Tradin' With Democratic Roadkill

With my post on Monday, I have officially been blogging for a month now… It seems like so much longer, perhaps because most of my posts take months to read. I am veeeerrrryyy longwinded; I know this and accept it.
I realize that is the reason that very few people who are not related to me actually read this silly blog. That’s okay.
One of the few (actual) and non related readers is Duane from Democratic Roadkill. http://abshokie.blogspot.com/
I know he reads (or at least he read it once) the blog because a month ago I wrote a (long) story which mentioned at some point that I didn’t have an Evan Longoria card. Duane sent me a note saying he had a Longo card for me. Coolness. I love the Rays; I love last years Rookie of the Year, but at that point I hadn’t ripped up any product that Longo was in. I am always a year late with cards and a day late and a dollar short with everything else.

Anyway, within a week of that post, there was a manila envelope from Duane in my post office box. I had previously just used the box for our record label (Bacon Towne Rex) and zine (Sink Hole Zine), so this small padded envelope was an unfamiliar sight in the box. I had gone to the post office on my lunch break, when I came back, my friend Kevin asked what I had got. It isn’t unusual to get record orders from Malaysia, a demo from the Ukraine or a zine from Columbia, the PO is always full of surprises. Today, the surprise was a package from Duane.
“Some dude just sent you those” Kevin remarked. “Cool, he must read your blog”.
There, I am not the only one accusing Duane of reading.
I had planned on opening the package at home with Ms. Troll, but Kevin was curious and so was I. All I could say was wow! This was my first care package from a fellow blogger, and the first trade I had ever done where I had not first sent the trader something from me. Uncharted territory.
I got home and quickly sent Duane an e-mail to let him know that I got the cards, that they were rad (did I actually say rad?) and that I needed to know what to send him in return.
He wrote back pretty quickly and mentioned he collected Allen & Ginter (which is way out of my price range) and he mentioned having some other want lists on his page. I was nervous about returning the favor, but excited about getting some awesome cards!
First and foremost, my FIRST Evan Longoria card is a 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces card #7. This is also my first UD MP card. Its all canvasy (sp?) and neat. It shows a portrait of Evan warming up before taking BP. It has the same pic on the back and states that he has no MLB experience, which wasn’t true because the paragraph above talks about his first MLB hit and home run. The hit occurred, list it in the stats! Next up is another UD MP, this time of second baseman Akinori Iwanura. His masterpiece painting shows hit batting from the left side against the Yanks with a watercolory crowd behind him, cool. His card back also says no MLB experience; I guess it’s from 2007, but still has the canvas goodness. So before the next card, which is also of Aki, I should say that the Rays second baseman was enjoying the start to another great season when a road trip to Miami left him with torn leg components that will leave him on the sidelines for the year. I got this package in the mail three days after that. So, here’s the next card, another Aki. This one is a 2009 Upper Deck series 1, UD Game Jersey / Dual Swatch card which is numbered on the front 33/86. This is my first game used Aki card and it’s awesome, but seems bitter sweet with him on the DL. I would much rather have on the field every night and have no cool cards of him. It’s still pretty awesome.
Next up is a strip of 2008 Goudeys. Then a strip of 2008 Allen & Ginter. These are the only ’08 A & G cards I own, what else do I need? Next is another cool card from someone on the DL. Unlike Aki (.310, 0, 16) who was having a great year when he got hit with a fluke, Scott Kazmir (4-4 7.69) was having a horrible year when a right quad sprain became a good excuse to get some rest. This card, a 2007 UD Ultimate Collection, is pretty sweet though. It shows Kaz in his days of grandeur (Ks leader in '07) and is serial numbered 279/450 on the front.
Get well soon Kaz and Aki!
Next up is a card of someone who can still walk, run and hit home runs, he’s tied for the league lead in long balls in the AL, it’s a 2008 Upper Deck series 2 Starquest card of Carlos Pena!
He sent along a stack of base cards, too. Some 2009 Topps like this Carl Crawford and some Heritage and Studio, also.
He sent along this much smaller strip of 2007 Allen & Ginter Rays. Scott Kazmir resembles a teen age girl, but they are still cool. Were these the only 2 Rays cards in the series? Were they that bad 2 years ago?
The final card is another Longoria, bringing my total (I pulled 1 myself) to 3! It’s a (you guessed it) 2008 Allen & Ginter. I will most definitely not be buying any of these packs, but I really like these cards. The classic and simple design is really cool and I can’t wait to get autographs on the fronts of these. I also like the really pretentious way that they spell out all the stats on the back. Snobbiness in baseball cards is cool. It’s also cool that Evan’s batting average was three hundred four last year! I love it!
Now, back to the dilemma of what to send in return… I printed out his want lists and headed to the card shop with them in hand. No luck on the Allen & Ginter minis that he needed. No decent Blue Jays (the team he collects) cards. Not anything good enough to send in return for that Aki double swatch jersey card anyway. No luck on the Goudeys initially either, but then he busted out the set he was trying to build himself, but had decided to give up on. Coolness, we were in business. I quickly found 23 short prints off of Duane's list and there were some weird cards in there. I don’t really have a reason why I don’t collect Goudey. If I ever actually finish a Topps Heritage set, I may move onto it. I buy a pack on occasion. I had never pulled a high number SP though. There are cards of US Presidents, Olympians like Kerri Strug, other sports stars, and multiple SP cards with the same picture. I’m against it. But, I did find some stuff from his list. I told the card shop guy, whose name is Frank, “Hey, I got 23 SPs here, what do I owe ya?” I thought it would be a simple response like “Cool, give me 20 bucks and we’ll call it even”. It wasn’t, instead he went for the Beckett. That is never a good sign. He totaled it up, and told me where we at and I nearly fainted. These cards are expensive! Those 23 cards totaled nearly $300. in book value. Yikes. Some were put back and he gave me a really good deal (THANKS Frank!) on 10 cards. I regained my composure and headed home confident that we would be (close) to even. I mailed the cards out a few days ago, so I figured it was finally safe to make this post without feeling like I had ripped a blogger off. Thanks for my first trade, Duane. You are awesome and I really dig your blog. Thanks in advance to anyone else with orphan Rays cards; they will always have a home in the Troll house! Oh, I nearly forgot the lone non-Rays card he sent along in the trade. It is another A & G featuring Andrew "William Ocean" Litz, the winner of the 2007 National Air Guitar Championships. Sweet! I guess I owe Goudey an apology for having "weird" cards in their set, but is this a short print? Go Rays! Troll out!