Capewood's Collections

Players I Collect - Robert Alomar

2012-01-25T12:29:00.000-06:00

There are a number of players which I specifically collect even though they are not Phillies or Astros. These players go into binders rather into the boxes with the ordinary guys. I started this series of showcasing cards of players I collect some time ago with Jim Abbott but didn't continue it. Let me get to the next player on the alphabetical list.

There are some players whom I collect that later in their careers I wonder why I'm collecting them. Not so with Roberto Alomar. Regarded by many as one of the best second basemen in baseball history, he won more Gold Gloves (10) than any other player at second. He was no slouch at the plate either, batting .300 in his 17-year career, with 2,724 hits, 210 home runs and 474 stolen bases. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2011, in his second year of eligibility.

I own 183 of his cards. Here are some of my favorites.

1988 Donruss Rookies #35

Roberto started his career after being signed by the Padres in 1985. He joined his brother, Sandy on the team in 1988.

1989 Fleer #630

1990 Upper Deck #346

In December 1990, he was traded with Joe Carter to the Blue Jays for Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff.

1992 Stadium Club #159

He was with the Jays for 5 years and an All-Star every year. The Jays won the World Series in 2 of his years there, 1992 and 1993. Alomar is the first player to go into the Hall of Fame as a Blue Jay and the Jays have retired his number.

1993 Topps Black Gold #23

1995 Fleer All-Fleer #2

1996 SPx Gold #1

In December 1995, he signed a signed a 3-year, $17MM contract with the Orioles.

1998 Upper Deck 10th Anniversary Preview #26

1999 Crown Royal #41

In 1999, he rejoined with his brother on the Indians.

2001 Fleer Showcase Sticks

2002 Topps 206 #185

In December 2001, Roberto was traded by the Indians to the Mets.

2003 Bowman Heritage #57

And in July 2003, he was traded to the White Sox.

2004 Leaf Exhibits

2004 Topps Cracker Jack #138

In late 2003, he signed as a free agent with the Diamondbacks who traded him back to the White Sox during the 2004 season. In early 2005 he signed with the Rays but retired in March before the season began.

Fairfield Rack Pack

2012-01-23T17:45:00.000-06:00

There may come a time when I can stop myself from buying these repacks but as long as I keep getting stuff I want from them I'll keep buying them. These rack packs have 100 cards. They promise a relic in every 4 packs, but I haven't seen one yet. I didn't have 52 of the cards in the package, a pretty good percentage. Not all of them did I want to keep, but I like adding to my image database, even if I don't keep the card. They will be fodder for the 3rd Annual Summer Blow-Out Trade come June. I'm sure you don't have the stamina to see all 52 cards so I'll just show you a few.

Remember, I buy these packs so you don't have to.

1967 Topps #419 Don Kessinger

First up, is a card which perfectly exemplifies why I keep buying Fairfield repacks. Most of the 1967 Topps cards I own are Phillies. In fact this only the second 1967 Topps card that isn't a Phillie I've acquired. And although I never heard of Don Kessinger, he was a pretty good player. A 6-time All-Star with a 16-year career, mostly with the Cardinals. I'm happy to have his card.

1978 Topps #248 Frank White

This pack had more old cards than usual. Frank White had an 18-year career, all with the Royals. He was the 1980 ALCS MVP but his team went on to lose the 1980 World Series to the Phillies.

1982 Donruss Diamond Kings Checklist

How exciting is this? Not much really but in my quest to collect at least one of each kind of card, this is a card from the 1982 Donruss set I didn't have. It is not actually a part of the set (it doesn't have a number). I'm always happy when I can get a card to add to my reference collection.

1988 Fleer Baseball MVP Mark Langston

Fleer made a lot of these 44-card boxed sets in the late 1980s which were distributed through various retail outlets. This is not one I've seen before. The set was distributed by Toys 'R' Us. The store is not mentioned anywhere on the card but apparently was on the box.

1989 Topps Cap'n Crunch #1 Jose Canseco

This was the first card out of the pack and already I felt like I had my money's worth. I never even heard of this set before.

1990 Upper Deck #445 Fernando Valenzuela

I actually already owned this card but it's a great card so here it is.

1990 Starline Long John Silver #37 Darryl Strawberry

I'll agree that this is one ugly card. It came from a 40-card set distributed by Long John Silver restaurants in 1990. According to Beckett.com, after the promotion was over they had 100,000 sets left over. You can easily find them on eBay, still in the original 4-card cellophane wrappers.

1993 Classic Four Sport Gold #296 Carl Schutz

I've seen 4 or 5 cards from this set, but I've never seen a card from the base (non-Gold Set). The other reason I show this card is because of the subject. Schutz was the Braves #3 draft pick in 1993. He is show here in the proud uniform of Southwest Louisiana Community College. He actually made it to the show, appearing in three games for the Braves in 1996.

2000 Pacific Vanguard #79 Peter Bergeron

Another reference card. I had a handful of these cards, but not a rookie card. They were advertised as having been printed with “Vision-Glow” technology.

2000 Upper Deck Ovation #47 Preston Wilson

Ovation was a set released for a few years by Upper Deck. The design always featured some sort of embossing. The white, textured looking area of the card is actually textured. I've always wondered how they printed cards like this.

Song of the Week - Trains to Brazil by Guillemots

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000-06:00

I've been doing a song of the week post since I started this blog back in early 2--8. I don't like to re-post a song but this song came up in random play on iTunes and it's so good I have to post it again. Also, the last time I wasn't able to embed the video. I last posted this song in May 2009. I used to note how many songs I had in iTunes with the post. Back then I had 6,649. Today I have 13, 236.

Random Cards of the Week January 21, 2012

2012-01-21T12:00:00.000-06:00

Card #14,729
1989 Topps #563 Bill Schroeder

In the dictionary, at the definition of "Square jawed" they have a picture of this guy.

Card #15,884
1992 Ultra #254 Mike LaValliere

I think this is my favorite year for Ultra, a set that, over the years, I've never warmed to. For those of you who don't know, Mike's nickname was "Spanky".

Card #14,136
2009 Topps 206 #35 Erik Bedard

I posted a card from this set last week, complaining about, among other things, that every card had the exact same simulated stain on the back. If you're not familiar with the set check out last week's card here.

Card #19,025
2004 Topps Cracker Jack Mini #82 Xavier Nady

The 2004 Topps Cracker Jack set is one of my favorite sets. This is one of the parallel mini cards. I believe that this is where Topps first featured simulated stains on the card backs of simulated old cards. They did it much better here than on the set above.

Card #20,272
1990 Topps #489 Nick Leyva

The late 1980s and most of the 1990s were dark days for the Phillies. Nick led the Phillies to a 77-85, 4th place finish in 1990. Lets have a show of hands, do you love the 1990 Topps design?

Card #12,635
2000 Crown Royale #63 Roger Cedeno

Pacific produced some of the most flamboyant cards in the early 2000s. This set was die-cut and had silver foil on the rays between the sections of the crown.

Card #23,030
2006 Topps #20 Bob Abreu

Bobby was traded to the Yankees with Cory Lidle in August 2006 for people you never heard of, including Carlos Monasterios. Topps generally called Abreu, Bobby, on their cards but other companies often just called him Bob. Sometimes he was Robert. This makes if difficult if you're cataloging cards in a database. I have him listed as Bob throughout, no matter what it says in his card.

Card #19,998
2010 Topps 206 #114 Alex Rodriguez

I think this is a better design than the 2009 set and out damned spot, out!

Card #18,261
2010 Topps Allen & Ginter #75 Jayson Werth

By making incremental changes each year, Topps has managed to keep Allen & Ginter popular.

Card #21,562
1997 Stadium Club #79 Gregg Jefferies

This could have a great action shot. Jefferies is really stretching for the throw. What looks like Alex Arias of the Marlins (who would be a Phillie in 1998) is busting a gut to reach 1st ahead of the throw. Is he safe or not? Unfortunately, the giant name thing they had on 1997 Stadium Club makes it impossible to tell. Maybe Jefferies' maniacal look on the back while bunting makes up for the front a bit.

Movie Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2012-01-18T19:42:00.000-06:00

This is one difficult movie to watch but a good movie nonetheless. George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is a retired British spy who's seen too much in his long career. His service has defined him, ruined his marriage and pretty much beaten him down. But he didn't retire on his own accord, he was forced out, when his mentor, Control (John Hurt) was forced to retire after a mission to Hungry went spectacularly bad. A year later, Smiley is asked by a government minister to investigate the spy agency department he worked for (called "The Circus") and find out if there is indeed a high placed mole in the agency.

One of four, old-line, senior management types at the agency is suspected of being the mole. These are the very men that forced Smiley out. He is given little help in his task, but Smiley is a man of principle, the mole must be found and the leaking of secrets to the Soviet Union must be stopped.

The Soviet Union? Yes, the story takes place in the mid-1960s when the Cold War was being fought by men like Smiley. It is a very old fashioned movie. There is very little action, a lot of talk. It is a dark movie, dark in the way it is filmed (the director seems like he never heard of electric lights or filming in the daytime) and dark in the hearts of these men (and the occasional woman) who fight this war. Torture, betrayal, treason and the occasional shot in the back or head).

The acting is strong, as it would have to be in a movie like this. Oldman is terrific as Smiley, a man of few words, a man not of action but of thought. He puzzles out the identity of the mole and then sets an elaborate trap for him.

This is also a movie that is hard to follow at times. I saw it with my daughter and we had to check with each other a few times to be sure we knew what was going on. If I were watching it on Netflix, I'd have had my finger on the replay button.

I wouldn't take the kids to this. Not that there is much sex (a little) or violence (I think there are three gun shots in the whole movie) but because they will probably think it is dull. I think the story would be too complex for anyone under 16.

The film seems to be in very limited release. I think it is only playing in two theaters in the Houston area, one of which happens to be about 15 minutes from my house.

2011 Topps A&G Discount Box

2012-01-17T12:00:00.000-06:00

Perhaps you're sick of 2011 Allen & Ginter. If so, you can skip this post. Go ahead, I won't mind. I was in Target last Friday and they had a blaster box of A&G at 20% off the regular price. I probably shouldn't have considering how much of this product I bought this year and my bad experience earlier in the week with the 2008 box of UD Masterpieces. But I did. I was very happy. Of the 48 cards in the box, I needed 22 of them. Pretty good odds. I'm not going to show them all but just a few of interest.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter #28 John Lindsey

It's nice to get rookie cards but I don't think we should hope for much from John Lindsey. He was a 33-year-old rookie in 2010, having been the Rockies 13th round draft pick in 1995. 1995!

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter #97 Zach Britton

Another rookie but maybe we like him better. He was 11-11 with the 69-93 Orioles last year.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter #321 Mark Reynolds

Here's a trivial question for you. Who is the only player to lead his league in striking out three seasons in a row, sign a 3-year contract worth about $24 million with a team in the other league, and then lead that league in strikeouts? Why Mark Reynolds, of course. I have not actually determined if Mark Reynolds is the only answer to this question.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Floating Fortresses #11 Lave

Another in my series of Wikipedia cards.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Hometown Heroes #90 Ryan Howard

I'm always happy to pull a Ryan Howard card I didn't already have.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Hometown Heroes #58 Jimmy Rollins

Or, really, any Phillies card I didn't already have. I now have 6 Phillies from this insert set.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Minds that Made the Future #40 Ben Franklin

Another home town favorite.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini A and G Back #274 Stan Lee

Are you excited about The Avengers coming out this summer? Stan Lee is.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini Black #20 Jeremy Hellickson

I only had a handful of the mini black cards, and no rookies. Getting 2011 AL Rookie of the Year isn't bad.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini World's Most Mysterious Figures #5 D. B. Cooper

Another Wikipedia card. Not too surprising since nobody really knows what he looks like. This is an FBI composite drawing. 40 years ago, Cooper, or whatever his real name is, pulled off the only, apparently successful plane skyjacking in the US.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Code Cards #40 John McEnroe

So what is this card? I've have some of the cards with these corner decorations in black and a few in gold. But those had the things in all four corners. This only has one corner covered.

Song of the Week - Essence by Lucinda Williams

2012-01-15T12:21:00.000-06:00

This is one sexy song.

Baby, sweet baby, you're my drug
Come on and let me taste your stuff

Baby, sweet baby, bring me your gift
What surprise you gonna hit me with

I am waiting here for more
I am waiting by your door
I am waiting on your back steps
I am waiting in my car
I am waiting at this bar
I am waiting for your essence

Baby, sweet baby, whisper my name
Shoot your love into my vein

Baby, sweet baby, kiss me hard
Make me wonder who's in charge

I am waiting here for more
I am waiting by your door
I am waiting on your back steps
I am waiting in my car
I am waiting at this bar
I am waiting for your essence

Baby, sweet baby, I wanna feel your breath
Even though you like to flirt with death

Baby, sweet baby, can't get enough
Please come find me and help me get fucked up

I am waiting here for more
I am waiting by your door
I am waiting on your back steps
I am waiting in my car
I am waiting at this bar
I am waiting for your essence

I am waiting for your essence

Random Cards of the Week

2012-01-14T12:00:00.000-06:00

Time for another random round of cards.

Card #11958
1993 Topps Gold #773 Cliff Brantley

There was a time when not all baseball cards had gold foil on them. Gold foil started to appear on regular issue cards in 1992 with Topps Stadium Club. In 1992 and 1993, Topps issued parallel cards to their flagship set as inserts in packs.

Card #5541
2002 Donruss Originals #161 Sean Burroughs

Donruss starting mining their own past for design ideas (as Topps has done quite successfully with Heritage cards) in 2002 with this retro set. The set featured cards with designs from 1982, 1984 (such as this Burroughs card) and 1986. This is the only year this set was issued.

