Dispatch From My Bed While I Recover.

       Last Wednesday, I left on a five day excursion for a little well earned R&R.  Most people (wisely) go south for such Spring Break-esque getaways, but me?  I went north to Boston - this breathtaking picture was taken the day after I got there.  But there was a method to my madness, it being the week before St. Patrick's Day and me being 12.5% Irish, I saw some great old friends, took in some local culture and followed the perfect vacation pattern of eat, drink, sleep, eat, drink, sleep, eat drink, sleep.  Not being 23 anymore, this has left me exhausted.

I did get to snap this photo Saturday afternoon after I dropped off a friend at the airport:

I have driven by this sign a million times but only on a traffic free March afternoon did I get to finally capture it on my camera phone.  This has always been a dream of mine.  I think I need to dream bigger. 

I did not stay for the actual amateur night of St. Patrick's Day because, much like Mardi Gras or New Year's Eve, it only brings out the idiots, the tourists, and the people who cannot hold their liquor and then get behind the wheel of their car.  No thanks.  I got home Sunday night to a pile of mail stuffed in the box, the most exciting of which was a cardboard flat from Topps:

I assume this is from their new fulfillment center since I have never gotten one like this.

Inside was a nice treat:

I had gone on a little eBay Triple Thread shopping spree back in January and one of the things I picked up was a redemption for this card.  Nice that it only took them two months and not over a year like last time.  With the season fast approaching, it looks like Zack Wheeler here is going to be a key piece that needs to fall into place if the Mets can even hope to contend.  When I am feeling up to it, I will expand on my whole array of feelings regarding the Mets up coming season.  I will also show you all the goodies I picked up in Boston.  For now, I just need to lay here very still and rest.  My goodness, I am old.

Triple Trouble.

       I miss breaking high end product.  Oh, I am well aware of my reasons for not doing it anymore (money, sanity, etc.) but that doesn't mean that every once in a while I don't crave the rush of dropping a few hundred dollars on a small shiny box of cards and the heart pounding anticipation of opening the thing.  For all its dangerous fun it is, in the end, merely dangerous.  The end game usually winds up being disappointment and despair and you can't keep chasing the card dragon without it stealing your soul.  But I digress.  My Bukowski-esque romanticizing aside, the one product I can't seem to leave behind is Topps Triple Threads.  I had great luck with the first two incarnations of this stuff and I guess it has never left me.  Even after some very lean pickings in the next couple attempts, it has its hooks in me and has not let go.

After an aborted attempt to join a case break of this year's Triple Threads, I decided to apply that money to some eBay purchases instead.  Not only did I succeed in getting the cards I wanted, I used my new found frugality to do it right (prepare for some humblebragging):

I bought a small lot of game used jerseys for the price of one Matt Harvey by waiting out a couple people on a late night auction.  Selling off the other two cards ended up paying for that Matt Harvey.  The ones numbered to 27 are the gold or sepia tone...it is hard to tell sometimes.  The nice big swatch and the fact that it is much shinier than my scan would indicate make that a tremendous card.  The real star and the card I really had to hold out to get was that Amazin' Triple.  The Triple relics can be real hit or miss as they have gotten very corny and odd in what the pieces spell out.  Here though, you see a classic that can't go wrong. The Mets have been "Amazin'" since 1962 and since this card features David Wright and the two great hopes for the future - Zack Wheeler and the aforementioned Matt Harvey - this was an absolute must have for me.  I really really wanted one that was numbered to /9 and very very shiny but the bidding got out of hand, so I had to settle for the slightly more muted version numbered to /36.

I truly don't care about the numbering as much as I care for the look of the card.  Case in point is that the parallel of the base I loved the most this year was also the highest numbered, the "amethyst" version, or as the laymen would call it, purple.  I am a sucker for purple, so I nailed down a nice lot that not only had three of my favorite players ever (see above) but also allowed me to make a page of current players:

All that blue and purple is jarringly contrasted with the orange of the Kung-Fu Panda in that first spot on the page (and to a lesser extent by Buster Posey in the middle).  Sometimes I just can't help myself. 

I also picked up a lot of base cards so I could make a page of retired players:

Yankees?  Braves??  Tom Glavine?!?!?  At times you are simply at the mercy of the lot you buy.  Aesthetically here, you get a nice George Brett powder blue uni breaking up a ton of old school flannel.  I think this page works well, even with Tom Glavine involved (never forgive, never forget).

Could I have blown a couple of C-notes and gotten my fix?  Sure.  But for a fraction of the cost, I got the cards I really wanted and some piece of mind that maybe as I grow older, I might even grow up.

Ketchup.

       I hate people who lament how much or little they blog.  I believe I blog just the right amount.  I do it as a hobby or, more to the point, to augment the hobby I love.  I do it when I have time or when I am inspired.  I have gotten behind, though, it would seem, as I have a bunch of drafts and a fuckton of scans that I haven't used.  So what am I gonna do now? Post about brand new cards I just scanned, of course. 

