Saving The Best For Last

Ending this years showing of spring training schedules for the Rockies are the last three years in my collection. Sadly I am currently missing the 2014 version, but that problem will be solved soon enough. Until then I'm not going to linger on that, and stick to the schedules I do have.

In 2011 the Rockies, and DiamondBacks moved into a new spring training facility. This facility is the only stadium built on Indian land in the Cactus League.

Since making the move Rockies spring training schedules took a huge swing upwards. Maybe things got better from the years 2003- 2010, but I wouldn't know as all those schedules are missing from the collection. What I do know is since making the move to Salt River Fields at Talking Stick the schedules have been amazing.

If I had any complaints it would be that the look hasn't changed much during this three year period. With the sweet look of these schedules it's not a big deal. These are just so good that looking at them now has me itching to get the 2014 version. Soon it'll be happening... Very soon.

My Least Favorite

On Wednesday I commented that the schedules for today were a step backwards in my opinion. So without beating around the bush I give to you example number one.

This might very well be the second most disliked schedule in my Rockies collection. The part I find the most sad is that it represents two other teams not just the Rockies.

While I don't know about the DiamondBacks, and White Sox. The Rockies did save some face by putting out a decent schedule for 1998 to go along with the one above.

The tricky part is I can't tell if this is a new schedule or just sponsor. The backside is the picture from above. I'm going to say the Rockies are the sponsor, but in my binder this is the side I show as the front.

Sadly my collection has a big hole in the Rockies spring training schedules until 2002. That is when the least favorite schedule in my collection appears.

You can't imagine how much I want to bash this schedule, but I can't. Believe it or not there are still teams that use this very schedule. The reason I would bash this is due to its simplicity, because it's just a sheet of paper with the schedule. I like my schedules to have some form of substance, and this schedule lacks that. What I do like is there looks to be some promotions that I would have enjoyed.

Tomorrow I end this tour through my Rockies spring training schedules. Missing is the 2014 schedule as I haven't added one yet. All in due time though...

Finally Some Spring Training Games

I'm not going to say this will be another historic post about baseball tonight. With my mind partially into writing this post, and partially into the Dodgers versus DBacks game on right now. Lets be honest, my mind is more into the game than it is into this post. Things are changing though as I just made the mistake. Noticing that this game had to have been played during the day I looked up the score. Guess I can focus more on blogging now.

Sporting the desert logo that would appear on their spring training schedules for 1995, 1996, and 1997. The 1995 schedule was fairly plain compared to future schedules.

Finally in 1996 the team added photos to the cover. The picture is just as blurry in person as the scan shows. To me it's a cool look, and at the time probably the best looking schedule the Rockies had put out in their short existence.

The final year Colorado used the desert logo on their spring training schedules. In 1997 the Rockies nailed the spring training theme with the photo, and 'See tomorrow's heroes today' phrase on the cover. This is everything you could want in a spring training schedule. Unfortunately the next few schedules in my Rockies spring training collection are a step backwards.

Thursday I'll show those examples before getting to the current, and much flashier style the team currently uses.

Spring Training Is Coming

With tomorrow being the official start to spring training for a few teams I'm feeling bitten by the baseball bug. As a Rockies fan things won't start until Saturday. The Mariners fan in me gets baseball on Friday. Itching for things to get going I thought why not show off some Rockies spring training schedules over the next couple days. Unfortunately there are some holes in my collection so what I show will be like this blog... All over the place.

The first year I have a spring training schedule of the Rockies for. This is also my largest schedule for the Rockies. A full sized brochure I don't know if this was the only schedule for spring training that the Rockies put out or not. The one thing that I do know is in 1995 the schedule became something more common in size.

Mark Gives Me The Business

On Saturday came a bubble mailer from Mark who runs the great blog Mark's Ephemera. Much like this very blog Mark runs the gauntlet of things he shows. The big difference though is Mark mostly sticks to the paper items while I stray quite often. With his enjoyment of paper items, and some of my collections being paper related. It would only be natural that our paths crossed long ago. Being a huge collector of business cards, and the cornerstone of that collection being for baseball.

