Here's a list of the current outstanding trades I have on the Diamond Giveaway site. See if you can pick out the theme:

Yes, I have (unofficially) begun work on the birth year set. I've decided to collect as many 1975 cards as I can, then get them shipped at the end of the giveaway. Right now, I have one '75er in my collection (Earl Williams), but I hope to get more by trading up my '76 and '77 cards or even trading down '73s and '74s. We'll see.

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.

You never know what you're going to find. I was searching for copies of the Sandy Koufax short print and I typed in "2011 Topps 530" (because that's the card number). In amongst the Koufaxes and the Felixes (how great is it that they share a card number?), I found this card.

It's a 60 Years of Topps reprint, and it's an original back. It was listed because in the original 1968 set, this card was #530. And at a very reasonable price, it's now mine.

Like I said, you never know what you're going to find.

Photo courtesy of eBay

I promised myself that I wouldn't use this opportunity to take a cheap shot at the Cardinals. But who am I kidding - of course I will! As you know, I am a sucker for cards that feature vintage uniforms. I should now amend that statement. I am a sucker for card that feature vintage uniforms that don't look like clown costumes.


On to some other cards. I can somewhat understand why Play at the Plate doesn't like the Hamilton card I featured earlier. After seeing this Lincecum card, I feel deflated. I've seen this card before. In fact, I have about 25 copies of it. What a let down - when cards of your favorite players don't live up to your expectations. I still think the Hamilton card is fantasic, though.


Hmm, I wonder who the inspiration for this Joe Mauer card was. Hint: consider who published the card. It's as plain as the nose on your face number on Mauer's back.


Finally, this Michael Pineda card was pulled one day too late. I considered adding him in the "young arms that are the hope of the franchise" post, but I didn't want to wait and I wasn't guaranteed to pull him, anyway. Sod's law says I'd get him the next day.

This is almost the end. I have four packs left, then comes the wrap-up post. Plenty of typing to come all weekend long.

Here's my first filled Series 2 binder page. I completed four of them tonight. Only 33 more to go...

Welcome to The Hope of the Franchise. Today, we'll highlight two young pitchers who their respective teams are pinning their hopes on. Why? Because it's a lot better than watching this depressing Reds/Yankees game. Jose Arredondo can suck it.

First up is the hapless Arredondo's teammate, Mike Leake. The first player from his draft class to make the major leagues (suck it, Stephen Strasburg!), Leake is now entering his second full season as a big league player. He didn't mess around with the minor leagues. What's the point in blowing away single-A batters in Hagerstown? The Reds didn't worry about making Leake a "Super Two" arbitration eligible player. If he's ready, he's ready.

And Leake was ready. He beat out future big-league teammates Travis Wood, Aroldis Chapman and Micah Owings (outpitching two of them, and outhitting the other). He went his first ten career starts without losing a single game. And even though he was eventually optioned to Triple-A in his second season (damn you, Jose Arredondo!), he still has a career record of 14-7 and is back in the big leagues, hopefully to stay. No, I don't know why he shoplifted those shirts, either.

Fun fact: Because Leake grew up in Southern California, the conference that his high school played in is called the "Avocado League." That's awesome.

Fun fact #2: Leake grew up as a Seattle Mariners fan. So did I. We also both took the field in Cincinnati, albeit at different stadiums.



Our second featured star is the bright young hope for the Baltimore Orioles, Jake Arrieta. Arrieta and his teammates, Brian Matusz and Zach Britton, have been called the new Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz. Or perhaps it's the new Hudson/Zito/Mulder. Or maybe the new Halladay/Carpenter/Escobar. No matter who you compare them to, big things are expected from these three guys. Let's hope they're not the next Isringhausen/Pulsipher/Wilson.

Arrieta's best feature, so far, as been a career winning percentage over .500 - hey, it might not seem like much, but remember, he pitches for the Baltimore Orioles. This is a team that has been below .500 since 1998, yet he's five games over .500 for the season (9-4) and his career (15-10). The guy is good, and he's only getting better. Last season, he struck out 52 batters in 100 innings. This season, he's struck out more (71) in less (88). Even though the team, let's face it, stinks, Arrieta isn't letting it bother him. He just goes out and does his job, every fifth day. Good on him!

Fun fact: He was a fan of Nolan Ryan when he was growing up. So was Mike Leake, and so was half the power pitchers in Major League Baseball today. That's how long Nolan Ryan pitched.

Fun fact #2: There was nothing else I could find on Wikipedia. Wikipedia sucks.

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.