Before I get in the shameless plugging of links and baseball related blah-blah, I wanted to share a couple of pics of my yard from this weekend.
We live on a creek, Ware’s Creek to be specific. The water flows to the Manatee River and then to the Gulf and then to the Ocean. The water is brackish and tidal and depending on the time of day, I can see all different types of aquatic life when I take the
puppy (who has NOT eaten any autographed baseballs or cards in nearly a month) for a walk. The water is very clear and generally shallow, so it isn’t hard to ID different types of fish. On any given day I might see Mullet, Redfish, Pompano, Trout and Tilapia, amongst others. I have seen alligators, crabs, iguanas, eels, Kingfishers, Egrets, Cranes… My friend claims he saw a manatee in there, but he does a lot of drugs… Anyway, it’s a pretty great place to live, except when you get a lot of unexpected rain. I didn’t want to get my camera wet, so I had to wait till the storm had passed to start snapping. Anyway, the water level in my yard had gone down by at least 3 feet by the time I took these. If you look close at the pics, you can see lawn chairs that we sit at for picnics which were totally submerged.
Three chairs survived, but 5 chairs and a table and pretty much everything else from our yard washed away to God knows where. Some things washed up, too. My back yard looked like we had a rager of a party with all of the trash (empty beer cans and all kinds of trash) that the creek left behind. The really funny thing (to me at least) is that normally if it rains for more than 10 minutes or if there is a gust of wind at prime time, the town is under hurricane watch and the entire population is in an uproar, killing each other for canned goods and bottled water. When we have an actual storm and it happens after midnight, nothing. Oh, well. Back to baseball…
When I first started this blog, well, within a few week… I declared myself a super-collector of Tampa Bay Rays shortstop
Jason Bartlett. I was collect up every single card that was ever made of him and we were gonna out for drinks when the team was at home and discuss which cards were my favorites. Well, neither of those happened. I am still attempting to collect his cards, but have had very little luck in doing so AND I have never actually met Mr. Bartlett and I am sure that he has no idea that I would be willing to spend lots of money to collect his baseball cards. I am going to continue to collect him, just last week Roll out the Barrel hooked me up with a Bartlett
autograph and my buddy Alfredo from “My Past Time-I Love It!” has indicated that he will be sending me a few more Barts. I guess, with Bartlett, the problem is that the card companies haven’t caught up with the fact that he is an All-Star. He was on their radar as a rookie, but unless it’s a set like O-Pee-Chee that is highly inclusive, JB has been left out of a lot of sets this year. Although I only have about 15 of his cards total, I have just about every card of him from 2008. When I declared my player allegiance, I purposely avoided Carl Crawford for two reasons. One, his cards seemed more expensive and two, there was already a CC collector in the blog-o-sphere. As it turns out, even though his cards are technically worth a few cents more, they are much more accessible. He is included in virtually every single set and subset. My CC collection is up over 130 cards now and I seem to get more in the mail everyday. When I tell people that I collect the Rays, the response is always “Okay, I have a few CC cards for you”.
When I specially request Bartlett in trade, the talks generally end there, simply because he doesn’t have many cards yet. I am imagining that Pablo Sandoval fans face a similar fate. Unless a player goes from being a prospect directly to a star, the card company’s radars generally skip these guys. Another awesome player that I collect is Edwin Jackson. He was an All Star this year and he has an outside chance to lead the AL in ERA, but he is included in very few sets. Due to those reasons, my Edwin Jackson player collection is also very small. Another player that I collect is
Jonny Gomes. For some ridiculous reason, Gomes went from being the face of the Rays to being non-tendered after last season. Despite showing awesome power potential, it took him a while to find a team willing to give him a shot this year. The Reds finally extended him a minor league contract and he started the year in AAA. Now, he is with the big club, but still can’t seem to make the starting line-up on a regular basis, even though he has hit 19 homers in just 247 at bats this year.
Were he to play everyday and continue at that pace of a homer every 13 at-bats, in a 600 at-bat season, he would project to hit 46. With numbers like that, I think that player should warrant a card. The card companies don’t agree, not yet. I haven’t seen a card of Gomes in a Reds
(Photo by AP, not me!) uniform yet, have any of you?