Mark had contacted me about the possibility of tracking down a few business cards for the collection. Not only was he going to track down business cards. He was going to attempt to hit the cards that could be considered white whales. Those cards were to be from the rookie level Appalachian League. This league has held me prisoner since I started the baseball business card project. Missing three cards from the league with the few I do have coming from trades. Having a connection in the front office of one of the three teams, Mark offered to do his best. Saturday, Mark delivered by nailing one of those teams to drop the list.

Welcome into the collection the Bristol Pirates. Bristol will be starting their first season with the Pirates this upcoming season. Meaning this card is hot off the presses, and ready to join the Appalachian League business cards. Now that is a sweet pick up if you ask me.

Mark wasn't finished with the business card. Showing he's not just a baseball man, Mark dropped some pocket schedules in for Tennessee Volunteer football, and Knoxville IceBears hockey.

Then if all that wasn't enough, Mark showed he can go with the non-paper items as well.

A 2013 Mike Trout portrait Quibi. If there was any non-paper item you would want in a bubble mailer this beauty would be it.

Thank You so much Mark, you made my weekend.

Its Daytona Baby!!

It's the day the NASCAR season officially starts. Today is Daytona, and the Daytona 500. There are a few reasons this has me excited beyond belief. Here at the cat house we are huge NASCAR fans. Gives us NASCAR, college football, and baseball over anything else. Nothing, but those three things, and we would be content.

While having NASCAR back is thrilling it signals another coming as well. No not the almighty hyped return of the three.

Daytona signals that spring training baseball is about to start as well. This week the games will start, and we will be in total hysteria around here. Currently the wife is all about the NASCAR, and the cat is torn. There have been some great moves by both my teams the Mariners, and Rockies. Seeing those players in their first action has got me pumped. Enough baseball though let's get back to NASCAR.

NASCAR made some serious changes to the season which I won't get into today. I will say that one of those I am not happy about, and think it might possibly even change my viewing later in the season. When that time comes I'll talk about it, but until then... Its Daytona Baby!!

One of the changes made will rear its head today. While there are many that aren't thrilled about this change, I am one of those that think its a move that has been needed long ago. The change is the way cars can draft in the 500. NASCAR is implementing a rule that cars will no longer be allowed to push draft.

For those that don't know what that means I will break it down for you. Above is a picture of cars push drafting. The cars would lock onto each other. By locking together they travel faster, and save gas. Downsides were the lead car was doing all the steering. The rear car was at the mercy of the front guy while going around the track. In return the front car was at the mercy of the rear driver. If the back car slid down, or lifted the rear wheel of the front car. This was the result.

Now the drivers will be penalized for push drafting. While they will still be locked in as close as possible, the cars won't be touching the entire time. From watching the truck race on Friday, and the Nationwide race on Saturday the new strategy has been to stay as close as possible, and bumping the car forward when they got close. No longer is it an initial bump into you, and you were locked. Now the guy behind you might slam the rear end of your car constantly. Hello bad back!

As seen in the Nationwide race on Saturday wrecks like above won't be as constant as they have been in the past. When it comes down to the last couple laps all bets are off. You will have every remaining driver fighting for victory.

Reliving 1985 Cardboard Style

Another Saturday of errands, and another trip to the Goodwill. This time the wife wanted to make a trip to WinCo which meant I got to visit the thrift store. Not just any store, but one that I barely ever get to visit. Excited about the trip we headed off for errands. Going through the store I struck gold in two totally different forms. The first was a sight that looked awfully familiar.

More sheets for putting cards, and schedules into. A total of 42 new sheets for future use to be exact. All those sheets, and binder for the cost of 2.99. This means I've picked up over 100 sheets in the past week. Not a terrible week if you ask me.

The 42 sheets wasn't even the best pick up from this trip. My real treasure, and the reason for the name of this post. Wrapped in plastic, and sitting all nice, and neat waiting for my to find them a home. A collection of 1985 Donruss. As I picked up the bag my first thought was all the big names would be gone. I wasn't going to let this stop me though. It looked like a fun adventure to see what I'd find inside.

One of the first things that stuck out to me. The old team logos that were used during 1985. One of the coolest things if you ask me is getting to see these logos once again. Seeing those old logos is the entire reason I have the baseball business cards collection.

