1st cards in the mail in 37 years

When I was young, I traded baseball cards in the mail. Living in an isolated mountain town in West Virginia, I would have never been able to do this without having joined up with the Topps Sports Club. That had little ads from people who wanted to trade baseball cards.

The way I remember it, things were much like today - there were set collectors, and team collectors, and some people had player collections even when there was only one manufacturer. I think they used their collecting energies on making scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings and photos of their PC guys. And check this out - I think the majority of those folks were female. Trading was only part of the simple joy of having a Pen Pal to communicate with. Now we all have probably too many Pen Pals, or electronic "Friends" as they are called today.

I'm hoping to discover some old mementos of those days later this year, and share them with y'all. It was a different century back then.

Now we communicate without the mailman, though he still remains key to trading the actual baseball cards. And this year has been great to be able to simply trade baseball cards, without setting up financial accounts on various websites to do it. I silently babble my musings into this liquid crystal display, and days or weeks later the mailman puts baseball cards in my mailbox. Miraculous!

My first trade of the 21st Century came courtesy of Adam at the Thoughts and Sox blog. If you have any old sports pages with a photo of Bill Virdon yellowing away, I'm sure Adam would want to see them. I shipped some 2012 David Ortiz picture cards across the country and Adam sent along an insert card that proved to be the last card in an insert set I needed, even after continuing to way over purchase Series 1 cards due to my Parallel Problem.

I liked this small (15 card) insert set. I like the visual arts. So you would think I would be all over Allen & Ginter, but that set just don't interest me. Not sure why, but 15 hand-drawn cards a year are just about the right amount. Plus, Willie Stargell was in that set, and each card had an interesting player bio tidbit rather than the "Over ten games in late June last season..." dreck. I haven't typed up the card surplus list from this one yet, but I have plenty more of most of them except CC here.

So I guess for me the art of baseball cards is all in the design. So sometimes 1972 is the place I wanna be:

Green, blue & yellow. Nothing to do with Reds. I love it. Oh, I like it when team and card colors harmonize, but I also like it when they don't, though that walks a finer line. I also like how the night game feel survived shrinkage to mini card land. This one though, became yet more surplus cardboard by the time I was actually able to meet up with this trade package in 3D life a good 6 weeks after Adam sent it. Plenty of these '72 minis available too ... how about if you buy too many Series 2 packs, and I'll fill out your Series 1 needs of these (list typed in when else but 'soon', whatever that means). Maybe we can get on the same page just in time for Ultra-Pro to finally make us some binder pages to hold these little beauties. I'll be watching their website closely around the time of the National.

It was actually a teensy bit of a complicated trade with AdamE (thanks again!), as my second and virtually simultaneous trade was with another Adam, as in ARPSmith's Sports Card Obsession. But all players made their correct connecting flights and Mr. Smith helped me with a card I have really been looking forward to scan...

...which turned out pretty nicely, but I think these cards will photograph better. These cards are amazing - one second they're blue, the next they are neon-orange. I was glad to send out an extra card of Stan the Man for this one. Stan Musial cards shouldn't be stuck in some random box for all eternity. I'm getting close to finishing the Spring Fever set and when I do, I think I will celebrate with some full-sunlight shots of their foil goodness. Then I think I will hang them on a Christmas Tree to bask in some pretty lights.

My love of shiny happy people baseball crowds has lead me to collect the Chasing History set in the foil version, which made up the other half of this trade. I can't believe I actually traded for something as dull as an Adam Dunn card. None of us need to see that, now do we? His was almost another pointless acquisition as I have since pulled the not-old "relic" version, which includes an exciting pinstripe swatch. Riddle me this how I got a white pinstripe on a blue swatch for a member of the Chicago White Sox. Another complaint for another night.

