A Big Thanks on Thanksgiving

I am blown away by the package I got from Punk Rock Paint. I sent him a bunch of Padre cards and he sent me 56 Red Sox cards. I don't have enough time to post them all since it is Thanksgiving, a day to spend with family, so I am going to post some highlights. And what highlights they were. First up is this Awesome Youkilis Autograph.

I was shocked to pull this out of the package I had no idea he was going to send something like this. This is my first Youkilis autograph and with him being my favorite Sox I am stoked.

As surprised as I was when I pulled the Youkilis auto out imagine how surprised I was to get this also.

A Michael Bowen auto. They say this kid has the potential to be an ace in the next few years. I can't believe the generosity of my fellow bloggers.

He also sent me a few cards to fill my want lists.

He also sent me this cool Mike Greenwell card Friend of the Green Monster that give me a chance to shout out a new blog Green Monster I came across. He is another Red Sox fan so check him out.Thank You so much for the cards. Everybody needs to check out Punk Rock Paint. He is a wiz with images you won't believe some of the cards he has designed. Thanks again and everybody have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Winner

30 Yer old Cardboard recently had a contest where he asked people to guess who would win the player awards this year. I misses Joe Torre being NL Manager of he year but I still did good enough to tie with The Nennth Inning for the win.


Brian was so generous that he gave us both an award. He offered up choice of 9 different autographed cards. Being the major Red Sox fan that I am I choose this gem.


Ellis Burks was a long time player for the Sox and one of my favorite players from the late 80s early 90s.

Along with the autographed card he sent me this Masterpiece.

What a celebration for Red Sox fans that was!!

I would like to thank Brian for his generosity and recommend anyone read his blog as he documents his attempts to put together a few player collections and some TTM autos. Although I do not have any of the players he collects I'm going to try to come up with something to pay him back. Thanks again 30 Year old Cardboard!!

Stadium Club Retail pack

Wal Mart had a row of 2008 Stadium Club and I just had to buy one. I remember when Stadium Club came out in 1991. Everyone was in awe of the picture quality. Upper Deck can match the quality now but at the time nothing else was even close.

Brian McCann - Brave

John Smoltz - Another Brave. Maybe the Junkie should have pulled this pack.

Wladimir Balentien RC - Mariners: Well here is the one RC per pack that I am promised out of retail packs.

Max Scherzer RC - Diamondbacks: Another Rookie card. Does this mean that someone else is going to get screwed out of thier promised Rookie?

Kosuke Fukudome RC 1st Day Issue: Three Rookies in one pack. Not bad at all. Now I know this pack was supposed to be dayf's because he has labeled himself the KoFu magnet. Better him than me.

Card Out Of The Clear (Royal) Blue

I received an unexpected package from Matt at Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius. It contained a jersey card of Edgar Renteria.

Now, Edgar really sucked as a Red Sox. I mean really sucked!! That is putting it as nice as I can. When we signed him I though it was a great pick up but boy was I wrong. He was hopeless out on the field. Error after error after error came from the SS position thirty of them in all. (Plus he throws like a girl. Go ahead, look at the picture again; see what I mean.) His bat was almost as bad. It must just be an AL thing because he played good for both the Cardinals and the Braves but sucked in Boston and Detroit. All that aside I love the card. I want a game used of every Boston player and I didn't have one of him yet. So thank you Matt.

HEELLLP!!!

On Wednesday I am making the dreaded trip to the in-laws. Now I don't expect anyone to help me with that though I wish they could. What I need help with is that my in-laws live just outside of Knoxville and I have no idea where a card shop is there. So if anyone knows of a good card shop somewhere in the Knoxville area please respond below.

Random Sox: 1961 #445 Frank Malzone

Trade with Cards on Cards

I recently worked out a trade with Cards on Cards. I sent him some Cardinal cards and some stuff off of his want list and I got some great stuff. He really assaulted my modern want list with this trade.

Only 7 more Heritage after this one: 327 Ortiz, 358 Okajima, 369 Bucholtz, 409 Lester, 474 Youkilis, 477 Lugo, 486 Lowell, 498 Beckett
Only 6 more A&G left: 62 Pedroia, 113 Schilling, 134 Varitek, 153 Bucholtz, 333 Crip, 350 Youkilis

This 1990 Topps 663 Fred Lyn Turn Back The Clock finished off my team set for the year.

He also finished off my 88 Topps team set with this 662 Jim Rice Turn back The Clock card.

I still have a long way to go on these 07 Goudey but man do I love mini cards.

I would like to thank Cards on Cards for helping me with my checklist. IF you haven't checked out his site yet, you should. I linked him at the top of this post ans he is also linked on the right side under trading partners.