When these cards first came out as a kid I didn't care for them at all. I would collect any Cubs players, but that was only for my Cubs collection. Outside of those very few cards these were garbage to me. It's amazing how almost thirty years can change your outlook on these cards. Now that I'm older I can appreciate the look of these cards. I don't collect them, but can still appreciate them.

Looking through the 'Rated Rookies'  I'm going to say he took the best few out. I can't remember this set very well so who's missing is anybody's guess. Out of the batch I recognize only one name, and that is Tartabull.

Not only was the bag loaded with somewhere between 100-200 Donruss. There was a stack of between 50-100 Fleer goodness from the same year.

These are the five teams who's cards were in the bag. Not a bad selection of teams to have gotten. The players all shown above were the best of the bunch though. Didn't surprise me as I expected all the huge names to be picked out.

Overall this was a fun group of cards to look through, and well worth what I spent on them. They had another baggy that had another huge batch of 1985 Donruss, and I think they were 1985 Topps.  In the end I just didn't pull the trigger on the second bag. If you are working on a set for either of these, or want specific teams. Post it on here, and I'll see what I can do for you. Keep in mind that there were no big names in the lot. Some minor stars were in the bag, but no biggies.

I'm Weak

After posting not long ago how I was going to not buy anymore packs of 2014 Topps. That was until I decided if I was going to build the set or not. Then came Friday, and a moment of weakness. Deciding to put in some vacation time, and leave after half a days work. I headed towards the Goodwill in town to look for treasures. After a quick search I cam away with nothing more than air.

Still wanting to add something into the hobby room. The thought of why not hit Target, and see if they have any of those MLB Teenymates. While there the urge to see if they had any new 1/64 NASCAR cars of Kyle Busch hit me. Walking to the toy section I once again came up empty. Most the cars were for the minor drivers that seem to always be driving in the rear. Not something I was interested in by a long shot. Heading disappointed towards the card section I rounded the corner, and jackpot! There was the display for the Teenymates. I had to see these things firsthand so I nabbed two packs.

My take is these things are pretty cool. One downside is they are 3.99 for a pack of two which did seem a little much to me. Despite their small size these are fun little collectibles that if I can get over the price-tag will be fun to keep adding. The biggest challenge will be not losing these things. If you haven't seen them in person they are very small. I thought they would be small, but not this small. My recommendation is if you have small children that like putting things in their mouth. I would avoid putting these anywhere near them for that reason. In our household I will have to make sure they stay away from the dog, and cat.

Not finished up my moment of weakness were baseball cards. Looking over the packs I did what I was trying to avoid. I picked up two packs of 2014, and got the following special stuff.

After going through everything, and doing a little thinking. I finally came to the conclusion that I will work on putting together the set of series 1. Currently I stand at just over 200 of the cards for the set. Whether this will branch into building series 2, and update when they come out will be decided later. Right now my short term goal is to just build series 1.

Keeping myself on course the purchase wasn't totally without a goal. Sitting in a box, but not listed on the blog is a partial set of 2013 update. Not wanting to go all willy nilly I bought a pack of update for that set. So far I haven't seen if any are cards I need. The good part was atleast I bought a pack of cards for a set I am working on instead of three packs of 2014.

While I did have a moment of weakness. Not everything was a total loss. Some real treasures came home for the collections.

The Cat Gets The Silver

With this being Olympics season I thought why not go with a post title that reflects this time of year. As luck would have it I got cards on Tuesday that go with that theme. Not only cards, but silver cards.

In another theme that has been going strong on this blog. This PWE came from a member of the online trading group TradingBases. Traveling from the Midwest courtesy of Ray, and a stamp. One of the recipients of the seven envelopes, and bubble mailers I sent out earlier this month. Ray rewarded me with the silver in the form of these two beauties.

While gold has been the color of choice the last few years due to Topps. You can all have your gold cards if I can get two silver cards this sweet. Personally I am a huge fan of these cards, and that is why when I started back into cards again this set was on my list. Something about those silver colored autographs on the cards looked better than the regular edition of this set.

