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!
#80 Gary Sheffield Florida Marlins (Shef led the NL with a .465 OBP in ’96. He also had 42 homers, drove in 120 and scored 118 times. He walked 142 times while only striking out 66 times. How seldom he struck out was always impressive for a slugger. Over his career Shef struck out 1171 times against 1475 walks and 509 homers. His career .393 OBP is 11th among active players and 84th All Time)
#135 Shannon Stewart Toronto Blue Jays (I googled Shannon Stewart and this is the first thing that came up, I didn’t look any further)
#50 Steve Finley San Diego Padres (Steve Finley was a left handed, slap hitting, lead-off guy. In 1992 he hit .292 with 5 homers, 55 RBI and 44 steals. In the first 7 years of his career he never hit more than 11 homers and then 1996 rolled around and blammo! He hit 30 homers and drove in 95. That made me scratch my head a little. His brother in law Brady Anderson had a similar resurgence in Baltimore)
#148 Roger Clemens Common Checklist Toronto Blue Jays
#17 Ken Hill Texas Rangers
#145 Tony Clark Peak Performers Detroit Tigers (Tony was the 2nd overall player selected in the 1990 draft)
#16 Mike Piazza Los Angeles Dodgers (Piazza was a 62nd round pick in the 1988 draft, and was the 1993 NL Rookie of the Year)
#65 Will Clark Texas Rangers (Will the Thrill didn’t bring home a ROY Award or a ring or an MVP, but he’s still one of the most popular players out there… Popular with the fans, not necessarily with the Baseball Writers)
It was well-attended, very successful and a lot of fun! I ate some soup, did some schmoozing and came home with an awesome bowl! I will do my best to write a recap of the event on this here blog tomorrow! I covered it for the newspaper, too, so I need to see what they end up using, plus time is super limited and I want to post another trade. I am going to manage to get through the entire day without posting any more ’78 Topps cards-I can’t make that same promise tomorrow, but it is coming to a very good ending, trust me. So, over the past few months I have received a number of trade packages from Justin who lives in nearby Largo, Florida. Justin runs a blog with a super cool name, its called “Is This A Wasteland-No It’s Tampa Bay Sports”-you can find it at 
cards and Orioles stuff including Brian Roberts. 
I am a greedy guy and it’s hard for me to part with cards of my fav teams and players. Another thing that I have felt badly about is I’ve never really posted any of the cards that he has sent me. Maybe it was guilt from all the unreciprocated trades we’ve done, but more likely it was because most of the stuff he has sent me was super anticipated cards from my want lists that I couldn’t wait to get in their respective binders. Well, I am trying to be a more responsible blogger and trader, now. Plus, thanks to one of my “Trade Bait” posts, I finally had cards that he wanted and we are finally even. This makes me feel much, much better. I feel terribly guilty when I owe people cards. Anyway, this time around he also sent me a card that went straight to the binder, but it paused at the scanner for a moment, first. It is the FINAL short print that I needed for my 2009 Allen and Ginter set! 
It is card #312 of AJ Burnett, hired arm of the New York Yankees. I am a bit iffy about posting a Yankees card on the first day of the playoffs, but I posted Rays cards all season long and that didn’t help them win! I got the other two SPs (Curtis and Cameron) 
that I needed in the mail on Monday from a reader-THANK YOU!!!
Now, my Ginter binder has 349 cards in it. Everything that was promised has finally arrived; I actually have all of those cards in my possession! I do still need one more base card and anyone reading this is more than welcome to send it my way. It is card number 222. Justin also sent along 13 cards from the 2003 Topps set. I had almost no cards from this issue up till now and I really like the look of this set. 
The bold, bright blue borders on the base cards are sweet-looks similar to the blue parallels in this year’s Topps Chrome. I wish my stupid scanner was actually able to capture the coolness of the color… 
Included in the lot were Joe Kennedy, Ben Grieve, Esteban Yan, Greg Vaughn, Ryan Rupe, Toby Hall, John Flaherty, Mark Malaska
and current Royals pitcher Doug Waechter. He included a gold parallel, serial numbered Esteban Yan
and an Opening Day card of Carlos Pena from his Detroit Rock City days. 
There is also a Future Stars card of two All Star outfielders in Josh Hamilton and Carl Crawford. 
From the oddball department is a free I-Tunes download card included in Bowman Sterling with Evan Longoria on the front. 
It’s plastic and credit card like and it reminds me of the phone card cards from the early 90’s. As is customary for me, I saved the best stuff for last. As I mentioned in the intro, Justin is a resident of the proud sports Mecca that is Tampa Bay and he is also a frequent flyer at Tropicana Field. He is also aware of my Tampa Bay Rays autograph quest. The original parameters of the quest required the autographs to be on card of the player in a (Devil) Rays uniform. This has turned out to be pretty difficult and beggars can’t be choosers, so here we go! This is a 1997 Topps card, #443, of my favorite original Devil Ray, Quinton McCracken. 
The card is signed boldly across the bottom front in sharpie, and you can see, Q actually has a legible signature! Justin got this during the Inaugural Season at the Trop and hung onto it for 12 years before sharing the wealth, thank you so much! He didn’t stop there either; this next one was the jaw dropper for me… The Q card is awesome, but Q was a fan favorite who was friendly with the fans, so seeing an in-person autograph of him isn’t so much of a shocker. This final card is from the Upper Deck Vintage set, card number 77 of former Rookie of the Year, All Star and fav of the Night Owl, Hideo Nomo. 
