Boxes

At work we got talking one day about government cheese. For those that don't know what that is let me give you brief description. While I have no idea on how long the program ran. When I was a kid they would give out a box of cheese to families in need. That is all I can say about it as it was a friend's family that got it. More about that later, and how this goes into baseball cards will be revealed then.

The entire conversation got me to thinking about baseball cards, and boxes. Growing up I had a family that knew absolutely nothing about sports. Everything I have ever learned is self taught from reading, and learning on my own. Throw in that we were living in a very small town at the time. With those two things going against me it was no wonder that we had some different ideas on storing cards.

While you hear stories of rubber bands, and shoe boxes we were not part of that scene. Our storage came from the cards themselves

(image from baseballcardpedia.com)

We would do our best to be the kid who bought the last pack from the box. Your reward for said purchase was it gave you the claim on the box.From that point we would store all our cards in the box. As everyone knows these weren't the sturdiest of boxes so we had to be good with them. 

Then the day came that changed the baseball cards storage game. A friend's mom headed up to where they were giving out something called government cheese. 

While I don't remember the flavor or anything about the cheese itself. I do remember that the box was perfect for holding our baseball, and football cards. From that day on I would be asking constantly for when I could expect the next box. The friend who's family got these didn't collect baseball cards so he had no need for these wonderful boxes.

 Not only did the cards fit perfectly they were much sturdier than the flimsy boxes that packs came in. This also cleared up the opportunity to cut the cards from the bottom of the box, another game changer for us. Another great part was we could decorate the boxes as well to add to the fun. How long they got the cheese I can't remember, but I do remember all us kids holding our cards in those cardboard boxes the cheese came in.

Righting A Wrong 2008 Style

On the 12th of this month I got back a return from the Seattle Mariners spring training facility. Unfortunately the team failed to send me any spring training schedules. All that was included was regular season, and a schedule for the entire Cactus League. That is when a follower of the blog offered to right this wrong. Larry who runs the great blog My 2008 Topps Set Blog posted that he lives nearby, and had a Mariners schedule to offer up.

In typical blogger fashion Larry couldn't end the package there. During our short exchange of e-mails Larry offered up an old spring training program which I jumped on.I'm a fan of reading these type of things so adding one into my collection was an opportunity that I couldn't resist.

Adding to the fun is if you look over Jamie Moyer is an autograph from Yuniesky Bentancourt. When I showed it to the wife who is a diehard Mariners fan. She told me it would have been better looking if he would have rolled it in the dirt, or dropped mustard from a hot dog on it instead of the autograph. She's still bitter over the years, and money the Mariners spent on Bentancourt. I just read her the quote back, and the thought of him made her moan. Personally I love the thing, and can't wait to spend some time cracking it open for reading.

Monday Meant Chores

If you've been following the blog since day one you know that whenever I can on Monday's I get out for special trips. Since the holiday season ended these trip haven't been every week, but they still contain my same journeys. This week I kept it simple due to a combination of things. One was the wife is now home sick with the cold I had last week. The other is it's Spring Break for the daughter.

With these going on I thought it would be best to not travel more than the 10 miles into the next town. Throw in a girl from the wife's work was supposed to come over, and try to see about getting acquainted with the dog. The dog part is the most important thing right now. We have a big trip down to Disneyland, and a short drop over to Las Vegas for a couple days planned in June. So we need a dog-sitter, and fast.

Keeping it simple I decided to head over to the Goodwill, and look for treasures. Two items drew my attention, but in the end I left empty-handed. The two items were a D-ring binder, and a Ken Griffey Jr. plaque. The plaque interested me alot, but it had two faults I just couldn't overlook. The first was the Griffey picture was wrinkled. I believe with a screwdriver I could have possibly fixed it by taking off the front, and re-flattening it. The second, and it's biggest problem was just to much to overcome. It was shaped like homeplate, but felt like it was made from plaster. The weight of that thing would have pulled the sheet-rock right off the wall.

Not willing to end this short trip with no goodies I headed for the Target three blocks away. Once inside I headed straight for the cards hoping for some Opening Day gold. Excitement followed as I bought six packs, and a jumbo. The subset stuff is what I am scattering throughout this post. Heading back home I couldn't wait, and had to open the packs once to the car.

