Hey, a Ringside!

Been a while!

Thanks to Stubby for sending this one my way, he had it in his spare Ringsides. It's a weird world, when both I and a regular trading partner end up with "spare" 1951 Topps Ringsides from time to time.

Not a lot out there on our pal Eddie Compo here. It looks like most of the information Wikipedia has on him came straight from the back of this card, and they even link to the card in his entry. Retired at 28, had one especially noteworthy fight against Willie Pep in '49, lived a relatively long life post-boxing.

Kelly wanted to see a back scan (which I'm frequently too lazy to make/post), so here, Kelly!

MOAR ARCHIVES

Got some singles the other day. We'll go through them, because you couldn't possibly be sick of looking at this product yet, could you?

We'll start with the man of the hour! I became aware that he hadn't given up a hit somewhere around the 7th inning last night, and enjoyed the hell out of listening to the rest of the game. One less thing for Mets fans to bitch about, even if they're going to mention "hometown scoring" and the need for replay every time this one comes up. Congrats, Johan! Congrats, Mets!

Another mullet to add to The Many Mullets Of Mitch.

I'm gonna end up collecting just the '80 design Archives, aren't I?

To quote Lana Kane, "YEEEUPPP!" Really love this Joe D card.

We'll wrap this one up with another '77 cloth, this one of good ol' Josh.

Here, look at some cards you've already been looking at for a week!

Sucker for the '71 design, even with inaccurate fonts, and especially if the team didn't exist in '70-'71.

This scanned mighty well for a cloth sticker. Can't say the same for the 3D card I got, but that spared you all the indignity of Dustin Pedroia.

Yay, another card featuring a team that didn't exist in the first run of the design! Sucker for '80, too. Also: is it me, or does "Ben Zobrist" sound like an expert at doing something dirty?

MOAR '80

Yeah, be nice if they nailed the player name font, but '84s are pretty cool too.

Awwww, The Kid.

This Giants uniform variant looks awfully appropriate on an '84 design.

OK, you've seen some pretty pictures. What do I actually think of Archives? Well, the card stock's weak, which is what everyone thinks, but it's a fun little diversion. Need to give the checklist a look and see what I'm after (I know I want the Strawberry '80 base card, I obviously want the Harper since I have a Harper problem, and there are a ton of awesome, hopefully cheap autos), since I don't think I'd build a set of this.

I am alive!

Back from the West Coast, slowly updating my want list, and ideally, I'll start cranking out posts this week! In the meantime, here's a few pictures from my trip!

It was short-lived ("Bruce" overtook me today as Mayor), but for a brief moment in time, I was the Mayor of Sick's Stadium (home of the Seattle Pilots) on Foursquare!

Proof! (I'd love to accost the hooligans who left graffiti on the sign and ganked the Seattle Pilots logo from it, though!)

The view from my seat at Safeco Field.

The view from my seat at Oakland Coliseum.

The outside of Raley Field, home of the Sacramento River Cats. Didn't make it to a game, but I did drive by...

The Willie Mays statue at AT&T Park.

One angle of the view from my seat at AT&T Park.

The other angle, later in the evening.

The view from my seat at Angel Stadium.

Me "enjoying" a Dodger Dog from my seat at Dodger Stadium.

Me looking VERY SRS with Dan "Big Hair & Plastic Grass" Epstein at Dodger Stadium.

Yes, that is my name tag from The Price Is Right. No, I didn't make Contestant's Row, though I did get this solid green screen shot of myself playing Cliff Hanger...

(Don't tell the Price Is Right people I screenshotted the proof.)