When I returned from New Orleans, there were a few packages waiting for me, one of them an eBay lot I had purchased and seemed to take forever to arrive.  I believe it was coming from Long Island, so I found it in my heart to excuse any Sandy-related delays.  I am a sucker for Topps Triple Threads.  I used to buy a few boxes of the stuff every year.  It seemed I would nail a big hit that would pay for the others.  It was a nice zero sum game.  Then, two years in a row, I kind of struck out and it soured me on the whole thing.  But I still like to have a nice page of the base cards, or in this instance, the sepia parallels:

I bought this lot because I got a lot of other cards that I wanted/can sell.  This is a good looking page and highlights the brief time Hanley Ramirez was in a Miami Marlins jersey. 

The other exciting package was a thick load of 30 cards from COMC.com.  I probably should have waited for Black Friday, but I am a firm supporter of Buy-Nothing Day, so I decided I can spend a dollar or two more for the bulk shipping and wait patiently.  Let's looks at the first nine:

OK, eight.  No surprises here.  Two Gary Carters from this year that I needed.  Two Zack Wheelers to start off my collection of him.  I think he and Matt Harvey will fight for my affection by the end of the 2013 season.  Also here are a 1984 Topps sticker of Tom Seaver and a 2004 Topps Pristine Legend of Reggie Jackson in his Arizona State uniform.  For all my huge Reggie player collection, I did not have single one with him in his Sun Devil digs; now I do.  Lastly, there are a mini Dickey and a golden Dickey, which matches my shiny Dickey.

Second nine:

Since no one seemed to have them to trade, I broke down and grabbed the two short print rookie cup cards from this year's Topps (the Reddick and the Arencibia). I also didn't have the Revere, but somehow overlooked snagging the Brett Lawrie...anybody have that one to spare/trade?  This shipment will expose the self centered habit I have to collect cards of people named Max.  You can see four of them here, two of them fictional (the Mann and Rebo) and two of them real, of which I did not have any (Russell and Monica Maxwell).  Rounding these out is a Cameron Jordan die cut rookie, Saints player I like (more on the direct purpose of that tomorrow or next week) and a OPC Legends card of Claude Lemieux, one of my favorite Devils of all time.  Remember hockey?  Yeah, me too.

This next batch are five 1996 Pinnacle Trophy Collection parallels and four 1984 Topps USFL cards:

I needed these to complete pages...

Here:

and here...

I now have pages of both USFL Topps sets and two from Pinnacle's late 90's obsession with dufex parallels, though I haven't featured the other yet. 

Since I have been obsessed and sorting my football cards, I have a few more to show.  I had found seven faux-vintage cards of two of my favorite old players, Gale Sayers and Joe Namath.

I snatched two more of each...

And now have a fantastic page of The Kansas Comet...


And Broadway Joe:

I should think about putting together that whole Namath UD Football Heroes set.  I do so enjoy those.  Namath and the Jets were my mother's favorite when she was a kid (for obvious reasons).  So while I am not big on the Jets in general, it seems fitting for me to have a page of Joe Willie.  The man is just too epic and awesome not to be represented.

***

You will also notice I updated the header graphic and added a festive holiday background picture (I would hate for all of you to get bored with my layout).  I have a bunch of Mets ornaments that go on my tree each year.  I would do a post about them, but someone already has a definitive Mets Christmas online repository.

Requiem For a Team.

       Today is game 162 and all sorts of things hang in the balance for some teams this evening - division titles, wild cards, triple crowns, etc.  Unfortunately, this does not apply to my Mets.  I am currently watching the bottom of the 8th of their last game (and, go figure, the bullpen is doing everything they can to give this game away) and I am ruminating on what started off so sweet and how it all turned so sour.  For the 6th consecutive year, there will be no playoffs; for the 4th consecutive year, they will finish below .500.  I long for the days of 2007 and 2008 when this team was choking away big leads - but at least mattered - in September/October, as opposed to the lifeless and meaningless late season games I have forced myself to watch for months at the end of the season.  This team hit a high point of 30-23 on June 3rd (and then they wore their black jerseys for the first and only time this season - draw your own conclusions...) and were still 46-40 at the all star break, then everything fell apart.  If the human combustion brigade that is the Mets bullpen can hold on to this one, they will finish 74-88, fourth place in the NL East.

       Putting it mildly, 2012 has been a let down but there has been a few highlights and even a couple of reasons to look forward to the future.  Matt Harvey looks like the goods.  David Wright carried this team for the first three months and will hopefully be resigned before too long.  Ike Davis overcame a disastrous start to finish with 32 homers.  RA Dickey, besides having a name that my inner fifth grader loves to say out loud, won 20 games and just might win the Cy Young award.  But the true highlight of the season came right near that aforementioned high water mark on June 1st when Johan Santana pitched the first no hitter in New York Mets history. 

