Howdy, I am just getting home after attending the “Empty Bowls” benefit for the Manatee County Food Bank.
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
http://tampabaysportswasteland.blogspot.com/ and if you have ever spent any time at all watching sports in this area, that title will make total and complete sense to you… Anyway, Justin and I have traded quite a bit, but up until now it has been totally one-sided. He has sent me a ton of cards from MY want lists, covering 2008-2009 Topps Heritage, Allen and Ginter and random Rays cards, but I was never able to return the favor. We collect the same things-Rays
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…
http://1978topps.blogspot.com/ - Please check it out, I will start posting cards next week. Thanks again to Justin, you rock my friend!!! Many more awesome trades to post… Ed, Beardy, Mike, Alfredo and Jim-you guys are coming up very soon! Go Angels! Go Dodgers! Go Bombers!!! There is a Bombers bout this Sunday-is anyone coming out? Off to work, gotta run! Troll out.
It is tri-fold card from 1993 Upper Deck. It is styled after the 1912 T 202 cards. I think these came from 1993 Baseball Heroes, but this is honestly the first one I have EVER seen. I really love this card. It is a pain to store yes, but it is the ideal size for a blog header and this one features 4 of my favorite players of All Time who also happen to be majorly historically significant. It shows Larry Doby and Minnie Minoso on the sides, but the center picture shows Minoso, Joe Black, Doby and Monte Irvin. It’s awesome. 
The T202 header card didn’t arrive alone. He sent a fairly well stuffed envelope of goodies. This arrived well I had the poll up for the next player I should select. Matt picked Larry Doby as many of you did. The poll ended in a tie between Doby, Bill Mazeroski and Bill Madlock. I have yet to think of a tie breaker, but I certainly don’t mind picking up cards of any of those guys and Matt hooked it up with some great Doby cards to add to the binder. 
These first two had post its attached to them asking if they count as Doby cards. 
The answer is Yes! It does seem a little bit selfish of Gene Mauch to be SO much bigger than everyone else, but managers can be glory hounds. The Expos were my original childhood favorite team and these cards are super special to me. 
My true favorite Doby card in the bunch (other than the T202) is this one. It is a 2002 Topps Archives version of Doby’s 1954 Topps card which I don’t have YET. 
Of course I would rather have the original, but this card is all shiny and chromed out and pretty darn awesome in its own right. Next up are a trio of cards of former Devil Rays, Rays and Swallows infielder Akinori Iwamura. Aki is currently holding down second base for the Pittsburgh Pirates who got off to a surprisingly good start this year. Reality is setting in for the Bucs who have dropped to 7-8 after a humiliating 20-0 loss to the Brew Crew last night. 
Aki is holding down the leadoff spot for the young Bucs and is still waiting for his bat to wake up this season. The first card to show is this GOLD version of his 2008 Topps card, #243. I am obsessively trying to replace my lost GOLD cards and also trying to fill the Rays team sets in gold. This card gives me 9 (a full page!) for 2008. 
Also from ’08 Topps is this WBC card, #WBC4 of Aki representing Japan. The last Aki card comes from 2009 Goodwins and has a little swatch o’ jersey in the shape of an M at the base. 
From one former D-Rays leadoff hitter to another, this is a 1998 Pacific Paramount card #98 of Quinton McCracken. 
The D-Rays grabbed McCracken from the Rockies and he was the sparkplug of their Inaugural squad. I have been organizing my PC in my spare time this week and I have my Longoria binder straightened out and free of dupes. The dupes that are sorted out aren’t very fancy, but are up for trade if you are interested. 
Anyway, this one has a spot in the binder waiting for it. It is a 1st Issue stamped version of card #108 from 2008 Stadium Club. In person Longo is a super signer and I like the kids in background. I do feel bad for the beheaded girl in the back. The last card I will show from this awesome surprise package is from 2007 Fleer Ultra. 
