Rescued from THE BOX - Ep. 7

     THE BOX hadn't shown its hideous face in my house for over three months. Thinking of all the cards still being held captive by its evil clutches ignited my desire to seek out THE BOX and free some cards myself.

    The journey was long and perilous. When a cardboard box doesn't want to be found, it makes things very difficult for its seeker. Their camouflage is unmatched.

    Eventually I came across what appeared to be THE BOX's lair. I surveyed my surroundings carefully. Now I was on THE BOX's turf, and surely things would different from our previous battles. However, this doesn't change the fact that it's man versus cardboard box. Or so I thought...

    As soon as I entered the lair a swarm of boxes came at me. It took much coordination to avoid being struck by them. As I stood, ever so proud myself, I let my guard down. And that's when THE BOX struck.

    Let me tell you, being hit in the head by a box full of around 600 baseball cards doesn't feel all too good, especially when you don't want to hit it back for fear of dinging the corners of its hostages. Though disoriented and with a lump on my head, the cries of hundreds of prisoners brought me back into the moment. I leapt back into the fray.

    Through a slurry of paper cuts I was able to leap on THE BOX, and using strength gained only through adrenaline, I opened the mouth of THE BOX. I grabbed a single card before its jaws snapped shut like a mousetrap. My hand barely escaped dismemberment.

    I jumped off THE BOX and ran as fast as my legs could carry me out of its lair. I was being pursued by many of THE BOX's cronies, which were surprisingly quick considering how they lack limbs and aerodynamics.

    Maybe their poor properties were what allowed me to escape, but at any rate, here I am writing this post. After taking a second to rest, I looked into my hand and saw no other than....

    1990 Upper Deck #760 Jim Presley!

    The look on his face says it all - Mr. Presley is extremely happy to be freed from the clutches of THE BOX.

    1990 isn't one of my favorite Upper Deck designs, but I particularly like this card for a few reasons; one of which being that incredible smile on the front. 

    Another reason is the back of the card. Presley is locked in on some BP while a fan makes an incredible cameo. I hope he was able to get a copy of this card. I wonder how easy it is to get on a baseball card......

    Jim Presley played in the majors from 1984-1991 as a corner infielder, largely with the Mariners, though he also played a season with the Braves (as pictured above) and 20 games in '91 with the Padres.

    Presley had his fair share of power, hitting 28, 27, and 24 home runs in 1985-1987. He was an all-star in 1986 when he hit .265 and drove in 107 runs to go along with his 27 round-trippers. In 1986 he became the second-ever major leaguer to hit two walk-off grand slams in the same season.

    Presley was the first hitting coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks, which is pretty cool.

    I hope to free more cards from the hands of THE BOX in the near future. There are still so many who need their freedom and spotlight on the blog.

     In the meantime, thanks for checking out the blog! I haven't been able to comment on blogs the last week or so, but I'm reading y'all's posts and trying to figure it out.  Have a great week and happy collecting!

FINALLY!

    I've been a Macklin Celebrini superfan for the better part of two seasons now (we've been over this on the blog before). However, I've never owned one of his cards. Tragic, isn't it? I typically prefer finding cards at the LCS or other stores that carry sports cards to ordering them online, but realize that my chances of pulling a Celebrini card are far worse and more expensive than just ordering one, especially since my LCS hasn't gotten any packs of hockey cards this year. So I did end up ordering one, for six dollars, which is more than I'd typically spend on a base card; but the way I see it, if he keeps performing at the level he's played at this season his cards are just going to get more and more expensive. And I want at least one of his cards without breaking the bank.

    I ordered the 2025-26 Upper Deck#136 base card of Macklin Celebrini, which is an awesome card, not to mention the cheapest of his I found. So it's a win-win, right? Well, not exactly.

    I ordered the card ages ago. It was 'scheduled' to arrive weeks before it actually did, and I was worried that it got lost in the mail. But in the end good ol' Macklin came through and I got the card. Better late than never, right? And it was a good test in patience too 😉

    This is such a great card. The picture is awesome; Macklin really does look like a shark on the attack. Though this card was on the cheaper end of his cards, the picture is my favorite of all of them. I appreciate how much space the card leaves for his picture as well. This instantly becomes my favorite card in my small hockey collection.

    The San Jose Sharks season has been....interesting, to say the least. I think 'tortuous' is a better word. It's like watching a happy kid's show and then accidentally leaning on the remote to change the channel to a horror film. And then you find that both shows are interesting and you keep switching between them. The Sharks were looking so good early on, and absolutely fell off a cliff the last few weeks before the Olympic break. And to make things worse they lost out on trading for Artemi Panarin, and he went to the Kings instead, one of the teams they're competing with for a playoff spot. Wow, I just spouted off a huge chunk of my hockey knowledge right there....

    No matter how well the Sharks play as a team, Macklin is performing like a beast, both in the NHL and Winter Olympics. He is in serious consideration for the MVP (Hart Memorial Trophy), with the likes of Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon. Should he win the Hart, that would make me a very happy superfan.

