So that just happened

Left a Topps Chipz magnet parallel in my pocket, which then went into the wash.

Dammit.

Everything old is new again

I just came back with the mail today.  And in the mail was a card I won on eBay.

For 43 cents, a new Rod Carew is always a good thing.

But as I was placing him into my Carew binder, I started looking at all my Carew cards (not that there's enough of them. I have plenty of holes).

And I noticed something.

There's plenty of talk in the blogosphere about how Topps uses the same photo for card after card.  And rightly so.

But Topps has been doing this for years.  That's 2 1968s and a 1969.

That works out

I got a package in the mail about a week and a half ago from Kerry over at Cards on Cards.  I've kinda dragged my feet a little on posting about it for a couple of reasons.  First, the package was pretty big, there were 3 team bags full of cards.  Second, I've been working a bit, and last I've frankly been procrastinating.

But I think the timing has worked out pretty well.  By posting now, I can pimp a contest he just put up.  If you like college football and/or picking bowl games, head over and enter.

Also, my Cowboys had a huge win last night against a very strong team that quite possibly will turn out to be an elimination game for the two teams involved.  And it was against Kerry's Eagles.  These cards came from a time when I wasn't collecting football cards (and was almost out of baseball cards too), so these will get a happy home.  Is there ever a card of Tom Landry that isn't awesome?

There's some Cowboys from their Super Bowl teams, and some from the current incarnation.  I think the Cowboys showed last night some heart for the first time in years.  Can't say enough how excited I was with the win.

But even though Kerry and I are fans of rival teams, there is always common ground somewhere:

So that was just some of the first team bag.  The other two team bags were roughly themed too.

Oddballs.  I actually had all the box bottoms from 1986.  In full panels and cut.  I bought lots of boxes in 1986.  I don't know what happened to them all.  I'd never heard of the Hills Team MVPs set, so that's always a good add.  And another new Ryan for that PC.

Are the paint splotches supposed to line up like that on the 1990 Classic cards?  We had a Kay-Bee card in the last scan, and a Toys "R" Us card in this one.  And again, this is only part of the "oddball" themed team bag.

The third bag had more Angel goodness for me.

Can't go wrong with parallel Halos.  You've got your overpaid players parallels in the top row and your Chris parallels in the second.  I never buy Chrome, so the generosity of the blogosphere is my main means of acquisition.

I had to go figure out what that Vlad was.  Its a "Flapper Card" insert from 2008 Opening day.  You can kinda see the perforations in the scan, and it opens up.  I don't think I will open, but I don't know why.  And again, there were many more Angels in the bag.

If I was forced to choose a favorite card though..

A new Carew.  Awesome.


Thanks again Kerry.

Huh

The Angels traded Howie Kendrick today.

I was a bit surprised by my reaction.  I was kinda upset for a minute.  I did one of those <gasp> "What?" things.

Not long after Kendrick established himself as a regular for the Angels, he seemed (to me at least) to just blend in.  Doesn't seem real excitable, more even keel.  He didn't ever really become the superstar hitter in the lineup, but he was never a problem spot either.

So why was I so surprised?  I don't know.

The more I think about it though, the question I come up with is.. Who's going to play 2nd?  Now you've traded the established starter, what's the plan?  The Angels have been blessed/cursed with too many 1B/DH types in recent years, but middle infielders are a whole different deal.

I guess you can never have enough pitching.  Welcome aboard Rookie.

(Edit: When I saw Heaney's twitter post, I became a fan: "Well, @Dodgers we had a good run! Great to be a part of such a storied franchise. #thanksforthememories" That's awesome)

I'll be your excuse too..

The mailman has been good to the house of Junk Wax recently.  I've had a couple of packages come in from generous bloggers and my collection is all the better for it.

Last month Tom over at Waiting 'til Next Year picked up a huge lot of 1984 Topps.  And he was left with 60% of a set.  I knew I had to send some cards to help towards completion.  It's always good to see a post where I can think "I can help!"

Tom decided to send me a bunch of cards from 2013 and 2014 Topps base.  I doubt anybody is as excited to see those cards as I was to get them into my growing set.  He didn't stop there.  He also sent me some needs from 1991 and 1992 Topps.

But he didn't stop there.  He sent off some extra Cubs for me to move towards set completion.  Ike Hampton up top there is in a Tidewater Tides uniform, but he was traded to the Angels in March of 75.

Rod Carew is my oldest PC, but I still have plenty of cards I need.  Here's one of the last from his playing days.  And a Fleer sticker of Gary Pettis?  I'm in.

