My Blog Bat Around Shopping Spree is Done!

I will start with a message for those who read my last post... I am NOT a Yankees fan, I repeat I am NOT a Yankees fan! It is possible to want to buy the most expensive card from your favorite set of all time without being a fan of that team… That said, lets move on for the final installment of my 50K spending spree. Of course I run the risk of looking more like a Yankees fan, which I am not. Just read on. The next buy I made was not on my list but I found it while searching for ’48 Leaf cards. I was randomly searching around and I found this excellent lot of 1948 Leaf Boxing cards. It is actually the full set of 18 cards and half were graded. This was my favorite surprise find of the spree. I jumped on it after seeing pics of Jack Johnson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Jack Dempsey. The BIN price was $1500 plus 15 dollars shipping. I wasn’t pissed about the shipping considering there were 18 vintage cards and some were graded. The average cost of these boxing cards was only 84 bucks, I was happy with this deal. I know now that many of these cards can be found cheap. A '48 Bob Fitzsimmons for 10 bucks? I bought one of thoese for real! Okay, speaking of deals…
While looking at ’48 Leafs I came across this PSA 9 of Hall of Famer Luke Appling for only $309.00. Probably not a wise buy with the clock ticking, but considering what I “paid” for the other ’48 Leaf cards at a lower grade seemed like a true great deal. I know the other cards were rookies or early cards and Appling was on his way out, but still… I did also drop 8 bucks to ship this one and I stayed with ’48 Leaf for the next one.
I found this PSA 6 Larry Doby card for 3500.00 After getting a PSA 8 of Jackie Robinson from the same set for $3700.00 I couldn’t pay this much for a 6 of Doby. I wanted this card really bad, but I kept on looking and found a PSA 2 with the wrong back for $650.00. I wasn’t thrilled with that either, but I would be bummed to have Paige, Musial, Robinson, Appling and NOT Doby. It is a wrong back, but the back is of Danny Murtaugh, so that was kind of nice, too. In retrospect, I wish that I put principles aside and bout the 6, but I am glad I got one…
I am at $33,553 with just a couple of minutes left. First order of business was buying the first Clemente rookie that came up-I got this PSA 5 for $749.00. I have seen ungraded cards at shows for more money that didn’t look this good and it was $5000 less than the first one I found.
I went Yankees again, but I have no shame because I “own” a 1934 Goudey Lou Gehrig. A PSA 3 for $1200.00.
To balance out my Yankees purchase I bought a Ted Williams card. A 1941 Play Ball for $995.00. I know Williams has a lot of great cards and I was tempted to go with the ’48 Leaf, but I love ’41 Play Ball.
There are a ton of cards I still need-more Satchell Paige, some ’53 Topps, more ’51 Bowman, more… I decided to keep with the variety and chase a few more Hall of Fame hurlers, first stop Sandy Koufax. I found this PSA 8 rookie card of The Left Arm of God for $2150.00 plus 12 bucks shipping. My Dad knew Koufax and was his favorite player of All Time. He doesn’t collect, but he would think it was neat, plus I know I could trade bait this to the Night Owl the next time he finds a Carl Crawford card that I can’t live without…
I wanted to go Warren Spahn and then Steve Carlton and then more Satchel Paige, but I was down to 70 seconds and needed to burn up 10 grand. I was SWEATING! First pick was this amazing 1937 O-Pee-Chee of Rapid Robert Feller. I had never seen this card before and really didn’t know it existed. Feller was just 18 years of age when this card came out-is this his rookie? Again it wasn’t on my radar, but a PSA 7 of Bob Feller from 1937 was too much to pass up. I dropped $3,995. Plus 10 bucks shipping on it.
My stop watch said 14:34 and I had almost 8 grand left to go and I was stressing big time. I called on Joltin Joe to bring it home… I was able to find a card of him as a San Francisco Seal (not a Yankee) and I burned up $5775 in the process. It’s a 1933 PSA 1 Zee Nut PCL Joe DiMaggio. I jotted this one down just as the alarm went off. Shopping spree over. I was pretty disappointed in myself. The 15 minute time limit did me in. I started off being so organized with a great plan and after 12 minutes it all went out the window and I just started jumping at high ticket items. Although they are neat cards I didn't want to spend the bulk of my budget on the Joe D, Mantle and Feller cards. I wanted more cards of Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige and I REALLY wanted to pick up autos of Satchel Paige, Roberto Clemente and Jackie Robinson and I can't believe I didn't get a single card of Willie Mays. For the record, I search new listings for Danny Tartabull everyday and I knew he didn't have any big ticket cards available, otherwise I would have picked them up. My final total was $48,429.00. That means I left $1571 on the table. Ouch. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so damn picky. That’s it, thanks for reading along with my entry in the Sports Cards Uncensored 50 K Shopping Spree Blog Bat Around. Go Rays! Troll out.

