Your Daily Horoscope

This came courtesy of another rack pack of Ginter. I have had remarkable luck with uncommon cards out of retail and blasters, and the luck continues. Your horoscope for Pisces:

You will spend ridiculous amounts of money purchasing hobby boxes and ebay auctions, trying to obtain the entire set of celestial stars "case hits" because it is widely believed (wrongly, of course) that these cards hold the secret to the Ginter Code.

Ah, alas it was all just blather, as the code had nothing to do with anything card-related at all. Regardless, these are really sweet cards and that brings my grand total up to two so far, with feelers out on a third. If you have a celestial mini that you would like to trade for something more your speed, give a shout and lets see if we can work a trade!

Random post World-Series Musings...

Congrats to San Francisco. You won. woooooooooo-woooooooooooooooooo! .....on enemy turf. Bummer. I have always been a huge antagonist about the 2-3-2 final series in both basketball and baseball. At least in my recent memory, it seems that the away team often cliches, and a somewhat subdued celebration takes place. Kind of a bummer because you wait all season for a big finale, and it is suddenly over, and you are left with a bunch of old owners in funny suits standing around awkwardly accepting a trophy on national television. Of course, you certainly cannot guarantee with a regular 2-2-2-1 or 2-2-1-1-1 that it will increase the chances of a home team celebration, but it just feels like too many of these puppies happen on the road.

Of course, something that Fox apparently decided to do was to wait to interview the players until after they have celebrated inside the locker room, and come out half-lit onto the field. Timmy had a classic moment.

Announcer "What do you think is going on in San Francisco right now"

Tim Lincecum" Well, I hope that the beer is flowing free and there is smoke in the air!"

I am sure that he meant fireworks.

Holy crap! Is that the old woman from Titanic? What is she doing here. Actually without actually footage to grab for this post, I remember the scene in some square in San Francisco where the fans were "celebrating" after the final out. Actually they were looking around awkwardly until they knew the camera's were on them, and THEN they celebrated.

But mixed within the crowd was an extremely short, elderly woman, fully decked out in a fuzzy orange hat and orange coat. And she was dancing, and just having a blast. I started thinking about that old lady, imagining just exactly how long she has supported this team...maybe back to the days in NY? Maybe she goes to every home game and could tell some amazing stories.. She was a true fan amongst confused people and I bet that this World Series means so much more to her than anybody else. Keep rocking.

And my final thoughts. My Cliff Lee. Conspiracy time....WHY did he shave his beard prior to the game? Superstition? Itchy? My guess (which is lore) is that he was already taking his media photos wearing his Yankee pinstripes. Gotta be clean-shaven, right? Betcha he threw on the pinstripes, even had a few baseball card photos taken for Topps 2011.

It's all over!

Shameless self promotion...a mini collector's dream

Just recently, across the continental divide of this mine continent, a misguided Yankees fan by the name of Drew had a rather remarkable box break of T206. Out of his box he not only pulled an auto redemption for some dude named Strasburg (sell high), but he also pulled his second hit, as well as a couple snazzy minis that I had no idea even existed.



Shhh! Secret sets ahead!



When I first saw this image, I thought it was the most ridiculous thing that I had ever seen...and it was a must have for the mini vortex binder. Topps T206 brand manager Chris Holmes. It has a nice little bio of yadda yadda yadda on the back and is serial-numbered to 206. I love these self promotion cards. I have heard of, but have never seen the Ginter autos of the Ginter staff that seem to be all the rage...this is another example of that type of shameless self promotion. But unique it is, and traded for it, I did.

Yet ANOTHER unknown mini hit out of the magic box was this Willie Keeler gold-bordered /#50. Scanner is a little dusty, but this has a nice shine to it. As I was reading up on Keeler to toss you some sweet historical facts and look super-smart (Baltimore Chop), I did notice a bit of an oddity here that I thought you historian buffs might be able to make some sense of...

This is the original Keeler from 1910. NOTE: the league is different on each of these cards. The reprint says NY Natl, and the original says NY Amer...hmmm, Now the originally might indicate Keelers time with the New York Highlanders, OR perhaps Mr. SP T206 Brand Manager might want to explain what happened here...hmmmm.

New feature...coming next week

what? You actually thought that I had the capacity to bust out a new feature today? Whoa now folks, I am recovering from a debilitating viral infection here...any creativity in my brain is currently covered in mood slime.

Actually though, I do have a bunch of scanning to do over the weekend and I will get some new stuff up right quick.

In the meantime, I did come up with an idea that I will give a trial run to see if it sticks or if it sucks.

Choose-your-own-adventure Friday.

I clearly have trouble sticking to just baseball cards in my postings, so I figured maybe I could let JD's followers help chart the course for my Friday efforts.

On Monday (or maybe Sunday...depends on how poorly my NFL picks are doing) I will post a survey at the top of the screen. I have to decide if it will choose specific topics or just subjects that you would like to see a blog about. Vote for your favorite and Oila! See the results on Friday.

Of course you could not vote at all and break my wee little heart. You control my fate!