'round about the time these trades completed, I finally lucked into one of those 'Silver Slate Wrapper Redemption' cards, courtesy of a friendly card shop that took pity on me and simply gave me one, since they knew from their 21st Century technology that it was likely my tardy self would never receive any. I ended up with Heath Bell. Then I saw that Colbey from Cardboard Collections was much more on-the-ball than I with a post of his redemption. His included a card in my first player collection that I have also really been looking forward to seeing from a scan:

Also better in real-life, though the old-timey television-channel-off-the-air look from the scanner is unique too. This could possibly be Dotel's final card as he has moved on to the 60-Day DL without any good prognosis to be optimistic about. Colbey and I finished a quick 1-for-1 PWE trade for what I thought might be my first attempt at a rainbow. I thought I would start with some easy low-hanging fruit, but then of course I fell far deeper into wanting a rainbow not just of one player, when I could kinda sorta rainbow out the whole set. Octavio is now proudly anchoring a page in the Parallel Project, and remains to this day the only Blue Sparkle I have from Series 1. I could use some more. Hint, hint.

By this time Opening Day had arrived at last, and I set up another trio of trades to complete all while living out of a crew-cab pick-up truck. Perfectly suited for this was a trade of some '13 Opening Day and '13 Topps Stickers with the ToddFather.

I like stickers, and stickers like me:

I can't get too many of this sticker. It will be appearing in a lot of places, such as in random locations inside a nice brewery where some friends work. They make the best beer ever - Two-Hearted Ale. And they love Brewers thingamabobs and thingamajigs like this. When I was a kid I always thought Bernie slid down the slide into a great big ole keg of actual beer. Please don't ever pop that bubble.

The rest of the trade involved glossier mascots, in bigger photos:

Ta-da! An essential entry in my Chase of the MLB mascots this year featuring one of baseball's quintessential mascots. Thanks Tim!

Opening Day provided the base for another great trade, with Jim at Garvey-Cey-Russel-Lopes. I know it was actually Cey-Russell-Lopes-Garvey around the horn after a strikeout, but that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue quite as well. GCRL sent along yet another challenge for the scanner:

Methinks the Topps Voodoo is strong with this one. All blurry and such, the way they say Josh is seeing the ball this year. Perhaps the Angels didn't hire a very good opthamalogist for the pre-contract physical. And if I was getting paid that much for that little production, I'd hide my broken-down eyes under the brim of the cap a lot too.

As a bonus I received a card for yet another couple pages of cards this year:

You may see a gimmicky card of a jose-average National League outfielder with a blatant product placement contained therein. One could only hope Topps did take a payment for this card, in truckloads of product. I'm sure their Customer Service reps could use a little stress relief these days.

But I see a key cornerstone of a powerful project: Purple Pirates! ARRRRRR! What better team and color to pair up than Pirates yellow and purple borders? OK, sure, the black border cards would look quite a bit sweeter. But Pirates bury their loot, they don't spend it on a project too farrrrr. Those black cards arrrrrrr tough to find, even for Pirates. And what better carrrrrrd than a Pirate to have some beer in the background? ArrrrRRRR. Pirates love beer, until they get a little cross-eyed:

The best part of that cardboard awesomeness is that this card isn't even the greatest piece of Pirate Parrot memorabilia I have received this year! Stay tuned, mateys.

For all that wonderful baseball card fun I was able to place some Dodger Blues in a good home full of Dodgers, and I was even able to send along a Turning Two card Jim didn't have yet - not easy to do. There were a few more portions of Opening Day ephemera in that multi-faceted trade, but there seem to be some Tigers chasing these Pirates to the scanner...

...courtesy of The Prowling Cat naturally. Along with a trade that had nothing to do with the Detroit Tigers, the 'Cat shipped along a whole litter of kitties:

I mean, what trader doesn't like bonus cards in a trade? Even when it is a Tiger in a funhouse mirror that I can't even remember playing in Detroit, as it turns out he got to supply the subject of the standard baseball announcer line "...spent parts of two seasons with Detroit before being....". Those were in 1995 & 1996, I was in a lot of shock those two summers. Nothing like a LAST NAME card to shake things up:

Who? TRAMMELL. Good thing Jim Walewander isn't in that set. That would be awkward. This might be my first-ever baseball card with just a player's last name, but perhaps not. I wouldn't think there would be too many sets with that feature. You'd have to ask Dime-Box Nick, he would know.

And the 'Cat didn't know it, but he sent along an entry on another new-set-to-complete-finally list, the 1984 Topps Detroit Tigers:

Sure, he only got round about 2 at-bats per game as a backup on the world dominating 1984 Detroit Tigers, but how many players are you going to find that can back up the Plate and the Hot Corner...and hit a 2 run Homer in the World Series? A collection is born. I was slack on the cards in 1984, surprisingly enough. Perhaps you don't need baseball cards as much when your team leads wire-to-wire.

