Trade with First Day Issue

Bud of First Day Issue: Baseball Cards and the Neverending Pursuit of Everything Ken Griffey Jr. and Viva La Vidro sent me some cool cards recently.

Here's a handful of them:

Brooks!  Check out that old school Orioles logo.  

 

Fantastic card.  A blue chrome refractor.  A tough pull of a superstar.

Hernandez s/n to 199.  Blue refractors are some of my favorite cards.  I only have a few.

Hanleys, Cabrera, and more Orioles.  Win, win, win.

Jake Arrieta.  I have hardly any Arrieta cards.  He is another Baby Bird that is going to take the baseball world by storm!  

Thanks for the cards, Bud!  Your package has  been sealed and ready to go for several days.  I will mail it soon.  I see Collective Troll just sent you 37 Griffeys so I hope I haven't duplicated his stuff much.    

A Trade with 'A Cardboard Problem'!

I sent Sooz (A Cardboard Problem) some Yankees cards/jerseys she needed and she sent me back some Orioles cards and cool jerseys I needed (want is need).

 

Warren Spahn game used!  Look at that gray jersey.  Is that wool?  Looks warm.  This is my first Spahn jersey.  You don't see many different Spahn jersey cards around.  Hard to get and I love it.

Ah, Hanley.  One of my favorite current players.  A pinstripe and numbered to 50.  Very cool looking card.  

It is nice that Hanley is able to produce in the heart of the order.  I was worried he was going to be like Soriano who whined and failed whenever he didn't lead off.

In 2009, Hanley finished second in the MVP voting and won his first batting title.  He is going to have a difficult time winning an MVP award until Pujols hits age 35 or so.

The 2005 trade that sent Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez from the Red Sox to the Marlins in exchange for Beckett, Lowell, and Mota is one of the biggest trades of the decade, in retrospect.

I have always liked these Bazooka game used cards.  I have a Canseco and Teixeira of these too, I think.

Miggy is back on the Orioles!  I am happy.  Incidentally, Miggy spells his nickname Miggi.  Here's a pic of his batting gloves (no I don't own them):

But the vast majority of Orioles' fans spell it Miggy.  Some have even complained spelling it Miggi looks too feminine.  So we have the strange case of fans spelling a nickname differently than the player spells it.  I wonder if that has ever happened before.  There is even a three page debate on this over at the Orioles Hangout.

Sooz also sent along a nice batch of Markakis cards I needed.  My Markakis collection is embarrassingly light.  These certainly help.

Adam Jones is another favorite player I have woefully underrepresented in my collection.  That Topps 206 card is in fact the first 206 card I've ever seen in person.  I gotta get out more, or sit by my mailbox.

Thanks, Sooz.  A wonderful trade!

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Retail Box Breaks (5 boxes, Just The Hits)

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Retail Box

24 packs, 4 cards per pack
Cost:  $9.99 (Blowout Cards - Black Friday deal)

The first six boxes were a lot of fun to open.  These were too, but perhaps the hits in these were not quite as good.  This finishes off the Masterpieces bash.

Box 1:

A pinstripe is a lot harder to pull on these than one would expect (at least in retail boxes).

s/n: #49/50

Box 2:

s/n: #19/25

Box 3:

s/n: #67/100

Box 4:

s/n: #54/75

Box 5:

s/n:  #14/50