I am still angry at myself for not posting anything at all on either blog on Thursday. I had a pretty good streak going, I’d posted every day for two weeks straight and have already set a personal best for posts in a month (yes, I am a nerd and I pay attention to nerdy things), but yesterday I just couldn’t find a minute to set down in front of the computer. Trust me though, this is gonna be a looooonnngg one, so brace yourselves-I do promise to keep this 99% baseball card related, though...The weather had been amazing for the last week and a half (between 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit) but Thursday, it crept back up into the 90’s. I also had a mid-term today (Thursday) and that meant that I should probably do a little studying. We also had a very lengthy roller derby meeting on Wednesday night and with my new responsibilities this year as director of fundraising and sponsorship; I had to give a presentation on my plans and goals for the season. I got home from the meeting around 9:00 or so and I raced to turn the TV on as soon as I got in the house. I was really hoping that the Dodgers would be staked to a healthy sized lead by then, but no such luck. Starter Vicente Padilla had just been lifted, but not before he spotted the Phils 6 runs, oh and it was only the 4th inning when I got home… My lovely wife was home as well and her and I don’t see each other very often at home, so this was cause to celebrate, but we couldn’t celebrate too much because I had to study, she had home work and we both wanted to watch the game. She has an amazing never say die attitude and she believed that the Dodgers could fend off the inevitable, so we both grabbed beverages and settled in and started rooting for a comeback. I don’t think that the wife likes the Dodgers too much; I know she isn’t a Manny fan, but she shares my hatred for the Phillies so we were both blue-blooded Dodgers fans for the evening. We watched the game more than we studied and we may have had a drink or two in the process. I think that she screamed at the TV more than I did. I don’t feel too comfortable second guessing
Joe Torre, his track record as a skipper is pretty amazing, but Esther Gin N Juice didn’t mind questioning him… Some of her unanswered questions included why he wouldn’t leave Orlando Hudson
in the game after his pinch-hit homerun, and the bigger question was why Thome didn’t pinch hit with the bases loaded. “Why did they go out and trade for Thome knowing he can’t play the field and can only pinch hit, why the hell would they not use him in the biggest game of the year with his best chance to drive in some runs???!!!”
she screamed at the image of Joe Torre inside the TV screen. I can’t say I disagree with her either, hindsight is always 20/20 but looking back, Mr. Torre made than a few questionable decisions in that series and the results were not favorable. Let’s just say that the playoffs aren’t going the way I had planned. Honestly I enjoyed the regular season more this year, especially the last few weeks of the season leading up to the playoffs. That said I really don’t feel like writing about the playoffs either. The Phillies were pretty amazing this week, but that doesn’t mean I like them. I will say that seeing Davey Lopes
celebrating the Dodgers being eliminated was a troubling image for me… As I write this post (in my notebook, to be transferred later to the blog) it is approaching 7 o’clock, the ALCS should be starting up soon, but I am trapped at work and won’t be able to see it, just the highlights later on. Such is the fate of the outdoors, night-time security guard. My boss (actually the owner) just stopped in. He reads this blog on occasion, so I will quickly state that he is one of the coolest men on the planet… He is a card collector as well, but his collection is on a completely different level than mine. He generally buys just one card a week, sometimes just one a month. He is extremely picky and particular on things like grading and such that really doesn’t matter to me. His latest acquisition, he purchased it earlier today actually, is one of the most iconic cards out there, a 1951 Bowman Willie Mays, graded by PSA as an 8.
He is okay with an 8 for cards of the early 50s, but it is not up to his standards for the 60’s and beyond. His ’68 Nolan Ryan is just a 9.5, but his ’73 Mike Schmidt and every card from the 70’s and 80’s that he owns are all gem mint 10s. Like I said, our collections aren’t in the same world. Since he pays me my check, he knows I am sure that the price he paid for his ’51 Mays is roughly 8 months salary for me right now. Oh well, he earned his money, he can spend it… It is a beautiful card and it was an honor just to see it in person. It also blends in nicely with the other 8s in his collection, the ’54 Aaron, ’54 Bowman Ted Williams and ’53 Topps Satchel Paige. Combine those 4 cards and you know about what I make in two years. The nice thing is that he does understand the need to spend money on cards, even if dropping 7 bucks is a huge purchase for me. Anyway, even though I took a day off from blogging doesn’t mean that I took a break from collecting; it’s quite the opposite actually. I have been a set-building machine in the month of October. Today was another great mail day for your friend the Troll, I got another great package from Wicked Ortega (I owe you so much already dude!) that included some awesome Rays, but also my first Brian Roberts refractor and I do love refractors!
