Rays are Rad in Red and Winning in Toronto!

Greetings Trollites!!! I am not quite halfway through a miserable stretch at work – we are working twelve days straight for 12 hours a day, then we are “rewarded” with 2 days off before starting all over again… Anyway, I still have a long way to go before getting a day off and I am pretty freaking tired already…

I have been spending my nights “chillaxing” more than usual. Tonight the Rays are on TV, so I am getting my chill-ax on in front of the TV and presently the Rays are up 3-1 in the second. Sweet!

They have been on a miserable slide of late. After starting the season in spectacular fashion – sweeping the Yankees at home, they been horrible, dropping 6 of their last 8 games including being swept in Boston and dropping their first game in Toronto last night. They NEED to get back on track…

Their awesome starting pitchers need to start pitching like the awesome starters that they are and the offense needs to wake up!!! I know BJ is out, but if your 1 and 2 hitters don’t get on base, you won’t be scoring many runs.

That is the truth, but also a smooth segue into this post… I have been looking for an excuse to post these 2 rad in red cards from 2011 Topps. Desmond Jennings was awesome in the season opener against NY, but has not been a good leadoff hitter since – his OBP is barely over .300 – he just hasn’t been setting the table like he needs to… Tonight he led the game off with a base hit and good things happened…

The good thing being his scoring when Ben Zobrist, also mired in a slump, hit a long drive over the right field wall… It was just his second homer in 38 at bats – Zorilla was hitting just .216 coming into this game. Hopefully his first inning homer is the end of his slump.

Either way, batting first and second and both getting hits is the perfect excuse to post these 2 gems. I think these were bonus cards, exclusive to factory sets and numbered to 245. I have been on a mission to collect up EVERY parallel version of these 2 cards. I still need a bunch more to have the whole rainbow, but I am thrilled to ad these 2 cards into the mix…

I put the computer down for a couple of innings – we are into the 6th inning, the Rays are up 6-2 and David Price is leaving the game. I don’t know if Price was pie in the face great tonight, but he pitched well enough to earn the W if the bullpen can maintain his lead.

With another perfect excuse to show off another new parallel of a favorite player – here is Rays reliever Wade Davis in sparkly puke-fractor form.

Going into the seventh inning, the Rays are still in the lead – will the winning streak start tonight?

Oh... If you have parallels of Zobrist, Jennings or Davis, PLEASE get in touch, I NEED Them!!!

Go Rays! Troll out.

Where You Gonna Be On Friday Night????

OPENING DAY, Opening Week, whatever it is, they're playing ball games that count and I LOVE it!!!!! Today and tonight I spent the day parked in front of the TV watching the Tigers beat the Red Sox in an awesome game and later watching the Dodgers beat the Padres... That was tonight. Tomorrow I will be hanging out with my friends James,

Raymond,

Ben

and Desmond...

Yeah, thanks to a last minute surprise from my awesome wife, I will be hanging out at Tropicana Field tomorrow afternoon and evening. For some reason the game starts at 3 PM. I work till 4 and live a few towns away. I will miss the first pitch, hell I might miss the first 5 or 6 innings, but I don't care - the baseball season is here and when the Rays close the door in the 9th inning tomorrow night, beat the Yankees and take their place at the top of the American League East - I WILL be there!

HUGE thanks to Brian from the Play at the Plate blog for hooking me up for real with a few of my MOST WANTED cards! I LOVE parallels! I am determined to fill a 9-up page full of variations of the DJ and Zobrist cards... I think I have 4 or 5 of each now which is AWESOME!!! The other awesome thing is that I now have both the 2011 and 2012 Opening Day mascot cards of RAYMOND!!!

Thanks Brian and thanks to your son for giving up his mascot card for me! I love this hobby, I LOVE THIS GAME!!! Big Game James and the Rays are ready to roll in 2012!!!!!!!!!! So, what are you doing Friday night????

Go Rays! troll out.

