Baseball Cards

I stopped doing "Sick Scoreboard Card" posts because including "sick" in a blog post suddenly started triggering nonstop clickage by the web bots. I don't fully understand why this is or anything about the "bot" world really, but at the time I was trying to honestly evaluate which posts drew the most readers. Seeing any post with "sick" in it automatically surging to the top of the stats made the whole process laughable.I've since realized that it is impossible to get a handle on your blog readership (because we can't have nice things), and I've stopped caring anymore.Go ahead, make this post for which I'm dedicating very little effort, my most "read" post of all-time. Knock yourself out. I don't care.What I do care about is seeing scoreboards on cards.There aren't many good examples in 2013 Topps. The few that exist don't feature the scoreboard in anything but an incidental way.A couple of innings worth in the top right corner.Electric numbers obscured by that annoying baseball player in the front.Yellow and white blurrage.This is probably the best example of a semi-well-displayed scoreboard in Series 1. There, behind Pacheco, you can see the White Sox and Tigers are in the 6th, the Rangers and Indians are in the 7th, the Twins and Royals are under way, and the Red Sox and A's have yet to begin. Not an interleague game in the bunch. Just the way I like it.But none of them are good for any scoreboard detective work.The only one that I've been able to find where you can tell something about the game in process is the A.J. Pierzynski card.Thanks to the scoreboard and the video board, I can tell that Alex Rios is up at the plate in the bottom of the first inning and there are two outs. Pierzynski apparently is on deck.But that's where my fact-finding mission fizzles and dies.The team names are cropped off the scoreboard, and it's too far away to read anything else off of it that would give any clues. The opponent in the field is wearing one of those nondescript, boring road uniforms that makes for difficult identification. Maybe the Blue Jays? I can't be sure.So, I'm afraid I can't tell you much else about this game.Except that it is brought to you by McDonald's Pepsi, Miller Lite, Stanley Tools and Vienna Beef.Priorities, people. Never mind the score, who pays the bills?Sorry, I give this otherwise fantastic panoramic stadium shot, only one, out of a possible four, disembodied hand claps.

Fergie Jenkins 2013 Topps Tribute – Base It is so nice to see that Fergie Jenkins made it into a few 2013 Topps sets so far this year.  It gives me the chance to build up my collection a bit while also showcases him to new collectors that may not know his great history. This card is from the 2013 Topps Tribute set; it is the base card from the set. Time for me to start going after the colored parallel versions now. Stay tuned!!!

Cats marrying dogs outside the park too. Oh, and Richard Simmons won a weightlifting contest down the road.

It's time to move this lot. Fifty bucks takes all.Lot of 46 1982 Topps CardsLot of 96 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights CardsThis is a nice lot if you're into the whole '82 kind of thing. You'll get Joe Morgan In Action, George Foster's spectacular sideburns, Oscar Gamble with less hair than usual, and the incomparable Rowland Office in this lot. The Carew is the only card in iffy condition, everything else is pretty nice. Pull the trigger for $50 and you get everything else below.1959 Topps #499 Johnny O'BrienO'Brien played his last season for the Braves in '59 after several in Pittsburgh and a stop in St. Louis. There are some other fun facts about him on his Wiki page. Today would be a great day to pull the trigger on this $50 lot. Remember you'll also get:1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes Lot of 10Three 1999 Topps Lance Berkman CardsLot of 10 Early-1980s Basketball CardsLot of 20 Random Hockey CardsLot of 56 2005 Topps Updates & Highlights Cards1977 Topps Darrell Evans, 1973 Topps John VukovichLot of 122 2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History Cards2008 Topps Triple Threads Curtis Granderson AUTO Bat x1, Jersey x2 (49/50)

Catcher Donnie Scott played thirteen years of professional baseball, including four years in the major leagues with the Rangers, Mariners and Reds. He then had a long minor league managerial career and is now a youth baseball coach in Florida. He kindly answered my questions about baseball cards."I have a decent collection, but it is mostly from the 60's, 70's & 80's, before all of the different card manufacturers saturated the market. I lost interest because it was hard for me to keep up. I started buying complete Topps sets in 1976, but I really enjoyed building them from the bubble gum packs prior to that.That was one of my driving forces as a kid. I was going to get my face on a Topps baseball card. I can still remember the day the 1985 set arrived at my house. One of my proudest moments! Throughout my career as a player and a manager, I often wrote my kids names on my bats when I was posing for trading cards. Then, I started getting my son involved by including him in the shot. The ultimate card for me though was when my father and son joined me on a 2006 Sarasota Reds FSL card. My father has an incredible collection and we often kid about that being his rookie card. I forgot how much fun collecting baseball cards can be. It's time for me to dig out my old collection! "Thanks!

With apologies for the lack of original postings as my calendar slowly recedes to the new normal, I wanted to alert everybody to a series of posts being made by Bob Lemke on his blog that show some very revealing sales numbers for Topps, Bowman and Goudey (with a couple more companies to come) in the 1930's, 40's and 50's. Here is the link: http://boblemke.blogspot.com/I'll be incorporating Bob's source material into version 2.0 of the Modern Hobby Guide, which is presently being worked upon but there is some really good information in Bob's recent posts that I think would fascinate readers here.

This contest is for a Charley Taylor 2009 Press Pass Legends Saturday Signatures Blue Ink Auto.  Good luck!!! Contest Details: This contest will end Friday, May 24, 2013 @ 8:00 p.m. EST To enter, please leave a comment in this post You can enter once per day The winner will be selected at random Please provide a valid e-mail address when entering The winner will receive an e-mail when the contest is over The winner has one week to send me their contact information or the contest will be held again Once the contest is over, I will need the winner’s mailing address so I can ship them this card for FREE!!! Filed under: contest

It's.....ummm.......Well, it's a dealbreaker. I hear my girlfriends calling me, bye!

Here are this Sunday's Dodgers Videos. Here's an interesting report on how the SF police are going undercover as Dodger fans at games. Video Link: Here's a video of Galaxy Night at Dodger Stadium. Galaxy players toured Dodger stadium, met members of the Dodgers, threw the first pitch and enjoyed a great game at LA Galaxy Night at Dodger Stadium! Greg Cochrane and Todd Dunivant almost duked it out to decide who was going to get to throw first pitch and Charlie Rugg tried to sneak his way into Dodgers batting practice, but otherwise just a quiet evening for the boys! Video Link: Gary G at IVNews speaks with Carl Crawford in the clubhouse after this past Tuesday's game against the Nationals. Video Link: Gary G also spoke with Matt Kemp in the clubhouse. Video Link: And here is a short video of Clayton Kershaw speaking with the media, via Gary G. Video Link: * Please follow on twitter @ernestreyes * * Like Dodgers Blue Heaven on facebook * * Dodgers Blue Heaven home page *

Frank Robinson 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen ‘The Great Ones’ It is so nice to see Robinson included in a set of this magnitude.  I find him to be one the most underrated players in the history of the sport, yet his accomplishments are on par with the elite legends of the game. Here is the card of Mr. Robinson from ‘The Great Ones’ set: Man, I wish that they used a better image of Robinson for this card.  I am not complaining about him wearing his Reds uniform, not by a longshot, but I am just way to used to seeing this specific shot used by Topps over and over. For me, when tagging a set as ‘The Great Ones’ I would prefer something that just had an image to match such a great theme. Maybe next time…