I also got a huge package of Negro League cards from the 1950’s from Rob in New York, here is one as a teaser, but I will slowly post all of these over the off-season in reverse order and yes, he did include a couple of ’52 Topps cards!
The card that I am going to show here though, came all by itself (along with a want list) from a reader in Jacksonville named Sally (which you all know is my awesome Kitty Cat’s name). This plain white envelope didn’t look like much compared to the other two giant manila envelopes, but it contained card #1 from the Troll’s Fab 14 Most Wanted List. The card came with a want list of about 80 different cards from the ’78 set and a short note that basically said: “I need this card for my set, too, but I need a lot of cards to finish off my set, so congratulates on finishing your ’78 set!”.
Well, congrats indeed to the Troll! After 30 years and a ton of help from the blog-o-sphere, my 1978 Topps baseball set is done!!! Thanks so much Sally! I have about 40 of the cards that you need, but I am going to wait a week to ship them just in case I get any other cards you need in the mail, I can replace the one you sent me. So, there ya have it loyal readers, my ’78 set is finally complete!
Also in the mail yesterday was another small package from another reader, this one had a few cards from my “upgrayde” list. I am now the proud owner of an uncreased Rod Carew card, can you tell the difference?
If you haven’t guessed already, the card that Sally so graciously mailed me was in fact card #295 of Red Sox pitcher “Spaceman” Bill Lee! I hadn’t bindered up the last 3 cards that Wicked Ortega had shipped off to me, so the Carew, Bill Lee and those 3 cards
all hit the binder at the same time to finish it off, complete set, cards 1-726 in the binder! I went in order, so the final card to go in was the Lou Whitaker rookie card. This has been an amazing ride for me, finishing this set, chatting with so many others who have chased it, but mainly the amazing support that I got from the blog-o-sphere was incredible! I still do have a couple of cards that I would like to “upgrayde” (yes, this is intended to be an Idiocracy reference), the list can be found here:
http://collectivetroll.webs.com/1978.htm There are just 7 cards left that I would like to find better copies of. I think I mentioned this before, but I used the team checklists and wrote on them, plus all of the team cards are pretty badly centered and the teams that I didn’t like, well their cards sometimes suffered.
The Eckersley card on this list came to me in a trade and I didn’t even look at the back of the card. The front is perfect, sharp and centered, but the back has quite a bit of writing that would be inappropriate to post here. Apparently the cards original owner didn’t like the Eck too much, felt like he enjoyed felatio and wrote about it with a heavy dose of profanity and even drew a fallace on the back… I say whatever Eck wants to do in his private life is his business, but I can’t in good faith have that stuff written on the back of a card in this set…. With that, I want to thank Dan from SotCS, Sally, Frank, GreggG, Gene in Ft. Myers and especially Wicked Ortega, as well as anyone and everyone who have sent ‘78s my way over the past few months. THANK YOU ALL!!!! With that thank you stated, I am officially declaring a moratorium on all display of ’78 Topps on this blog, effective immediately! You have all been very patient watching me chase it, but now that it is done, all ’78 scans and discussion will be relegated solely to my new blog,
http://1978topps.blogspot.com/ If you have any interest in seeing more of that awesome set, please check it out, and if anyone would consider adding it to their blog rolls, I would very much appreciate it!!! So is anyone out there wondering what set(s) the Troll will be building now? I actually have a few in the works and I just completed two other sets this week, too. As I try and rebuild my library of Topps sets back to its former level of greatness and work towards my insane goal of having every set from ’51 on up till the present (and it will probably be around 2055, if I’m lucky…), I decided to start by chasing significant years as well as my favorite designs from each decade. Just so you know my fav designs are:
1959, 1965, 1976, 1983, 1993 and 2009… The 1978 set was very significant to me, but the year was not. The first set that I finished up this week probably isn’t worth the cardboard that it was printed on, but it is the year that my oldest son Zadeh was born and also the same year that I quit collecting. Actually 1990 was the last set I finished and it was the ninth consecutive childhood Topps set that I was able to finish, but those are long gone. Divorce. Anyway, this worthless 18-year-old cardboard was also the year of Topps 40th Anniversary, it is the 1991 set. This mission started with a pack of ‘91’s that Captain Canuck sent to me a few months ago.
