A Few Recent eBay Purchases!

Hey guys, Drew back here! Dang, the last couple weeks have been awful on here, I haven't had time for anything! But I'm glad to be back here for now, because I have a couple of recent additions I'd like to show you all! Take a look:

First off, I have to say that I absolutely love the look of 2011 Topps Marquee! This here is a rookie autograph card from that very product of Rays phenom rookie Jeremy Hellickson. You all know my love for some of the Rays that came through the farm system around here in New York, such as Longoria; Shields; Hellickson; and even Josh Hamilton in his short minor league stint with the Devil Rays. This card was at a fairly low price, and for what I figured, a great price for one of his rookie autographs. It's on card, numbered out of 185, and I think it just looks incredible in person! 

Of course, many of the big offseason awards have started to be announced, and that means that this guy could come home with some hardware soon. Hellickson's great rookie season (13-10 W-L, 2.95 ERA, 117 Strikeouts) may give him a chance at taking home the AL Rookie of the Year award! I feel like the biggest 3 contenders for that award are him, as well as Royals' Eric Hosmer and my beloved Yankees' Ivan Nova. I'd be happy for either Hellickson or Nova, because either way they rank pretty high on my favorite players list!

The second and final pickup to show and tell for today is this 2011 Topps Triple Threads Unity autographed relic card of 2011 Silver Slugger winner Aramis Ramirez! This card was dirt cheap, only at a couple bucks, and for the year he gave me in fantasy baseball, I owed him a quick little $4-5 dollar pickup. I never really was a big fan of his, because he always seemed so injury prone and overrated. Well, he certainly proved me wrong in 2011, batting .306 with 26 home runs and 93 RBI. At this point I would take him over the ridiculously over expensive Alex Rodriguez, but beggars can't be choosers I guess. Maybe the Yankees should've put an ounce of thought in before they signed him to a 10 year contract.

Triple Threads has always been a nice looking product to me, although some people may disagree. Sure, it's very similar year in and year out, but with the new addition of the addition autograph and autographed-relic in these "Unity" designs makes for a cool chase. Plus, there are 3 different photo variations for each player in the checklist, which can be put together to make the Unity part complete. Although it's a sticker autograph, it's really shiny and just looks great in general. Nice job, Topps!

So, hopefully this will put me back on the blogging map, but we'll see! See Ya!

TTM's #56 and 57! Big Prospect Success!

Hey guys, Drew back here. Before I get into this post, I just wanted to once again thank all of the great guys out there who congratulated me based on my last post, and if you haven't read that yet, please do. Also, for all of you I'm currently trading with, sorry about the delays, I'm going to try to get everything ready and out as soon as I can. Tryouts did get in the way for a while, so hopefully it's ok that I'm taking a little long with this. Anyway, I've gotten a few more successes recently, but I'm going to spread them out a little. Here are the next two successes, numbers 52 and 53 for me!

First, Rays rookie pitcher Jeremy Hellickson signed 2 customs for me! I have sent to this guy twice now, the first being these two cards back in last August, and then again in Spring Training this year. The customs were made for me by Mike over at Bad Wax, who offered me a small trade for me to use the cards for. Thanks again Mike for letting me use them! The cards use the design of the framed autographs from 2009 Topps 206, and he made many big name prospects.

Hellickson is one of those guys that I plan on following throughout his entire career. I very well may have seen him pitch in 2006 when he was on the single A Hudson Valley Renegades team, my local favorite minor league team. I wouldn't know because I never wrote down when I went, because I was a young kid at the time. However, when I got into some of the prospects, this guys name came up, and I recognized it. I looked him up and saw that in 2006 he pitched in 15 games for the Renegades, with a record of 4-3 and an ERA of 2.43! When he made his Major League debut on August 2nd of last year, I was a fan! Until the end of the season, while being called up and down often, Hellickson pitched in 4 games, and won 4 games. He was dominant, and many people think this will carry over into this year, when he has a chance to win Rookie of the Year as a starting pitcher for the Rays.

