Okay, so when I started writing this I didn't realize it was POST #600. I knew I was close, but I didn't know I was that close... I didn't have anything special planned, but I did want it to be wordy with a lot of pictures-a typical Troll post. I think this exemplifies that just fine, plus it shows off some great new cards from an awesome blogger. Since it is a milestone post I am going to add in a bonus card. This came in the FIRST pack (jumbo rack) of Series 2 Topps I bought. It is the FIRST Rays HIT card I have EVER pulled myself. Please read on...The rest of the blog-o-sphere is completely Allen and Ginter crazy. I am not complaining. They are great cards and I can’t wait till I have the funds to get my mitts on my box. For those of you who want your Ginter fix, but can’t swing the bucks for a box there is a great case break at Long Fly Ball to Because… where you can get a case worth of cards of your favorite team for less than half the price of a box. 
Go check it out and tell him the Troll sent you! I am not going to end the post here. Even if I had the cash to order my box I wouldn’t have time to post it. My desk is still full of unposted cards. Rather than waste my time being bitter that I am not in the Ginter party I am going to use my time wisely and try and post up some of the great cards I have received this year. I have said before that I don’t have a specific favorite person to trade with. Actually I am pretty lucky that there are about 10 bloggers who send me a package like clockwork every month or so. These folks rock! They rock because they aren’t prearranged trades; they are awesome surprise packages that make my day. I have received at least 4 of these packages from Madding at Cards on Cards that I haven’t posted. Some great relics and other Rays awesomeness. This package I am posting today is the most recent surprise pack I got from my favorite Cardinals fan. Now I will say that I have gotten plenty of “mojo hits” from CoC in the past, but you won’t see any in this post. This trade rocks because it was SUPER thoughtful. Sometimes I post about wanting a certain card and wonder if anyone is reading, well apparently someone was cuz I got it! Anyway, without further adieu, here are some of the highlights for me from my latest trade pack from Cards on Cards…First up from the 2002 Donruss Super Estrellas set, card #92 of Greg Vaughn.
I was never a Vaughn fan when he was with the D-Rays, or before or after for that matter. This card rules because I love this set and it is the only D-Rays player in it. 2001 was a lean year in Tampa Bay and Vaughn’s 24 homers were enough to attract National attention. As a Mexican-American I enjoy cards geared towards Spanish speaking people and this set is ALL Spanish. Super Estrellas translates to Super Stars and yes “super” has the same meaning in both languages. Next up is another favorite obscure set of mine. This one is special for different reasons. It is a 2000 Royal Rookies card of Charleston Riverdogs (D-Rays) shortstop Ramon Soler. Soler stole 46 bases in low A ball in 1999. That would be his career high. He spent 5 years in the minors getting a cup of coffee with the Norfolk Tides (Mets) in 2002. That would be his highest level; he never sniffed the big leagues. 
This card is rad because Royal Rookies was one of the worst card companies ever and I took this picture and never got paid for it. Next time you get upset with a card company, google Royal Rookies and remember that it could be worse... I am psyched to at least have a copy of the card now… Next up is a great card of my favorite player of all time, the great ballplayer and humanitarian Roberto Clemente. I try to collect any cards of Clemente I can get my hands on. His vintage stuff is a little out of my league, but I do enjoy his modern stuff as well. 
This card looks AWESOME! It is a 2009 Topps refractor, card #GR-9. This is one of those cards you get as a bonus for buying the cereal box. 
I am pretty sure that is the only way you can get one. I love it! From the greatest ballplayer of all time to one of my favorite players who never really made it, former Devil Rays third baseman Jared Sandberg. This one is a 1999 Bowman Chrome, card #118. 
The front of the scan looks awful in the scan, so I scanned the back. I am on an active mission to collect one of every card every made of the less famous Mr. Sandberg. Thanks to Madding I have a complete list of all of his cards. His career wasn’t too long, but with all the parallels out there I still have a long way to go. I do appreciate getting his cards whenever I can. Another player that I am trying to collect completely is Danny Tartabull. The Bull was my favorite player as a kid and the first player I ever collected. I still have the original binder my Mom got me when I was 10 years old for my collection and fortunately still have most of the cards, too. I stopped collecting Tartabull after he signed with the Yankees. Enough years have past that I have forgiven him for playing for such an awful team and now I am catching up on his pinstriped cards. 