Arriving back at home the daughter hit me with a barrage of 'I'm bored'. This inspired me to get some stuff done around the house today. First on the list was mowing the lawn. The wife has been complaining about the length all week, and discussed even paying to have it done. Money saved as it's now finished. Should try to talk her into some packs of cards for what she wanted to pay someone else to do it. Could probably get a box with the amount we would have paid.

With the daughter still bored I offered to let her help me work on the hobby room. I've had a five shelf bookcase that has been needing put together for three weeks. Resistance was futile as she finally gave in and helped put it together. Once finished she started the plan of attack for setting up items on the shelves. This is where things slowed to a halt. I got a Kyle Busch, K-Nex model for Christmas that hasn't been put together as I wanted to wait until there was space. She thought it needed to be the first thing finished, and ended up being the last.

The good news is the bookcase is done. The bad news is odds are it'll be another three weeks before I finally get things organized on it. Can't rush these things I guess.

Party Time!

Not for me though. On Sunday the daughter had an invite from one of her friends for a birthday party. What that meant is a run up to a local retailer for a birthday present. If you have a tween then you know what that means. If you don't then I'll let you into the trend.

In our part of the world right now the big items are rubber type bracelets. Most people would recognize them as those Livestrong bracelets, but with phrases now. They come in a ton of colors, and most have some sort of saying on them. My daughter's favorites right now are her 'Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty' bracelet, and a 'Free Hugs' bracelet. They also have some that are much thinner that have no sayings on them, but you can wear 20 without a problem so you can be more colorful.

The other hot item is the printed duct tape. These come in all sorts of weird designs, and kids make just as many things with the tape. My daughter's big item currently is flowers. Earlier in the year it was bracelets so who knows what it will be next.

What does all this have to do with baseball cards you ask? While getting her friend bracelets, and duct tape I convinced her we needed to stroll down to the baseball card section. Getting a slight sigh she then decided it might be an opportunity to get another new hot item for tweens, the dog tag. While I started the search for 2013 Opening Day cards she looked at the Angry Birds dog tags.

 As she picked up three new tags for herself I noticed that the cards had finally came in. If you read on Friday they didn't have any which was a huge disappointment. Today would be a different story as sitting just below the flagship jumbo's were eight Opening Day jumbo packs. Quickly I grabbed one looking like if I didn't move fast they might disappear. Happy with the discovery I was still a touch disappointed as they didn't have any packs, just the few jumbos.

Waiting until we got home before I could open my treasure. I was excited to open my first jumbo of these cards. While I was happy with what I got it wasn't what I'd hoped for.

I'm not a fan of the Ballpark Fun subset myself so I won't be collecting these. The Opening Day Stars subset was one that didn't interest me at first. Now that I've seen the cards in person I'm on the fence. As I buy more packs we will see if the subset still grows on me or if it goes back to a no interest. Now the mascots, and the Play Hard subsets are two that I plan on trying to complete. Another card I thought looked great was the blue sparkle card below.

Hopefully I can get more of these for my favorite players. Until then I'll just have to figure out what to do with the one I currently have.

Artelopes - Salt Lake Bees

With baseball season coming ever so much closer. Minor league baseball schedules have started to make appearances. With this in mind I have started the process of putting together envelopes for mailing. One of those was to the Sale Lake Bees.

This was a cool looking envelope if you ask me. The sad part is when I scanned  it for saving. The yellow color didn't come through on the scan as well as it did on the actual envelope. We have been using a combination of gel pens, and colored pencils on the envelopes. Which one we use depends on the artwork we are doing. This was done with gel pens, and the yellow was a sparkly yellow so it helped make it pop. The wings looked much better on the actual envelope than in the scan too. 

About the Bees. The Salt Lake Bees are the Triple A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Personally I love the teams colors, logo, and just plain look. We went down in 2010 to get the daughter from her visit with the mom in Salt Lake. I tried hard to find some Bees merchandise, even called the team store. Got no answer as it was a Saturday, so instead of going down there we had to head homeward. That trip still bums me out in a way as I'd love to have seen the stadium, and run through what merchandise they had in the team store.

Despite the failed trip this team has always been good to me. They have changed business card designs a few times in the past, and have always sent me a card from each design when they do make a change. This year was a touch of a disappointment as they only sent one schedule so I have no traders. I'm not going to complain though as I got one for my personal collection.

