Mailbag: Question from a reader

A while back I did a story about the only local hobby shop in my area, Mike and Dave's Baseball Card Store, in Midland Park, NJ. Apparently Dave had taken notice of the blog from my write up and sent one of his customers over to see if we knew anything about a problem they had. Thanks for the referral Dave, I am going to try and stop down soon to pick up some packs so have a nice stash of Pujols ready ;)

The problem that Joe (the writer of the e-mail) had was with 2009 UD Goodwin Champions. Here is his dilemma:

"Bought a box from said store and over half the cards were cut having no border on the top. Saw Dave and he sent the whole load back to UD. Did anyone find any like this? Also have you found any card fronts different.In the box was Evelyn Ng auto card plus her regular card and the mini. On the front of the mini was a club royal flush. On all the other cards that had both the regular and mini were the same. Has anyone found any different ones?"

Personally I have not encountered any problems with the borders either in the hobby box I opened or in any retail.

Have any of you had this problem, or seen a store that did? Please help us to solve this Scooby mystery, and maybe, just maybe there is a Scooby Snack in it for the person who uncovers "old man Withers" aka the underlying story here.

Sunday Question: What do you do in the offseason?

There are plenty of you who love football, so the baseball offseason is taken over by another sport.

But what about us who love baseball? What do we do for the next 20 weeks?

Sooz: I work and catch up on everything that I didn't do during the season. My spring cleaning is more like winter cleaning.

I hate the cold weather and leaving the house, so it works out well for me.

I like football, but not to the extent that I love baseball.

2009 Ballpark Collection Box Break

As most of you know I write for the Upper Deck Blog week to week (lately bi-weekly because of the Yankees games) and I got my box of fun from them yesterday. This installment was a 2009 Ballpark Collection box. Normally I wouldn't be able to afford such a high end product so this was very exciting for me to open. Though it was only 4 packs, I opened them very slowly to to enjoy it for as long as possible.

I must say that when I opened the first pack of this I can totally see why the high dollar thrill seekers love $50 packs. I pulled the first pack out of the box and was amazed at the thickness and very anxious to see what "mojo" was inside. The thrill of high end stuff is something I could probably get used to if I were to win the lotto one day. Sadly I will have to stick to blasters and the occasional hobby box for now. I scanned each pack in the order I opened them, with individual card scans so that you can see how the packs were, and get a good look at each card.

I am willing to part with most of these cards for Pujols or other guys I like.

Pack 1:

Pack 2:

I wanted to buy this card on eBay so bad, and did a jig when I saw it. Hi Adam!
I am considering burning this card...




Pack 3:





Holler @ the Hamiltonian...

Pack 4:

Sooooooozzzzzzz



Nick Swisher.

If anyone has something from this set, SP Authentic, or Triple Threads that they might be interested in trading for any of these please let me know.

Blowout Deals on Black Friday

I have spoken to some of you about the whole going out and shopping on Black Friday and we were all skeptical of any internet card deals. I have just learned that Blowout Cards will be hosting a Black Friday sale starting at 6am Black Friday 11/27.

Sadly I am sure I will be at the mall buying crap I don't necessarily need, or stocking stuffers. I love the rush of running around a mall at 4am for no real reason with a bunch of other lunatics. Hopefully when I get home there is something fun left for me to get, but it's the season for giving not getting so I won't be upset if I miss out. If I hear of any other card companies hosting sales I will keep you updated.

Jeter homeless?

The good news for Derek Jeter is at least he has all those meaningless postseason awards to sell if he needs food.
But, really, he shouldn't be homeless. All he did this season was break Lou Gehrig's franchise hit record, win a gold glove, a silver slugger, helped the team to a World Series victory and date Minka Kelly.

Jeter has one year left on his contract and he's trying to show the Yankee brass what will happen to him if they don't start working on a contract and give him more money soon.

Do you think the Yankees (Brian Cashman) hope this season was flukey and that Jeter won't put up the same numbers next year? Jeter hit .334 with 30 stolen bases and 107 runs.

He also turned 35 this season.

C'mon Cashman! Help him out. You don't want Jeter to be homeless. He has to pay that mortgage on his mansion in Tampa!

Ok, ok. The truth is Jeter made a cameo in a Mark Wahlberg/Will Farrell movie as a homeless bum. (Thanks for yankeesfans livejournal for this)

His pristine white teeth would make me feel sorry for him.

Adam Lind wins 2009 Silver Slugger Award

Ahem... Your 2009 American League Silver Slugger for DH is Adam Lind. (crowd roars and applause follow) As what is probably his token female collector and follower I am very proud of him, and very happy for him as well. Last season wasn't that great for him, going up and down, and being kind of a misfit as far as playing left-field. Despite his limited role as a DH, he has done what not many people can do as just a bench player and that is come up and smash the ball.