Madding sent me several I needed including this die-cut, foil gem from 1994 SP. The card is number 200 in the set and the back of the card mentions that when Tartabull hit 31 homers and drove in 102 runs for the Bronx Bombers in 1993 he was the first Yankees to top the 30/100 plateaus since Donny Baseball did it in 1987. Of course MANY have done it since, but the Bull brought it back in style! Another Tartabull I needed is this card from 1995 Topps Finest. 
I have started and stopped collecting so many times it is ridiculous. I have also started collecting specific brands only. In 1995 I did that. Topps Finest and Bowman are Best. I ripped both products like crazy. The Bowman’s Best cards are long gone, but I still have some of the Finest cards. I swear I will put together a want list and finish that set someday. For now I am glad to have the Tartabull card. I am really glad that Finest ditched the “protective coating” stamps all over the face of these cards, I am also on the lookout for the refractor version of this card and all of the Bull’s Finest releases. I don’t have ANY. He also included a White Sox card that I didn’t have. Card #356 of Tartabull from 1996 Pinnacle. 
The Bull had resurgence with the Chi Sox in 1995 when he topped 100 RBIs for the fifth and final time of his career. Batting between Frank Thomas and Harold Baines would be a luxury for any slugger, but still… 
The final Danny Tartabull card he sent in this package was this card from 1995 Upper Deck SE, card #9 of Tartabull in full foil. Shifting back to pseudo vintage and one of Roberto Clemente’s former teammates, this is a 2008 Goudey card, #151 of the starting second baseman on the All-Troll-All-Time-All-Star-Team Bill Mazeroski. 
A wizard with the glove who also hit a very famous homerun that won the Bucs the World Series against the seemingly unbeatable Yankees. I am going to try and get this one signed. I am running out of time but I will post two more cards. Each one is serial numbered and shows players I collect who are also starting for the American League in the 2010 All Star Game. First up is card #95 from 2010 Topps Series 1. 
This is the gold parallel version of Carl Crawford. I am collecting the team set in gold. Thanks to trades I finished series 2 before I bought a single pack, but I am only halfway to series 1. I love the CC! Now if only someone would send me the platinum… Another sweet colored and numbered parallel is card #99 from 2010 Topps Opening Day, the BLUE version of David Price. 
It’s a little ironic that Price is in this set considering he wasn’t in the opening day lineup, but it is a great card nonetheless. To Madding of Cards on Cards – I owe you a HUGE thank you sir!!! You should be getting a package from me later next week. All of the goodies from the long overdue group break and some odds and ends I have gathered over the past few months. To anyone interested I did finally arrange for the proper adult supervision and ripped into a few cans of cards. 
These will be posted on A Pack To Be Named Later very soon. If you haven’t checked out Cards on Cards yet, do yourself a favor and check it out right now! It aint just for Cards fans… I started this post talking about 2010 Ginter. Well, Cards on Cards is part of the Gint-A-Cuffs battle. He has pulled a Carl Crawford mini AND a spinosaurus so far. I repeat, check it out! To anyone reading that wants to get their trade on, please shoot me an email. If you sent me a package and I either owe you a return package OR you were hoping I would post it and haven’t yet, PLEASE send me a reminder. I’m not being a jerk; I am just really behind and really scatterbrained… Another end note... I know blog milestones are normally coupled with contests. I have 2 coming up, but I will be honest-I just don't have the time to keep up with a contest right now. One of them will be the "guess how many different Carl Crawford cards the Troll has". My wife has promised to help me attack the many stacks of cards all over the house to sort out the CC cards so I can get a count. 
Once I get all of the group break stuff ripped, packed and shipped I will post one so stay tuned! Thanks again to Cards on Cards for making my week with these cards and making my day again today as I flipped through them again. To all the new traders and bloggers-take this trade as some advice... You don't need to send people autograph relic cards or one of ones to make a great trade package. If you read someone's blog you can score WAY MORE trade points hooking them up with inexpensive cards they really want and will enjoy. Just a little message from experience. One more postnote... I need addresses to ship cards. If you have the Tigers, Astros, Angels, Giants, Pirates, Rockies, Yankees, Mets or A's-I have probably misplaced your mailing address. Anthony K, the Astros fan, I got your cards from the first break returned to sender so you will be getting a REALLY big box of cards this time around... Anyway, please shoot me an email at bacontowne at yahoo dot com. Thanks! I love this game, I love this hobby and I love this community!!! Oh, one last end note before I leave for work... Congrats to Rafael Soriano for being the 4th Rays player on the All Star team. He is 2-0 with a 1.65 ERA and 23 saves. You deserve it Sor! Go Rays! Troll out.
