Its All Been Downhill in Trollvlle Since September 4, 2009...OR Shannon Stewart and Marisa Miller Say Bring on the Hits!

September 9th was my ex-wife's birthday. I had intended to wish her a happy birthday, but I don't think I posted that day. I know it is typical to be mortal enemies with your ex, but as we have a wonderful child together, we have managed to stay good friends. In fact one day soon my lovely Wife, my ex-wife and our amazing son have a very exciting announcement to make... Stay tuned for that. Anyway, I didn't post on September 9th, but everyone's favorite nocturnal blue birdy blogger did. You can read it here. You probably read it already, he has a pretty popular blog and with Miss Marisa Miller helping him out that day I know he had a ton of views. I for one was a bit surprised to see Miss Miller, a known Chicago Cubs fan on a Dodgers blog.

While now you can see her on a Rays blog, too... Okay, back on track. For those who remember seeing Marisa on the Night Owl, but don't remember why -It was, in fact, page views (and not swimsuit models) that were the topic of his post that day. He mentioned that those of us who us who use Blogger to host our pages can now get stats on our blogs. I was unaware of this little feature and being a stat lover myself, I was immediately fascinated. I do pay attention to how many visitors I get to my blog each day, week, etc., but I didn't know I could see what pages people were looking at. The Night Owl (as he generally does) got us all thinking. Being a stat guy, as well as somewhat of an ego maniac, as soon as I finished reading his post that day (which incited 15 comments by the way) I checked my own stats. At the time last year that I was actually posting daily, sometimes 2 and 3 times daily on as many as 4 different blogs, I got a lot of traffic. Nowadays my visitors are few and far between. I get it. Why visit a blog that isn't updated, thats silly. ANYWAY... the blogger stats revealed some interesting and surprising things. I have made some posts that I am pretty proud of. Some posts took me hours or days to research. Some posts took hours to scan and upload all of the images. It seems that those posts got a few clicks when they were fresh, but I was quite surprised to learn what my most popular post ever was. It came on September 4, 2009. A little over a year ago and yes it has all been downhill since... Now, in the Night Owl post he mentioned some things that attract visitors, namely pictures of hot girls and rare cards. Regular readers of mine know that from time to time I post pics of models who share names with baseball players... Yes, I have about a dozen pics ( I actually have more, but not all of them are appropriate for this all ages blog) of Shannon Stewart mixed in with my card scans and from time to time I bust them out (like right now) BUT Ms. Stewart is the not the lure that brings new folks to my blog. My best post ever? Like I said, it was on 9-04-2009. It had just 2 pictures on it and they were both REALLY small and hard to see. Yes, it took me over a year of blogging to realize that you could change the size of the images you upload. Anyhoo... THIS is the post that reels them in. If you don't feel like clicking, this was the primary image in that post. The subject was Bronson Arroyo and a TTM request that I sent him. Like I said, I am stat obsessed. I used to keep a log book of how many "hits" my blogs got on a daily basis. According to my log book the Troll family of blogs took in over 400 clicks that day. Pretty cool, but Bronson KEEPS ON BRINGING you to me... This post had 11 comments, which is among the most I have gotten without giving something away. I guess that is a mark of a good post. I remember when I put it up. I didn't plan on that as my topic that day, but I was short on time and wanted to put something up. Little did I know that would be my top post ever. That Arroyo post has had 76 views this week, 215 views this month and over a thousand views over the last 12 months. Wow. I don't get it at all. My next best post is this one... It was listed on 12-26-2009. It was a pack rip of 1997 Pinnacle X Press that my Father ripped on Christmas Day. Another quick post. No rare cards, no hot girls. It didn't even have a pic of my Dad in it. Weird. Third best is this one. It was a contest. Bloggers vote for the Hall of Fame on 8-31-2009. It had a ton of hits back then. I was giving stuff away, but its weird that this month over 100 people have checked it out LONG after all of the prizes were given away. I don't get it.