Card #14145
2009 Topps 206 #74 Greg Golson

This set turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments released in 2009. Topps had previously released a real nice Topps 206 set in 2002. I was excited to hear about the upcoming 2009 release but I don't care for it much, especially the card backs with identical artificial dirt smudges on each card.

Card # 206
1987 Topps #178 Cecil Fielder

These early Fielder are amazing. In his first 4 years with the Blue Jays, Cecil hit 31 home runs. In 1989 he went to Japan. In 1990 he came back to the states and played for the Tigers, having become enormous in the time he was gone. He hit 51 homers in 1990 for the Tigers.

Card #12296
2008 Topps Update #220 Geoff Jenkins

I think you either love this card design or you hate it. I love it.

Card #13950
1989 Topps #291 Mets Leaders

In 1988, Strawberry and McReynolds shared almost all the Mets batting records. Is that other guy Keith Hernandez?

Card #16517
2006 Upper Deck #598 Jason Smith

By 2006, the Upper Deck flagship set started looking pretty much the same from year to year.

Card #310
1987 Donruss Opening Day #79 Orel Hershiser

Before Topps Opening Day, there was Donruss Opening Day in 1987. The card design is the same as the base set except the border is brown instead of black. This set was only available as a boxed set and I bought one in 2003 for a reasonable price. There is a rare and famous Barry Bonds error card from this set but I didn't get one. Instead, I got two Barry Bonds cards in the box (and therefore, I'm short having the complete set by one card).

Card #16887
1986 Topps #520 Keith Hernandez

This card is a bit beat up. I've probably owned it since 1986 which would make it one of the first cards I bought.

Card #5813
2000 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor #152 Jason Giambi

I really liked the Stadium Club Chrome cards in 2000 and bought a hobby box of the product. The Refractor cards really looked good.

2008 UD Masterpieces

2012-01-11T12:00:00.000-06:00

I was with the family doing our monthly grocery shopping in WalMart over the weekend. I always take at least a peek at their baseball card rack, pitiful as it is. I wasn't expecting to see anything I wanted but they had a blaster of 2008 UD Masterpieces for 40% off the regular price. I was thinking that I hadn't bought much of this product so I decided to take a shot. Indeed, I found later that I had only bought one blaster box in 2008. I like the product but I think the high price ($0.75/card) and the lack of hits in the box put me off.

The set has 120 cards, I had 32 from the other box. What are the odds I'd get some cards I didn't already have? Pretty good I thought but I was wrong. There were 8 4-card packs in the box. That's another 32 cards. Only 9 were cards I didn't have. Man. At least there were a few good cards among them.

I collect Guerrero so this was nice. He was an All-Star in 2007. This picture looks like it is from the Home Run Derby, which he won in 2007.

Post-career Ozzie cards are always welcome.

As are post-career Cal Ripken cards. This picture also looks like it's from an All-Star game. This has to be the 2001 game. It was Ichiro's first All-Star game (where he was the game MVP) and Cal's last All-Star game (where he went 1-2 with a solo home run).

And finally, the only insert in the box.

Killer passed away just this past year so perhaps the black border is appropriate. I don't have any Killebrew cards from when he played and the few post-career cards I have show him as a Twin.

Movie Review: War Horse

2012-01-09T19:50:00.000-06:00

The story in a nutshell: boy finds horse, boy loses horse, boy finds horse in the midst of a bloody great war. The boy is Albert, pictured above. He names the horse Joey and "raises him from a pup" as someone late in the movie says. Albert's father had paid an outrageous sum for the horse after his landlord bid him up. Albert's mother was aghast, he was supposed to be buying a plow horse, not a thoroughbred. But Albert manages to get Joey to plow the rocky field so the turnips can be planted. But eventually the horse has to be sold to the Army to pay the rent. And Joey goes off to war.

What follows is a somewhat improbable story of Joey loose in the chaos of France during the First World War. Improbable perhaps, but beautifully drawn and written. And what more can any movie ask for, that you fall in love with the leading character? And make no doubt about it, Joey is the main character. He appears in just about every scene. 21-year-old Jeremy Irvine, who plays Albert, probably has the second most screen time but he's missing all through the middle of the film.

The audience laughed out loud during the occasional funny scene (like when the little French girl is trying to teach Joey to jump), and cried during the sad scenes (like when Joey and Albert get parted) and audibly moaned during several painful scenes which I won't go into so I don't spoil it for you.

I highly recommend this movie, and by all means, take the kids. You might not want to take very young kids though. Part of this movie is, what seems like, a pretty realistic depiction of a charge out of a trench. It was pretty intense.

Song of the Week - Colours by GROUPLOVE

2012-01-08T14:23:00.000-06:00

I got this song from a podcast by KEPX radio. It popped up on iTunes the other day and sounded worthy of a post. It's a catchy pop tune that I really like. They have a sketchy entry on Wikipedia which you can read here if you're interested. The most interesting thing to me in the entry is that one of the band members is the son of former Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin. As is often the case, the video is pretty strange and really cuts across the rather upbeat tempo of the song.

Random Cards of the Week

2012-01-07T15:22:00.000-06:00

Card #13554
1988 Score #304 Paul O'Neill

This was Score's inaugural year. These early cards by Score are, I think, over-shadowed by 1989 Upper Deck but they did up the expected quality of a baseball card. They were printed on thicker white stock than Fleer or Donruss, and had generally better photography those and Topps. They were also the first regular issue cards to feature a color photo on the back. I always thought their card design was lacking.

Card #20149
1990 Star Reading Phillies #1 Sal Agostinelli

Star produced a lot of minor league sets in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The also produced some sets featuring major league players. They were cheaply made cards on thin white card stock. Sal was originally signed by the Cardinals in 1983 and spent the last few years of his 10-year minor league career in the Phillies system.

Card #1459
1998 Upper Deck 10th Anniversary Preview #31 Carlos Baerga

This was a 60-card set included as a 1:5 insert in 1998 Upper Deck. It's name pretty much describes it. The cards have design elements from the original 1989 Upper Deck with several 1990's developments such as Dufex printing and gold foil.

Card #21838
2000 Skybox Dominion #168 Doug Glanville

This was a 300-card set issued by Fleer/Skybox International. The glossy cards featured silver foil printing on the fronts (which were either horizontal or vertical). The card backs were all horizontal. There were a number of sets issued by Fleer/Skybox in 2000, either under the Fleer name or the Skybox name.

Card #873
1995 SP Silver #91 Curt Schilling

The silver parallel to the regular SP set, it featured holographic silver foil on the left edge instead of blue holographic foil. I managed to acquire the entire Phillies set on eBay last year. The silver parallels were inserted 1 per pack of SP. I like the back photo on this card. You don't see pitchers batting on baseball cards too often.

Card #15940
2003 Upper Deck Victory #53 Roberto Alomar

Upper Deck never seemed to know what to to with the Victory set. In 2003, it was a baseball card game. In my opinion, one of the least attractive cards ever issued. It also had rounded corners which I hate in a baseball card.

Card #2279
2003 Topps Gallery Originals Bat Relics #GO-AR Alex Rodriguez

These were randomly inserted into 2003 Topps Gallery at 1:15 packs. I bought this one on eBay for $4.83 in April 2004.

Card #1503
1999 Upper Deck #452 Carlton Loewer

Not one of my favorite Upper Deck issues. The black-lined silver foil along the edges always struck me as too heavy-handed. And for some reason, the blank box on the back below the player photo has always bothered me. How did a featureless white box end up as a design element?

Card #3678
2000 Black Diamond Reciprocal Cut #88 Rafael Palmeiro

Upper Deck produced the Black Diamond set in 1999 and 2000. This die-cut parallel was inserted at 1:7 in the 2000 set. It's an attractive card with a combination of silver gold and dufux foil on the front. I'm not sure which meaning of the work reciprocal they had in mind.

Card #1478
1999 Fleer Brilliants #26 Carlos Delgado

These were pretty pricey cards in 1999, $4.99 for a 5-card pack. I bought 4 packs. The cards are printed on heavy stock and have a shiny mirror finish in the fronts. For some reason, I have many more of the blue parallel card than the regular card and for awhile I thought that the regular card was the parallel. The blue cards are nicer looking.

Trade with A Pack To Be Named Later

2012-01-06T15:16:00.001-06:00

This is a followup to this post.

Kyle from A Pack To Be Named Later offered me the Richie Ashburn for the two Topps Manufactured Glove Leather Nameplate I had. Sweet.

He also sent some bonus cards. Thanks, Kyle!

2010 Topps Chrome X-Fractors #127 Jayson Werth

2009 Upper Deck Goudey Mini Navy Blue Backs #156 Greg Golson

Golson only played 6 games for the Phillies before he was traded to the Rangers in November 2008 for John Mayberry, Jr. Although he is pictured as a Philly he is identified as a Ranger on the card front and back. I class a card like this as a Philly card.

1983 Topps #101 Pete Rose

The "Super Veteran" subset from 1983 Topps. The cards in this subset were back-to-back with the player's regular card (Pete's regular card was #100).

2010 Upper Deck Season Biography #26 Ryan Howard

2010 Upper Deck Portraits #65 Chase Utley

Upper Deck's regular issue set (of which only Series 1 was issued before MLB sued them) wasn't so great but I've always liked this insert set.

2011 Topps Diamond Duos #DD-HH Ryan Howard

I'm not a big fan of these Duos cards but this one has Ryan Howard on it.

Song of the Week - Pretty Good Year by Tori Amos

2012-01-01T09:42:00.000-06:00

Book Club - Books I read in 2011

2011-12-30T12:00:00.000-06:00

What I've read this year.

Blind forensics expert Lincoln Rhymes takes on an old nemesis, the Watchmaker.

I guess this book could be classed as speculative history. Sort of like alternative history fiction but written by famous historians. The various essays explore how history might be different today if some fact of history had been changed. Pretty interesting.

A fairly ordinary British couple meet a notorious Russian gangster while on holiday. The gangster wants out of Russia with his family and fortune intact and a secretive British agency wants to help. The British couple, asked to help, get further and further enmeshed in a world they know nothing about. John le Carre has be writing spy novels for a long time now and this one was excellent.

This book was named by the science fiction web site I09.com as one of the best science fiction books of 2010. It is a good book but it is not science fiction. It's the story of a physicist, who made a name for himself early in his career but has not had an original thought since. He manages to parley that original success into a long career but he is a fraud and he knows it.

Fairmount Park is a large urban park in Philadelphia. This crime novel is set in the seedy parts of town that border parts of the park. A policeman's son is badly wounded and the son's friend killed in a drive-by shooting at a know crack house. At first it looks like a random shooting but was actually the opening shots of a gang war. This is Tadoya's first novel. He is a Philadelphia native and I hope to see more of his work.

This is one of my favorite books of the year. I was quoting lines from it on Facebook for weeks. In a world where time travel is not only possible but common, a young man is handed a manuscript titled "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" by his future self. The best advice in the book was "If you see yourself climbing out of a time machine, run away. Nothing good can come from it."

The third book of the trilogy started by "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo". I actually listened to all three of the books on CD, read by the incomparable Simon Vance. We saw the remake of the movie of the first book yesterday. See my write up here.

A 'hard' science fiction novel as hard as they come. I've read other stuff by Modesitt and I'm not sure I like him. This was a good read but the ethical question at the heart of the story "is it ethical to kill a planet full of people to prevent the killing a many more people in the future" was kind of hard to relate to.

A pretty good popular science book about space travel. I've not read anything by Roach before but I think she writes a regular newspaper column. She writes with a lot of humor as she tackles such subjects as how to identify astronauts through psychology tests who might be candidates for a years long trip and just how to weightless toilets work. I had seen her on "The Daily Show" and went out to find the book.

This is the 14th and next to last volume in the massive "Wheel of Time" epic. Robert Jordan died before he could complete the work. Brandon Sanderson, working for Jordan's notes, wrote this and the 13th volume and promises it will end with the 15th. God, I hope so.

Philip Wylie was a novelist and social critic. I originally read this book in 1971 (at the tender age of 19) and it had a big impact on me. I had loaned the book to someone years ago and have been looking for a copy of it for awhile. I got a copy through an inter-library loan and was happy to find that I still found the book interesting.

The last few Lucas Davenport novels by Sandford have not been very good but this one was good. This is the 20th in the series. I think you can pick op anyone of them a read it without knowing the back story. If you like this one, you'll probably like them all.

An interesting premise. The US develops a technology that lets it send agents to alternate history lines where history can be manipulated to US advantage. But the America with this technology is not our America. It's some America where Nixon never fell. Interesting but not a great story. Toward the end, similar characters from different time lines started to interact and at that point the book stopped making any sense.

This is a hard book to explain. After a series of wars and international diseases, most of earth is governed by interlocking 'administrations' who work together to keep the peace. People willingly subject themselves to daily medical tests and injections to stay healthy. There are rebels and soldiers who fight them. The world is not really a utopia. One rebel group has a different idea, to rid humanity of consciousness.

The so-called NAFTA highway. Dellinger has traveled from Southeast Texas to Indiana exploring the history of the attempts to get this highway built. Some people are actively supporting the highway thinking it will bring good economic times to their impoverished communities and small towns. Others oppose it seeing the destruction of both natural habitats and historical areas.

Elmore Leonard has written a lot of crime stories and westerns. This is the former, written in 1989. A complicated story about a stone cold killer of American Indian descent and a case of mistaken identity.

The 19th Lucas Davenport novel. I'd totally missed this when it was published. I realized that when I was reading the 20th book (listed above). This is set during the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in 2008. A good story of murder and political greed.

I've got a lot of Elmore Leonard to catch up on. Mr. Paradise (Anthony Paradisio) is a aging gangster in Detroit. He loves having young girls perform for him in University of Michigan cheerleader outfits. Things go bad one night when he and one of the girls with him get shot and killed. A lot of people would have liked to see Mr. Paradise killed.

