What a Way To Start it Off!

Hey guys, Drew back here. I just got back from school and immediately turned on Yankees baseball for the first time in a long time! It was a great start to the season, mostly propelled by the great performance by Curtis Granderson, who hit a long home run into the 2nd deck to break the tie in the 7th inning. Granderson also made 2 incredible catches, one being a diving catch in the 1st inning and the other being a beautiful over the shoulder snag in the 9th inning. CC Sabathia started the game, giving up 3 runs in 6 innings with 7 strikeouts, a perfect quality start. As always, Rivera came in and shut the Tigers down in the 9th, after new Yankee Rafael Soriano dominated the 8th. Joba Chamberlain got the win after pitching the seventh inning.

As I've said I've never been more excited for baseball than this year, and what a fun way to start it off! Let's Go Yankees! Keep it up!

Happy Opening Day Everyone!

See Ya!

Image: http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/photos/_/name/nyy/photoId/1231021/new-york-yankees

White Plains Card Show Recap 3/27/11! Part 2!

Hey guys, Drew back here. Today we continue the mini series of White Plains card show pickups that I got last Sunday. This time I'm going to show you some of the newer cards I picked up as well as sharing the stories behind them!

2011 Topps Heritage Nick Swisher Green Refractor SP

This card cost me $5, which I thought at first was very steep for an insert card. However, I looked at some of the listings for this card, and it seems like the price I paid was somewhat fair. This was my only Swisher pickup at this show, but its a really nice card. Sometimes picking up a card without a bat or jersey relic or a scribble turns out nicer.

2007 Tristar Autothentics Blue Elvis Andrus Auto /250

I bought this card as well as the next card from the same seller. He seemed like a fairly nice guy, so I wanted to buy a little off of him. Andrus may not be Jeter, but he's turning out to be a great young shortstop. Plus, he has a really cool autograph! From counting, I think there's a good 17 or 18 loops in that entire autograph, and I feel bad for him because signing like that so many times has to hurt after a while! This is a nice card in person, but if it was on card I would like it more, since the sticker auto seems to be dirty on the corners and takes away from the appearance of the card.

2004 Upper Deck Legends Graig Nettles Autograph

Over the years, I've managed to pick up quite a few Yankees autographs, especially of players from the 1970's era. However, a few always eluded me, and this was one of them. Graig Nettles is one of those Yankees that should have been given more of an opportunity at the Hall of Fame. Had Brooks Robinson, possibly THE best 3rd baseman of all time, not scooped up all the Gold Gloves at the time, Nettles would've won a few Gold Gloves more than the 2 he owns today. He was an All Star, a Yankee captain, a strong power hitter, and a World Series champion, and I'm happy to finally add his auto to my collection, especially on a card that describes him so much.

1994 Classic Cream of the Crop Derek Jeter RC

The seller who sold me the previous 2 cards threw this in for free, and while it's not overly valuable and comparable to his top rookies, its a nice card of Derek Jeter before he began to make millions of bucks. The countdown to 3,000 hits begins Thursday, and I never could be more excited for the newest season!

2008 UD SPX Dan Uggla Autograph

Dan Uggla's been one of those players I've grown a lot of appreciation for over the past couple of seasons. I took him on both of my fantasy baseball teams this year, after he hit an incredible year last year for my team. He hits a lot of home runs and drives in a lot of runs, which is rare to find in a second baseman. He might not be as good as Robby Cano, but I think with one more good season Chase Utley will no longer be the 2nd best second baseman in the game.

2008 Topps Triple Threads Andre Ethier Triple Relic Auto /99

When this guy is healthy, he sure can hit! He was on my fantasy team last year, and when games counted, he always showed up. If he can limit injuries and stay consistent, he could have an excellent season this year! His autograph sure is atrocious but the card looks nice, and is only numbered to 99. It's been a while since I got a card from this set, so I felt like it was about time to get another.

2008 UD SPX Andy Pettitte Patch /99

Mike had a really fun time at the show, especially when it came to patches. He bought 2 patches himself and hopefully I can get a picture of them to show off on here. But, this one I had to claim dibs on, and I'm so happy I did. For a nice price of $8 from my favorite dealer at the entire show, a guy named Hunter, I got this 3 color patch of Andy along with a small jersey piece with a pinstripe! Talk about all in one! Even though he's not shown as a Yankee and the patch is clearly from an Astros uniform, it will safely rest in my Yankees collection!

2005 Upper Deck Heroes Wade Boggs Auto /99

My final pickup of the day was a good one. It took me literally an hour of pacing around the show with about $30 on me, trying to decipher what I wanted most. This Wade Boggs autograph was the one I walked home with, and I couldn't be happier. Again, I bought the card from Hunter, my favorite seller of all of the ones I've dealt with, and I couldn't have found a better place to give my money to. Boggs was an outstanding player, maybe more notably for Boston, but he won a World Series with the Yankees in 1996, something the Red Sox could never deliver their All Star. He retired with over 3,000 hits, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005 along with Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg.

What do you think of my/dad's pickups? We've got a little more to come still, so stay tuned for that!

See Ya!

White Plains Card Show Recap 3/27/11! Part 1!

Hey everyone, Drew back here! Today, as I mentioned in my previous post, I went to the White Plains card show. Mike, Joemama, and I made the trip to the Westchester County Center, to meet some players, spend some money, and have a great time. We did all 3. Well, the day had its ups and downs, but majority were certainly ups. Over the next week or so, I'm going to highlight to you some of the things I got at the show. I'll start small with pack breaks, and end big with the players I got the opportunity to meet! For now, between Dad and I's pickups, here are some of the packs we bought:

In the dollar bin, dad picked up 2 packs each of 2002 Upper Deck World Series Heroes, and 2002 Upper Deck Ballpark Idols. We'll start with Ballpark Idols.

