In Honor of Lance

Yesterday, Lance Berkman announced his retirement. As many of you know, I was on the Astros Grounds Crew for the 2001 and 2002 seasons. The best two years of my college life, I got paid $7.00 an hour to watch my heroes play the game. Lance was one of the very few players who treated us college kids like human beings. There were many days during batting practice where he and I would sit in the dugout and just chat about all sorts of things. He was a great guy and in my opinion one of the top 5 Astros ever to put on the uniform. In honor of his great career, I'm going to show off every Lance Berkman "hit" that I own... enjoy, without commentary...

Thanks Lance for everything you brought to Houston, and to the game. You're truly one of the "good guys" and deserve every accolade given to you. Thanks for the memories and I can't wait for the Astros to retire your number.

Another eBay Pick Up - Panini American Pastime

Panini, this is how you do an unlicensed product. Stop making it glaringly obvious that you don't have a license! Brilliant!

Double swatch? Check. Decent photo of the player in uniform? Check. No large blank area where a logo should be? Check. And nicely low numbered as well! I have the /25 version headed my way. I was slated to get a /10 laundy tag version, but the guy I had set up to bid for me fell asleep in his recliner and missed the auction. Can't blame him, he was bidding for me because I was already in bed! Ha! Needless to say, I like this effort from Panini. Really can't wait for them to get a license again because I really think they can do some great work.

Fun eBay Pick-Up

Snagged this card on eBay a few days back, got it in the mail the other day and thought I'd show it off!

This beaut comes from 2002 Topps Chrome and is just beautiful!!!! Not too many times you find a card with all three of these guys on it!

Another Awesome Trade with Greg

Ladies and Gentlemen, Greg over at the blog I refuse to type is a great trader. We've pulled off many huge Astros for Dodgers swaps and in the last couple weeks we pulled off another. Here's the first page of goodies:

Some nice Astros there for sure, not sure why Just Minors pulled the full Panini treatment on that Paulino, but whatever. That Bagwell sure scanned nicely!

Alright, onto the meat of the deal... Greg pulled a couple Hollywood cards out and I snagged them for my wife's collection!

A piece of Jacket worn by Woody Harrelson in Kingpin! And a Henry Fonda relic, both fit nicely into the wife's collection! Anyone with spare Hollywood hits, let me know, the wife is always looking to add to her collection! Will trade baseball for Hollywood any day!

Finally, some baseball cards round out the deal! 

Lance is on the verge of retirement, and what a career. Was he a HOF'er? Doubtful, but he had a career that any aspiring player would love to have. First up is a sweeeeeeet Lance auto from his minor league days as a Jackson General. Next, the Leaf Limited /100. That's a nice patch on the lower right! Finally, a minor leaguer who can certainly mash HR's, but K's a LOT. Don't know if Mr. Nash will ever make it to Minute Maid Park but I like his auto for sure. The Green parallel /399 is pretty nice as well!

Thanks Greg!

One Heck of a day at the LCS... Another BOOK!

The wife and I were driving around Mobile and Spanish Fort today, decided to stop by the LCS. I have been selling a lot of cards on their consignment eBay store and had a nice credit backlog so I went for a couple of hobby boxes.

First a box of 2013 Panini Team USA Baseball. I really like this set and have gotten lucky with some autos. Unfortunately, this box was shorted an auto or two. But still got some nice cards towards my set completion goal... here's the hits:

The bat relic is a tough pull, not too bad on Brady Rodgers (Astro) and Addion Russell, who I think will burst onto the scene with the A's soon. The lone auto is Ryan Stanek from the Rays, hopefully he pans out. All of these are for trade, as I already have a Rodgers. I am working to get a trade bait page going, since I have very little and am going to try and keep very little here at the house.