I liked the cards, the year is special to me and it just seemed possible. When Splatsy Kline moved to Washington, DC a few months back, she left her card collection to me and it included about 300 ‘91s and with that I was on a mission! I purchased the final three cards I needed for the set this week. Coincidentally, Eddie Murray
was one of them. The final card in the set, card# 792 was also needed and the other card was a cool close-up of Cory Snyder, whose ghost haunts the blog-o-sphere.
This may be the first and last time you will ever see pictures of Mike Greenwell and Cory Snyder on this blog, so enjoy! I was told that this trio of cards was going to set me back 50 cents, but after I bought a binder (used) and a box of pages (new), they ended up being a freebie throw in. The guy at the card shop asked what set I was putting in the binder and I told him 1991 Topps. Well, he fell over in laughter and told me the set was worth about half of what I just paid for the supplies. I really didn’t care, the set meant something to me and there are some really cards in there that I am happy to own. It does have Chipper Jones
and Pudge Rodriguez’ rookie cards, a bunch of Hall of Famers and a cool 40th Ann logo in the upper corner. Laugh all you want, I like this set! The other set that I finished off this week doesn’t have a binder to go in just yet, but it will need fewer pages as it is only a 440 card set. This one was pretty easy to finish, too. I found 2 wax boxes of this at a card shop a few months back and was able to finish the set off of those with cards to trade leftover. I wish Topps could remember how to collate that well again. I am sick of buying a blaster and getting triples of Hideki Matsui in it. This set is from the birth year of my youngest son Darvey (I only have 2) and it is the 1996 Topps set. These cards are high gloss, have some good quality photography and honestly don’t look too different from the 2009 set.
There are nice action shots and a lot of the guys in this set are still kicking around the big leagues. I like the 4-person dark and spooky prospects cards.
They had a legitimate future “star” on nearly every card including a few guys battling in the playoffs 13 years later. There were “Future Stars” cards, including a couple of future teammates, also in the playoffs.
There is a card of the recently fired Quality Control coach of the Tampa Bay Rays, Todd Greene. The back of this card is pretty awesome, I like the full color, full stats and photo on the back, but Greene was a pretty impressive power hitter in the minors.
He popped 40 homers in 1995 and the card states that he was the first player to hit 40 in the minor leagues since Danny Tartabull hit 43 in 1985. The last card I will show is of a sliding slugger named Ken Griffey Jr. A broken wrist limited Grif’s playing time in 1995 (imagine Griffey on the DL!) and he hit just 17 homers that year after topping 40 the previous two years-as of 1996 Grif had just 189 homers!
I will probably buy the ’96 set its own binder next week, but it is done as well. That gives me 5 total complete sets (all finished since I started blogging) from 4 different decades-’78.’87,’91,’96 and 2009. So, the set that I am working on at present is the 1979 Topps set. This year is significant because someone that I love very much was born this year, but I can’t reveal who it is for risk of injury. I have to say that this set lacks a lot of the charm that the ’78 set possessed. The photography did get a whole lot better in some cases. I really like the tight close-up
on Ron Pruitt, the shot of Bert Blyleven on the mound and Reds pitcher Manny Sarmiento getting ready to do something…
The hair got smaller
(with a few exceptions) and the facial hair lessened
as well in most cases.
