Papi Wins Game 1 of the CWS with a walk-off !

Mike Papi 'singled' to the warning track on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom of the 9th to win UVA's first game in the 2014 College World Series 2-1 over Ole Miss.  Nathan Kirby and Artie Lewiecki combined on a one-hitter to set the stage for Papi.  Here's the summary article from Charlottesville's Daily Progress.

Papi's blast

 Now that's one worth celebratin' !

Dogpile!

WE'RE GOING TO OMAHA !!!

WA-Hoo-WA

Boog & the Moose

I recently picked up a couple of cards on eBay that had been on my want list for quite some time.  The first was the 1964 Topps Stand-up of Boog Powell.  I usually like to pick-up raw cards instead of graded ones, and this card is getting harder and harder to find in an ungraded state.  This one isn't perfect, but it's pretty darn good for less than $15.  Looks like a picture of Boog standing on the dugout steps or something, but when taken out of context and floated against a solid color background, it looks like some sort of dance step that Peter Boyle's monster in Young Frankenstein might have favored.

The second card is a 1934-36 Diamond Stars card of Julius 'Moose' Solters, who played for the St. Louis Browns back in the 30's.  This card is part of my un-ending quest to track down as many St. Louis Browns cards as I can, since they were the franchise that would become the current Baltimore Orioles in 1954.

I really like the deco backgrounds on the Diamond Stars cards, and the bright colors.  I think they are right up near the top of my favorite card design list.  There is a lengthy article about Moose on the SABR website which goes into many interesting details of his life and baseball career.  Unfortunately, his career came to and end in 1941 after being hit in the head with an errant throw during pre-game warmups.  This incident was blamed for his loss of sight, which left him blind just two years later.  Even with the disability, it seems that Moose had a full life and a loving family, and lived until 1975.

Of course, Boog and Moose both fit in that category of easy, fun stadium noises that anyone who goes to a ballgame can make.  Come on, say it with me  --    

                         Booooooooooooooog

                                                                               Moooooooooooose

And for the 2014 Orioles, Cruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuz, who has put a grin on the faces of all of the O's faithful.

Nutty for Nate

A Nate Colbert reference!  Yay!  The Padres have always been my second favorite team, behind the Orioles.  And their cards are a lot cheaper to get than O's cards are in NoVa.  Anyway, Nate Colbert was one of my boyhood heroes, right alongside Brooks.  Loved those sideburns.  Nate was the best thing about those really early Padre teams, say '69-'72 or so.  Just when I was really discovering baseball, and baseball cards, for the first time.

Thanks, Nate.  And thanks to all the way to the backstop for the Nate shout out.

I'm Back - Maybe

So, I was reading some other baseball card blogs this morning, and I remembered - hey, I actually have a baseball card blog.  I searched for it on Google and - voila - it appeared as if by magic!  With the last post around three years ago, I figure it might be time for a new one.  Maybe.  I'm not real good at following through on things, and I suck at manipulating items for a cool looking blog post, but it might be fun.  Maybe.

With apologies to the various blogs that I lifted these images from, I'll throw in a pic or two, because they're fun to look at.

 First one is a custom thingy from The Baseball Card Blog with Cal Ripken when he was with the Charlotte Orioles at the very beginning of his career.  Since this blog could have easily been called 83 Cal instead of 69 Brooks, this definitely is a fun card to pretend actually existed.  And The Baseball Card Blog is just flat out brilliant, with interesting entries from Ben Henry, hilarious posts from Mike Kenney, and great custom cards from PunkRockPaint.

The second card I just came across today on The Five Tool Collector , who is an old Oriole collector (or should I say a collector of old Oriole cards), like me.  I'm not a big fan of the Lakers or basketball cards, but this is definitely one of the best floating heads cards that I have ever seen.

And then there is Vulcan Ty Cobb, logically working out in his head how much force it will take to coldcock the pitcher with that tiny bat.  (Thanks to Dime Boxes for this one)

And you can never get too much of that '57 Brooks.  A true classic.

See you next time.            Maybe.

The Wantlists are up!

Yay - I finally got my wantlists up on this site so I can use it to help make trades easier. They're not all perfect looking, but I think they're do for the short term. Plus I will continue to tweak them so that they become more 'user-friendly'. I really would love to start trading on a more regular basis. eBay just becomes a money pit sometimes if you don't watch out.

Can't wait for the next Chantilly show next Friday. I always go on Friday for a few reasons. 1) No admission fee - I'm cheap!; 2) I get there before everything starts getting too picked-over; 3) I don't care at all about autos or seeing any of the athletes - just nothing in that part of the hobby for me; and 4) I get to take a day off from work, have a relaxing morning, then spend 6 hours looking at old cards. A perfect day!

Anyway, maybe I'll see you there.  I'llbe the one with the big smile on my face :-)

And now a couple of cards I like (but don't own), just for fun.  Love that sky on those Turkey Reds.

Time to trade some cards

So, I'm going to try to make this site into a place where I can keep all my baseball card trading lists, both what I want and what I have to trade. It costs so much to just buy everything for my collection, so I'd really like to find some good trading partners and sites (perhaps Vintage Card Traders), if I can get my all my lists in order here. Plus, working on this will have the added advantage of keeping me off eBay for a little while, which is a good thing. Sometimes I end up bidding on stuff I don't need or even worse, don't even really want.

Anyway, hopefully I can get my lists on this site in a relatively smooth fashion, so they can be easily accessed and updated. We'll give it a try.

For color, let's throw in a couple of T-205's that I bought on eBay recently. My Phillippe card doesn't look like this one, but the Wilson card is a pretty good match.