Mariano

Even being a Yankee fan in exile as I am, this is one of the sadder nights I can remember in my time watching baseball. Mo might make it back, but this was never part of the plan for him, obviously. Most people had him figured for retiring at the end of this season. If he plays again, unless it's this season by some cosmic accident, that's not happening. He wanted to go home to his family and enjoy life, not prop up the Yanks for another year after this one, by most accounts. While I (and all of baseball, frankly) will miss him, and while I hope he makes a full and successful recovery from his injury, I strongly hope that he does stick to what were apparently his guns, doesn't get roped in by guilt that he's apparently feeling for letting his teammates down, and has a long and happy life after baseball. He's more than earned it, and  even on the days where other teams got to him, he's never let any of us down, be it his team, his team's fans or anyone who watches baseball. As I said earlier tonight on Twitter, "Thank you, Mariano."

I've been kinda sitting on these for a while, as I got them during a period of time when I was posting very much, and I was holding off for the right moment to post, too. (I didn't want him getting any more inundated with TTM requests in camp than usual, as people have had years to hit him up, and there was a lot of talk of this being their last shot already.) I wish I had a happier occasion to post 'em on, but we'll play the hand we were dealt.

Anyway, I wrote to Mo right before he got to camp, thanking him for everything he's done on and off the field and asking for an autograph. One autograph. I sent 2 cards down to him, and expressly asked him to sign the 2nd card and give it to a kid in camp, but he might've just had the clubby take the cards out of the letters so he could sign and return 'em without looking at 'em too closely, or he might've wanted me to give the 2nd card to a kid myself. Either way, a guy who gets something like $300 for an autograph via Steiner signed 2 cards for a schlub like me without getting anything in return, and almost immediately upon arriving in camp, judging by the postmark.

So, I'd say it's on me to get that 2nd autograph (the grey one's the one I'm giving away) out to a kid somewhere. Least I could do for a guy who hooked me up like this, not to mention how much joy he gave me as a baseball fan.


Here's how we're going to do it (yep, it's contest time again): during the 2012 baseball regular season, post a comment here, ideally with a picture of the kid who you want to get the card, and an honest story about how much the kid likes Mariano Rivera. Hell, if you want to make it even better, have the kid hand-write a story about how he likes Mariano Rivera, scan it and post it here. If they wanna draw Mo, that's cool too. The more honest and thorough information we have on what a Rivera fan the youngster is, the better. If you can't figure out how to post images to comments, email me with the picture(s) and I'll help you out.

Let's have the cutoff age on the kid be roughly 12 (so, any kid with a birthdate in or after 2000 is eligible). Any older, and they're essentially an adult in baseball card collector years. We're going on the honor system for all of this, by the way, but if you cheat or make something up, it's gonna look really scummy on you, so don't. Also: please don't force your kids to do all this stuff in order to get an auto, as it'll be really obvious if you do, especially to a crowd of people who've seen all manner of shenanigans like a bunch of card collectors. 

At the end of the regular season (last Yankee game is October 3rd, 2012), we'll take all the entries, make a big ol' poll, and my followers (best way to keep the ballot-stuffing to a minimum) will decide which one they think should get the card, purely on merit.

Sound good? Cool.

Jeez, I haven't posted in almost a month?

Been a weird month. Busy life + depression + sleep issues + migraines=no scanny teh cardy.

I have gotten some cards, though.

This is #58/61. Got it yesterday in with some inserts. Only my 2nd from this set. Still, as I did when I got the Panda (which I can't believe I haven't posted here, gotta check into that), I thought "I wonder how hard it'd be to put together the set...".

Speaking of "can't believe I haven't posted it yet"...

Yeah, this card's kinda ridiculous. It was pretty cheap, too, if I'm remembering correctly.

I've been dabbling in my other hobbies this month, too.

Yep, this is a quickie headshot sketch of The Huntress (Helena Wayne) by the great George Pérez. Got this at a comic con in NYC last weekend. Here's George and I, after he drew it...

While I was at said comic show, I also snagged an autograph from Neal Adams...

(Check the bumper.)

Oh, and I met this guy. Yep, that's The Fonz. He and I talk on Twitter sometimes, so it was cool to meet him face to face. Great guy.