He was a former card company darling. Like I said before, he was the face of the Rays. He was included in every set and subset for them in 2005 and 2006. He, Rocco Baldelli, and their young, future-stars like Carl Crawford and Scott Kazmir. Then, Gomes fell off the radar. That is okay, I guess, I still need to catch up and buy or trade for a whole bunch of cards from 2005 and 2006. Another Rays player that I have added to my collection is
Willy Aybar. Erick’s brother is just a part-time player for the Rays, he, too, doesn’t have many cards at all. I don’t know if he has what it takes to be an everyday player, but as a utility guy slash part-time DH, he gets the job done.
In the off-chance that anyone followed the three links on here, you may notice what I am trying to show off. You see, I am famous for stealing ideas from other bloggers and a few nights ago, when Peter Moylan of the Braves set some sort of a record, Captain Canuck posted this
link. Like the good blog reader that I am, I followed the link to Moylan’s Baseball Reference stats, and then realized the reason that the Cap’N had posted it. The Captain and his blog-Waxaholic, had sponsored Moylan’s stats. I have spent a ton of time on Baseball Reference, but I had never thought of sponsoring someone’s stat page. Carl Crawford, Harry Simpson, Hank Aaron, Jim Thome and Scott Kazmir’s pages all had sponsors already. Wade Davis’ didn’t, but it wasn’t cheap to sponsor. Apparently, they charge you a price based on popularity of the player and how many visits their stats get. Well, Willy Aybar was the cheapest, but surprisingly, Gomes and Bartlett weren’t too much more. A birdie told me that Chipper Jones’ stats were $400.00 a year to sponsor. Anyway, I thought it was an excellent idea that the good Captain Canuck had, so naturally, I stole the idea. Like I said at the beginning, I haven’t had much luck getting people to trade me Jason Bartlett cards-now I own his stats!!! As an end note, today is the Birthday or Anniversary or whatever of one of the best card blogs out there, Happy Birthday to the Night Owl!
and their management didn’t seem to care, so I swore I would never spend another card dollar there. I also swore off Wal Mart and K-Mart was still selling 2008 Stadium Club packs for 3 bucks each and the Card Shop was closed, so I HAD to go to Target. I bought a blaster of A&G and season four of “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and was on my way. I decided to rip it the second I got home (the dog could go out later) and I was greeted by the WORST MUTANT blaster EVER! I’ve seen mutant blaster rips that resulted in a bunch of cool cards. This was a mutant blaster that resulted in a bunch of CRAP! Eight packs and seven of them didn’t have minis in them. I had 3 packs with 4 cards in them and two packs with multiple National Pride cards. One pack, with 4 cards and no minis had THREE FREAKIN’ RICH HARDEN NATIONAL PRIDE CARDS! 
I give up, I don’t even know why Rich Harden is in this subset, but this is freakin’ ridiculous. I can’t afford to drop money on blasters like I do, at least give me something good Topps! I love these cards, I do. I love the look of them and the inclusion of Negro League Vets and Olympians. I think that is awesome. I have also decided to try and get a percentage of this set autographed and I still need to finish my set and need bait to trade to do it. This isn’t a trade bait post, although I have 12 short prints, 9 Ginter Code cards and 11 Sketch doubles on the block that I will list later unless you wanna e-mail me… Anyway, all rants aside. I was pissed about that box. I intended on writing about it last night when it was fresh in my mind, but Esther Gin had a fifty page (or something long) paper due by midnight, so she was camped out on the lone Troll computer all night. I had a meeting to attend anyway. The Bradentucky Bombers roller derby league had their annual open to the entire league meeting where we vote for Board Members and committee leaders. I did run for the board this year and was NOT elected. That is fine. I was voted in as the head of the Sponsorship and Fundraising committee. If anyone wants to sponsor our team, please get in touch! Anyway, the meeting was good, a lot of issues were discussed and a lot of people came out. We had about 50 girls and two guys crammed into a 150 sq. foot room with an overhead projector screen. It wasn’t nearly as chaotic as you would think. Anyway, the meeting lasted 3 hours and I voted by proxy for Esther Gin and I got home and she was still working on her paper! Fast forward to today… The mailbox was not empty. I had records from Pep at Midnight Sea Records, two TTMS and a trade from Lake Effect Cards which happened to be all Ginter! It was a small package, but he packed some awesome punch into an envelope that shipped for $1.22. I have been saying that my 75-card National Pride set was completed for a few weeks now. It of course wasn’t. Some people flaked on sending trades that they had promised, but LE filled the final page slot with card# NP51 of Albert Pujols! 
