A Sunday State of the Blog Post Starring Joe Carter

Welcome and good evening Trollites! I wanted to thank everyone for checking out, following and wishing me well with my newest venture, Leading Off, a blog all about Brian Roberts, the All Star second baseman of the Baltimore Orioles. I decided to put together a Troll post to answer some questions I have recieved all at once. I realized quickly that there are a lot of words here, so I called upon my Joe Carter collection to break up the text. Several of my awesome readers have written me this week asking if I received the packages that you sent me. I have not gone to the Post Office in over a week. My accident slowed me down, but not having a car has made things very difficult for me in terms of getting around. I will be going to the Post Office on Tuesday to ship the remaining packages I have promised-I have stuff ready for Drew’s Cards, Phungo, Cobb and Halladay, White Sox cards and a few others. I can’t wait to see all of the awesome stuff that I (hopefully) have waiting for me. I don’t think I have ever gone this long without checking the box. I am going to try and catch up on a lot of things today and tomorrow. My post queue is getting empty and I am way behind on trade posts. I opened up some packages that I have had for over a month and even got some of the contents scanned. Some of the packages I will be working on posting have come from Omega Wax, Padrographs, Condition Poor, Heritage Blog, Field of Cards, Thoughts and Sox, Rhubarb Runner and several others. Of course I still have bunches of cards from Wicked Ortega, Cobb and Halladay, Play at the Plate, Carl Crawford Cards, JD Wild, Democratic Roadkill and Cards on Cards that I received months ago and still haven’t posted. I also have 3 AWESOME team sets from various years of the Durham Bulls-the AAA club of the Rays. I know one of them came from CCC, but I can’t recall who sent me the other two. Please remind me on that… I have also recieved a few surprise TTMs that I had long since given up on. I guess I just wanted to touch base with everyone and tell you all that I have a lot of posting planned. Of course I have about 180 packs to rip for the next group break, plus my responsibilities to A Pack to be Named Later where I will be posting many of those packs PLUS I have a number of 3 from 3 posts to do. Spring Training is about to begin and I want to be there taking pictures and doing some interviews. I have interviews done and awaiting posting with several former Negro League players, a Women’s Professional Baseball League player and several stars from the sixties. As I unveiled last night there is a new blog about Brian Roberts and I plan on adding separate pages for Jonny Gomes and Danny Tartabull as well. The 1978 Topps blog will be returning to its regular programming very shortly, too. I have a number of great cards from the 50s, 60s, and 70s and beyond lined up to be Collective Troll Card of the Day. I have more scans and opinions from 2010 Topps and a number of great trades in the works. Our first roller derby bout of the season is next Sunday and derby will start to take up A LOT of my time once again. While I am announcing I don’t have a whole bunch of time to take pictures, but I will try and feature a couple from each bout. My financial issues have caused me to stop working on my 1959 Topps set (I had to sell Bob Gibson and Harmon Killebrew) and I have shifted the 1965 and 1969 sets to the back burner for now, but I still plan on writing about the 1978 and ’79 sets, plus the Fleer sets of the early sixties and eighties, 1951 Bowman, 1964 Topps Giants and 1887 Allen and Ginter Champions plus any oddball and tobacco cards I can get my hands on. I still want to get aggressive on my Trifecta Collection (inspired by Drews Cards), getting a rookie card, relic and autographed card of many of my favorite players who I don’t super collect. My current most wanted list for relic cards includes: Billy Pierce, Danny Tartabull, Roberto Clemente, Larry Doby, Quinton McCracken, Ben Grieve, Ben Zobrist, Willie Stargell, Sandy Koufax, Lou Brock, Maury Wills, Andrew McCutchen, Roy Sievers, Monte Irvin, Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Chico Carrasquel, Tim Raines, Junior Gilliam, Hank Thompson, Frank Howard, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Lastings Milledge, Adam Jones, Albert Belle, Fred McGriff, Wade Boggs, Ray Durham, Willie Wilson, Minnie Minoso, Bert Blyleven, Wade Davis, Dave Parker, Bill Mazeroski, Dick Bosman, Steve Carlton and Dave Winfield (and others). I have rookie cards of MOST of those guys and autographs, too, just hoping to get my hands on relic cards. I wanted to end this state of the blog post with some cards, or at least A card. This one came to me from Hackenbush of the Can’t Have Too Many Cards blog. I had posted my list of relics I was seeking, like the list above and he came through with an offer of this awesome bat card of one of my favorite players of all time, Joe Carter. He became a national name after his heroic homer for the Blue Jays in the 1993 World Series, but I had been a fan of his long before that. As a kid I met him at a signing while he was still a member of the Cleveland Indians. He had no line and took about 5 minutes to talk baseball with EVERY one who came to him for his autograph. It was one of the best autograph experiences of my childhood and because of that he won a fan for life. Of course it didn’t hurt that he was one of the top run producers of his era either. I have since had the opportunity to meet him several times and each time I bring up that time in the 80s that he made a young kids day. He is one of the few people whose autographs I got as a child that I interviewed as an adult AND I had the chance to meet him once more beyond that. My former mother-in-law Vickii was Joe Carter’s elementary school teacher for many years in Oklahoma City where he grew up. After his retirement he joined her (and me) for dinner at her house. He was that kind of awesome and appreciative individual. Fortunately my Mom saved the pic that he had signed for me about 25 years ago-it is the image at the top of this post. He spelled my name wrong, so I have never displayed it, but I will never forget that day. Thanks to CHtMC, I now have a relic to go with it and have another complete Trifecta. The card is from 2005 Topps Pristine, number TT-JC from the Title Threads insert series. The back of the card mentions his famous game 6 walk-off homerun in the 1993 World Series. It was only the second walk off homer in WS history. The front of the card touts Carter and the Blue Jays as 1993 World Series Champions and has a nice 1” square slice of bat on it. Aside from his famous walk-off Carter hit 5 other homers in the postseason and 396 (49th All Time) in the regular season. He was a five time All Star and 2-time Silver Slugger. He led the AL in RBI in 1986 and drove in 1445 runs over his 16-year career. He topped the 100-RBI plateau in 10 of those seasons. You can read Joe Carter’s complete career statistic sheet at Baseball Reference HERE. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read my State of the Blog statement and thanks to Can’t Have Too Many Cards for sharing this awesome Joe Carter card with me. PLEASE check out his amazing blog. Hackenbush is one of the few who posts more than I do AND his stuff is good! As soon as I click “publish post” I will start working on the next one… Oh, before anyone asks, this is a one-time tribute and I will NOT be starting a Joe Carter blog...Oh, I think this could qualify as a Valentines Day post for Blue Jays fans. Phillies fans, not so much. Go Rays! Troll out.