There was so much roar restored in that package, I almost forgot the prime object of the trade in the first place. Everyone hold their breath:

That pop-up is drifting ... another of this year's Out-of-Bounds Short Prints, #5 on the year for me. Still a long way to go. #6 arrived a few days ago but will supply the beautiful imagery for some boring information about the excitement of trading baseball cards, when I will add another Braves card blog to my new traded with the Pros roster. I tried to round up as many Topps goodies as I could for the 'Cat (who also hooked me up with 2 more Spring Fever needs, but we've already seen one of those - you'll have to wait till Christmas for the rest); I hope I found enough to balance the scales here, but I don't think so. I have my eye on a few items...

Recently, we finally made it to Official Summer Time, and the end of my extra-busy time at work. So I have been able to swing some more complex trades across a number of insert sets in those complicated Archives releases.

Dislocated Padres fan Marcus rolled all the way to Texas where he hosts his All the Way to the Backstop blog. He meticulously picked through my somewhat new want list on my blog, which started out with my hopes and dreams and extras for the pieces of the last two years of Archives, and did he ever deliver with, yep, a scanner work-out:

Just a '77 style Verlander? Nope, that is a '77 Cloth Sticker Verlander. Sharp.

Marcus also went the bonus cards route with a bonus stack of 2009 O-Pee-Chee. I am going to enjoy working on this set for months to come, and supplying you with great card images like this one:

Light-towers. Storm-clouds. What's not to like? How much did I like this package? About this much:

But wait....there's more...well, not from the Backstop, but from another blogger trying to complete another very complicated Master Set: 2011 Lineage. That would be Nick from The Lost Cards File. I too am chasing parts of that set; much easier parts than Nick is. I sent along all I could that would help, including several of the '75 mini relics from my ceaseless hunt for those now-old blasters this winter. And in return I made beaucoup progress on my '11 Lineage '75-mini needs:

Yeah, so the Braves have never ever sported Padres colors, not even on your Throwback Nightmare night. Who cares? It's 1975, baby! I don't think they even had night cards hardly in 1975. I have to admit they did have much better card backs than the phoned-it-in snoozers the Lineage editors came up with. Which kept me from collecting some cards I really, really, really wanted when they came out. But that first set you bought much of when you are 8 years old — ahhh, you never forget your first one. And now I am in it to win. Hurry up, Ultra-Pro! Get-r-done! This set won't fit on the Christmas Tree. It needs binder pages.

Nick also collects more high-end cards than I, so he too could send along some extra sweet bonus cards for me as easy as rolling off a log. I did say I love those sparkles:

This one is tuned to two different off-the-air TV channels - the blue one, and the green one. I have definitely learned how to pick which Blue Sparklers I want. What TV has those channels? Why the baseball card television known as my trusty mailbox. This card makes a fitting end to tonight's broadcast....tune in tomorrow when we celebrate Canada Day. Eh.

Opening Day Mystery

The mysteries of baseball [cue soft organ music] ... are not the subject of this post.

Are there mysteries of baseball cards? No, I don't think so. People want them, so people buy them.

But of course, our dealer of desirable things, Topps, can act in mysterious ways.

Perhaps you noticed this insert checklist tucked in with the pre-release information about the 2013 Opening Day set:

ODH-1 Ryan Zimmerman
ODH-2 Miguel Cabrera
ODH-3 Felix Hernandez
ODH-4 Jayson Heyward
ODH-5 Jose Altuve
ODH-6 CC Sabathia
ODH-7 Clayton Kershaw
ODH-8 Roy Halladay
ODH-9 Jay Bruce
ODH-10 Jose Bautista

And then once you started buying the cards, you pulled cards from all of the insert sets and parallels, but never a single Opening Day Highlight.

