Bobblehead Night

When I got down to Sooz's house Wednesday I was looking at her bobblehead collection, and noticed that on one of the Trenton Thunder bobbleheads it said Friday nigh was Phil Hughes bobblehead night.

I then cleverly planted the seed (deviously, like Ralphie in A Christmas Story) in Sooz's head and began watering it.


It didn't take long to sprout into a trip to the Trenton Thunder tonight topped off by the Yankee game (though speaking of thunder, it is supposed to rain on and off all night from what I read on the net). She wanted the bobblehead as well, anyway. I only have one cool bobblehead, and it's a Jeter bust from Upper Deck probably 15 or so years old. Now Jeter will have someone to talk to when I'm not home to entertain him.

There are a couple more bobblehead giveaways at the Thunder, and I would probably be interested in going to both of them if they don't interfere with my school schedule later on.

I also saw that an Adam Lind bobblehead bobblehead exists on eBay, and I would like to pick one of those up one day. Perhaps I will even add Cano and Pujols bobbleheads to my shelf. Sooz is the bobblehead lady, but I think I would like one of each of the guys I collect.

Anyone going to any games tonight or this weekend?

Thelma & Louise escaped

Sooooooooo.......... We were let out of the home for the day to go play in the local card shops. We had a couple of shops in mind when we started the day, some didn't answer the phone and others didn't even sell cards (what nerve).

Our first stop was J&J Sports Cards in Hammonton, N.J. which was closed when we got there so we sat outside on a bench like two nerds waiting. We have no patience so we went somewhere else in the meantime.

We went on over to New Concept Cards, Hobbies and Mental Skate Shop in Medford, N.J. We had called them before we went and checked to make sure they had new stuff because we have a problem and needed more cards. The dude said we have everything, and we said see you in 30 minutes.



We walk into New Concept Cards and meet Dennis, the owner, who is very nice and asks us what we collect. We rummage through the selection of singles in the cases, and decide to try our luck with some 2010 Bowman Jumbo packs. We each picked 2 packs, and opened them while we were in the store. Suzy pulled this Stubbs card, and I pulled one a Flowers card. Were we done you may ask, and you may know the answer is no. We each picked up another pack. Sooz pulled a Strasburg card, and I got a refractor of some dude. We also got a free pack of 2010 Topps for being new customers. Ohhhhh yeah, I also got a free silly band. For those of you that don't know what they are, these are Silly Bandz. It's a 10 gallon hat band that strongly resembles the Arby's logo hat. We had fun talking with the shop owner and his prices were super reasonable. He also knows my main guys at The Baseball Card Store, which shows how small this little card universe kind of is in a sense.


We leave there and go right back to the first shop to see if we can buy things there. J&J Sports Cards had tons of singles, and plenty of game used and auto Phillies if you are into them. They put a lot of singles on eBay, and told us that they did a case break last night of 2010 Bowman and would be listing the autos and the good cards up on eBay. I found 2 Pujols cards in the boxes that were out and picked them up for $1 each which made me happy. Sooz found a serial numbered Jeter/Reyes 2008 Baseball Heroes dual relic card for $10 which was awesome. We then began talking with the guys that were in the store and learn that one of them opened a hobby box of Bowman and, I swear I'm not kidding, he threw out the entire box except the chrome, chrome refractors, and auto's. I almost had a heart attack.

Who throws out cards?!!! Well, I am not ashamed to say that I asked him to look through his garbage and take some cards. He gladly retrieved the "garbage" from the pail and me and Sooz went through the box and took what we wanted for nothing. I'm pretty sure the rest went back to the pail. The guys were awesome, really nice, and LIKED baseball cards. I say they liked baseball cards because the more and more we hear from people it seems like everyone hates everything no matter what it is. We talked with them for a while, and looked through boxes of singles that had base cards and inserts. We grabbed some fun cards as we talked. They do live breaks on blogtv, and I'm sure they won't be hard to find on there. We will post a link once we find it or get it from them.

I may scan some cards when I get back home, but you have all seen most of them already anyway so.... don't hold your breath on it.

We highly recommend both of these shops. If you are looking for a particular product and you live in the area, by all means call them.

The adventure begins

Marie came down to my home in southern New Jersey last night.

Today is when some of the fun begins. We're going on a card shop hunt. Last week, I was driving to Philadelphia and took a different route than normal so I could avoid tolls on the highway. As I drove through a local town, I spotted a card shop that I didn't know existed.

