Who Sent Me This Package?

I feel like I've hit rock bottom as a blogger/trader as I cannot for the life of me figure out who sent me a package I received about three weeks ago from a PO Box in Huntington, IN. I've probably shipped something there before, perhaps even recently. I may even owe this person cards from a trade we agreed to. I have no idea!

Along with the usual assortment of Cardinals past and present (mostly past), there were a few Cardinals cards from the 2006 Topps team set. Does anyone know how long Topps has been making the special team set blister packs? Now that I have the entire 2009 set and some of the 2006, I'm a bit more interested in the rest of the years.

A handful of 2011 Heritage needs were included as well. This means it was sent by someone who read my want list. I'm getting even more paranoid that it's someone I owe something to now.

If you're the mystery person from Huntington, please contact me right away. In fact, if I owe you anything and you haven't heard from me in a bit, go ahead and drop me a line, too.

I will post the Free Group Break info tomorrow evening. Check back at 7:00 PDT for details and sign-ups!

Blasted!

Before I get into tonight's post, I just want to give my congratulations to Jim Thome, who became just the eighth player in major league history to hit 600 HRs. It's a pretty amazing feat, especially for someone who's been doing it by and large under the radar for the past two decades.

Here's an Allen & Ginter blaster that I picked up at last weekend's card show for just $16. I don't usually go to card shows expecting to buy blasters, but that's exactly what happened. My only regret is that I didn't have enough money with me to buy, let's say, ten of them.

Pack 1:

67 - Delmon Young (Young is still unfortunately best known for chucking his bat at an umpire in the minor leagues. He was traded today to the Tigers for far less than his value back when the bat was originally tossed.)

200 - Josh Hamilton

68 - Max Scherzer

309 - Kurt Suzuki

45 - Annika Sorenstam Mini (Best female golfer of all-time... or at least, best one I could name.)

HH54 - Joe Mauer Hometown Heroes

Pack 2:

125 - Clayton Kershaw

210 - Chase Utley

119 - Nancy Lopez (Okay, fine, Nancy Lopez is going to make me look bad. In the '80s, it was all Nancy Lopez this and Tom Watson that.)

AOM9 - Placoderms Ascent of Man (Placoderms once ruled both freshwater and seas. Maybe they got too greedy?)

SRU9 - Knife Throwing Step Right Up (Typical female. Always about to throw a knife at you...)

HH24 - Ryan Zimmerman Hometown Heroes

- Code-Cracking Jerk

Pack 3:

156 - Marlon Byrd

116 - Josh Beckett

91 - Joel Pineiro

325 - Mike Stanton (This guy can crush baseballs.)

AP25 - Black-Footed Ferret Animals in Peril (I think I have the correct name of this insert set. It's weird that some of these inserts do not list what they are supposed to be anywhere on the front or back.)

FF7 - Mahmudiye Floating Fortresses

Pack 4:

55 - Dustin Pedroia

132 - Colby Rasmus (Well, at least I'm not a Cubs fan.)

16 - Gordon Beckham

11 - Marc Forgione Code (Has anyone cracked this code thing yet? I'm a big fan of the original Iron Chef, but I couldn't begin to tell you what The Next Iron Chef was like.)

334 - Gaby Sanchez Black Mini (Sanchez is proving that his rookie year was no fluke, as he's put up almost identical production this year.)

HH34 - Chipper Jones Hometown Heroes

- Binder Ad

Pack 5:

206 - Tsuyoshi Nishioka

86 - Greg Halman (A lot of rookies have received at-bats in Seattle this season, but Halman hasn't really found his way yet.)

BHS-14 - Mariano Rivera Baseball Highlight Sketches (I've seen worse sketches, although I'm still not wild about horizontal images with portrait script.)

345 - Zack Greinke (Next!)

105 - Ubaldo Jimenez A&G Mini

HH47 - Phil Hughes Hometown Heroes

- Checklist 3 of 5

Pack 6:

116 - Josh Beckett (Again.)

91 - Joel Pineiro (Again.)

AGA-BM0 - Brent Morel Framed Auto (Okay pack, you win. It was worth the doubles to get this. This is the part of the post where I'm supposed to say I know something about Brent Morel, but I don't. It looks like he's getting significant playing time at 3B despite having dreadful offensive numbers. Let me put it this way - he's making Josh Fields look like Mike Schmidt.)