RETURN::
5 Days
1 business card, & 1 schedule
Success

A Cold, A Cough, and Some Cards

If you read my last post I have been sick all week. I tried to power through it, but on Friday the cold finally won. I was forced two, and a half hours into the day to come home as I just couldn't do it. On the way home I had a couple of important stops that had to made. The first stop was to fill up the car with gas so I could make it home. The second stop was to a certain large retail store for night-time cold medicine, and Alka-Seltzer. I've been pumping the night-time stuff all week, and we were almost out so I needed a new load for this weekend.

 While there the idea of adding a few packs of Opening Day to maybe help cheer me up a bit crossed my mind. The most important part was the cold, and flu stuff so off I went in search of something to help ease my pain. Finally finding the night-time stuff we already have, I decided to try some Alka-Seltzer for the daytime.

From there it was off to the card section for some Opening Day treasure. As I started looking around the cards disappointment set in as there was no Opening Day of any kind. The search continued for a short time as it's all I could muster up the desire for. After deciding that this was not going to be my day I thought I might try my luck with two packs of the flagship stuff. For some reason I just couldn't pull the trigger on a pack of Heritage when I could get two pack of the regular stuff for almost a dollar more. Sad to say the packs ended up being a huge letdown.Hopefully there are a bunch of cards for the set I have/haven't started working on.

When I got home the daughter has started to sound like she has caught my cold. Only she is coughing, and I only sneeze, so it might not be my cold after all.

The good news is I got to see some great games Friday with some upsets involved. Throw in it's Saturday now, and while I haven't totally whipped this thing. I am feeling somewhat better. Maybe if all goes well I can do a run up north Monday with a stop at the card shop.

We Interrupt This Blog For A Cold

Sunday morning I woke up with a slight sore throat. Monday came along and it was still there just a touch worse. Then came Tuesday, and work. I work on Tuesday thru Friday, and as luck would have it that is when it hit me. Doesn't it always happen that way. After suffering through a day at work which really sucks. I had to do the most physically demanding part of my job on Tuesday. I came home, and decided to just take it easy before going to be two hours earlier than normal. I'm feeling a little better today but not perfect. Until I do feel better this is the best effort I'm giving out.

I don't own this card. Just found it off the internet for two reasons. Number one is I'm a huge Nolan Ryan fan. Number two is it's a 1970 card, and that's the year I was born so enjoy.

Cards In The Rain

Got back Sunday from our anniversary trip to the coast. To say nothing went as we hoped would be an understatement. I will start with Friday after work before we left. The dog didn't get along with the step-sons dog so first strike. We ended up having to take the dog with us instead of leaving him home, and being free of that worry. While he wasn't bad on the trip, I had hoped to not be taking a dog outside every few hours.

The second strike came in the fact that by taking the dog it put us in even less of a mood to go far from the beach house. We were already leaning in not going very far from where we stayed, but having him just added to it. Throw in that it did nothing, but rain the entire time we were there.

All the rain, and dog meant I got the opportunity to hit the antique mall which is maybe a mile from the house. I thought about going there or to the card-shop which was two blocks away. That decision was made for me though as I noticed when we went to breakfast the sign for the shop was gone. So to the antique mall it was. I have been in the mall before, and knew there were a couple boxes with singles for sale, and sometimes some of the vendors have other baseball items. While the other baseball items weren't all that interesting. I saw one of those kids plastic batting helmets for the Yankees, and an item I almost pulled the trigger on. They had a huge glass beer bottle with the 2001 All-Star Game logo on it. That's the game played in Seattle at Safeco if you didn't remember. They had the top sliced into a piggy bank style which was cool. I just couldn't pay the 12 dollars which was reasonable I felt, just not something I was sure would have a good home in the hobby room. Passing on those it was off to see if there might be some cards of interest.

There were three boxes. One was the auto's, patches, and other special stuff. Personally I'm still dipping my toes in the water, and haven't found that one card that ways spend a minimum five dollars on me for the collection. Being this was an antique mall, and not a dealer I could negotiate with I passed on looking through those two boxes. The few I did see seemed a little high for me which added to that thinking. The third box caught my interest with a five for a buck, or 30 cents a card written in pen. Wanting to get something I started the search, and pulled out my first find.

A second, third, fourth, fifth, and finally sixth card made it into a stack.

I could have done without the Upton, but thought what the heck. Maybe one of the readers might have an interest in this card so I picked it up. If you are interested let me know, and it's yours. Looking around the booth I saw some boxes with prices labeled for a full box of cards. Not wanting to take the chance on what kind of junk they contained I passed, and paid for what I had.

