Get Well Soon Ty! Recent PC Pickups

Hey guys, Drew back here! As many of you know, I recently started a new player collection; 2012 Yankees 1st round draft pick Ty Hensley! Unfortunately, the well touted prospect just recently underwent successful hip surgery, and will be out for a good chunk of the 2013 season. In order to wish him a proper get well, take a look at some of the cards I recently added of his:

I made a Check Out My Collectibles purchase about a month ago, taking home a bunch of great new cards for my collection (you'll see most of those another day). With the few bits and pieces of store credit I had left, I added a few Hensley cards to deepen my collection of his. Of course, I added the 2012 Bowman Chrome base and refractor, two pretty essential cards towards any prospect collection.

I also added these two parallels from the regular Bowman set; the orange and blue ones in particular. The orange is numbered 208 of 250; the blue numbered 390 of 500. I'm not the kind of collector who would chase multiples of the same card; I've always liked just having one of a card. I'm not against it though, so if you guys have any of these cards for trade I'd love to take them off your hands.

I bought this one off of eBay for less than $10 delivered, the Bowman red ice parallel numbered 1/25! It's a beautiful card; easily one of my favorites in the small but ever growing collection. I was surprised it didn't go for more than it did, because of the scarcity and the whole "eBay 1/1" spiel, but I'm definitely glad it didn't.

I've been selling quite a bit on COMC (although I've hit a dry spell of late), and I was able to fund enough $ to buy this sweet Hensley magenta printing plate! It's been a while since I've been able to add a 1/1 card to my collection, but after selling my Torii Hunter SP Legendary Cuts 1/1; I felt like I should replace it with something I liked more. 

But wait! There's more! I also happened to stumble upon the Cyan plate on eBay, and I got it for $10 less than I paid for the magenta. It was a great price, and my opinion, the better of the two!

Despite the injury, I'm still confident that Ty will be able to rebound and get to the majors one day! I'll definitely be rooting for him when he does! Get well soon!

See Ya!

June 7th Yankee Game Recap!

Hey guys, Drew back here, and this time I'm sticking around, I swear! My family just returned from an incredible cruise in the Carribean Sea, where we enjoyed great food and excursions on St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and St. Maarten. Everything was phenomenal and I miss it already, however, I've still got 2 months of freedom to go, so I'm going to make the best of them! 

So, in order to do so, I need to take you all on a time machine, back into the beginning of last month, because, well, I never got around to posting about it. It was the second to last day of school, before finals began, and Dad, my Uncle Scott, and my cousin Jayen were gearing up to go to the big pitcher's dual in Yankee Stadium! We were given tickets by my Grandpa Walt, who normally joins us for a game once a year, however due to him feeling pretty sick he gave my dad a chance to go this time around. I remember I was really looking forward to seeing CC Sabathia face off against David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays, and spent the whole school week thinking about it. But the day had finally come, and after a train ride, we arrived to the home of the Bronx Bombers!

Unfortunately, as soon as we left the train and started walking to the stadium, it started to absolutely pour. We all got a bit nervous, but we had a little hope that it would clear up because the clouds were moving by pretty quickly.

Fortunately, we were most definitely right. It wasn't the most beautiful day for a ballgame by any means, but that full double rainbow we saw that stretched from left field to right field was pretty darn cool to see! The rainbow simply told us not to worry because baseball would soon be played! The players started to trickle out of the clubhouse a little at a time and before you knew it most of the team was warming up for the game and getting ready to go!

My camera was good enough to catch former Yankee manager Joe Torre in the dugout talking to Jeter, which was cool to see. Torre was there for some charitable reason, along with a few other celebrities, such as  Paula Abdul. 

Torre got a much larger ovation than the former American Idol judge, but that was only fitting considering the man led the Yanks to 4 championships in 5 years.

So, the game was finally underway after about a half hour rain delay, and while it started off looking to be a close game, the Rays pulled away by the 4th inning, taking a 5-1 lead. Sabathia never had his game that night, without question, and while Price had a high pitch count, he fared much better than the Yankee ace. It came down to the bullpen holding the game for us to have any shot at a comeback victory, but Corey Wade and Clay Rapada couldn't get the job done as well, and by the 8th inning the score was 7-2 Rays. 

Eppley

Rapada

One thing that was pretty cool was Girardi's transition from right handed sidearmer Cody Eppley to left handed sidearmer Clay Rapada. Sidearmers are definitely fun to watch because their windup is so much more unique than the typical pitchers style. As I said though, nothing positive came of it, as Rapada gave up an RBI double to increase the Rays lead.

Nick Swisher

Russell Martin following PH HR

It definitely turned out to be a nice night in Yankee Stadium, even though things weren't going so well for my team. However, it wasn't over yet, as Russell Martin hit a pinch hit home run to make it 7-3. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, as Rays All Star closer Fernando Rodney shut it down in the 9th to give the Rays the W. 

The results weren't pretty, but like every time I get a chance to see a game, I had a great time with my family and they did as well. I want to thank my Grandpa for treating us once again, even though he probably isn't reading this, it meant a lot that he was thinking of us even when he's had a tough past few months. We definitely appreciated it. 