Marie and I are here to check it out.

I don't really have any local card shops by me so it will be pretty exciting if this one will be worth it. It's just 20 minutes away and I usually get pretty close to it whenever I heard to Philly for work.

There's another one about 20 minutes in the other director, right near the shore. Since I have to head that way for work later, we're going to hit that one. However, we've been there before and they're really not that great. Since it's been about a year we hit that one last, perhaps they have upgraded a bit.

This won't be anything like our two-state, eight-card ship tour that we did about two years ago. The saddest thing about that trip was that of all the card shop on our list about half of them were closed, so we just moved on to the next mark.

Hopefully, there will be some fun pictures taken a long the way.

My first trip to Fenway

Sunday was my first time going to Fenway Park, and I must admit I really liked the park despite it being home to the enemy. I think part of the reason that I liked it was because it gives you a nostalgic feeling when you see it, not to mention it was one of the parks I see on tv and have always wanted to visit. When we were driving into Boston, I spotted the Citgo sign that I see on tv all the time and instantly knew we were close. Once you get close enough to see it, or any stadium for that matter you kind of get excited (at least I do).

The surrounding area of the park is great for baseball. There are bars, shops, and best of all no traffic to dodge while being around it. Once you are inside there is another small little village of stuff, including a tremendous fan store, concessions, and best of all freshly made kettle corn. Sooz and I are big fans of kettle corn, and I have mentioned this before but if you have never tried it you need to. You don't know what you are missing.

Walking into the park itself was interesting, as the floor was on a downward slope and it was like walking into a cave. Reminded me somewhat of the old Stadium because when you walked into the bleachers area it was kind of cave-like and secluded (which I always liked). The park looks ancient, but has that old time baseball charm to it. There is an outdoor area with picnic tables and concessions, some high top tables to stand at and eat, and more glorious kettle corn.

I would have taken my camera along, but to walk around in there in my Andy Pettitte t-shirt and take a million pictures would not have been a good first experience there. I had no interest in drawing even more attention to myself while just trying to enjoy a park and a game.

As we walked up the tunnel to see the field for the first time, again I was sadly excited, and not disappointed. It was awesome in person. When you walk in you are only like 30 or so rows from the field which is something I am not used to from Yankee Stadium. It was green, it was old, and it was awesome (despite the Red Sox occupying it). I really enjoyed walking around the park and watching the game there, we even met a couple of nice Boston fans (shocking), and were high-fived by several passing Yankees fans throughout the game.

The game itself was a huge emabarrasing failure, and wouldn't have been as terrible if Ellsbury didn't steal home. I mean really, we didn't think it could get worse unless we were no hit but I think that was pretty bad.

The one thing that I didn't expect was for this trip to make me even more grumpy about the new Yankee Stadium, but it sure did. I've been to several other parks, most of them were newer places but this made me really miss the old Stadium. I also think that Fenway could have been knocked down long before Yankee Stadium because this place is in way worse shape than Yankee Stadium was. However, none of that matters now.

I would definitely go back to Fenway to see another game, and I think it is definitely a park that everyone should try and see it some point.

2008 Memories: Last Game at Yankee Stadium

Last year, was a great year from a baseball point of view. I went to my first Spring Training, first All-Star game, covered the World Series, but one of the best -- and worst moments -- was being at the final game at Yankee Stadium.

Marie snagged me a seat in the bleachers at the start of the season. I used to own season tickets, but then moved two hours away for a job. It wasn't practical to keep my season tickets, and gave them up.

I sat in the bleachers since 1998, when my parents finally allowed me to go to games by myself. I made so many friends there, it was the only place I wanted to be for the last game, with the people I loved and hated at the same time.

Here are some photos I took from that day, which started around 4 p.m.
The new Yankee Stadium:

Marie (left) and I before the game hanging out with the bleacher creatures in the "secret spot."

The last walk into the tunnel leading to Section 39. It took me about 10 minutes to actually walk into the Stadium because I was crying like a little kid on River Ave.

Ali Ramirez's seat. He was the original bleacher creature. My season ticket was next to that seat for years.

People were ripping off the wall to keep a piece of Yankee Stadium

Joba Chamberlain warming up, a view from the left-field bleachers.

Jeter's last at-bat.

It's a final.

Me with the Utz girl. She knows all my secrets.

The final walk leaving the Stadium.

My second home.