The Nightmare is Over, The Monkey is Off My Back, I Can Now Sleep at Night Once Again...AKA The Bip is Back!

Does anybody out there remember Bipping? It was all the rage for a while. If ya don't remember, please hop in my blogger time machine with me and flash back to January of 2010. Bipping was a craze that took off like the Macarena and then disappeared just as quickly. When Bippings first began surfacing I felt left out that I hadn’t been bipped and then BAM! I was attacked 3 times within the course of a week. I ended up issuing a couple of Bips myself (in self defense) and then, like I said, it was gone as quickly as it came. The thing is I never posted the first and worst Bipping I ever endured. It happened to me back in December. I was suffering through all kinds of car troubles and was knee deep in the group pack break that wouldn’t go away. I had packages coming in daily and wasn’t able to keep up with opening my mail. I received an oversized envelope from the West Coast, but had to let it sit in my dining room for nearly two weeks before I finally ripped it open. It should have a label that read “perishable fad enclosed”. Even if it had, I would have still waited till long after the joke stopped being funny to tell it. That is just my luck that is how I roll… I am always a day late and a dollar short, it defines who I am. That said, please bear with me while I roll out a blast from the past. I should have titled this post “remember January 2010” because that is how far we are rolling back. When bloggers assaulted other bloggers in the name of the great(?) infielder Leon “Bip” Roberts. I have a tough time remembering what I did yesterday. I certainly can’t remember to bring both a flash drive and my computer to work. I did misplace the memory card with these photos on it for nearly two months, but I can still remember when Bippings were the rage. Even though the fellow blogger who sent this package to me did so with malicious intent, I still feel badly that it has taken so long for me to finally post it. I wasn’t trying to make myself feel like less of a victim waiting for the fad to pass, in fact the issuer of this Bip accomplished their goal because a day has not gone by where I didn’t lay awake in bed wondering how and when I would post this Bipping, what I did with the memory card and why this blogger chose me as a target. Yeah, he is totally in my head. Worse still, as with all other Bippings, on top of the Bip cards, there were a ton of other really awesome cards included in the package. Of course, I can’t post or even acknowledge those cards until this parent post is taken care of. Again, this blogger is in my head. He owns me, I am powerless. He controls what I can and cannot post. He is a cruel master. So often I have begun a post, grabbed for a card to use and realized that card came from THAT PACKAGE. The unposted one, the BIPPING. Well, I will be a slave to you no longer cruel master! I am breaking the chains and reclaiming my freedom. I am posting a Bip package in (late) March and I don’t give a duck. I am a brave man. This is the envelope and this is the card case that was inside of it. It was a gigantic oversized mailer with a large sized hard plastic case in it. There was a tiny card showing through the clear Lucite. I had no suspicions when I opened the envelope. I never expect the worst in people. I opened it innocently and I remember thinking to myself as I noticed the