Happy Mother's Day: How Mom Funded My Collection Without Knowing It

Happy Mother’s Day everyone. I hope you all managed to get a card and flowers for that saint of woman.

No, not those kind of cards. Those are the cards we love. Actually as a kid I was so self-centered that I thought everybody liked what I liked, so I used to think it was a grand gesture me picking out a pack of baseball cards for my mom. Turns out those cards ended up in my collection before brunch. I probably volunteered to take care of them; how was my mom going to protect her card collection with no sleeves???

I have my mom to thank for a lot of things: my fashion sense, my caring personality, my dog, my eyes and my ability to make six different side dishes into a lifetime of dinner combinations, but this is a blog about baseball cards, so this post is about how my mom funded my collection.

Sure mom bought me a pack here and there, took me a card shop, you know the basic stuff, but it wasn’t until the summer of 2001 that I found her hidden treasure.

QUARTERS!

I should take a step back. My Mom managed apartments near our house that were owned by my Grandma. Every so often she empty the quarter-operated laundry machines into a bucket, before taking them to the bank she would usually store them at our house. Her only fault in this plan was trusting her two wide-eyed rowdy boys.

This was also about the same time that WalMart started carrying more cards in my town and the time that I would have hiked across America for an Ichiro rookie card. Needless to say I was a wax-fiend. My brother and I would steal quarters all day, knowing that that small amount wouldn’t be noticed. We’d ask for Mom to take us to the bank to get cash or we’d just pay with quarters.

This was the life. Mowing the lawn for $5 now seemed like child’s play, we were rolling in it. I had tracked down an Ichiro RC (albeit a Victory one), my brother had one too, towards the end of the summer I was even scoring Mike Vick and LT RCs, but greed got the best of us.

Somewhere along this wax ripping binge we had crossed the line from negligible amount of quarters missing into, “WHERE THE F*** DID ALL THE QUARTERS GO, WTF?!!!” (note: my Mom probably didn’t cuss, but she was so mad that it felt that way).

And there you have it. That’s the reason my 2001 collection is stocked full of RCs, inserts and all that jazz, while my collection from 2002 is limited to things I found on the ground or what was left over for $1.29 in 2003. Given the years and what was available I’d say I got lucky.

Oh and the moral of the story kids? Don’t steal from Mama Bear, not even for cards.

Hope you enjoyed my little flashback and have a Happy Mother’s Day.

90's Cardboard (Chrome): Defining Card

Ugh. This scan does not do this card any justice, but I'm going to push through like LeBron driving to the lane and finish this post. It's a 1994 Finest MVP insert of Mr. Ken Griffey Jr. "The Kid".

This card represents everything about my collecting prime. Most obvious it's of Ken Griffey Jr. The first baseball player to steal my heart. Naturally, I identified with Griffey because I was one of those left-handed weirdos, who had their writing hand "corrected" to the right hand in second grade. Thankfully, nobody touched my swing and I would spend years trying to imitate Griffey-until Ichiro came along-as you can imagine this did not do wonders for my baseball career.

Irregardless, this card also represents 90's with the colors. Oh thank the Lord for the colors! It's got all of them; blue, red, purple, green, orange. And the design is so fun, but yet so simple. It's just a fun card. Eight-year-old me would have preferred this card over anything with a wooden chunk or piece of cloth in it and honestly 23-year-old me enjoys it just as much.

Ok so it's Griffey, it's got colors, it's a Topps Finest (looks like a Chrome basically and the patent stipulates they used Chrome) AND to top it all off it's an insert. Remember inserts? Not your one per pack token inserts. I mean inserts. The ones you ripped packs for until you got the crazy cut above or what have you. Man those were the days!

I would like to say this card hails from my collecting past and I just stumbled across it, but that would be lying and I don't lie (at least not to you guys). The truth here is that I picked up this gem on eBay for less than a pack of whatever floats your boat on the rack today. 90's Cardboard (Chrome) always has a special place in my collection.

Trifecta: Sam Bradford

With Steven Jackson in Atlanta the Rams will have to rely on their passing game for any offense whatsoever. I'm a fan of this because I think it's time to take the training wheels off of Sam Bradford and let him air it out. I think Jeff Fischer and the Rams see it that way too as they picked up a couple new weapons for Bradford in the 2013 NFL Draft. Tavon Austin (AKA the second Percy Harvin in this division) and Stedman Bailey are sure to make some plays in the passing game. Austin will especially help Bradford's numbers by making short completions into long gains.

The Rams have also built a really nice defense, so even if Bradford makes some mistakes and throws a couple picks the Rams will likely be able to limit the damage. Unfortunately, Bradford will be facing some of the toughest defenses in the league and some of the best play makers in the secondary. That's why this is the make or break year for Mr. Bradford. It's time to show you belong as a solidified starter in the league or that you're just another click on the Rams QB turnstile.  Anyway, here's my trifecta:

The RC - definitely the easiest piece for me to snag I have about five base // parallel RCs

The Relic - picked this up from Plashcke Thy Sweater is Argyle in a trade a while back

The hardest part is always the auto. And I'm kind of a stickler for getting an on-card auto. Luckily, my patience paid off and just as Bradford was becoming less of a commodity I was able to snag this on-card auto for pretty cheap. BOOM! Trifecta!