My excitement over this achievement was palpable and immediate.  Sure, it was as fluky as a no hitter itself that the Mets hadn't pitched one in 50 years and 8020 games, but this moment was marvelous for me and all Mets fans.  I was recently searching eBay for a particular card and somehow came across this one.  When I saw it, I had to have it.  Had to...

It is from 2012 Topps Triple Threads.  The one I came across was actually a shinier version (though this one is plenty shiny, the scan does it no justice) and numbered to /27.  But the bidding for that one got out of hand ($43 worth of hand) so I searched for another one.  I eventually found this one and after nursing my bid for a few hours at the end, I was able to procure it for $15.55 (plus shipping of course).  I hadn't obsessively watched an eBay auction like that in a long time.  It was well worth it, as this card is a glorious tribute to that June evening.

When I got the card, I found out it had an interesting back:

It had a second cut out that commemorated Johan's Cy Young Awards.  OK, that's pretty cool.  In fact, it is the same jersey, as this ingenious photo will show:

Of course, as we have found out, the little disclaimers on the backs of cards aren't worth the paper they are printed on.  But I don't care in this instance.  This is an awesome card that commemorates a magical moment for my team.  A moment that will long outlive the disappointment of this season. 

Aesthetics.

       I was going to call this post "A for Aesthetics" but I want to keep this thing simple (and I would never want to endorse Sue Grafton novels, directly or otherwise).  Everyone seems to be down with the concept of this blog and I appreciate all the well wishes and encouragement.  But I also want to assure you all, there is more to all this than just slapping nine cards in a page and calling it a day.  Each page needs to not only represent the player, set, or concept, but it has to look good doing it.  At least, that is the goal.


Here is a page of Stan Musial modern retro vintage cards:
 
All very different looking cards; some are very busy and modern, some are more staid designs and/or reprints.  All of them live together well on the page.  All the photos make sense where they are placed. 


Here is a page of Wally Joyner that illustrates this concept even better.  Different sets and photos all arranged well:


If he's looking up, he's on the bottom.  If he's looking right, he's on the left, and so on.  To look good is to feel good. Its got a couple of rookie cards and some OG Upper Deck in there too.  So in my binders, at least, Wally Joyner is the equal of Stan Musial, if not greater.


I do like the break up the monotony of page after page of player after player with some themes.  


Nomar is one of my favorite players of all time.  He has an astounding four pages in my retired binder.  I went with an all fielding page here:


I really like to do this with catchers.  As a failed former catcher myself (with the bad joints to prove it), I like to highlight the tools of ignorance, behold the recently retired Jason Varitek.


I do have binders that collect sets as well as players.  I find Allen and Ginter to be both awesome to rip open and collect, yet hard to work with in my nine card structure.


I mean, these '09s look nice, but page after page of similar looking A&G cards gets tiresome, so I tried to break it up with some bat-on-shoulder solidarity in '06...

...and some horizontally-oriented '07s.




I'll do this with players too.  I have two or three pages of Cal Ripken Jr. and since he has a little under a bazllion cards, I was able to cobble together a longways page:



I am certainly the demographic Topps is after with all their old timey sets and players, because I can't get enough of them:
 
Though it is a sad statement that this is the least busy of all the Topps Triple Threads sets.

While I am on the subject, it is soapbox time.  I try not to complain too much about cards since this is my hobby and all, but I cannot ignore Topps and their recent quality slip.  It is not just the monopoly that has led to this sad state, they were well on their way down before that.  I have a fantastic example here.  These are the 2002 Topps 206s:


Great pictures, well colored, the subject pops off the background, high quality stuff, pays homage to the original set, looks great.


And these are the 2009 Topps 206s, a mere 7 years later:
 
Mediocre pictures, horrible photoshop effects, awful over saturated backgrounds, inconsistent and lazy coloring of subjects, looks like a high school art project...and what the hell is going on with that Lou Gehrig?  He had ALS, not Down's Syndrome. Whatever happened in those seven years, design and quality control took a long looooooong step down. 
 
/soapbox


As a palate cleanser, here's one more good example, from the HoF binder; Goose Gossage in all his goosey-ness, lots of teams represented, lots of sets represented, mustache very well represented, the pictures all nicely arranged:



And here...well, here is one of my Hank Aaron pages, it's all over the place...

...it needs a little work, though Night Owl should appreciate the original well-loved 1975 cards from my brother's collection.  

       And to those who asked, I will be working on the wantlists and gotlists sometime this weekend, or next month, I am in no rush, but thanks for inquiring, I am aware they need to be posted.  And once again, thanks to everyone who has come to look at my little blog and especially those who have taken the time to comment.