57 - Derek Jeter Black Mini

HH15 - Matt Holliday Hometown Heroes (Truly a great pack, overall.)

Pack 7:

47 - Phil Hughes

211 - Francisco Rodriguez

257 - Andrew Bailey
310 - Matt Kemp (Someone has made this crack before, but it looks like Matt Kemp is wearing a Dodgers cap made from a blue basketball.)

UG9 - RMS Queen Mary Uninvited Guests (Ghastly!)

MMF15 - Isaac Newton Minds That Made the Future

Pack 8:

277 - Hank Conger

273 - Brent Morel (Ahh, it's this guy again.)

176 - Brian Bogusevic (I love his name!)

AOM18 - Homininae Ascent of Man

WMF2 - The Poe Toaster World's Most Mysterious Figures (I'm not going to ruin it for you, but the story of this "figure" is extremely disappointing and not very mysterious.)

HH23 - Dustin Pedroia Hometown Heroes

- Jerkface McCode Cracker

So there we have it. Unlike most of my posts, nothing here is up for trades, aside from the Morel autograph card and whatever dupes that I have. I have a couple more blasters to work through in the coming days before I post my want list, so stay tuned.

BA Benny's Cavalcade of Cardboard Cardinals

I'm just going to throw this out there so no one is totally shocked when it happens, but I've got a free group break coming up here soon. Watch this space for details. In the meantime, I'm still hopelessly behind on trade posts. Here's a few cards from BA Benny's Baseball Card Buffet. (Side note to BA Benny: I for one wouldn't mind your Bob Gibson Diamond Die Cut card, though I only have a measly Yovani Gallardo Diamond Die Cut and a bunch of junk on my diamondtopps.com account to offer for it.

Here's a gold parallel of Cardinals second baseman Ryan Theriot. Did you read what I just wrote? That's SECOND BASEMAN Ryan Theriot. Somehow, Tony La Russa got it all wrong and wrote Theriot's name on the lineup card at SS day after day this season until they finally got a real shortstop at the trade deadline in the form of the reassembled peanut brittle construction of Rafael Furcal. Well, I hate to say it, but Peanut Brittle Furcal is making everyone else who took grounders and bad hoppers at short this season in St. Louis look terrible. Even Topps managed to get Theriot's position right.

Blinged out, bedazzled Kyle Lohse is looking like something you might stick 50 cents in a vending machine for at the grocery store. No one seems to make those mini baseball or football helmets in a vending machine anymore, so glittery stickers are the next best thing, I guess. I hope Topps tries to make baseball cards look less like glittery stickers next year. (As I continue to trash these cards on a regular basis, please realize that I still want them if they are Cardinals. Just so you know.)

Somehow I own every single other non-SP, variation or insert 2010 Topps Heritage card except for this one. Well, I take that back, because now I own this card. It's just that it goes in my Cardinals binder and I still have to seek out another copy for my set. Boo hoo.

Thanks again to BA Benny. And don't forget to check back later this week for the whole group break thing. Free group break thing, that is...

Airbrushed Fridays: 1976 Topps #63

Why oh why must the Cardinals struggle so much against the Brewers? After last night's win, the Cards are now 11-21 at home versus Milwaukee since 2008. The two teams have two more series to play against each other before the season is out, three at home and three on the road. I'm just hoping the Cards can make up some ground against other teams, starting tonight with the Rockies.

Bobby Darwin was a converted pitcher turned outfielder, who logged seven seasons in the majors in the '70s after a single appearance on the mound in 1962 with the Angels. He resurfaced in Minnesota as a Twins everyday outfielder, showing some pop and leading the league in strikeouts for three years running. We're not talking Mark Reynolds or Adam Dunn pop, unfortunately.

Why did Topps airbrush Bobby's photo? Darwin saw his playing time cut in 1975 as he struggled, and he was eventually shipped to the Brewers in a midseason deal. The reduced playing time caused him to lose out on his change to lead the league in Ks for a fourth straight year. You would think, however, that 55 games in Milwaukee would have provided ample opportunity to get a photo with his new team.

What's wrong with this picture, anyway? Someone wanted to make Bobby's cap so blue that they got some of it on his shoulder, too. There's little blue airbrush particles everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if somehow some of it got on the person who first pulled this card from a pack.

If you are interested in obtaining a card featured here, please send me an e-mail. If you have a card you would like to nominate for Airbrushed Fridays, please get in touch as well. I will require that I am able to see the card in person, either on loan or as a donation, so that I can examine the card and experience it in all its cruddiness.