Trip to a card shop

One of the drawbacks to where I live is that there are no card shops anywhere around. I had to go to Springfield this week (a two hour trip) and no trip to Springfield is complete without stopping by the card store. I don't make it up there too often but when I do go the guy that owns the place recognizes me and knows what I'm looking for. He pulled out all of his game used Red Sox and I picked out this one for $5.

Out of his box of Red Sox I pulled all of these gems for .50 each. I'm a sucker for RC and Youkilis cards and Rookie Youkilis cards are even better.

It is a good thing he grew that beard cause he never would have got that hot chick of his with that baby face.

About 4 years ago I was watching a Red Sox game with my oldest son when he asked, "Dad, what other kind of socks are there?" Not knowing what he meant I responded that they made socks in every possible color. He said, "No, what other kind of Sox like the Red Sox are there? Is there blue ones or green ones..?" I said "Well, there are White Sox." He said ok. After a few minutes of being quiet he said. "My favorite team is the White Sox." And now 4 years later they still are. (I have been hoping he would grow out of it but alas..) So every time I go to the card shop the guy puts together a box just for him. Since he was at school when I went it is now a Christmas present. I think I got a pretty good deal on them too. An 800 count box of assorted White Sox (including inserts) for $15.

If only I had a card store in West Plains to shop at...

Lost Trade with Orioles Card "O" the Day

I got a package about a month and a hald ago from Orioles Card "O" the Day and evidently it fell down behind my entertainment center and I just found it again this week. At the time i didn't even have a blog so this little mix up gives me a chance to plug O Card.

This is my first Victory card. They look like they should have numbers and suits on the back.

When Theo didn't regisn Damon I was pissed. Now when I look at his numbers, expecially his days on teh DL, I'm glad that Theo didn't bring him back.

Greenwell RC - Why didn't he get a little Rookie trophy on his card? He is one of the very best rookies in the set. I always though that now since topps puts the little rookie symbol on all of the rookie cards that they should put the trophy on the cards with the rookie symbol on the trophy. I guess that would just make to much sense.

Any Boggs not in a Yankee jersey is a good Boggs.

I had UD Heroes Manny on my need list for the last month even though I actually already had it (just hiding behind the entertainment center).

Blog Bat Around

Get comfortable and grab a drink, this is going to be long...

I recently posted about my Cardboard Roots but now with Gellman’s invitation I can go a little farther. I am defiantly a team collector but it took me a long time to get there. I started collecting in 1987. I collected only football at first. I tried to build complete sets. But there was only one grocery store in town that sold cards and once football season was over they didn’t carry football cards only baseball. So naturally I started buying baseball cards also. Soon after the explosion of baseball cards in the early 90’s we got a baseball card store in my town, The Sportscenter. Once that opened I was exposed to lots more cards. I didn’t have to rely on just pulling cards out of packs anymore and started to focus on specific things I liked. I went back to mostly all football and only dabbling into baseball.

I collected Dan Marino and put together sets. The last complete set I ever built was 96 Certified Football. It cost a fortune in wax. (I still have an Artist’s Proof Eric Moulds in it because I never could get a plain one) Who am I kidding, I was/am a hoarder. I had/have card, coin, comic, and toy collections. I was single and lived with my grandparents so I had a ton of disposable income. It was nothing to spend 50-75% of my paycheck on hobbies. In the mid 90s the high dollar inserts started showing up and I started busting just for inserts. Lots of times I would bust boxes pull the Marino’s, Inserts, and RCs only to leave the base cards on the counter. I spent hours in the card shop. It was run by a guy named Tom and his mom (Hassel- Granny). He sold cards and she sold sports clothing (team clothing, hats, coats, etc..). Eventually I started working behind the counter. I say working but I wasn’t getting paid. I worked overnights and would get off work at 6:00AM, go home sleep till noon get up and go to the card shop. (I was young and didn't need sleep) Granny started having heart trouble and couldn’t work for a while, so Tom starting running things on his own. About the time I got there at noon Tom would be ready to go to lunch so I would watch things while he was gone. Like I said I didn’t get paid but I did get a few perks. I got first dibs on anything he bought. If he bought out a collection and I would strip out what I wanted before anyone else got to see it. He also gave me cards for whatever he had in them. Also I got to trade with other people in the shop itself. If someone busted a pack with something in it I wanted I could trade for it or buy it. He didn’t like for anyone to do that. He paid the rent so he was the only one that was going to make money in the store. The store is shut down now, cards just couldn't pay the bills for him any more. Tom is a landscapper now and I see him every couple days in the summer mowing lawns. Man I miss that store. I bet he does too.