For my second hobby box, I snagged a full box of 2013 Topps Triple Threads... because I'm slightly obsessed... Here's the goods:

Shelby Miller /18? Not bat at all! Mr. Stanton out of /99? Again, not bad! And Ian Desmond /36? Well, two out of three ain't bad... but wait, that's not all... the second mini-box that had the Stanton also contained this beautiful piece of cardboard madness:

WOW WOW WOW WOW... the wife was there to witness, my hands were shaking when I pulled this one out of the wrapper and was even more shocked as I unfolded it to see who was inside! I now own checklist card #1 and #2 of this subset; and looking at the checklist the two I have are probably the best to have pulled (except for #4, which has some real rookie star power). But I'll take proven HOF'ers over prospects any day! This is the second book I've pulled myself, and I do believe this one too shall stay in my collection! All are bat pieces, except the Mays which is a nice old school jersey.

Going for the J.D. Martinez Rainbow...

So, I was able to snag a pretty significant card off eBay for a pretty low cost... so I am going after a rainbow of card number UAJR-JM2 out of 2013 Triple Threads... So far, I have 3 of the 6 so half way there! I already showed off the /75, so here are the latest 2 pick ups:

Yep, that's the 1/1!!!!! Freakin sweeet! So that leaves me with the /10, /50 and base /99. There is one of the /10's on eBay right now, but it's a BIN and definitely more $$$ than I paid for the 1/1. Hopefully another one pops up before I'm forced to buy it! Ha! If I ever see the 1/1 of the UAJR-JM1 pop up on eBay, I may be tempted to snag it and go after a rainbow of that card as well.... you know what that means, I'd have a DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!!


Hahahaha! Have a great weekend everyone!

Redeemed!!!!

Topps and Panini each sent me a package the other day. Both were redemptions I had been waiting on for some time!

The foil board name didn't scan, but that's Rio Ruiz and what an awesome signature! Despite my better judgement, I have to give this one to Topps. On-card auto, logos and a decent design trump Biggio's card. I know sticker autos are part of the business now, we can't avoid them. But I really feel that if I'm waiting for a redemption, it should be due to the company waiting on the hand-signed cards back from the player; not waiting for the company to have a guy place the stickers on the cards. Anyways, rant over, two great cards for my collection nonetheless!

Have a great Friday!

Another Couple of Biggios

Another fun eBay mail day this weekend... picked up a couple of Biggio cards, this time from Triple Threads and Panini's Americas Pastime:

These two cards dovetail nicely together! One tells you what club he's in, the other tells you exactly how many hits he got! The Triple threads is out of /36 while the Panini is out of /125. Both great looking cards, even if there is no logo on his helmet in the Panini. Panini is still a bit odd in their designs, something just is off to me and it's not the logos. It just seems like they are all designed in some  1994 version of Paint or Word with ClipArt. Anyone with me on this????

Have a great week everyone!

One More Biggio Five Star!

Got this one in yesterday! This is numbered out of /65 and is the "base" Silver Signatures auto:

It didn't scan too great, but it's an awesome looking card. Outside of some crazy patched relics and dual autos, I think this may be the last Five Star Biggio I pick up unless I get extremely lucky on a misspelled auction for something crazy! Haha!

That Other Astro in Triple Threads

There's another Astro player in Triple Threads this year other than Biggio????? What?!?!?! Certainly it's Bagwell, Altuve, Nolan or J.R. Richard, right? Ummmmm.... no.... It's a guy who shot up the minors, then hasn't produced at the major league level. So mediocre, he was taken off the 40 man roster before the Rule 5 draft, and not a single other team placed a claim on him. Sigh... I decided to go ahead and pick up just one version of each of the two cards that Topps made for him in this set. Once again, another way I'd do things differently if I were at Topps, you know I'd actually pay attention to teams' rosters and not pick guys who are going to be released within the same year. May same problem with Carlos Pena being one of the Museum Collection selections before the season. Anyways, here's the obligatory scan... :-)

Coincidentally, I just happened to buy the "Sepia" /75 parallel of each of these cards. They are nice looking cards at all! Got them both for less than $8 shipped from two different auctions. Somehow I still feel like I overspent! HA! Hopefully J.D. turns things around in Spring Training and possibly lay claim to the LF spot. Maybe his injury prone days of hitting near the Mendoza line are done... I'm not betting on it though!