Who knows, maybe if I keep getting great PWE's like the one containing these cards from Ray. One day I will be able to cross this set off the wantlist. Hopefully it won't take until the next Winter Olympics.

Getting Lucky (part 2)

After our stop at Toys-R-Us it was off to the card shop. With everything I had planned this was the one stop I was looking most forward to. Originally I thought about hitting both shops in town, but having the daughter along I opted for just one shop. In the end I bet she appreciated this choice. My goal for this stop was to work on sets. Hopefully I'd be able to get close to completing one or maybe even complete one.

 Going in there was another customer so we calmly waited our turn. Finally the chance came to start the search through singles. Starting off with the 2006 Topps, Opening Day subset.

I only needed two of the cards for my subset. The third is the Mariners card which I figure I'll just add to the binder of Mariners stuff. A fourth card was bought to, but it will be part of a future 'It Hurts To Watch' post. Maybe as soon as next month being it's the wife, and my anniversary. She has a beach trip planned for that weekend, and that usually signals one of those posts. After the four cards I started rattling off years, and card brands. Sadly either the cards had been possibly donated, or he never opened any packs. I've always known that I seem to collect the more oddball stuff at times. If not odds are my wantlist would be way shorter than it is. Adding up the total I still had this need to get more cards. Looking around the packs of 2014 Topps started calling to me. Starting off with four packs.

Which then turned into seven packs.

Which then ended up being ten packs.

I was going to buy nine packs, but the owner was awesome. Told me he'd do the tenth pack for a dollar to make things easier. That final pack was where the buyback card came from. Not a bad deal if you ask me. He also made sure that his shop will be my main stop for cards when I can get that direction. While my first ever trip there wasn't the best. I'm glad that another chance was offered as he's been great since then.

Besides all the subset treasures I was able to nail down four cards for the player collections.

Trout, and Zunino are the two big guns. Franklin is kind of a big question mark after the Cano signing. Rumors last season had him possibly being the future second baseman. That all changed in the off-season when Cano was signed. Now there are talks of trying to turn him into a utility infielder, or an outfielder. The third option which I see more than the other two is he becomes part of a trade for a pitcher. The Justin Smoak player collection is on life-support. His first half play of 2014 will establish his future in my player collection.

Overall I was fairly pleased with all the cards. Some good cards for my personal collection. Then some great stuff for sending out to people I owe cards too. Looks like my luck might be turning around in pack buying. One thing I really need to decide now is if I'm going to build this set or not. If not there should be no more pack buying or very limited pack buying. If I am going to build the set then I need to see where the set is at, and make a list. Guess its time to sit down, and start organizing the cards I've got, and decide.

Getting Lucky (part 1)

Not that type of lucky! Finally my luck started to turn around on Monday. Deciding to head south as it's something I've been wanting to do for awhile now. Finally the weather held out enough that I decided it was worth making the trip. A trip that I was glad we made due to some of the results. I say we as the daughter decided to come along at the last minute.

Heading out a little later than originally planned which ended up being a positive. We made the trek south in the rain, and wind. Our first stop was the Goodwill that I've been itching to visit. Starting the row by row search it was down the first row I hit the first treasure.

Seeing the binder at first I passed as it wasn't priced. Thinking it would cost around ten dollars as inside was an almost complete set of these.

Before you ask yourself why would the cat buy a set of 1991 Score? Is he out of his mind? I will save you from wondering the answer to those questions. First is I am out of my mind, but that isn't the answer to the questions. The reason for buying this binder would be the pages holding the set. After counting up all the pages there are 92 pages for holding real cards. I could scrap that entire partial set, and be ahead just on the pages.
        As I said before, initially I passed thinking it would cost ten dollars or more for the binder. As I went down the next row the daughter caught up with me. Trying to catch her before boredom caught in. We finished the row, and headed down the next. Looking back at the binder I convinced her to go get a price check. Imagine my surprise when she came back, and it had a $4.99 sticker on it. SOLD!!

Going to the sporting goods section I came across these three goodies.