tiny card, “Wow, I have never seen a Rays mini that small”. Little did I know, it was NOT a mini of a Rays player. Oh no. It was an inch high card of the most heinous infielder to play major league baseball. The harbinger of doom, the bearer of bad news, Bip Roberts. This image has haunted me for 2 months. Ever since that evil blogger shipped that package to me and I finally opened it, I have not been able to shake the image. Later that week I was bipped by an Owl. I dealt with that quickly, I posted that attack from that nocturnal bird, I made peace and forgot about it (kind of), but this Bipping has been a monkey on my back since the beginning of this year. I have posted it in my head, I have gotten imaginary closure, but it still returned to haunt me at the very point each night when I was ready to relax and forget the day. That miniature Bip reappeared and hovered over me, taunting, saying mean things about my Mother. I tried to lash back at it, but it was too quick (he was quite a speedy base stealer), but today is the day that I prevail, that I expose this package that has haunted me, the day that I make peace with Bip. Tonight is the night that I take back the night. The night that I expose this evil Bipping blogger and bring everything to light so I will once again feel safe in the dark. Tonight I show you all what I saw that January night. The sender of this awful package was a Bip Roberts fan himself. It came from Rod AKA the self proclaimed King of Leon, the author of the Padrographs blog. Rod had contacted me prior telling me to be on the lookout for a package coming my way. He revealed nothing of the contents in the message. It seemed like a pleasant note and I actually looked forward to receiving the package. Like I said when I saw that tiny card I had assumed that it was a micro mini of Carl Crawford. I never expect the worst in people. I was wrong obviously, it was Bip Roberts taunting me from under a hard plastic shell and when I cracked that shell (opened the box) this is what it held. BIPS!!!! A lot of them. There was a different Bip card for every year I have spent on this earth. I wondered if he calculated that or if it was just a coincidence. Anyway, I am here tonight to finally expose your evil plot to take down me and my blog, to kill me with Bipness, to haunt me with these cards. I plan on sleeping well tonight. I hope you, the fine folks reading and viewing these awful pictures can do the same. Ya got me Rod and I have suffered under your spell for too long. Now I am free! Free at last, free at last! Now I can freely post the amazing, gem mint, razor sharp vintage Hall of Famer cards that I found hidden in between those OTHER cards at included at my leisure. I can also post, one by one, all 93 of the amazing 1986 Larry Fritsch Negro League Cards that you sent and I can free them from being stored with all those OTHER cards. I will start with this shot of Cool Papa Bell screaming back at you, telling you that the monkey is off of my back and you should watch yours! Okay, this flashback to January of 2010 is now over, I feel better, I hope y'all do as well. You can look forward to me showing off the rest of the great stuff he sent, WITHOUT the Bips… Goodbye and goodnight Mr. Roberts, in a weird way I will miss you. Oh, now that this is all out in the open, I feel better and I can finally thank you for the awesome cards...Thanks Padrographs! You rock out loud. Troll out.