I know, I know, you all are saying, "He complains if Topps ignores the Astros, he complains if they put Astros in the set." Valid argument. But I have a feeling the "big team" fans would feel the same way if they got 2 players in a high end set, one was an A-Lister and the other was a D-lister. Anyways, have a great day and enjoy my little piece of hypocrisy for the day! :-)

Silky Smooth

I am not even going to address the absurdity of yesterday's news. Freakin' stupid.

As has been the case for a while now, I'm still chasing any an all Astros Silk Cards from Topps flagship product. Recently, I picked up a couple more!

For some reason the foil text on Valverde isn't showing up too well in the scan, but it says 24/50 on the bottom there. Nice additions to the growing collection of silks!

Biggio's Five Star Debut

Good morning, I promised some Five Star the other day and so here we go! I've picked up a few Biggios from the set this year, as there is no base card of Bidge but there are plenty of autos!

So the base autos are out of /333, while the "rainbow" variation is /25. I picked up a Silver Signature "Silver" parallel out of /25 as well. I was really excited about the book quad relic auto out of /49 though. Again, picking these up for a fraction of the cost of a box of this product.

Today we find out of Biggio makes the HOF, and frankly there are already some idiots who have shown just how ignorant they are as sportswriters who say he doesn't deserve a vote. Especially that one moron who said the only deserving candidate this year is Jack Morris. Seriously, they've got to take this out of the hands of the sportswriters, they've shown year in and year out that they are a bunch of petty morons who hold grudges for imaginary reasons. But I digress.... have a great day everyone!

My 2013 Topps Triple Threads Collection - Craig Biggio

Some of this may be repetitive, but I wanted to get all these Biggios in one post, and while I would have liked one scan, I just couldn't fit them all in the scanner at once!!!

Here's all the Biggio cards I've managed to amass from 2013 Topps Triple Threads so far:

Wow, ok so that's a lot of shiny stuff!

I've identified a few that I still want to chase that I don't have:

• Sepia /75 & Emerald /50 - Unity Auto Jumbo Patch (the one with Craig Batting in the pin-stripe uniform)
• Unity Jumbo Relic - TTUJR-CBI3 - Picture with Biggio batting and his elbow covering his number
• Relic - TTR-CBI1 - "3K CLUB"
• Auto-Relic Combo - Triple Auto with Biggio, Pedroia and Phillips 

That's 5 cards and I'll be satisfied with my 2013 chase of Biggio in Triple Threads. I figured the hardest to get a reasonable price will be the Triple Auto-Relic Combo redemption card. Fingers crossed!

Another Rainbow of Biggio!

When I saw that Topps was putting Craig Biggio in 2013 Topps Five Star, I knew I was in trouble. Not because I was going to buy a bunch of boxes, but rather because I knew my eBay activity would spike!

I have managed to pick up a nice lot of Biggio Five Star cards! Today, I show off the relic rainbow (missing a couple) that I've cobbled together!

Wow! How about that! That's all the base relics from /35 through /10! The only two I'm missing are the "Rainbow /5" and the Jumbo Patch 1/1! It would be pretty sweet to add those two, but I'm pretty happy with these 6 as is!

It is a bit odd to me that they used two different color jersey/pants for these cards, and that the picture is a pinstriped uniform. I am guessing they don't coordinate the relics/pictures at all and if that they match it's by pure coincidence, but that's the level of detail I would look for if I was running a company. Just my two cents.

Coming soon, some Biggio autographs from Five Star!

Trade Night! EXCITING STUFF!!!!

So my LCS had their monthly Trade Night last night. Had a BLAST! Opened some great stuff. I'll start with a couple of actual trades I ended up swinging while I was there. The Pence and Bagwell/Biggio below were coupled with an autographed Jonathan Singleton baseball bat!

The Posey is a nice die cut relic. I'd take a pic of the bat, but that's a lot of effort on a Sunday morning and I'd rather you all just try to imagine how awesome it is... it IS pretty awesome... 