One more example of me hobnobbing with folks I talk to on Twitter before we get back to cards. On Wednesday, Kristin Hersh was up at Fairleigh Dickinson University for WAMFEST, doin' a talk and a few songs along with Tom Sleigh and Wesley Stace (a.k.a. John Wesley Harding, though I couldn't place him as his alter ego until after the talk was over, damn it!). Kristin's perhaps best known for her band Throwing Muses, though she's done a ton of other stuff, including her solo records, records with her band 50 Foot Wave, being a board member at CASH Music and her books. I got her to sign a copy of her book "Rat Girl" (pictured above) while we were talking, as you can see below...

Kristin's an awesome, awesome lady, a true artist in every sense of the word (and I can say this with confidence, even as a guy who's waaaaay behind on her back catalog), and her Twitter account is pretty dynamite, too. Thanks, Kristin!

So yeah, been busy. If you saw me mention "depression" above, yes, despite all of this, it is entirely possible to continue to suffer from it. Don't wanna spend too much time talking about it here when I'm supposed to talk about the bubble gum cards, but we'll just say that in between all of these moments of awesome, it was a constant struggle to stay out of bed really over the past 2 months, still kind of one now, and a lot of these awesome things didn't happen because of the kinda crushing inertia that depression brings to the table. It sucks, because it probably seems like I'm ungrateful for all the cool things that do happen (unfortunately, illnesses can be neither grateful nor ungrateful), and sometimes I do feel ungrateful when I'm physiologically unable to totally enjoy awesome things, which makes the struggle a little worse, but I try not to do that to myself as much as I develop a greater understanding of the mechanics of things. Not throwin' a pity party here by any means, just explaining why I get so damn quiet sometimes.

OK, back to the bubble gum cards!

Yep, I did. I got my first-ever proper, intended-as-such Bipping this past month from dayf. I won't bore you with the '97 Toppses (which were really borderline Bip material as I needed most of 'em, but we won't split hairs). Ready to see the front of the sketch card? I know you are.

(Amazingly, I don't have the card this wonderful sketch was based on yet. That really belongs in my Top 25. Gotta make a note of that.)

dayf also keeps rather perversely sending me '56 Topps Kansas City A's. Again, like the '97 Toppses, not unwelcome, but...odd.

Imma finish off with 2 base cards from Topps sets I won't be collecting this year...

The base cards on these really don't look so bad, but I keep seeing people post the "hits" on Twitter, and...no, not so much. ZOMG ON-CARD AUTOGRAPHS doesn't make me like the designs. Even this design kinda looks like a knockoff of UD Masterpieces, but the picture's decent enough and it's of one of my guys, so I snagged the card.

Holy Sacrilege, Batman! I'm not collecting Heritage this year? Nope. Seeing the '63 design on Heritage reminded me that I'm not much of a fan of the '63 design. Just gettin' the players I collect, then calling it a day. It'll save me some money and hassle. Series 2 and Update, Ginter, Gypsy Queen, etc. are more than enough to keep me busy.

That's all for now, but I still have a pretty big backlog of stuff to cover. I will try to do this soon!

The post in which I work blue (parental discretion required)

ARKY FUCKING VAUGHAN

There. I worked blue.

In all seriousness, I loved this card from the moment I saw it (maybe it's Arky's early demise or the photograph or something, dunno, but it's haunting), and spent a fair amount of time trying to nail it down before I nailed this off-center but still pretty specimen a little ways back. I've also been completely incapable of referring to this card as anything but the dirty name I gave it above, usually out loud, whenever I've looked at it online or in-person.

Ever see the back of a '60 Fleer card? If not, here:

Really crisp little design. Dig it.

'79 Topps: PWN3D

O HAY THAR PETE

This happy lookin' but ultimately doomed to disgrace feller was the last card I needed to complete my '79 set. First set (and, undoubtedly, the easiest to complete in general) of the '70s that I've completed!

I'm very, VERY close to finishing '75 and '78, though.

Here's how close:

1975 Topps (Have 657/660): 126, 280, 308

1978 Topps (Have 724/726): 424, 652

Get in touch with me if you've got any of these 5 cards. We shall trade a glorious trade!