I really don’t like the black and white 3-panel rookie cards at all. Color film has been a part of the arsenal of Topps’ photographers since day one, why go back in time for rookie cards? They still have a few goofy cards, like a DH
making a fake fielding pose with a catcher’s mitt and Mark Lee
doing his best impression of Milton from Office Space. I like the green, grassy color on the back of the card and I do really prefer the trivia questions to the Play Ball game on the ‘78s. The crop of rookies is a whole lot weaker, too. In 1978 you had Hall of Famer rookie cards, plus you had rookies of some of the best Detroit Tigers of all time, with Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, Lance Parrish and Jack Morris in that set. It also included should be HOFer Dale Murphy. The 1979 set has just one HOF rookie, the greatest fielding shortstop of all time, but after that, it falls off dramatically to Lonnie Smith, Danny Darwin and Pedro Guerrero. The main issue I have with this set is the centering. It’s freaking horrible! I have about 85% of the set complete and ¾ of those cards are off centered and off-centered pretty badly. I found an unopened (or so I was told) vending box of these and that is how I started the set. I lucked out and pulled an Ozzie Smith
rookie with razor sharp corners, but the centering is barely 80/20. I don’t need a lot of cards to finish this one and I will post a list soon. I think I have all of the HOFers covered and I do have a copy of Bill Lee already.
This post is nearly done, I promise! The one other set that I plan to work on is from the year that I was born, 1974. I like this set for a few reasons. One, the cards seem to be centered much better and there are two great rookie cards in it of the two of the best hitters of the 1970’s, Dave Parker
and HOFer Dave Winfield. I will post more on this one in the future. For now, enjoy the moratorium on ’78 Topps, look forward to more trading posts, check out my want lists as I post them, keep me in mind for any Rays cards you may pull and please check out my new blog! I still have a ton of amazing cards to post that I have accumulated over the past month. Autographs, relics, refractors, amazing stuff, so stay tuned. Trade packs went out today for Drew, Joe and Brian, many more to come on Monday! Including all the card pics, I think this may be my longest post ever, holy cow!!! By the by, I will not be around to post again until Sunday. We have a 5K Walkathon for breast cancer awareness early Saturday morning and I am proud to say that I raised $660.00 for it. On Saturday night, we are having a blowout party to celebrate-that reminds me, I need to finish this up cuz I have to pick up the keg! Okay back to baseball... That was an amazing game last night, at least what I saw of it, I am rooting for the Angels with all I’ve got! Go Angels! Beat the Yankees! Troll out.
I am done with school for the day and I don’t have to work tonight at all. I have a bunch of posts pre-written that I had planned on putting up today. I was actually going to slap one up right after class, but it seems like people are actually reading the last one and that is a good thing. This will not be my final post today, but it follows the theme of what I am doing with my collection right now. Basically while the wife is at work I have the entire bedroom floor covered, wall to wall with cards. Including dupes and my player collections I have nearly 6,000 Tampa Bay Rays cards and up till now they have been in no particular order. The super fancy cards like relics, autos and refractors have gone into the Rays’ display cases, but everything else just goes in a stack by the scanner when I get them in the mail, then goes into a box with absolutely no sense of order. When I saw a card and called it new, it’s based on whether I recognize that card or not. I spent the early part of this week digging out all of Carl Crawford cards and making a web page to track them. This is still a work in progress, but you can see what I have done so far- http://collectivetroll.webs.com/crawford.htm As I mentioned in the last post, I got rid of a ton of cards, this week I have spent 40 bucks at the Post Office and I still have a few more packages to get out. Some of you may be getting a surprise package from the Troll. 
If you didn’t, it doesn’t mean I don’t like you, it means I am just tapped out of cards right now. I have been planning on taking a step back and evaluating what exactly I have for a while now. I went to the card shop this week and didn’t buy any cards, but did pick up 300 pages, 4 new (used) binders and 2 more shoeboxes for top loader cards. My first step was sorting out all of the Topps base cards that I had of the Rays. I have a binder for these and I will put together team sets of Topps from 1997 on up. I have 2004 complete, the rest need work. For 1999 to 2002, I have almost no cards, so if you have any old D-Rays lying around, I will gladly take them off of your hands. There were a few other products that I had intended on making teams sets with, too, but had lost track and focus. I don’t think anybody has given too much thought to O-Pee-Chee lately, but I remembered that because of the player selection, I really wanted to build this team set. The blog-o-sphere was very generous with these cards and I got a bunch of them, let them sit in various corners of the house in stacks and boxes and I totally forgot about them. Today I sorted them all out and realized I have more of a mess than a set. 
