I woke up today to the news that Ichiro Suzuki had be traded. There is was, in blue and white, as a message on my iPhone: "Yankees Acquire Ichiro Suzuki". I re-read it again. And again. And it still didn't really sink in. Not only did Ichiro get traded, but it was to the Yankees? Was I still asleep?

I must admit, the first thought that ran through my head was that I'd have to stop collecting his cards. But after I got out of bed and started making breakfast five minutes later, I realised that was silly. Of course I'll keep collecting his cards, no matter the uniform. Besides, I get so damn many unwanted Yankees cards, it's time for a few I actually do want.

I read an article this weekend on the USS Mariner web site about how it was time for the Mariners to cut their ties with Ichiro at the end of the season. I didn't want to entertain that notion. I had this idea that Ichiro would get his 3,000th major league hit, his 4,193rd professional hit, and maybe even win a World Series (or at least a playoff series), all while wearing a Mariners uniform. Now, not even a week later, the M's didn't wait - they traded him to the team that just happened to be in town for a three-game series. Contrary to what the ESPN website seems to think, Ichiro did not help his new team beat his old team last night, unless you count going 1-for-4 and getting stranded at third base in a 4-1 game "helping"

I guess I should be happy for Ichiro. He's going from the league leader in losses to the league leader in wins, and he has a very real chance of going far in the post season. He's left the Mariners without a lot of the bad taste that Junior Griffey part deux put in everyone's mouth, and, like Griffey (and not like Alex Rodriguez), no matter what else he does in his career, he'll always be associated with the Mariners first and foremost. Five years after he retires, he'll become the second Mariner in the Hall of Fame (or third, if the Hall gets their act together on Edgar Martinez, or fourth, depending on what Randy Johnson decides).

More than that, without Ichiro's manifold success, players like Shin-Soo Choo, Hideki Matsui, and even to an extent pitchers like Hiroki Kuroda and Yu Darvish wouldn't have the big league careers they enjoy. It's hard to think now, but in 2001 there was a real feeling that while Japanese pitchers might be okay, position players wouldn't hold up to the "rigors" of a 162-game season. It seems like a ridiculous notion now. Hideo Nomo might have pried open the door, but Ichiro Suzuki kicked it down.

Besides, maybe he'll leave the Yankees after the season and play somewhere else. Oakland's got a nice big outfield...

Welcome back to the final three battles of Pack Wars! Battle Blaster I. Just a reminder, I am certainly willing to accept sponsorship for this feature. It's time to get into it, because we've get three battles to get to today.

Battle 3
Albert V vs. Albert VI

Albert V
Ramon Hernandez
Carlos Santana (+1 for following the ball with his eyes)
Ryan Sweeney
Eric Sogard (+1) (Athletics)
Hanley Ramirez Cut Above insert
James Shields
Travis Snider (+1 for sporting a Gerald McRaney moustache)
Alfonso Soriano

Total Score: 3

I bet you think I should give that die-cut HanRam card at least a point, right? Well, I'll refer you to the official scoring "+2 Any other insert card that's worth keeping" (italics mine). Frankly, I don't get the die-cut craze. If it's a player I collect, I'd keep it. Otherwise, nil points.

A Gerald McRaney moustache, on the other hand, is worth celebrating and rewarding.

Albert VI
Matt Thornton (+1) (White Sox)
Tommy Hunter (+1) (Orioles)
Chris Volstad
Chase Headley (+1) (Gold)
Golden Giveaway (0 - I unlocked Lou Gehrig, who I immediately traded for Roberto Clemente)
Elvis Andrus
Nathan Eovaldi (+1 for having the very rare "EO" combination in front of his name)
John Mayberry

Total Score: 4

Now, before you start complaining that my random point for Nathan Eovaldi having two vowels at the front of his name broke the tie, handing the win to Albert VI, I would like to point out that I gave a point to Travis Snider for a freakin' moustache! Albert VI was going to win, anyway.

See, it's not completely random.