Yeah, one down! He also got me closer than ever to filling the baseball highlight sketch set. Mike aka JDz Daddy had sent me 17 of these, I pulled a bunch and traded for some, but the set still isn’t finished. A few people sent the wrong cards, I have a bunch of dupes, but now I am down to needing just 1 card. If someone could please send me AGHS4 I could finally post this set. Please! Greg from Lake Effects also hooked me up with some much needed minis, too. Initially I traded away all of my minis, but now I am collecting certain sets, plus I want all of the Rays. Greg sent me David Price. 
I think Mr. Price should be a candiate for biggest and goofiest smile of 2009-it's not quite the ROY Award that everyone had predicated for him, but it's something...I pulled Matt Garza all by myself and actually hung onto it and I got the Navi mini in a trade on Monday. 
The aforementioned Mike aka JDz Daddy had sent me three Rays minis which I never posted. 
They are #25 of Evan Longoria and #287 of James Shields and #251 of Carl Crawford-the two latter cards have Ginter backs. I don’t know if I ever thanked you for these Mike, but THANKS! I think that I only need BJ Upton, Akinori, Scott Kazmir, Carlos Pena and Pat Burrell now. I don’t really know which Rays ended up in this one. Does Bartlett have a card? Is that one of the SPs that I am missing? Anyway, Greg didn’t stop with that one mini. In an “amazing how things work out” turn of events, I had sent the Mojo Hand my treasured Cat Osterman mini because he collects her, too. I wasn’t happy about it, but Mojo needed it and I feel the need to be Generous first (it is my name) and a greedy collector second. Anyway, Greg hooked me up with another Osterman mini, this one with a Ginter back. 
Sweet! Greg is collecting the National Heroes minis and I sent him the only one of those that I had and he returned the favor with 
THREE Hoax minis (which I am collecting) and my second Creatures of Myth Legend and Terror mini. I pulled the Unicorn last week and now it can hang out with the Dragon! 
I have grown a little bored with the base set cards, extremely bored with the Nat Pride cards, but all of these mini subsets still keep me interested. I am still a Ginter fan. Oh, speaking of Ginter… Here is card number 4 towards my Ginter Auto Quest. It is of, perhaps the best TTM signer in all of sports, Twins side-armer Pat Neshek. He also owns the coolest signature and probably the coolest delivery. I received this card today; I sent it out last Thursday. I only sent him this one card because it is the only card I have of him. 
He has been added to my player collection list, so if you have any Neshek cards lying around, please think of your buddy the Troll! According to Pat his rehab has been going great and he will be throwing at 100% by November and WILL be in spring training with the Twins in 2010. That’s it for now; shoot me an e-mail if you can help me out in any of my Ginter missions. Like I said, I have a BUNCH of dupes-SPs, code cards, base cards, Nat Prides and Sketch cards. I also have some minis that I may be willing to part with if the deal is right. Thanks so much for the trade Greg! You rock! Oh, by the by... That blaster did not yield a single card that I need towards the set. I have given up on the trades that I am waiting for, so this is what I actually need to finish the set: 18,21,97,128,203,222,226,264,286,304,308,312,325,326,327,328 and 332. It's a total of 18 cards, but only 8 are short prints. Can ya help a brother out? Oh, as an endnote, there was another letter in the mail today. From Rob in New York who proposed a written trade which involves me getting a bunch of cards for my Negro League collection including a 1953 Topps Luke Easter! Rob, if you are reading, your on my brother! Go Rays! Troll out.
promising to send me Rays cards as he gets ‘em. Included is a cool 4 in 1 card of young outfielders. 
Its an interesting mix-You’ve got Matt Kemp who is having an MVP type season on the card along with Lastings Milledge and BJ Upton who have consistently failed to live up to expectations, but still get the love and support of all the card companies (and me, too!) and you also have some young guy named Young. The other card he sent is much shinier and therefore much cooler. It features BJ Upton in chromey Heritage glory. 