This is what happened to me. This was my first year buying more than a pack or two of Opening Day cards, so I hadn't given it any thought until I bought a 'blaster box' at Wal-Mart and pulled my first Opening Day Highlight card. I was hip deep in Opening Day cards by this point, as I really like the blue sparkle parallels in the set, and several of the other insert sets. So my first Highlight card was surprising. It came from this box:

I didn't really consider the "Only At Walmart" phrase at first as I wasn't too concerned about the likelihood of winning some MLB tickets. I did check the box to see what was happening with the inserts inside:

And there it was, Opening Day Highlights, 1-for-8 packs. Note the Printing Plate at 1:2,627 and Base Card Variation at 1:616.

Now look at the wrapper, which came from this box:

Want a challenge? Try to scan or photograph a silver foil wrapper. Anyhow, on all 7 card packs of Opening Day, the Printing Plate odds are 1:2,628 and the Base Card Variation odds are 1:617.

At first I just thought the Opening Day Highlights just weren't ready for the initial release of the cards, and Topps slipped on changing the wrapper to include the odds for the small insert set. Perhaps this was the case, I don't know.

So after that purchase I have been looking for more of these boxes at Wal-Mart, as well as examining Opening Day packaging at all the other retail stores. I did find one other box at another Wal-Mart. But since then every Wal-Mart I have been to, and all other places to buy Topps cards, have not had Opening Day Highlights printed in the odds listing. I have not been able to examine any "Hobby Boxes", which are sometimes labelled as such for online sales, but I think I have also read that there is no "Hobby" box for Opening Day, only ordinary retail boxes. None of the half-dozen card stores I have been in this year carried any Opening Day cards of any kind.

I found the 2 boxes with the yellow tag line about 6 weeks ago, and have been in a handful of Wal-Marts in Ohio and Michigan since then as my work travels allowed. I quit buying Opening Day finally, although I still want more of the blue foil parallels. I guess I don't really care for the idea that there is no way to pull a card that I do want (see below), unless I find the right Wal-Mart somehow, though Wally World has become my least favorite place to buy cards as there is usually little chance of finding anything except the newest releases. Very little thrill of The Chase in there.

Basically, it appears this is a single retailer exclusive set. Not an exclusive parallel, but a set of cards that can only be purchased at one store. Somehow I don't think it will be the last. Or maybe it was all a production snafu at Topps, who knows?

And maybe it was just a regional thing, and your local Wal-Marts all had these. ?

Personally, I wish I could just buy a set of baseball cards a pack or two at a time, with no inserts, parallels, or "hits". I did discover a way to do that (retail), though I haven't finished counting average inserts in the various pack sizes and prices and will post that some other night. I suspect it will be a more expensive way to go.

So which Opening Day Highlights did I pull, and could we please look at some cards now finally? Here yas go:

Not the most exciting batch of cards, #s 8-10 there sequentially. I do like the use of red-white-and-blue, but given the irritation factor, I'm not going to try to complete the set, so these are up for trade.

I will have some want lists going up in the next few weeks finally; these will mostly be for all the various parallels of 2013 Topps. And I do want the Cabrera card from this set.

In the mean-time, I know what will happen when I pass near a Wal-Mart. I do need some binder pages...Archives is out....there is a Wal-Mart I haven't checked, just 23 miles away....

Ladies & Gentlemen, YOURrr Two Thousand Thirteen Detroit Tigers

Yep, that's correct, I picked up the 2013 Topps Factory Sealed Detroit Tigers Team Set.

OK, I've actually had this one for a while, courtesy of a not quite 'local' FLCS, that actually barely had any cards for sale any more, like several I have been to this year. Not their fault, I know; and they did have this nifty product. The real news here is that I finally have a working scanner hooked up to my laptop. So now I can hook you up with my favorite cards without using a cell-phone camera. Hooray!

'cept of course I will probably still frequently just crib images from the web, cuz I'm lazy, and the whole scanning thing is a little bit of a PITA. You can look it up.

Why, here's one now -

I wasn't completely clear on the concept when I read a few blog posts about these items, back when they hit the streets a month or so ago. One of the Cubs bloggers and one for the Nationals typed up the details for us - I'd love to read more about these sets. I was glad to learn these team sets could contain image variations (such as the Verlander shown here) from the Base Set, and exclusive cards, such as the Comerica card I did scan in (such great Lines on it). Doesn't the Sea Turtle look nice, swimming away from it's mama diamond?

You might find Stadium Cards boring. I don't. Send them to me....

