Shall we Dance?

      I really like those cards of players in odd and uncomfortable-looking poses, whether they are diving for a ball, stretching to make a catch, or flopping to avoid an oncoming baserunner. I looked through about 600 cards and found about a dozen or so cards of players doing these 'dances'. Some are better than others, and I could have found more, except I was looking for them at 11:00 at night. Shall we dance?

Please play this video while reading the post:

    Now that we have the proper music, let's take a gander at the dancers:

Ricky's  a double dancer

Nice twist Frank

Love that spin move

I have numerous cards of Greg Gagne making some nice poses

His face makes this snapshot all the better

This dance ends with a big stomp

He doesn't have a partner to catch him

This is the very start of the dance when he points up high

This may be my favorite dancer. It takes real skill to do this one

There's the big leap

This may be another card of Greg Gagne, but look at Dawson's moves

And Finally...

It seems that Jim Gott is also a karate master...

    Well, there you go. As the music fades, I realize that this is my way of making my un-special cards interesting to the readers. Although I have to admit that John Patterson is a bit of a stretch. And Aaron Holbert is doing a bit of a stretch. My favorite dancer is Jeff Blauser. What's yours?

    I could probably find many more of these 'dancer' cards, but for the time being will hold off. Thank you for reading.

'Antique' Cards

      Over the years that I have been collecting cards, I've had some nice finds at antique stores, although I have to say that many antique stores will present bad pricing for worthless cards. However, there is this one antique store about twenty or so minutes away from my house that often will have some very nice finds. 

    While I'm not as much of a bargain hunter, I do look for cards that spark a certain interest in me. I'm a sucker for shiny cards, so these 2022 Topps Chrome cards were just right for me. These cards were interesting to me because I like to collect newer cards, and I just like both of these players. I believe I got these for $2 apiece.    

    I also got this 2023 Bowman Aaron Judge card, complete with MVP stats on the back (sorry for the bad lighting). It's a nice card, and considering how popular Aaron Judge is, I grab as many of his cards as I can at a good price. However, I can't remember how much I got this particular card for.

   

   

     

    I really like this Topps Chrome card of Albert Pujols pitching, hence the reason I spent $4 on it, which I semi-regret. Oh well. Four bucks never killed me. Pujols made one pitching appearance in 2022, which I remember from watching the highlight video. He gave up four runs in one inning to end a win against the Giants. It's great that they were able to land a picture of that onto a card. 

    

    Along with the neat cards I've found at antique stores, I've also found a good deal of autographs selling for a decent price. 

   

                                               

    I think I got all three of these cards for a combined $7, which isn't bad considering who these players are and the condition of both the cards and the autographs. The most notable of these players is Frank Tanana, who had a solid 21 year career in which he won 240 games. The verse on it, John 3:36, is: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.
    I appreciate when a player will sign something with a Bible verse to remind us that baseball shouldn't become the number one goal. Frank Tanana actually had a bit of a conversion. He had seriously hurt his arm and was coping with the death of a teammate, Lyman Bostock. He realized that his career as a pitcher might be over, but that pitching was his life. On November 6, 1983, in a hotel room, Tanana analyzed his life, and decided to trust in God. He decided to be a 'brand new person' and entrusted his life to the Lord. It's a nice story of how a man's life turned around for the better.
    I've gotten more autographs than these,  including Rick Reuschel, which I gave to my father for Christmas last year. A lot of the autographed cards I get I'll give as presents to my family.

    And so, that wraps up this post. I've found a goldmine of cards just at that one antique store, and they always have hundreds of cards to pick through. Maybe I'll get more to post about later. God bless.

What do Y'all Want?

    I'm torn between something. In my joy at being extremely successful early on with the blog, I have a bunch of drafts that I'm ready to ship out into the world. I am likely to make my next real post tomorrow. 
    In that case, which post do the readers prefer I publish first, going just on names: 'Antique' Cards, or Shall we Dance?
    I'll leave it up to the readers. By tomorrow morning at 8:30, whichever post has the most votes I will publish. 
    This may just be a fun way for me to do a process of elimination. I'm stoked to publish right now, seeing how successful the blog has been after less than a week. I've also noticed that having a card blog is super interesting and fun at the same time. Let the voting begin. Oh, and you can only vote once. I don't expect more than 5 votes. And if they're tied, then the tiebreaker will be whichever one got the first vote. So cast your votes! I'm done talking.

A Rangers Fan's Dream

     As we all know, the Texas Rangers were the 2023 World Series Champions. They had the best offense in the AL, placing first in runs, hits, homers, walks, batting average, slugging percentage and OBP. So they were definitely the real deal.
    Anyway, they defeated the D-Backs in the World Series and won their first ever championship. And yesterday I was able to have a Rangers Fan's dream come true. 
    The team is making the most out of their victory, showing off the trophy to Rangers fans all across the Lone Star State. Yesterday, I had the privilege of going to a minor league stadium, where the trophy was being shown. 

    

And here is the (oh so shiny) pride of the Texas Rangers, fought for since 1972

    

    Along with being able to see the trophy, I was also able to get the autograph of former Rangers outfielder Pete Incaviglia. He played 5 seasons with Texas, winning the Rookie of the Year award in 1986. He has a career 1,043 hits and 206 home runs, so that was a win too.

    Yes, as soon as I heard that Incaviglia was going to be there signing autographs, I just got out my 1990 Fleer (incomplete) complete set and picked through my Rangers until I found him. 

    Overall, it was a very good experience. It was epic to see the prize that the Rangers fought for for over 50 years, and also to get the autograph of a former Rangers Rookie of the Year.

I think I'll stick Around

    When I first started the blog, I figured it would be a fun idea that I would keep around for a few weeks and that would be it. Afterall, I have never been very fond of card blogs. But after seeing some card blogs that I really appreciate (see my blog list), and after I got started, I am very stoked to have it.
    I've had the blog for two days, made one card post with bad lighting, have an odd writing style, and already have a follower and a comment. Not a bad start in my opinion. 
    So anyway, I think I'll keep this bad-boy around for a while, and will be posting soon to show off some more cards. 

   

Flagship Collection Box

     For Christmas, my uncle gave me the 2023 Flagship Collection Box of Topps baseball cards. It is a hefty set, with 10 regular card packs, 3 flagship collection packs, and an oversized base card. Here's some of the cards that I liked from it.

The oversize card I got was Riley Greene; that was pretty cool because I really like him.

The Blue Foil Freddy Furmin is probably my favorite card I got.

It's cool to see Paul Goldschmidt surviving an explosion.

Those old-school looking cards are neat too.

Yes, the one on the right is Felix Bautista, not Adley Rutschman.

They call Nolan Arenado the favorite son. I feel bad for his brothers. 

And now for all 15 of my flagship cards:

Out of all of these, the Jacob deGrom is easily my favorite.

Well, that about wraps it up. Thanks for reading my first post, and I hoped you liked it. If you'd like to read more baseball stuff (not card related), check out talkinprobaseball.blogspot.com or thebaseballpessimist.blogspot.com (you may need to copy and paste the links.)

Thanks for reading!

Introduction

 Well, here it is.
In my last post on Talkin' Baseball (https://talkinprobaseball.blogspot.com/), I said I should start a card blog. I was fooling around, but I actually have been debating making one for a while. I'm gonna warn you; I'm sure it won't be as good as most of the other card blogs, and I won't post a ton. I just thought it would be interesting to make a baseball card blog and show off my few prized cards. Happy blogging!

P.S. If you don't understand the name of my blog, Don Cardwell was a pitcher who played from 1957-1970 and was decent. I chose his name because it has 'Card' in it. Pretty wise, right?