Mets Cardboard for Cubs Cardboard

I had a LARGE stack of Mets cards and I found a couple of Mets bloggers willing to make a swap. Yes, I had to put my Mets feelings aside. Saying that the Mets are not one of my favorite teams is probably an understatement. We're talking about the 1969, Ron Santo's toupee catching on fire at Shea during the national anthem at Shea Stadium, and then Daniel Murphy in 2015.  Sigh...

Yes, I'm still catching up on holiday packages. Don't judge.

Justin, the proprietor of Mets Cardboard, seems like a really nice dude. Yeah, he cheers for those Metropolitans, but I can't fault him for that. We all have our favorites and every Jedi needs a Sith.  Right?

Besides, Justin is a man after my own heart: he is one organized collector and one heckuva a trade partner. 

Let's take a look at the cards he sent back my way!

Ballpark Fun with Darwin Barney and Matt Garza. I hope there's much more of this type of celebration at Wrigley in 2016.  The card on the right talks about the 1906 World Series.

The above and below pictures are from the back of the card. Here's to hoping they make JediJeff happy!  I don't mind showing a Cubs World Series loss, because they did win in 1907 and 1908.

 Here are two of my favorite Cubs from my childhood. Alfonseca had six fingers on his throwing hand and for whatever reason that has stuck with me all these years. Glanville has made a nice second career as a baseball analyst and writer.

The Rich Harden card has the old school Topps logo in the corner and is made of different vintage like cardstock. I'm going to try to get this one into the Cubs FrankenSet.

Lieber's career was way underrated in my opinion. When people think about the starting pitchers the Cubs had during the early 2000's there was some great talent (Wood, Prior, Maddux, Zambrano, Clement), but only Lieber won twenty games during those years. 

Maybe I've mentioned that a week from now I'll be in Chicago at the Cubs Convention?

 The Dempster is a beautiful card and would look great with an autograph on it. The Lee Smith will make the trip with me, too.

 An emerald parallel of the Cubs lefty swing-man?  Yeah, I'm taking that one also!

How about some sluggers?  Good luck in retirement Aramis!

 Don't laugh, Big Z could swing the bat a little bit. He won the Silver Slugger three times and had twenty-four career homers.

 When this guy would hit them out at Wrigley the bleacher bums would throw Oh Henry! candy bars on the field.  Good times.

Corey Patterson, a five-tool prospect forgotten.

I will always remember Moises Alou as being the guy to pee on his hands, because he said it helped him grip the bat better.  Um, you should have tried batting gloves, Moises. 

 I wish the Cubs had some young stud pitching talent knocking on the door to the majors right now.

 I remember when Prior and Wood knocked on the door and then pushed right through it to dominate the National League in their rookie years.

Speaking of Kid K, the above four filled gaps in my Kerry Wood collection, which is now at 435.

What a return for some Mets Cardboard!  Thanks for the trade Justin!

Rehashing 2015 and Setting Goals for 2016

2015 was a good year for me hobby-wise.  I was able to add three new player collections in Brooks Kieschnick, Karl Olson, and The Vogelmonster.  I also am currently 10 cards into the 2015 Bowman Vogelbach rainbow.  Nice!
And Nachos Grande pulled a Kris Bryant auto for me in one of his group breaks, which was HUGE because we all know how pricey those things are.
I started a Cubs FrankenSet, which has been a bunch of fun. I've been constantly updating my set with cards from trade packages and giving credit to those traders who have cards make the cut.  Feel free to check out my FrankenSet and see if any of the cards you've sent have made it to the binder!
Lastly, my humble little blog finally eclipsed the "100 followers" mark a couple months ago.  I'd be remiss if I didn't thank this great community for reading my drivel and sending Cubs cards my way.  I never thought I would have 100+ followers. Thank you.


Now, let's check out my collecting goals from last year and see how I did. 