Now, if you are a Rays fan and I know that I am not the only one in the blog-o-sphere, you are going to want to pay attention to this blog over the next week. I have come across quite a few doubles already. If you collect Carlos Pena, BJ Upton, Matt Garza, James Shields, Scott Kazmir and even Crawford and Bartlett, I have uncovered dupes of all of these fine players. 
I plan on taking all of my dupes of the Rays to All Children’s Hospital in St. Pete next month, but I can give a few bloggers first crack, especially if they can help me out with cards that I need. When I started this blog, it was basically just done on a whim. I wasn’t ripping wax at that point and the first few posts were about trying to resist the urge to rip, then the next few were all about ripping. Basically, I didn’t really intend to get back into collecting or post on a card collecting blog on a daily basis, but I did, I love it and I don’t plan on slowing down or stopping anytime soon. I am going to make a personal pledge to be organized though. Get cards in the mail, scan them, post them, and put them away in their specific location. That’s the plan anyway… So, back to O-Pee-Chee. I really thought I was done with this and when I sorted all of the cards into a stack, it was a big one. Maybe because I have 4 copies each of Matt Garza, Scott Kazmir and Dan Wheeler, I don’t know. I am not worrying about getting black bordered or regular border; I just want one card of everyone in the set. 
I have a copy of Jason Bartlett for the set and my player collection, so I am good there. I could use a black bordered for the PC though. The cards I am missing I was totally certain that I had, but I have checked in every drawer and under every box in the house and I am still 4 cards short of a team set. The cards that I need are: number 53 of BJ Upton, #96 of Carl Crawford (2 copies if possible), #317 of Akinori Iwamura and #400 Evan Longoria. Other than that, I have the checklist (two copies actually), the Moments card, the Longoria Face of the Franchise card and I am golden. As I progress in the sorting process, I will post more cards that I need for team sets. I am focusing mainly on regular old Topps cards, but there a few sets, especially from this year, that I really want to fill for the binder. Goodwin (still need Crawford!) and Allen and Ginter (Need Navarro) come to mind, but there may be a few others. Also, I threw this out there a while back, but does anyone have any extra pages that will hold minis that they would be willing to send my way? Thanks blog-o-sphere! Troll out.
who will have their own personal display case, too. The same will hold true for the Rays cards. I eliminated a few names from the list and a few people from the display case. I didn’t really intend on collecting BJ Upton specifically, but as I was sorting, I realized that I have more cards of him than anyone, so he gets his own collection by default-this was the same way that Scott Kazmir and Delmon Young earned their own slots, too. Other than them, Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena, Jason Bartlett, Jeff Niemann, Evan Longoria and Akinori Iwamura will be at the top of my list. Jonny Gomes, 
Brian Roberts and Pat Neshek now have their own personal (and pretty empty) binders and Danny Tartabull’s binder is alive and well and getting pretty full. I may upgrade the Bull’s home soon. The new player that I have decided to obsessively collect is original Devil Ray, Quinton McCracken. 
He was my favorite D-Ray back then and still stands as one of my favorites ever. His career was short-lived, but he really represented the hope of success for an expansion team. He was a leader in the outfield, the lead-off hitter, the spark plug of the team. He never really ignited the D-Rays into much, but the idea that he could gave fans hope. Anyway, I plan on chasing every single McCracken card, base cards and inserts, in a Devil Rays uniform. This is funny (to me) because the first card I saw in the envelope from the Night Owl was a Quinton McCracken card that I didn’t own. 
A 1999 Upper Deck Ovation, card #11 with the cool embossed baseball stitches in the background. 
I spent some time last night making a list of all of the Carl Crawford cards that I own last night and I am making a web page to track them. The page can be found here, for future reference, as it won't be done today, but soon... 
The other 3 cards came from the 2000 Upper Deck Gold Reserve set. 
These look pretty neat on the front, nice bright photos of Canseco, Hernandez and Vinny Castilla. The back of the cards, with these guys impressive career numbers are against a solid gold background. 