Hellickson took 196 days to return this one, and I had to say I was very surprised and pleased that it came back! Also, it ended my streak of damaged customs, which was very good to take a break from. If any of you are looking to trade anything you have of him I'd be really happy to take them off your hands!

Well, it could've been a lot better, but Mark Buehrle signed a custom for me in 29 days c/o Spring Training! The card was one of the most damaged customs I've gotten back yet, so I'm really disappointed with this return. I'm crossing my fingers that more of the customs don't come back this damaged, because the glue I used is just completely destroying the cards. I'm going to try a new glue soon, so hopefully the situation will be solved soon. One idea I've had with this is that I could attempt to cut the auto out and make a cut autograph, but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea or not. He's very hard to get to sign cards, because he tends to sign more of the larger items with TTM's. I also sent to him back in July last year and I'm still waiting on that.

Buehrle has had an impressive career, and I'm not sure how many people have noticed it. Going into his 12th year in the big leagues, he's sported a 148-110 Win-Loss record with a 3.85 ERA. He's made 4 All Star Teams, won 2 Gold Gloves, and won the World Series in 2005! He also pitched a no-hitter in 2007 and a perfect game in 2009. Plus, he owns the MLB record for most consecutive batters retired, with 45. He's been one of the most consistent and underrated pitchers in baseball in the last decade, so I'm glad to own his auto, even if it's destroyed.

Does anybody know a good way to get rid of all the damage on the cards? See Ya!

MAIL TIME!

Hey guys, Drew back here. I just wanted to catch up on some recent mail, so lets' get started. I have 4 things to show, and the first is from William, the owner of foul bunt. William has been such a good friend of mine since joining this blogosphere, and he always sends me packages just for the heck of it. Here's what I got from him this time.

He sent plenty of 2008 Topps, and I was surprised because I didn't have like half of them! You can't really tell, but the Shelley is a gold parallel, along with a Chad Moeller that wasn't pictured. The Jeter is my favorite one out of those! Also a few other nice inserts and stuff were included that I didn't have yet.

William recently split a box with Max, his best friend, one of our own from Knuckle Ball Blues. It was of 2010 Topps Finest, so I'm assuming these came from the box minus the Bowman Winfield. The Posada looks spectacular, it's the blue refractor numbered to 299. Thanks William for all the cards!

The next package was a prize from Grand Cards. I entered one of his card auctions for a bunch of Yankees, and I got a ton for only a few Tigers cards. These are just the highlights, my favorites, because I want to save some time here. I needed all of these except maybe the A-Rod, but I love Masterpieces so it needed a scan. The Mussina would look great signed, so maybe I'll try him TTM again with it.

Here's a few more, including Deion Sander's 1990 Donruss Baseball Rookie. Also a few Ian Kennedy's, who unfortunately never worked out for us. A nice Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio finished off this scan in style. Thanks again for the prize!

From Mike of Bad Wax, I got 2 Jeremy Hellickson custom cards for only a few nothing special autos! I asked if he could make me one to get signed, because he's pictured as a Renegade and I remember him pitching for them. Maybe if he makes it up to the bigs, I could look back at this card if I get it signed and think about how cool it was to get this. The cards look great, thanks again Mike!

The last package was from Mike, from BA Benny's Baseball Card Buffet. He included these 4 cards in a 1 for 1 trade, I appreciate these dude, especially the Sanchez rookie! I've gotten a lot of Curtis Martin cards from you guys, but the one on the top row is one of the best I've seen!

And the trade was for this Kellen Clemens rookie jersey card. Unfortunately, this is event used, you know, when the rookies all come together and put on and take off jerseys over and over again and then they put them in cards and somehow they sell for a lot of money. It's a nice card however, and I didn't have anything great of Kellen before, so thanks BA Benny!

Thanks again to everyone for the great stuff! See Ya!