I keep telling myself I need to stop buying these logo baseballs. That is until I get the ones I already own displayed. Then I come across anywhere from one to three balls, and I buy them. My biggest challenge will be buying a bunch of ball-cubes to display the collection. I have problems buying a ball-cube for three dollars or more when the ball only cost me a dollar. I do have a couple cool looking bowls that hold some of the balls, but it still leaves over half the collection needing some form of a home.

Next on our agenda was a trip to Toys-R-Us. I have been trying to find the Macfarlane, Mike Trout figure with him ready to steal a base. I saw one in the fall when I bought the smaller figure. Ever since turning that one away I have been kicking myself in the butt. Maybe sometime soon I'll give in, and order one from Amazon or something. Sadly this was a stop where luck wasn't running with me as they had every figure except Trout. I did manage to find a small token to add into the collection though.

All this, and I haven't even gotten to one of the two reasons I wanted to head south. That will have to wait for part two tomorrow.

Artelopes- Omaha Storm Chasers (1st mailing for 2014)

With spring training just around the corner baseball pocket schedules are starting to appear. One of those is for a minor league team that I've been collecting schedules for since the name change a few years ago. Known as the Omaha Royals from 2002-2010. Moving into a new stadium at the start of 2011 the ownership wanted a brand new identity to go with the move. After a contest to dream up a new name the winner was eventually chosen.

 After seeing the new name, and logo I was impressed, and decided to add the Storm Chasers into the teams I collect schedules for. Starting with the 2011 schedules I contacted the team with awesome results. My first return from the team that year was so promising I've become a fan. Deciding to get my hands on the first 2014 Omaha schedule I sent out the following artelope.

I didn't get fancy as I just wanted to get this envelope sent. On the teams baseball caps they use this design only with the S, and C interlocked. I decided instead of interlocking them in another logo. That I would separate the two letters, but use the concept. It wasn't a bad idea for what was my first of atleast two or three mailings to the team for this season.

Getting a return from the team on Friday. What came was a surprise to me as it wasn't the currently known schedule for the team. This means I'm going to need to work out a trade with another schedule collector for the intended target. Don't get me wrong I'm thrilled to have gotten this new edition. With so many teams putting out multiple schedules there are times schedules this this one slips through the cracks. It's only by luck like this return we find out about these schedules.

By doing a little research I have earned the player is Christian Colon. He is a shortstop prospect who is 24 years old. Christian's contract was purchased by the Royals in November of 2013 which makes him currently part of the 40 man roster. While I'm not a fan of the Royals I'll have to keep a lookout for Colon during spring training games. Maybe this young prospect will be part of the teams future plans.

Jesus Montero- Down And Possibly Out?

When I first got back into collecting baseball cards. I created a list of players that I wanted to collect. If you were to look at that list going into this upcoming season you'd notice a bunch of changes. One of those big changes was the removal of Jesus Montero.

Even before his suspension I was one of the many that was starting to sour on this highly touted prospect. When the Mariners traded for Montero it was a blockbuster that at the time looked to be a major addition to the future. Here we are a couple years later, and while Pineda has yet to pitch for the Yankees. Montero has yet to even show a slight glimmer of the potential that the Mariners traded for. A batting average that has hung down around the Mendoza line. Very poor fielding in a position that can't have this type of disastrous play if you want to win games.

All this finally caught up to Montero as the Mariners 2012 first round draft pick Mike Zunino was representing in Triple A. All this meant that while Seattle wanted to delay bringing Zunino up. They had no choice, but to make the future now. The move left Montero in the dark, and a player who needed to adapt. This adapting meant he needed to be sent to Tacoma, and learn a new position. A sort of back-up plan for another player that hasn't delivered on his potential Justin Smoak.

Then came an injury, and the Biogenesis suspension. Wednesday was a chance for a new start with the young prospect. Saying all the right things as Montero did something I'm not sure another of the suspended players have done. Montero apologized, and admitted to making a big mistake. Adding in that he didn't know what he was thinking when he made the choice he did.

Even saying the right things there was some new choices that Montero has made. These choices are once again putting him behind the proverbial eight ball. Playing 22 games in the Venezuelan League as a way to test out the knee. He talked about how it went well, and feels great. The problem lies in that after those games he decided to relax. Not only relax, but to eat, and eat, and eat. All this has Montero coming into camp on a weight loss program. A camp that he was already going to have a tough time to prove he belongs on the Mariners roster. Now its more obvious than ever he will be starting out in Triple A Tacoma.

