Happy Nine 9 Nine To All! and a Trade with Beardy!

Today is a weird day. Up is down, black is white…The Rays are riding their worst losing streak in recent memory and it is getting harder and harder for me to be optimistic that they are going to be able to sneak into the playoffs…The Yankees have dominated their bullpen-even though Matt Garza and David Price both had very high quality starts against them. Carlos Pena is out for the year thanks to CC and the yanks. He left with the lead in homers and RBI-I think that Evan Longoria is going to step it up and win the RBI race and keep that in the family. I think the Rays are looking forward to next year already, I just hope that they don’t have another off-season of one-sided (in a bad way) trades. Scott Kazmir had his second start since his trade to the Angels. He faced King Felix again and pitched a gem again and left with a no-decision again thanks to Brian Fuentes blowing the save. The Angles did manage to win the game, but I really don’t care about that. I am weeks behind in posting trades and I have had some good stuff come my way. I try and keep cards separate until I post them, but that never works out…I will post up a couple of the recent ones today on this magical 9-9-9 day. Incidentally, today is my ex-wife Amber’s birthday. I won’t say how old she is, cuz we are still friends, but here is a pic of her sandwiched between my lovely wife and our son Zadeh.
I will start the trade post with one from Beardy. This is my first time trading with the bearded B-More fan. Kinda weird, I’ve been reading his “Ad-Free” blog for a while now and I’ve watched him win nearly every contest going and he has a Longo autograph card that I really want, but we just never worked anything out. Probably because if I was ever lucky enough to pull a Brian Roberts card, I think I would hang on to it. I sent him a couple of Ginter cards that he didn’t need anymore by the time he got them and he sent me some Ginters that I DID need including a SP of Pat Burrell. The smile on his face is HUGE, my guess is that they took that picture the day he signed his HUGE off-season contract with the Rays... Pat the Bat, as some call him, is the inadequate replacement for my favorite Rays player of all time Jonny Gomes. Mr. Gomes has a .280 batting average with 18 homers in 233 at bats. Pat the Bat, who makes around 7 million a year more than Jonny G, has 13 homers in 354 at bats. He boasts a .232 average and has struck out 105 times. Not really a great replacement if you ask me. Anyway, he also sent along a Doc Holliday and a card of the Laroche brother that hasn’t been traded fifteen times this year. Incidentally, I now need the following cards to call it a day with that set: 18,57,97,128,278,304,305,307,308,312, 325,327,328 and 330. He also sent along a Yunel Escobar National Pride Card which leaves me needing only card #51 to finish that set off. It’s surprised me what an annoying set to finish off that Nat Pride set is, I have a TON of dupes if anyone needs them…Anyway, beyond the Ginter goodies, the real highlight of the trade was a very shiny 2007 Bowmans Best card #13 of everybody’s favorite left fielder, Carl Crawford. I don’t know how to tell if this is a refractor or not, but it is damn shiny! Anyway, one trade down, a million to go, gotta love it! Thanks for the awesome trade Beardy! Happy 9/9/9 to y’all! Happy birthday Amber! Happy 20th Anniversary to Uncle Al and Aunt Debbie! Come back Jonny, you always have a place at the Trop! Go Rays! Troll out.