Bamboozled! Pi

When the CEO of JD's Wildcardz decreed "We shall have minis!" (actually he probably said "ball ball" but being the President of the company, I am required to have a keen ear and I interpreted his statement as "We shall have minis!". Thus, minis we shall have.

I have been having a blast searching around the country for mini cards, ANY mini cards that are not dups to add to my ever-expanding mini-binder. No, it's not a really tiny binder, but a regular binder full of minis.

So what is the master plan with the minis? That's the beauty of it...there is none! Have you ever seen that episode of South Park where the underpants knomes come and continually steal Tweeks underpants? The business plan for the operation was:

Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit

While step three is highly debatable, this is the general plan. I want Jacoby to some day look through the binder and be totally perplexed by the baseball card collecting hobby. "these are baseball cards??" I also want to some day make a wager with him that my name is on the back of one of those tiny little cards, have him take the bet, lose, and then have to paint the fence or mow the lawn!

Wanna know another magical thing about minis? The wife somewhat approves of collecting them. Wait.....WHAAA? Yeah, it turns out that Easter Bunnies, World's Tallest Tree's, sharks and Dennis Rodman are actually interesting to her! It makes it easier to justify the envelopes that litter the kitchen counter. "But look honey....it's the groundhog!"

JD and I thank everybody who has offered of a smattering of minis to help grow our humble and confusing collection. Please let us know if you have any mini-clutter that you would like trade. We would be happy to find something you like!

Here then is a tiny lot that I found on Ebay the other day. It was just four cards, but it was by far the most random offering that I have jumped on yet...



Pi! 1998 April Fools hoax claiming Alabama's state legislature had rounded the value of pi to the "Biblical value of 3." A nifty little card from a nifty little subset. Did anybody ever find a Madoff? There has to be a prototype out there somewhere!

Louis Braille. Inventor of...well...braille. Cool card, but totally off-centered as the scan shows.


Mark Twain. The artwork on the earlier Ginter minis is really amazing, and this is one of the best.

Have a great day!

Topps Relief: 2010 Obak Box Break Highlights

Back from the land of San Jose, where taxi drivers make a killin'.



My wife and I flew back from seeing Dave Matthews Band over the weekend. We witnessed a really high-octane performance where the lights, drums, singing, and jams just beat our senses into pulp for over three hours. Highlights were a raging "All Along the Watchtower", a 17-minute jam of "Jimi Thing" featuring the opening act, and an encore finale of "Two Step" which is one of my favorite songs and one that I have always wanted to see live.



We got really lucky on the theme of the show. I have read some reviews of the show the night before in Concordia, and as can happen, Dave and his mates decided on a milder, more mellow set. The band definitely excels at both, but it was nice that the group decided to kick it into another gear for our show!



The only minus of the trip was that our hotel, while nice, was basically placed in the middle of a loop of freeways, so therefore there was really nowhere to walk to. So we were either at the mercy of overpriced hotel food, or a $15 taxi ride to somewhere else. We'll have to rethink that one next time. Regardless it was an amazing weekend.



Before we left on the trip, I had the pleasure of a dinged-up package appearing on our doorstep. Last week I jumped on Blowout Cards just in time to see that they had a new shipment of 2010 Tristar Obak re-appear in-stock. I happily jumped on the purchase. Obak is some different stuff, that much is certain. But after a Spring and Summer of Topps products and re-circulated images, it was high time to try something different. Right off the bat when you look at the packaging you know that you are going to be in for an experience. If you care to read about the history of Obak cards, it is right there on the package for you. Plus "hit" cards and parallels galore as well as a 1/24 chance at a "Hot Box" made me itchy to bust this thing open.

Here's a pretty cool feature of the box. This particular box is numbered 1935/3000. Pretty cool that only 3000 of these boxes were made. I wonder how that compares to Ginter?

Away we go, starting with the Heyward express. I am really excited to add a different brand of mini to my mini-madness binder that is taking shape. Always nice to add a few Heywards to the binder, but I do have some questions on these parallels...

The difference between the regular cards is pretty obvious, with a different photo and one referencing the Atlanta Braves. However, what is going on with the minis? I have a circle-backed mini and a....triangle-backed mini?? I don't really see any difference with the fronts. There is a different logo on the back, but I turn to my readers to help explain the variation difference on the these cards.