2 Posts in 2 Days, WHAAATTT????????????

So, I am actually gonna deliver on the promise that I made yesterday, I AM actually gonna post some of the cool cards that Tim the Indians fan sent to my newly operational Post Office box…

First, I want to get a few links out of the way… At the end of my last post I encouraged everyone to check out the Bradentucky Bombers facebook page… Well, I posted the wrong link, so here is the correct one… Check it out and LIKE us please!

We did have a bout last night… It was fun and well attended which is awesome. We are raising money for Multiple Sclerosis research and our awesome fans helped us get towards our goal. Our league, the Bradentucky Bombers, has two separate teams, our A team – The Bomb Squad. Also, our B squad – The Nuclear Bombshells. Both teams had been perfect, each posting 2-0 records. Well, the Bombshells lost their first game to the Lakeland Derby Dames last night. LDD was just a better team, we were overmatched…

Okay, back to baseball cards… I had mentioned that I was gonna chase 2009 Topps and was basically starting from scratch and I was looking for a kind soul to help get me started. Well, Spankee from My Cardboard Mistress answered the call and is sending nearly 200 cards towards my goal. My lists are up to date and could be found here. Lend me a hand, okay?

Okay, now back to the first package in the PO box… Reader Tim send a pretty big envelope filled with the standard assortment of Rays cards… The first stack wasn’t terribly exciting, although appreciated, ha! The next stack was a complete set of 2008 or 2009 DAV Rays cards!!! The card back has contact info for the Disabled American Veterans... You can find them on the web here.

The cards look GREAT and it is a great foundation worthy of support... Along with the cards Tim included a note apologizing that Evan Longoria wasn’t included. Well, I have a pretty fair amount of Longo cards, but this DAV set absolutely RULED because of the guys it included who I don’t have cards of…

I seriously want to get back into the quest for hunting Rays autographs. I had gotten frustrated because there are so many people who spent a short amount of time in the Rays organization without ever getting a Rays uni-card. There are a lot of members of the Rays coaching staff who have been around forever, but never got a solo card in a Rays uniform… Yeah, that is why I LOVE this set! They are good looking cards too! I seriously never thought I would EVER see a card of longtime bullpen coach Bobby Ramos. Got that now! Also have Don Zimmer, Tom Foley, and George Hendrick… Well, just look at them!

The first 2 pages have at least 10 guys I previously did NOT have a Rays card of. I plan to have ALL of these signed before the season is up. There is one card that might be tough to get signed, the card featuring everyone’s favorite seadog Raymond. This is my 3rd Raymond card – I would LOVE to get six more and fill a page of him…The third page I am showing off has the bigger named players on it…

Nice cuz in every case I didn’t have any of these in any of my PCs. Oh, speaking of PCs – Ben Zobrist was included in this set and with this card I now have 2 full pages of Zorilla cards!

I know that seems like nothing to many of you, but I am psyched and happy with it… I trashed my old binder with my PCs of Crawford, Bartlett, Aki and Kaz (LONG story about that coming soon) and replaced it with a new binder that starts off with 13 pages of Evan Longoria!!!!

I had always said I didn't collect Longo because his cards were too pricey. Well, they still are, but I DO collect him. Keep sending them my way and I will keep collecting! Aside from Longo, the PC binder now includes Zorilla, Price, Wade Davis, Desmond Jennings, Jeremy Hellickson, Sean Rodriguez, Matt Moore, Alex Cobb, Jake McGee, Wilking Rodriguez, Raymond, Alex Colome, Shawn O’Malley, Stephen Vogt, Brandon Gomes, Alex Torres and Justin O’Conner.

Many of those guys don’t have many cards just yet and there are a few names on that list that I only have 1 or 2 cards of, but I hope to have full pages of each one of them someday soon. The binder is mostly current Rays, but there are 3 ex-Rays that I still collect… One is retired and coaching – Jared Sandberg and the other two are on the other coast, in the wasteland known as the Oakland A’s. I am referring to both Jonny Gomes! And Manny Ramirez. I only want Rays cards of Manny…

Adam from Thoughts and Sox sent me my second Manny card a few weeks back, so I just need 7 more to fill a page. Thanks for reading! Thanks so much to reader Tim for the sweet DAV cards which will be signed up soon… Oh, I just filled up my first page of last year’s Rookie of the Year. If ya don’t see it here, I don’t have it yet, so send it my way, ha!

