In honor of King Felix and his perfecto last night, here's a selection of cards from my private collection. After all, it's not every day that one of your favorite players pitches a perfect game:

From 2005 - one of his first cards as a Mariner, although teenage Felix is wearing his All-Star Futures Game uniform


Look at that fro peeking out of the back of his cap!


My oldest chrome Felix. He's still got a baby face. Let's be honest - it's 2012, and he's still got a baby face.


Probably my favorite Felix card. King Felix (born 1986) in the style of 1986 Topps. I, personally, loved 1986 Topps, although I realise I am in the distinct minority.


I love Felix's signature, the way he circles his own name. It has the feel of someone who knew he was going to be a big star and decided he needed to come up with a signature to match.


"Hernandez's Season Sets Seattle Standard" - and that was before he won the Cy Young! This 2010 card is from that Cy Young season...


...and this is the card that commemorates said season.

Finally, one more card. This one isn't in my possession yet, because I just bought it from eBay literally 90 minutes ago. Someone just happened to put up this #/99 Spectrum card I needed for my Felix rainbow, and at a reasonable price. I didn't dither around, I snapped it up straight away, before anyone else could:


Congratulations, King Felix. You are one of the best pitchers in baseball, and now you have that immortal moment to prove it.

It's hard for me to write currently, because it's that time of year again - report card time. Thankfully, this year I only have twenty reports to write, and the expectations for how much to write are less than at my old school. But finding the proper motivation is still a necessity, and it usually means that all other writing activities get pushed to the wayside.

But I'm still opening cards, as it provides a bit of a welcome distraction. And in those packs, I'm still finding interesting things to talk about. For example:

Another year, another uniform for J.J. Putz. After six years of remarkable stability with the Mariners, this marks his fourth team in as many seasons. He'll probably get traded at the deadline or something like that.


Oh great - so how many copies of this card do I need now to complete all my collections?
(The answer, by the way, is four)


The Kimball minis checklist for Series 2 was full of great players for me to collect. Unfortunately, I kept pulling cards of people like Gary Carter. I've never really liked Gary Carter - there's something about him that rubbed me the wrong way, and I can tell you exactly what it is - that bubble-headed perm of his. I don't care that he no longer has it - the point is, he did. I feel the same way about Don Sutton and latter-day episodes of The Brady Bunch when Mike Brady traded in his respectable businessman cut for a swinging '70s perm.

Anyway, the Luis Aparicio is the first Kimball card on my personal checklist that I've pulled. All the rest will be available, and revealed in my Series 2 box break wrap-up post, due early next week.

On a final note, I won a new scanner/printer/copier at the school's fundraiser charity auction. The good news is, it's now a lot easier and less aggravating for me to scan cards. It's literally pushing one button and then changing file names to make my organisational format. So I don't feel dread in having to scan a big pack of cards, and should have a lot more illustrations soon.

On my Opening Day post, I reminded everyone to smile, because no matter who you support, your team is in first place.

Well, three days into the season, the Reds, White Sox, Mariners(!) and Orioles(!!!) are all 2-0.

Sure, it's an extremely small sample size. And accomplishments at the beginning of the season tend to get magnified out of proportion because everyone is focused and it's the only data available. Remember Tuffy Rhodes's three home runs on Opening Day, 1994? It's not like he led the NL in home runs that season. In fact, he only hit eight that whole season. Hardly a harbinger of future success.

The fact is, if this was June and the Reds, White Sox, Mariners and Orioles all went on a two-game winning streak at the same time (for that's all this really is), I doubt I would even have noticed. In fact, it probably happens more often that we realise.

But for now, none of that matters. I'm just enjoying the moment.

Yesterday, I mentioned one of the cards that Joe from The Sandlot sent over in his trade package was a 1995 Pacific Mariners Memories card, and how I was interested in the rest. Afterward, I looked the set up on Google but couldn't find much, apart from one guy who wrote that he had bought one but they were "pretty rare, so I don't know where you would find them." He helpfully failed to mention where he had purchased his, but he was kind enough to opine that they would probably be expensive.

Well, I guess this guy has never heard of a little website called eBay, because when I went on there today I found about ten of them for sale, including a sealed one for $4.50 delivered. Of course, it'll be delivered to my parents' place, but I'm used to that. Normally I make it a habit not to talk about eBay purchases until I have the goods in hand, but I thought I'd make an exception this time in order to talk about my instant success. I'll be sure to post a full review once the cards are in hand.

Many of you already know Drew from his website. From what I can see, many of you have already traded with him as well. I was having a look on his site and saw that he had a few of the 2010 Topps Cards that I needed. Fortunately, I had a few cards that he needed as well. It is from such situations that great trades come from, of course

I got my end of the deal in the mail the other day. It only took 10 days to come across from the States. That's pretty damn good! Here's what was inside

First, seven base cards that takes me up to an even 270 out of 330 cards. Only 60 more to go! Also, Drew included two more Yo Momma Cards with the original backs, 2001 Ichiro and 1970 Steve Carlton. I don't know how long it will take me to collect all of the original back cards, but I have to try. I screwed up of the scan of the Ichiro card and I'm too lazy to re-scan it. But hey, it's Ichiro!

There was also a Turkey Red included in the package, Ian Kinsler. You know, if it wasn't for Ryan Braun, Ian Kinsler would probably be the sluggingest Jew in the majors today.


There was also another Legendary Lineage card - Grady Sizemore and Tris Speaker. Do you think that with Sizemore's recent (that is, all this season) struggles, Topps execs wish they could have a do-over with this card?


