Life is good in Trollville!
I just got an e-mail from my Statistics professor. I got a
90 on my final exam – I could have done better, but I was worried that I had
done a lot worse. I came down with the flu earlier this week and felt horrible
during the exam, so I am thrilled that I pulled off an A on an exam that took
me three hours to complete…
Other great things: after finishing this semester of school I
celebrated by buying a blaster of 2012 Heritage AND a blaster of 2012 Opening
Day (I am really liking this set!). I also picked up another binder and a few
packs of 9-up Ultra Pro Pages and a few packs of penny sleeves, too. I have
also got to spend a little bit of time filling up those new pages and updating
my want lists again. Later today I will do posts on either the Heritage or
Opening Day. I have a lot of dupes, plus extra inserts and parallels from each
series. I will post them as “trade bait” on a first come, first claim basis, so
stay tuned!
There are a lot of other reasons for a Troll to smile – my favorite
team; the Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in baseball. Our best player,
Evan Longoria, is on the disabled list, but the team continues to win, win, and
win. Without their top offensive threat in the lineup, they are more reliant on
their pitching staff than ever and boy are they delivering! James Shields is 5-0. Jeremy Hellickson is 3-0
with a 2.51 ERA. The starting 5 is a combined 15-5 with 132 strikeouts against
60 walks in 160 innings. They have one of the best rotations in baseball and
their whole staff is homegrown. Freaking awesome! The one free agent
acquisition they made for the mound this off season was the signing of Angels
cast-off Fernando Rodney.
Rodney (who really needs a nickname) has been ridiculous
this season. He leads the league in appearances, saves and games finished. He
has a 1-0 record with a 0.73 ERA. He has 12 K’s and just 2 walks (1
intentional) in 12 innings of work over 14 games. He has 9 saves. I don’t
expect him to be 50 for 50 this season, but he is holding the fort quite
nicely. When I look at the contracts that guys like Heath Bell and Jonathan
Papplebon got, it really makes me ill – and Rodney is doing way better than
each of them at a fraction of the cost…
I have lost a little focus here… Although I have to work
this weekend through and have another 13 days or so before I get a day off, I am
making the most of my free time. School is done for now and the wife and I are
going to Gainesville, Florida (about 3 hours away) to see one of our favorite
bands (Tragedy) this weekend and have a dinner date planned for Thursday…
One last good thing to note is that people keep on sending
me awesomely generous packages in the mail and they are totally whittling my
want lists down to nothing.
One such awesome and generous blogger is Clark from the Fantastic Catch blog. Clark had sent me a note a few weeks back offering to
help me out with my 2011 Topps needs. I had pretty much forgotten about our “conversation”
when the mailer appeared today in my box today. In fact even after I tore it
open I couldn’t place who the sender was. I had to scour old messages to figure
it out. I was glad I did cuz I wanted to give him credit for finishing off 2011Topps for me!
I had mentioned last week that this had been a busy week for
getting Topps base from 2009-2012. I am CLOSE on so many series’. Now, for 2011
Topps, I am beyond close. I put (what I thought was) the final card into Series 2 this Saturday. As happens to me far too often, I made a mistake and actually need 4 more cards to finish Series 2 - #s 388, 523, 574 and 653.
Today, card #35 of Shin-Soo Coho completed Series 1 FOR REAL.
Today, card #35 of Shin-Soo Coho completed Series 1 FOR REAL.
I do still need 3 more cards to polish off Updates and
Highlights – cards numbered US54 Jerry Sands, US78 David Ortiz and US109 of
Jair Jurrjens. I wouldn’t mind getting them, too, and closing the book on this
set – all 3 series.
Anyway, for now I am psyched to have the top 2 series done.
Clark didn’t stop there, though. He also included some Kimball Champions minis –
card #KC55 Stan Musial and KC79 of Barry Larkin.
He also included a cool Diamond Duos card featuring two very
good young third basemen who are both on the disabled list…
Clark sent along some random Rays and a couple more Longos
for the PC – my favorite card in the package was this gold version of David
Price, card #328.
My 2011 list is current and up-to-date. I now have 115 Kimballs out of 150! I am gonna add in a list of
some of my insert dupes for trading.
My work schedule is going to remain hectic for a long, long
time, but with school done for now I should have a little bit more time to blog
and trade and to watch the Rays remain the best in the League.
Thanks again to Clark! Check out his blog, Fantastic Catch.
He is officially a Troll-endorsed trader and a solid new blogger, so give him a
shot!
Many, many great packages these past few weeks… So much to
post. Gonna do my best to stay current, but we will see…
I am on a roll with trading right now, wanna get in on that roll? Drop me a line...
Go Rays! Troll out.
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I just want to say: many thanks for the large type. I went to the eye doctor today. Those drops were killers.
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