Oh, I have been doing a bit of wheeling and dealing of late and most of my wantlists are up to date... I WILL be chasing 2012 Heritage, but doing so on a tight budget, so I NEED your dupes! Go Rays! Troll out.

It's A GO At the PO!!!!!!!!

Thanks to a truly awesome and amazing postal clerk who has become a friend, I now have an unlocked PO Box… As many of you crazy bloggers do, I was spending a ton of time at the post office and this meant I really got to know the folks who worked there… It is a very small post office and including the Postmaster, there are only 3 employees. All 3 have gone out to roller derby bouts (we have 1 tonight!) and when I am shipping, the conversation isn’t forced small talk – these are really good folks… I am lucky. One of the employees – Chrissie, is particularly awesome. We are “friends” on Facebook and chat on occasion.

I have been broke and haven’t been around like I once was. She sent a few messages of concern and said she missed me and was worried about my box being locked. I explained why and she said she was determined to help me get back on track – postally (is this a word?) speaking at least… Last year she was excited because her 13 year old son was going to his first big concert, the Tampa stop on the Vans Warped Tour. She is a pretty cool chick and was going with him, playing chaperone and being the cool mom that she is. I told her I wasn’t going this year, but had been to nearly every year prior. She told her son this and he thought that was pretty cool. He had met me at a derby bout and considered me one of his mom’s “cool friends” even though I am a Grandpa… Anyway, while cleaning up around the house I found an old tee shirt, a concert tee from the first ever Warped Tour back in 1995 which featured bands like Sublime, No Use for a Name, Sick of it All, L7, Quicksand and more… I brought it into the post office and gave it to Chrissie for her son. He LOVED it! It gave him big “cool points” at school for having such an old school tee. She said he wore it for a week straight.

Anyway, fast forward to last week. My Wifey, the legendary Esther Gin N Juice and I were celebrating our 6-year wedding anniversary (shown here on Wedding Day 03-11-2006 right after jumping from an airplane… ) I made a post about it on facebook and Chrissie sent me a message that she wanted to get us a special Anniversary gift since we had hooked her son up the year before. I messaged her back telling her thanks, but it wasn’t necessary and pretty much forgot about it.
Then, after work on Saturday, I stopped at the post office, solely out of habit because it was closed and my box was out of order. I went to it anyway, unlocked it expecting to see the yellow barrier in the back of the box which prevented anyone from putting mail in it. The yellow barrier was NOT there, there was a pair of manila envelopes in it instead along with a receipt…

The receipt was for a box payment. A BIG payment, considering I owed a $15 late fee along with the $48 cost for the box rental. It was ALL paid!!! I nearly cried I was so happy and touched. I have had a lot of truly generous people touch my life in the years since I began blogging and trading and this ranked among the tops… Truly unbelievable!!! Thanks sooooooooo much Chrissie!!!

I really don’t know what to say or how to thank you, but that is mega awesome and I will be eternally grateful for this… By the way, the 2 envelopes in the box came courtesy of a reader named Tim who is an Indians fan who claimed a card I had posted nearly 2 years ago. He had said he didn’t have anything to send me at the time, but he would pay me back someday. He came through with an awesome package of really cool and unique Rays cards. This will be the subject of my next post, thanks Tim! The other package came from Chris at the Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz blog. He had sent me an email weeks prior offering to send me 60 cards off of my 2012 Topps want list. I tried writing him back to tell him of my address change, but the email was sent back and for some reason I couldn’t get one through to him. I think he sent this envelope a month ago. Of course I still needed everything and now they are all safe and sound in the 2012 Topps binder.

