A Couple of Padded Envelopes

Sometimes I wonder if my mailman thinks I'm dealing in illicit activities. I'll go out on a limb and say that no one else in my complex gets the amount of little, yellow, padded envelopes jammed into their mailslot as I do.

Here's what this week had to offer:


Beardy came through with these two gems. I unloaded some Upper Deck Masterpiece cards that were taking up space in exchange for one Brian Roberts Relic Card. Much to my surprise the Bearded One threw in an extra won. Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!






For Christmas I gave my family a list of 10 cards that I would like to add to my personal collection. Needless to say they didn't get any of them. Therefore, I was left to acquire them on my own. This is the first, compliments of Ebay. Vincent's Upper Deck rookie card.



I bought a pack of Upper Deck Champs last year and didn't care for it. So I decided to send them out for TTM autographs. I received a Pascal LeClaire last week and then today the second one came back. ESPO! The man responsible for the Tampa Bay Lightning's existence and current radio co-host for the home games.



Thanks Mr Mailman for making the long, cold walk to the mailbox worth it!

If I Was In Vegas....

Time for me to do something that hundreds of thousands of others are doing (or have already done). I'm going to pick the winners of this week's playoff games. Well let's say these are the bets I would be making if I happened to be in Vegas.

The lines are based on what's posted in this morning's St Pete Times. Home team is in all caps.

N.Y. Jets (+2) over CINCINNATI

Because when you can bet on a rookie quarterback on the road in a playoff game - you have to do it!

DALLAS (-3) over Philadelphia

When you have a chance to bet on a team that hasn't won a playoff game since 1996 0 you have to do it!

NEW ENGLAND (-3) over Baltimore

I have zero confidence in Baltimore's secondary and ability to not take stupid penalties.

Green Bay (pk) over ARIZONA

No magic for Kurt Warner this year


I in no way find it ironic that I'm posting this while watching MTV's True Life: I've got a gambling problem is on.

Lights Out on the Lightning

Apperently the Lightning pissed off the hockey gods by scoring 3 goals on 7 shots against the Devils. Why else would the lights suddenly go out and not be able to be restarted?

No news yet as to if the game will be picked up from where it was left off or if Martin Brodeur gets a do-over. Since both teams play tomorrow and aren't sceduled to meet again this season the league is in a bit of a pickle.

A bizarre season continues for the Bolts

Some Final Thoughts on the Hall of Fame

Alright , now that I’ve had a day to collect my thoughts on today’s Hall of Fame announcement I must admit I’m still a little baffled by the results. I’ve made my arguments for who I thought should have gotten in this year so I won’t go over it again. Needless to say the voters disagreed with my views.

I am glad that Andre Dawson made it in, kind of in the same way that I’m glad Jim Rice was voted in last year. At least now we don’t have to read the yearly “Hawk should be in the Hall” articles. Of course it means at least 50 writers have to come up with some new material for next year, but that’s their problem, not mine.

My biggest beef this year centers around Roberto Alomar not getting elected on the first ballot. The argument has been made that he’s a really good player, but not a “great” player. How someone who has 10 Gold Gloves (most of any second baseman) and led the major leagues in hits for a decade can’t be considered “great” I don’t know, but part of the fun of sports is debating levels of greatness.

I’ve always considered myself a bit of an optimist when it comes to sports. I like believing that sports writers are objective when it comes to their jobs and can put their personal feelings aside when they are tasked with the responsibility of voting on someone’s professional legacy.

After this year I must say that I’ve lost some of that positive karma. There are writers out there that let their personal beliefs cloud their professional judgment. For some players this is a benefit, for others a hindrance. It’s not fair, but it is better than the alternative. A BCS-esque computer process that completely removes human emotion from the equation and elects based solely on a player’s statistical resume.

Let’s take Alomar as an example. For most people the memory associated immediately with him is the spitting incident involving umpire John Hirschbeck. If he never spits on the umpire how does that change the way people view him as a player?

Do voters use that as an excuse to not vote for him? The stereotype of the bitter, overweight sports writer is as tired as the one about bloggers living in their mother’s basement, but could there be a little bit of a truth in the stale saying?

Did he lose votes because he wasn’t the most outgoing of players? If he had been good with a quote like Rickey Henderson would he have gotten more votes? It’s hard to say because the voters get to hide behind the anonymity of the voting process. The voters are writers, right? Why not have them have to write a paragraph or two on the ballots on why they voted in or left off a particular player?

