Nine is a magical number!

Nine is an interesting number. I sat around this morning thinking of as many groups of nine as I could (you gotta love weekends, people)! Here are a few famous 'nines'...

"The Nine". This show was living proof that you have to be careful what you dedicate yourself to when it comes to new television show experiments. "The Nine" was a show about some sort of bank robbing situation gone bad, and all of the people in the bank were ultimately hiding "what really happened" from the cops once the situation was nullified. So each episode would show you what happened from each person's perspective. The problem is, nobody cared, and I think it was about 5 or 6 episodes in when the show was cancelled forever. Nothing worse than losing all of that time for nothing. You gotta be careful. All of you "V" and "Flash Forward" fans have been warned.

The Brady Bunch. This is a transitional time for the bunch, as Carol started to go mullet, Jan went with braces (and developed a terrible complex, Bobby became so upset about losing everything that he became a very passive-aggressive hall monitor, and flooded the laundry room with bubbles. Cindy was busy getting picked on by the future Karate Kid nemesis, and Greg became a dope-smoking hippie wanna-be. Mike? Well he mysterious still has straight hair, but we all know how that turned out. I got nothing on Marcia, Alice and Peter, those cats turned out OK!

Nine-Inch-Nails. Thank you for destroying my hearing as a teenager.

Nine-ladies dancing. You know, when you type this into a Google image search string, you can get some very interesting results!

The Last Nine Innings...I have never ever heard of this book, but it brings up a good point about how important the number nine is in the sport of baseball in regards to statistics and the game itself.

Where is this post headed? Ask me eight more times and I will explain.

Nah, let me just explain. Last week I received a very generous package from Joe at Priceless Pursuit. The contents contained several unique cards that deserve a posting of their own, but also contained something I had never known existed...mini card top-loaders.

Okay so maybe I have lived with my head in the sand, but just remember, I am still new at this stuff, so there.

Anyways, Joe sent me a nine-case of mini top loaders. Why nine? Turns out Joe has a mini of the Pope that he quite fancies, so he loaded him up.

These nine top loaders presented a very entertaining challenge to me. Could I go through my sea of mini-cards and locate nine, and nine only cards that deserve to be top-loaded. Game on!

Here are "The Nine"

Top-Left - Nick Markakis Carolina Brights mini 1/1 From Topps T206. I did some research and discovered that these Carolina Brights fall 1 in 1331 hobby (packs, boxes)?? Either way, it definitely takes the prize for top spot hands-down

Top-Middle - Cal Ripken Goodwin Champions Gypsy Queen Back mini. Mostly for aesthetic reasons. Ken Griffey Jr's card was also in the running, but there is just something knowing in Cal's expression that makes the card jump out.

Top-Right - Jason Varitek Goodwin Champions. It is the year of the Tek, after all (he should get a start any day now) and I love the cloud shots in this set. Several other Sox candidates were considered, especially the Pedroia with the deep red background, but this one won the slot.

Middle-Left - ENRON! Explanation. I work for an electric company that was owned by Enron. Yup, true story. And a bunch of people lost all of their retirements and now are rapidly aged and WILL NOT RETIRE. I can't say I blame them, but it certainly does not make advancement easy these days. My only other keepsake from the days of Enron was a ball cap with the logo that I gave to my brother, the stockbroker.

Middle-Middle - Nomar Garciaparra Goodwin - Again, aesthetically I love this card, especially the detail that went into the sunglasses. Very well done card.

Middle-Right - David Price Goodwin RC - pretty cool coloring and pose in this card, and a phenom to boot...or is he?

Bottom-Left - Joe Mauer Allen and Ginter 2009...mostly included because his MLB 10 The Show commercial cracks me up, and now that I have a PS3 and game, I feel like I am part of some exclusive club...still cant hit the curve ball though. Maybe Joe can.

Bottom-Middle - Vlad Guerrero mini Magician numbered 8/8! This is another totally unique card that found its way into the collection. I am still working on the rainbow for Vlad and am just a foil version away from completing it. If anybody has Vlad foil, please let me know!

Bottom Right - Finally we have a Heinrich Hertz mini. What is so special about the guy who invented car-rental agencies (fact check please), this card is a hand-numbered 37/50 from Allen and Ginter. Yay!

So there are the nine. They were all tough choices, but it was a lot of fun looking through them all again. Enjoy the day!