Battle 4
Albert VII vs. Albert VIII

Albert VII
Willie Bloomquist (-1 for wearing a "Los Dbacks" jersey - c'mon, that's not even real Spanish!)
Carlos Gonzalez
Scott Hairston
Josh Hamilton Career Day insert (+1 for being from Raleigh)
Joe Mauer '87 mini (+2)
Ricky Romero
Tsuyoshi Nishioka
Daniel Murphy

Total Score: 2

What a stinker. If it wasn't for the inserts, the pack would have finished in double digits. And before you ask, any Brewers that appeared in "Cervezeros" jerseys would indeed get bonus points. Because "Cervezeros" is just plain cool. And proper Spanish.

Albert VIII
Carlos Zambrano (-1 for being a clubhouse cancer)
Alex Rodriguez (-5)
Alex Presley (+1 for being the second straight Alex in the pack)
Vladimir Guerrero checklist (+1) (Orioles)
Jim Palmer Golden Moments insert (+3) 
(Orioles +1, insert card I'm keeping +2)
Josh Collmenter
Kenley Jansen
Andy Dirks

Total Score: -1

I thought it was going to be much worse. I kinda felt bad docking Albert VIII a point for Zambrano when A-Fraud came up straight away, but to protect the integrity of Pack Wars I have to go with my first instinct when it comes to bonus points. Besides, I docked Albert VII a point for a totally capricious reason, too. Albert VII wins the battle. But really, we're all losers in this one.

Battle 5
Albert IX vs. Albert X

Albert IX
Andrew McCutchen
Chien-Ming Wang (+1 for "Heh-heh...you said 'Wang'")
Zach McAllister
Jim Palmer Mound Dominance insert (+3) (Orioles +1, insert card I'm keeping +2)
Nolan Ryan Gold Standard insert
Ian Kinsler (+1 for solid fundamentals)
Lonnie Chisenhall
Kerry Wood (+1 for retiring on his own terms)

Total Score: 6

Fun fact - both Jim Palmer insert cards referred to the same game - his start in the 1966 World Series at the tender age of 21. I almost thought of docking this card a point for that duplication, but decided to just not feature it instead.

Albert X
Nelson Cruz
Brandon Beachey
Luis Marte
Ichiro Suzuki Gold (+8) (+5 Gold parallel for my PC, +1 Mariner, +2 Ichiro)
Carlos Santana Gold Futures (+1)
Darwin Barney (+1 for diving/sliding headfirst)
Jason Kubel
Lance Berkman

Total Score: 10

What a way to end the first Pack Wars with a double-digit pack. True, it benefited from the points multiplier, but when you think about it, there are 660 cards in the set, and each has gold parallels. So the odds that I'm going to get one of the 3 gold cards I actually care about are...well, they're 1 in 220, actually...but that's good enough for a bunch of points, in my opinion.

Albert X takes out not only the final battle, but also posts the highest score of the whole blaster. Congratulations Albert X. You win...nothing.

I was the winner of the inaugural Five Card Friday giveaway, which you can find over at The Daily Dimwit. Sam was offering some Ichiro cards, and of course I jumped at the chance of getting those. What was great about it was that cards were all 2010 Topps inserts - card that I had collected for the insert set, but that I could use doubles of for my Ichiro PC. Yes, just what I need, more cards to scan. Well, I have, and here they are:

The two copies of Ichiro's rookie card are just that - Yo Momma copies, both the standard and the original back. I already have the original back, so this is my second - perfect for the Ichiro binder. The Turkey Red I *don't* have, so it's still on the want list. The Legendary Lineage card is great because of the connection - I started "semi-collecting" Sisler cards due to Ichiro. But perhaps the best-looking card is from the series I don't collect - the Peak Performance. I think it has a classy look.


Sam also tossed it a pack of 2007 Fleer Ultra. It has Ken Griffey on the outside. Does it have Griffey on the inside, too? Let's find out:


Gary Sheffield...


Ryan Howard...


A Cal Ripken insert (now we're getting somewhere)...


Ichiro! (pretty exciting)...


Hey, whaddaya know! It's a Griffey! So in a five card pack, I got a Griffey, an Ichiro and a Ripken. That's a great outcome. Thanks, Sam!

Well, it's finally over. The box has been busted, the cards have been sorted, and my want list has been updated. I ended up with around 280 cards, so another 40-something are required. Any help you can provide is lovely.