BJ was the AL Player of the Month in July, but every other month this year he’s been jealous of Jack Cust and David Ortiz’ batting average. I am still waiting BJ-I know you can be a star; I just wanna see you do it! Thanks Adam! I have ripped so much Heritage this year and that is honestly my first Rays chrome card, it will be treasured!
Compared to the other two autos I got from this set, I didn’t know a whole bunch about Mr. Parris. His letter was much shorter and he did not send a letter in return, so I still don’t know a bunch about him. I attended a reunion (on behalf of my Great-Uncle and as a guest of Buck O’Neill’s) in 2000 at the Museum in Kansas City. I met a lot of guys and learned a ton. I don’t think Mr. Parris was there and I didn’t really hear anything about him. He did return the card very quickly. I thank you Clyde! I wish I knew more about your career.
That said, he sent me two base cards that I needed, card #142 of Yankees rookie Juan Miranda and #103 of Phillies save blower Brad Lidge. The SP is card #444 of Mike Fontenot. 
Thanks Chris! I do appreciate any help that I can get on this set!
I got to cross 4 cards off of the list, including Ex-Ray Seth McClung. He also sent me a trio of Rays from the 2009 Upper Deck Icons set. I don’t really care for this set, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be collecting the Rays from it! I don’t know who is in this set, but I know that I have Aki, Shields and Kaz covered now! 
Since I sent all of the Negro League Ginter cards I had out for autos, I needed to replace these in my set, too. Brian took care of that with Frank Evans for me. I do still need the rest, plus Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria and Scott Kazmir if anybody has those! The last card was a total surprise and was FREAKING AWESOME!!! Dioner Navarro is one of the coolest guys on the Rays. He’s in his 4th season as the Rays starting catcher and he’s only 25! 
Not quite Brian McCann, but he’s pretty cool. He made his MLB debut with the Yanks at age 20 and he was an All Star last year. I have a stack of his cards, but up till now I only owned base cards. Now I can add a 2008 Topps bat relic to the collection. Thanks so much Brian! Your packages always blow me away! Do you have a list of minis that you still need?
He started with 3 sweet Ginter minis. A Markakis black border, a Navi and an Enron hoax card, all awesome! He sent a 2009 Heritage Chrome Refractor 
of super power hitting dude Adam Dunn. Again, sweet card-today was a great day for shiny Heritage cards, but I don’t recall ever collecting Dunn… The final cards he sent were a trio of SPs from 2009 
Allen and Ginter. Thanks Lance! Please e-mail me at bacontowne at yahoo dot to let me know what you collect. Thanks to everyone! A five envelope mail day will put a smile on anyone’s face for sure! Please be sure to read Dinged Corners today (and everyday) because it is an awesomely well-written blog, but also cuz there is a mini-interview with the Troll on there discussing the legendary Moe Drabowsky!!! Incidentally, the Raiders game may be the only NFL game I watch all year. I don’t really care for football, but my friend Kevin loves the Raiders for some reason, so I figured I would check them out. Plus, I thought if the Raiders could win their opener, then maybe the Rays could make it to the playoffs… The Raiders looked like they had things under control. With less than 3 minutes to play, JaMarcus Russell fired a perfect 57-yard touchdown pass (on 4th and 15 no less) to Louis Murphy to give them a 20-17 lead. Of course the Raiders blew it, but there was hope for a few minutes. Thanks to everyone for all of the rocking mail! Go Rays! Wait, should I say something about the Night Owl in the final line? Nah, not today… There ya have it, a trade with a Red Sox fan, a Rangers fan, a Cardinals fan, a mystery guy and a sweet TTM from a Negro League Legend. Thanks to all! Oh, aside from all the new high-tech links that I added to the side of the page, there is a poll, too. I think I am going to make this a regular thing. For now, please vote for the Rays MVP for the 2009 season, thanks again! Gotta go to work. Troll out.
Reid Brignac was 4-4 with 3 runs batted in and HIS FIRST MAJOR LEAGUE HOME RUN!!! Finally a reason to be excited about baseball again! Congrats Reid! Sorry O’s…Go Rays! Troll out.
He also sent along this sketch card of the best hitter of this generation, Ichiro. 