Like Harmony, this is another difficult book to describe by a Japanese author. Balot is a young prostitute who is abused and eventually killed by a successful gambler. A private investigator, using outlawed tools, successfully brings her back to life as a cyborg. He's been trying to put away the gambler for years and has constructed the arisen Balot as a tool for the gambler's downfall.

I read this book in May, before the Occupy Wall Street Movement got started. For all I know this book influenced the movement. Hacker and Pierson carefully track how the 1% became the powerful mega-rich they are today. You should read this book and get angry.

Sandford has a spinoff from the Lucas Davenport novels about one of Davenport's detectives named Virgil Flowers. Flowers mainly works outside of the Minneapolis metropolitan area. This story as about some bad business involving a religious cult in the farm towns of Minnesota. This is a good story that starts out low key with what looks like an accidental death and gradually builds to a Waco like shoot-out.

I wasn't really seeking out Japanese authors this year. This, Mardock Scramble and Harmony had been bought by my daughter. Somehow she ended up with two copies of each and donated one copy to the library where she works. She thought I'd like them and pointed them out to me.

This one concerns the conflicts between a colony of humans on the moons of Jupiter and Uranus and the inner human worlds of Earth and Mars. A small black hole has wandered near the solar system and both sides want to control it for the unlimited energy it can provide. A pretty good read.

Joseph Wambaugh is a former Los Angles cop who has had a career as a novelist and adviser for cop films. This is a tongue-in-cheek story of the weird events on the streets of Hollywood during a full moon.

There is an annual contest in England between developers of artificial intelligence systems and human beings. Questions are asked simultaneously to computers and humans and a team of judges try to determine which answers came from a computer and which came from a human. There are two prizes, one for the most human computer and one for the most human human. Brian Christian set out to win the most human human award. He spent a year studying past competitions and what it means to be human. It's a good story. He's another I saw on "The Daily Show" prior to reading the book.

I'm a fan of British police procedural novels. Also called murder mysteries or crime fiction. I hadn't read Hill before. This is part of a series about Chief Superintendent Simon Serrialler. Fortunately the back story was pretty easy to pick up. Two young prostitutes are killed. There are no clues. But of course, Simon solves the case. A good read. I plan to look for the earlier novels in the series.

I had some John Sandford to catch up on this year. This is another Virgil Flowers story. A business woman is shot and killed when she takes a canoe out on her own from the woman-only lakeside lodge she was staying at. The killer managed to get away clean, leaving no traces in the woods near the lodge. Was the woman killed because of trouble with her business back in Minneapolis or due to her local contacts?

I thought this book was pretty good when I first read it. If you think we've got political and social troubles today, 1877 sounds worse. After I finished the book I learned that Bellesiles wrote a book in 2001 about the growth of the gun culture in the US. He won a prestigious award for that book. Later a group of historians found that Bellesiles was "guilty of unprofessional and misleading work". He had to give back the prize and resign his professorship. "1877" is a come-back book for him which has been well received.

A long forgotten blues guitar player is attempting a comeback when he is brutally murdered outside the club he is playing at. After a police detective see some superficial relationships between this killing and murders of other artists he calls in Alex Delaware, LA psychologist and part-time police consultant. This is the 17th Delaware book but I've only read a few. The stories are pretty good but Delaware comes across to me as a bit whiny in his personal life.

Smith uses computer models to predict what the world might be like in 2050, taking into account long term trends in weather, technology advancement and social changes. He predicts a largely optimistic view of the future, at least in aggregate. Getting from here to there looks like a pretty rocky road. I'd suggest, based on the book, that you move north.

In Edinburgh Scotland, "The Complaints" is the police department which investigates other policeman for misdeeds. Not a very popular department in the force. Malcolm Fox is investigating a young detective who may be trading in child pornography. This turns out to be a red herring set up by another police department trying to get the goods on a corrupt builder. The plot got very complicated very fast and was very hard to follow. I kept with it because I've liked other stuff by Rankin but the ending of this novel in no way justified all the work I had to do to keep the story straight.

When something like "A Monkeewrench Novel" is written on the cover, you know right away that you're dealing with a series. Monkeewrench Software are former computer hackers who now specializes in writing security software. Their headquarters are in Minneapolis but they don't seem to know Lucas Davenport. In this story, they get involved in helping the FBI track down what might be a series of murders which are filmed and put on the Internet. This was a pretty good read. I don't think I'm going to track down the back catalog but I'll read the next book in the series, if there is one.

A society of people living in the asteroid belt has managed to mostly free themselves from control by earth. Earth is a dying planet which needs the materials the Belt can provide. The story concerns a growing artificial intelligence in the Belt's computer systems. The AI is aware but doesn't know that it is controlling the environment of a society of humans. In fact, it doesn't know anything outside of itself at first. The humans, threatened by the AI, seek to destroy it. Based on the ending, I strongly suspect a sequel.

Goldacre writes a regular science column in England. This is a good book which attacks the medical establishment (all the way from homeopathic practitioners to the big drug companies). His main attack is on how studies on new medicines or medical procedures are often done badly, or biased toward a particular result and what you should look for when you read about medical studies.

25 years after most of the US was destroyed in a nuclear terror attack, small colonies of people have established themselves in what used to be upstate New York State. It's a rough world. One of the original founders of the town of Carthage, who was a scientist and is largely responsible for all the technology in the town, is murdered. That's the mystery part of the subtitle. There's a lot of corrupt and evil people here in post-apocalyptic America. Probably the start of a series. It was good enough that I'll give the second installment a read.

I'm mainly familiar with Deighton as the author of British espionage novels. This story is about LA attorney Micky Murphy as he tries to balance work for his somewhat dicey clients, his murderous ex-wife, and estranged son. Into this mix comes the old girlfriend who he never really got over. She's got trouble and needs Micky's help. The book is written in a semi-comedic style, very unlike his spy novels.

In 2079, the world is still reeling from the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano in the US some 20 years before. Brad Sheridan manages to escape from the depressing conditions in the American refuge camps by signing up for indentured labor overseas. He ends up in Pompey during the celebration of the 2,000 anniversary of the great eruption there. This book was OK. The plot didn't always make sense however. Pohl is in his eighties and he's been responsible for some great science fiction in the past but this wasn't one of his best.

Charles Stross is one of my favorite science fiction authors. This is a police procedural set in Edinburgh Scotland, of all places, some 50 years from now. DI Liz Kavanaugh is a member of the Rule 34 squad which monitors the internet looking for crime. She is investigating the rather gruesome murders of three ex-spammers which turn out to have international implications.

As near as I can tell, the excellent cover illustration has nothing to do with anything that happens in the book.

Written in 1945, Brideshead Revisited is a story of upper class England between the wars. It was made into an excellent television series in the 1980s which I never saw. The CD was narrated by Jeffery Irons, who, at the beginning of his career, played the main character in the TV series. I liked this enough that I got the TV series on DVD from the library and watched it. Both are excellent.

The title and subtitle pretty much tell you what you need to know about the book. Except they mean what was life like in the year 1000 in Britain. Still, it was pretty interesting.

The history of information science over perhaps the last 1000 years but mainly the past 100 or so. It's pretty dense in parts but I found it interesting and helps to understand our modern world where information is everywhere and available to us 24/7.

The Culture is a galaxy-wide civilization of mostly recognizable humans. There are a few books in the series and while I think they can be read in any order, I've found that the universe that Banks has created has become more detailed and complicated over the series. This is the latest and we learn a lot more about the Culture and the other vast alien civilizations it interacts with. At 654 pages, this is a pretty big novel, as are all of the Culture novels. One problem I have with Banks is that his books get off to really slow starts. I nearly gave up on this one at around 100 pages because I couldn't see where the story was going. But it was worth finishing.

The United States some 20 years from now is a wreck. The economy never recovered from the 2008 recession and much of the country is controlled by the Japanese or Mexicans. Many people are addicted to the drug Flashback, which allows them to relive some treasured memory from their past. This got off to a pretty good start but then I realized that almost everything in this book is from right wing conspiracy nightmares. I finished it but I wouldn't recommend it.

After reading the 14 books of the Wheel of Time series, you'd think I wouldn't be interested in reading a prequel to the series. And I wasn't. But I saw it as an audio book and decided to give it a try. It was written in 2004, when Jordan was having real problems moving the Wheel of Time series forward. It's not his best work, but if you've read the rest, you might as well read this. The end suggests to me that Jordan planned to write a sequel to it.

I'm almost caught up. There is a new Virgil Flowers I haven't read yet. This is probably the best Lucas Davenport novel in years. At the beginning of his career as a detective, Davenport had a small role in the investigation of the disappearance of a child. That case was solved but not to Lucas' satisfaction since the missing child was never found. Now, at a demolition site, the body of the missing child has been found, buried under the floor of the building. Davenport, never satisfied with the original case, begins probing. The story flashes back and forth between the young, brash, ready to punch-you-in-the-nose Davenport and the older, more sedate, but still ready to punch-you-in-the-nose Davenport.

It's a brand new CD and I thought it was something new by Block. But it was written in 1969. It's interesting to read a story like this where the participates have no email, cell phones or internet. A group of ex-soldiers band together to bring down criminals that the justice system doesn't want to handle. This looks like a book the television show "The A-Team" could have been based on. I'm afraid that ultimately, the book is terrible on it's own terms. The team is supposed to be looking for justice but the body count of innocent people was just too high to justify the ends.

Set in 2006, as the 5th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, this is the story of twin brothers who had a dream of creating a on-line gaming world. Their fledgling company got undermined by government contractors who wanted to use their unique technology to train soldiers. As the book begins, one of the brothers is in a coma due to cancer. The other brother is frantically trying to hold his company and his life together. It's kind of hard to describe the plot beyond that but I really enjoyed this book.

I picked up the audio book of this because 1) it looked interesting and 2) it is narrated by Graeme Malcolm, whom I love listening too. I'm glad I did. It's the latest in a series about Jackson Brodie, former Scottish policeman and now sort of private eye. Time Magazine named this as one of the top 10 books of the year. I'll be looking for earlier books in the series.

An earlier Culture novel. The weapon in the title is a man who is very good at war. He is used by The Culture to fight it's battles in isolated parts of the galaxy. A lot of the reviewers on Amazon did not like this book because of it's structure. There are two tracks in the book. One takes us forward as Cheradenine Zakalwe is again recruited by The Culture. The other takes us backward to his past missions. It was confusing at first but ultimately it added up to a powerful story. There is a twist ending (which many also didn't like). Although it sort of came out of nowhere, it made total sense in the context of the book.

The latest book in the Hamish Macbeth series. Hamish is a police constable in a backwater town in north Scotland. He's smart and capable and always solves the case but he doesn't want promotion so he always sabotages himself or manages to give credit to someone else. Although enjoyable, this story was pretty hard to believe. It was narrated by Graeme Malcolm (mentioned above). And it was only 4 CDs long.

A pretty good review of the latest science of the brain. Questions like how do we think, why do we think, and why we do the things we do are explored. Eagleman's conclusion from the research he reviews is that we (the part of us which seems to be conscience) is pretty much powerless. Our brain goes about it's business, letting us know what's going on after the fact. Taking this to it's conclusion he speculates on a court system which somehow apportions guilt based on taking our seeming powerlessness into account. At that point, I lost interest.

Much better than the other Lawrence Block I read this year (The Specialist). Matthew Scudder is a long running series. The classic book in the series is the 5th, Six Million Ways To Die where Scudder comes to grips with his growing alcoholism. Six Million Ways To Die was made into a horrible movie starring Jeff Bridges. Don't watch it. A Stab in the Dark is the 4th book. Scudder is investigating the 9-year old murder of a young woman. This murder was one of a string perpetrated by the so-called ice-pick prowler who had never been captured. Now the murderer has been caught and has admitted to all the killings except for this one. Scudder takes on the investigation at the bequest of the girl's father. An undercurrent to the story is Scudder's near constant drinking and his weaker and weaker defense to himself that he can handle it.

I just made a post about this book last week.

This is the 19th Inspector Banks novel. They are one of my favorite British mystery series. The last book in the series was pretty heavy handed, with lots of international spy stuff. Banks went through quite the emotional ringer in that one. This book starts with him on vacation in the American southwest trying to recover. Back home, his 24-year-old daughter had gotten her self mixed up with a charming young man who turns out to be the "bad boy" of the story. Banks himself doesn't join the action until nearly halfway through the story and never really catches up to the action. A nice change of pace for the series.

Movie Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-30T09:23:00.000-06:00

My daughter and I are big fans of the books (we both listened to the audio books featuring the incomparable Simon Vance) and the original movies (in Swedish with English subtitles). We were unsure what another movie would bring but were looking forward to seeing it. We were both pleased with the new movie. I wouldn't say it was better than the original movie but just as good. Director David Fichner and screen writer Steven Zaillian are telling a story that has already been told twice. They chose to emphasize different aspects of the source material giving a different interpretation to the movie. For example, in the original movie, the character Erika Berger, played by Robin Wright, has hardly any screen time. She and Mikael Blomkvist, played by Daniel Craig, are the co-publishers of Millennium Magazine and sometime lovers. This choice by the original film makers had implications for the entire 3-film series as she takes a larger part in the later novels. In the new movie, Erika, is given more to do and her character is more fleshed out.

The ending of the new movie makes a major change from the book, but ultimately, doesn't change the story. The new movie, however, ends with the same scene as the book, which the first movie did not. I think the new ending sets up the next movie better.

The opening credits are a melange of weird shots which seem to have little relevance to the movie, except perhaps for the prevalence of computer cables. Lisbeth is supposed to be a world class hacker. The music is a remake of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song done by Trent Reznor. The opening line of the song is "We come from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow." Most of the film was made on location in Sweden.