Matt seems to be a magnet for Jonny Gomes cards. I think this is the 3rd auto or relic he has pulled and sent me. It is from the Dual Materials series and is serial numbered 136/160 and shows two bits of white jersey. I don’t know if you can tell from the scan, but there is dirt on the swatches. Awesome! Thanks so much Matt! Happy Birthday a few days early! I sent you a package, but you will probably get it a few days late, so it all evens out. Go Rays! Troll out.
who will have their own personal display case, too. The same will hold true for the Rays cards. I eliminated a few names from the list and a few people from the display case. I didn’t really intend on collecting BJ Upton specifically, but as I was sorting, I realized that I have more cards of him than anyone, so he gets his own collection by default-this was the same way that Scott Kazmir and Delmon Young earned their own slots, too. Other than them, Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena, Jason Bartlett, Jeff Niemann, Evan Longoria and Akinori Iwamura will be at the top of my list. Jonny Gomes, 
Brian Roberts and Pat Neshek now have their own personal (and pretty empty) binders and Danny Tartabull’s binder is alive and well and getting pretty full. I may upgrade the Bull’s home soon. The new player that I have decided to obsessively collect is original Devil Ray, Quinton McCracken. 
He was my favorite D-Ray back then and still stands as one of my favorites ever. His career was short-lived, but he really represented the hope of success for an expansion team. He was a leader in the outfield, the lead-off hitter, the spark plug of the team. He never really ignited the D-Rays into much, but the idea that he could gave fans hope. Anyway, I plan on chasing every single McCracken card, base cards and inserts, in a Devil Rays uniform. This is funny (to me) because the first card I saw in the envelope from the Night Owl was a Quinton McCracken card that I didn’t own. 
A 1999 Upper Deck Ovation, card #11 with the cool embossed baseball stitches in the background. 
I spent some time last night making a list of all of the Carl Crawford cards that I own last night and I am making a web page to track them. The page can be found here, for future reference, as it won't be done today, but soon... 
The other 3 cards came from the 2000 Upper Deck Gold Reserve set. 
These look pretty neat on the front, nice bright photos of Canseco, Hernandez and Vinny Castilla. The back of the cards, with these guys impressive career numbers are against a solid gold background. 
Wow, that is a little more gold than a Troll can handle… Thanks Night Owl for the SWEET ex-Rays and for sending along the final card in my quest for the Hoaxes set. I will get all of these scanned up and post the set tomorrow. By the way, I just resist starting this post with a scan of the super awesome card that the Night Owl sent me in his last trade package. I was drooling over it again last night and I noticed that it celebrates his Major League debut on July 20th and the serial number is 07/20, another reason why that card rocks! I should warn you all, I will probably post this one about 13 more times this year! Go Rays! Troll out.
When you mix 90’s technology with 80’s gaudy-cool, bad things happen. Generally, when you attach the name Skybox to baseball cards, bad (hideously ugly) things happen. This is one of the gaudiest, ugliest, dizzying sets ever, it may be the very reason that I disappeared from the hobby for 9 years. It is, if nothing else, attention grabbing and this post is about Quinton McCracken, an original Devil Ray. 1997 was a breakout year for the young McCracken. He hit .292 and stole 28 bases for the Rockies, but they left him unprotected and the Devil Rays stole him in the expansion draft with their 4th pick. He was the Devil Rays starting center fielder in their inaugural game; he was also their lead-off hitter. At 28, he had some big league experience, but was young enough to build around. He was off to a great start: he was named the American League Player of the Week after the first week of the season, and he batted .483 and scored 7 runs over that span. Along with Miguel Cairo (it was a double steal) he stole the first base in Rays history. He also scored the first run ever by a Devil Ray. He was the Devil Rays player of the year in 1998. Early into the 1999 season he tore his ACL and never really regained his prowess on the field or on the base paths. He spent the 2000 season in AAA, same with the 2001 season where he played for Edmonton in the Twins organization. He did establish two team records that year that held up for 11 seasons. He had 18 outfield assists in 1998; he had 2 in one game twice that year. As a team, the Devil Rays had 47 outfield assists in 1998. Both of those records still stand. McCracken also had an 18-game hitting streak in 1998. That record stood for 11 seasons, until last night when current Rays shortstop Jason Bartlett hit safely in his 19th consecutive game establishing a new team mark. Congrats to both Bartlett for setting the new standard and to McCracken for setting the bar high in his only full season with the team.
The back of the card shows a quote from Q which says “My goal would be to hit .300, to steal 30 or 40 bases, and score maybe a hundred or so runs…and play good defense.” He never reached those goals (other than the great defense), but he gave hope for a young team to succeed and his name lives on in my memory and in the record books.
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