Quick Cano Addition!

Hey guys, Drew back here. I just wanted to quickly share a card I recently got in, one I picked a grand total of $1.25 for, with free shipping. Take a look:

Nothing overly special, but certainly for the price I couldn't go wrong. Out of the 2007 Fleer Ultra "Feel the Game" relic set, I picked up the Robinson Cano relic. This is the 192nd unique card I own in my Cano collection, which has certainly came a long way over the past year or two I've been collecting him. I may not be the crazy player collector that goes for all of his 1/1's and his triple patch autos and so on, but I really am a big fan of his and I love every chance I have to pick up more of his cards! 

That being said, once again if anyone has any Cano cards they'd be willing to trade, please shoot me an email or comment on this post. I look forward to getting my 200th card of his in the near future! 

Thanks everyone, and See Ya!

Even More Mail from William!

Hey guys, Drew back here! It's been a very long week consisting of illness, stress, and school work. As most of you know, those three don't mix well, at all. However, I've been still active in the hobby, sending a few TTM's and making trades, more than I've done in certainly a while. I have a lot of stuff to share with you all, and I doubt you are any bit surprised that the first order of business is that of a package from my great friend William. William cracked open three jumbo boxes of the new 2012 Topps product, and was awesome enough to send over the Yankees cards he pulled to me! Take a look at those, as well as soon other cards he was nice enough to throw in:

I really like the looks of the new Topps series from the small taste of it I've gotten here and there in the past two weeks. The design; while some people may disagree, looks very clean, simple, and does what most companies should try to do most- make the picture stand out. I feel like this is probably the most important part of building a strong overall design for a card: to focus more on the photograph than anything else. Some of the photograph selections in the past few years have been excellent, and a prime example of this is the honorary Mariano Rivera all time save leader card. It's a classy tribute to a classy player, without a doubt.

A special feature of the 2012 Topps set is that, along with the 2011 League Leaders subset, there is also the "Active League Leaders" subset, consisting of AL/NL players with the highest career batting averages; home runs; RBI's; Wins; ERA; and Strikeouts. I was kind of surprised to see that Jason Giambi has the 3rd Most RBI in the American League of any active players, with players such as David Ortiz and Paul Konerko still active. Then again, Giambi has seemed to be around forever, so I guess it's not that much of a surprise. I think the design on these cards could be improved, but they look better this year than they have in the past.

I didn't get a chance to share my opinions on the A.J. Burnett move, so I guess I'll take a little time out to do so. Well, the Yankees didn't certainly get a whole lot out of the deal, they DID get cap room, which they needed more than anything, to sign a left handed bat, which turned out to be Raul Ibanez. I'm glad to see him get an opportunity in a smaller city, because he certainly didn't shine under the New York City limelight. The Burnett signing just went to show that you have to be extremely careful before signing pitchers to big contracts. I watched the movie "Moneyball" today for the second time and without a doubt I can say that it's easy to find a pitcher to do just the job for much less money.

I really like the look of the golden parallels this year, although I do find it as a bit of a coincidence that Topps did away with the gold parallel cards the same year as the Golden theme occurred. I'm not upset or complaining though, because they were kind of just there most of the time.

This set needs to be put to rest as soon as possible. Since 2010 from what I can remember, Topps has issued a set having to do with comparing two players. The idea died after the first year it was done in my opinion. There is no need to have a card comparing Maris and Granderson. However, with the shortage of Maris cards in the market, I still like to add his cards here and there.

The last 2012 card William sent me between his two latest packages was this 1987 style mini of Robinson Cano, which will be added into my Robinson Cano collection! I kind of like this set, especially compared to the other inserts from this year's product. Cano is certainly going to be expected to have a big year, and I have no doubt in my mind that he will come through yet again. He is the best talent I've gotten the opportunity to watch on a day in-day out basis in my years watching baseball, without question.

Speaking of Cano, William also sent a few other of his cards to fill holes in my collection, both of which from 2008 Topps Finest. I don't know if I'm the only person that feels this way, but doesn't seem like Topps Finest is always just there every year? It never necessarily seems to stand out, but it's never really completely forgotten. Anyway, I needed I believe both of these cards, so thanks for the help, man.