But I don't want to cop out completely today. I did notice something of interest watching the World Series. I think that being in the big show allows for crazy new sets of cameras to broadcast angles and viewpoints that you would not normally see on a 162-game regular broadcast. One of the most stunning revelations I have seen is this... This is the view from WAY up in a plane or something of AT&T Park. I have always know that this stadium is just magnificent, BUT if you watched during the game between innings they would have some low, sweeping camera from just outside right field on the bay side and it is just jaw-dropping. Looking in from the Bay at the multi-tiered decks is quite the view. One of the questions that I had when I saw that was "Is that field below sea-level". How do they keep the water out?

Either way, I now have a much greater appreciation for all those boaters that choose to hang out there each night. New perspectives.

Alright. Have a weekend!

Trivia questions revealed!

Dyno Data

Q - Where have the oldest dinosaur remains been found?

A - The oldest dinosaur fossils have been found in South America--in Argentina and Brazil.

The more you know!

What's that?

You thought this was answers to the 2010 JD's Wildcode?

Okay, so I am just messing with you a little bit. I want to use today to open it up for more of your questions. I want to say that I am pretty impressed with the number of you that have muddled your way through the gauntlet. Several are getting really close to pay dirt.

So feel free to shoot me your questions. Note, if you are further along in the code, you might want to phrase you questions carefully so not to tip off your competitors!

For those not partaking in the code, feel free to fire any general questions my way as well. Lets have some fun!

And your Texas Rangers!

Back in the trenches for day 3 of the viral infection from hell (yes, it has been categorized that by my doctor...omitting the "hell" part of it". I woke up feeling like crap so I decided it would be nice to head out of the house for a few hours to diagnose my condition and get a Whopper meal. So today is chest pain (from coughing so much) and the more recent "stab-me-with-an-ice-pick headache. Although I must say that a 32 ounce Sprite seems to be working quite favorably on that. After this I am off to play some Call of Duty. Lets give them a headache of bullets.

I have been meaning to introduce the Rangers through cards though before tonight's big matchup. I am pretty excited about this series, I like the idea of a nice, close, strategic series. I challenge anybody who makes the ridiculous statements that the best teams are not in the World Series. Both of these teams won their divisions, both took down last year's beasts to get here. They deserve their moment.

Had to dig deep for some Rangers cards today...up here in the NW we don't speak Texas, ya'll.



2007 Strokes of Genius Cliff Lee

2007 Strokes of Genius Ian Kinsler (love this auto).

2009 T206 Michael Young. Tried to find his wacky O-Pee-Chee card to no avail. You know the one.

2009 T206 Josh Hamilton (Old Mill). he eats pieces of lumber for breakfast.

Elvis Andrus

Ron Washington

Enjoy game one!

The rotted gut award goes to...

It's no coincidence that the theme of this post is inspired by my current stomach virus malcontent. Nothing worse than an upset stomach and general all-around ick when I say to myself "but I got the flu shot!", like it is some magical shield from all illness. Viruses don't play that.

Anyways, I am getting geared up for the World Series, which in of itself is pretty remarkable considering that my team did not make the post-season this year. Typically when that occurs I drop all things baseball and head for my nearest NFL or NBA outlets for another team to root for. This post-season has my attention though, and strangely I have probably watched more playoffs than I watched Red Sox the entire month of September.

I want to be a bit more specific though, I really watched mostly the NLCS because:

1) I can't stand watching the Yankees, even if they are losing
2) I REALLY can't stand Craig Sager and his ridiculous outfits.
3) see 1 and 2

So the NLCS it was. And because of their absolute commitment to their team in both the NLDS and the NLCS, I present this...

...to you, the fans of the San Francisco Giants!

Let me explain a bit further. You see, back in 2003, I made a major decision in my life and decided to quit smoking. Why, you may ask? Well, I had other reasons as well, but I remember clearly when the Boston Red Sox were battling toe-to-toe with the Oakland A's in the ALDS. Every game was tight, and Boston dropped the first two, and then found a way to push it to a 5th and deciding game in Oakland. Boston ended up winning the game in an absolute nail-biter 4-3 and and I puffed away shaky-handed after the game I said "If I am going to make it through this type of series with the Yankees, I have to give this #$%@ up". So I did, quit cold turkey. To this day.

Back to Giants fans. I understand the playoffs stress. Every wait between pitches can be agonizing. Your Giants played in games with scores: 1-0, 4-5, 3-2, 3-2, 4-3, 1-6, 3-0, 6-5, 2-4, 3-2.

Out of 10 playoff games, 6 decided by 1 run, 30 runs scored to 29 allowed. The were a couple take a breath games in there and Giants fans definitely needed that breath. I remember when the Sox were taking it to the Cards for the championship and my friends and coworkers asked me if it wouldn't be more entertaining if the games were closer (repeated again with the Rockies series)...um....no.

So for stomaching all the runners in scoring position (especially in game 6), the one-run games, and Craig Sager's suits in the NLDS, I salute Giants fans with some Mylanta. Now get some rest.

Being a card blog, how about some SF cards? 2010 Heritage Madison Bumgarner Rookie Chrome card. Stylin.

2009 Heritage ridiculously photoshopped Lincecum and Bochy. Uni-shoulder.

2010 Topps Turkey Red Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval. The card technology takes off 20 lbs.


We'll take a look at the other guys tomorrow.