Anyway, thanks for reading this ego driven post. I can't make any sense of it. None of my most popular posts have pictures of pretty ladies or rare cards. Heck, they aren't even good. I clicked on them to find the link, but I couldn't bring myself to re-read any of them... One last thing on this topic before I sign off... The stats page also tells you the main referrers of visitors to my blog. That said I owe a huge thanks to The Sports Card Blog Roll, My Past Time...I Love It! and the Cardboard Junkie. Thanks of course to the Night Owl for inspiring this post and thanks to everyone who has stumbled in here for whatever reason. Stats are fun, knowing that people read this dribble is cool, but knowing that the most people who visit this blog are here because they want to know if Bronson Arroyo signed my cards. Weirdness. What is even weirder is that anyone actually read this far considering the first line of this post mentions my ex-wifes birthday... Not really a line that hooks the reader. I should really just stick with Shannon Stewart... Oh, if you are wondering about the pics on this post. I went with hot girls and vintage cards cuz I want the hits! This blog is 6000 visitors away from hitting 100K... There WILL be a contest whether it takes a month or a year to get there. Also, still waiting for someone who wants my Million Card Giveawy cards. Anyone? Also, still need some addresses for the group break. Get in touch if your name is in yellow... Go Rays! Troll out.

Topps Million Card Giveaway... My 9 This Time - Unlocking the Awesome - Prepare to be Awed...

It has been a LONG time since I bought a pack of cards. A really long time. This weekend I bit and picked up one of the 15 dollar value packs from Wal Mart. It comes with 6 packs of Topps Series 2, a chrome card, a hobby pack of Allen and Ginter and a Topps Million code card. I got another code card in one of the packs and I decided that last night would be redemption day. I had a few code cards tucked away for a rainy day and it was very rainy this weekend, so I crossed my fingers and redeemed them all. I had said after my first redemption many months ago that I didn't plan on having any cards shipped to me. Had I got something from the fifties or 60s I might have changed my tune. Guess what? My tune remains the same. This means there are 9 cards sitting in cyberspace somewhere that have my name on them. Out of my last 9 redemptions I unlocked 2 Hall of Famers and 3 cards from the 70's. Not too bad I guess. Unfortunately, the Hall of Famers come from 1987 and 1990 and the cards from the 70's are NOT Hall of Famers. Needless to say I will not be getting these shipped to me. I thought about pooling them all together to trade for a '65 Topps card I needed, but that seems like too much work and I am a very lazy Troll... Plus I would still have to cough up a credit card to have them shipped. Had I unlocked a '56 Clemente it would be well worth it. I didn't. SO... I am offering up these 9 super awesome cards to the first person to claim them. If you can offer me 1 (one) single card from anyone of my wantlists I would consider that more than fair. Normal rules apply. Comment to claim them and then e-mail me for details. By the way, the highlight of my unlocking is this 1972 Topps card of All Star catcher Ray Fosse. Fosse was twice an All Star but only played in one game. Everyone remembers him blocking the plate and getting bulldozed, but he also had 2 hits and an RBI too. The next oldest card is this 1976 of Padres pitcher Dave Freisleben. Also included is the Braves team card from 1977 and junk wax goodness featuring Steve Sax, John Jaha, Mike Lansing and Hank Blalock... Actually, the 1998 Mike Lansing wasn't an unlocked card, it was what I had traded my last bunch of cards for. Still, even Mike Lansing must go. Who wants em? Oh, for those keeping track, I have now unlocked 18 cards and the 1971 Diego Segui (already traded already...) is the oldest card I have unlocked. I forget who the newest card was, but it was 2008. Incidentally, the title for this post was intended to be sarcastic...Oh, I HAVE had a few trade offers on these cards - someone actually offered up a Shannon Stewart for the Braves team card. Obviously they read my blog and know what a huge fan of Shannon Stewart I am. Unfortunately when I clicked on the offered card it was NOT this Shannon Stewart... Go Rays! Troll out.

The First Ever Collective Troll Group Box Break is Done!!! The Last Pack and the Final Tally...READ IT BABY!!!