I highly recommend you see this movie even if you haven't read the books or even if you've seen the first movie. It has a well deserved R rating so I would not take the kids. There is a rather brutal rape scene (very necessary to the plot) and some nudity (love scenes which are also essential to the plot).

Random baseball cards

2011-12-28T12:00:00.000-06:00

I had to get a baseball card post in here somewhere. Starting next year, I'll post 10 random cards each Saturday, and maybe at other times depending on time. I'm trying to reach 1000 posts by the time I reach the 4th anniversary of the blog and I've got to get cracking.

Card #15700
2007 Topps Turkey Red #58 Carl Crawford

Turkey Red cards usually feature a draw-in background but in 2007, Topps slipped in a few photos with the actual backgrounds.

Card #29219
1989 Score #611 Ted Simmons

1989 was Score's sophomore effort. They kept the same formula from 1988, a large color photo on the front with a color head shot and stats on the back.

Card #3114
1992 Topps Traded #130 Dave Winfield

1992 was the year that Topps finally caught up with everyone else making baseball cards and started using white card stock. I've always liked this 1992 design (the regular issue and traded set had the same design). Although this is a common effect, I like how the player photo extends beyond the border on the front and the back is very clean and simple.

Card #23007
2005 Donruss #297 Kevin Millwood

Donruss seemed to run out of creative energy by 2005. They had a number of different issues but they all pretty much looked the same, like this boring specimen.

Card #3664
1994 Bowman’s Best #53 Jeff Bagwell

Topps brought back the Bowman's Best name as an insert this year and the cards looked pretty much like the 1994 issue.

Card #18371
2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini Black #91 Carlos Zambrano

Card #16435
2007 Fleer #13 Carl Crawford

How about that? Picking cards a random (the geek that I am is using a Excel spreadsheet to generate random numbers) and I end up with two Carl Crawford cards from 2007. This was the last year for Fleer as Upper Deck had bought them out. What a sad ending for an innovative brand.

Card #19944
1989 Bowman #401 Ricky Jordan

Topps brought back the Bowman brand in 1989 after discontinuing it in the early 1950s. They tried several different things with this set. The cards are taller than what had become the normal size for cards by 1989. Collector's didn't like that much. Instead of the traditional player stats on the back, they put the player stats against other teams in the previous year. The 1990 set would revert to normal size but the stats experiment would continue.

Card #9119
1993 Topps #161 Chad McConnell

Hey, remember this guy? I wouldn't either except he was the Phillies #1 draft pick in 1992 and I have 6, 1993 cards featuring him. Topps continued with the white card stock but went to a much more complicated card back in 1993 (compare to the 1992 card above). Although I like the simple back of 1992, I have always liked the 1993 design as well.

Card #1265
1998 Ultra #394 Darryl Strawberry

Year in and year out, after the first few years, Ultra always looked the same to me. So I never bought much of it. This particular card, however, is pretty nice. Looks like Darryl is signalling he is open for a long pass.

Movie Review: The Adventures of Tintin

2011-12-27T12:00:00.000-06:00

Although the Tintin comics were published in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, they were popular around my house when my kids were growing up in the 1990s. My youngest son in particularly loved them and we bought him all the books. We all went to see the animated The Adventures of Tintin the other morning.

For those of you that don't know the story, Tintin is a young Belgian reporter (as is the original artist, Herge) who, with the help of his fox terrier, Snowy, is always after a story. The movie is a combination of two of the Tintin books, The Secret of the Unicorn and it's sequel, Red Rackham's Treasure.

First, the technical stuff. The movie is in 3D animation with heavy use of motion capture. The results are just stunning. You won't be fooled into thinking you're seeing a live action movie, and I don't think director Spielberg meant you to be, but there is so much detail that every scene just pops off the screen. We saw in in flat screen because none of us really likes 3D movies which explains why we were at the theater at 10:15 in the morning. Every other showing was in 3D.

The story concerns the long-ago sinking of ship The Unicorn by pirates. The captain of The Unicorn and the captain of the pirate ship, Red Rackham, survive and the fight for the treasure sunk with the ship is now rejoined by their decedents. The movie is full of action (not all of it believable but it's a cartoon after all), exotic locales and humor. It sounds like IM: Ghost Protocol, except it's more believable and funnier. My kids tell me that it's full of references to other Tintin books. There is also a lot of stuff going on in the background, usually involving Snowy, that is funny.

Take the kids. If they are familiar with the Tintin books they (and you) will love this movie. If they are not familiar with Tintin, this will expose them to some of the best comic book writing of the 20th century.

Movie Review - Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

2011-12-26T15:04:00.002-06:00

The one review I saw of this said it was the best Mission Impossible movie so far. I don't know if I agree with that but it was pretty enjoyable. The keynote of these movies is, of course, the action. The story really doesn't matter much, except as a device to get them from one exotic locale to another. So it you're expecting a coherent story, you're in the wrong bay of the multiplex. On the other hand, if you enjoy seeing Tom Cruise being belted around (who doesn't?), hanging off impossibly tall buildings, driving fast cars faster than physics will allow, then you're in the right place.

The other hallmark of these movies is gear. This movie has plenty. If you've seen the trailers than you know the basic plot. Tom, I mean Ethan, and the IMF crew have been set up. A rather elaborate set up that involved getting the team inside the Kremlin so the bad guys could blow a hole in the side of it and blame it on the IMF. After this, they are operating on Ghost Protocol, which apparently means they have to concoct wild schemes without the help of headquarters. Isn't this the plot of every IM movie? Being without help means, apparently, having access to a railroad car, parked in Moscow, full of guns, electronic equipment, clothes, guns, computers, and guns.

We've been seeing the actors from the last Star Trek movie a lot recently. Before the film we saw a trailer for the Blu Ray edition of Colombian with Zoe Saldana (Uhura) and an upcoming movie called This Means War with Chris Pine (Kirk). This Means War looks absolutely atrocious. And Simon Pegg (Scotty) is in Ghost Protocol. Pegg is also one of the voices in The Adventures of Tintin, which we're going to see this week.

Baseball Birthdays - December 18-24

2011-12-24T13:14:00.000-06:00

December 18

Ty Cobb - 2005 Upper Deck ESPN Sports Century #SC-4

The Georgia Peach was born in 1886 in Narrows Georgia. He played for 24 years, 22 of them with the Tigers. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1936. He is often remembered as a surly and aggressive player but he is also recognized as one of the best baseball players of all time.

December 19

Al Kaline - 2007 Upper Deck Goudey #206 (short-print)

Another Hall of Famer and another Tiger. Al retired in 1974 after a 22 year career with the Tigers. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1980. He was a 'bonus baby' signing by the Tigers in 1953 and went directly from high school ball to the major leagues. Al hit 399 home runs and had a career batting average of .297. He still works in the Tigers front office and is often referred to as Mt. TIger.

December 20

Branch Rickey - 2004 Topps Cracker Jack #133

The Hall of Fame theme continues. The Mahatma was born in 1881 in Flat OH. Although he was a player for 4 seasons and a manager for about 9 years (St. Louis Browns and St. Louis Cardinals), he is mainly known as a baseball club owner. I'm going to just quote directly from his Wikipedia entry "He was known for breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier by signing African American player Jackie Robinson, for drafting the first Hispanic superstar, Roberto Clemente, for creating the framework for the modern minor league farm system, for encouraging the Major Leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, and for introducing the batting helmet." He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1967.

December 21

Dave Kingman - 1976 Topps #40

No Hall of Famers born this date, and none likely to ever get there. Dave "Kong" Kingman was born in 1948 in Pendleton OR. He was the Giants #1 draft pick in 1970. He was one of the most feared hitters in the 1970s and 1980s. In his 14-year career he hit 442 home runs, good for #38 on the all-time career list. But he also struck out 1,816 times, good for #12 on the career list.

December 22

Steve Carlton - 2003 Flair Greats Classic Numbers Game Used

There were several Hall of Famers born on this date but I decided to go with Steve Carlton. He was a Phillie and one of my favorite Phillies of all time. Lefty was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1994, with a career record of 329-244 with an ERA of 3.22. His 4,136 strike outs is 4th on the career list and he won 4 Cy Young Awards.

December 23

Jerry Koosman - 2004 UD Legends Timeless Teams #58

Not a Hall of Fame player but a pretty good pitcher just the same. He pitched for 19 years with the Mets, Twins, White Sox and ended his career with the Phillies. His record was 222-209.

December 24

Andrew Romine - 2011 Topps Heritage #209

Future Hall of Fame material? Way too soon to tell. He had 11 at bats in 2011, batting .091.

Book Club - Readme by Neal Stephenson

2011-12-22T12:00:00.000-06:00

The last Neal Stephenson book I read was his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. I always look at his books but didn't think I'd like them. I may go back and look at his past catalog now.

This is a 1,082 page novel that just hurdles from front to end. I'll tell you that it is hard to read because there are a lot of characters and a lot happening. But it never drags and is really hard to put down.

Richard Forthrast has become very wealthy by creating a massively multiplayer online role-playing game called T'Rain, with millions of players around the world. Being so popular, the game is a natural target for hackers. A Chinese hacker, nicknamed The Troll, has come up with the Reamde virus. It infects the hard drives of T'Rain players and encrypts their files. In order to get their files back, the player has to travel to a certain location in the T'Rain universe and leave some gold there. The genius of the T'Rain game is that players can amass gold in the game universe and somehow get it into the real world. The Reamde virus turns into blackmail on a world-wide scale.

Peter is a low-level hustler and computer security expert who has a stolen list of credit card numbers to sell. He's also a T'Rain player. He sells the list to someone working for a Russian mobster but the flash drive he used for the transfer is infected with Reamde. Worse yet, the buyer's hard drive also gets infected and he has files which are very valuable to his boss. They go into the game only to find that the place they need to drop the gold and get the decryption key is a free-for-all of thousands of players trying to do the same thing and thousands of other players trying to rob them.

Peter and his girlfriend, an African girl named Zula, end up kidnapped by the Russians who take them to China to find The Troll. Zula just happens to be the adopted niece of Richard Forthrast.

In China, the Russians plan an assault on the The Troll but end up in a fire-fight with a Muslim terrorist group headed by the notorious Abdulla Jones a black Welshman, turned Muslim, who is being tracked by the British secret service. Then the story gets complicated.

Although Stephenson is primarily a science fiction writer, this book is not science fiction. It is a thriller set in today's world. The computer game stuff is a bit beyond what is actually doable on today's Internet but not so outlandish you won't accept it.

There is also a lot of humor in the book. It's not meant to be funny but Stephenson has a lot of clever ways of describing a scene which help to make the read even more enjoyable. There are also some situations which are meant to be funny, or at least ironical. There is a section where Richard is telling about the early days of T'Rain. They had had a fantasy writer involved to set the original story rolling. They later hired a second writer who was also a language expert. He wanted it explained to him why so many place names and character names had apostrophes in them. There was no explanation of course, it just looked cool to the original writer. The new writer got rid of as many names with apostrophes as he could. In game history, this was forever after known as the Apostropocalypse.

2011 Panini Americana

2011-12-21T12:00:00.000-06:00

This set by Panini (formerly Donruss) has been around for a few years. I've even bought a few packs before. It never fails to disappoint. Obviously, Panini wouldn't have trotted this out in 2011 unless it has made money in the past. Who buys this set? I only bought 2 packs ($2.99 for 5 cards) so I don't have a good sample, but it looks like other years. The set is a random collection of minor actresses and actors posed in front of a dull gray background. There were two cards featuring former astronauts in my packs to provide a bit of variety. The collection of people on these cards is so random, I wouldn't have been surprised to find a card featuring me.

Last week I showed some Topps American Pie cards. I like those cards a whole lot better than this Panini set. The Panini cards are a bit shiner and have some gold foil on the front. But the American Pie cards are a much nicer design and actually feature people and things I might want to own.

Here are the 10 cards I have.

First up in this Americana set is British (?) actor John Hurt. You may remember him as the Elephant Man. Me, I always confuse him with William Hurt.

My first astronaut. Personally, I think being an astronaut is one of the top five careers in the world. But there have been a lot of astronauts. What is so special about Barbara Morgan? Apparently she is the third most known woman astronaut, which is too far down the list for me to know her. She was a mission specialist on STS-118 in August 2007. She was also the back-up for Christa McAuliffe and it you don't know who she is, look it up.

God help us, it's Pamela Anderson. Are we tired of her yet?

Randal Kleiser is best known as the producer of the movie adaption of Grease. That was in 1978. As in over 30 years ago. Not exactly a household name, unless you last name is Zuko.

Walt Cunningham, my other astronaut. He was the pilot of the Lunar Module on the Apollo 7 mission, the last Apollo mission not to go to the moon. He's now a talk-show host.

It's that super kid from the TV show Heroes! As near as I can tell he hasn't done much since. But he's only 16 years old so he's got plenty of time to learn how to be an ex-child star.

Linda Evans. Wasn't she on the TV show Dallas? No? Oh, she was on that other big 1980s prime time soap opera I also never watched, Dynasty.

James Duval. I was completely stumped until I looked him up on Wikipedia. He played Frank in the 2001 movie Donnie Darko. I happened to see this movie for the first time a few months ago but still didn't recognize him. He has appeared in a remarkably long list of movies that I never heard of since then.

Hey, Hey, I'm a Monkee! Or at least a Monkee's daughter. According to Wikipedia she is a producer and actress with a long string of obscure (at least to me) credits.

This Linda Hamilton card is from an insert set called "Prime Time Stars". This is one unattractive card, not any fault of Linda. All the empty space on the left is for either a relic or an autograph.