In addition to the 2010 Topps cards, Drew also included some cards for my various team and player collections. Some of them were 2010 Upper Decks, my first cards from the unofficial series. I've included David "Lights Out" Aardsma to represent these cards. Maybe I'll post a picture of his card every time the Mariners have another come-from-behind victory. I just wish I could tell what team he played for, but there's absolutely no way of knowing:


There was also another 2010 Upper Deck, but of a decidedly different look and feel. This goes into the King Felix collection, along with another card I recently aquired. My Twitter followers got the news first about that card (mostly because I tweeted about it as soon as I left the card shop).


Of course, Drew couldn't include Ichiro and Felix without giving Junior some love, too. He was kind enough to toss in the UD Biography card that commemorated Junior's return to Seattle:


And how about a Bowman of Bacon Beckham? Try saying that five times fast:


Two of the cards that I sent to Drew are shiny Yankee chromes from my 2010 Heritage box. I know that they are going to a good home and Drew will love them much more than I ever good. In return, he sent me a shiny Dan Haren. Even though it's techinically a D-Backs card, he's wearing his Oakland uniform:


And finally, I lied. Not intentionally, but there is one more 2010 Topps card to show. It's Adam Jones, and it looks like the base, but it's definitely not a base card:


I believe this is what the kids today call a "short print" :)

Thanks for a great trade, Drew!

Well, the last pack of 2009 Heritage that I open (probably in like, forever, unless someone gives me some) and I found this little gem buried in the middle:

This will go straight in the King Felix PC binder. If, you know, I had one. Or even the sheets for one.

Sometimes living in the sticks sucks. But I don't have to tell you that, do I, Night Owl?

When's this guy coming off the disabled list?

I mean, I know it's just the first week of the season, and it's not time to panic, and if this had happened in the middle of June, nobody would probably even notice, but come on...1-4? Please excuse my now embarassing season preview.

At least on the bright side, the Athletics are 4-1.

Last season:  85-77 (3rd in AL West)
This season's prediction: 1st in AL West

Key acquisitions: Cliff Lee (trade, Philadelphia); Chone Figgins (free agent);  Milton Bradley (trade, Cubs); Brandon League (trade, Toronto); Casey Kotchman (trade, Boston)
Departures: Adrian Beltre (free agent, Boston); Russell Branyan (free agent, Cleveland); Kenji Johjima (free agent, Japan); Brandon Morrow (trade, Toronto); Carlos Silva (trade, Cubs); Bill Hall (trade, Boston)

The Mariners were amongst the more active teams in the off-season, as Jack Zduriencik picked up '09 Cy Young winner Cliff Lee from the Phils, as well as signing Chone Figgins from the Angels. That was a case of addition by addition and subtraction, since not only did the Mariners upgrade their roster, but weakened their main division rival's as well.

Of course, the Lee trade give the M's a potent 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation to go with King Felix. If Erik Bedard was healthy, that'd be a really strong top three. But it's Erik Bedard we're talking about here. He's not going to be healthy.


Key player (based on the cards I have in my collection): Ichiro

I've always been a big Ichiro fan. He filled the M's star player void in my mind after Junior left for the Reds. I never really warmed up to Alex Rodriguez, even before he became "Pay-Rod" and then morphed into the Blue-Lipped Cheater. As an aside, I was never surprised about the steroid revelations, ever since he tried to get away with swatting the ball out of Kevin Millar's glove in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. Anybody who would deliberately cheat like that, with so many people watching, on baseball's biggest stage...yeah, he'd take steroids, too.

Getting back to Ichiro, the guy is going for ten straight 200-hit seasons. He has to slow down sometime, right? Well, he's "only" 36, and since he lead the majors in hits last season, I don't think it's going to be this year. He racked up his 2000th major league hit in less than nine seasons, and has 3308 career pro hits. If he had been playing in the US the whole time, Pete Rose might not be the Hit King for much longer.

The bottom line:
Jack Z has remade the Mariners to leapfrog the Rangers and go straight at division leaders Anaheim. With Lee and Figgins, the team has upgraded in two positions, and the Kotchman acquisition is designed to counteract losing Branyan. I think the Mariners are going to be fired up with the perception that management is ready to go, and will respond well to the moves. Expect them to come out strong, despite their dismal spring performance.

I must say it's been fun flipping through the box of assorted commons. My memories of my collection consisted of Topps, some Score, and a few Upper Deck. But, as it turns out, there's a bunch more in there. Stuff that, quite frankly, I can't remember buying, and not sure exactly why I would have, given some of my card-buying prejudices. But there's some good stuff. Take this one, for instance:

I love this card. And I'm not a fan of Donruss, at all. Their main selling point, as near as I can tell, is that you get to find out players' middle names. But this card all kinds of fun. For example:

• It says "Ken Griffey, Sr." Which of course, implies there's a Ken Griffey Jr.
• Senior is a Mariner on this card, and he made history by being a Mariner and playing on the same team as his son.
• He's wearing one of those early-'90s pre-Lou Piniella Mariners jerseys that I just loved.
• It's an action shot. If I didn't know any better, I'd say a 40-year-old man was stealing a base.

See, I had totally forgotten about this card. And maybe next time, I won't wait 15 years to look through my collection.

So you know that big long post yesterday about going through two packs of 1993 O-Pee-Chees and not finding a single Red, Oriole, Mariner, Athletic or White Sox? Not sure how I missed this gem, right near the beginning:

In my defense, it's not terribly obvious that he plays for the M's in this card. There's no logos on the front, his back is turned so you can't see the team name, and his cap is partially obscured. Also, despite his four lackluster years in Seattle, I tend to think of him as a Brewer (as I'm guessing do most people). I know - excuses, excuses. If I had bothered to look carefully at the back of the card, it would have been a lot more obvious:

As penance, I am wearing my brand-new 59Fifty M's cap that I got as a gift from my tee-ball team to remind me what exactly a Mariners cap looks like, every time I look in the mirror. I'm sorry, Chris Bosio.