Finally, a few of the heroes from the junk wax era, such as Dave Winfield and David Cone. It's not common for someone to send me cards of great Yankee players on other teams, so I typically need them whenever they come my way. Or I have them somewhere deep within stacks of random binders, which really is a pain to go through. And of course, the legendary Ron Davis; also known as the guy whose autograph took forever to identify on my signed Mantle photo. Can't go wrong with that!

William, you are one heck of a guy, and I really do appreciate all that you do for me! I'm going to get you back one day, without a doubt! Thanks again!

See Ya!

2012 Topps eBay Additions!

Hey guys, Drew back here! About two weeks ago, I had to check out some 2012 Topps cards, but I wasn't interested in dropping a ton of money for a box, or even packs. Instead, I took the eBay route, and picked up a few relics from the set. Take a look:

First, I managed to add the Robinson Cano bat relic to my Cano PC, for about $6! The relic design is just ok to me for this set, because I think there's just a bit too much space not used. However, I like that it's a clean design with not a whole lot going on, putting more emphasis on the relic piece. The inserts using this design without the relic look pretty bad though, not going to lie.

The second, and final (for now) relic I picked up was this one above of Giants freak closer Brian Wilson, who certainly has one of the more different personalities in the game today. Some people hate him, some people love him. Personally, I think he's awesome, because 1) his beard is amazing, and 2) he adds something to baseball that not many other players can do. He's helped transform his Giants team into a fun to watch, contending team with many characters that make it easy to root for them. This is my first semi-decent addition  to my collection of Wilson, and hopefully there will be a few more to come in the future.

See Ya!

Mail from a New Friend, Scott!

Hey guys, Drew back here. I was really fortunate a few weeks ago to meet a kid named Scott through William! Scott is one year older than me, and is a genuinely awesome person without a doubt. William met him at one of his card shows and worked out a few deals with him, thus leading to him directing Scott over to my blog, as he always seems to do! Scott emailed me asking about a future trade, and we were able to work out a blockbuster trade as reporters would say. Take a look at some of the sweet cards he sent over to me:

I'll start with the extras I received. There were quite a few cards I needed badly, such as the Cano chrome card and the Eduardo Nunez chrome rookie. I even think I still needed the Nick Swisher Allen & Ginter card, which goes to show how well I've collected him over the past few months. The other day I was sorting out cards for a trade and found a box of Allen & Ginter laying there, still filled with all of the loose cards I already broke out of packs. I opened that box in August. Time to catch up there, Drew.

Here are some of my favorites of his throw ins. I absolutely love the Thurman Munson cereal box chrome refractor, which has alluded me for a few years now. The Vazquez purple refractor is numbered out of 599, and while he wasn't necessarily effective as a Yankee during his two stints, it really is a gorgeous card. I also really like the Josh Hamilton propaganda card. Hamilton has undergone a bit of speculation over this offseason with the whole "couple of beers scandal", which I find absolutely ridiculous and blown up. He still remains one of my favorite players, so nice try media.  

We now arrive to the meat of the trade, which begins with this very nice 2008 Upper Deck Spectrum relic card numbered to 99 of Curtis Granderson! Curtis has become a favorite in New York after his enormous 2011 season, and while it may be hard to repeat, he may be one of the only players in baseball that has the talent to be able to repeat it. Granderson is part of my secondary player collection list, and I'm always looking for cards of his I didn't already have. 

Next was this 2008 Allen & Ginter relic of Mark Teixeira. There isn't much to dislike about Mark, besides his often slow starts and occasional painful to watch playoff performances. He's a great clubhouse guy, as well as perhaps the best defensive first baseman in the league, and a very good power hitter. Sometimes his streaks irritate me but for the most part I like the guy a lot. This card is awesome too, even though Tex hardly played for Atlanta. Any red relic is uncommon to find, and as soon as Scott offered it to me I jumped right on it!

The final relic of the three he included in the trade was for my 2011 Topps Tier One relic set, this being of Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels. Hamels is one of the newer players on the checklist, and while most people wonder how he shares a card in the same set as the Great Bambino, I find it kind of cool to have a solid variety of players. Hamels will probably never have the career statistics to put himself in such an elite set, so I guess he should enjoy his time to shine now while he has it. This makes the 11th card of the 50 card set for me so far, which is great considering I started the set just a couple of months ago!