Alright, now for the "holy crap, I can't believe I pulled this" section of the post...

I have two cards that I pulled from Triple Threads last night that just blow my mind. I definitely think one is more awesome than the other... but I don't know which one to show off first.... I guess I'll start with an AWESOME BIGGIO!!!!

Yes, that IS numbered 2/3.... and has a SWEEEEEEEEEET PATCH!!!!! Always awesome to pull something that you actually collect! I couldn't believe it! I was SOOO pumped when I slow rolled the reveal to see the Astros logo first, then the Biggio auto, then the 2/3 and finally the patch! There was a small round of applause in the shop (seriously, people applaud others big pulls, especially when it's something like this). It was great. The 1/3 sold on eBay already and the 3/3 is up for sale, but I can 100% say this is staying in my collection! Great picture of Biggio, great looking card and it scanned pretty nicely.

OK, so as awesome as that card is, you're probably wondering what could be close to as awesome. Well, I pulled my first BOOK CARD!!!! It was the last mini-box of Triple Threads that I opened (different master box from the Biggio though). I could tell once I pulled the foil wrappered pack out of the mini box that there was a book inside. It was ultra thick. The autograph in the pack was Evan Longoria /99. Not bad at all. And then there was this!

So here's the outside cover of the book! WOW!!!!

And the inside, the relics!!!!

The A-Rod and Berra are patches. The card is numbered 2/9 (Jeter's number). Honestly, a SWEEEEET card even if it does have A-Rod. I couldn't believe my luck! Great, great, great card to pull! There was another round of applause. This just capped off a great night! I was very excited to walk out the door with the Biggio, to add the Yankees book was just awesome. I haven't decided whether to keep this or sell it. I had a cash offer while we were in the store. I am no Yankees fan, but I admire Gehrig and to have a piece of bat of his alone is pretty cool. Maybe this is one I hold onto, since it's the first book I've ever pulled.

Thanks for stopping by everyone!

Texans from the LCS

I haven't been collecting much football in the past few months, but I did pick up a few discount Texans hits from my LCS here in Mobile...

Two of these guys may not be Texans next year (Posey and Tate). Tate is definitely gone, he'll get a fat free agent contract. Posey may not fit in O'Brien's system. Mercilus has enough potential to stick around in Romeo Crennel's 3-4 system. Texans are a team in transition but I think it'll be a quick turnaround!

Secret Santa Elfster by Crackin' Wax - Team Phungo Comes Through!

Paul over at Team Phungo runs one of the best Phillies blogs there is! He drew my name in the Elfster Secret Santa run by Crackin' Wax! I was thrilled to open the package to find these Astros beauties... yes, you're getting a bunch of scans! And Night Owl, yes, EVEN the base cards!

Gotta love some vintage there at the end! The Morgan, it looks like it was horribly miscut or someone tried to trim it for some reason, who knows? I love the Dierker and it's actually a better quality than the one I had, so it gets a binder page!

Now for those of you who just want to see hits!!! Haha, kept you waiting!

Freakin sweet Biggio Auto /25!!!! I have a few of these parallels, but was missing the /25 so this is a very welcome addition!

Paul, I hope you had an amazing Christmas! Your package ended up being the only cards I got for Christmas and boy did they put a smile on my face! Thanks bud and I hope your Elfster Secret Santa did you a solid addition to your collection as well!

A Rainbow... Incomplete... But Getting There

Ok, so when Topps made the grand decision to add Biggio to 2013 Topps Triple Threads, I was all kinds of excited, but I also know that I was going to be screwed because there would be all kinds of base parallels, auto parallels, relic parallels and printing plates to chase... good golly... but I have amassed quite a nice collection in the past few months and I'll go ahead and show off my mostly complete Biggio base card parallel rainbow!

Top to bottom, left to right - 645/650, 76/250, 64/125, 9/99, 29/50, 1/25, base. All I'm missing are the printing plates and the 1/1 Ruby parallel. All 4 of which I am fairly certain I'll never see, but I've got my saved searches on eBay primed and ready for them!