A minor league Angel.  Nice.  The Angels drafted Herndon in 2006, but lost him to the Phillies in the minor league draft in December of 2009.  He spent 2010, 2011, and April of 2012 in the Phillies bullpen.  He must have been hurt, because he didn't play the rest of 2012 at all, and never returned to the majors.

I like Allen & Ginter.  A lot.  But I just can't bring myself to buy it.  I like a little more bang for my buck.  So I rely mainly on the generosity of bloggers to obtain these things.

Opening Day is another product I don't buy.  I bought a bunch of it last year, but I just can't justify buying a repeat of base.  One or the other Topps, one or the other.

Pitcher Yency Almonte made it out of Rookie ball in 2014.  But he's only 20, so he still has time.  Oh and his brother has apparently also played in the minor leagues for 8 seasons as an outfielder.

I had already received a Rainbow foil parallel of this card from a group break (although it looks black to me), and now I have the base card to go with it.

With the exception of Ryan, Panini is getting my cartoon fix all taken care of.  Have I mentioned lately that it would be a good thing to give Panini a license?  Competition is a good thing MLB.

I should say thanks to Tom.  And I truly am grateful.  But the reality is that Tom was just using me as an excuse to head down to his LCS. 

I feel so taken advantage of.

War of the WARs

I recently read a post on another blog asking if anyone was reading.  Basically should the blogger keep blogging.

I was about to comment on the post tell the blogger to blog for himself.  Then it hit me, that advice is for me.

See, I think the normal state for bloggers is to post.  And then life may get in the way and force them to stop blogging for a bit, but they'll go back to their normal state.  Posting.

But I'm the opposite.  My normal state is to read blogs.  And then that gets interrupted by me having something to say.

Since I've started this here little blog, I've had the feeling that I wasn't doing it right.  I should be posting more.  But its not like me to say much in real life, so why would I constantly be saying something on the blog?  Gotta be me right?  I think I'll just have to accept that its okay for me to post only when I have something to say.



The only variation I pulled from this year's Topps base was the David Ortiz Sabermetric Stats variation.

Which is sorta ironic, in that I think the only variation I pulled in 2013 was the David Ortiz photo variation.

Anyway, I recently received the base version of Ortiz.....

...which gives him credit for 0.1 more WAR in 2004 and 0.2 more WAR for his career. 

What??

Baseball Reference gives Ortiz different WAR values altogether.  I'm kind of a numbers guy, so while I'm okay with WAR as a concept..
 a) I don't like that it compares players to a mythical "replacement player" which then can give a 600 at-bat player less value than a 3 at-bat player, and
 b) there are different WAR values depending on who is calculating it and who is reporting it.  So I can't even go look up what the correct WAR values should be.


Guess I had something to say.

N.O.

I assume all bloggers and blog readers have a routine to reading blogs.  Gotta start somewhere.  I always start with Night Owl Cards.  Read N.O. first, then use the card blogs list down the side of his blog to read everyone else's.

vintage

When I first found blogs devoted to baseball cards, N.O. was one of the first I started reading.  And for good reason, its a perennial "blog of the year" candidate.

I think everyone knows my love of 82 Fleer

N.O. was also (I think) the first blog I reached out to contact.  I sent off some cards, as I'm sure I saw something I wanted to trade for.

Is that a box bottom card?  Outstanding

The reason I say all this is that all the cards I'm showing here came from the esteemed N.O. blogger.

Every card should be on this cardstock

I have received cards from Greg before.  There was even a box of 1979 Topps that he sent without even a trade expected in return. (and if anybody needs some 79's, let me know).  But I asked for those cards. 

Someone explain the need for Opening Day.  OD or base, Topps, pick one and go with it.

But this particular package was sent out of the blue.  He had some Angels cards and he thought of me.  Me.  Me and my infrequently updated blog.  And that is pretty damn cool.

Color parallels are like meth.  I love them so, but they are bad to me.

Thanks a bunch Greg.

Third time is the charm

2012
The best player in the American League was:

The MVP went to

2013
The best player in the American League was

 The MVP went to

2014
The best player in the American League was

 The MVP (finally) went to

 

Congratulations Mike Trout!!

That's what I get.

I think I've said before, but although my favorite sport is easily baseball and I'm an Angels collector for sure, my favorite sports team is the Dallas Cowboys.  Have been for over thirty years.