1. Complete another set from the time before I started collecting.  I already have a jump start on 1984 Topps.  This should be an easy one.
It took a little help from the cardsphere to finish the aforementioned '84 set, and then I filled a couple of larger orders on Sportslots to finish the following sets: '02 Topps Total, '00 Topps Reprints, '12 Topps Archives SPs, and '12 Panini Triple Play. It felt really good to finally put all of those sets to bed!



2. Hit the National.  I haven't been to the "big one" yet.  This should be fun.
FAIL.  At the time I was really swamped and had pretty much spent my self-imposed card budget. I'll have to wait for the National to come back to the midwest, because I'm not making it out to New Jersey this year. 

3. Find a way to differentiate my content even further.  I want to hit that 65% mark. Badly.  In 2014, I did ten book reviews and posted once a month about my Cubs Convention Calendar.  I suppose I'll need to get creative if this blog isn't going to morph into one focused only on baseball cards.
Well, there's another failing grade. 142 of my 191 blog posts in 2015 were focused on cardboard, which is about 74%.   Oh well.  It's my blog and I write about what interests me.  So it goes.

  
Goals for 2016?
For this year I'd like to collect one set in the middle price-range. I've done Opening Day, Flagship Topps, and many of the Bowman sets in the past, which are all on the lower end.  Maybe Stadium Club?  It's a little pricier and fancier.  Maybe Bowman's Best or Topps Finest could be the one I empty my wallet for.  We'll have to wait and see when the card mock-ups come out.

Other than that, I'd like to create more room for my ever growing Cubs collection, which means I'll have to ship out some cards to my readers through trades or contests.  That should be fun! I'll be celebrating 5 years of blogging in a few months so maybe I'll do something then?

I want to keep my goals short and sweet so there won't be any pressure falling on my shoulders when things get busy.

Have a great 2016, everyone!

Bonds and Clemens Gaining Ground? Or are they?

 Today we learned the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) voters found Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mike Piazza fit to be enshrined within the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. For what it's worth, I'm glad Griffey earned the highest percent of votes ever and I hope his plaque features The Kid wearing a backwards hat. I didn't really have a vested interest in Piazza, but he was a great offensive force for many years and his numbers stack up quite nicely, especially when considering those gaudy numbers came from behind the dish.

What about Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens? I've seen it mentioned more than a handful of times around the web this evening that both players received a slight bump in the voting percentages and momentum may be swinging their way.

Yes, Bonds went from 36.8% in 2015 to 44.3% this year. Clemens saw an increase during the same time frame of 37.5% to 45.2%. I don't question the nearly eight percent increase for each player, but I do wonder if an increase of that size is sustainable during future elections.

Typically, one only discovers they have plateaued once they are in the midst of a flat, but I wonder if the two have found the beginning of their voting plateaus.

Hear me out and see if my explanation makes any sense.

In 2015, when Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine, and Craig Biggio were inducted, there were 650 BBWAA voters active. Of those, 549 chose to complete a ballot and Bonds received 202 votes and Clemens garnered 206. Then the Baseball Hall of Fame shook things up this past July and declared that BBWAA members would no longer be awarded a ballot for the remainder of their lifetime. Only writers who have held an active voting status in the last ten years would have the right to vote. As a result, many of the older, retired writers were shown the door. As they exited they took their beliefs about steroids with them. In all, 440 BBWAA members voted for this year's ballot. That's quite a drop in the number of ballots received, and Bonds and Clemens votes totals each dropped by seven this year to 195 and 199, respectively.

Let's look a little closer at Barry Bonds' voting numbers. If the number of current voting members and members who lost their voting rights led to a decrease in votes by 109 (549 voters to 440), and if each group favored Bonds the same, then Bonds would have lost 36.8% of his votes from 2015 when those older writers lost their votes. Bonds should have lost approximately 40 total votes from the 109 if this were true, but he only lost seven votes from 2015 to 2016. (Yes, I realize I'm taking some liberties with my assumptions, because I don't who lost a vote and how they voted in the past, how many voters changed their vote from 2015 to 2016, or how many new voters were given a ballot.  Even still, I think the argument holds some water.)