When I arrived back at the beach house the wife said we needed to head up north to get a gift certificate for her dads upcoming birthday. While in town we could hit a couple antique stores, and the Goodwill. Knowing my weakness for Goodwill's I was hooked. After getting the certificate it was off to the Goodwill. Roaming the store a logo baseball had caught my eye, but there was one problem which prevented the sale. I can pick up these balls for anywhere from one to two dollars all the time. Someone in the store thought it was a good idea to package it with seven other hit, and catch type baseballs that were hammered. Then decided to throw a 9.99 sticker on the bunch. I've been trying to stop myself buying these anyways as I've gotten quite a collection going that needs organized before I buy more. Nice to see someone there saved me from myself this time.

Leaving the store the wife was wanting to get back so I guess the couple antique stores were out of the question now. She had promised me a few stops so I used the opportunity to convince her to let me stop in at the card shop in town. I'd seen it every time we came through town, and wanted to stop to see what was with this store. Once inside this place was a disappointment. Loaded up with basketball, and football cards he was not a baseball fan. A small case sat in the corner where I started to look, and was thinking about leaving. He then wandered over to pull out a box below. Offering to let me look through the box I couldn't resist. He started going through the box with me as it was nothing but minor league stuff, and he didn't even know what was there. After looking together I managed to pull four cards for the collection.

Strike three followed as I took the cards, but even in my short time back I know I overpaid. These are all commons that shouldn't have cost more than a dollar, but cost me two. Either way they will be great additions into the collection. The McHenry is my favorite of the group. In another post I mentioned we watched him play for Tri-City. So any of his cards I find make it into the collection even at an inflated cost.

Ending the trip I have to say. Even though I struck out with everything else. The baseball card finds were decent enough I guess I'll survive.

St. Patty's Day

While I am still chilling at the coast with the wife. The plan for today is to come home since the wife works Monday, and the daughter has school. Even with all this going on today is St. Patrick's Day. In honor of the day I'm going to keep it simple, and show some Oakland A's cards.

Cheesy

While I sit at the coast ready for an exciting day I thought I'd talk about cheese. Why cheese you ask? Here in Oregon we have what I will say is one of the best if not the best cheese-making factories in the country. Usually we only go up to the factory in the summer when we go camping in the north coast part of the state. This is a different type of trip though. This weekend is my one year anniversary with the wife. So in honor of this we are getting to leave the daughter with the stepson, and head over for a getaway weekend. As part of this trip she discussed going up to get some cheese curds. Who am I to say no to something like that.

The only problem is the forecast has been rain so depending on how we feel is whether or not we go get some cheese. Even if we don't go up, and do the cheese thing it will be a great Saturday with some sort of adventure. Thinking about the trip got me thinking about baseball cards. The baseball cards that Kraft put in the cheese slices in 1993. While I know they did other cards which included cards on the mac and cheese boxes. I collected two of the cards from those cheese slices. I've long traded those away so what you see here are pictures from around the internet universe.

As I said it was only two cards back then anyways. Two problems came up when these cards hit the grocery store shelves.

 Problem number one was that when I looked closer at the cards they just didn't have that it factor. Nothing about these cards said to me you need to get the entire set. The couple I got was the old me who picked cards up like this for future value. Not even that attitude was enough for me to try, and build this set.

My second problem which ended up being the big downfall. I have never been able to eat Kraft singles cheese. Now don't get me wrong. I love my cheese more than you will ever know. I am a huge fan of Swiss cheese, provolone cheese, and cheddar cheese. What I am not a fan of is that stuff Kraft calls cheese. You could say I am a cheese snob if you want. I'd be more than happy to admit it too. While I am a cheese snob I don't look down on the people who can eat that stuff. I just can't do it myself. Putting these cards in with cheese I can't eat, and it's no wonder I only ever got two of the cards.

Now if you were attempt a set like this again. Put them in with some Swiss cheese, or some cheddar cheese. I'd build a set of those without even trying. Could be the ugliest cards in the world, and I'd still be in just for the cheese. The cards would be a nice bonus...

Nolan Ryan Card... Check

While I'm kind of in a little funk of what to write about. I thought it would be fun to showcase some of the checklists from my Nolan Ryan collection.