    If the Sharks end up pulling through to make the playoffs, and if I live through the rest of the season to witness it, I will be absolutely stoked. If not, people may want to keep their distance from me until the Rangers start looking like they'll make the playoffs.

    Well, now that I'm off this shark-fueled high, I'll leave y'all to the rest of your various card collecting. But not before asking a question: Do you have a favorite hockey player? If so, who?

    Now that I've opened up the floodgates to such a deep and thought-provoking question, I will leave you with your innermost sports-related thoughts. Have a great rest of the week, thanks for stopping by the blog, and happy collecting!

There's Nothing Like In-Person Trading

      Personally, as a card collector one of my favorite things to do is trade cards, usually helping to build up two collections  Also, whenever my friend John (Adventures of a Baseball Card Collector) pays a visit, my collection gets smaller (but better, so don't you worry). This past Saturday I spent some time trading with him, and acquired a rather interesting bunch of cards. 

    It's been my procrastinated goal for a while now to start collecting a few hockey cards, and John helped me take my first eight baby steps into a minor collection. I only intend to collect a few hundred hockey cards, but I tend to veer off my collective plan more often than not. These few cards made for a nice little start, as I'm really into the designs of the cards. These include 2016-2017 Upper Deck Artifacts, 2016-2017 Upper Deck Series 2, 2013-2014 Upper Deck Series 2, and of course, the 2013-2014 Panini Prizm. The only guy I previously knew in this small pile is Noah Hanfin, who I briefly had on my fantasy hockey team a few weeks ago. I hope my local card shop can aid me in my hockey card endeavors. I'll need to take a look next time I'm over there.

   

   I traded for this card purely because of the hilarious pink jersey. Laga played parts of nine seasons in the majors (1982-1990),  with the Cardinals, Tigers and Giants. In 188 games, the first baseman batted .199 with 16 home runs.

    These two cards came in the same trade, which also included the next card. I added another un-owned Ripken to my personal collection in the form of Studio '91, which I think was a decent design. The addition of the Craig Kimbrel was nice too. He looks so young in the picture! 2014 Topps Upper Class is a design that I really like. The red and gold mix really well with this card. The corners are a little roughed up on the card, as well as a small crease on the upper right side, but it didn't take much to get the card, so I don't mind. I hope Craig Kimbrel can clean things up in 2025, but he'll be 37 and coming off his worst season (5.33 ERA), so he may be done as a closer in the majors.

    This was the card I was seeking pretty much from minute one.  I have a soft spot for catchers, and the card looked so good, so it became the top priority in terms of trading. Christopher Wallace was drafted in the 16th round of the 2010 June Amateur Draft. Expecting to get drafted later, this pleasantly surprised him. Wallace played 5 seasons in the minors with the Astros and Indians, including 52 games and parts of three seasons in AAA. Across his minor league career, Wallace batted .270/.341/.445 with 39 home runs and 185 RBI in 315 games. 2015 was his last year of professional baseball, which he spent in the Atlantic League. Wallace batted .257 with 17 home runs in 129 games before calling it quits. 

    And my trading ends with a non-sports card. I was about through with the trades before this one caught my eye. This is card one of the five-card 2005 King Kong - Kong Flocked insert set (thanks for the clarification TCDB). The fur on Kong is....actually furry, which is a nice addition to an already awesome card. I've never seen the movie -- I like to stick to the original Godzilla films with the rubber suits and all that good stuff.

    That was already a great day of trading in my book, but then John dropped a half-dozen vintage Topps on me for no return. It made for a nice little surprise.

    It doesn't matter who the player (or usually even the set) is, I'll always like some vintage baseball cards. Though these cards aren't exactly in the best condition, I still enjoy them. Besides, they were free. The top four are all 1959 Topps, and the bottom two are '61 and '69.

    So ends the acquisitions from John's last visit. I really like getting the oppurtunity to trade cards in-person with people. It's nice to see what the fellow collector has brought along with him, and offers the oppurtunity to trade for cards I otherwise wouldn't -- like the King Kong card. It adds some fun into the day whenever John comes over.

    Thanks for the cards John!  And thank y'all for spending time at Don Cardwell. I hope you enjoyed, have a great start to the week, and happy collecting!

This is Downright Looney

    For Christmas (I believe it was this past one), my brother was kind enough to give me a binder full of baseball cards. I wonder why I didn't post this sooner... Anyway, this binder had a particularly interesting set of cards in it. Let's just say I didn't need to look through every card individually to see which 'good ones' there were. 

    The first page of the binder said it all:

    

    Lovely, isn't it? I looked through the whole binder, and it turns out that he gave me the entire 297-card set (or 594 if you count the back of the card like UD does). These are the only nine cards featuring 'players,' and the rest of the cards are comics. The players have some goofy stat line on the back, my personal favorite being Wile E. Coyote's.

