The main reason behind pulling out all my cards and scanning a bunch of them in was so I could get scans of all the cards in my PC. Ideally, given enough money and time, I'd scan all the cards in my collection, so I could have a virtual collection and record of what I have collected over the years. But let's face it - that would be a monumental undertaking that would probably result in my wife leaving me and my dog biting me because I was too busy scanning images to take it for a walk.

However, in this week alone, I have made some progress. And I have scanned all of the Tim Lincecum cards in my PC (the smallest of my collections by far). Not only that, but I have put them up on a page for your perusal. You can reach it any time by clicking on Lincecum's name under the "Players I Collect" section (I've turned it into a link). Alternatively, you can just click here, but this post won't be on the front page forever.

As I scan in more cards from other players (Felix is next), I will put up more links. I'm trying to organise it by year because my file-naming system makes it easy for me to do that. Eventually, the Ken Griffey link will point to his player collection page instead of the Griffey White Sox Project page (which will always be available at the top).

Okay, this post got way more geeky than I wanted it to be. So here's another random Lincecum card and we'll be done with it. As always, thanks for reading!

I'm happy to report that the National League won the All-Star game for the second straight year. Might we be in for a return to the glory days of Pete Rose and the 1970s? There's no telling, but I had a good feeling about this year, much more so than last year's game.

A couple of things that stuck out for me:

The sheer number of NL Central players on the roster. Sure, the NL East is stocked with pitchers, both starters (Philadelphia) and relievers (Atlanta). And the NL West has some truly, truly great players. But the top four teams in the NL Central (including Pittsburgh!) had at least three players on the roster. And many of them made significant contributions, including All-Star Game MVP Prince Fielder.

Speaking of Fielder, his three-run blast was a joy to behold. I thought it completely stuffed up the lineup for the Home Run Derby (if he in fact "picked" it at all) - Rickie Weeks, whose claim to fame is the most homers by a lead-off hitter in the past two seasons, over Lance Berkman, leading the league in home runs? But let's face it - nobody really gives a toss. Robinson Cano won the HR Derby, and that was enough for Ron Washington to bat him...eighth. When it really mattered, Prince came through with the first home run in Brewers All-Star history, an absolute bomb that erased Adrian Gonzalez's blast, and then some.

By the way, can we go ahead and say that Jose Bautista is for real? He's no Brady Anderson, that's for sure. On the left is a Jose Bautista card that I got quite by accident - I picked it up in a pack of Upper Deck that I got from the bargain bin at Target about a year ago. I almost included it in a trade package before I had a good look at what it was. While I don't collect Bautista's cards, I respect his ability and will hang on to this for a while.


Now for the pitchers. As I said, I had a good feeling about this year's All-Star Game. The reason can be summed up in four words: Roy, Halladay, Cliff & Lee. I hate facing them in the regular season, but I'm glad they're on the National League's side now in the All-Star Game.

Sadly, for every Cliff Lee there's an Adrian Gonzalez who goes over to the other side. It killed be when he hit that home run of Lee. Why didn't he do that for the NL? Still, you have to had it to Gonzalez. He faced enormous pressure when he went over to Boston, and was expected to put up monster numbers in a Ballpark That Was Made For Him. By all accounts, he has not only met those expectations, he has exceeded them. Well done for him. I just wish he didn't do so well during the All-Star break. Or the World Series, if it were to come to that.

On the post-game show, Brandon Phillips was interviewed by Ken Rosenthal and talked about how big it was that the National League got the home-field advantage for the World Series. I like his optimism.

Finally, I can hear you now: "Jonathan, why are you so gung-ho about the National League when four of the teams you collect are AL teams?" The simple fact is, there is one that isn't. And that's the team that I have been following for my entire life. Like I said, the glory days were the Pete Rose 1970s. That's the time (and place) where I'm from.

NL forever, baby!

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!

You should see my desk right now. Seriously, here's a picture of it. Sorry for the crappy quality, it was taken on my phone because my wife has the camera:

Because my wife isn't here, I decided to spread out all my stuff and do some inventory and cataloguing. One of the things that I've been meaning to do for a long time, but never got around to it for a variety of reasons, is scan all the cards in my PCs. So far, I have scanned 12. I'm sure that I have a bunch of scans, but that was on the old crappy scanner. I want to re-do them using the new, good scanner. That's the scanner you can see in the picture. Pretty nifty, huh?

Anyway, those cards are the Ellie Hendricks card in my earlier post and 11 Lincecum cards. I have a lot more than 11 Lincecums, but those are the ones that aren't in the binder yet. The Lincecum collection is by far the smallest of my four PCs, so it seemed like a good place to start. If I had started with the Ichiro collection, I would have gotten discouraged and given up. Looking at it on my desk, I'm still discouraged.

By the way, the other half of my desk looks just as bad. That's where the cards that don't need scanning are located. And don't get me started on the kitchen table...

...at least I have until Sunday to clean up my spread.

Earlier I had posted about how I am trying to accumulate 1975 Topps cards. That's because it's time I started compiling the birth year set. I still don't have much interest in collecting vintage of all stripes, but '75 Topps holds some particular significance. I have no idea how long it will take, and I'm scared of the number of big-ticket rookies (such as George Brett and Robin Yount) that are in the set. And before you ask, no, I have no plans to collect any of the mini cards. The regular set will be enough for me.

I had mentioned that the Earl Williams was my first 1975 card. Turns out, that wasn't true. While digging through my collection, looking for Cal Ripkens for a trade, I found another Oriole:

Yes, it's Birds all-time favorite Elrod Hendricks in a classic 1970s catcher baseball card pose. The card, as you can tell by the scan, is in quite good shape. I got it in a job lot of Orioles cards last May or June. I think it's a good start to the collection.

And with that, I'm off to eBay to find some more lots.With only five '75ers in my collection (and four of them stored in a warehouse in Dureya), I have a lot of holes to fill. Wish me luck!

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.