The cards not shown in the scan are Kevin Appier and Brandon Duckworth. Overall I've never seen this set, pretty much since it was mixed in with the thousands of random releases Upper Deck made around this time. For $1 each you really can't go wrong but there really was nothing exciting in these.

Again, not shown are Jose Rijo and Matt Williams. Click on the scan if you're curious to see a closer up shot of the cards. Anyway, from the 2002 World Series set, here are 8 fantastic cards of some great players. I've always liked this set, but never got much of it. Rickey Henderson and David Wells' cards are my favorite of the ones I pulled though.

After those 4 packs, I also bought myself 3 packs of the all new 2011 Topps Heritage baseball series. I've seen too much of this stuff already and I'm really liking the way Topps went about the set this year. One thing I've noticed is that the disgusting gum you normally get in these packs are resting in peace for the year which is an improvement, especially when they added one more card per each pack as a replacement.

Pack 1 was a great pack in my opinion. The 1 card not shown was of David Aardsma, but none of you guys care about him so I figured you didn't have to see his bald head. While I like the CC Sabathia and Brian McCann cards, my favorites of the pack are the A-Rod New Age Performers card and the Halladay Perfect game highlight card. I really think Topps hit a home run with the way they did the inserts this year, because they look great.

Pack 2 didn't have the insert flair of Pack 1, but I'm still happy because I got 2 more Yankees for the collection, in Andy Pettitte and Mark Teixeira. I also like Chris Perez now since he spent some of his contract money to buy the cut autograph booklet card of the 1927 Yankees team recently found in 2010 Topps Tribute.

The final pack contained some more very nice cards. It was thicker because I ended up pulling a Jake McGee chrome rookie card numbered to 1962, which I liked a lot. Also got a Jeter insert as well as one of those cool Babe Ruth special cards. The card highlights his time spent with the Dodgers as a coach before his retirement. Ruth apparently always wanted to manage a team, but he never got the opportunity in his life.

The final part of this post, is about some mystery packs I bought from one seller. He was selling $3 packs, each containing one auto or game used card and some other cards alongside the hit. I bought 1, and dad bought 5 of them, for $10. Let me tell you, we could have done a lot better, and I'm not going to bother show anything but the 6 relics we ended up pulling.

First off was this Shin-Soo Choo jersey relic from 2009 Upper Deck Sweet Spot. In my opinion, he could be the most underrated player in baseball, since hardly anyone knows how good he actually is. Last year, he batted .300 with 22 home runs and 90 RBI. Shin-Soo WHO?

This guy pitched for China in the World Baseball Classic. And theres a piece of his jersey. Wooo.

Next was a Brian Stokes relic. He was a Met after his stint with the Rays, and then became a free agent. I hope that explains the jist of how good he is.

Now we have Carlos Beltran. He was good, but now he's old and the Mets really shouldn't be relying on him this year to play in their lineup. We'll see though. By the way, I love Allen & Ginter, in case you didn't know!

From 2010 Topps Pro Debut, here's a Trevor Reckling jersey card. This has to be the largest swatch I've ever gotten in my collection, and it's numbered to 139. He's a pitcher in the Angels organization, and I don't know much else about him. Still a cool card though.

The final card was my 1 hit in my bag, a Hunter Pence manufactured patch numbered to only 10! The guy is convinced that the thing is a real jersey, but anyone that knows anything about Upper Deck Premier knows that this thing is fake. It's a really nice card though, my first from the set.

Well, that'll just about do it for the first post in the series! Stay tuned for the second part, coming soon to drewscards!

See Ya!

Tomorrow's Big Show! White Plains Anyone?

Hey everyone, Drew back here, but I won't be tomorrow! As some of you know, tomorrow there is a baseball card show down in White Plains, New York, which is a little ride from my house. I've been to about 4 of these shows in the past, and never left disappointed at all! I always save up a lot of money, and I'm able to not only add a bunch of nice cards to my collection, but also I get the opportunity to meet some former players. Tomorrow I will be meeting 5 different players, if the time works out on my side, and will have 5 signed customs to come home with! Mike is also coming along to the show, for his 3rd time, and as always Joemama! We can't wait any longer.

I have the wantlist ready to go, customs printed, as well as one more big item that I will be taking over to the show. I don't want to spoil anything, as always I have a tendency to want to surprise you guys more than just telling you what I'm going to do.

So stay tuned everyone! And PLEASE comment if you're going tomorrow! I would love to know!

See Ya!

Connor's Card Collection!

Hey everyone, Drew back here! I have a really special post for all of you now, and it may not contain the crazy ridiculous "mojo" that you collecting hounds search for, but it's exciting for me to share for sure! So I'm running a fantasy baseball league this year as always with my school friends, and this kid was the newest member of the league this season. He's got a grade on me, but he's a diehard Yankees fan just like myself! I got talking with him, and I told him about this blog! He checked it out, and was really impressed, and was even interested in starting one himself!

So, everyone, please go over to
CONNOR'S CARD COLLECTION
and give him a nice welcoming to the hobby! Let's show him the love so that he won't have to wait for months for a first subscriber, like I unfortunately suffered through!

Thanks so much everyone, as always, you're the best!

See Ya!