I do love the Ginter sketches. A lot of bloggers don’t, but I most certainly do. According to my want lists, I need only card #3 to finish this little set off. According to what I actually have in my little Troll hands, I still need cards number 2,3,4,10 and 25. I am hoping that there are some cards being held hostage by the US Postal Service and I do, in fact, only need card #3 to be done with this set and finally post them all, as a set. Jeremy sent some other random Rays and a few more Ginters as well, but this trade involved something far cooler than cards. If you have read his 
It didn’t look anything my wife; it appeared to be a girl taking a huge hit and was also alone in the picture. Weird. As I pulled out the rest of the images, it made sense. He had made a multi-media, mixed media animation cell of the wife, Ms. Esther Gin N Juice, laying the smack down on another derby girl. Jeremy, you have no idea how many hours I have spent playing with this. 
You can make Esther creep up on the other girl, she can start to hit her, and then you get the finished product. 
Total annihilation at the hands and hips of Esther Gin N Juice!!! Thanks so much Jeremy. This is easily the coolest thing anyone has ever made for me. Of course, the rest of the team is jealous now and they all want you to make them awesome animation cells. Hell, I would love to have one of myself putting the hurt on the characters on my keyboard! Thanks again for the trade and the super awesome art! You are a truly talented individual my friend. I am sorry that my crappy snap shots don't do your art justice. This is truly amazing! Go Bombers! Go Rays! Troll out.
That card just happened to be a Ginter SP, card #307 of Hunter Pence. That brings me within 8 cards of finishing this puppy off. 98% complete. With the start of football season, I am sure that means less and less baseball card blogging. I do plan on posting daily whether anyone is reading or not. I will probably not post about football because I don’t know what I am talking about. I do know that Adrian Peterson is a pretty damn good back. Wow. That is it for now. Go Rays! Troll out.
2. There is afternoon baseball! The Rays and Red Sox are all knotted up at zero a piece in the sixth. I should be excited, but it seems only a matter of time before the bullpen takes over and blows it…3. I have to work tonight and have school everyday all week and work every night. Blah. We are getting a room mate today. The legendary Mofo On Wheels, star jammer of the Bradentucky Bombers is moving in on a temporary basis. I should probably be cleaning the house up in anticipation. At the very least, I should put some pants on, but I have a few minutes. I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails lately asking me who or what I collect. I figured I would add some links to ye olde blog here so I don’t have to keep answering that question. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while, but have always been too lazy. I’ve actually always been jealous of the other blogs that have their want list links right on the side of their blogs. I am jealous no longer! Please check out my lists, I still have goods to trade…As anyone who reads this silly blog knows I am a diehard Tampa Bay Rays fan. I’ve been hooked since 1998 and had been somewhat used to being the lovable losers of the league. Last year we got a taste and I really thought this year we would take it to the next level. I’ve been optimistic (to a fault) that it would happen. Things looked good for a while, but reality is starting to set it. That has made posting a little less fun. I like recapping Rays wins, not bullpen meltdowns. The trades of Edwin Jackson and Jason Hammel this off season had me pretty upset. I was also really bummed that they didn’t keep Jonny Gomes and Rocco Baldeli. Those guys have been in Tampa Bay for a long time and it’s not the same without them. 
The trade of Scott Kazmir really tested my allegiance to the Rays. That pissed me off. The trade didn’t (and still doesn’t) make any sense to me, as CCC put it “they were waiving the white flag” and doing so way too early. I used to read Thorzul’s blog (still do!) and look at the CC cards that he posted and wonder how it felt to collect a player so aggressively that was no longer on your team. Now I totally understand. Jonny Gomes and Scott Kazmir are still two of my favorite players and I will be trying to hunt down every last I can of theirs. I am gonna post a quick trade here today. I am about 20 trades behind, which is a good thing, but I gotta get going on this. This one came from South Carolina. It’s from Sarah aka McCann Can Triple for the Rookie Card Collector blog. I was supposed to send her a chrome Edgar Renteria card in return, but oops, it got traded in a lot with the Mojo Hand. Sorry Sarah, I will dig up some much better Braves cards to send your way this week. She sent me an awesome Scott Kazmir chromey type card from 
Upper Deck Icons (which she is collecting). It is serial number 808 of 999. Thanks for this! The Kazmir collection has about 60 cards in it right now; I wanna get it up over 100 ASAP! She also sent a long a sweet Rays sticker. 