A huge thanks goes to reader Claudia for this autographed Mad Dog postcard. I certainly don’t mind collecting any of these players, but I am not SUPER collecting just yet.
That list includes Jared Sandberg, Jonny Gomes, Joe Kennedy, Ben Grieve, Quinton McCracken, Dewon Brazelton and now, the newest addition, Dave Martinez. 
I posted this card a few weeks back and was a little bummed that it didn’t get a reaction, so I will post it again. I got to talk with Dave at length during spring training this year. I was writing a feature on the 1998 Devil Rays Inaugural Season and since Martinez posted the organizations first ever hit, he factored prominently in the story. 
At the end of our talk I brought up card blogs and he confided that reading them was a guilty pleasure of his. He also mentioned one of favorite haunts and I pulled this card out of my bag for him to sign for the Troll. This is officially the 4th “To Troll” card in the collection. I may post the others someday. I have begun sorting out my Dave Martinez Rays cards and he now fills a few pages in the binder. If you are curious I have zero interest in cards of him on the Cubs, Reds or White Sox or any team other than the Rays. If you are further curious, he has been known to swing the bat in BP every now and then and I believe I would much rather have him in the lineup than Pat the Bat. Anyway… This is all just a prelude to a pair of actual posts which are coming. One is a trade that nearly wiped out my team set needs and the other is the unveiling of my new player collection… Oh, speaking of player collections... Here are 2 gems that 
and this '06 SP Gomes. These got completely buried and never got posted. 
I hope to sort through and binderize the Carl Crawford collection soon. I can't decide what to do with autos and relics. The thin ones fit in pages fine, but thicker cards don't. I have some super special CC cards in the display case, but I really want to have ALL of my CC cards together. Any suggestions? Stay tuned! Oh, thanks to everyone (all 4 of you) who entered my shopping spree contest. Roof God was half right and Play at the Plate was correct. I don't have any Rangers or Tigers relics or '65s, but I do have a few to pick from. Send me an email please... Go Rays! Troll out.
I wanted to join in the fun, but I had 50 weeks to wait. I probably should have had the post perfected long in advance, but I am the King of Procrastination and that goes against my one rule. Anyway, the 
After waking my wifey, I read 
Oh, I also stopped at the Post Office and I can finally hold the Al Kaline card in my hands. I get to enjoy it this weekend before it gets shipped off to its new owner. 
Anyway... Long story short, I am rushing off to work feeling delusional. Back to this morning, 5 AMish-in between reading and writing I pushed out a quick and silly post of my own that you may or may not have read. Well, it was an April Fools post, but I can’t say I was pleased with it and it certainly didn’t take care of my Fool Itch. I guess, much like the Chicago Cubs, I will have to wait till next year. So there is another 9 hours left in the day. I have another 16 hours to spend at work and I am totally delirious from sleep deprivation. I seriously cannot see straight nor can I think straight. I am wiped out. Drained beyond belief, but I can’t sleep at work, so if I have to keep my eyes open, I might as well be typing. I don’t know what I have saved on my flash drive, but I will do my best to patch together a couple of semi-coherent posts. They will be real posts. As real as I can muster. 
They won’t be fake though. Since I am here anyway, here is a serious addition to my Jared Sandberg player collection. I am bringing back feature that I have tried once or twice in the past, 
A 2003 UD Sweet Spot base card, #117 of Sandberg. The back of the card cites Sandberg hitting 18 homers in only 358 at-bats in 2002. Of course he sent a TON of other great stuff too that I NEED to get posted including a record 11 different autographed cards. 
The next card in this 3 from 3 came from the aforementioned genius, Dayf-formerly the 
I still have yet to get around to scanning the cards and I am about 3 months behind in trade posts, but I did pull out this sweet Sandberg card for this 3 From 3 post. It is from the 2003 Upper Deck Vintage set, card #63. 2003 UDV is one of my favorite sets from the 2000s because it is styled after one of my favorite sets of the 1960s.