I can imagine that there are people out there who might want one of these cards. Perhaps you are just gaga over the space program and you collect anything even remotely having to do with it. Or if you collect Monkees memorabilia, stuff featuring children of the Fabricated Four may be hard to come by. But really, except out of curiosity, why would anyone buy a box of this stuff.

Night at the Movies - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

2011-12-20T14:24:00.000-06:00

There haven't been many movies lately in the theaters we've wanted to see. But between now and Christmas there are a few we want to see but probably won't have time. We kicked off the holiday movie season with the new Sherlock Holmes movie. We all liked the first movie in the series and the trailers for this release looked pretty good.

It is not a real great movie but if you liked first one, you'll most likely like this one. The story is confusing, at best, and not very original. I really didn't like Downey's portrayal of Holmes in the first movie and don't much care for it here either. If you haven't seen the first movie, the opening scene will be meaningless. If you didn't see the first movie, or didn't like the first movie, I'd stay away from this.

There are some good set action pieces, although I'm a bit tired of the slow-mo in these scenes. The scenes where Holmes plays the outcome of his actions in his head were even more confusing than in the first movie.

If they make a third movie they should feature quite a bit more of Dr. Watson's (Jude Law) new wife (Kelly Reilly). She was engaging in what little they gave her to do. She was apparently in the first movie but I don't remember her.

The end of the movie takes place in an improbable castle built on the side of an improbably mountain with an improbable waterfall gushing out of it. If you've read the Sherlock Holmes stories, you can guess what's going to happen as soon as you see the waterfall.

Random Cards of the Week

2011-12-19T12:00:00.000-06:00

2011 is rapidly coming to a close. I've been doing a feature all year where I feature baseball birthday's of the week. This was really just an excuse to show off my collection. I need another gimmick for 2012. After not being able to think of anything better, I thought of this. Just featuring 10 random cards from my collection. My card images are basically numbered in the order they were put into my card images database. I scan all my cards at a resolution which results in an image about 50% larger than the actual card. So you can click on any of the images and get a closer look.

My other thought was to do a weekly post featuring debut dates. I could probably do both. Does anybody have any thoughts?

Card #20947
1994 Fleer #584 Wes Chamberlain

Card #23956
2001 Topps Gallery #67 Moises Alou

Card #25108
2010 Bowman Platinum #57 Martin Prado

Card #25265
2011 Topps #176 Daniel Hudson

Card #31034
1994 Ultra Award Winners #20 Barry Bonds

Card #12211
1993 Upper Deck #253 Jeff Bagwell

Card #25657
2011 Topps Heritage #7 Carlos Beltran

Card #29892
2011 Topps Update #117 Michael Stutes

Card #4725

2005 Donruss Team Heroes #113 Todd Helton

Card #2234
2004 Bazooka #50 Albert Pujols

Song of the Week - Road to Cairo by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & Trinity

2011-12-18T11:11:00.000-06:00

I've featured Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger before. I was actually looking for something else by them but found this instead. The song was written by a guy name David Ackles. I actually have the Ackles first album David Ackles which features this song. I love this version by Driscoll and Auger. From 1968.

Baseball Birthdays December 11-17

2011-12-17T12:00:00.000-06:00

December 11

Derek Bell 1996 Fleer Road Warriors #1

Bell came to the Astros in December 1994 as part of a massive 12-player deal with the Padres. In 5 years with the Astros he batted .284 with 74 home runs.

December 12

Ervin Santana 2008 Topps Dick Perez #24

In 7 years with the Angels, Ervin has compiled an 87-67 record with an ERA of 4.22. He's signed through 2013.

December 13

Larry Doby 1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes #47

Larry was the second black player in major league baseball and the first in the American League. He made his debut with the Indians in 1947. He played for the Indians for 9 of his 13 years and was a 7-time All-Star. He was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1998.

December 14

Craig Biggio 2002 Diamond Kings Diamond Cut Collection #83

Craig spent his entire 20-year career with the Astros. He came to the majors as a catcher but moved to 2nd base after a few years. He also played some outfield. He has a career batting average of .281, he hit 291 home runs and stole 414 bases. He was also an outstanding defensive second baseman. He retired in 2007 so will be eligible for the Hall of Fame next year. I expect him to enter on the first ballot.

December 15

Mo Vaughn 1996 Leaf Hats Off #4

Hit Dog was the Red Sox #1 draft pick in 1989. He played with Craig Biggio at Seton Hall University. He hit .293 in his 12- career with 382 home runs. He was with the Red Sox for 8 years and then signed an enormous contract with the Angels. Apparently the Red Sox weren't sorry to see him go. He was eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2008 but only received 1.1% of the votes and was dropped from the ballot.

December 16

Billy Ripken 1992 Ultra #10

Cal's little brother had a fairly non-distinguished 12-year career in the majors. He is perhaps best known for his 1989 Fleer baseball card with an obscenity written on the bat knob. If you're one of the handful of collectors who haven't see this card, take a look here.

December 17

Chase Utley 2008 UD A Piece of History Box Score Memories Red #43

Finally, a Phillie. Chase was the Phillies #1 pick in 2000 and has played 9 years for the Phillies. He is an excellent 2nd baseman and pretty good at the plate. There is considerable concern in Philadelphia over his physical condition. He has spent parts of the last few seasons hurt.

2011 Topps American Pie

2011-12-15T17:21:00.000-06:00

This is at least the third edition of Topps American Pie. The other two were in 2001 and 2002. For all I know this product comes out every year but I don't think so. The past years cards were mostly baseball players while this set is mostly not. The set is not listed at Beckett.com and I really don't feel like expending too much effort. The cards seem to be separated by decade, probably starting in the 1940s. I only bought two 6-card packs so I'll post them all. Early next week I post 2 packs of Panini Americana for comparison and contrast.

Of the 12 cards I got, this is the only one related to baseball. You can hardly go wrong with a Jackie Robinson card.

OK, this one is ridiculous. These shocked women appear to be reading a tabloid newspaper. Is that how the Kinsey report was published? According to the back of the card Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was a bestseller. I kind of doubt that women gathered together to read it aloud to each other.

What this set is all about is American cultural icons and there are few more iconic than the Muppets of Sesame Street. This is, of course, before they all became Communists.

The Saturday Evening Post was still being published in the 1960s? Who knew? You would think they could have used a cover from the 1960s instead of this cover from 1903.

Star Trek, of course, got it's start in the 1960s but this picture is from, as you should well know, the making of Star Trek, The Motion Picture which came out in 1979. Gene Roddenberry is the guy behind the camera, the pointing guy is the movie director, Robert Wise. I'm not sure who the pointy-eared guy is.

The television mini-series Roots was one of the biggest television events of the 1970s.

The dumbest card in the two packs. According to the back of the card, this is the actual bar code from an actual 10-pack of Wrigley's (hey, another baseball connection) Juicy Fruit sold in Ohio in 1974. The pack is now in the Smithsonian. I'd like to see the chain of custody on that exhibit.

Giant icon of course. An American icon? He did live here for quite awhile and was killed here. I still remember when I heard the news.

More Muppets!

An unfortunate sad note to end with.

In addition to the 10 base cards I got two insert cards. The wrapper lists a bunch of inserts including numbered foil board parallels, cards with autographs and relics and cards with coins embedded in them. I guess they had a lot of change left over when they finished the Topps Heritage set. I got two cards from the insert set called Topps American Pie Hirsute History. My question is, who's stupid idea was this?

Sideburns! This looks like Robert Redford to me. General Burnsides is mentioned on the back along with more modern wearers of sideburns like Elvis Presley and Luke Perry. I still think this is Redford even though he is not mentioned on the back of the card.

I wouldn't have thought you could fill up the entire back of a card writing about the soul patch. Who is this guy? The back mentions Rush front man Geddy Lee and Olympic speed skating champion Apolo Ohno. It is surely not Geddy Lee. It sort of looks like Ohno but it sort of looks like a young Jeff Bridges as well.

Song of the Week - In Your Arms by Kina Grannis

2011-12-11T12:00:00.000-06:00

Normally I like to feature songs that I have in my iTunes, but I'm going to make an exception in this case. This video was featured on the Time Magazine site as one of the top 10 creative videos of the year. It's a fantastic piece of work. The background is made of jelly beans. Over 280,000 were used in the creation of the video. And the song's pretty good too. A making of video is available here.

Baseball Birthdays December 4-10

2011-12-10T13:41:00.000-06:00

December 4

Lee Smith - 1992 Topps Kids #28

I can never hear Lee Smith's name without hearing Harry Kalas saying "Big Lee Smith". Smith played for the Cubs, the Red Sox, the Cardinals, Yankees, Orioles, Angels, Reds and Expos. I mainly remember him with the Cardinals in the early 1990s. He is second all time in saves with 478.

December 5

Cliff Floyd - 2000 Pacific Omega Platinum Blue #56

Cliff looked like he was going to be a great player when he first came up with the Expos in 1993. Injuries throughout his career have perhaps stopped him from being the megastar he might have been. He had a pretty good career anyway, playing for 17 years with a career batting average of .278 and 233 home runs.

December 6

Larry Bowa - Topps #233

One of my favorite cards, it was signed by Bowa for me in the early 1990s. Larry played for the Phillies from 1970 through 1981 and was known as one of the best shortstops of his day. After his playing career he became a manager and coach. Always a fiery competitor, his temper and lack of patience made his managing stints (including with the Phillies) shorter than maybe they should have been.

December 7

Johnny Bench - 2003 Sweet Spot Classic Patch Card

Johnny was an integral part of the Big Red Machine in Cincinnati in the 1970s. His list of accomplishments is impressive: 14-time All Star; 10-time Gold Glove; 1968 NL Rookie of the Year
1970; 1972 NL Most Valuable Player; 1970 TSN Player of the Year; 1975 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award; 1976 NL Babe Ruth Award; 1976 WS MVP; and 1981 Hutch Award. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1989.

December 8

Mike Mussina - 1996 Bowman's Best Mirror Image Refractor #9

Mike was the Orioles #1 draft pick in 1990. He played for them from 1991 through 2000 and then played another 8 years for the Yankees. With a career record of 270-153, he seems a shoo in for the Hall.

December 9

Juan Samuel - 1985 Philadelphia Phillies Police #1

Samuel came up with the Phillies in 1983 and was traded to the Mets during the 1989 season. During his Phillies career he hit .268 and hit 100 home runs. He also struck out 835 times, leading the National League in strike outs in from 1984 to 1987.

December 10

Pedro Florimon - 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects #25

No real big name players were born on this date so we'll go with the youngest. Pedro was born in 1986 and he made is debut on 9/10/11. He has one hit (a double) in 8 at bats.

Song of the Week - Here We Are Juggernaut by Coheed and Cambria

2011-12-04T12:00:00.000-06:00

I almost never listen to the radio anymore. I get new music from a couple of daily podcasts, recommendations from my daughter and CDs from the library. Consequently, I have a lot of stuff that I like, but I have no conception of whether or not the performers are popular or get air play. Not that this bothers me, as my musical tastes have always run away from pop radio.

I picked up an album called The Second Stage Turbine Blade by Coheed and Cambria earlier this year at the library. It mostly seems like heavy metal to me which is not a genre I particularly like, but there were clearly other influences at work in this album and it appeals to me. Wikipedia calls them progressive, but that term has undergone a lot of revision since the days of late 60s and early 70s bands like Yes and Pink Floyd. They've been around since 1995 so they must have some sort of following. Is this sort of music played much on radio these days?

When I decided to feature something by them I found this.

The science fiction aspects of the video were interested so I looked them up on Wikipedia. Second Stage is their first of 5 albums, all revolving a central science fiction theme called The Armory Wars. A series of comic books and a full-length novel also work out the story. I've not listened to the album in any coherent way (I just hear tracks when iTunes decides to play one) so I had no idea there was a story setting.

Baseball birthdays November 27 - December 3

2011-12-02T20:22:00.001-06:00

November 27

Ivan Rodriguez: 2009 Topps Update #1

It's hard to believe but Pudge has just completed his 21st year in the majors. He's currently a free agent but there is apparently a lot of interest in him, even though he missed a lot of time in 2011 with an injury. He has a career .296 batting average and 311 home runs and has played all those years as a catcher. He only played for the Astros for a few months but I picked this card because it is such an odd photo.

November 28

Sixto Lezcane: 1985 Donruss #529

There are literally no big time players born this date. When facing this situation, I like to either go with a player with an unusual name or a Phillie. Here I get both. Sixto played about half of his 12-year career with the Brewers. He played for the Phillies in 1983 and 1984.

November 29

Mariano Rivera: 2000 Upper Deck MVP Second Season Standouts #2

The Sandman has played his entire 17-year career with the Yankees. He's one of the most celebrated players currently playing. He holds the career record for saves with 603 and the career record for games finished with 883. He's a 12-time All-Star. I could go on but I'm running out of space.

November 30

Shane Victorino: 2008 Upper Deck Documentary Gold #1708

The Flyin' Hawaiian was drafted by the Dodgers in 1999 and came to the Phillies through the Rule 5 draft. He's played 7 years in Philadelphia and he is a big fan favorite there.

December 1

Walter Alston

I don't have any cards featuring Walter Alston but he is by far the most famous baseball person born this date. He managed the Dodgers from 1954 through 1976 amassing a 2040-1613 record, including 4 World Series Championships. And here is a trivia question for you. Name the Hall of Famer who has the fewest at bats of any player in the Hall. It's Walter Alston. He had one at bat with the Cardinals in 1936. He struck out.

December 2

Darryl Kile: 1995 Collector’s Choice Special Edition Silver #41

Darryl had a career 133-119 record over 12 years. He spent the first 7 years with the Astros, 2 years with the Rockies and 3 years with the Cardinals. He was a well liked player and his death of a heart attack in 2002 (at age 33) was devastating to his Cardinal teammates. All three of his former teams have a "DK 57" memorial in their stadiums.