Head Scratchers: Why these cards suck!

So I'm going to get a little technical and break down these cards from the amateur photography // design experience that I have, which I assure you does not qualify me to critique anything that is printed professionally.

Woah! What a great action shot. I don't know how they did it, but they managed to catch Peyton Manning in the most routine of stances. He's centered on the card, which is a flaw (that is found on almost all cards in this set), but my main problem is the lack of action. How hard is it really to get one of him at least dropping back, throwing the ball, or calling an audible. I mean Peyton is always full of action.

This receiver looks like he's running a route in front of Reggie Bush. I'm all turned around in this card and I hate how the out-of-focus receiver overlaps onto Reggie, plus it's really busy with the referee in focus as well. Not a terrible job, but certainly could be better.

Now I know why we didn't use an action shot for Peyton. This is awful. It's an action shot, but it's still a really boring one, second it's too wide: this card could be of Ziggy Hood (the DL). Then most obvious they cut off half of the football. Seems like they really forced this one into a landscape card.

Exciting! Action Packed! Game Changer! Probably all words that could have been used to describe this play when it happened in real life, but this photo is horrendous. First of all, you can barely see the football. Second, the action is around the football and the pylon, because the viewer wants to see that it's a touchdown, not what kind of shoes Austin is wearing. Since most cards in the set feature a wide shot it would be really easy to shrink this photo down and fit all of the action in the shot. Maybe, just maybe the photographer didn't capture the whole shot. In which case I say use another freaking picture! This is akin to showing a baseball player sliding without showing the base, or making a diving catch, but cutting off his glove. What's the point?

And that is what has me scratching my head.

I hate Mondays, but I love Autos

In the last week or so I've had enough free time with not having mid terms and group projects to work on to stalk cards on eBay. Here are some of the deals I was able to pull, price includes shipping!

Eric Berry Platinum *patch* auto refractor /500 - $4.19

Jake Locker Certified Freshman Fabric Auto /299 - $11.50

Bernard Pierce Presitge Rookie Ticket - $3.76 (especially great for me because he's a Raven and I've been trying to get an auto of him, but they all seemed to be just out of my grasp, patience pays off though)

This is my crown jewel if you will. I place bids on a lot of cards and most of the time get outbid even though I have annoying push notifications letting me know when they end. I put in a bid of $18.75 on this one and with a couple hours I was the high bidder at $12.76. In a shocking turn of events I won the card for $12.76!

This one might have been my best value. I've always liked Jose Reyes and you don't often see a nice auto of his for only $6.50, so I snatched it up.

These cards are kind of for trade (except the Pierce). I'm not going to put them in trade bait, but feel free to make an offer for them.

Finally!

Ok, so there is more than one reason this post is titled "Finally," but it's not that Matt Barkley *finally* got drafted, which cracks me up! I mean seriously, the guy was a top 10 pick, would have probably gone over Tannehill, Weeden and Russell Wilson last year. People would have discussed him and RGIII. Then he holds a press conference and talks about "unfinished business," by which I'm sure he meant getting to the Sun Bowl Hyundai Sun Bowl and sitting on the bench. I kind of feel bad for the kid and then I remember that he's still going to have a WAYYYYY better job than I had coming out of college. Back to the topic:


The first round is finally over, which is amazing because ESPN tried their best to fit every commercial possible between the later picks, which was excruciating torture for a Ravens fan. Anyway the Ravens FINALLY had their pick and took Matt Elam, whom I like very much. He's a play making, run supporting, hard hitting, more words that end in "ing" safety that will replace Bernard Pollard nicely and grow with the Ravens D. Then the Ravens took a LB out of Kansas State. The main win here was that Manti Teo didn't go to Baltimore. I just don't really like the guy in the Ravens scheme and I couldn't see him anchoring that D (not that Arthur Gordon is, but still).

Anyway, critics have mentioned the Ravens crazy losses on D - Ed Reed, Ray Lewis, Ellerbe, Kruger and the aforementioned Pollard. BUT keep in mind the Ravens get Ladarius Webb (their best CB) back from injury this year, signed Michael Huff, Elvis Dumervil, Rolando McClain and Canty. Drafted a play making safety and LB. That's an improved pass rush, and some nice fill-ins at other locations that should make the Ravens D at least adequate to still contend. The only missing piece is Boldin, who I was sorry to see go.


 The second FINALLY comes in because I finally updated my baseball trade bait. I recently moved to Phoenix and only brought about 25% of my cards. What was I thinking? Where are my priorities? Well I figured I'd leave some at home and come back in 40 years to see what they're worth (jokes, I drive a Honda Civic and it was packed to the roof). Take a look though, I added some good ones. Link Below:

 https://plus.google.com/photos/118063244681072103698/albums/5871368270978646529