Wow, that is a little more gold than a Troll can handle… Thanks Night Owl for the SWEET ex-Rays and for sending along the final card in my quest for the Hoaxes set. I will get all of these scanned up and post the set tomorrow. By the way, I just resist starting this post with a scan of the super awesome card that the Night Owl sent me in his last trade package. I was drooling over it again last night and I noticed that it celebrates his Major League debut on July 20th and the serial number is 07/20, another reason why that card rocks! I should warn you all, I will probably post this one about 13 more times this year! Go Rays! Troll out.
I love this card, but I can’t figure out why the space needle (is that what that is?) is behind him on the card… I wanted to start with Sandberg, but I also like to include original Devil Rays whenever possible and I have really liked what I have seen from this 1999 Fleer Traditions set. Nice bright photos, good action, great lighting, good stuff. 
This one is card #413 of utility infielder Aaron Ledesma. I had never seen or heard of this set before; it’s from an Upper Deck series from 2004, Power Up! I am guessing… 
It’s a goofy bright green card of Rocco Baldelli with some kind of code on the side. I don’t think Rocco’s head is really that big… It is an odd looking card and I am gonna go out on a limb and say I don’t think this was a very popular set. The fun fact info on the back was interesting though. I knew that Rocco turned down a number of college scholarships to sign with the Rays, but I didn’t know his was offered Division 1 scholarships for baseball, basketball and volleyball! 
I have said this quite a few times on here, but I really, really like the 2009 Topps set. It is a great design, the best photography that Topps has ever had, it is just a cool and classy set and after what they had shown the rest of this decade, I had pretty much given up on them. Aside from the cool blue bordered set of 2003, 
everything has been totally blah this entire decade. That said I am collecting the heck out of every crazy card and parallel that the ’09 set has to offer. I only realized that the Topps Chrome version had blue refractors in it recently and I am obsessed with them already! Bud anticipated this and sent me another shiny blue one that I didn’t have yet. This guy had a horrible year in 2009, but I think that Andy Sonnanstine is a legitimate big league starter and I really think he will bounce back next year and claim the #5 starting pitcher slot with the Rays-or get traded to a team where he will be a starter. 
Either way, I think he will start 25+ games in 2010 and I am psyched to have one of the 199 shiny chrome refractors of this card in blue. If anyone else has "Blue Rays" they are willing to share, hit me up! Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena, Scott Kazmir, Aki and Longo are all at the top of my list! From Topps over to Bowman, here is a 2008 Bowman Draft Pick card of Rays future (?) first baseman Mike Sheridan. 
They scooped Sheridan up in the 5th round of the 2008 draft out of William and Mary. He is another guy that I watched a lot in Instructional League this year, he is a solid defensive first baseman who has a lot of hitting potential. Time will tell if the potential will evolve him into a big league hitter, but he is one to watch. A good comparison, if he reaches his full potential would be Tino Martinez. Tino was one the keys to the Yankees resurgence in the late nineties and he won 4 WS rings with them. He also made a stop in Tampa Bay in 2004 where he hit his 300th career home run on his way to 23 total for the D-Rays that year. 
This card from the 2005 Upper Deck set shows him after hitting one of those 23 bombs. He finished his career with the Yankees and retired in 2005 with 339 career homers. Back to Bowman, 2007 Bowman of the Chrome variety, this one is card #BDPP83 of Rookie of the Year Candidate Jeff Niemann shown in Team USA gear. 
He didn’t finish this season too well, but his 13-6 record with a 3.94 ERA and 125 Ks is still pretty nice… Andrew Bailey has to be the man to beat this year. I think that Niemann has a bright future in the Rays starting rotation though and here is another card of him that Bud included-
a 2008 Upper Deck Timeline, card #70 of the 6'9" righty. Last years Rookie of the Year was a no-brainer decision and a Tampa Bay Rays player, too. Evan Longoria ran away with the award and he is a darling of the hobby and collectors all over. This is an insert from the 2009 Upper Deck Series 2 Starquest. I have a number of the BJ Upton and Carlos Pena cards from this subset, but this is my first Longo and I think this one is special cuz the back says it is “Blue Uncommon”. 
It is card # SQ-39 in the subset. One of the things that I haven’t liked about Topps over the past few years is every pack has like 5 inserts in it. This makes set-building kind of difficult. It is cool when you like the inserts though, but I never pull ones that I like. Fortunately others do and they send them to me. 