Cast-Offs for the Taking

I'm suffering from a bit of baseball fatigue here tonight, which seems to happen around this time of year when you closely follow a competitive team. Here are some cards that have been cast aside by another fellow blogger that I'm prepared to turn around and do the same thing with. I can set a card or two aside for the next package I send one of you guys, or perhaps I could use one of these cards to lay the groundwork for a trade with someone I've never dealt with before. The possiblities are endless!

I hope Topps hasn't completely given up on their Stadium Club brand. I'd like to see them give it a shot again, this time with a more sensible pricing structure and (even more importantly) no bizarre skip-numbered short printing/variation scheme.

Josh Collmenter has been a bit of a surprise this year with Arizona in his rookie season, going 7-7 with good all around numbers. He also made a decent fantasy scrapheap acquisition. Who wants his rookie card?

Speaking of rookie cards, here's a legendary one. I'm sure everyone has 30 of these in their collections at this point, but I thought I'd throw this one out there anyway. Why haven't we seen any tributes to the amazing Future Stars logo?

Julio Teheran is a top rated prospect, or so they say. If you like the top rated prospects, maybe he's your cup of tea.

Somehow Yuniesky Betancourt is the Cardinals killer right now. Fielder just stands around looking ample.

Halladay is 15-4 this season. Children continue to scream for ice cream.

Another Once Was, But Now Philly - Hunter Pence - seems to have made a good enough impression on his new team's fans. I just wonder how long it will take before Pence and Victorino crash into each other, leaving a wake of pesky bones on the field for the medics to sort out.

Vlad shows up so many times in my collection that I had to give him two mentions since I received cards of his on two different teams. I prefer the non-glossy appearance of later Topps Total sets to this 2002 style.

This right here is a man's pitch.

Trading with $30 a Week Habit

Don't look at me that way! Yes, I know I'm doing another post about 2011 Heritage. No, this won't be the last you see of this set. Let's just call this month the "Cards on Cards 2011 Heritage Month". It's not really all that different than last month, though, to be honest. This post is about a stack of cards I got from Robert of $30 a Week Habit. If you're so inclined, feel free to stop by his blog and warn him of all of the perils of card collecting because it appears he's already blown his budget just two weeks in.

I wouldn't necessarily say that Gibby and Jered are great to compare side-by-side, but Weaver has certainly had an impressive season.

Mariner 2 Successfully Encounters Venus. Meanwhile, Seattle Mariners Successfully Score Almost as Many Runs as Rangers.

Do they really need to put the registered trademark symbol after the Yankees? You wouldn't see that in a headline of an article or anything. It annoys.

Keep the Heritage trades coming, please. I'm making good progress. I have a decent amount of doubles. Send me an email and all that good stuff.

30 Teams in 30 Posts: #15

As I continue on with the countdown, I've found that the teams in the middle of my list are the toughest to write about. When I think of the Cleveland Indians, I think of the 1997 World Series, the late Steve Olin and the strange course in U.S. history that saw the term Indian become associated with people that were born on this soil rather than people actually from the country India.

That's not to say that I'm completely dismissive of baseball's version of The Tribe. They had Manny Ramirez, and in his era they won the AL Central for five consecutive years, resulting in two World Series appearances (both losses.) Jacobs Field became the next big thing almost before the paint had even dried on Camden Yards. And, hey... no Tomahawk Chop over in Cleveland, right? Right? (Please say that I'm right.)

Favorite current Indians player: Chris Perez. Perez is the former Cardinal who was needlessly traded for the instantly popular and even more instantly injured Mark DeRosa. After some initial struggles, the Cardinals bullpen is finally positioned pretty well for awhile now.

Least favorite current Indians player: Kosuke Fukudome. Sorry, Fukudome, it's going to take awhile in someone else's jersey before I can let the whole Cubs thing pass.

Favorite Indians player of all-time: Kenny Lofton. Lofton played for many teams over the course of his career, but he always seemed to come back to Cleveland. It must have been for the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.

Least favorite Indians player of all-time: Albert Belle. Belle was just a grade A headcase. It would have been hard to root for him.

The Cleveland Indians are hanging around at #15 in my reverse-ranking of favorite teams as of the moment I picked them on October 4th, 2010. All of these cards are very much up for trade, so please contact me if you're interested.