As a Mariners fan, and a once collector of Montero's cards. I hope he will be able to get it together at some point this season. Maybe he will be able to platoon with Smoak, or possibly takeover if Seattle finally gives up on Smoak. While my days of collecting his cards are long gone. I can't help, but hope he doesn't end up being another of the franchises many disastrous trades.

I Got Drilled

Just over one week ago Tony who is a fellow schedule collector was soliciting for a trade. This wasn't your typical schedule trade though. Tony has a decent amount of the bigger sized schedules. Looking to unload the oversized for other oversized he needed. I noticed a selection of Tulsa Drillers schedules in the batch he listed. After a series of e-mails were exchanged I discovered there were three schedules I was missing in my collection. One was a sponsor variation, and the other two are new covers. Tulsa has become one of my favorite minor league baseball team to collect schedules from.

Originally the collection started with the 2003 as it was the year the team became a Colorado Rockies affiliate. As time has gone on I started to add older schedules into the collection.

Not the best cover that Tulsa has put out, but I needed the new sponsor of this cover so I couldn't turn down the chance to get it.

This is one of those schedules that I was pumped to be adding into the collection. My other 2011 schedules have a different cover which personally is kind of weak. Compared to the other cover this thing is a work of art.

My favorite schedule of the three due to it having Tim Wheeler. When Wheeler played for the Tri-City DustDevils up here in 2009 we saw him play a few times in Salem. At the time we were more into seeing another player who was from Oregon State University. The wife likes watching guys from Oregon State. I personally like watching the Rockies affiliates play. When those two collide its a win-win if you ask me.

In the end I had four schedules that Tony was looking for. In true blogger fashion I offered to send the four, and take the three in return. What came was a fourth schedules thrown in that I will be able to use in a future trade hopefully. That is unless there is someone who'd like to add a schedule with new Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg on it.

Another 2014 Topps Lottery Ticket

As the title says I made it out to the closest big box, and bought another rack pack. Sadly this pack didn't end well for my collecting interests. In essence this could be classified as a losing ticket. What it did do is kill that burning urge I've been having to buy a couple packs. After this you could say that the best thing I got was the Monster energy drink.

While I am usually not one to drink energy drinks this one has a purpose that will be getting fulfilled in a few hours. At work is a scheduled meeting that will be longer than our usual meetings. With this in mind my only defense was to hit the store for supplies. Meetings have never been my thing so whoever invented the energy drink. My hat goes off to you.

Deciding that I couldn't just go to the store for an energy drink. Throw in that after getting all those bubble mailers, and envelopes ready all weekend. I had to scratch that itch to buy atleast one rack pack to break some sort of cards. Rather than get to boring with the regular cards. I'm going to stick with the colored parallels, and inserts.

I remember when Abbott came into the league. Along with most everyone else at the time I went right after his cards. Those days are long gone, but I am still a huge fan of his. How could you not respect a man who went through everything Abbott went through to reach the MLB. If there is anyone in the world that proves you can reach any dream no matter how impossible it seems. Jim Abbott is that man. I'm glad to see he's still getting some respect from Topps by including him in this subset.

 Not the worst selection of colored parallels. For starters we have the ever popular sliding home. This card would have been better if it wasn't shot so tight. Seeing the catcher ready to make the play would have made this card perfect. The second card speaks for itself. Jimmy Rollins after releasing the ball on a play. While I don't know the fate of either card I'll say I don't think finding a home for Rollins will be tough. The tough part will be figuring out which Phillies fan I know will be adding the card.

Now comes the obvious part of the post. From looking at these two cards I bet it's pretty clear what my closest big box store is. The one thing that stuck out to me the most is we have both a pitcher, and a catcher. Not just any pictures either. Ramirez is in the motion of pitching, and D'Arnaud is in full gear. As with Rollins, my biggest problem will be deciding where to send these two cards.

