Things Are Heating Up...

...with my pursuit of the 2003 Topps set! Thanks to Bert of blog Swing And A Pop-Up and Johnny of the eponymous Johnny's Trading Spot, I've gotten a bunch of cards closer to finishing the decade-old set. I've since freshened up my wantlist to reflect that. For real, this set is so old most of the players are retired, and the Oakland A's sported the above logo on their caps!

Art Howe, of Moneyball fame, was one such Athletic. If you zoom in very closely, you might make out the blazing elephant logo. Perhaps the only major league manager to be played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in a movie, Howe did not manage the A's in '03, leaving instead to skipper the Mets for two years and work as a bench coach for the Phillies and Rangers until 2008.

Justice was also on the Moneyball team recounted in Michael Lewis' book. Incidentally, the guy who played him in the movie was in the Braves' system along with Justice back in the '90s.

 2003 would be the only year from 1990 to 2008 that Maddux did not win a Gold Glove.

Another example of fun headgear! The Padres have worn some sort of camo uniforms since 2000. The full 2003 camo uniform looks like this.

I would love to meet a self-described Taggert Bozied supercollector one day. A Xavier Nady SC would be fun to meet too.

 Loving this.

I'll be as happy as Vladdy when I finally finish off this set!

Thanks again to John and Bert! If you want to help me out with this set, check out my wantlist  (and perhaps my for-trade list) and shoot me an email about a trade!

Contest Time! Right Here, Right Now!!!

Hi everyone, and welcome to Chipp 'n' Dale's first blog contest! Holla!

This will be a quasi-traditional style contest: comment on this post once for a point now, promote it on your blog or Facebook page (and link it in the comments) for an extra point, comment on this post once a day for one point each time. It will run for a week!

I will say I like posts that make me laugh, so feel free to do so. Make me laugh, that is. You don't have to post "first/second/25th entry," each time (though if you do, I won't hold it against you). Rather, if you try to guess or say inane things, that will be enough. Guess Evan Gattis's birth weight...I really don't care. Make me laugh. Thanks!

Prizes will be:

2 packs of 2013 Bowman,

Two of these for a first place winner!

2 packs of 2013 Topps,

Image of 2nd place prize stolen from A pack to be named...

And a mess of 2012 Topps Update inserts (for the third placer)!

Start now! Have fun! Promote me like I know you can!

Valete!

Contest Winnings from Andrew's Baseball Cards!

Andrew of the appropriately-named Andrew's Baseball cards recently held a contest. This contest required participants to answer some mind-gnawing questions such as: Which team had the most wins in the 1970s?and When was the first (known) curve ball in baseball thrown? Who threw it?
and Which is the only team to win the world series twice after behind three games back?
Seriously, I don't think I've searched Wikipedia that hard since then. Anyhoo, I placed third, and plan to show off the cardage now.

On a slightly different note, since Dayf posted this infernal video (which I was foolish enough to check out) I simply cannot stop watching and re-watching it. And singing it in my head. All this to say, the only way to end this unprecented madness, is to pass it on to some unfortunate blog reader. If you're lucky, this reader will be Khadija Mohamed...if not, heh heh, sorry. Mammo, mammo, mammo, mammo...

Anyway, sorry about that digression. Onto the spoils!

Purple refract's numbered to 700.

I love baseball card contests because of cool stuff like this! Andrew, I really appreciate it and good luck TTM'ing! For the rest of you, adios, and GO YICKETTY.

tweet it out
!

A Flurry of Trades, Pt. 1

"A Startling Whirlwhind of Opportunity"

In the past several weeks, I have completed quite a few trades. Since I have made it a habit to show appreciation by posting cards from trades before filing them away, I shall do so here now.

First off, the Joneses and others from Topher at Crackin Wax! Via his "Take My Cards" offer, I was able to place a request, then receive these cards from "a set...Indiana Jones would collect."

 I like Eckstein, okay (sorry about that lopped off shoulder, David)! And Pujols and Thome are cool too. So that's that-thanks Topher!

And here are some Dales, courtesy of Kevin over at the http://thediamondking.blogspot.com/ . Kevin, being the generous chap that he is, delivered these and the following cards to me complete gratis! Danke schön Kevin!

Chippers:

#AWESOME!!!

Some very neat Chippers here:



Chipper Bat Card...And Pacific Spanish too! Cool!



(Scan doesn't do this shiny card justice. And yes, that is Japanese.)

OH YES!

There were also some Bo's, which were scuttled away somewhere, but I have managed to put up on the Bo Jackson Have List! Feel free to take a crack at it of your own!

So, thanks again to Topher, and to Kevin! More trades to come I hope, and I will be posting about more finished trades soon!

Redeemed from Retail Purgatory: 2007 Topps jumbo pack with gum (!)

So I was checking out the cards scene at Wally World today, looking for some non-2012 Topps wax. I'm not collecting the flagship this year, yahsee.
Under the shelf stuck in the back on top of some football blasters I found this little guy:When I went to the price-checker to see how much he cost, I got this readout:

*See sales associate*

In the checkout (with this and an Upper Deck pack from '07) my conversation with the sales associate went as follows:

Me: Hi, the price checker machine told me to ask you how much these cost.
Check out Lady: OK. (Scans packs several times, frowns) Hm.

Me: I got these from the card aisle.

Check out Lady: Let me get the manager and ask her about them. (Presses presumably magic manager summoner button)

Me and Checkout Lady: (Sounds of us waiting)

Checkout Lady: Let me go look. (leaves)

Shopper: (Starts stacking groceries behind me.)

Checkout Lady: (returns with sales associate #2) She says you can have both for $1.99.

Me: OK. (I push the thought out of my head that Target devotes the $1.59 repack box for packs like these.) I buy the cards.

So, without further ado, here we go:

#132 Ray Durham

#281 Chris Narveson RC

#7 Mickey Mantle-I'd be happier with this if I didn't know there were a zillion other Topps Mickey Mantle cards made over the last 6-7 years.

#170 Chien-Ming Wang

#209 Jonathan Broxton

#224 Matt Thornton

#75 Jered Weaver

#156 Ryan Theriot

#135 Troy Tulowitzki RC (Sweet! I have the 60 Years of Topps parallel of this card, too!)

#94 Willy Taveras

#314 Andruw Jones (A Brave, nice)

#129 Aramis Ramirez

#206 Ben Sheets

#4 Bengie Molina

#119 Michael Cuddyer

#73 Moises Alou

#290 Matt Holliday

#187 Matt Cain

#207 Mark Mulder
#109 Billy Wagner. Nice card.

#236 2006 Boston Red Sox. This would be their year...

#189 Carl Crawford

So that's that. All Series 1 cards, like Topps did last year or two ago-I remember buying a dollar pack of 2010 Series One like this. The Tulowitzki was the "hit" of the pack-a little redemption for this $2 pack.

#NNO Suspicious-looking gum

What's the rule for gum? I see no expiration date anywhere on this. I'm assuming 4-5 year old gum is no good-?