There came a time when checklists went from those boring yellow cards with lists of cards on each side. We all remember those cards don't we? The card that you looked at and threw into some corner like it had been a bad child. Then later on you were searching everywhere as it hit you those checklists were the last few missing cards for your set.

Then a wonderful thing happened. Someone in one of the card companies came up with the idea of adding a picture to the checklist. This simple idea has forever changed the checklist.

No longer did these cards end up being cursed at as a wasted card. They have become something to player, and team collectors. I remember seeing lists for the cards, and there was Nolan Ryan as the background for a checklist. As a Ryan collector I had to have it.

While I have just gotten back into collecting cards the last four months after a long break. The checklist is one thing I haven't researched since returning. Are they still around? Do they still have player pictures on them in hopes of still being relevant? Will have to spend the time one of these days, and relearn about the almighty checklist.

Texas Rangers unused tickets

Every couple of years I drive an hour south, and go do some trading with a fellow schedule collector. While usually it consists of filling a few holes in my schedule collection. I gather up some schedules for future trading as well.

I can't remember how many years ago he had some goodies that have since made it into the Mark Teixeira collection. Being a collector of pocket schedules I have the collection of every schedule Tex has been on included with the baseball cards. This was something different that would have been impossible to get if he hadn't offered them up.These items were unused Texas Rangers tickets.

He didn't have a full booklet, but what he did have were very welcomed additions to the collection.

If you look closer there is something about these tickets that stuck out to me.

When was the last time you ever saw ticket prices that low? I believe from the section that it is way up in the nosebleed section, but it's three dollars! We go to single A short season games, and can't even get into the park for three dollars. If we lived in a town with major league baseball, and could go to games for that price I'd be willing to bet that we would be regulars.

I know you have the whole parking thing, and the cost of food. If Texas is anything like out here on the west coast, you just take the bus for a small cost. Parking is now not a problem you worry about. As for food you would just eat at home before the game. In Seattle they allow you to bring most food into the game so a sandwich or something cheap, and food is not a problem.

With two World Series appearances lately I'd be willing to bet that prices for Rangers games have gone up. It is fun though to look at these, and realize that less than ten years ago you could go to Rangers games for less than a minor league game.


The wild thing about all this is. Until I got back into baseball cards, and both reading, and writing a blog. Little details like what those tickets cost never crossed my mind. It's amazing all the little gems I was missing out on, and have since discovered.

Artelopes - Mariners & Rockies Spring Training

On Monday the fourth I sent off three of the famous artelopes to spring training. On Monday two of the three came home with some stories to tell. First was the Seattle Mariners who are in Peoria.

I have to admit that this wasn't my best work. You could even go out on a limb, and say it might even be the worst artelope to date. This means it's kind of ironic that what I got back in return was a huge disappointment. Crumby  envelope, crumby return.

The reason for the disappointment is I got the Kyle Seager in January from another collector. Add in that the entire reason for this mailing was to get a Mariners spring training schedule. The type of schedule that isn't pictured above because the return didn't come back with any. I'd say it was a disappointment, but it was the Mariners. Disappointing people is what they do best.

RETURN::

7 days

2 Mariners regular season & 1 Cactus League

FAILURE

ROCKIES

Looking at the envelope I see you are thinking why did he post this as the Rockies? While it does show the logos for both the Diamondbacks, and the Rockies. My main goal was to get schedules from the Rockies. Since the Diamondbacks, and Rockies have started sharing a field my results from the stadium have been awesome. This return was no different as they sent everything I had hoped for plus.

Not only did they send the shared schedule they put out for spring training. They included a schedule for both teams. This saves me two stamps as I won't need to mail the Rockies until their next cover appears. Then they topped it off by including the Cactus League schedule like the Mariners did. This is the first year I have ever gotten those schedules in return. Included, and not pictured was a business card as well. I already have a business card from the facility, but it's a general thing I ask for when I write teams. You never know if the design changed unless you keep asking. A return like this is something the Mariners could learn from.

RETURN::

7 Days

1 Cactus League, 1 facility schedule, 1 Diamondbacks, & 1 Rockies

1 business card

SUCCESSFUL

Feeling The Heritage

I will start by saying the one thing that hasn't been any sort of secret with me. I just got back into the baseball card collecting hobby in November when I started this blog. While I dabbled a bit here, and there I wasn't serious about anything when it came to baseball cards. That being said I was out at the store looking for a few things, and decided to make a quick drop over to the baseball cards. While there I was toying with the idea of either a jumbo pack of the flagship or a pack of Heritage.