Before I close this post up for good, I want to quickly show some scans of the results of 2 2012 Bowman rack packs I opened at the game! Check em' out!

Just about all of these are for trade, including the purple refractor of Mariners prospect Anthony Fernandez numbered 48/199! Let me know if you like anything by leaving me a comment. Thanks!

Last but not least, Happy 4th of July everyone! Hope you've all got some fun plans for the night, and well, God Bless America. God Bless America's Pastime. Ok, I'm out. See Ya!

Multiple Package Recap, All from William!

Hey guys, Drew back here for the summer! First of all, how is everyone doing? I'll have you know I'm doing better than ever, and it feels awfully darn good to be back here with you all. I've got a heck of a lot of stuff to show off that I got since my departure from the site, a lot of it coming from my great friend William, from foul bunt! Since the last time I posted about cards from him, he's sent me not one, not two, but three packages that kept me updated with all the new products coming out, as well as some other assorted Yankees from over the years! Check out this pretty solid portion of what he's sent over the past month or so:

We'll start with some of these mixed Yankees, including an awesome Bowman rookie card of Yankee prospect Adam Warren, who's one of the more underrated guys in the system, as well as a rookie of now Mariner Hector Noesi. Noesi was pretty good for us last year, but was dealt in the Jesus Montero-Michael Pineda deal earlier this year. Also I really like the Jorge Posada vs. Pedro Martinez "Grudge Match" insert. I miss when the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry was intense and really fun to watch. 

It really is getting more and more difficult to fill holes in my Yankees wantlist, however William knows best, with all of these cards being new additions to the Yankee box! The Pettitte Turkey Red refractor numbered to 999 is now one of my favorite Pettitte's I own; the shine really pops in person. Also, that Munson Diamond Kings insert is pretty as well.

One of the packages contained quite a few 2002 and 2005 Topps cards, which was cool also. While I do own the 2005 Topps set, I have hardly any of the 2002 set, so most of these were also needed! 

Getting a little more modern, here are a few more recent cards (besides the Abbott and O'Neill's in the top left)! I love the way the Topps parallels shine from the past couple years, so it's definitely awesome to be able to add the Bartolo Colon card! Also, I don't think enough people give Bowman Platinum the props they deserve, because the Cano base card is one of the nicest base designs I've seen in a while. 

Like I said, if it wasn't for William, I would have close to 0 2012 cards. He's been basically my provider of all 2012 cards necessary, not because I tell him to, but because he wants to, which is really too cool. Here are 7 Heritage cards, one being one of those little sticker things of Mark Teixeira. I'm surprised on how nice Heritage actually looks this year; I honestly thought it would be a really lame set. 

Another set that surprised me this year was Bowman, which sports a really clean, sharp look this go around! Normally Bowman has a very generic, bland feel, especially in the regular base set, but this year there's something refreshing, although I can't quite put my finger on what it is. I'm excited to add my first card of Jose Campos, the "PTBNL" in the Pineda/Montero trade. Apparently he's supposed to have pretty good stuff as well, and is ranked in the lower half of most Yankees top 10 prospects lists.

No set in 2012 has been nicer than Gypsy Queen though. Topps definitely nailed the hammer on the head with this set! It is so elegant and pays a lot of respect towards the art of the game, which is something that needs to be remembered more often. Baseball is the classiest sport around, at least in my opinion, and some of these photos just show the elegance of the game better than just about anything I've seen in cards the past 5 years or so. Well done Topps.

The final current set William hooked me up with is the most recent (besides Tier One) release, Series 2! He sent me a ton of Yankees base from the set, which again was really awesome of him. I'm still not really sure where I stand with this year's set, because I feel like the swoosh thing in the corner kind of gets in the way of the photo a bit too much. However, Topps' design team has really stepped their game up this year and proved why they received the license from the MLB rather than Upper Deck. I do miss the rivalry though, a lot. 

I hate to be a downer, but while the base designs have been pretty nice all around in 2012, the inserts in the flagship sets have been a bit disappointing. We've seen pretty much the same inserts the past 3 or 4 years now, and even though they have different designs, the concept has been exactly the same. I say every year keep 2 or 3 solid inserts, like the parallels for example, and do away with the rest. Believe it or not, in the long run inserts of young players like the Betances card above can kill a lot of value for player's rookie cards. I recently read an article in Beckett Magazine about how Mariano Rivera's Bowman rookie card is so valuable because it's his only rookie, meanwhile Bryce Harper rookies will be pretty affordable one day because he has so many. While I don't always agree with Beckett, they are 100% right in this case. 

For the final two cards, we switch gears a little bit (emphasize the little)! This John Lennon Topps card came out of their 2011 American Pie product, which was really cool! William told me the card was from his wife Mal, so again I want to thank her for this awesome one! I've always loved the Beatles, and have a tremendous amount of respect for John Lennon. 

The final card (for now) was one he bought specifically for me, from 1961 Post of Yankee great Elston Howard! William, you are too much my friend! I'm going to have a field day trying to find a way to get you back for all of this awesomeness! 

Everyone PLEASE go follow foul bunt and check out that site, because man is William an awesome guy. I'm so glad to call him my friend. Thank you man. 

See Ya!