The Cowboys' rivalry with the Washington Redskins is something akin to Dodgers/Giants or Yankees/Red Sox in baseball.  So when a Redskins fan contacts a Cowboys fan, the Cowboys fan is understandably suspicious.  On the other hand, the idea of moving some of those yellow and maroon clad thugs has its appeal.

Greg, who I've traded with before, showed some interest in some Redskins, so I packaged them off.  He sent back a stack of my needs from 2014 Topps series 1 baseball.  And he also sent a nice stack of my beloved Cowboys. [edit: Greg has a blog, maybe he'll start posting on it.]

And sure enough they arrived the same night the Cowboys were losing to the Redskins on Monday Night Football.

And the Cowboys lost their quarterback too.  And their next game without said quarterback.

There's really only one conclusion.  The Cowboys are losing because I traded with the enemy.  I thought I could trust him.  Now there's trouble in Big D.  That's what I get.....

My week

So my Dallas Cowboys played their only Monday Night game of the year this week.  I had to work, so I couldn't watch it.  And they lost.

But when I got home, there was a trade package waiting for me in the mail box.  With a bunch of Cowboys cards in it (future trade post).  Irony.  And I had sent of Redskins to get them.  Bonus Irony.

But my email account was gone.  Ugh.  Turns out when I moved, they cancelled the old account and created a new account.  So I called to have the old email address added to the new account.  No problem they said.  In 24-72 hours.

So I've been without email access for two days.  I stopped on the way home to grab a couple of school lunch supplies.  And threw a rack pack of Update in my basket.  (You know where this is going right?)

Out of the 29 base cards in the pack, 13 were dupes <slaps head> and 9 of those 13 were my third copy of the card. Still have less than 1/3 of the set though.

But then this card came out.

So I guess it wasn't all bad.  Even though Trout will be overused in every product possible by Topps, I still like pulling Trout cards.  I still have a Trout PC, even if I have absolutely no chance of collecting even a small fraction of the Trouts out there.

Oh, and I had to call support again to get the email address working.  Seems it had been transferred to the new account, but it still wasn't working when I got home.  So if anybody sent me an email in the last two days and it bounced back, I'm back in business now.

I guess my question is - Am I being stupid for ripping packs?  Maybe I'm harkening back to the mid-late 80's.  If you wanted cards, you ripped packs.  Wax pack, rack packs, cello packs.  I like ripping packs.  But I don't remember this level of bad luck with dupes.

I am a glutton for punishment

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

I was at the blue parallel store today.  I popped on a hanger box of Update.

Those are cards from the box I got today.

They are also cards I got from the box I bought recently at the red bullseye store.

 

I now have less than 1/3 of the set - 103 cards.

 

I now have 22 duplicate cards. (I only showed 21 because one of the cards was Mike Trout.  I can put one with the potential set and one with my Trout collection)

 

21% duplication rate??  Did I get this kind of duplicates stack when I was a kid?

 

 

One other thing that was pointed in the comments of the previous post:

 

I got both of these cards in this box

 

 

Tomlin is actually #311

And these were both in the last box

Holaday is actually #21.

Let me know if you want of the dupes.  Please.

Why?

So I finally got my hands on some Topps Update tonight.  I had been in a few blue parallel stores late last week - nothing.  I stopped in to a red bullseye store to pick up a couple of things tonight, and I grabbed a hanger box.

This was the first card showing in the cellophane.  And the Giants won tonight 7-1.  Take that for whatever you think it might mean.

But I happened to notice something.  I like looking at the backs of cards. 

Most of the card numbers look like this.  All smooshed in the corner to fit the US- before the number.  Although the Highlights card looks as though it has the swoosh shifted down a bit, allowing more room for the number to fit.

But.

Then I noticed all of these.  The US is above the number.  And there's no - between the US and the number.

I know I know.  My OCD is kicking in here.  As it turns out, these are all All-Star Game cards.  So it appears Topps made the numbers for those cards different from the rest of the set.

Why??

Oh yeah.  And there was this..

C'mon man!


Anyhooooo

You may have noticed one of the highlights of the box for me there.

Yeah, there's too many Trout cards already.  I don't care.  I'll take them all.  Let's see some other highlights of the box..

Slayer parallel!  Yep, still love them.  I can't get enough of these.  Love 'em.

Pink parallel (#/50) of Amarista.  I guess that's a hit.  Amarista was a guy the Angels traded away.  The guy played 105 games in 2012 and 146 games in 2013.  So I'll give you a bonus "why?".  Why was Amarista not in the 2013 base set?  Or even the 2014 base set?