When I got home I had a manila envelope in my house’s mailbox, too. Another 20 cards from 2012 Topps from a reader named Nick. Everything is safe in the binder. I have 32 completed pages now and just need a few more cards to finish the set off. For the first page I need card #7, I would assume that is a Mantle card, from there the next 30 pages are totally full! The few others I need to finish it are cards numbered 297, 307, 312, 313, 330 and 331. Yep, just a total of 7 more cards to finish this off! Not too bad I think…

I bought my first pack 5 weeks ago, posted a want list and within 30 days the blog-o-sphere sent me over 250 cards towards my journey. Huge thanks for that!!! I should mention that in the package from reader Nick I also got a few more 1987 Topps style minis and updated that list as well. Nick doesn’t have a blog and is just getting back into collecting. He ripped a bunch of 2012 Topps and he has already finished the set so he doesn’t need any of that. He does have a few PCs that I can help him with, so if anyone has any cards of Ichiro or Alex Ovechkin that they wouldn’t mind sharing with me – I want to hit Nick back.

This is important because not only did he send everything I mentioned- he is also the first person to answer the call for parallels of Desmond Jennings from 2012… I am now the proud owner of the RED version of his rookie cup card. I want them all, right down to the printing plates if I can find them, but I am on the road to domination and I owe ya for that Nick! That card incidentally is my 8th different Desmond Jennings card. My DJ page is nearly complete. I am going to post up pages from all of my PCs soon, but I am pretty stoked about this right now… You might notice the blue parallel that the Cardboard Don sent me from 2011 Topps. I want to collect EVERY parallel of that card, too… I was at that game!

I used to be a Carl Crawford fan and have nearly 700 cards of his (up for trade!) but DJ is helping me forget about him… I have been lucky to be in attendance for his first triple ever and several homeruns… I think I am a lucky charm for the guy… Okay, that is all for now. The Rays are taking on the Boston Red Sox in Port Charlotte, Florida today. Oh yeah!!! Roller Derby later tonight! More posting in the near future, too! I need to post up some more mailbox arrivals. Scott from Smed’s Cards has sent me about a dozen AWESOME envelopes in the past few months, but it was earlier this week that a white box arrived at my house FILLED with something really cool… Stay tuned!

A huge thanks to Post Office Chrissie and all the cool kids who have sent me cards and helped me out on my set quests!!! Y’all rule! Want lists are up to date, my address is Collective Troll/PO Box 1063/Tallevast, FL 34270 and Trade Me Anything will open for business really soon. I LOVE this hobby! Oh and by the way... That RED Ryan Braun 2012 Heritage parallel is still available and up for trade, so anybody want it??? And also, I have decided to chase 2009 Topps and now have list for it... Spare any? Oh, and yes, that IS what I look like, hope I didn't scare away too many readers, ha!

The Nuclear Bombshells are entertaining the Lakeland Derby Dames in just a couple hours tonight... Wanna learn more? Find us and like us on Facebook... Thanks for reading and sharing my love! Go Rays! Troll out.

My First Glance at 2012 Topps...

I gave in and bought some 2012 Topps… It started with 2 packs

on Thursday; it led to a cereal box on Friday and grew into 3 more packs on Saturday and 1 more this morning… I am waaaay past my budget, but I foresee another cereal box and a few more packs in the NEAR future… I have a small stack of cards sitting beside me – not many, but it’s enough to create a list, I think…
I rip on Topps about collation EVERY year, so I won’t much beyond the fact that after my purchases I have 85 cards towards the set. My packs and box yield a total of 144 cards. I did get a bunch of inserts (pretty standard) and a couple of parallels, but some of those were also dupes.

I did not get a single card from card 4 up till #28, yet I did manage to pull 4 copies of both card #110 of Mark Teixeira and card #298 of new Rays utilityman Jeff Keppinger. I also pulled 3 copies of #48 Wade Davis (not really complaining ‘bout this one) and #104, Brett Anderson, #2 Trevor Cahill AND #215 of Freddie Freeman. Aside from those, I have 16 additional duplicates. Not good Topps!

So anyway, I am 26% of the way there, I do intend on buying more packs, partially because I really wanna pull a Rally Squirrel card OR 1 of the other crazy short print variations that selling for big bucks on the ‘Bay.