This is it. The first Collective Troll junk wax group box break is done and over with. Two months and 90 packs later and we have reached the Final Pack of 1997 Pinnacle X Press. Please scroll down because I have the stats for each team posted along with some important info for the break upcoming. Here we go!
#47 Albert Belle Chicago White Sox (Belle led the American League with 148 RBI in 1996 and he drove in 100 or more runs in each of his last 9 seasons in the Majors averaging 126 per year) #133 Matt Morris St. Louis Cardinals (The former Seton Hall Pirate was the Cards 1st round pick in 1995. He made his MLB debut in 1997 and had a great rookie campaign and finished second in the Rookie of the Year vote behind Scott Rolen. On the mound he posted a 12-9 mark with a 3.19 ERA in 33 starts. At the plate he batted .205 with 6 RBI)
#53 Javier Lopez Atlanta Braves
#129 Brian Giles Cleveland Indians (Giles was a 17th Round draft choice who spent seven years in the Cleveland Indians minor league system. The Indians traded him to Pittsburgh in exchange for Ricardo Rincon before the 1999 season and in his first full season he hit .315 with 39 homers and 115 RBI for the Bucs. Over the next 4 years he averaged 37 homers a year. In August of 2003 the Pirates sent him to San Diego as part of a package that brought them Jason Bay. He hit .191 in 39 games for the Padres last year. He currently has 287 career homers)
#??? Swing for the Fences Game Card -4
#52 John Smoltz Atlanta Braves
#90 Edgar Renteria Florida Marlins (At age 21 Renteria stole 32 bases for the World Champion Marlins in 1997)
#87 Jason Giambi Oakland A’s (Giambi made it into 140 games as a utility man in ’96. He shared time with Scott Brosius at 3rd, McGwire at 1st, Berroa at DH and Phil Plantier in left field. The Oakland A’s hit 243 homers that year and the Giambino accounted for 8% of them. He may have hit more had he spent less time sitting on second base pouting)
Now, stick around for the final tally and some important announcements….
Here are the final statistics of who is getting what cards… In no particular order, this is the breakdown for each of the 28 teams.
Atlanta Braves 66 cards
Baltimore Orioles 47 cards
Boston Red Sox 35 cards
California Angels 44 cards
Chicago Cubs 36 cards
Chicago White Sox 22 cards
Cincinnati Reds 31 cards
Cleveland Indians 28 cards
Colorado Rockies 48 cards
Detroit Tigers 39 cards
Florida Marlins 51 cards
Houston Astros 26 cards
Kansas City Royals 37 cards
Los Angeles Dodgers 37 cards
Milwaukee Brewers 48 cards
Minnesota Twins 25 cards
New York Mets 28 cards
New York Yankees 56 cards
Oakland A’s 32 cards
Philadelphia Phillies 30 cards
Pittsburgh Pirates 18 cards
San Diego Padres 44 cards
San Francisco Giants 33 cards
Seattle Mariners 48 cards
St. Louis Cardinals 27 cards
Texas Rangers 54 cards
Toronto Blue Jays 50 cards
Shannon Stewart says: “Please read on, there is some important stuff here”.
I think that covers every team. It seemed after the first pack that the Braves would run away with the “most cards” crown. They did. Out of 84 packs in the break, 66 of them yielded an Atlanta Braves card. That is 79%. In second place were the New York Yankees with 56 cards, in third place-the Texas Rangers had 54 cards. In 4th place are the Florida Marlins with 51 cards and the Blue Jays took 5th place with 50 cards. The Rockies, Brewers and Mariners were all REALLY close. The worst yield belonged to the Pittsburgh Pirates with 18 cards (21%). When ya think about it, 21% aint too bad. I’ve ripped two blasters without getting a single Rays card before. Everyone’s packages have been shipped and should be received shortly. I have NOT shipped the Phillies, Rockies or White Sox. If you had those teams, PLEASE get in touch. You have till Monday to send me an email. If you DON’T, the cards from your team will go into the second break and … Just get in touch, okay? The next box break will begin shortly. My parent’s scanner bit the dust, so I am a Troll without a scanner. I want to get one for home before I begin the next break. The next one will be run MUCH differently. I will NOT be posting all of the packs. I will post the first pack from each box and any packs that have hits in them. Then, I will post all of the highlights and the break-down of how many cards were pulled for each team. One of each pack will also be posted on A Pack to be Named Later and the link will be posted here. There are more than twice as many packs in this break compared to the last one, plus there will be a lot more variety since the packs will range from 1989 up till 2009 and maybe even a few from 2010 if those ever appear in my neck of the woods. With regards to the newer teams in MLB, the Washington Nationals will go to the person who claimed the Montreal Expos. I (the break moderator) will take the Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks and any cards with multiple players from different teams. This break is complete. The next break (which is called Group Box Break 2010 in tags) will commence as soon as I get a scanner. I should note that when I shipped everyone’s cards yesterday a few of you got selected for bonuses beyond random cards. I included a total of 5 relic cards and 5 autographs randomly with your cards. I will try and do the same thing with the next break. I might post the total from the post office receipt as a warning for anyone else planning on doing this. It has been worth it. I have had a blast, met some new people and lessened my card load by about 1,000 cards (in addition to all the break cards), so I am pretty happy. I will NOT be doing anymore breaks after spring training starts. It’s been fun, but I want to keep the blog available to post “Rays win, Rays win!” Before I sign off I need to send another thank you to Adam E of the Thoughts and Sox blog for providing all of the mailers for this break. Thanks Adam!!! Go Rays! Troll out.