I absolutely LOVE stickers! This one is going on the stereo right away! 
It is a vending machine sticker, she was hoping for a Braves one, but got stuck with the Rays. If anyone has a Braves sticker, PLEASE send it her way. The wife and the roomie are here, the Rays are down 1-0 and this Troll has to go! Thanks for the trade Sarah, I will send you some sweet Braves, you won’t be disappointed, I promise! If you haven’t heard, Rod from Padrographs won the Hall of Fame contest. Rod, I have two packages on the way for you. I threw in a bunch of bonus stuff for you; I think you will be pretty happy with it all! While going through my remaining Hall of Fame plaque postcards, I found a Sandy Koufax and it is set aside for Mr. Night Owl (even though he forgot about me in the Carl Crawford auto trade). Happy collecting and happy trading to all! Go Rays! Troll out.
My letter had missed Mr. Simpson’s 89th birthday by two weeks, but I wished him a belated one, he spent his special day with the extended family of his Church. All pleasantries aside, I got down to the business of his famous nickname, I told him the theories that I had heard and he set the record straight. The nickname was given to him by a sportscaster poking fun at his size. Herb’s last name was Simpson and Herb was 5’8” tall. He was playing for the Birmingham Black Barons as the same time that Harry “Suitcase” Simpson was breaking into baseball stardom with the Philadelphia Stars in the late 40’s. According to Deacon Simpson, Harry was 6’3” (Baseball Reference lists him as 6’1”). 
Anyway, Harry, the larger of the Simpsons already had the nickname “Suitcase”, when a writer and sportscaster saw Herb Simpson playing first base and holding Harry on, he pointed out the disparity in their height. If Harry is a Suitcase, then Herb is a Briefcase. The name stuck and 60 years later he still signs his name with that moniker and he enjoys it. People remember the nickname he says, they don’t know what it means, but they remember it. Herb “Briefcase” Simpson is a remarkable man and I truly appreciate him taking the time to enlighten me on the etymology of his name and share his stories with me. He has noticed a huge increase in the amount of mail he gets since the 2009 Allen & Ginter set included his card in it. He doesn’t mind, he said he enjoys the letters he receives and he signs every card he gets. He doesn’t require a donation to sign, but does appreciate offerings to the First Tree Mission Baptist Church in New Orleans. 
Mr. Simpson has a certified autographed mini insert in the set, but I think I now prefer the one he just signed for me through the mail. Although the insert is an SP and less than 250 were made, this one is a true 1/1 with a thoughtful and inspirational message 
AND he actually spelled my name correctly! He may be the first…Thank you so much Deacon Simpson, I look forward to meeting you in person someday soon, happy belated 89th birthday! As an end note: Unlike most blogs were everything is on the block for me, these 4 cards as a treasured part of my collection and they are not up for trade. They are also the only cards that I own of these 3 legends and I would like to increase that number, get in touch if you have cards of these fine ball players you may be willing to trade. I am going to add a full list of everyone I collect to the side bar of this blog very soon. On a totally unrelated topic, Mr. Night Owl, this is for you...
Go Rays! Troll out.
apply the blindfold and pick from the 62 different folded pieces of paper. 
The papers were shaken and stirred and then a winner was chosen…It was …
Please imagine a drum roll or something dramatic as I tell you who the winner chose on his HOF ballot. The winning entrant selected Joe Jackson and Pete Rose who both got in. Dale Murphy, who despite some threats from Captain Canuck didn’t even crack the 10 and admitted steroid user and home run hitter extraordinaire Mark McGwire, who surprising to me received only one other vote. His final vote was for former Birmingham Black Baron’s shortstop Artie Wilson. Artie had a spectacular, yet short Negro League career, followed up by a spectacular but short career in the PCL followed by a one year stint with the Giants. The winner (if he is reading this) probably already realizes that it is him and if you didn’t vote for these guys, you know you didn’t win either, but I am still trying to draw this thing out. Anyway, without further adieu, the winner is Rod from Portland, Oregon, the proprietor of the Padrographs blog!
If you didn't win, don't blame Esther! This was fun. Go Rays! Troll out.