So who is in the Tigers Team Set this year? I'll just borrow an image once more:

So only 5 of the 8 current Tigers in Series One make the Team Set. (2 Series One Tigers, Raburn & Young, were released last fall and are now with the Indians and Phillies). Ramon Santiago, Avisail Garcia, and Octavio Dotel are scratched.

Minus those 5 and the Comerica card and we could see 11 more Tigers in Series Two....or will one of those 11 be elusively exclusive in this special blister pack? This is the first Team Set I have ever purchased, so I am intrigued. Cabrera, Jackson, Martinez and Hunter (along with a Press Conference short-print = zzzz) are in Opening Day, and all of them should definitely be in Series Two and will most likely remain the same images. Austin Jackson sports a sweet uni variation for the Motowners, and Cabrera's great sliding-into-Home card is on the sell sheet for Series Two. We could see a variation out of the other two I guess, but I doubt it. Also intriguing is some pre-release checklist info that has a member of the Tigers' 40 man roster on a Series Two card that is not one of the 11 listed above. I will only share one more scan from these 17 cards; I wouldn't want to take away your fun ripping packs looking for new Tigers cards, now would I?

But I had to get this last one out to the blogosphere:

It makes me wonder if there is a bit of controversy on the horizon with this one. No, not over the Tigers fairly solid left fielder there, casually climbing up the wall and robbing someone of a Home Run with his eyes closed. He had a rough April, but he's had two minor injuries this year, one limiting his playing time in Spring Training. While Austin Jackson has been on the DL he has been batting lead-off a fair amount and has been slowly raising his batting average through May, which was a much better month for him. I'm sure callers to sports nutz radio shows and online post-article commenters probably say he should be killed because he's not hitting .300, but I can only laugh at all the armchair quarterbacks of the world (takes one to know one, I know). I can never remember his well-known negative - his drastic splits vs left or right handed pitching, but that's why I buy baseball cards. He bats left, this card tells me.

But what confuses me about this card is whether it qualifies as part of the Out Of Bounds series of Short Prints. Of course, that very name is a bit goofy - one would think only catching a Foul Ball would be a true out-of-bounds fielding chance, but several of the cards clearly feature fielders chasing fly balls in the field of play. Not that Topps would ever let nitpicky details like that get in the way of a marketing gimmick. Anyhow, I like the cards quite a bit, though I only have four of them so far. And yeah, I would be glad to take the goofy things off your hands, by the way.

Will this great Andy Dirks card then be a part of that short-printed batch of cards in Series Two, with a more ordinary batting or fielding shot as his Base card? I pretty much doubt that, but one never knows what Topps is up to (and I prefer it that way). Several cards in Series One were labeled as Out Of Bounds cards very early in it's release, such as the wonderful Jon Jay card and the also outstanding Ryan Raburn card.

I think this card will give others that same thought....or maybe I have found a great way to pick up those tricky Out Of Bounds cards....as if Topps would have such mercy on us. We'll see.

What's in your favorite Team Set this year?

I only need one card. Card #1.

Of course, it needs the Opening Day bunting on it. Do I really NEED it? No, not really. I probably have 3 or 4 copies of it from Series One already, thanks to my parallel problem. But it is the last card I need from the Opening Day set.

And I doubt I have ever worked on completing a set with card #1 being the final piece of the puzzle. But of course, statistically, it has to happen to someone, somewhere, sometime.

And Happy Opening Day everyone! I had a great day, baseball card wise. How could I leave behind a poor, neglected blaster of 2012 Archive on the shelf on Opening Day? Those wrappers suck me in every time. There are just a few things in that set I want, but it is always nice to build up a little more on the farm system to trade away for the pieces you need up there in The Show, i.e., your own personal binders.

I had random other fun with baseball cards today, and was able to listen to most% of the Tigers broadcast, but I am just too tired to write much tonight. In the month of March I was out on job sites 27 days, spent 2 other days driving most of the day (over 4000 miles on the month), and slept for 2 days, with a little blogging thrown in on those 2 off days. April looks to be probably more intense, and I will have an employee or two with me a lot, so blogging will probably decrease some. I do hope to look into that mobile blogger app, we'll see....

