Interloping with the Upper Crust

Yesterday I made the trip to Chicago with my sister, Jane, and two good friends, Vince and Craig.  We were in possession of four tickets to the season ticket holder's year end meeting known as "Cubs On Deck 2015," but none of use are season ticket holders!  (Big hat tip to my buddy Jeff for gifting us the passes!)

The meeting started at noon and was held at the Oriental Theater in the heart of downtown Chicago.  The inside of the theater was pretty plush and after we cashed in our concession coupon we settled in for the 110 minute meeting.

 The stage featured a large video screen which was flanked by vertical banners.  On the right banner are the more established core pieces of the 2015 roster: Jake Arrieta, Starlin Castro, and Anthony Rizzo.  The left banner had three players of similar talent, but overall they are less proven to this point: Jorge Soler, Kyle Hendricks, and Javier Baez.

Mr. Kenney is a fine speaker, very well-educated within his position, and does a good job overall as the President of Baseball Operations.  He was unpopular within many Cubs blogging circles not so long ago, but that was mostly before Theo Epstein arrived. Since then Mr. Kenney has stuck to the business side of things and everyone I've talked to is much happier.

During the onset Mr. Kenney thanked the crowd, a thousand or so season ticket holders, for their patience the past few years.  Then he talked about the newer facilities in the Dominican Republic and Mesa, but he focused a large part of his time on the Wrigley renovation project and the upcoming television and radio broadcasting situations.  Lastly, he spoke to the gluttonous supply of prospects the system has.   I guess I can't blame him for briefly crossing the line between business and baseball operations in this case.

 Crane Kenney gave way to Jed Hoyer, the general manager of the Chicago Cubs, and Jed talked at length about the roster.  I wish there would have been some graphics thrown up on the screen during his talk, because as an overly educated Cubs fan I got a little bored with his breakdown.  There were times I think I could have written his speech for him. 

I guess I would be a remiss in summarizing my day if I didn't mention how disappointed I was that Theo didn't show.  Jed seemed uncomfortable on the stage at times and he's not quite the public speaker that Theo or Crane Kenney are.  {Translation: I have a man crush on Theo Epstein and was really bummed he wasn't in attendance.}

The legendary Pat Hughes led the question and answer session at the end of the presentation.  It was good to see Pat.  Last year Dave Otto ran the Q&A session, which was fine, but Pat Hughes is the voice of the Cubs as far as I am concerned.  After the short Q&A session we were given a parting gift and our way home.

Overall, the Cubs put on a nice show.  There was some nice pictures and videos shown on the big screen, but I felt it was more entertaining last year.  Yep, I don't have season tickets, but I've now made it to two consecutive meetings or the season ticket holder crowd.

We didn't eat on the way up to Chicago and were pretty hungry by the end of the meeting.  Jane, Vince, Craig and I hit Portillo's on the way home and let's just say the car windows had to be rolled down more than a couple times on the way home.  Oh...  road trips with friends... it really doesn't get much better!  Thanks again for the tickets, Jeff!

Adding to the Trade Bait

Before the school year began my sister gave a 550-count box of cards.  I guess she was looking to make room and since I'm her favorite card collecting brother I was the beneficiary of her generosity.  I finally took the time to dissect the contents during last week's Chicago Bears debacle game.

Inside the box was a good chunk of 2012 and 2013 Topps Flagship, some 2013 Topps Archives, and a healthy helping of 2013 Heritage.  Plus, there was a cornucopia of random packs.  A couple cards each of Anthony Rizzo and Jim Thome along with a Ben Zobrist card staying in my collection, but the rest will go into my ever growing trade bait box!

Let's take a look at some of the finer new additions:

 Just a couple packs of 2014 Donruss, but included were a couple of shiny cards and a Yu!  What's up with Kershaw's flip glasses.  Maybe he takes his batting practice shagging seriously?

Also found within was this die-cut card of Josh Donaldson, a former Peoria Chief, which is numbered to 49.  Nice!

 A few hits from the Topps section of the box:

 Another Yu and one of my Thome keepers:

Neither my sister nor myself ever have any lucky pulling any mani-patches of interest when cracking blasters.  I suppose if you're a fan of the Red Sox you may be salivating right about now though.

Some sweet 2013 Topps Heritage mojo: a red Tulo and a hand numbered Votto.

She certainly could have done worse than a MadBum relic.  Not a bad pull as far as relics go.

 Here's a random Willie Mays card from one of the more recent editions of Topps Triple Threads.  I like the brownish back ground.  Maybe this a parallel?

 There were maybe three packs of 2012 Bowman included within the box and I found two nice ones to take a picture of:

This 2000 Fleer Tradition card commemorating Cal Ripken's 3,000th hit was by far the oldest card in the box.  I may end up holding on to this one as well.  

Next up we have a green cracked ice parallel of Jimmie Foxx from the 2013 Panini Cooperstown set and Walter "Big Train" Johnson disc from the same set.  Watching the "new" footage of Walter Johnson pitch in the 1924 World Series was pretty cool!

Topps Chipz!  I like these, but I just don't know how to store them.  The Swisher is a base, the Cain and ARod are magnets and the Sabathia is a gold magnet.  I guess I could stick three of them on the refrigerator and let my card play with the Swisher.  He seems to like the Chipz.

In all, my trade box is reaching it's spilling point.  Some teams are very well represented, and others (D'Backs & Padres) are nearly devoid of cards.  There's some decent stuff in there, but there's also the contents from a few repack boxes. 

If you're a team collector or saw anything you like from the photos above be sure to leave a comment or hit me up with an e-mail!

Thanks for the great cards, sis!