After pulling star after star that I didn't want, I finally got a Diamond Star card that is of interest to me. The checklist isn't great (for my purposes) as there's only three cards on there that I want, and this is one of them. Votto and Felix are the other two.


The checklist on the Topps 60 and the Kimballs, on the other hand, have been fantastic this time around and I've added many more to my want list. Here's an example - Johnny Bench in all the Reds double-knit glory.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but growing up in Cincinnati, I always got the sense that a person was either a Johnny Bench fan or a Pete Rose fan, but you really couldn't be both. You might appreciate the other for what they accomplished, but you really only warmed to one or the other. I was a Pete Rose fan growing up. That's not to say I mind it when I get a Bench card - it's always welcome. And given how Pete is now persona non grata in ToppsTown (and all of baseball), I guess I won't be pulling any new Roses in the forseeable future.

The category they chose for this Topps 60 card is very lame, however.


Finally, the last gold parallel of the box, and I'm certainly please by this. Rarely do I get gold parallels of players I give a shit about. They're usually Pirates, and that trend held firm again with this box. Prior to this Roberts, the only gold parallel I pulled - ever - that I was happy to see was a Felix Hernandez league leaders card that he had to share with two other pictures. So this one is pretty good. Then you flip it over and check out the serial number:


ZOMG!!!!@~``111!!@!!! IT'S A 1-OF-1!!!!!!!! I COULD GO ONTO EBAY AND SELL THIS FOR $$$$$$$$

No it's not. It's a 1 of 2011. Says so right on the card.

But I'm not thrilled with the answer.

The winning entry on my poll was for Topps Series 2, but I must say that I'm intrigued about opening the Pro Debut box. What to do, what to do?

I guess I could show the results from the final of three lots of Ichiro cards I purchased for 99 cents each on eBay. That's 70 cards in total for my PC for less than three bucks. I did have some duplicates, but I easily added at least 50 new cards to the Ichiro collection.

Here's nine of the cards. Most are Upper Deck, but there are some Topps and Fleer in there as well. I already had the ones in the top row. I have about eight copies of the one of him in the suit.


The pack also included two sets of three parallel cards. The top is the Victory game set. I got a single, double and triple card, but not the home run (how appropriate). The bottom is from 2002 Topps, commemorating Ichiro's MVP/Rookie of the Year double in the previous season.


Finally, some horizontal cards. Unfortunately, the foil on both the top and bottom cards are peeling up on the left-hand side. They will do for now, but I'm probably doomed to searching high and low for a replacement.

But this post brings me to my next poll. How do you like to organise your player collections? Do you organise them by year, by manufacturer, or by year *and* manufacturer? Currently, I've got mine by year, but I'm thinking of switching to manufacturer. There's something to be said for both - by year, things are more organised, but you run the risk of gaps and open slots on pages where you don't have nine cards (or a multiple of nine) for a year. At least with manufacturer you can add cards as you buy them, but it makes it harder to find an individual card in the binder.

I guess it boils down to personal preference, so what's your preference? Vote in the poll to the right, and add a comment if you'd like to expound upon your vote. Thanks for participating!

More cards from my weekend of impulse eBay buying. This time, it's another lot of Ichiros for 99 cents - twenty of them. Only one duplicate from the last pack, but sadly quite a few cards I already had. Still, there were some good additions, as you'll see.

These were the Topps and Bowman cards that were included. I really like the look of the Peak Performance card in the top left. It seems like I got everyone else's Peak Performance card in the boxes I busted, so it's nice to finally have this one.


There were also nine Upper Deck cards in the pack. Of course, I already had the Heroes and Spectrum cards, as I collect the entire Heroes set and am building the Spectrum rainbow. The Marquee Matchups cards with Dice-K is one that I've contemplated getting from Al's for a few trips now, but never did pick up. I guess I don't have to, now.

That's 18 cards. What were the other two? You guessed it - Ichichromes:


2009 Topps to go with my two 2010 Topps, and a 2009 Bowman Chrome as well.

Coming soon, another blaster of 2011 Topps, plus a pack of 2011 Australian Rules Football cards.

