Things are slower here.

That's in no way an indictment at all on my trade partner, Julie, aka PerfectHalladay, from Things are Funner Here. It's more a problem with Australia Post. Julie was one of six people who I mailed packages off to before I left for my European extravaganza. Hers was the first I got back. She sent it on January 25. I got it...yesterday.

Usually, it takes about a week, ten days tops. This was three weeks. Clearly, Australia Post flies the mail over to Perth, then walks it up to Derby. Or something like that.

The good news is that this is the first of many packages, and thus the first of many trade posts. And hopefully soon, when I get my DSL line up and running, normal posting. Because I want to do the Blog-Bat-Around, continue the Uniform Back series, and much, much more. And, the one-year anniversary of RGB Cards is next month! Hard to believe, but it's true.

Okay, enough with the bellyaching. On to what Julie sent my way:

(and by the way, she's having a contest but it ends today at noon so you've got about six hours to enter. Hurry!)

Two cards stand out from the pack. First, THE BUZZSAW!

Sometimes I'm reminded of how little I actually know about collecting baseball cards.

About a month or so ago, I busted a box of 2010 Series 2. As many of you are aware, I'm collecting the "Cards Your Mom Threw Out" subset, with a particular quixotic pursuit of all the original back cards. It's been slow going, needless to say.

One of the cards in my box looked like this:

Unusual - I thought it was just another crappy Yankee insert. I didn't stop to think how Babe Ruth couldn't possibly have been born in 1910, or that the card actually has his birthdate - in 1895! It seems unusual, possibly valuable - maybe a short print. At least nobody smacked a pie in the Babe's face. I put it in a penny sleeve and continued on my merry way.

Occasionally I would come across that card on my desk, and wonder what its story was, but it was never really more than idle curiosity. Once the box break was done, the card joined the rest in a pile of odds and ends on the bookshelf.

You see where this is going, don't you?

Fast forward to today. I'm doing a inventory (think of it as a "stocktake" for my cards) and I'm logging in my Yo Momma cards. Not really paying much attention to the names, just the numbers, I happen to notice on a website that the 1995 Yo Mamma card for Series 2 belongs to...

...Babe Ruth

Thanks to eBay, I confirmed that this card pictured above was indeed the card. I had CMT-102 in my collection all along, and didn't even know it. Now, the trick was to find the damn thing.

First place I looked - the pile of insert cards from the box break. Logical place, right? Not there.

Second place: with the duplicate base cards...nope.

Third place: underneath the box hits from my Obak box...nada.

Now I'm getting annoyed - where could it be? Oh, how I hope I didn't leave it on the desk for my dog to eat or my wife to throw away!

I notice that I also can't find a stack of cards that I've set aside for trades. These cards were in the same general area of the desk as the Ruth card. Shit - she couldn't have thrown them all away, could she?

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but probably wasn't even five minutes, I found the stack of trade cards on the top shelf. Sure enough, the Ruth card was there, too, along with a stack of unredeemed Million Card Giveaway cards. Still in the penny sleeve, I scanned the Babe and put him in his proper place - with the rest of my Cards Your Mom (not my mom, she would never do such a thing!) Threw Out. A happy ending.










Oh, wait, I didn't tell you the best part. Here's the back of that card:


It's an original back card! After a month of being annoyed because I got screwed since the only CYMTO original back card I got in the box was a 2008 Ryan Zimmerman, it turns out I had a second one all along.

I just didn't know it.


(For the record, I did notice that "reprint" in the bottom left-hand corner of the card. I just thought it meant that it was a reprint of a 1995 Topps insert set. You see, that big red "3" confused me, and I thought it was the 3 of a set, and Topps had reprinted all of them. I have no idea why I thought Topps would have done such a thing on this, the 115th anniversary of the Babe, but there you go. I can be shockingly dumb sometimes.)

Apparently, semi-fearsome facial hair is the order of the day for the Reds this season. I know I'm scared.


I kid because the Reds have not had a good time of it in California. They damn near got swept by the Giants, in humiliating fashion, no less. But one thing remains true - I will never get tired of seeing Scott Rolen in a Reds uniform. He just looks like he was born to play for the Reds. And honestly, he's been the secret weapon for the team this year. Long may it continue.


This is Todd Van Poppel. You may remember him. Twenty years ago, he used to be Stephen Strasburg.

Look, I'm not here to bash on Strasburg. I wish him all the best and hope that he is successful and has a happy life. But Strasburgmania (and yes, I'm guilty of it, too, if you look at my Twitter account during his first game) is premature and quite silly. I hope that his injuries aren't serious, and he does become a great, dominant pitcher. Baseball needs those - pitchers who you make a point to watch whenever they start because there's always a chance they could pitch a game for the ages. Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson - anything was possible with those guys whenever they took the mound. I hope Strasburg does turn out like them, because it makes the game fun. But to quote Bill Simmons paraphrasing Winston Wolf from Pulp Fiction, let's not go sucking each other's popsicles just yet.


From the same Score set, here's a card of Darrin Jackson. Two things:

a) from the look of things, this picture was taken on a Negro League commemorative day because I'm pretty sure those are Chicago American Giants caps the players are wearing

b) maybe I should do a "Cards of Baseball Announcers" series like Night Owl and his Great Night Cards.


Sometimes I hate my scanner. Here's a nice shiny silver mini of Bobby Crosby, and thanks to my scanner, it looks dull, lifeless and dark. You can't even read the name on the card.