However, we aren't quite done here yet! Scott informed me prior to mailing his package out that he was going to be attending a dinner event with some current major league players, and offered to try and get me an autograph! I gladly took up his generous offer and sent over 2 customs cards, one for him and one for me, of one of the players attending the dinner! 

Scott didn't promise me an autograph by any means, but the fact that he was willing to try meant a lot to me. Sure enough, however, he came through in the clutch, landing me an Adam Jones autograph! Normally I don't tend to go for many Orioles cards/autographs, mainly because they typically don't stay in my collection all that long. In my opinion though, Jones has to be their best player nowadays, and I thought it would be cool to at least have his autograph. He inscribed his number 10 below the autograph, and I love the way it came out! Scott had a great experience meeting Jones, Willie Bloomquist, and a bunch of current prospects at the dinner event, and you can take a look at his recap here. 

Thank you so much Scott for everything you did for me! I really look forward to extending our friendship more and more and making more deals in the future! Everyone please be sure to check out his blog when you get a chance, even though he is... a Red Sox fan!

See Ya!

One of Baseball's Biggest Kids Has Left the Field..

Hey guys, Drew back here. Watching baseball players ain't what it used to be, as Yogi Berra would say. In fact, I find it great to be able to have the opportunity to see what the game was like, say, prior to when I was born, on the MLB Network. I watched a show today called "Prime 9", which I'm sure many of you have watched before, and it was about the top 9 greatest characters in baseball history. Then, fittingly after I finished watching the countdown, I received a text from William. On occasion, he tends to sporadically inform me of news around sports, such as the passings of many former legends like Bob Feller, Duke Snider, Harmon Killebrew, Ron Santo, and many others. I was a little scared to check this one, unless it was a simple "Hey", or "How are you?" for example. Unfortunately, I had a reason to be scared, and that was because the message read "Gary Carter died."

I have to say, as sad as the news was to hear the first time, I wasn't necessarily surprised. Mr. Carter has suffered an enormous amount of pain in the past year, and it was almost assumed he wouldn't be able to survive brain cancer. However, there were moments of hope the Carter family had that relieved me. My family went through a tough time late last fall, and hearing news of a 57 year old man suffering from one of the worst cancer diseases out there was just a true tragedy. But, coming from someone who has now seen the effects of cancer, in a way I'm glad his suffering is now officially over. Maybe he could have recovered, but he would never fully feel the same way after battling a disease that takes people down a rollercoaster that endlessly continues to go straight down.

Fortunately, he lived a short, but great life. Gary loved the game of baseball, which is noticeable the moment you go to his Baseball Reference page, where besides his name is his nickname, "The Kid". I didn't have to go there to tell you how great of a player he was, for 4 teams, over 19 seasons behind the plate. Coming from a Yankee fan who is embarrassed to share the New York baseball love with the Mets, I will admit that 1986 season was a classic to look back on. Who knows how history would've unfolded had Carter not smacked a single to spark the late inning rally in the 10th inning of the 6th game of the World Series. Had the Red Sox wound up winning, the alleged "Curse of the Bambino" garbage from 2004 never would've been mentioned. Instead, the Mets took home the trophy to many bright stars and great people among the game. Carter was undoubtedly one of those great people.

He was elected into Cooperstown in 2003 on his 6th year on the ballot, where he continued to carry his famous smile. "The Kid" proved to fans that baseball is everything but about the money, which is why it hurts me to watch current players go out there and perform every day. A majority of current players love the game dearly, but that love for America's Pastime often gets pushed aside for a nice fat contract that will earn them cars and houses and all sorts of other expensive items. We need more Gary Carter's in baseball today, for sure. He set an excellent example for how to play the game the right way, without needles, syringes, PED's, and everything else that gives advantages to players. Baseball is changing into a business more and more every day, so it certainly is sad to see Gary go. It is just a game, afterall.

Rest in peace, Kid. I'd like to give my condolences to his family, friends, and fans, who lost a great of the game today, as well as a great of our world.