Fortunately for my blogging I bought the Heritage. Unfortunately I didn't buy the flagship. Instead of 36 cards, I ended up with nine cards. Throw in that not one of those nine cards will be going into my personal collection. Who knows if any of the other 36 would have made it, but I'm saying the odds would have been better.

While I sound bitter about the choice. I am, and at the same time I'm not. My bitterness comes from the fact that there are maybe two or three decent cards in the entire pack. All three of those are cards that hopefully I can turn into something I would love to have in my personal collection. I have seen the checklist for this set, and there are some cards I'd love to add. To not even get a sniff of anything that I can use was a huge disappointment.

While I'm no expert on card designs due to my time away. I can say that personally I don't mind the design. Don't get me wrong though. I have no desire to even think about building this set. My only run-ins with this set will be trying to collect the players for my personal collection. A few packs might make their way into the hands when I run up to the store, but those will be very few between purchases.There could even be a possibility that these could be the only pack I buy.

A bad pack for me could mean something good for you. If anyone wants any or all these cards let me know as I'd be more than happy to get them to you.

Artelopes- Willmar Stingers

With spring training in full swing baseball season isn't far behind. What this means is that It's time for me to be sending out artelopes for business cards, and pocket schedules. Only a limited amount of minor league teams have schedules out so far due to this I did three spring training sites, and one college wood bat league team. Odds are on Monday another series of artelopes will be making their way out. The three spring training schedules should be showing up at the mailbox as well so I should have a good week.

Back to the reason for this posting. The return from the Stingers was exactly what I needed from the team. Lets start with why I wrote the Stingers. There is just something about bee or wasp team names that draws me in. Kind of weird being that I would name my blog 'The Prowling Cat', and possibly be more fascinated with bees, and wasps than with the cat named teams. Such is my life though, an ever-going puzzle.

While the drawing we did doesn't have the teams logo involved, it did turn out decent. I started it trying to keep it simple due to my limited art skills. The daughter then saw what was going on, and hit it with the stripes. Thinking there was something missing she went with the simple bee in place of the dot at the top of the i. Once we get better look out as these guys might be fun to start writing. The previous three seasons the team has done an early bird schedule, and then regular edition once the season starts. So odds are this won't be the last time we see the Stingers appear this season. Now onto the goodies...

RETURN::

5 days

2 schedules

2 business cards

successful return

Northwest League Changes

I just noticed yesterday that in November that one of the local teams from the short season A league changed logos. This has been an interesting off season for the Northwest League, First we had the move of the Yakima Bears to Hillsboro. With that change came a brand new name as well.

The Hops are still affiliated with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The sad part is the new team ended up saddled with what ranks as one of the worst names, and logos in minor league baseball. They claimed at the time of the new identity that this wasn't their first choice. OH REALLY!! Imagine how bad the other name had to be for them to say, 'lets go with Hops instead'. The team claims the name will grow on people as it did on them. In this age of marketing it will be interesting to see how long they go through with this before changing names. On the bright side, the name pays homage to all the beer, and hops produced in this area so atleast it does have that going for it.

The new team logo that changed was for a closer team in the Eugene Emeralds.

The new logo I think gives the team a little more identity than the old logos. It's supposed to be a bigfoot as this is one of the main regions for bigfoot sightings. I showed it off to the wife, and I'll just say she is not a fan. I like it on a certain level, and think it will grow on me a little more. The one thing I think is even cooler is the new E logo.

This is going to be the hat logo. If I can find a fitted cap with this I might be interested this coming season in finally buying something from the Emeralds. The big part, and what I think was the genius of the new logo. I believe this is something that kids will like, I've read numerous times that the Lake Elsinore Storm hats are the most popular in all baseball. This is why you see those eyeballs popping up in all sorts of logos lately. This is a nice new change that hopefully works out.

Al this has gotten me more excited than a long time in going to some Northwest League games. Last season it was all college wood bat league. This year it will be a mixture of both due to all the changes.

1990 Stars and Stripes

The year was 1990 and I was collecting everything under the sun. Much like all the other people who were investing in baseball cards. I was one of the masses who was buying everything in hopes of untold future riches. Unlike some people I bought anything and everything in hopes that these would be the cards that made me rich. One of those things was the 1990 Stars and Stripes football.