I hate that the card is of Nomo on the Red Sox. A Devil Rays card would have been ideal, a Dodgers card would have been cool, but I really don’t like the idea of having a Red Sox card in my display case, BUT it is an autograph of Hideo Nomo, so I guess I must make exception. He did have a stellar year for Boston in 2001. He pitched a no-hitter in April-I think it was the first Sox no-hitter in like 30 years or so, and he went on to lead the AL in strikeouts, so I guess its okay. I had always understood that Nomo was nearly impossible to get autographs from, so I was super shocked with this one. I asked Justin about how he got it and he told me the story. It was at a Devil Rays fan fest where all of the players were required to sign autographs at a table for a half-hour or an hour. He did say that Nomo was pretty standoffish. He probably also had a line a million fans long. Three years ago I arrived at the preseason Fan Fest late and when I got on the field where players were signing I saw two LONG lines. Lines of more people than I had ever seen in the Trop at one time and I asked someone who was signing-thinking it had to be Carlos Pena
or Scott Kazmir or someone big. I was told that it was Pete LaForest and Greg Norton. No joke. Our fans might not ever pack the seats to go to games and cheer for our team, but they do know how to show up anywhere you can get something for free. That said these two autographs are awesome!!! I have gathered up over 60 autographs on cards so far and thanks to rad people like Justin, that number is getting bigger every day. Thanks so much for the great trade my friend!!! Thanks to anyone who read this. Tomorrow will hopefully bring a short write-up on the Empty Bowls fundraiser and hopefully there will be one more big post about 1978 Topps. It’s a good story and once it is told, the ’78 stories will be relegated to the brand new blog… 
First one is the legendary Fred McGriff from one of my old favorite sets, the Pacific Crown, this one being from 1999. The second is of Carl Crawford, cut out in the shape of an X.
Last week I had posted the Rays minis that I was so lucky to receive in the mail. I am speaking of 2009 Allen and Ginter minis. I had mentioned that will all of those cards I needed only Aki, Kaz, Upton and Pena to have everyone. 
Now, thanks to Greg, I need only Kazmir and Pena. Oh, somehow I had forgotten about Pat Burrell. I guess I need him, too. Greg also upgraded my regular back cards of Longoria and Garza to Ginter backs. I will probably eventually try and chase regular backs, Ginter backs and then Bazooka backs (I don't have any of these) of all of the Rays... I am so glad I finished this set, but it was really a lot of fun, the retail killed me though. I am trying to get in a better financial position and that is hard to do when your buying 4 blasters a week, but I am officially done buying them. I have plenty to trade, but will wax-free for a while now...That said, I am seriously considering chasing the Creatures, Hoaxes and Inventions of the Future. Am I crazy or do I just not want to say goodbye to Allen and Ginter?
I am down to needing 45 cards to finish this bad boy. He also sent some Chrome, Bowman and other random things and I think all of them were new to me, but I don’t have a ton of time right now, so I am going to skip around a bit and get to this O Pee Chee black bordered Moments card of Evan Longoria. 
This is the second time that the Night Owl has sent me some OPC and this is another one off of my team set list. I am getting close… This next card surprised me. It surprised me that the Night Owl would give it up. It is a 2005 Throwback Threads, card #109 of one of his favorite Dodgers All-Time, 
Mr. Hideo Nomo. Some don’t realize this, but Nomo spent part of a season in Tampa Bay with the Rays. It was in 2005 and I wasn’t following baseball too close that year, I was busy falling in love and jumping out of airplanes with my lovely bride (to be in 2005), so I missed Nomo on the Rays. Looking back at his stats, I didn’t miss much. Nomo was 5-8 with a 7.24 ERA in 2005 for TB. He was released but not before he recorded his 200th career win (US+Japan). Over his career in the States, Nomo was 123-109 with his best years coming as a Dodger. He topped 200ks 4 times and pitched two no-hitters, one in each league. He showed some fire and potential with the Red Sox in 2001 and then returned to LA for two more solid years. He was the Rookie of the Year in 1995, the same year that he started the All Star game and shut down the AL for two innings, but what surprised me was that was his only All Star appearance. Huh. I do need to get ready for work, so I should start tying this thing together. I will post one last card from this package and yes, I did save the best for last. When the Night Owl stumbled across this card, I begged him for it. He told me what he wanted in return and I began the Man (card) Hunt. It took me two weeks, but I finally found a Kershaw auto that I could send him in return. By that time, NO had already consented to trade the card to another blogger, I was a little disappointed, but I understood. I told the Owl not to worry about it and I would send him the Kershaw card anyway (I still need to get that in the mail, sorry!), but then… I got that fateful e-mail. His trader backed out so I could have the card! Whoever that mystery trader was, I owe them thanks. Anyway, here is the card in all of its Pristine Glory. Night Owl had said that it was thick, but this card is seriously 3/16 of an inch thick! I never have seen a card this thick! It instantly becomes the cornerstone of my collection and my favorite card. I am working on creating a page for my Carl Crawford collection, complete with list and all and I am so glad to add this to it. I just hope I can find a case that will hold it. It goes beyond 120PT stock. Here it is, the pinnacle of my collection, the coolest card in the world, from the 2007 Upper Deck Exquisite Rookie Signatures Baseball, card number GDD-CC of Carl Crawford! The card is serial numbered 07/20 and celebrates Craw’s major league debut on July 20, 2002. 
This card rocks! I have got so many awesome trades lately, I really didn’t need anything to get me excited about collecting again, but this card has me smiling big. I have nearly forgotten about my stupid phone, this hot house, my empty wallet and poems about plums. THANKS NIGHT OWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I show pics of my Dog, Emma on this blog so often, I thought I would end today's post with a picture of my kitty cat. Her name is Sally and she has been my loyal companion for over 15 years now. She is a Rays fan, too, but refuses to wear the Rays helmet with ear holes that I got for her. Go Rays! troll out.