I have a feeling that would eliminate the blank ballots and old guard who don’t believe that any players deserve 100% of the vote. Having to justify their votes might also have them take it a little more seriously. If they can justify not voting for a person with a reasoned argument then more power to them.

Or why not blow up the whole system and convert to a system similar to the NFL’s? After the five year waiting period have someone nominate an eligible player and present an argument to a group of Hall of Fame Members. I might tweak to make the panel consist of members, some press and select fans (but no owners, owners are evil!). Make it like a jury trial.

Of course they could not make any changes so that there is a lively discussion about it every year, and with the steroid-era players becoming eligible the discussion will indeed be lively. I just hope that if there is no change then at least the voters take their responsibility seriously. That means no more casting votes for David Segui,

Baffled

Congrats to Andre Dawson, but I must confess to being baffled as to how Roberto Alomar didn't make it. Maybe next year, eh?

A New Year Means A New Strategy

The calendar has turned on a new year and so that means a couple of things.

1. The hockey season is halfway over. For the first time in a couple of seasons the Bolts are still in playoff contention.

2. New commitments have been made.

3. I've turned in my entries for the 2010 Lawton Chile's Memorial Death Pool. It's juvenile and in bad taste, but hey no one is perfect, eh?

4. I have a new collecting strategy for 2010.

Overall, 2009 was a pretty good year for me in terms of collecting. I picked up the writing on this site, met some great traders and actually recouped some of my investments by selling some cards on e-bay.

Some things didn't work out so well. I didn't finish off the Allen & Ginter set or any other set. I also didn't get rid of enough cards. When you have 80,000 cards in a closet (and on a desk, and a counter, and a dresser) then getting rid of 300 cards here and there doesn't make much of a dent.

At this point I need to get rid of boxes at a time. Therefore, with some inspiration from this site, I've decided to separate my hockey and football cards into teams and donate them, along with some junk wax baseball, to local children's hospitals.

However, my loyal readers will have first crack at them so don't despair. Let me know your favorite team and I'll see what I can do for you.

In addition to that I'm going to be a little bit wiser in my purchasing. It is my hope that in 2010 my card spending is budget neutral. That means I'll only spend as much as I make selling cards. The good news is that I do have about a $30.00 head start thanks to a couple of successful auctions in December.

Buying boxes is out of the question for right now so instead of collecting this sets I'm going to delve into the wide world of player collecting. That's right I'm crossing the line.

The players are few:

Baseball:

Carl Crawford
Adam Jones

Hockey:

Vincent Lecavalier
Peter Bondra

I've updated most of the player collections (except for Adam Jones since I just thought of him 5 seconds ago on my new Zistle page. Check it out! For trade purposes also feel free to send me your unwanted O's, Rays, and Lightning cards.

It is my hope that I can reduce my collection to the point where it all fits in half a closet and has a more personal feel to it.

If for some reason you need cards from 1988-2008 let me know and I'll see what I can put together for you.

So that's the plan. Who knows if it will keep, but at least it's a direction

The Wasteland's 2009 Card of the Year

I acquired a lot of cards this year. I bought a lot (too many considering I was unemployed for six months), and picked up a bunch through trades. Out of all of these I have found one card that stands above all others. One card that makes all other cards gleam a little less.

Oddly enough, and unlike last year's winner, this card was not a 2009 release. I didn't pull it from a pack or out of a little, yellow, padded envelope in the mail. Nor did it come from a card show or eBay.

It came from the most American of market places - the flea market. To be specific Oldsmar Flea Market (The Mightest in the South!)The dealer we got it from isn't even around anymore, or at least he hasn't been there the last couple of times I've gone.

He had just a single case of cards on an old, beat up, folding table. There were about 15 cards in the case and all of them were either higher end relic cards or autograph cards. There were two or three Jason Bartlet auto's, something I considered but didn't feel like dropping money on.

After talking with the guy for about 5 minutes I realized that he didn't really know too much about cards. His prices seemed a little low for the quality of cards that he had, so I'm not sure where he got them from, not did I really care.

I finally spotted a card that I was interested in and asked him how much. He said $15.00, I countered with $9.00.

He accepted and this beauty below was mine.



A 2007 UD Black Quad Jersey-Auto Precious Materials Auto card numbered 45/50. The swatches are all white and as usual Carl's autograph leaves a lot to be desired but to me it's quite a fantastic card and the new centerpiece of my Crawford collection.