The Adventures of Joe - It's a No Go, Joe

Nobody took up my offer to send Average Joe on an adventure.  Joe had his bags packed, got a comfy new seat in a top loader and his original penny sleeve, and nobody bought Common Joe a plane ticket.

I must say I am a touch disappointed that nobody wanted to take Joe on a magical tour of the blogosphere, but 'dems tha breaks.

Now I have to break the news to Joe that all his aspirations of seeing the world were for naught.  All his hopes and dreams squashed.  I'm sure Joe will not take it lightly.  I'm sure Joe is tired of being locked in the closet for the past 20 years.

Excuse me while I tell Joe the bad news...

I was right.  He is crestfallen.  I've never seen him cry before.  Wait.  Hey Joe! Where are you going with that gun in your hand?

Crazy Collection Break Idea

I've mentioned in passing that our family plans on moving to a smaller house in the near future.  I am almost positive that storage will be an issue.  Storage for baseball cards will be an extreme issue. 

My wife has already clearly stated that the old collection will be low on the priority list for closet space.  Under the bed?  Nope.  Top of the closet?  Nope.  On the dining room table?  Not on your life.

So, I guess one of the thoughts I've been kicking around is breaking all of my doubles and singles I do not want from 1986 (81 for Fleer and Donruss) to around 2000 down into team lots.  What I'm curious about is if anyone would even want these.  I think that all I'd ask for is the shipping price to be covered, which would probably be a priority mail box.  I guess those run $10 to $15 to ship depending on the size of the box, and that isn't too bad to get cards of your favorite team.  Even though, I'd likely not go to extremes to box them in 800 count boxes.

Problem is, these aren't vintage cards, nor are they new shiny cards.  Another catch is I REALLY don't feel like picking doubles out, so you'd run the risk of landing twelve 1987 Topps Rich Yetts (I'm looking square at you Night Owl!).  Third catch is that I'd take singles of the Padres and keep all my Gwynns - so those would be some thin pickins'.

Am I crazy for thinking this?  Would anyone even remotely be interested in landing a ton of cards of their favorite team for 10 to 15 bucks?  I could even throw in football, basketball and hockey cards, too.

Thoughts?

PS - I am a little hesitant about this idea, so don't take this post as a done deal.  I am just trying to gauge interest.  Ok?

Diamond Mining - Part VII - Breakin' The Law

If you’re muttering Judas Priest lyrics after reading the title, you’re alright in my book.  Breaking the law, that’s exactly what I did this past weekend when it comes to the Giveaway.  No, I didn’t break the law, I broke my law.  I finally had enough of people offering me vintage goodness for 1987 wood grain horror.  And not just any 70s vintagey goodness, but pre ’74 goodness, series goodness.

Last Friday, after a long day of working in the yard, prepping the old house so it looks good to someone with deeper pockets than mine, I hit the Giveaway.  Opened up my offers and there it was, a ’73 Rico Petrocelli for my ’87 Ryan.  In the past, good old Thoughts and Sox has crossed my path several times in the Mine.  T&S is always on the lookout for Red Sox, and there it was, Rico Suave starring me in the eye.  Boom!  I pulled that trigger.

I immediately emailed T&S and told him I landed a ’73 BoSox if he wanted it.  Within minutes, I had an offer for a ’72 Kranepool In Action, done deal.  I next traded that Kranepool for a ’71 Nate Colbert (Go Padres!) and then immediately turned that into a ’70 Colbert.  So, in a matter of minutes, I’d gone from a run of the mill ’87 Nolan Ryan to some 1970 grey glory goodness card of Nate Colbert, a Padre at that.  Don't believe me, check out the now massive Diamond Mine Diagram!

But why did I break my rule of going one year back at a time?  I’ll rant why, because traders on the Diamond Giveaway are the stingiest freaks I’ve ever tried to trade with.  Sure, they’ll throw a 1992 Archie Cianfroco at you for your Tony Gwynn DDC, but as soon as you offer an ’87 Ryan for an ’86 Ryan, it’s like you b-slapped their mother.  So, after three weeks of no bites for my ’87 Ryan and my waning interest in the giveaway, I took that old cardboard.

And then I traded my way down to another ’87 Ryan, and turned that into a ’72 Chris Spier In Action.  psychedelic vintage, psyweet.  Two ’87s for a ’73 and a ’72 without the headache, methinks I’ve developed a new plan…

But, we’ll see if that plan works though because the DG is painfully slow at the moment.  I’ve been sitting on 108 trades for a while now, and it looks like the Trade Nazis are out in force.  Until next time, WAIT, I failed to mention I broke into the 60s.  Turned my ’74 Freddie Patek into a ’68 Tommy Davis.  If all I end up with is '68 Burlap, this experiment will be a success.