December 3

Clay Dalrymple: 1964 Topps #191

Clay played for 12 years, the first 9 with the Phillies. He was their everyday catcher from 1961 through 1968. In 1963 he lead the National League in both stolen bases allowed (56) and runners thrown out (50). I wasn't a baseball fan when I was a kid and Dalrumple is one of the few Phillies I remember from the early 1960s.

2011 Baseball Card Review - Batting cards

2011-12-01T12:00:00.000-06:00

The 2011 baseball card season is just about over. I will probably buy a blaster of Bowman Draft if I see one but not much else. I bought (or traded for) 2,944 different cards this year, up from 2,313 in 2010. The difference is mostly the extra 500-card box of Topps Update I got from an eBay dealer. By my count, there were 54,564 different cards released in 2011. That's up from 48,641 in 2010. The counts were derived from Becket.com and I have no idea how accurate they are. When I scan cards, I categorize them by the picture.

Here's a sampling of cards featuring players at the plate.

Batting Stance: Topps All-Star Set #11 Ryan Braun

Is it my imagination or does Braun use an enormous bat?

Broken bat: Topps #233 Ramon Hernandez

I love broken bat cards. This is the only one I got this year.

Bunting: Topps #284 Reid Brignac

Not a lot of bunting cards this year either. This is the best one I have. I presume the ball is heading away from his bat, otherwise this would be a pretty poor bunt attempt.

Swinging:
Topps #100 Albert Pujols

Topps Update #6 Prince Fielder

There are a lot of cards featuring players swinging. I decided to go with a couple of big men just letting it fly. Prince really is swinging for the fences as it's the Home Run Derby.

Leaving the box: Bowman #135 Chris Young

For me, the classic leaving the box shot. The player is just starting to run and the bat is just out of his hand.

Stretching: Topps Update #55 Anthony Rizzo

This is a photo you don't see much of and usually it's Ryan Howard. Not a lot of players do this at the plate.

2011 Mike Schmidt Cards

2011-11-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

I mentioned in a recent post that there were only 161 Mike Schmidt cards issued this year. Still way too many to realistically acquire. I've got 13 of them, all but a couple of which I had to acquire on eBay. Here's the lot.

Topps #50

One of the veteran short-prints. I kind of like this idea. eBay for $10.65.

Topps 60 Years of Topps Original Backs #23

eBay $4.99

Topps 60 Years of Topps Reprints

I pulled this version from a blaster.

Topps Kimball Champions #62

Another card pulled from a blaster. I really like these Kimball Champions cards.

Topps Manufactured Glove Leather Nameplate

I think these are kind of goofy but I only paid $1.25 for it including shipping.

Topps Prime 9 Player of the Week Refractors #5

This is from a series that was available as part of a redemption through dealers. I got it with the Nameplate card, paid $1.25 for it as well.

Topps Diamond Anniversary HTA #16

I featured this recently. I got it from Padrographs. I didn't know these cards existed until I saw this one.

Topps Lineage #53

Another $1.25 special in the same purchase as the Nameplate and the Player of the Week.

Topps Stickers #290

The first card from this set I acquired. $3.49 on eBay.

Topps Tribute #75 (Base and Blue)

I got these on eBay in one lot for $4.49 each.

Topps Tribute Relics Dual Green

Probably my favorite Schmidt acquisition this year. Numbered 62/76, $10.61 on eBay.

Upper Deck Goodwin Champions #112

Song of the Week: When The Day Is Short by Martha Wainwright

2011-11-27T12:00:00.000-06:00

Martha's parents are Louden Wainwright III and Kate McGarriggle. Her brother is Rufus Wainwright. She's got plenty of talent of her own. This is from her 2005 eponymous album Martha Wainwright.

Baseball Birthdays: November 20-26

2011-11-26T12:00:00.000-06:00

November 20

Jay Johnstone - 1975 Topps #242

Jay had a 20-year career in baseball. He was with the Phillies from 1974-78 but also played for the Angels, White Sox, A's, Yankees, Padres, Dodgers, and Cubs. He was known as a big clubhouse prankster. I remember when he was in Philly, that he used to wear an umbrella hat during pre-game workouts.

November 21

Stan Musial - 2003 Topps Shoebox #23

This week was Stan the Man's 91st birthday! Wow.

November 22

Greg Luzinski - 2001 SP Legendary Cuts Debut Game Bat

Greg was the Phillies #1 draft pick in 1968. He played 11 years with the Phillies and another 4 for the White Sox. He hit 307 career home runs.

November 23

Jonathan Papelbon - 2009 SP Legendary Cuts #58

The newest Phillie.

November 24

Ben McDonald - 1990 Donruss Rookies #30

The Orioles #1 pick in 1989, he was one of the hottest names in the hobby in 1990.

November 25

Joe DiMaggio - 1992 Score DiMaggio

Joltin' Joe DiMaggio. 56-game hitting streak. Once married to Marilyn Monroe. Shilled for Mr. Coffee.

November 26

Hugh Duffy - 2011 Tri-Star Obak #13

Sir Hugh set the single season batting average record in 1894, batting .440. He also hit 18 home runs, and batted in 145 runs that year to win the Triple Crown.

2001 Topps Update trade success

2011-11-25T08:52:00.001-06:00

Last week I posted that I had all by 16 of the cards from this set. Three trades later and I'm down to only needing three. A link to what I need is on the right sidebar. I've still got plenty of duplicates. Or make me an offer and I'll see what I can do.

So thanks to Greg (the Night Owl), Rich (dawgbones), and Ryan G. my unplanned set collection of 2011 Topps Update is nearly complete. Here's what I got. See if you notice something unusual.

Very cliche pose. Only sluggers are allowed to use it. Fielder qualifies.

I always like a card which features another player in a back-up roll. That's Willie Bloomquist of the D-Backs.

The missing card I was most coveting. My only Pence as a Phillie card.

Got one out in the NLDS, gave up 4 runs.

Not the AL Rookie of the Year.

I never really understood the deal with this guy when he was a Cub. Still don't.

Matt with two of his buddies.

He looks like he forgot to put in his dentures.

Did you notice that 9 of the 11 cards are horizontally oriented? I don't know what the percentage of cards in the set are horizontal but I sure it's nowhere near 82%.

Cards from Padrographs

2011-11-21T12:00:00.000-06:00

I've been writing this blog now for almost 4 years. There have been two unexpected pleasures from doing this. One is the opportunity to make trades with other collectors. Really, that hadn't occurred to me when I started. Since card shops are near to non-existent here in the Houston area, I never meet other collectors. The other is that sometimes, someone will just send me some cards in the mail. I got a package from Rod at Padrographs the other day. He's in the midst of a Card Givaway. You should check it out. Rod didn't take part in my 2011 Summer Clearance Trade (my way of clearing out cards I don't want) so I've got a pile of Padres cards to send him. Here are my favorites from what he sent.

2010 Topps Turkey Red #23 Mike Schmidt

I love the Turkey Red cards and I long for all cards Schmidt so this was particularly nice to get. If Beckett.com is to be believed, there were 222 Mike Schmidt cards issued in 2010. Way to many to keep track of. Now I've got 10 of them.

2003 Donruss Estrellas #37 Jeff Bagwell

Jeff Bagwell is another one of my vary favorite players. I had 3 Phillies cards from this set but no Astros. Back in 2003, we still had Donruss, Fleer, Topps and Upper Deck making cards. Although there was a bewildering amount of choice, on retrospect, it was better than today when there is no choice. It's Topps or the highway. There were 634 Bagwell cards in 2003, but I've got 23 of them.

2011 Bowman Chrome Futures #12 Jonathan Singleton

2011 Bowman Chrome Refractor #77 Hunter Pence

Hunter is, of course, now a Phillie. One of the players that the Phillies gave to the Astros in return was Singleton.

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Mini #47 Jimmy Rollins

Gypsy Queen was one of my favorite releases in 2011. I only had one other Phillie Gypsy Mini and I don't have the regular sized Rollins, so this card is perfect.

2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary HTA #16 Mike Schmidt

Another Schmidt card! I'm doing slightly better on Schmidt cards this year. There are only 161 of them and I've got 13. Still a long way to go.

Song of the Week - Midnight Cowboy by Ferrante & Teicher

2011-11-20T12:00:00.000-06:00

This is a bit of a departure from what I usually feature but this is a great song (the theme song from the 1969 movie with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight). F&T were a great piano duet who released almost 100 albums over a 60+ year span. They did a lot of albums of movie music. I own one of their records, 1967's The Piano Artistry of Ferrante & Teicher. It is one of the oldest records I own, probably bought it in 1968 or 1969. I don't remember now why I bought it, but I'm sure I'd seen them on TV many times. I used to play the record all the time. A couple of years ago, my wife bought me a USB turntable which allows me to digitize old LP records. This was one of the first ones I did because I hadn't listened to it for probably 20 years. I still like it.

Baseball Birthdays November 13-19

2011-11-19T12:00:00.000-06:00

November 13

2011 Bowman Topps 100 #25 Arodys Vizcaino

I did a post earlier in the week on young players and missed this guy. He made his debut on August 12, 2011 and went 1-1 in 17 appearances for the Braves. He was born in 1990.

November 14

1995 Score Platinum #163 Curt Schilling

Curt was born in Anchorage Alaska in 1966. A sure Hall of Famer.

November 15

2006 Bowman Heritage Mini #221 Craig Hansen

You would think, with as many baseball players that have been born over the years, that there would be at least one big name player born on each day of the year. Not so, which is why I'm using Craig Hansen, Red Sox 1st round pick in 2005 for today.

November 16

1984 Topps Traded #42 Dwight Gooden

Born in 1964, the Mets #1 Draft Pick in 1982, was 17-9 with a 2.60 ERA in his debut season with the Mets in 1984.

November 17

1971 Topps #72 Tom Seaver

Tom Terrific was born in 1944. He was 311-205 in his 20-year career and elected into the Hall of Fame in 1992.

November 18

1987 Topps #518 Gene Mauch

Skip was born in 1925 and was an infielder from 1944 to 1957 appearing in only 304 games. He started his 27-year career as a manager in 1960 with the Phillies. He also managed the Expos, Twins, and Angels. His career record as a manager is 1902 wins vs. 2037 loses. He passed away in 2005.

November 19

1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes #11 Roy Campanella

Born in 1921 in Philadelphia Campy graduated from Simon Gratz High School. All the cool cats went to Simon Gratz, or so I heard when I lived in Philly. Campy played for the Dodgers from 1948 to 1957. His career was cut short on 1/28/58 when he was paralyzed as the result of an automobile accident. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969. He died in 1993.

League Realignment

2011-11-18T07:50:00.001-06:00

It pretty much looks like a done deal. The Astros will be moving to the American League West. In 2013, the alignment would look like this:

The Astros finished the 2011 season 40 games out in the NL Central. If they'd been in the AL West, they still would have been 40 games out. I've been a National League man all my life but I can accept one of my two favorite teams moving to the AL, as long as it isn't the Phillies moving. This past season, with the Phillies doing so well, and Phillies games available on MLB.com, I hardly paid any attention to the Astros.

Watching them on TV will be a bit easier. Now, all 5 teams in the NL West are 1 to 2 hours behind. In the AL, only 3 teams will be west of the Astros. For me, the novelty of seeing the Astros play American League teams I hardly ever see will probably be enough to keep me interested for awhile, but the team will have to be better to sustain any interest.

Youngest players in 2011

2011-11-16T12:00:00.000-06:00

I thought I did this feature last year but I can't find the post. So a new tradition begins this year. I've been informally tracking the age of the youngest player for years. My original benchmark was a player born after my oldest son in 1984. Guys born in 1984 are practically veterans now. The youngest players this year were born in 1991. Here are the youngest players in the big leagues this year, all born after in 1990 or later.

2011 Tri-Star Obak #88 Mike Trout

Born on 8/7/91, Mike debuted with the Angels on 7/811, at only 19 years old. He was the Angel's #1 draft pick in 2009. He appeared in 33 games hitting .220. In 2010 he was considered the top prospect in baseball.

2011 Topps Update #174 Jacob Turner

Jacob was born on 5/21/91 and made his debut with the Tigers on 7/30/11. Another #1 draft pick in 2009. He appeared in 3 games, losing 1. He has a major league contract with the Tigers for $5.5 million.

2011 Topps Update #152 Julio Teheran

Born on 1/27/91, Julio made his debut with the Braves on 5/7/11. He was up and down with the Braves several times in 2011, making 3 starts and compiling a 1-1 record and a 5.03 ERA.

2011 Topps Update #132 Jose Altuve

Jose was born on 5/6/90 and made his debut with the Astros on 7/20/11. He is one of a number of young players who saw action with the Astros this year. On 8/20, he led off a game with an inside-the-park home run.

2010 Bowman Chrome #211 Starlin Castro

Starlin was born on 3/24/90 and made his debut with the Cubs on 5/7/10. A second year player, he looks like the real deal so far with a .304 batting average over 283 career games. He made the All-Star game in 2011. Defense may be an issue as he led all major league short stops in 2011 with 29 errors.

2011 Topps Update #282 Brad Hand

Brad was born on 3/20/90 and made his debut with the Marlins on 6/7/11. He made 12 starts for the Fish, with a 1-8 record and a 4.20 ERA.

2011 Tri-Star Obak #76 Randall Delgado

Randall was born on 2/9/90 and made his debut with the Braves on 6/17/11. He was up from the minors several times, making 7 starts for the Braves. He was 1-1 with an impressive 2.83 ERA in 35 innings.

2011 Topps Update #9 Jose Iglesias

Jose just squeaked into this group being born in 1/5/90. He made is debut with the Red Sox 5/8/11. He spent most of the season down on the farm, getting only 6 at bats with Boston.