I should also mention that my cards to chase (so far) in 2012 are the 2 different awesome cards of Rays leftfielder Desmond Jennings. So, colorful versions cards #ed 5 and 15 of DJ are my key wants for 2012 so far… If you have black, blue, red, gold, sparkly, silky or otherwise cards of Jennings – well, I want them!!!

I do think they I am going to try and chase the ’87 set… I don’t fully understand why they are sized like ’75 minis, but they are pretty sweet nonetheless.

As for the other insert sets and the reds and sparkles that I have pulled so far – I will post them ALL very soon and they are all up for grabs. For now, this is my want list. Get in touch if you can lend a hand. Please contact me before shipping so I can give youan alternate address.

Pitchers and catchers are reporting so very soon!!! I can’t wait!
Go Rays! Troll out.

Oh, not out just yet... Although I do have a ten dollar bill set aside to grab a few packs at Target, this is what I need so far... I should mention that I haven't pulled any of the crazy SPs, pies in the face or rodent cards. I do have a red parallel of Franklin Guitierez with John Lannan stats on the back...

1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,13,14,16,18,20,21,22,23,25,26,27,28,31,35,36,38,40,46,47,49,52,

54,55,57,58,59,60,62,64,65,66,67,68,69,71,72,73,74,78,80,83,84,87,88,93,95,96,

100,102,103,105,106,108,111,112,117,118,119,120,123,125,127,129,135,137,138,

139,140,141,142,146,148,150,151,155,160,161,168,169,173,174,176,177,178,180,

182,183,185,186,187,192,193,194,195,197,198,199,201,203,204,208,210,211,

213,214,216,219,220,221,224,225,226,230,232,233,234,235,237,238,240,241,

242,244,248,249,251,252,255,259,262,263,264,266,267,268,271,274,275,277,

278,279,280,281,282,284,286,287,288,289,290,291,293,295,296,300,301,

303,304,305,310,311,314,315,316,319,320,327,328,330 and 331.

Okay, thats all I need, just another 250 cards or so... Ugh, Topps. I don't learn, though, I am gonna be buying more. It's a decent looking set. I don't like as much as 2011 and I will say that ripping '11 Updates was more exciting, had better photography and had more players on the right teams... Still, Topps is Topps and I love Topps Baseball cards, SO I will be chasing it...

As an endnote, we (the Bradentucky Bombers) opened our 2012 season with a bang - we beat (handily) the Miami Vice City Rollers. We had fun and left with no injuries, so win, win!

Troll out for real!

The Magic Number is Still 2...

Well I didn't get to see James Shields pitch a perfect game to clinch a playoff berth... That became evident quickly when he allowed a leadoff single to Ichiro. I also didn't see Carl Crawford hit for the cycle. I didn't even see him play. Joe Maddon gave a number of regulars the day off including Crawford, Longoria, Ben Zobrist and John Jaso. It was actually pretty cool seeing Rocco Baldeli and Desmond Jennings get the start. Zobrist and Jaso entered the game as pinch hitters, but the most exciting thing of the day for me was seeing Desmond Jennings hit his first big league triple. That dude can fly!!! I am terrified that this will be Carl Crawford's last year in Tampa Bay. He has been my favorite player for many years now and I don't want to think about the Rays without him. That said, I REALLY want to see Desmond Jennings on the opening day roster somewhere in 2011. Congrats on the first of many triples Desmond! By the way, I do not own this Obak Jennings card, but I would like to! Go Rays! troll out.

Oh No, Not Another Trade Post!!!

