brought up the daunting upcoming schedule for the Red Sox...Yankees, Twins, Phillies (in Philly), Tampa (In Tampa) and then OH MY GOD, look out for them Royals. Turns out that what was supposed to be yet another nail in the coffin of the Red Sox season (according to our beloved media) actually spun into a week point five of outstanding play and team contributions that spun itself into a nice 8 outta 9 game winning clip. I don't want to jump ahead of myself though with those Royals coming into Beantown tonight for a four game set.


Yep, left for dead, the Red Sox went into Tampa Bay and stunned the home crowd of 2,700 with a three game sweep. Beltre is swingin, Youk is swingin, Cameron is back patrolling center, and the Captain is back at the helm thanks to a nasty foul ball off the ol big toe of Martinez. Unfortunately, our local hero, Jacoby Ellsbury continues to ail thanks to his kick in the ribs last month, but Darnell McDonald has been up to the challenge and continues to perform well in the show.



And of course, you cannot add up the wins without the contributions of the Red Sox staff, which has really turned a corner (as was expected) and flirted with a couple no-hitters in the last week and some solid, solid ball. A salute to YOUR 2010 World Champion pitching staff...

Dice-k

Jon Lester

"Feats of Clay" Buchholz

Jon Lackey

Tim Wakefield

Keep cruisin', boys!

Topps Peak Performers Keepers and Availables

continuing on with the great 2010 Topps inserts dump, here are the keepers for the Peak Performers series... Old school nine...

and new(ish) school nine.

I like this insert set quite a bit despite not being a fan of cut-and-paste images. I think that this set has chosen some pretty nice images of the players though and the back of the card gives a pretty decent tidbit about each of the players...excellent teaching material for Jacoby. Of course I can only keep one full page of each, so here are the availables...

Roy Halladay

Reggie Jackson

Raul Ibanez

Alfonso Soriano

Mark Teixeira

Vlad Guerrero

Grady Sizemore

Justin Morneau

Let me know if you find any of these of interest!

CYMTO keepers and availables

It was really a no-brainer to want to keep two full pages of this subset. As a newer collector, this set has really given me the opportunity to see some of the greatest cards of the greatest players. Were these ever truly thrown out by your mother? Most likely not. Everybody knows that mom's are notorious for hanging on to anything and everything that you ever created or collected as a child (minus the Playboy stash...those can get thrown out...twice). My wife is already saving everything that Jacoby has ever created at daycare. Also the first pair of shoes, pajamas, lock of hair...you name it, mom's save it.

While I am happy with the 18 cards that I selected, there is still plenty to go around. Here are the CYMTO inserts available to you. Drop me an email or comment if you are interested in any of these for your collection!

Available: Manny Ramirez (2, including original back), Evan Longoria, Tony Gwynn (2, including original back), Kevin Youkilis, Howard/Hamels, Bo Jackson, Dustin Pedroia, Johnny Bench, Frank Thomas, Tim Lincecum, Alex Rodriguez, Carl Yastrzemski, Russell Martin, Ivan Rodriguez, Don Mattingly, Albert Pujols, Dwight Gooden.

Topps Series One available inserts on the way!

In celebration of the release of Topps Series 2, I will be going through the inserts of Series One and choosing the nine that I want to keep in my binder. That means that there is going to be a lot of inserts up for grabs for your collection. Be sure to keep checking in throughout the week to stake claim to the inserts you need to fill out your set before the new series releases!

At bat: CYMTO

On deck: Peak Performance

In the hole: Legendary Lineage

The Wal-Mart run

Yesterday the wife went to visit some family. Also on the agenda was a trip to Wal-Mart! While this may seem common-place to most people, our Wal-Mart is about 45 minutes away from us. Target? We have a ton of those, probably about 5 in a 10 mile radius, but Wal-Mart is elusive. I placed my order for 10 packs of rack packs, in search of my first Wal-Mart exclusive minis.

Needless to say, the overall experience was pretty blah...the packs were obviously already picked over, but regardless, I got some pretty decent inserts out of these packs. Here is a brief summary... Do you know what these are? They are called "cost recovery cards" and you can put these on eBay and they magical turn in to near double-digit funding. it is really remarkable and pulling three of these in rack packs will virtually pay for the entire purchase.

I really stuck the landing on these. These are some of the rarer and nicer CYMTO and the Robinson is an original-back card to boot. Today I will go though and decide my nine to keep. I may go with nine HOF and nine current day players. Oops, missed Doc...

Here is a couple TOTG and a Gold Dodger that Night Owl might be interested in...

And then the reason for the entire purchase...

The Flying Dutchman! One mini-card in the whole set of 10 packs, but a great one. I would have to say that Honus and Walter Johnson are my favorite old-schoolers I am still looking 9 red backed and 11 blue backed if you can help me out! I'll make sure to get all of my available Topps inserts online today to help tempt you...their will be a ton of them!