Here are a couple serial cards, Chicago rookie Starlin Castro numbered to either 50 or 75, and a Hank Greenberg numbered to 50.

Here was a nice little surprise to the box...

Here are the auto's for the box...

It's pretty cool to have a Jim Abbott and Don Baylor auto to add to the collection, but overall there is nothing too exciting about these. The autos kinda look like somebody scratched a blue pen through a thick chunk of white-out. There are some nice autos to be had in the set, but temper your expectations a little bit.

And we'll finish off with a couple nice minis

The Chick Gandil is a nice edition to the mini binder, and it was not until later review that I notice that there seems to be an alternate logo and back to this card. This is yet another unexplained mystery to this obscure baseball card box. It definitely makes the card feel unique though, and that I like.

This was a really fun break when you consider the wide-variety of subjects and stories that are covered on the back of each of these cards. I am going to definitely go back through these cards and discover the interesting stories that I may have passed over on first glance. This product is definitely a breath of fresh air after all of the same-old, same-old that has been passing through shops for the last few months.

I am basically only interested in hanging on to the mini cards, so if anything caught your eye or if you are curious about another base card that I might have, feel free to give me a shout!

Dear Topps:

Dear Topps:

Sorry the cash cow dried up. Perhaps you have a goose that laid the golden egg up your sleeve next? Please lower the prices of all your 2010 products back down to regular human prices again so we can all begin enjoying collecting again without having to put a second mortgage on the house.

Thanks!

JD's Daddy

Taking a DMB weekend

Tomorrow, my wife and I will be taking a parenting break from our budding prodigy JD, and are hopping a short flight down to San Jose to catch the Dave Matthews Band in concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre on Saturday night. This is actually a birthday present from my wife's May birthday that I actually had to purchase online back in March. So having to keep the present a secret for three months, and THEN have to wait nearly another three months to actually attend the show has been a brutal wait.


As well, our plans to spend the entire day at the hotel pool soaking up that warm, California sun may seem to be on hold since (after near-record setting heat) the temps are expected to be in the mid 60's all weekend :(. Oh well, maybe they have a hot tub.


Either way, I refuse to let the weather get me down and I am jacked to go to another DMB concert. The best part of a live DMB concert are the crazy, original, and unscripted jam sessions that break out every show.

One of the best jammers, in my opinion, is Boyd Tinsley (above). Watching this dude fiddle will absolutely blow you away. Dude has MASSIVE arms and when you see him rocking out on that fiddle you will understand why. Just an absolute master at his craft.

Combined with an excellent album release this year, a nice venue, and some reasonably close seats (not body surfing close) but not out on the lawn either, both Stacy and I are very excited about our brief, but exciting adventure.

Plus when I get back, The Red Sox will only trail the Rays by 2 1/2 games, right....right?

Ginter Nine....DONE

It's been awhile since I have posted a competed nine, so I thought I would share with you my completed page of relics/autos from Ginter 2010. Whoops, looks like we have a Drew duplicate in the binder (why didn't I notice that earlier??). As you can see, my pulls included my first red auto, a supposedly popular auto of a professional bowler and a yet-to-be-redeemed auto of latest Pirate talent Andrew McCutchen. I am looking forward to that one. As relics go, I could have had worse luck I suppose.



Since I originally scanned these, I have dived (doven?) into some retail packs and have actually pulled a couple more shiny relics to add to this list. They are not scanned yet, but let me jump on eBay to see if I can find them...

Ah yes, the perpetual Aramis Ramirez pulling-ability has reared it's ugly head once again. He was my very first hit pull ever, and the hobby continues to remind me that Aramis Ramirez does, in fact, play for the Cubs. Maybe there is a hidden Lincoln etched into the bat.

Another Cubby from a retail pack, Jeff Samardzija, who is currently mired in AAA but is expected to make a call-up before next week. I don't know a whole lot about the pitcher, but a smurfy blue jersey is a welcome change of pace from the rest of the pack.

Of course I only have room for nine relics, so if any of these are jumping out at you and you want to make the swap, I would be happy to discuss with you! Leave a note or send an email.

Timmy!