....and I dreamed up a horrible, horribly difficult Franken-Frankenset idea that I will need lots and lots of help from the blogosphere from. Let's just say that it will require mass quantities of common player pink, camo, and black parallels. So when you see a random lot of them available, think of me. I'll dive it into strong about May or so.

Now that I have 2013 Topps Opening Day 99.54% complete, I can share a few observations with you.

I have never built an Opening Day set; I could never figure out a good reason to do it. This year I found one in my very first pack:

Sure, there are the now standard short print image variations. In Opening Day, they are all Press Conference cards. BORING. I'd rather have an Umpire Card, and in fact I found two good ones so far in Opening Day, a topic for another night.

What is the big deal on the Angels #1 starter, aside from the hinting on his card that he is thinking Yo Mama can't throw a fastball like this one? Here is his card from Series One:

So for whatever reason, not every card in Opening Day will be the same as their regular Topps issue for the year. And I don't mean the half-dozen or so variations of players part of late trades and free-agent signings who then have all new images in Opening Day, as compared to their already released Series One cards. And yes, I know, those are all Photoshopped. The horror.

How many such "new" cards are there? Right now it is impossible to say, because Series Two won't be out for another 2 months. So anything can happen with that I would think.

But since I really like the sea turtle set this year, I do want all of the cards with that basic design. Well, except for the Press Conference short-prints, and the wrestling "Divas". (Google Image that on your own time, I don't have anywhere close to enough of my own). And there are a couple of the insert subsets I want to finish out (again some other night here).

So I dove in. At least Opening Day is cheap. I did discover one other for sure variation from Series One, possibly:

This card is in Series One, sort-of. The back isn't. In Series One, this image is on a checklist card. In Opening Day, Johan gets a normal card back with all his stats. This would somewhat imply that he would have another card in Series Two, one would hope with a new picture.

Until, of course, the sad recent announcement that his season is over, and quite likely his whole career. Seems like a case of Topps Voodoo to me perhaps. And this could then possibly be his Sunset Card. We won't know until early June; I hope Topps uses the slot in Series Two to instead create a new card. I don't hate Santana or the Mets, I just like to see the Base Set be as efficient as possible.

A similar situation arose this spring with another excellent starting pitcher, who did not have any card in Series One:

I kind of just realized this is a dumb post to put up on Opening Day, one of the happiest days in baseball. Just looking at the expressions on Carpenter and Santana on those two cards definitely has me thinking beware the Topps Voodoo.

So despite overdrawing my time bank once again - you have no idea how long these posts take when internet service with "free wi-fi" has been beyond terrible for the last week or so, but then it frequently is as you get what you pay for - I will leave you with a more fun find from Opening Day, one of my favorite mascot cards this year. Sorry Mariners fans, but everyone knows Elephant trumps Moose:

I laughed at the front, I laughed at the back

Has a baseball card ever flipped us the bird before?

'course, that's just the luck of the shutter there with how Gio holds his glove, so I bet it's been printed on card-stock before. But then, he is smiling. He must know I am working on a Frankenset called Uhh-Oh, The Pitcher Is Smiling At Me.

I spent Opening Night Day driving onwards towards an exciting appointment with my insurance agent tomorrow, then the next day an even more exciting meeting with some guys from state and federal regulatory agencies. The cool thing is my client has to attend that meeting, and the gov't peeps will be telling my client exactly what I have been telling him already, even though his boss refuses to listen to certain facts.

The good news for blog readers is that I got to visit with Geoffrey twice more along the way, and there could be an especially dusty store to visit tomorrow, as I am in a state without an MLB team. But, then, both Toys R Us I went to this morning were also. I didn't find any more of those cut-your-own Verlanders, but I fed my purple jones some more. I'll get one last (hopefully) purple hit tomorrow and then I can put up a full have/need list for 2013 Topps Opening Day.

The bad news is that the 20% off sale on MLB "equipment" at Toys-R-Me is over now. Maybe single stores might still have a buy-one-get-2nd-at-50%-off deal on cards, but I only ever saw that in one store.

