Tradewinds: Sports Cards Ate My Brain

In today's post, we are going to see how many "that's what she said" jokes we can make. 

Why? 

Because I can. 

Plus, I just like to see how many dirty things I can fit into one place.

(that's what she said)

Maybe the kids shouldn't read this one. 

A little while ago Scott from Sports Cards Ate My Brain and I pulled off a great trade that netted me about 20 Piazzas and 15 Wrights, all new to the collections. Today I wanna focus on some of the Piazza cards. 

It's been an unofficial goal of mine to try and build up my Piazza collection as much as I can before he gets into the HOF. The thought process being that once he's elected in, then his cards will see a rise in price and an increase in the amount of people who collect him since he will now fit into peoples HOF collections. Recently, I've started to wonder if that really will be the case. Have Barry Larkin, Tony Gwynn or Andre Dawson cards been pricier to obtain since induction? 

 

Damn, that's a good lookin' piece of wood! 

(that's what she said)

This is the card that started the trade, a 2006 Turkey Red Relic "White" #'d/99. I love the resurrected Turkey Red sets. The way they look and they way they feel just make me happy (that's what she said) and if I was stupid enough, I may even try to put an entire set together one day! 

Oh, right.

I also have the regular version of this card, which leaves only the Red (#'d/150) and the Black (#'d/50) to achieve the condensed rainbow.

There's always something special about picking up an insert from the mid-late 90's. It's obvious that every set had hours of thought put into the design of the card and companies were trying new things with foil, die cuts, textures, etc. Thanks to massive overproduction you can grab a card like this, 1996 Donruss "Hit List" #'d/10,000, for a few bucks at most despite that it's a 1:105 pull. Because of all the foil it takes a pretty shitty picture, but it looks so much better when wrapped in plastic (that's what she said?) I'll count it.

This is one of those rare instances where the picture is actually better looking than the actual card itself. It's supposed to be a 3-D look, but it doesn't really pull it off. Probably something that should have been pulled out (that's what she said). 

jk jk

The 2004 UD Vintage 3-D cards fell 1:12 packs and lucky for me the Mets have about 4 of these in their team set! Player collections take priority about 90% of the time so this goes into the Piazza binder and is a nice pickup. 

I still have the Wrights to show off, but that'll be another post. Thanks again to Tom Scott for the great trade!

(...Joe)

Mets Team Sets: 2011 Topps Marquee

Quote of the Day:

"If quantum mechanics is about something that's small then why does it take such a big brain to learn it"

2011 Topps Marquee 

Complete Set Size: 100 cards

Mets Team Set Size: 3 cards

Completer Card: Jose Reyes

How Acquired: Just Commons.com

Best Picture: Reyes

Number of SP: 0

Number of RC: 0

Number of All-Stars: 3 (Seaver, Wright, Reyes)

Number of MVPs: 0

Number of Cy Youngs: 1 (Seaver)

Number of HOF: 1 (Seaver)

(...Joe)

Has it Really Been a Year Already?

Yeah, it has!

It's not a blog anniversary mind you, this will be 3 years old next March, but rather a relationship anniversary with my girlfriend. One year ago yesterday we started dating after meeting at the animal hospital that we work at. Usually my posts contain a plethora of fart and dick jokes and bad words, but this time I'm gonna at least pretend that I'm an adult for a second. This also won't be a long post, diving deep into the emotional psyche that is me (again, you'll just find fart and dick jokes) and do a day by day account of the past year.  All I really wanted to say is that she puts up with all my cynical bullshit, my constant obsession and disappointment with the underdog and helps me open up packs of baseball cards. It's the happiest I've been in a long time and with a bit of luck and if I play my cards right (get it, cards? This is a baseball card blog?) then we'll be making a big move soon. Actually, it's gonna require a bunch of luck. Anyways, this year has gone by so fast and it's been great. Better than I could have ever imagined. I just hope the next year goes by a bit slower, I just wanna be able to have more time to enjoy it.

(...Joe)

 

2012 Bowman Platinum RC Tradeables

This post is brought to you by that awkward moment when you say a joke from your favorite TV show and no one knows what the hell you are talking about. 

I've been buying rack packs of 2012 Bowman Platinum lately and I must say, they have been fun to open! So on the heels of the ROY awards being announced, I figured now would be a good time to post some of the RC and Prospect trade bait I've pulled. Let me know if anything looks interesting. Thanks!

Mike Trout & Bryce Harper

The Trout isn't a RC, I'm just trying to exploit the timing :^)

Jarrod Parker & Drew Pomeranz "Emerald"

The Pomeranz is the Emerald parallel which are 1:10

Devin Mesoraco

Garsh these cards sure are pretty!