Being just a DH is not something many players can do even on a temporary role, they find it hard to stay in the game or to keep loose being that they are not in the field. Lind seems to have found his niche and become an anchor in the 4 spot on the Toronto line-up. So in honor of Adam Lind I am showing off the latest addition to my collection of his cards:



Enough about Adam, and onto another great player whose name also begins with an A, Albert Pujols. He took home the Silver Slugger award for the National League at 1st base for the 5th time in his career. Derek Jeter also won his 4th consecutive award at shortstop.

Here is a full list of the awards:

American League
1B -- Mark Teixeira, New York Yankees
2B -- Aaron Hill, Toronto Blue Jays
3B -- Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays
SS -- Derek Jeter, New York Yankees
OF -- Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners
OF -- Jason Bay, Boston Red Sox
OF -- Torii Hunter, Los Angeles Angels
C -- Joe Mauer, Minnesota Twins
DH -- Adam Lind, Toronto Blue Jays

National League
1B -- Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals
2B -- Chase Utley, Philadelphia Phillies
3B -- Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals
SS -- Hanley Ramirez, Florida Marlins
OF -- Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers
OF -- Andre Ethier, Los Angeles Dodgers
OF -- Matt Kemp, Los Angeles Dodgers
C -- Brian McCann, Atlanta Braves
P -- Carlos Zambrano, Chicago Cubs

Delivery Time: Trade with Nachos Grande (mmmm... nachos)

Nachos Grande (fanofreds.blogspot.com) had his own clunkers deal. He got rid of a few cards he had no need for while I did the same with cardboard that was just sitting in a box.

Card for Clunkers was a great deal.

I sent him two cards he was missing from the 2009 Topps Heritage set.

In turn, I received a Joba Chamberlain gold 2009 Topps /2009.

A Phil Hughes 2008 Topps Chrome xfractor

and other assorted Yankees

Have I mentioned how much I love nachos?

Why I love Wawa

Anyone who lives in the mid-Atlantic region knows about Wawa. It's like 7-11, but better. Much better.

You get fresh sandwiches, soups, salads and more. The coffee is pretty good (I've heard, I don't drink coffee) and it's open 24 hours.

However, Wawa just jumped up a notch in my book when I walked on Sunday and saw baseball cards. They weren't any of the expensive packs. They had a retail box of Topps Series 2 and Updates and Highlights.

But the fact that I can walk into a Wawa and buy baseball cards makes it fun.

So, I did just that on Sunday.



Here's what came in the packs.

Pack 1:
Jake Fox
Mark Lowe
Ben Francisco
Mike Sweeney
Albert Pujols ASG
Cliff Lee
Torii Hunter ASG
Honus Wagner - Legends of the Game
Mariano Rivera - Topps Town
Matt Stairs
Randy Johnson
Chan Ho Park

Pack 2:
Chris Perez
Kyle Blanks
Edwin Maysonet
Kris Benson
Prince Fielder ASG
Roy Halladay ASG
Julio Lugo
Ichiro - Lead us to Victory! #PP14
Carl Crawford - Topps Town
Edwin Encarnacion
Brett Cecil
Mariano Rivera (500th save and Jeter is on the card)

Where has Covered in Wrappers been?

(If you hate the Yankees either stop reading or keep quiet.)

This past week has been so much fun for me, and I think I can speak for Sooz as well when I say that. Though Sooz was working the whole World Series I know she enjoyed being there to watch the Yankees beat the Phillies.

I have been waiting since 1996 to see the Yankees win the World Series. Long story short, me and my brother were apparently "too young" to be dropped off at the game at 15 and 10 to see them win, so we have both been waiting since then for another opportunity. Needless to say I took my brother to game 6 and we had a great time.

Sooz and I went to the parade in NYC yesterday and then hung out with some of the Bleacher Creatures after. We had a good time despite both being exhausted and kinda grumpy in the morning. We're not morning people so a 6am wake-up call (at least for me) was a bitch and a half.

I will probably write a little bit better of a synopsis of my experience at a later date, but you will probably be able to read about it on UD's blog. I have been catching up on blogs and schoolwork now that I have nothing to watch on tv.

On a semi-related note, a collectors edition of Yankees cards was brought to my attention today and I don't know if I will be ordering it but I figured I would share it in case someone is interested. QVC is offering a 2009 World Series Champions 27 card set of great Yankees moments from the post season made by Topps. You get the 27 card set for $16.32 on an introductory price with release/shipping on 12/11. I may cave in and request this as a Christmas gift from someone but I must say I really don't see how these cards, which appear to just be Topps base card quality are worth $16.32 plus shipping.

Here are a couple of the better pics that I ended up with from the parade:

While you were sleeping