My hypothesis is this: in general the older writers, those who lost their vote, were not supporters of those players who were linked to HGH or steroids, while most of those who voted for Bonds and Clemens in 2015 did so again in 2016 and they are still active voting members of the BBWAA.

Am I out of line in my thinking that younger writers are more forgiving of HGH or steriod users than their older voting peers? Perhaps. But, if I am correct, then Bonds and Clemens will be hard-pressed to gain more than a couple of percentage points a year from now

I suppose only time will tell.

I'd love to hear to your thoughts on the matter in the comments!

My First PWE of 2016

We put our mail on hold while were on vacation last month, which is why this PWE didn't hit my mailbox until this past weekend. I'm not sure if it shouldn't go down as the last PWE of 2015, but I'm counting it as the first of 2016.

Jim, from the now on hiatus garvey cey russell lopes blog, put "some Cubbies at risk" and threw them in a PWE.  Let's take a look at the inventory!

 The 1978 Topps set is the oldest set in my collection. That fact and the buyback stamp have pretty much sealed the fate of this Woodie Fryman card: it will spend the rest of my life in my Cubs FrankenSet.  Woo-Hoo!

Present day Donruss looks really weird to me. That being said, I'm always happy to add a new Rizzo card to me collection.

In other news: I feel bad for Rizzo, because he has to find a new bromance now that Kris Bryant is engaged.

Here's a nice shiny die-cut of another Cubs #1 draft pick bust.  Onward and upward!

David Ross! He's my favorite current Cub and hoping I get to meet him at the Cubs Convention later this month. I wish Topps would have used a better picture of him in this year's Update set. I should probably be thankful Ross made the checklist at all, because often times back-up catchers who don't hit their weight have a difficult time getting an cardboard love.

Thanks for the quartet of cards, Jim!  They are the first additions to my collection this year!

A Belated Happy New Year

The blog has been running on autopilot for the last ten days, because my wife and I went on a much needed vacation during the holidays. We spent Christmas Day and New Years Day in airports and on the road, but it actually wasn't all that bad as most everyone we came in contact with had a bit of holiday cheer to share. The days spent in between were in Prescott, Arizona, which ironically, were about as cold as P-town.  So much for getting away to a warm weather destination!  We spent the week with my in-laws in a relative's house while he was back home visiting his immediate family.

Watson Lake

We made terrific use of the local parks and recreation sites in the area by partaking in some running, hiking and boldering.  As an added bonus, my wife and I may or may not have gotten lost within the parks during the trip.
 The terrain is so much different than the corn and soy bean fields that are omnipresent in central Illinois, so we made sure to go out at least once a day to soak it all in. If you know the area around Prescott, then you know the beauty of Watson Lake, Willow Lake, Goldwater Lake, Lynx Lake, and Thumb Butte.

Laura Boldering at Willow Lake

Prescott is known as being Arizona's Christmas City, for being the home to the world's oldest rodeo, and for it's historic downtown district featuring Whiskey Row.  I didn't partake in any whiskey, but I did enjoy a few brews with my brother-in-law.

 Wet Snout. A wet snout typically mean you have a healthy dog, but in this case it was my favorite adult beverage on the trip.  I don't take many selfies, but when I do I like to take them with unique characters.  A five foot tall cowboy statue carved out of wood is pretty unique!

It was great to catch up with Laura's side of the family.  Her little two-and-a-half year old niece is quite adorable.

 Is there anything better than large hats on small children?

On New Year's Eve we meandered downtown through the chilly night to watch the boot drop.  It is similar to watching the ball drop, but this certainly had more of a western feel to it.

On the way home we had some time to kill in the airport and we were lucky enough to run into Matt's Big Breakfast again. I've eaten at the Phoenix location once and this was my second time visiting the Sky Harbor International Airport location.

This time I punted the breakfast menu and ordered their version of a jalapeno cheeseburger, known as the Mamacita Burger.  It was pretty darn good and it probably ranks in my top five jalapeno cheeseburgers I have had all-time.

Overall, it was a fun trip.  Yet, it's nice to be home again even if school starts back up tomorrow.  So it goes!

Happy New Year to you and thanks for reading!