Jurickson Profar & Jurickson...Profar

These are from the Prospects set. The card on the left is the Refractor and the card on the right is the standard base.

Anthony Gose "Top Prospects & Tommy Joseph "Purple Refractor"

The Top Prospects are 1:5 odds and the Joseph is a Purple Refrac which are given 3 per Rack Pack. 

I'll be doing one more trade bait post from these packs soon. Thanks!

(...Joe)

Tradewinds: Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle

Go to Black Acre Brewing's website and click "I am under 21". Trust me, it's worth it.

Next up on the agenda is a trade from Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle. I hand selected a few offerings from Greg's package (odd word choice) and decided to do some research on the first thought that came to my head after looking at each card. Here we go!

Lysergic acid diethylamide is often known to cause altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synesthesia, an altered sense of time and spiritual experiences. 

Birds digest food very quickly and can poop more than 25 times a day

On March 8th, 2006 the Mythbusters proved that you cannot die from a fart.

The ice cream cone was invented in 1904 at the St. Louis Worlds Fair.

Greg, thanks again for the trade!!!

(...Joe)

Mets Team Set: 1987 Fleer Mini

Quote of the day:

"ALL THE VILLAGE PEOPLE ARE GAY?!?!?!?"

A recently gave myself a $12 to spend on Just Commons.com to try and finish off a few team sets that were annoyingly close to being done. By the time I was done, I was able off 13 team sets from my checklists! I thought it'd be fun to spotlight each of them a little at a time. First off, let's start small, shall we?

(that's what she said)

1987 Fleer Mini

Complete Set Size: 120 cards

Mets Team Set Size: 6 cards

Completer Card: Gooden

How Acquired: Just Commons.com

Number of RC: 0 

Number of All Stars: 5 (Carter, Darling, Gooden, Hernandez, Orosco)

Number of MVPs: 1 (Hernandez)

Number of CYA: 0

Number of HOFs: 1 (Carter)

(...Joe)

5 Packs of 1997 Donruss Preferred

WARNING!!!

This post contains graphic subject matter and disturbing images. 

Reader discretion is advised

Recently, I was talking with my girlfriends little brother (and by little, I mean a 16 year old who's 6'5'') and he was telling me about how he's been going paintballing recently. I used to play paintball every weekend when I was in high school, but haven't really played since about Junior year, 8 years ago. I still had all of my guns and equipment, nothing that I would want to sell but would gladly pass on to someone else who would be able to enjoy them the way I did. I asked him if he would want all of my old gear and he couldn't have been happier to hear that. The next time I saw him I gave him two guns, two masks and some other gear. Because my tanks were so old, we went to a paintball shop to pick one up. The best part is that the paintball shop also doubles as my LCS!

The guns were filthy and needed to be cleaned and oiled so we picked up some oil, a couple O-rings, allen wrenches, a new CO2 tank and 5 packs of 1997 Donruss Preferred! As we were walking to the register I stumbled upon a clearance table that had a bunch of football packs, some oddball stuff and a ton of '97 Preferred tins- all for $1 each!!! I picked up five tins and couldn't wait to get back to my girlfriends house and bust them open on her bed!

(editor's note: you are officially a dork when the thing your excited to "bust open on your girlfriends bed" are baseball cards.)

I've opened packs of Preferred before, so I knew what to expect, card wise. There are two installments of Donruss Preferred: 1997 and '98. Both sets were "Tiered", '97s theme being Bronze (5:1), Silver (1:3), Gold (1:12) and Platinum (1:48). Piazza is, of course, within the Platinum set. The big "Chase" was that each card had a parallel which was made from the actual metal depicted on the card. All the "Bronze" cards were made from actual bronze, the "Platinum" cards made from actual platinum! Each pack was issued within a metal tin that featured a player on the tin, 25 in all. Each tin also had a few parallels, Gold being the most common, found one per box and #'d/1,200. Sitting on top of all the other was a Ryan Sandberg Gold Tin!

 

The other four I picked were Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas...

...Ivan Rodriguez and John Smoltz

The first one I wanted to open up was, of course, the Sandberg Gold. I opened up the tin and staring back at me was something I could have never expected. Something that had me starring, blankly, muttering over and over to myself "No, no, no. This can't be happening. This can't be right."

The tin was, empty. Like, completely fucking empty. I quickly checked all the other tins.

Nothing! In any of them!!! I felt dizzy, and nauseous and began to break out in a cold sweat. This is every card collectors worst nightmare come true. A completely empty pack. And not just one, but five!!! I couldn't believe it. Nothing in my life made any sense at that point. I frantically tried to find some sort of reason and figured the internet would be find me solace. 

The most popular musician is some lesbian named Justin?

One of the world's most beautiful women is some guy named Rihanna???

 
(...Joe)