This post is meant to accomplish a few things. First I wanted to welcome a new (sort of) blogger to the Blog-O-Sphere Family. His name is Ryan and he is a fan and collector of all things Baltimore Orioles. Now there are already quite a few Orioles blogs out there and there are 3 of them that I can think of which are run by people named Ryan (first OR last name) so his blog title is super appropriate. It is called Oh No, Another Orioles Blog. I suppose he isn’t THAT new. He already has 22 posts AND 22 followers to his credit, but I am ALWAYS late, so naturally I am late on the welcome wagon. Anyway, a big blog-o-sphere welcome to ANOTHER Orioles blogger named Ryan. Okay, purpose number 2. Ryan and I made a trade and I wanted to post it. Actually Ryan sent me some cards and I owe him some, but I want to get these in the binder and off the desk, so here they are. I will start with some Topps cards he sent of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Enter purpose #3-to pimp my want lists. You can find my Rays Team Set list right HERE. Ryan found it and knocked a few cards off of it which is always appreciated. This brought me down to needing just 13 more cards for total Topps/D-Rays domination from 1997 to present. Of course that number will rise now that 2010 Topps Series 2 is out and I don’t have any of those YET, but anyway… I have mentioned that 2003 Topps is one of my favorites; I now need just one more card to finish that off. I barely remember Lee Stevens playing for the Devil Rays, but THAT’S BECAUSE HE NEVER PLAYED FOR THE DEVIL RAYS!!! His last game in the big leagues was in September of 2002 and he was with Cleveland. He did play in 18 games for the Indianapolis Indians (AAA) in 2003 before officially retiring, but those Indians are a Brewers affiliate. Maybe he got a non roster to spring training with Tampa Bay in 2003? Who knows? Anyway, Topps gave him a card, #541 in their set and I needed it and now I have it. Another name I can knock off my list is from 2005 Topps Updates, a Futures Game card of Delmon Young. I don’t know why or how I still need so many cards from ’05 Topps, it seems like I have 100s of dupes, but I still need 4 more cards. Huh. Of course the fourth and final purpose is to show off some SWEET Carl Crawford cards! Along with the team set cards he sent me some fresh new Carl Crawford’s for my growing collection. Shown here is a really dark scan of card #199 from 2000 Bowman. He included a few other CC Bowmans from the past few years that I might need as well. I have my box of CC cards next to my bed and I swear I am going to sort it soon! The thing about this package that I was most excited about was the 2010 Bowman stuff he sent. People are going apesh…t over this stuff. Mainly because Stephen Strasburg cards are selling for more money than a three bedroom fixer upper does in my neighborhood. For that reason I probably won’t buy any 2010 Bowman myself, but I am super fascinated by this product. I have seen most of the Rays cards on the ‘Bay, but now I own a few of them. I really like this shot of CC sliding in safe at home in Florida against the Fish. I think that was from the same series where both Aki and Bartlett were injured last year. Anyway, I have admired this one from a far. With so many people trying to pull a million dollar Strasburg card they are peddling the other “hits” from this set for next to nothing. As SS has yet to throw a pitch in the big leagues CC is a proven All Star and you can find his cards very cheap. I am on a mission to collect one of EVERY single 2010 Bowman there is of Crawford. This includes the one of ones, printing plates, EVERYTHING! I know that sounds a bit crazy especially considering that Ryan sent me the three coolest cards in the set already, but I never claimed to be a sane collector. I really like this Bowman throwback of CC styled after 1992. I never ripped a single pack of that either, but people went crazy after that as well. I did not like the rookie cards of guys in street clothes. Didn’t like them then, still don’t. I honestly don’t own a single 1992 Bowman card, but still I think this one; card #BT24 is super rad! The last CC from 2010 Bowman is super rad as well. It is card #BE 14 from the Bowman Expectations set and has CC on one side and the centerfielder of the future Desmond Jennings on the flip side. I think DJ is going to do big things in Tampa Bay, probably starting next year. He rounded out the 2010 Bowman fest with a couple of Rays starters who have a shot at being first time All Stars. I like the Price, the Garza is bland. I need to find a checklist to see who else I need. The last card I will show is probably my least favorite. I HATE variation backs; I am with the Night Owl on this one. Just don’t like em. As a super player collector I have to deal with them though and I can now scratch 2007 Topps Red Back off of my CC needs list. Thanks for all the great cards Ryan!!! There will be Orioles a plenty heading your way soon!!! As a trader he officially has the Troll Stamp of Approval, so go check out his blog RIGHT NOW!!! Now, if you have 2010 Bowman cards of Crawford or any Rays, get in touch and let’s make a deal! I despise printing plate 1 of 1s, but for some reason I want them all... I love this game, I love this hobby, and I love TRADING! Go Rays! Troll out.