To Build or Not to Build

 

To build or not to build,that is the question.  Whether 'tis nobler to complete a set or trade/donate the cards away.  Of late, I have been struggling with this issue.  My household is preparing for a move to likely a smaller house, and given the fact my wife detests baseball cards, it is a forgone conclusion that the old collection needs a major thinning.

This was evident during my recent Donruss spring cleaning (Yes, all those who requested cards, you will receive them...eventually).  During that cleaning out process, I decided that I could complete 88, 89 and 90 Donruss because I needed less than 50 cards for each set.  But, did I really need to complete those sets?  Am I trying to complete them because I like them or because I was painfully close?

Which leads me to why I want your opinion.  Do you complete sets only because they are your favorite?  Do you ever complete a set because you already have 90% of it done, even though you never intended on building that particular set?  I am curious what sort of answers I get to those questions.

I guess all of this leads to the fact that I have had a painfully difficult time shedding cards from my life.  I have no problem trading them, or even giving them to someone who wants them, but to just get rid of them seems counter-intuitive.  I know that I started the whole 1,000,000 Cards for Kids blog, and I have set aside copious amounts of cards to donate, but truth be told, I haven't dropped them off yet.  It was/is much more difficult than I thought finding a place that would take them.  Apparently, old cardboard of players that kids today have never heard of is a big issue with places that accept donations for kids.  Plus, storage is a major issue for them as well.

I think my last resort will be to take them to Goodwill and let them sell the cards.  Some kid might end up with them, maybe.  Who knows, I even toyed with the idea of giving them away in bundles of a 100 for Halloween, which I may still do.

Anyways, I have gone on a tangential plane.  Back to the building sets issue, I used to have the mantra that if I had at least 50% of the set completed, I'd go ahead and finish the set.  I figured, at 50%, it'd be cheaper to collate it than to buy it whole (according to Buckett).  But really, do I need a 1990 Score complete set?  I think I'd be better off picking the Padres and HOFers out, and then making someone else's mother or wife deal with the clutter.

What do you think?

Name the Game - 1971 Cookie Rojas #118

While reorganizing the blog, I found some old posts I had written for a new series I was trying to develop.  I have attempted new topics in the past, some flopped mightily and others were actually interesting, such as this one, Name the Game.  The point of these is to find an action shot from a baseball card and then try to determine the exact play and game that the photograph occurred.  I have done three previous versions, so I thought I’d raise this genre back from the dead.

Sticking with my original plan of starting at the first action shot (1971 Thurman Munson) and working forward (plus the fact vintage rocks), the next determinable card is the 1971 Cookie Rojas #118.  This card has all the trimmings for determining the game and play. 

1.    Double play ball at second base.
2.    Opponents jersey and number is clearly visible.
3.    Day game.
4.    Bonus – Score board visible in the background.
 

Because of these four items, this card was easy to identify.  First step was to identify the stadium.  It’s obvious the Royals are on the road, and I do spy pinstripes sliding into second base.  So, it’s a day game at Yankee Stadium.  At the beginning of the 1970 season, Cookie was a Cardinal and then traded to the Royals for Fred Rico, after Cookie was hitting an abysmal .106 after 23 games for the Red Birds.  Cookie played 98 games for the Royals, and checking out Cookie’s game logs for 1970, we see the Royals played three games at the Yanks during Cookie’s tenure that year (August 14th, 15th and 16th).
 

The 14th game was a Friday nighter, so it’s out, but Cookie played in both the Saturday and Sunday day games.  So, we’ll look at the mysterious #9 sliding into second.  That’d be Ron Woods, who was in both games, but Ron never actually played in the Saturday game.  He was a pinch hitter that was then pinch hit for.  He never swung the bat in that game.  That makes the Sunday, August 16th the game on the card.  This is also confirmed by the scoreboard in the background that matches the Sunday game.
 

So, what play is it?  Looking through the box score of that game, we see that Ron Woods led off the bottom of the sixth with a single to left field against Ken Wright.  Gene Michael then hit into a 6-4-3 double play.  There you go!
 

The 1971 Topps Cookie Rojas #118 is the first half of a double play in the bottom of the sixth inning during the August 16, 1970 day game at Yankee Stadium!