RIP Don Mincher

I got this in the mail late last week (finishing my '70 Kellogg's Pilots team, all 2 cards of it), and was getting ready to post it today for reasons having little to do with Don's passing. Couldn't we have just stuck with "Hey, awesome! Seattle Pilots cards!"? Rats.

 

Don Mincher was a baseball lifer, though I mostly know him as a Seattle Pilot, and as part of the cast of characters of Ball Four. Here's a brief obit that seems like it hardly scratches the surface of the things he accomplished. Rest in peace, big guy.

Definition Of Hunger Found In Card Show 50 Cent Box

To quote Frank Zappa, "Shit, you musta been hungry."

Gotcha, you sonuva...

Took me 20 packs (sorry, I didn't bust a box, so I didn't record the box break), but I got 'em. I've opened 23 packs in total, 5 this morning after my 18 on Wednesday.

Now, to finish off the base set (I'm about halfway; anyone else bust this stuff and have doubles?). The cards are pretty good, more or less Score-quality base cards, not a ton of inserts in the packs I opened, and I got Antawn Jamison and Ishmael Smith autos in the first half a box I opened.

On the flipside, how cool must it be to be one of these people in the crowd?

Contest Winner!

Hey, remember this?

Yep, I did too, just had something of a distracting day, so I just got around to the drawing. Alas, I had one late entrant who, in the interest of fairness (rules are rules and all), I could not include in the drawing, but an apology email to them later, I set things up, and our winner is...

Dan!

Verifiable Results Here!

Congrats to Dan, and I'll be in touch to get your mailing address from you!

Thanks for participating, everyone, and for reading this here site!

The Round-Up for 02/29/12

2 months in a row of record traffic, with this month up 10% from last month! Thanks for spending part of your internets time with my somewhat disorganized site!

(From the "This post needs a picture, and this isn't a bad one" dept: Hank here finished my Aaron-in-the-'70s base card run about a week ago. I got the '70 in a trade with reader and fellow fantasy leaguer Stubby a while back, but I'm like 2 or 3 trade posts behind on the Stubmeister. I will catch up on trade posts, and all the stuff I've scanned recently...someday.)

A reminder: all entries for my current contest need to be in by Midnight Eastern Time. If you wanna win a copy of this...

...simply make sure you're following this site via Google Friend Connect (the link's in the sidebar below my "short" want list), and drop a comment on the original contest post (not this post) letting me know that you're following! I'll be choosing a winner at random tomorrow! Good luck!

In some other news, the next White Plains card show is March 23rd-March 25th, and while it's a crazy busy weekend for me (2 shows and 2 fantasy baseball drafts), I may try to make it on Saturday the 24th before rushing home to the D.R.I./Cro-Mags show at Starland. Good free autograph guests (and 2 of 'em: Roy White, who I got recently, and the great Bobby Shantz!) on Saturday, Wade Boggs (!!!) signing (not for free, but 'ey), and a ton of other autograph guests (Dawson, Robbie Alomar, Ron Davis, Dick Groat) will be there. Plus, all the New York football Giants are signing on Sunday, so we'll be avoiding that mob scene! (I drove past a bank in Montclair, NJ where JPP was signing a few weekends ago, and it was a madhouse; paramedics on scene, the whole nine...) If anyone's up for meeting up there, that'd be awesome, just let me know so we can plan.

I finished '92 and '93 Topps yesterday, and I'm within a scant few cards of finishing '75, '78 and '79 Topps now, too! If any of you have the following...

1975 Topps: 126, 193, 280, 308, 450

1978 Topps: 424, 652

1979 Topps: 650

...give a yell, and let's trade! I've got good trade stuff.

I'll be picking up a box of Hoops in a little while, for the heck of it. What can I say? Strikes (and fantasy sports) are great for rekindling one's interest in a sport, despite what conventional wisdom suggests. Anyway, should I bust it on-camera later? I probably will, if I can wait that long.

That's it over here for now. What's going on with you folks? Let me know in the comments!