I did pick up one trick from the 'ole Giraffe today. I noticed at the second store there were no blister packs of regular '13 Series One on the little free-standing card tower rack thingie that is the flame to baseball card moths like me, even though it has dwindled down to a single side of sports cards. Those Yu-Gi-Oh monsters seem to get stronger every year, be careful out there. So like any experienced big box store shopper, I figured I should check the register aisles for wayward baseball card packages, and there they were, scores of blister packs, rack packs, and fat packs, just waiting to tempt all those milfy baseball fans stuck waiting in line with Jr.'s new video game. How did Griffey make the cover of MLB '13? I dunno, I was busy gawking at something there in the line. What did you say?

I don't really need any more Series One, but those purples kinda sing to me. There's a stack of them on my hotel desk right at hand right now.

Shhhh. I think I can hear them..... I think they're singing "From our imagination,

And when he's tall, he's what we call

A dinosaur sensation!

oh dear, be careful with these things. Quick, turn them over, that will shush them....

oh noooo Mr. Bill, they're still singing! A Topps pun just wasn't strong enough! Maybe these things really are for children after all.

Two Morrows Traded

Oh gee, what am I doing with a Hockey trade headline and a picture of a baseball card?

I just couldn't resist writing up that headline. I was reading my free-in-every-hotel USA Today this morning, and it informed that the Dallas Stars traded winger Brenden Morrow to the Pittsburgh Penguins for rookie defenseman Joe Morrow. Sadly, they are completely unrelated. I returned quickly to my laptop to see which sports section would write the obvious headline for the trade.

The answer? None. So I had to put it out there. I mean really, who could resist such a jaunty headline? Apparently, each and every sports editor in the USA and Canada. Sports is always so serious now. Here's all the details on the trade, from the Pittsburgh paper.

So why is Neftali Feliz overseeing today's abnormal daytime babblings? Well, I need another copy of his card for one. I already have him on a couple of Frankenset pages. He gets a Horizontal card this year, one that looks like a set-up for a Fernando Rodney arrow-shot. He looks like he is just about to blow a speedball past somebody. I've always liked this particular action shot pose. And, Neftali is sporting an Alternate Cap. That Frankenset is getting off the ground pretty slowly, I only have 3 cards in it so far — all Rangers from '13 Series One. Normally the Rangers wear a blue cap; sometimes on card's it so blue it looks purple. Like the Jurickson Profar hype cookie, errr, Rookie Card, for example.

But I want one more copy of his card because of his cool red glove. Look, I have Cool Gear. That page has Adam Wainwright and Starlin Castro on it so far, with a Jose Bautista card on-deck to join, when the sorting gets a little more caught up.

It is a confusing time of year in baseball for baseball card collectors. Everyday there is a long list of Transactions, For The Record. I like reading them in the newspaper, in the tiny print. Yeah, I know, there is a website for that. Probably a smartphone app and a Twitter feed too, so I can have up to the minute knowledge of just when last year's 13th round pick straight outta Florida Gulf Coast has finished negotiations and finally been Assigned to some A-level minor league team on the Florida Gulf coast somewhere. You know, so you too can be ready for the inquisitive glance from the actual GM on whether that was actually a sleeper selection that should have been made in the single digit rounds of the draft, the way Jonah Hill was ready for such questions in Moneyball.

One of this weekend's Transactions was Cleveland's outright release of this guy:

Probably another Why, Topps, why? effort in the minds of Red Sox collectors this year. The Transaction list usually has several details on which cards are now well on their way to being Sunset cards.

Veteran players can go through lightning quick changes of uniforms this year too. Endy Chaves will probably be in the '13 Update set this year....young mid-Atlantic collectors are probably trying to figure out how to designate Chaves for assignment to their Seattle Mariners cards when he is wearing the fabulously bright alternate home Orioles uniform on his Series One card this year, despite signing with the Royals in December. Maybe Ronny Cedeno will be in the Update set too. The Astros have to get cards in some set of baseball cards, don't they?

But getting back to tomorrows being traded, another recent Cleveland Transaction is more of why I called this time of year confusing for card collectors. You see these cards with a bit of buzz, like this one:

Yes, I know, Photoshop. Not the greatest effort there either, but service-able. Trevor always sports Great Sox, wherever he pitches. I learned that from my baseball cards. I find it a little more interesting that Topps went with a new photo for the card, one of several like it in the new Opening Day set. I'll be working up a post on that, probably for tomorrow.