Just another reason why cards are better than stamps… The 3rd card in this special 3 from 3 came from my favorite Texan, 
He even managed to dig up this 2001 Fleer Premium Sandberg card. It is #230 in the set and it is serial numbered 0400/1999. 
Thanks to all 3 of these amazing friends and super amazing bloggers for these 3 fresh and new Jared Sandberg cards for my personal collection plus everything else that each of them sent. Between the 3 I have about 1,000 unposted cards-no joke. 
That’s right, I now have the complete collection of Sandberg relics.To go along with a 2002 Bowman Freshman Fiber jersey relic, 
Quadrafecta complete! The collection is growing… Off to work… Go Rays! Troll out!
It isn’t quite a Rays relic, but its Rays era and it celebrates Bartlett making his first All Star appearance, plus the card is numbered to 50. Now, onto 
It is card #85 and shows my fav outfielder of my youth in a stupid Yankees uniform, but this card has a little stamp in the corner that says “
This card is special because it was from that time frame, but also because it is my first 
This card is from the 1999 Bowman set, card #BA57 with a nice bold blue signature across the front. Now I have officially completed the Trifecta for Sandberg, owning his rookie, a jersey relic and now a certified autograph. If I can find a bat relic, I will be ALL SET! I have been collecting Tartabull for 25 years now and I still don’t have the Trifecta of him, lacking a relic card. If anyone has ANY cards of Sandberg or Tartabull, please get in touch. I am still looking for a good idea to break the tie between Maz, Mad Dog and Doby, too. Off to work... That is all for now… Contest will be posted tomorrow, by hook or by crook! Thanks for reading! Go Rays! troll out.
I know it’s a pretty long list, but I like a lot of players… With all those guys being current players and having 6 million cards made per year with each of those cards having 7 billion parallels with 1 of 1s of each, I can’t be the obsessive collector that I want to be. 
I am still hunting any card I can of all of those players and I won’t ever turn down a 1 of 1, but I can’t call myself a SUPER COLLECTOR if I don’t collect (read: own) every card made of them and I can’t afford that nor can I can track down every card made of those guys. My mission for those 11 current players will be to collect every Topps made regular issue card plus gold versions, refractors, X-Fractors and colored refractor versions.
That seems possible, right? Since I am obsessively obsessive compulsive, I can’t collect something if there isn’t a chance to collect everything. I have decided to dedicate myself to doing that with Danny Tartabull and Jared Sandberg. 
I have a huge head start on Tartabull as he was my childhood favorite and I am at 20% completion of the Jared Sandberg catalog and thanks to Madding of 
I do know that my most wanted cards will include Sandberg’s Bowman Certified Autos from 1998 and 1999 as well as Tartabull’s 1993 Finest Refractor. Other than an occasional odd ball or team issue, I think that I have EVERY Tartabull card prior to him signing with the Yankees as that was when I stopped following him. I do not own any relics or certified autos of Tartabull. For that matter I don’t have any serial numbered cards of him or any of the 1997 Flair Showcase Legacy cards. 
My most wanted card of him (and his rarest) is the 2005 Topps Rookie Cup Reprints jersey relic card. I HOPE I can track one of those down… Anyway, beyond those 2 guys I want to add one more former player to the mix. 
All 23 of these guys are favorites of mine for different reasons. Some I grew up watching, some were great interviews, some were just nice to me, some were players I read about as a kid... The prerequisite is that they must have at least one relic card available (jersey, bat, stadium seat, etc) and one certified autograph available. Ideally they would have less than 200 total cards and nothing insanely priced. I have narrowed it down some, but every time I think I have made up my mind I begin to have second thoughts. 
That said, I thought I would put it up for a vote and let the blog-o-sphere decide for me. I will leave the poll open for a week and whoever comes out on top will be the 3rd and final player that I super collect. Sound good? Thanks in advance for all of your help. Incidentally, I like EVERYONE on this list and will gladly trade for any of their cards. As you can see by the length of this list, I am all over the place and really can’t make up my mind… Oh, another contingency is that there must be a 
To further elaborate my indecisiveness-this morning I had made up my mind that it would be Don Newcombe. This afternoon I changed my mind because I was certain that Roy Face was the only player I wanted to collect. Roy Face is still the mental leader (in my head I mean) but I need help! I tried to include images of a few of the potential candidates for your viewing pleasure... Happy voting! Go Rays! Troll out.