When I came across these sitting in a box it hit me that the untold riches never happened. Actually I figured out years ago that the riches weren't coming. It just makes me feel slightly better to try and convince myself that maybe one day it could still happen.

After dealing with the fact that who knows what these cards are even worth. I did something that since deciding to start collecting again the old me would have never done. I didn't go look up what they are selling for online. I gathered up the cards, and thought about writing this post. While the desire to see if these cards are worth the years I've held on to them. The new collector is winning the fight to move on and keep the trend of enjoying cards for what they are.

Unfortunately the enjoying these cards for what they are brings back the memories of acquiring these cards. These cards came one per package with a stick of candy. I remember how the candy was so nasty that at first I would choke it down. At that time I didn't want to be totally throwing away my money so I forced myself to eat that nasty candy.

Besides I did collect cards as a kid when it came with the cardboard gum. So if I could choke that down then eating the sticks couldn't have been too bad. Only it was, and that is why I only have eight of these cards. Chocking down eight of these were bad enough so I never did get even close to completing the set. I guess some sets were never meant to be completed, and for me this will always be one of those sets.

All these cards are up for being claimed so if you'd like any or all eight cards then send me an e-mail, and they are yours.

It Hurts To Watch - version 2

This was starting to become a regular series around here, and then something happened. Could it be that I haven't been to the coast since the start of the year? That trip was what inspired me to start this series. While the series slowed down as the last posting was mid January, the love is still there. I will always think that the crashing of guys fighting for that small piece of real estate called home plate is the best play in baseball. You can have your double plays, and catches that end with a collision with the wall. I will keep my play at the plate.

In my opinion there is one great thing about baseball cards that showcase the play at the plate. On some of the cards such as the one above. Despite having his mask on, you can tell he knows this is going to get ugly. These collisions are so violent that there is always one of if not both of the players left hurting for awhile.This is the type of view that we as fans never get to see unless we take the time to look at our cards and take notice.

The reason for this violence is you have a brick wall in the catcher, and a running man looking to run through that wall. Sometimes the momentum is broken by a slide, and other times its unbroken with a forearm trying to break the ball loose. An interesting study would be to see which one does the most damage to the base-runner.

Looking at the card above, and the way Lemke is crumpled up. I'm going to go out on a limb, and say the method used by Lemke didn't work this time. Not only does he look out by the way Pagnozzi is holding up the ball. I'm going to say it's a safe bet that Lemke got the worst of this collision by a long ways.

Hopefully it won't take another month and a half before I do the next posting of this series. I do have a small pile of 10 cards waiting to be showcased for this series. I'm not good at math, but I believe that gives me just over three more postings before having to figure something out.

Green, White, Checkered Finish - Subway Fit 500

Overall I think I did an awesome job with my picks this week. While I wasn't able to pick the race winner again. This week all three of the guys I did pick finished in the top ten.. Hopefully I can have a streak with a few more races where I pick this good. Then all of you readers will begin to believe I might know something about racing, and am not just some crazy fool. Even if I really am just a crazy fool.

The Winner Is::

Carl Edwards

This is the first win for Carl in 70 races. It was an almost two year drought for the racer. Look at the picture above, and you will notice that Carl drives the Subway sponsored #99. How ironic is it that the race he ends his drought in was the race sponsored by his own sponsor Subway? Hopefully this leads to a better season than he had last year as Carl seems like an all around nice guy.

MY PICKS::

Jimmie Johnson -- The driver that I picked as my race favorite didn't disappoint. Jimmie ran a good race at a track coming in he said he wasn't very confident in running. Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come as if he runs this well in races he isn't sure of, it's going to be a Jimmie filled season of wins. When all the dust settled Jimmie edged out Denny Hamlin by a half hood of his car for a second place finish.

Denny Hamlin -- From reading the Jimmie Johnson results you already know that Denny finished a very close third place. On the final lap Denny made a huge move on the extra wide straightaway that moved him from fourth to second. Coming into the final turn Denny was leading Johnson by close to the same distance he lost the spot by. Still it was a great run for Denny who will hopefully keep this momentum next week.

Jeff Gordon -- Jeff ran a consistent race never really a threat to win. His ninth place finish was right around where he was running all day long. I honestly thought he would finish top five, but a top ten is a good start to his season. You can never count Gordon out of the running so odds are he will enter the race pick, or dark horse realm of my picks in the near future.