IT IS DONE!!! The Last Pack of 1994 Pinnacle is Ripped and Gone, Woo Hoo!!!

This is it, this is the FINAL pack of 1994 Pinnacle!!! We are gonna roll through it quick… I really liked these cards a lot. Original photography, decent design, cool players, but after ripping 24 packs of it over 2 months, I don’t care if I EVER SEE ANOTHER PACK OF IT!!! Here we go!
#295 Mike Mussina Baltimore Orioles (It still blows my mind that the Moose won games for the first time in his 18th season and after winning 20 he retired. That is really awesome… What isn’t awesome is-had he stuck around for 3 more seasons of mediocrity, he could have hit the magical 300 wins plateau and been guaranteed a ticket to Cooperstown. As is he left at the top of his game, didn’t stick around to accumulate stats, and-who knows?…)
#331 Archi Cianfroco San Diego Padres
#387 Geronimo Berroa Oakland A’s
#406 Nate Minchey Boston Red Sox (Minchey set a career high with 2 wins for Boston in ’94. Yep, 2 wins)
#419 Mariano Duncan Philadelphia Phillies
#440 Kent Mercker Atlanta Braves MUSEUM COLLECTION (Mercker won 9 games as the 5th starter for the Braves in ’94, he was on the ring winning squad in ’95 and in 1996 he was traded for Eddie Murray. That’s a career there)
#490 Chris Sabo Baltimore Orioles (Had I scanned this card of the 1988 ROY you would see a nice close up of Spuds and his goggles)
#526 Mark Kiefer Milwaukee Brewers (Kiefer was 5-1 in 44 games over his career. I must have missed all 44 of those games cuz I never heard of the dude)
#500 Bip Roberts San Diego Padres (This card is a loaded weapon. Be afraid, be VERY afraid!)
#504 Bruce Hurst Texas Rangers
#391 Brad Ausmus San Diego Padres (Ausmus was a 48th round draft pick who won 3 Gold Gloves and spent 17 seasons in the big leagues getting 1565 hits. Here he is saying “Wait, I’m supposed to tag you, get back here!”)
#297 Chris Gwynn Kansas City Royals (The Dodgers used their first round pick in 1985 (10th overall) to snag Gwynn out of San Diego State cuz they thought everyone named Gwynn could hit like a Hall of Famer)
#403 Paul Carey Baltimore Orioles (File Carey under “Big power hitting first baseman who don’t work out at the big league level”-the Carey era lasted less than 20 games)
#367 Todd Zeile St. Louis Cardinals (Zeile spent the first seven years of his career in St. Louis and then became a tumbleweed that blew into 11 different cities over the last half of his career)
#495 Eddie Murray Cleveland Indians (Lets end this box with the greatest switch hitter of the generation)
Done, it’s done!!! Two more packs of X Press and this rip is over! Woo hoo! Oh, guess who says come back in an hour or two for more blogging excitement? Everyone's favorite former Blue Jays outfielder Shannon Stewart, thats who! After these last two packs go up I will finally start opening my mail again and get around to posting some of the AMAZING stuff I have received these past 2 months. Go Rays! Troll out!