My 400th Post!

Greetings and good morning Trollites! Welcome to my 400th post. I wanted to do something special, but I have spent the last hour staring at this blank white page and I am not making any progress. I think I would like to pound out an epic post that stretches a country mile (I do love in the South), but I’m not sure if I have the energy. Writing up 82 pack breaks without a break has rotted my creativity. Plus class begins in 45 minutes and even though I type fast, I don’t type that fast. I think I will settle on a trade post. Unlike some people, I love trade posts. I think that trade posts are the foundation of our community here. I discovered at least ¾ of the blogs on my blog roll after seeing their link pop up in someone’s trade post. It wasn’t too long ago that my blog roll was only 6 site’s long. Now it has 180 different blogs on it. Most are about baseball cards, one or 2 are about roller derby, a few are about grammar (I am a nerd) and I even have a couple about hockey (which I don’t understand at all). Looking back eight months ago to the original “sensational six” blogs on my blog roll, all of them are still alive and kicking. One of them disappeared for 4 months, but now the Easy Life is BACK, make sure you check him out (again). One of the other original blogs on the Troll Roll was/is the Night Owl. The Night Owl won the Drewbie Award this year as the MVP of the Blogosphere, the best. I don’t dispute that title, I voted for him. And lo and behold, I happen to have a package waiting for me from the legendary Night Owl. You have probably been reading along with the Night Owl’s brush with a childhood hero. I am not too modest to take all the credit for introducing Mr. Reuss to Mr. Owl. Yep, I hooked it up. I think that this package is my cardboard thank you for my blogger selflessness. Maybe it’s a thank you package for the Ron Cey rookie that I sent Mr. Owl a few months back. Maybe it is an advance thank you for all of the cool vintage Dodgers that I will be sending his way. Whatever it is, it will be AWESOME! How could a trade package from Jerry Reuss’ (and my) favorite blogger be anything but AWESOME? Okay, let me see what I got…
We are off to a good start… First up is a pair of awesome Perez Steele renderings of Willie McCovey and Cool Papa Bell. These are from 1987, made by Donruss/Leaf and are from a subset called “Leaf Candy City Team Hall of Fame Greats”. Dick Perez’ art plus 2 of my favorites of all time equals AWESOME! Very nice. Next up is a 2006 Allen and Ginter base card of Carl Crawford. This was the last A&G base card of CC that I needed. Awesome. Next up, let’s see… More Rays I need? More Hall of Famers? More Negro League Legends? No… This is weird, a card with a note on it. The note reads “Oh no Nomo! You’ve been bipped?” WHAAAAATTT??????????? Is this card a harbinger of evil and doom or maybe, hopefully it just fell into my pack of cards accidentally. Then I saw these. Next out of the envelope is this. Followed by this. Followed by this. Then Followed by this and this... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been bipped. The unusual thing is that the package wasn't that big, but somehow the Nomo's bred as I searched the envelope. I didn't get them wet, nor did I feed them after midnight... In hideous Nomo fashion. I’ve been bipped. I’ve been bipped by my role model, by my blog hero, by my “friend”. This is my first bipping. I am left empty. I will probably call in Bip, I mean sick tonight. I am putting my pajamas back on. What are the docs prescribing for a bad case of the bips these days? I can’t believe that I dedicated my 400th post to chronicle an attack on myself. I can’t believe I have let this malevolent package intermingle with “nice” packages from GSNHoF, PatP, Padrographs, ILHMOSC and Field of Cards all this time. I hope none of them are infected. To you Mister Owl, you evil, evil nocturnal beast: This is NOT over. My innocence is gone. Mr. Nice Blogger is dead. It’s my mistake to trust a bird that sleeps during the day. Well my feathered friend, I would watch my nest if I were you. The rest of the package doesn’t seem to matter. Not after this cheap, classless, non-creative attack on me. Packaged in with these awful “Oh no Nomo” cards were a couple of very shiny Rays. A Carl Crawford X Fractor and a BJ Upton refractor, both from 2008 Topps. Nice cards I guess. There were some very nice 1969 Topps cards in there, too. There may have been more cards in the package. I don’t know. I might check the fireplace later, but I am signing off now. I do apologize to my readers for the lack of scans. After scanning the block of 10 Nomo cards, the scanner exploded. Congrats to me on my (tainted) 400th post. I’m off to search for recipes for owl. It will be served cold. No thanks to the night owl (you are no longer capitalized). And no Shannon Stewart will not be associated with this post. (Wounded) troll out!

Seven of the Best EVER!

Happy Halloween Blog-O-Sphere!!! Getting ready to head off for makeup so we can participate in Bradenton’s first ever Zombie Bridge Walk… No time for words, but here are a few wonderful cards that came courtesy of Wicked Alfredo Ortega of the My Past Time! Blog. You will have to do your own research, but trust me when I say, these are 7 of the greatest individuals ever to play the game of baseball…All are Hall of Famers, but one and he belongs there. All are instant favorites and new highlights of my collection. If anyone has cards of any of these fine individuals, they are always welcome here! Thanks Wicked!
Roberto Clemente. John “Buck” O’NeillJosh Gibson. Satchel Paige.James “Cool Papa” Bell. Larry Doby. Buck Leonard. Thanks again Alfredo! Happy haunting to all! Troll out.