2011 Topps Update Series Trades Wanted

2011-11-15T12:40:00.000-06:00

In this post, I told how I came to own two 500-card hobby boxes of 2011 Update Series. Although I don't normally collect sets, I though, with this two boxes, in addition to the blaster and some rack packs I already had, surely I'd end up with the whole set. After I got through the first box, I needed only 40 cards to complete the set. When I got through the second box, I only needed 16 cards to complete the set. Really, two 500-card boxes was not enough to get the whole set?

If you are trying to complete the set, I've got duplicates, lots of duplicates. Here are the 16 cards I need: 21 (Prince Fielder); 37 (Rick Ankiel), 53 (Koji Uehara); 88 (Orlando Cabrera); 92 (Hunter Pence); 108 (Ulbado Jimenez); 114 (Lance Lynn); 138 (Michael Young); 170 (Brad Ziegler); 188 (Eric Hosmer); 195 (Joey Votto); 227 (Kosuke Fukudome); 247 (Zack Cozart); 260 (Matt Holliday); 294 (Edwin Jackson); 297 (Chase D'Arnaud). Please make me an offer.

Here are a few of my favorites.

He's out!

And he's out.

This Bud's for you.

A pitcher fielding, a rare card photo. At least I guess he's fielding. I presume the ball is under the All-Star logo.

I really like the framing of this photo.

Why do these guys look so awkward?

Great catch!

The happy winner of the Home Run Derby.

Steal of third?

Song of the Week - Maggie May by Rod Stewart

2011-11-13T12:26:00.000-06:00

Maybe it's turning 60, but old songs have been on my mind. I found a number of videos of Stewart doing this song recently and it doesn't work. This is a young man's song.

This song is from his solo album Every Picture Tells A Story. We used to always think that the chorus of the title track was "Every picture tells a story donuts". We wanted to buy story donuts in the worst way.

Baseball Birthdays: Nov. 6-12

2011-11-12T10:45:00.000-06:00

November 6

2011 Topps CMG Reprints #19: Walter Johnson

The Big Train, elected to the Hall of Fame in 1936. Appeared in 802 games in his 21-year career, winning 417 of them. He averaged 7.3 innings/game over his career.

November 7

1976 Topps Traded #80: Jim Kaat

Another long-lived pitcher. In his 25-year career, Kitty appeared in 898 games, about half in relief.

November 8

1992 Pinnacle #293: Dwight Smith

Smith was second in the 1989 voting for NL Rookie of the Year to his Cubs teammate Jerome Walton. And he could sing too!

November 9

2011 Topps Lineage 1975 Mini Relics: Bob Gibson

It was a good week for pitcher's birthdays. Gibby was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1981. Although not appearing in as many games in his 17-year career as Walter Johnson, he also averaged 7.3 innings/game.

November 10

1987 Classic Update Yellow #148: Jack Clark

Jack the Ripper was a classic home run hitter. He hit 340 home runs in his 18-year career, while striking out 1,441 times.

November 11

1999 Sports Illustrated #165: Damion Easley

Slim pickings for this date in baseball birthdays. Damion has had a 17-year career being a regular, dependable player. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

November 12

1999 Bowman's Best Franchise Best Mach I: Sammy Sosa

1999, the year that should be remembered as the greatest season long home run contest ever.

A 2004 Topps Cracker Jack Birthday

2011-11-09T13:01:00.000-06:00

The 2004 Topps Cracker Jack set is one of my favorite sets of all time. I've had a want lost posted since 2009. I've acquired a few cards due to that. Now, one of my best and oldest friends, Brian, looking for an inspiration for a birthday gift for me, checked my blog. And managed to find me 6 cards I needed. He also sent a mini card which I also needed.

But before we look at the Cracker Jacks, lets look at this card he also sent:

2003 Fleer Patchworks Past Present Future #8 Mike Schmidt, Scott Rolan and Eric Hinske

Two of my favorite 3rd basemen and some other guy. Brian and I disagree about Rolan but not Mike Schmidt. He took a total guess on this card and guessed right. Not only don't I have this card, I don't have any cards from this insert set.

2004 Topps Cracker Jack #87 Raul Ibanez

2004 Topps Cracker Jack #98 Carl Crawford

2004 Topps Cracker Jack #99 Reggie Sanders

2004 Topps Cracker Jack #161 Tony Batista

2004 Topps Cracker Jack #176 Aubrey Huff

2004 Topps Cracker Jack #201 Dioner Navarro

Only 30 cards until I have the entire set.

2004 Topps Cracker Jack Mini #35 Brian Giles

2011 Topps Update Series - More Good Stuff

2011-11-08T12:17:00.000-06:00

Here's some more good stuff I got from the 2 500-card hobby boxes I received last week.

Topps Update Diamond Anniversary (Legends Variation) #249a: Ozzie Smith

I love this card featuring O in an old-school Padres uniform, circa 1981.

Topps Update Black #105: Joel Hanrahan

The Black parallel cards have sort of a gun-metal gray border. They are numbered to 60. I pulled one from each box.

Topps Hope Diamond Anniversary #282: Buster Posey

Another new Diamond Anniversary parallel. Like the Cognac version, the Update Series also has the complete regular Topps set in this variation. This is from the regular Topps set. I pulled tow of these as well, both from the regular set. These are also numbered to 60.

Topps Update Cognac Diamond Anniversary #42: Frank Thomas

I think I'd rather see him in a White Sox uniform but I think that part of this Legends Variations gimmick is that the players are featured in uniforms you don't normally see them in. Is it too soon to be calling The Big Hurt a legend?

Topps Update Gold #330: Lance Berkman

Berkman spent the first 11 years of his career with my other team, the Astros. He was one of my favorite Astros. It was sad to see his performance last year but great to see him come back this year and help lead the Cardinals to the World Series. These cards are numbered to 2011 and there were 2 per 50-card pack.

Song of the Week - I'm Not The Man I Used To Be by Fine Young Cannibals

2011-11-06T12:18:00.000-06:00

FYC had two albums, 1985's Fine Young Cannibals and 1989's The Raw and the Cooked. This song is from the 1989 album. They had two big hits off that album "She Drives Me Crazy" and "Good Thing". "I'm Not The Man I Used To Be" is one of my favorites from the album. They broke up in 1992.

Baseball Birthdays October 30 - November 5

2011-11-04T19:51:00.001-05:00

October 30

1998 Pacific #389 Danny Tartabull

Tartabull had a pretty decent career which came to a somewhat ignominious end. After having made $5MM plus for several years he was a free agent at the end of the 1996 season. The offers he got were much below that lofty figure and he held out hoping for more. He finally signed with the Phillies in late February 1997 for a measly $2MM. In his 7th at bat for the Phillies he fouled a ball off his foot and broke it. End of career.

October 31

1993 Finest #106 Fred McGriff

The Crime Dog had a 19 year career with the Blue Jays, Padres, Braves, Devil Rays, Cubs and Dodgers, hitting 493 home runs. He is still in the hunt for the Hall of Fame.

November 1

1989 Upper Deck #656 Fernando Valenzuela

Here's a quote from his Wikipedia page: With his youthful charm, devastating Screwball, "Ruthian physique", and a connection with Los Angeles' large Latino community, Valenzuela touched off an early '80s craze dubbed "Fernandomania"

November 2

1979 Topps Burger King Phillies #7 Ron Reed

Reed had a 19-year career as a starter and reliever. He played for the Phillies from 1976 through 1983. He is one of only five pitchers in MLB history to have 100 wins, 100 saves and 50 complete games.

November 3

2005 Upper Deck Past Time Pennants #6 Bob Feller

Finally a Hall of Famer for the week. With a life time record of 266 wins against 162 losses, Rapid Robert (really?) was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1962. I don't remember hearing this but Feller passed away last year on December 15th at 92 years of age.

November 4
1985 Topps #134 Tito Francona

Perhaps best known these days as the father of Terry Francona.

November 5

2001 Topps Gold #140 Johnny Damon

Caveman is still going strong after 17 years in the majors.

2011 Topps Update Series Hobby Boxes

2011-11-03T21:23:00.001-05:00

I'd already bought a blaster box of Topps Update but decided to buy a hobby box on eBay. I won a bid on a 36-pack, 10-card per pack box at not a bad price. After a week, no cards so I sent the seller an email. After 2 weeks, no cards and no reply so I sent another email. A couple of days later I get a package from the dealer. It was much heavier than I expected. The box had two boxes with 10 50-card packs in each. Each box promised an autograph and 2 relics (just like the 36-pack box I had ordered). I sent another email to the seller, telling him what he sent. His reply was "You're welcome, and enjoy all the cards". Maybe my best eBay experience ever. Trade opportunities below.

Today I want to focus on the hits. There was indeed an autograph and two relics in each box. I got two Topps Update All-Star Stitches as follows.

Certainly nothing wrong with either of these players but I'm willing to trade either or both of them for the equivalent Phillies cards. That would be Halladay, Lee, Hamels, Polanco or Victorino. I'll also accept the Hunter Pence Astro card.

I'm a bit disappointed in the other relic cards.

I kind of like these cards but I already have two, Mike Schmidt and Hunter Pence. I'd be willing to trade either or both for the other Phillies in the set, Utley, Ashburn (I would give both of these for the Ashburn card), Howard, Halladay.

Both autos were the Topps Update Next 60 Autographs. And both were the same card.

As near as I can tell there are no Phillies in the set but there is one Astro, Brent Wallace. I'd be willing to trade one of these League cards for Wallace. Really, I'm willing to trade one of them for anybody else in the set.

I'll post more about these boxes next week. I won't be surprised if I end up with the whole set. There will be a lot of these cards in next summer's clearance trade.

Song of the Week - Time by Pink Floyd

2011-10-30T12:17:00.000-05:00

Having just turned the ripe old age of 60 this past week, time has been on my mind. I have a lot of songs with Time in their title.

All Kinds of Time - Fountains of Wayne

All Time High - Rita Cooledge

All Time Low - Widespread Panic

By the Time I Get to Phoenix - Glen Campbell

Come Down in Time - Elton John

Comes a Time - Neil Young

Dark Time - October Project

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? - Chicago

Every Time It Rains - Charlotte Martin

Good Times - Love

Good Times Roll - The Cars

Hard Times Are Over - John & Yoko

Haven't Got Time For The Pain - Carly Simon

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times - The Beach Boys

Long Time Coming - Delays

Long Time Gone - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

The Longest Time - Billy Joel

No Time - Frente!

No Time - The Guess Who

No Time Soon - Gnarls Barkley

No Time To Live - Brian Auger

Pledging My Time - Bob Dylan

Pony Time - Chubby Checker

Right in Time - Lucinda Williams

Time - The Alan Parsons Group

Time - David Bowie

Time - Hans Zimmer (Inception sound track)

Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper

Time and a Word - Yes

Time Has Come Today - The Chambers Brothers

Time Is - It's A Beautiful Day

Until It's Time For You To Go - Buffy Sainte-Marie

Who Knows Where The Time Goes? - Judy Collins

Just to name a few. But I decided to go with the classic Pink Floyd piece from Dark Side Of The Moon. I was 21 years old when this album came out. A newly minted adult, with all my future ahead of me. This song, about the end of long life has always been one of my favorites.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

Baseball Birthdays October 23-29

2011-10-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

October 23

2011 Greats of the Game Autographs

Bunning was a career 224-184 pitcher mainly with the Tigers and Phillies. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1996 by the Veteran's Committee. He chose to go into the hall as a Phillie.

October 24

2011 Topps Update #86 Rafael Furcal

I'm writing this on Friday afternoon still trying to get over Game 6 of the World Series. Furcal has played in 58 post season games. He came over to the Cardinals from the Dodgers in July.

October 25

2009 Sweet Spot #44 Pedro Martinez

Martinez ended his career going 5-1 for the 2009 Phillies. Unfortunately, he was 0-2 for the Phillies in the 2009 World Series against the Yankees. He is a future Hall of Famer for sure.

October 26

2003 Topps 205 #146 Richard 'Doc' Hoblitzell

Doc played from 1908 to 1918, for the Reds and then for the Red Sox. Not a particularly remarkable career but he does appear in two of my favorite baseball card sets of the 2000's, this set and the 2004 Topps Cracker Jack set.

October 27

2001 Bowman Heritage 1948 Reprints #3 Ralph Kiner

Not a lot of big talent born on my own birthday. But at least there is one Hall of Famer. Ralph led the NL in home runs from 1946 through 1952.

October 28

2000 Bowman Draft Picks #17 Chin-Feng Chen

Not a lot of talent on this date either. I decided to go with this guy mainly because of the card. Note the debut date of 00/00/00. Chen was a member of Taiwan's 1990 Little League World Series team but this didn't translate to success in the major leagues. He had all of 22 at bats in the majors, hitting .091.

October 29
1987 Fleer Baseball All Stars #2 Jesse Barfield

The late October talent drought continues. Certainly not a bad player, he did have a 12-year career and was an All-Star in 1986. He had a career .156 batting average but had some pop in his bat, hitting 241 home runs.

2011 Cards by Position - AL

2011-10-26T13:22:00.000-05:00

My favorite cards featuring fielding. American League players this time.

Pitcher
Like I commented on the NL post, no cards featuring pitchers fielding in this year's cards.

Catcher
2011 Topps #474 Jeff Mathis

This looks interesting. It looks like a force play at the plate and Mathis is hoping to get the batter at first for a double play.

First Base
2011 Bowman Gold #87 Adrian Gonzalez

If you look closely you can see the ball just about a foot above his glove.

Second Base
2011 Topps #526 Jason Donald

I don't remember seeing many rundown plays featured on a baseball card.

Shortstop
2011 Topps All-Star Set #AL17 Elvis Andrus

How do these guys avoid groin pulls on plays like this? Good conditioning, I suppose.