This is from 2007 Topps Chrome, from the Generation Now subset featuring ex-Ray Delmon Young. I am still pretty confident that D-Young is going to grow into an All Star and I still get pretty excited when I get cards of him, especially chromey and shiny ones. This next card (?) came from the 2008 Topps set I think, but I have never pulled one of these. It’s a tattoo. 
I think it’s a pretty cool idea, I prefer stickers, but tattoos are cool, too. It’s not very big and I probably have this much blank skin available so I may try it out. With all of the great cards he sent it was pretty hard choosing which ones to display and what not to. There was definitely a lot of great stuff in there! I really wish I had some more Mariners cards to offer up because I would definitely like to see what else Bud has. Maybe this is a good excuse to buy a box of something… There are 5 more cards that I will show; they are all of the best leftfielder in baseball, MVP candidate and igniter of the Tampa Bay Rays lineup, Mr. Carl Crawford… First up is a 2003 Upper Deck MVP card #199 of a young Carl Crawford. 
Considering that he hit .259 with 9 steals in 2002, he was hardly an MVP back then, but perhaps they were looking in the Upper Deck crystal ball… 
From the 2005 Donruss Studio set, here is card #269 of a black and white CC with a purpley cityscape behind him. Next is a 2002 Topps Stadium Club Future Stars card, #108 of CC. 
The back of the card says that he has “surprising instincts”, whatever that means… 
This one is from the 2007 Upper Deck set, its an insert series called "Cooperstown Calling" and has a picture of Cal Ripken Jr. on the front. There is a long and complimentary quote on the back that you would assume came from Cal. 
Cool idea. This is the first card from this series that I have seen, it is card # CC-CC. The last card in the awesome package from First Day Issue is a 2006 Upper Deck, card #438. 
This is a parallel of some sort and is very shiny and has a serial number on the front, 93/99 and has a nice shot of CC getting ready to take a ball for a ride! I never get tired of getting Rays cards in the mail, especially a variety like this. Awesome cards Bud, thanks so much! I sent you every last Mariners card I had, you should get them soon. I love to trade and truly appreciate you sending these my way. If you haven't checked out Bud's blog already, or if you have Mariners cards to spare, you can find it right here-
Shawn Riggans, BJ Upton, Dewon Brazelton, Akinori Iwamura and Jose Cruz Jr.
More importantly he included some Carl Crawford cards, including 4 of them that are brand new to me!
2005 Leaf, card #187. 
2003 Upper Deck, card #118, 2005 Fleer Ultra, card #16
and Donruss World Series ’04, card #WS-163. The last card in that bunch doesn’t make sense to me. 
The Devil Rays were nowhere near the World Series in 2004, why would CC have a card in a WS set? Oh well, no matter, it’s a new card that I didn’t have of my favorite player, so I won’t question it too much. I know I have been promising this for a long time, but I am seriously working on making a list of all of the Carl Crawford cards that I have, I promise it will be done before this year is over. Okay, that’s it. This is just a sampling of all of the goodness that he sent my way. This is our first time trading and it always feels great to pull off a trade with another blogger for the first time, because you know inevitably that you will trade again! If you haven’t checked out Big D’s blog yet, head on over- 
ue and nephew Landon, Willie B. Faire, Poison, Tony and Oliver Apple all were in attendance, along with me, Side of Bacon. 
We raised a bunch of money, walked 5 kilometers like it was nothing and were part of an event that included thousands of people from all walks of life. 
Every team had their own catchy “save the Ta Tas” type line and some of them were pretty funny, but I am not gonna list any of them here, your gonna have to use your imagination. We had a little think tank for next year, decided that we skate the walk-a-thon (skate-a-thon?) and perhaps use a slogan like “Skater Tots” or “Save The Slambags”. When the walk was complete, there were high fives all around. 
Go Bombers! 
Esther Gin N Juice, Mofo on Wheels, Lydia, Chris and Side of Bacon are hosting a party tonight to celebrate all of the good will that we have spread through the community this month and we will probably get very drunk and very silly in the process. Oh yeah, it is gonna be a costume party, too. Thanks to all of the Bombers who joined us in the walk against breast cancer! Go Bombers! Go Angels! Troll out.