By the way, that's two different metallic parallel cards of Bobby Crosby that I have (the other is a gold Topps parallel) and he doesn't even play for the A's anymore.


Dear U.S. Playing Card Company - I have a bone to pick with you. I think your set of baseball player playing cards is pretty cool - but the three of hearts? How hard would it have been to make this guy the jack of spades, or even the jack of clubs?


By the way, this guy should have been the joker.


Finally, there's this card, and it requires a bit of explanation. You see, it came sandwiched in amongst the following other cards - a 2010 Barry Zito, the Buster Posey rookie card I mentioned in the other post, and a Tim Lincecum ToppsTown card. I flipped through them and thought "well, Greg knows I collect Lincecum cards, so maybe he thinks I'm a Giants fan, and he's just trying to unload some of his unwanted random Giants cards on me." I'm not a Giants fan, of course, but Cepeda is a Hall-of-Famer so it's a nice card to have. I must have looked at this card at least five different times before actually flipping the damn thing over and realising what kind of card it actually was:


It's a Cards Your Mom Threw Out original back card! You know, the insert set that I'm foolishly trying to collect to completion. What a generous card to include in the trade package. Thanks Night Owl - you're still my favourite nocturnal trading partner. Even if you did steal that kid's Tootsie Pop.

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!

I skipped a day because there were no tales to tell from the second batch of packs. I've clearly used up all my "no dupes" karma since there were some packs that had more doubles than new cards, and I've only gotten a third of the way through the 2010 set. Today started out with more of the same, but then I turned things around, even pulling Albert Pujols, #100.

I did get three Yo Momma cards in my four packs. All of them are non-original backs, though. See if you can figure out the common theme:

Note to Topps: if you don't want to piss me off, don't load my packs with Yankees cards. Especially worthless replicas of Yankees cards. That is all.

Well, the corpse of my 2009 Topps box wasn't even cold before I cracked open the 2010 box. Heartless bastard, I know. I opened four packs, and am going to keep opening them four at a time until they're all gone.

The first pack was uneventful, but the second one contained a nice surprise - a Million Card Giveaway redemption card. And having *just* read this post from Play at the Plate about how the Transmogrifier was unstuck, I decided to head on over to the Topps site immediately. Sure enough, on the "recently unlocked cards" graphic there were 8 cards from the 60s and 70s, as well as one from the 90s and one from 2005. Pretty good odds, I figured. So I entered the code and...

Sunovabitch.

But I pressed on, undeterred. And in my next pack, wouldn't you know it, another MCG redemption card was staring at me. "Surely, this couldn't happen two times in a row," I said. Having looked at the updated recent cards chart, my Carter card was the only none 60s or 70s card. So I rolled the dice, typed in the nine-digit code with all the question marks and ampersands, and it spat out...


That's more like it. Former Bird Curt Blefary, albeit as a Yankee. A horizontal card in all its early 70s day-glo and lower-case fontted glory. Finally, a card worth having. But I wasn't done, oh no. Because in the next pack...well, it wasn't another redemption card. But midway through the pack, I saw this:


A Johnny Bench '73 Topps Yo Mamma card replica! Cautiously, I turn the card over to look at the back. Do I dare dream?


OH HELL YEAH!

I'm quickly discovering that this can be a frustrating hobby when you're living in Australia. It seems like everyone's out having fun (even the Canadians) while you feel like you're stuck out on a island, separated by the tyranny of geography and the US Postal Service's high shipping rates.

With only two packs of 2010 Topps left to open, I was already feeling withdrawl symptoms. So last night, instead of sleeping, I trolled eBay looking for the best price/shipping cost combinations I could find on hobby boxes. After some communication (and the okay from my wife, the Gatekeeper of the Finances), I've order a box of 2010 Heritage and 2010 Series 1. That should keep me busy until I get back to the States for a visit in July.

Since I went through the first pack I opened, it seems fitting that I should post the last one, too. I'll do a recap of all 12 packs later on today, along with the first of my five season previews (one for each team):

On top: 282 - Washington National team history (What history?)
231 - Luke Scott (Finally, in my last pack, an Oriole! And one I can use for my season preview, too)
131 - Dustin Richardson RC
260 - Yankees franchise history (two franchise cards in one pack, but that's okay, because the next card is...)

CMT-6 FRANK ROBINSON!!!! (It's not the original back, but right now, I don't care. It says Cincinnati Redlegs on the front and that's awesome)

When They Were Young Johnny Damon
Ticket to Toppstown Manny Ramirez
105 - Madison Bumgarner RC (a good way to end)

Not a bad pack at all, I must say. The two crappy team cards, the Toppstown insert (I still can't believe that counts as one of the eight cards in every pack) and the super-creepy WTWY insert (I don't like that set at all) are more than balanced out by two rookie cards, an awesome Oriole, and Frank Freakin' Robinson.

And by the way, I finally pulled a Million Card Giveway in pack #11.

Dayf's post about the Topps Transmogifier being constantly stuck on 1980s cards got me thinking. Given the Million Card Giveaway's slogan is "win back the cards your mother threw out," and since a lot of us seemed to begin collecting in the 1980s, is the transmogifier sensing this somehow and spitting about a bunch of '87 Topps wood grain finish cards because those are the ones our hypothetical mothers would have hypothetically tossed? (you know, if we hadn't obsessively catalogued every card and kept them under lock and key)

To test my theory, when I signed up for my account on the website, I put in my dad's birthday. I'm now expecting to get a bunch of 1950s cards. I'll let you all know when I unlock the Mantle.