Third Base
2011 Topps #215 Edwin Encarnacion

Looks like a desperate, off-balance throw to somewhere.

Outfield
2011 Topps #101 Gregor Blanco

And that's why they have padding on the outfield walls.

2011 Topps #658 Mitch Maier

Mitch gets way up there. Too bad we can't tell if he actually caught the ball.

2011 Topps Throwback #252 Michael Saunders

Saunders took a homer away from somebody, assuming he held on to the ball.

2011 Cards by Position - NL

2011-10-24T12:59:00.000-05:00

Well, it's getting time to wrap up the 2011 collecting year. Let's start by featuring cards with fielding plays by position. I'll do the National League today and the American League next.

Pitcher

Cards feature pitchers fielding their position are pretty rare. I didn't get any, in either league, this year.

Catcher
2011 Topps Update #16 Wellington Castillo

Mister Castillo has only played in 11 games in his career but managed to be featured reaching desperately for a throw on this card.

First Base
2011 Topps #220 Todd Helton

I like the look of concentration on Helton's face as he takes a throw, probably to complete a double play.

Second Base
2011 Topps All-Black #298 Jeff Keppinger

Looks like Keppinger took a single away from somebody, assuming he got up in time and threw it to first.

Shortstop
2011 Topps Update #329 Dee Gordan

Lots of air underneath Dee Gordon on this play.

Third Base
2011 Topps #89 Placido Polanco

Always a tough play for a corner infielder, heading for the dugout while trying to haul in a pop up. At least Polanco will have some friendly hands to catch him if he goes over the rail.

Outfield
2011 Topps Gold #484 Gerardo Parra

Nice catch

2011 Topps #45 Hunter Pence

One of my favorite cards of the year. Hunter Pence appears to be running out of his shoes to make this catch.

2011 Topps #363 Aaron Rowand

Rowand prevents a double or worse with this great looking play.

Song of the Week - She's A Lady by John Sebastian

2011-10-23T12:14:00.000-05:00

This is a solo version of Sebastian on a TV show in 1970 (a silent Groucho Marks in the opening is a bonus). You can stop when David Steinberg comes out to chat. I always thought this was a Lovin' Spoonful song, but no, it's his first single after the band broke up in 1969.

Baseball Birthdays October 16-22

2011-10-22T10:01:00.000-05:00

October 16

1970 Topps #90 Tim McCarver

It's World Series time and everybody loves to listen to Tim.

October 17

2011 Goodwin Champions #181 Buck Ewing

Buck played from 1890 to 1897 for such teams as the Troy Trojans, the Cleveland Spiders and the Cincinnati Reds. He was the first player in major league history to hit 10 home runs in a season.

October 18

2008 Upper Deck Timeline #109 David Murphy

Speaking of the World Series, this guy's playing in it. He hit .333 in the ALDS, .412 in the ALCS but is hitless so far in the World Series.

October 19

2005 Fleer Patchworks Jersey Michael Young

Another guy in the current World Series. I hadn't intended that today's edition of Baseball Birthday's turn into a World Series celebration but it has.

October 20

1996 Topps #7 Mickey Mantle

In 1996, Topps "retired" #7. Since then, if the flagship Topps set has a card number 7, it's Mantle. I don't have a single Mantle card from when he was playing. I'll have to rectify that.

October 21

2011 Topps Kimball Champions #89 Whitey Ford

Another Hall of Famer and, of course, contemporary of Mickey Mantle. He had a 236-106 record over 16 years.

October 22

2009 Topps Heritage Mayo #15 Ichiro

A 28-year-old Rookie of the Year in 2001, Ichiro has been one of the best and most consistent players of the past decade. Now 38, he is perhaps slowing down a bit, hitting only .272 in 2011, the first year of his career he failed to hit over .300.

2011 Tristar Obak Mini T212

2011-10-18T20:08:00.001-05:00

Back in September I did a post on the regular sized cards from this set. I planned a post on the minis and here it is, finally. While there are 120 cards in the main set, there are only 24 minis. Since you get one per pack, maybe it wouldn't be too hard to collect them all. There are several parallels, blue brown, green and purple. Plus autos in various colors.

As far as I know there are not many post-career Ripken cards. This is the second I've gotten this year.

I'd like to think this was Nolan in an Astros uniform, considering the background similarity to the Astros uniforms when Ryan played in Houston. But I'm pretty sure that's a Rangers uniform. The number is the give away.

The background of some of these cards is rather fanciful. Here's Joe Carter hacking his was through the Canadian wilderness.

Zach had a pretty good rookie season with the Orioles, but I'm not sure he fits in well with the rest of this group of players.

Two Whitey Ford cards. He began his career in 1950 and then served with the Army in 1951-1952. Another great background. I'd say it was supposed to represent his early years, except that he grew up in Queens.

There are also 2 Stan Musial cards. After winning the World Series in 1944, Stan spend 1945 in the Navy.

2011 Topps Update Series

2011-10-17T08:16:00.000-05:00

This may be Part 1 of 2. I bought a blaster and a rack pack at Target but I've got a hobby box coming from eBay. It there is anything interesting in it I'll pull together another post.

What's to say about this set? You already know the design. But, since I'm writing this blog, I get to make some comments on it. Except for parallels, there don't seem to be any inserts new to the series. The inserts are just continuations of the inserts from Series 1 and 2, like Kimball Champions and Topps 60. There is also another series of Topps Town (groan).

Harry Blanco is still in baseball? Topps has taken this opportunity to include some players I haven't seen cards of in awhile. Nice picture.

There are lots of rookie cards. These are players who made their debut in 2011 but didn't make it into Topps Series 2.

Then there are cards which celebrate a rookie's debut.

There are All-Star cards.

And All-Star Home Run Derby cards. Do you get the feeling that Topps had to really pad this set to get to 330 cards?

This is also the red-bordered parallel set available in Target blasters. There were 2 packs of these in the box. I rather like them. There is a special parallel in Wal Mart blasters as well but I don't think I want that many more cards from the set to buy another blaster.

Of the 62 regular issue cards, there were only 4 cards I actually wanted to add to my collection: 2 Phillies (including the Roy Halladay All-Star), 1 Astro, and one player I collect (Scott Rolen). I'll keep all the rookies. The rest will be available in the 2012 Summer Clearance Trade.

And there is one more new parallel. the Cognac Diamond Anniversary.

There are not just Update Series parallels but parallels of Series 1 and 2 also. These don't look like too hard a pull, I got 5 of them, but only 3 of the original Diamond Anniversary parallels.

Song of the Week - Life on Mars by David Bowie

2011-10-16T07:41:00.000-05:00

Ziggy Stardust and The Thin White Duke are long gone. This performance was recorded in September 2005, one of his few live performance since he had emergency angioplasty for a blocked artery in his heart in June 2004. I must say he looks better at 64 than I would have expected.

Birthdays October 9-15

2011-10-15T11:13:00.000-05:00

My Saturday morning birthday series is back in a stripped down format. If you had a birthday last week, I hope it was a happy one.

October 9
2009 Goodwin Champions #63 Brian Roberts

Roberts has missed a lot of playing time the past two years due to recurring headaches.

October 10
2000 E-X Generation E-X #4 Pat Burrell

Phillies #1 draft pick in 1998. Now with the Giants.

October 11
1989 Topps #161 Gregg Olsen

The Orioles #1 pick in 1988. His 1989 cards were hot at the time.

October 12
1997 Ultra #525 Sid Fernandez

Known mainly as a Met, he spent the last few years with the Phillies and Astros. I have no idea what is going on in this picture.

October 13
1996 Pinnacle Aficionado Artist's Proofs #117 Trevor Hoffman

Retired last year with 601 saves, good for 2nd place on the all-time list.

October 14
2011 Tri-Star Obak #11 Tom Chaney

On September 12, 1962, Chaney struck out 21 batters over 16 innings as his Senators beat the Orioles 2-1. He averaged 7.6 Ks/9 innings pitched in 1962.

2011-10-14T13:00:00.000-05:00

My buddy Max sent me this in the mail yesterday.

Why you ask? Max asked and answered the same question.

Al Oliver had a pretty decent career. He played for 18 years and retired with a .303 batting average, 219 home runs and over 1300 rbis. He spent most of his career with the Pirates, winning the World Series with them in 1971. He was a 7-time All-Star. He bounced around a bit the last few years of his career, coming down for 28 games at the end of 1984 with the Phillies. He was traded to the Phillies on August 20, 1984 by the Giants, who got Kelly Downs in return. Although he played for the Dodgers and the Blue Jays in 1985, he appeared as a Phillies in the 1985 Fleer, Donruss and Topps sets.

I wonder what happened to his men's cologne collection?

2011 Topps Stickers

2011-10-13T17:16:00.001-05:00

I started collecting baseball cards in 1985. There were Topps and Panani stickers available then but I don't remember seeing them for sale. I've acquired a few of them in repacks but I'm not a big fan of the concept. Perhaps if I was 10 I'd like them better. But, I gotta have some. I picked up 10 packs at Target the other day. At only a dollar a pack it was hard to resist.

I don't know that I really like the foil cards. I had bought this Schmidt card previously on eBay. It looks like the foil cards are all past stars. I pulled Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth from the packs.

The design is simple, which is good on a smaller format. It has an '80s retro feel to me. The photography is good but there are no photos that really jump out at me. All though, here's one of a guy with glowing orange eyes.

Of the 80 stickers I got, only 2 were pitchers. Curious. Has anyone seen this?

Here's Ryan Braun of the Brewers for no other reason than that I'm rooting for the Brewers in the NLCS.

The team logo stickers, also done on foil, are pretty nice. There was a foil sticker in every pack, 6 were the logo stickers.

I don't have all of the 80 stickers in my database yet but I did find a couple of Topps Stickers/Gypsy Queen Photoshop Twins.

And...

Book Club - Flashback by Dan Simmons

2011-10-10T20:57:00.000-05:00

This book started off as a kind of scary future history, just 20 years from now. Although I thought it was pretty well written, and a pretty good story, the reason the author gives for the world being in such a mess was a bit hard for me to take.

Please read my review on Amazon. I'm currently reviewer #103,435 on Amazon. Please click the box which says my review was useful and help me to crack into the top 100,000 reviewers.

Song of the Week - My Body Is A Cage by Arcade Fire

2011-10-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Economist Paul Krugman's favorite band. What's not to like about a live performance featuring two french horns and people singing into megaphones?

Cardinals advance

2011-10-08T13:34:00.001-05:00

I hate sports postmortems. Let's just say that it doesn't matter how good your pitching is, you can't win if you don't score.

And it's going to be a long postseason with this image of Ryan Howard to remember.

Good luck to the Cardinals but I think I'll be rooting for the Brewers.

Song of the Week - Voices Carry by 'Til Tuesday

2011-10-02T11:06:00.003-05:00

I wanted to post something by Aimee Mann and this came up. Aimee Mann from a long time ago...

2011 National League Division Championship

2011-09-30T14:54:00.002-05:00

It's a Phillies fan's favorite time of the year. Here are the match-ups for the NLDS series against the Cardinals.

The Phillies have got their starting pitching just where they want it. Roy was 19-6 with a 2.35 ERA in 2011.

Both of these guys shine in the postseason. Yadier has a postseason BA of .315 in 32 games while Carlos is .280 in 41 games.

Ryan has 7 home runs and 27 RBIs in postseason while Albert (does anyone call him Al) has 12 ans 36.

Chase has a lot of postseason experience and hit 5 home runs in the 2009 World Series. Skip has only 2 postseason games under his belt.

Jimmy only has a combined .226 BA in 41 postseason games, but has 15 RBIs. Ryan has much less postseason experience.

Placido has a combined .273 postseason average with 13 RBI. I'm guessing that the right handed David will get the start against Halladay. He has no post season experience at all. He finished the 2011 season with a .297 average however.

Raul had a down season, sometimes being super hot and sometimes being super cold. Matt hit .296 for the season with 22 home runs.

Shane has scored 23 runs in 41 postseason games. Jon has no postseason experience but batted .297 this season.

Hunter came to the Phillies from the woe-begone Astros in late July and had an immediate impact. He drove in the winning run in the Phillies franchise setting 102nd win. This will be his first postseason series. Berkman, another former Astro, may be the comeback player of the year. He hit .301 for the Cards with 31 home runs. He is also a .320 hitter in postseason play with 32 RBIs.

Fairfield Authentic Memorabilia repack

2011-09-11T20:35:00.000-05:00

You've seen these in the big box stores.

Sometimes I just have to buy one. First, the memorabilia card.

I'm not a big fan of the 2010 Upper Deck jersey cards but this one features Chase Utley and has a stripe so I already feel like I got my money's worth.

The three packs were 2008 Upper Deck X, 2007 Fleer and 2007 Topps. Not among my favorite sets.

There were 8 base cards in the Fleer pack with two inserts. I had most of the cards already but I didn't have this one.

I'm happy with this since I collect Vlad.

The Topps pack was pretty much a waste of time. I did get this card which I didn't have.

Thorman was the Braves #1 draft pick in 2000 and I have his 2000 Bowman Draft Picks Autograph card, which, the last time I looked (several years ago) was booking at $80. Thorman hasn't played a game at the major league level since 2007 and has been on 5 different teams since then. If anyone wants to offer me $80 for the autograph card it's yours.

Then there was this.

A-Rod had something like 464 home runs heading into the 2007 season. That means there were 464 of these cards, one for each home run. There were only a handful of different photos used. I already had 214 and 215 which have the same photo as 213. Is this an insert set that anyone seriously chased?

I saved the 2nd best for last. This came out of the Upper Deck X pack.

Xponential 4! I had samples of 1, 2, and 3 (the only 3 I have is Ryan Howard). If I'm only going to have one of the 4s (and I don't expect to see another one) it might as well be Albert.