More Panning For Gold AND Pack #33 of 1997 Pinnacle X Press

This is gonna be a REALLY quick post… Not too much exciting going on in pack #33 of 1997 Pinnacle X Press and not too many scans. Imagination is required…
#71 Mark Grace Chicago Cubs (More Gracey)
#95 Brian Hunter Detroit Tigers (More of the other Brian Hunter)
#134 Scott Rolen Philadelphia Phillies (More of the 1996 Rookie of the Year)
#149 Greg Maddux Common Checklist Atlanta Braves
#??? Swing for the Fences Game Card +9
#80 Gary Sheffield MEN OF SUMMER Florida Marlins (Shef is golden-I do realize this scan isn't gold, but the card that I pulled is gold...)
#40 Eric Young Colorado Rockies (Eric Young’s Dad, the original EY)
#107 Bobby Bonilla Florida Marlins
I wasn’t lying, that was the quickest rip yet. There are only 4 packs (total) left of this break. Bring on the end! Since this went SO quickly, here is an update on my progress in my quest for GOLD! Thanks to everyone in the blog-o-sphere I am well over halfway done with the 2009 Tampa Bay Rays team set in GOLD. Between the 3 series there are 44 cards. (By the by I am seriously wondering if anyone is reading... If you are, the first person to send me an email with baseball as the subject wins a REALLY awesome prize!) I now have 28 of them making the team set 64% complete. I still need 16 more Topps Gold cards. If you have any of these, I need them, so get in touch. These are the 16 cards that I still need: 16 Evan Longoria, 35 David Price, 98 Akinori Iwamura, 134 Evan Longoria, 160 Evan Longoria, 174 James Shields, 177 Eric Hinske, 246 Upton, Crawford and Longoria, 321 Kazmir/Price, 567 Willy Aybar, 580 Scott Kazmir, 640 BJ Upton, UH179 Carl Crawford, UH262 Jeff Niemann, UH298 Jason Bartlett and UH318 Carl Crawford.
There will be more ripping this evening, keep on checking back cuz Shannon Stewart STILL says so! Go Rays, troll out.

Nearing Completion... Pack #23 of 1994 Pinnacle

We are moving back to 1994 Pinnacle again… We are SO close! Not much time for words and apologies in advance because there are no Shannon Stewart sightings in this pack… Here we go! #477 Pat Borders Toronto Blue Jays (Did I mention that Borders lives in Lake Wales, Florida AND that he is another catcher looking for Jesus?)
#433 Matt Brunson MUSEUM COLLECTION Detroit Tigers (Brunson was the Tigers first round pick in 1993, he was chosen 9th overall and never made it past A ball. He did steal 32 bases for the Yuma Scorpions in 2005)
#300 Mark McGwire Oakland A’s (Big Mac!)
#338 Mike Stanley New York Yankees (Stanley had this bad habit of getting traded right before his old team got good)
#455 Mike Lansing Montreal Expos
#484 Tim Wallach Los Angeles Dodgers (In 17 seasons Wallach went to 5 All Star games but never a World Series)
#453 Kirk Gibson Detroit Tigers
#273 Bob Wickman New York Yankees (Wickman appeared in 835 games over 15 big league seasons… I can’t read lips, but I think they are talking about giving an intentional pass to Shannon Stewart. His catcher agrees and congratulates him on a fine idea)
#510 Brett Boone Cincinnati Reds (Boone hit .320 for the Reds in ’94 in his first full season in the majors… I can’t believe this little dude would go on to drive in 141 runs in 2001)
#507 Bob Ojeda New York Yankees (1994 was Bobby O’s final season. He made two starts, lasted 3 innings and gave up 8 runs, AND THEN he called it a career with a 115-98 record)
#462 Tim Raines Chicago White Sox (The Rock!)
#272 Trevor Hoffman San Diego Padres (With 591 Hoffman is the ALL Time Career saves leader)
#291 Wally Joyner Kansas City Royals (Wally World!)
There is just one pack of 1994 Pinnacle to go! Stay tuned cuz Shannon Stewart STILL says so! Go Rays! Troll out.