My favorite thing to do was play high card. If anyone out there doesn’t know what that, here is how it works. You get some people together to play (doesn’t matter how many) and everyone buys a pack and busts it. The person with the card that booked highest gets all of the cards from all of the packs. It wasn’t always the high card. Sometimes we played with stats. Whoever got the card with the highest career home run, tackles, rebounds whatever on the back won. Whoever won got to pick how the next hand was played. I always did best in tackles. I guess I was good at pulling worthless defensive players. Sometimes we would go high stakes. The best stats got the cards the low stats bought all of the packs for every player. It got expensive if you lost. As long as you won or pulled marginal players you were out no money. One time Tom got a box of 86-87 fleer basketball for us to play with at like $36 per pack. Four of us played. If you lost it cost you $144 and you didn’t get one card. Not one of us pulled a Jordan. It is probably a good thing to. I know I would have been sick if I would have pulled a Jordan and had to give it up and pay $144 buck just because nobody in the pack could rebound. Good Times!!!

Eventually I got a girlfriend that ended up being more expensive than collecting. We had a kid so all my cards went in the closet and I bought a house. Six years went by before I bought any more cards. One day the cards in the checkout line at Wal-Mart were too tempting and I bought a pack of baseball cards. By this time Marino was long retired and my red Sox had just won the Series so I bought baseball instead of football. Wouldn’t you know it I pulled a jersey card, first pack. Now when I quit collecting in 99 a jersey card was rare, really rare. Look at a 99 Upper Deck Marino jersey card compared to any other Marino jersey card. I had no idea that in the 6 years away from the hobby that jersey cards became the same as a normal insert. I know now they are not what they used to be but I was already sucked back in. Now that most of my income is spent before it gets deposited I have to be more selective in my collecting. It is hard to be a player collector if the only place you have to buy cards is retail packs (It would be Youkilis if I did it). So I decided to collect a team. Naturally I choose my favorite Red Sox. After a few years of insanely busting retail packs for 100% of my cards I came across blogging and started trading. A month ago I started my own blog Thoughts and Sox. So know I am trading off all of my other cards for Red Sox.

I'm trying ot put pictures in here but Blogger isn't cooperating. I don't think it likes those 11MP pics because it keeps erroring out. I'm going to post this now to meet Gellman's midnight deadline and add them later when my blood pressure is a little lower. So if you are reading this check back in to see the pics of how I store my cards. I feel like the guy from my scanner post. Stress releived, the pictures are upoaded now.

Much to my wife's dismay my collection has taken over our hall closet. I keep my Topps Red Sox in binders and everything else gets boxed.

I only put them in the binder when they are complete or close to a complete team set. Basicaly if it is on my want list it is in a binder. I have one for vintage and one for modern.

The monster on the left is trade bait. The Shoebox is Red Sox too expensive for a binder.

In the picture below the monster box on the left is trade items that haved a destination. I am either trying to aquire enough of to ship off or are waiting to ship because I am to lazy to go to the Post Office. The monster on the right is my Marino cards and football RCs. The stuff in the back is assorted Red Sox cards.

I also have a boxing only binder.

This is a trunk full of assoreted 80s & 90s football.

See I told you that was going to be long. I hope you enjoyed it.

Trade with The Nennth Inning

I recently send some Giants cards over to The Nennth Inning and he paid me back with some great Red Sox cards.

Chrome JD - He is a great player but plays with zero passion and he always looks like he would rather be somewhere else. I would say I would rather have Trott back out there but JD has come up big for us a whole bunch of times. I just with he played with some fire.

I don't buy packs of Chrome because it kind of burns me to so few cards in a pack. I love trading for them though. Gives me a good excuse to look at some prospects.

Chrome Mark Wagner - He is rated the 13th best Red Sox prospect and may one day be Tek's successor.

Chrome Scott Shoemaker - He was traded to Texas for Daniel Haigwood.

Chrome Carlos Fernandez-Olivia - He had a great year in 05 but dropped off dramatically. He has the potential to be a 5 tool player but is still raw.

I keep getting more and more of these black Heroes cards. I've got just enough of them now to make me think about chasing them as a team set. I still need 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 33, 34, 177, 186, 200. I have yet to see one of the blue, red, or green parallels.

2008 AL MVP - Nothing else need to say.

Something new for breakfast

The Red Sox have traded Coco Crisp to the Royals for a relief pitcher.

Coco played really well for us in the post season this year but in reality he has never quite played up to his potential. He never really got a chance to once he went down with an injury and Jacoby emerged as a star. He is a good player and should be a good addition to the Royals.

Most Valuable Pedroia

And the winner of the AL MVP is Dustin Pedroia. And not by just a little bit, it was almost a landslide. Youkilis took third with two first place votes himself.

Congratulations Dustin!!