Book Review: Mortal Stakes

Title: Mortal Stakes  

Author: Robert B. Parker
Genre: Fiction, Mystery

Ease of Reading: Three hundred twenty-eight pages of twelve point font that kept me wanting to read more.  It was tough to put this one down and read very fast.
Synapse: Spenser, a private investigator, has been hired by the Red Sox' front office to investigate the club's star pitcher who is suspected of throwing the occasional game.  The story takes place during the early 1970s and is more of a suspense thriller than a book about baseball.  I would like to divulge more information about the plot, but I don't want to ruin it for any future readers.  If I take the suspense out of it, then I'm stealing the book's main hook.  And I don't want to rob any potential readers of a fun few hundred pages.
Comments: From what I can tell Robert B. Parker has made a small fortune writing a series about a chiseled bachelor, named Spenser, and his sleuthing. The writing sometimes focuses on the minutiae of the characters' dress or eating habits a bit more than I would care for, Parker makes up for it with well-painted action scenes which I clearly see within my imagination.  ON a side note, I normally can't sit still for a suspenseful movie on my own couch, but for some reason I was much more comfortable reading a book of the same genre.  Go figure.
 Grade: I liked this one. This is two books in a row now that uses baseball as a subplot rather than the main vehicle and I'm okay with that.  Maybe my horizons are broadening a bit?  Any book that I have a difficult time putting down is worthy of an 'A' in my estimation, and Mortal Stakes certainly fits the description.

Three Legends and Five Autos

I've been a little more active on the card front as of late.  When I have a few free moments in the evening I find it relaxing to peruse Ebay and Listia for bargains.  Occasionally I put down a small bid and sometimes I actually win.

The following three cards are of Cubs legends and all of them are Listia finds.

 My favorite from the group is this 1961 card from the side of a Post cereal box.  The back is blank, but that's okay because the front says it all.  Stats... position... biographical information... and a sweet picture.

 Vintage, glorious vintage!  I love me some fuzzy, rounded corners.  This is only my second vintage Ernie in my collection.  The other is a '59 All-Star card of Mr. Cub, but I don't think it has anything on this one.
Mad Dog!

Mmmmm...  Denny's.  I have more than my share of Madux cards in my collection, but this one has Maddux in a some weird Braves costume and is probably ticketed for Jaybarkerfan's Junk.  The man keeps unleashing monstrous card packages on me!  What in the world is a WAMPA anyway?

The next is a seller with whom I'm familiar with: Tom from The Angels, In Order.

I saw Tom's return address on a PWE and thought, "I don't remember making a trade with him."  And then, out came Fergie!  Nice!  This Fergie is from the 1972 Milton Bradley game.  Cool!  Thanks, Tom!

The five autos were from five different listings from the the same seller on Ebay.  I love me some combined shipping! I think they totaled $9.25 shipped.  Not bad in my opinion.

 Paul Blackburn is one of many young arms who the Cubs have drafted over the course of Theo Epstein's tenure.  Hopefully some of them will make heir way up through the system before too long.

Jeimer Candelario is talented and has a great approach at the plate, but something just didn't click this year.  He wound up being demoted from hi-A to lo-A at mid season.  Time's still on his side though!  Good luck, Jeimer!

Shawon Dunston, Jr., really turned it on in the second half of the season and helped the Kane County Cougars break the franchise mark for wins in a season and also win the Midwest League Championship.

I made a Shawon-O-Meter earlier in the season when Shawon was hitting 0.255.  He finished on a bit of a tear and wound up hitting a more respectable 0.268.  Go get 'em in 2015, Shawon!

The Vogelmonster!

Nope, no extra commentary here.  You guys know how I feel about this guy!  (Yes, it borders on man crush.)

And last, but certainly not least, we have...

ROCK SHOULDERS! 

It's been a few weeks since I last dished out a ROCK SHOUDLERS-ism...  here we go...  Ready?

ROCK SHOULDERS' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd.  No one fools ROCK SHOULDERS.  Especially not the off-speed garbage of some weak minor leaguers.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

These Aren't Going All The Way To The Backstop

I would never let these cards get past me.  We've all seen it before... the pitcher really tries to bury the splitter down in the zone or maybe the catcher gets crossed up.  Nope, not going happen on this round.  I'm focused, I've got the correct sign, and I'm wearing a catcher's mitt large enough to catch beach balls.

Marcus, from the Padre-centric all the way to the backstop..., sent out a PWE which surprised me yesterday.  I love when something unexpected finds its way to my address.

Bring the heat, Marcus!

Jeff Samardzija and the Oakland A's were knocked out of the playoffs by the upstart Royals.  What a great game and what a fantastic finish.  I only wish Adam Dunn would have received an at-bat during the course of the twelve inning affair.  Big Donkey, who may retire now, played in over two-thousand games, but never in a post season game.

Rizzo is just starting his career and I'm starting to get a good feeling that he'll have his chance to play in October before too long.  This 2014 Bowman Rizzo is new to me and great addition to my player collection of Anthony.  I wish the logo, bottom center, would stand out a bit more and the card feels like it has been photoshopped.  Wouldn't a shot from this angle have the netting of the backstop in view?  Or the on deck circle?  Or the Cubs dugout?  Man, Rizzo's left hand really pops out from the back ground.  Hmmm...

This one was almost too hot to handle and nearly got through the five hole.  I wasn't expecting a chrome Kris Bryant.

I didn't collect one set from the 2014 offerings and the number of packs I bought didn't reach double digits..  That may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but for a guy who is a set builder and loves cracking wax it was pretty rough going for awhile. I was resigned to the fact that I would have to fork over some dough to get any cards of one of the top prospects of the game.  I can't express how elated I am to have this card in my collection!

Marcus, those were three fantastic pitches.  And no worries, I caught each one and have them already secured in their rightful binders.  Thank you so much!  I'll be sure send a couple of nasty splitters your way.