Thinking about what was in this rack pack. I guess it wasn't too terrible of a batch. The more I think about these cards the more I realize they won't be to tough to find homes for .So maybe this wasn't a terrible pack after all.

Slowed Down By Mr. Baseball

As the snow has started to thaw in the area of Oregon we live in. My projects started to slow down a little on Sunday, and today. While I did manage to get more cards together for sending out. The organizing slowed down to a halt. Not a big deal though as I did get a ton done. I would say that this weekend I probably got more organizing done than I thought would get done all year. So this snow was a huge plus for my collection. I know from reading some blogs I'm not alone in getting a ton done on the collection front. Hopefully the rest of you out there used your snow time just as wisely.

The slowing down really hit full force on Sunday while channel surfing. MLB Network was showing 'Mr. Baseball', and I got sucked in. For some reason I just enjoy this movie, and hadn't seen it for a few years. That meant I had no chance, but to get sucked in. After the movie it got me remembering a trade I made with Ryan who runs the awesome blog  'This Card Is Cool'. The trade was made not long after I started this blog.

While it got a full on trade post at the time its getting a second round due to watching 'Mr. Baseball' on Sunday. When you have had the honor of trading with Ryan, and adding some Japanese baseball cards into the collection. How can you talk about a movie about a player in Japan, and not show off cards from Japan?

I can't totally blame the movie on my total shutdown today. I just lost steam, and didn't get going again. Despite this it hasn't been a total loss on the hobby front. I managed to hit the Post Office early, and get what I've been calling 'the big mailing' out. This mailing is the most PWE's, and bubble mailers I have sent out at one time. Hopefully I can keep this momentum going now, and get more stuff together in the next few weeks. I'd say next week, but my plan is to card shop it next Monday. Its been two weeks since my last Goodwill trip, and even longer since entering a card shop. While the local big box store has helped with a few packs of 2014. I'm itching to hit the card shop once again. I've had the desire for awhile to head southbound for a Monday adventure the last couple months. Instead I always seem to go north as there are three thrift stores compared to one south. Maybe next week will finally be the week I change things up. I can always dream.

Snowed In! (No Worries)

As most everyone in the blogging world knows by now. Up here in the Northwest we decided to join your little snow brigade that the rest of the country has been enjoying. It all started on Thursday, and has been going on with quite possibly the worst part hitting today. We got what I would say looks to be atleast a foot of snow in the part of the state I live in. Then today we started to get freezing rain to slicken things up a bit. Its created a nice hard shell over the top of the snow. Luckily we did our quick grocery shopping Friday morning so we can hunker down until Monday.

With all this going on I decided it would be a great time to get some organizing done with the baseball cards. Problem is I can only do so much until I need a break from sitting on the floor. Old age can be brutal on the back. Once I get the new hobby room finished up I'll get a futon in there, and this won't be such a problem. Until then its limited time on the floor before a break. Starting off the organization on Thursday was trying to finish up getting the Nolan Ryan binder done. Ready to get going on doing something I wrapped that project up on Thursday. With my sight getting worse it was lucky we had a magnifying glass so I could read the printing year on some of the cards. The cards printed after he retired, and during my time away from collecting were the hold up.

After Ryan there was still this desire to do more. So on Friday I started going through cards to try, and find some stuff to mail out on Monday. Throwing together two PWE's, and a bubble mailer for the big send out wasn't bad. Not only was that worked on, but getting recent received items put away in their sets got finished up. Throw in a good sized nap too make for a busy day.

Today hasn't slowed me down in the slightest. I made contact with two bloggers for sending cards their direction. One of these will be a first time getting cards from the cat. I think this might be the best thing I do today. Making contact with our fellow bloggers is always a cool thing to do. Writing this might even inspire me to contact another blogger or two for sending cards. I've thought about doing this many times in the past, but just never seem to follow through on it. Don't be surprised if the cat hunts you down for an address request this weekend. After a nap though :)

With so many of us snowed in this weekend. Maybe we can all contact a fellow blogger, and send them some cards to warm them up from this winter blast. If you are a reader, and don't write a blog hit up one of your favorite bloggers, and get a trade going. I've done a few trades with readers in the past, and it's always great to hear from the people who enjoy the stuff your writing.