It's no wonder he's a wretched pitcher considering that nothing from Acme works...

    

    I won't bother photographing the comics or anything for this post. Rather, I think we'll go with the other eight players. 

1-16: Bugs Bunny

    Oh great! Now the Dodgers have everybody! I love how they add in the part, 'Nothing about Bugs is average.' But I still kinda wanna know what his H/AB ratio is...

2-17: Daffy Duck

    I think I actually laughed like Elmer Fudd when I saw that he was second in everything to Bugs Bunny. The quote is charming.

3-18: Road Runner

    Uhhhhhh.....nothing much about this one, other then he always wins. Maybe the Yankees could have won the World Series had they kept him around. I find it interesting that they made him bat right and throw left, because in my baseball experience, that's pretty rare.

5-14: Sylvester

    Futility infielder? Seems a little bit harsh, but then again, it's Sylvester.

6-15: Porky Pig

    Porky's dillema seems typical of most broadcasters today. Seriously.

7-10: Tweety

    Again, besides a bunch of cheesy jokes, not a ton to say about this card. He makes Juan Soto look bad though when he acquires three times the walks.

8-11: Yosemite Sam

    Now we have a team I like. But of all characters, why Sam? I love what they did with his earned run total. Looks like Camilo Doval's not alone when it comes to wild pitching in San Francisco...

9-12: Tasmanian Devil

    It took me a while to figure out what was meant by 'Make nice hors d'oeuvres.' Now that I get it, I kind of wish that I still didn't. Earning the reputation as the worst interview takes real talent with all the competition he's been faced with.

    I think an Elmer Fudd card would have been a nice addition to the set, but all in all I really like it. I think they did well on the character bios for the most part, and the artwork is wonderful. Getting the entire set is great too. I've already added it to my TCDB collection, which is slowly gaining more cards and is up to about 370 now. I kind of just add as I post. I'm in no hurry.

    This would make for a happy ending, except for the part where I veer off to talk about something completely unrelated, but worthwhile nonetheless. The Diamond King is hosting another Serial Guessing Contest with 100 lovely cards to be given away to the winner. If you haven't seen it yet, then do it. (just click the link above). Wait, doesn't this make my chances of winning go down?!?!!??!?! Well, I do get a second guess for this, so I think it's way more than fair enough.

    I'm thinking of something Looney Tuney to end with post with, but nothing comes to mind except for throwing anvils in your face, and I don't wanna do that -- it means less people will read my blog! So, since I'm not going to cause any collateral damage, I think there's only one thing left to say...

A Nice Trip to the Card Store, Part 1

    Well, I've been working on this post for weeks, and here's the first part of it. I used some of my other posts to stall for this one, so it had better be good or else I wasted a bunch of time. Here goes:

    On February 17th, I went to that same card store that I would get the 600-card boxes from for only five or six bucks. Unfortunately, the prices of those boxes was raised to $15! Though still probably a good deal, it was a rather painful discovery. However, that didn't stop me from buying one (not sure how good of an idea that was).  I also got a birthday present for some friends and 65 (count 'em) quarter baseball cards, for a grand total of $38.16. I wonder what was going through the cashier's head when he saw me walk up with a fat stack of quarter cards that he had to count.
    Because I made a card purchase bigger than usual, I will split my spoils into three posts this week. The first two will feature the 65 cards I got for a quarter a pop, and the last post will feature the best cards I got from the $15 card box. Well, let's get started before I kill you all of boredom.

    As you can probably tell, I am a collector of Cal Ripken Jr. cards. I have probably 20-25 of his cards, including the eleven that I bought at the store.

    My favorite of the eleven Ripkens is the Upper Deck Cover Glory card. When I came across that one, I didn't need to think twice about grabbing it. Of course, if I ended up regretting it I was only out twenty-five cents. 

    I also saw a great deal of new Hall-of-Famer Todd Helton's cards. I ended up picking up eight of them. Here they are:

    It was tough for me to choose a favorite out of all these cards, but in the end I chose to go with the 2005 Donruss Playoff card.

    There were TONS of Scott Rolen cards looking for a home in the quarter box, and I chose eleven of them. There were still many left over, but considering the big pile of cards I had already picked out, I decided against spending more money on cards of the same guy. 

    This one was hard for me to choose a favorite. I really like a lot of these cards, and in the end call it a tie between the 1999 Upper Deck Hologram card and the 2003 Upper Deck Victory card. Upper Deck has some strong showings today.

    In addition to getting all of these cards, I also saw some nice John Smoltz cards that I decided to get. Contrary to my former pick-ups, I only grabbed five of these.

    And my favorite of these is the 2005 Upper Deck MVP Smoltz card. Upper Deck won my vote in three out of the four different player groups. 

    

    Well, that does it for this post. Please read, comment, and enjoy, and I'll be back in a day or two with the last 30 cards from the 65 that I bought. Thank you for reading.