A few weekends ago, I was home by myself with 60 bucks in my Paypal account and an Australian dollar worth $1.05 US. That's a recipe for buying cards if I ever saw one. I have four saved searches set up for auctions ending soon worth 99 cents or less - one for each of my player collections. One of the listings was for a bundle of 25 Ichiro cards, and the seller shipped internationally. Sounds like a winner to me.

With these packages, you know you're going to get plenty of base cards. But the nice thing about players like Ichiro and Griffey is that there are so many insert cards floating around out there, that you're bound to get some cards you don't have anyway.

As for the 2011 Topps, I only realised it had scanned crookedly after I put the cards away. I wasn't going to pull them back out to re-scan a card I have ten of already.


Here's some of the gems of the set. The 2002 Topps rookie cup card was a nice inclusion, as well as the Bowman Platinum. I also liked getting the National Baseball Card Day card, and I thought the Sporting News insert was pretty neat. In bundles like these, you might even find the odd base card you don't have - such as that 2007 Upper Deck. We all know that the 2007 Upper Deck set was phenomenally ugly. Let's face it - between that and Topps, if I had gotten back into collecting in 2007 instead of 2010, I doubt I would have stayed for long.


Finally...Ichichrome! I already had one, and this one is just as bent, but hey...ICHICHROME!

When I got back from my holidays, there was a package waiting in the mail for me from Richard over at Dawgbones, a Phillie Fan. He and I had been working on a trade, my first involving cards from 2011 Topps. Thankfully, I had a lot of cards that he needed for his collection, and he had more than a few to fill some gaps in my set. While these cards aren't all of them, they are a representative sample.

Richard sent about 15 of the 2011 base cards. These three were the ones that I didn't have, although there were also quite a few White Sox and Orioles for my team sets as a few cards that were upgrades from the damaged cards I pulled from my box. But thanks to the Dawg, I now have Messrs. Wright, Conger and Revere in the binder.




There were also some insert cards - once again, I'm being a fool and attempting to collect the 60 Years of Topps set, even though I haven't finished collecting last year's Cards Your Mom Threw Out (a fact shown by the Maris card from that set that I needed). Thankfully, the Diamond Duos set appears to be a much more reasonable target, even though the pairings are a bit strange. Hornsby and Holliday? Outside of the uniform, there doesn't seem to be much in common. Ramirez and Stanton are at least teammates, so they're a duo that shares a diamond.


As I was hammering out the trade details with Richard, I pulled out my 2010 Allen & Ginter binder and realised that I have a lot of work to go on this set. Thankfully, he had 13 cards from A&G to put in the binder, so I only have a great deal of work to go now.


Now for the big-ticket items. As you might remember, I had pulled a Matt Holliday manu-patch out of my 2011 blaster. I also pulled a Hank Greenburg short print so it wasn't a total loss. Thankfully, not only did Richard want my manu-patch (since he collects players who were the No. 7) but he had an Ichiro patch card from the same series to trade. In fact, I think this my have been the impetus for the trade in the first place.


Another thing that Richard collects is currency. And for the price of AUD 3.85 (approximately US$4.00), which is one of each coin (that's right, we have a dollar and a two-dollar coin, and they're lovely), he was kind enough to throw in this card. It's not a manu-hit, it's the real thing. Ichiro's 2007 Night Before the All-Star Game batting practice jersey, all cut up and preserved for posterity. I like the color.




Besides the cards, which I was expecting, were a few things that I wasn't. First up, these three Fatheads, which will find a place on the front of their respective team binders. Now I'm going to have to chase up the Orioles and the Athletics, too.

But the best thing in the package wasn't even a card, or a Fathead. Richard included a really, really nice note that let me know how much he enjoys reading my blog. It was very touching because, as I've said before, I write this for all of you. I enjoy getting to share my collection, and my opinions on the game, but it's the comments and the interaction with you guys that keep me writing.

He specifically mentioned my Travels With Raleigh series, which was abruptly cut off due to our arriving safely in Derby and not having any internet access up here for a few weeks on my arrival. By that point, it was time to start writing about cards and the new baseball season again. But I should finish the series, because there's a few more stories to tell. Richard's note is the impetus to get that finished. Please hold me to this.

Thanks for an absolutely great trade, Richard. I hope to complete another one with you in the future!