Does Topps feed off the buzz around media darlings like Bauer? Perhaps. I don't read that stuff, I read baseball cards. After getting his official Rookie Card in '12 Update, a base card in Series One, making the cut for the Opening Day set, and even a spot in the '72 Mini insert set, it seems like a head-scratcher when you read "Cleveland optioned RHP Trevor Bauer to Columbus (International League)" a week before Opening Day. A bit of baseball card hype dashed again.

Or is it? Looking at MLB rosters through the prism of baseball cards can be a little deceiving. There is some rules / player-contract structuring device happening this time of year where it is to an MLB's team advantage to have a young prospect start the season at the AAA level. I don't understand how that all works, but I know a number of those excitingly-fresh-with-anything-can-happen-anticipation Rookie Card players have been assigned to the minors this way over the last few weeks. A number of Baltimore Orioles come to mind (hot card pitcher Dylan Bundy opens the season at Double-A); Mike Olt of the Rangers was just on this list as well.

So, I guess if you are the GM of the greatest baseball team ever assembled, in your own head at least —as we all are; then baseball cards can only help you so much. I don't "play" in a Fantasy League. I just keep re-arranging little pieces of cardboard instead.

No one likes cutting their own cards...

...but it can be worth it. Fortunately, I don't have access to my random amounts of old Hostess cards to scan some severely sad seventies scissors selections.

So just where did this 2012 Justin Verlander card that you've never seen before come from?

Here is the source material:

Courtesy of Geoffrey once again. Who's Geoffrey? Which blog is his? No, no, Geoffrey is the name of the giraffe that is the mascot for Toys R Us. This is a blister pack that held 3 packs of '12 Opening Day, with the usual T-R-U mark-up, so it cost $3.99 for 3 packs. I guess the cut-your-own bonus card is supposed to help make up for that. It has been nice buying cards from Geoffrey this month at least, when the big ole cuddly giraffe is offering them up at 20% off.

And there are random surprises about the 2013 Opening Day blister packs at Toys R Us too. I'll cover that here very soon.

Although it clearly states "Cut Out Your BONUS TRADING CARD Under This Pack" at the top of the blister there, I didn't quite understand that part. I'm slow sometimes. I thought there would be a bonus card in there loose, so I wasn't all that careful peeling open the blister and I put a crease in this 2012 Topps Opening Day Justin Verlander image-variation card. Short Print? Well, in this hobby there are no hard and fast definitions of that term, that's for sure. So I'll leave that alone for a second.

It is interesting that Topps put the April 5, 2012 date on that particular piece of cardboard, just as they do with the Opening Day parallels of late, and only on the parallels now. Does that imply that some of these variant cards might have a color parallel? Don't ask me. Were any printed and cut in the normal process? Again, dunno.

I have put off this post for a few weeks of owning this "card", because I seriously didn't look forward to the required scissors work. Overall it came out pretty good I think. Two slight creases, one wavy edge. The word "mint" will certainly never be attached to the effort though.

Which was OK, but it made for good practice to get this card:

YES! I wasn't looking forward to the effort required to ever get this one. I didn't buy many cards in 2012 (a story I keep promising to tell here) and I'm going to just buy a factory set of them. (Horrors! Yes, I know.) But that means little chance to ever pull one from a pack, or any of the other short-prints from that set to trade for it. And I will have enough of a climb to get the '13 SPs that I want.

I hope maybe to discover the story of this card somewhere. Did they really put that on the scoreboard at Comerica for this shot, or was it done later with digital wizardry? Lots of questions on this one.

For the first week I owned these I thought I might have some fun with saying I scored a 2012 Justin Verlander Short Print Blank Back 1/1!!!!! But then I looked at the actual back:

Pretty boring. And I would just add that I will still use this platform to wonder about the high value of the 1/1 blank back cards. Who wants a baseball card with nothing on the back? Yeah, yeah, there is only one of them. In the Whole World! And I own it! That's what makes it valuable Dude! OK, you get your kicks your way, I'll get mine a different way.

So, of course, I still don't own the 2012 Topps Justin Verlander Short-Print Image Variation baseball card. Technically. And though it is a little hard to see in the small picture above, there is just a trace of the residual gray cardboard this wonderful slab of a cardboard hero was cut from. A Printing Error card. This makes it totally unlike any other version of this card, anywhere. A true 1/1. And I own it.