This 2009 T-206 is a beauty, and was yet another hidden away treasure in the game room, now safely stored in a binder. I'll have to check my snazzy mini-database, but I believe that this is the only mini of Lincecum in my collection so far.

While I have not talked a ton about the Red Sox this year, I definitely have not talked much about Big Time Timmy Jim either. Last spring, after the joint Ginter Codebreaker sale of Michael Phelps card, I decided to get myself something that really wanted, a Bowman Tim Lincecum Graded Rookie Auto. I love that card and it is displayed proudly on a shelf in the man cave. Timmy has gotten off to an amazing start to his career and I had visions of a third straight Cy Young...especially competing in the weak NL, and especially against the weak NL West.

Things started off swimmingly enough, Lincecum jumped out of the gate to the tune of a 4-0 start and eventually 8-2 by mid-June.

But things have changed in the NL this year. The teams are better, the pitching is better, and by far the division is stronger than in past years. Ubaldo Jimenez is suddenly hot sh#t and is having a mammoth year for the Colorado Rockies. Timmy has now lost four straight decisions and six of the last nine. The make things worse, he relinquished the NL Strikeouts leader title, and currently trails that category by 16 K's. Difficult to make up, but not impossible.

One of the biggest alarms that went off about Lincecum this year is batters began to discover his inability to hold base runners. Basically if you can find a way to make it to first, you can make it to second on a steal. So three years in, batters have found a chink in the armor.

Regardless, I like what the Giants are doing this year, love pulling for the Freak and hope to see Timmy reach the post-season and pitch on the big stage soon!

Red Sox Minis...FOUND!

This is another set of minis that were hidden away in a crevace in my game room as I shuttled out hobby boxes for the garage sale last weekend. I am really glad that I found these, logged them and put them safely away in the binder. Goodwin Champions was just a top-notch artistic offering that also, fortunately, became a reasonably affordable offering due to bad word-of-mouth from reviewers. "Ginter Light" What I love about the current players is the rich, deep coloring and shadows that a lot of the Goodwins demonstrate. Then they also threw in a smattering of historical figures, champions, HOF's and animals and really made a nice product.

Finding these cards really got me thinking about the Red Sox this season. I have not really blogged much of my thoughts on the team this year. My gut reaction would be to say that I have been disappointed, mainly because the Red Sox have not acquired that necessary piece to push them through post-All-Star break play. Both the division and the wild card are RIGHT THERE, and yet the Red Sox do nothing. If I could describe it with metaphor, I would say it is like chasing a dollar bill attached to a string.

But then again, that is really not fair to this team. Here is why.

Back in 2006, and more specifically in August of 2006, the Red Sox were decimated with injuries...Captain and team leader Jason Varitek was out with Knee Surgery, Jon Lester was diagnosed with cancer, Tim Wakefield had a fractured rib, Alex Gonzalez had a strained oblique...all on the disabled list. Manny claims his knees hurt, and Youk, Beckett, Loretta, the then-closer Keith Foulke....all injured in some manner or another.

Each night I would flip on the games and it would feel like watching AAA. And the team floundered, badly. A hotly contested AL-East quickly became a foregone conclusion as the Sox ended up 11 back of the hated Yankees. Boo.

THIS year, things could not be more similar, or opposite. You name the player, and they have most likely been hurt this year. Ellsbury (sniff), Pedroia, Youkilis, Martinez, Varitek, Beckett, Buchholz, Dice-K....need we keep going? The major difference is that the replacement players that have been called to duty to fill in for fallen heroes have played amazingly well together. It is a true testimate to the quality of the Red Sox farm system that a bunch of players are hurried up through the ranks and have actually found a way to continue to tread water when this team could have easily mailed this season in back before the All-Star break.

Frustrating chasing that dollar bill? YES, without a doubt it is never any fun to consistently be 5.5 games back. But there are tons of teams that would kill to be in this position with a month to go, and i'll be darned if the Red Sox don't continue to weather the storm and find ways to win.

Also, the fact that the last generation of Red Sox champions are slowly fading into team lore (sniff) is really making me feel confident that they have a solid, talented young core to be the next Red Sox heroes.

All they have to do now is get rid of those rookie baby-faces, grow some facial hair, learn a few creative hand-shakes and the next gen will be ready to rock and roll!