#2 Scoreboards in the Background

For this installment of SiTB I'd like to focus on 2009 Topps Baseball #422. I wanted to do this one today because I'm in an action shot frame of mind and this card delivers.


It's got a nice shot of Hamilton preparing to throw. The entire body is in the frame and also you'll notice he's captured completely off of the ground. I can tell this because it looks to be a hint of a shadow on the ground underneath his foot.

The out of focus scoreboard in the background gives a nice depth


I also like the dude in the bullpen behind Blaylock. I thought he was wearing two wrist bands, but I think the one on his right wrist is a tattoo. All right, that's all for now. Kind of a quick post, but today is like 50+ degrees but it feels like it's in the 70's so I gotta get out of the house for a while. Thanks for reading!

2008 Stadium Club want/trade list

Here is my want/trade list for 2008 Stadium Club Baseball. I haven't seen many more of these around, but maybe some packs or blasters will come my way.

Here is what I have for trade:
16,40,44,46,47,49,70,71,86,91,92,95,100,113,121,122,127,128,134,137,139,140,145,146,

and here is what I need to complete the set:
2,3,7,8,10,12,13,17,18,19,21,22,23,24,25,26,2730,31,32,3337,38,39,41,42,45,
50,53,54,55,56,57,59,60,61,62,65,66,69,
72,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,89
90,92,94,96,97,98
105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,114,115,117,120,123,125
130,131,132,133,138,141,142,143-150
That's a lot of cards!

I'm going to post this over at my other blog for posterity. And I'll update that posting as I receive and give away cards.

Thanks for reading.

Beam Team

I went back to the Target to see if I could pick up a few more packs of Stadium Club. The collation is kind of weird. I think some of these packs were almost completely identical. Oh well. I still pulled some cool stuff.

First off the big hit of the bunch. A Sheffield Beam Team auto. Cool. These are pretty nice looking.

I took a photo with a flash backlighting the card so that you could see the transparency of the card. I probably should have just used a small desk light instead of my other flash, but I need the practice using two speedlights at once.

I really like the Sheffield base card from this set too.


The horizontal card works really well for stadium shots. Normally I don't like shots of player's backs, but having the figure in the foreground really gives the stadium some idea of the scale of the ball park. Photos like this are cool because I can spend a lot of time looking at the different buildings and signage around the ball park. I think the Verizon logo has been removed from one of those billboards. Looks like a full house that day.


I pulled a couple of old time players. These are always welcomed in anybody's collection.


Again, another back of a player. This time Ted Williams. I like the blurry windows in the stadium behind him.




I pulled two of these Honus' (Honii?), so one of these are up for grabs if anybody wants them.


That's a lot of greenish-blue stadium walls behind Tom Seaver.

It might just be me, but It sort of looks like Pete Rose batting in the foreground. I think it's because of the hair. Ah, it can't be. I'm probably imagining things. Pete Rose would have had longer hair with some big sideburns.

I still haven't found the Roberto Clemente card yet. Maybe they'll have some blasters around here soon that I can buy. I really think this is a nice set so I might try to finish it off sometime.

So far in pretty much every pack of Stadium Club has a quite a few cool action shots.

Here is a pretty good example of Russ Martin. Another play at the play card. I really like the angle of the shot. You can see both players involved in the play and the ball is even present in the card too.

I have a nice stack of doubles and at this point, so if anybody is looking for some cards i'm going to do a post later this week with all of my duplicates and other random cards that I think people might be interested in trading for.

saturday vintage-random sports cards

Saturdays are my day to search out some cards to buy. Actually it doesn't have to be cards. It could be old cameras, comic books or old cards. I hesitate to use the term vintage, because some of the cards I'm interested in lately are from the 80's and 90's. I can't consider those vintage simply because I can place myself in those dates and they don't seem that long ago. It would be nice to find some truly vintage stuff like from the 70's and earlier, but that never happens when I'm out shopping.

I can't go by the flea market this Saturday, I'll be working. But I want to show off some stuff I bought a few weeks ago.

I stopped off at the flea market first in my quest for vintage, but the card guy wasn't around. Sucks to be me. I was looking for some vintage stuff and by vintage not really old stuff, but older stuff that I haven't seen before.

I did however pick up this book that seems to be there every weekend, but I've never bought.

(if anybody's wondering, I shot this at F1.6 1/80? with flash white balance with a full blue gel on the flash. I use a Canon 40d, with a 50mm 1.4 lens.)

I've skimmed over it, and it seems like a pretty good read. It'll be a nice change from the comic books and graphic novels I've been reading lately.


Since the card dude wasn't around I headed over to my card shop. I haven't been there in months and I knew that he had to have something to satisfy my random pack urge. These packs will mostly be posted over at A Pack to Be Named Later. I pulled a couple of cards that I want to keep, but mostly they aren't all that interesting to me.

I also picked up some stuff to stick in my trade packages. But I ain't scanning those either. In case they're reading I don't want to spoil the surprise.

I think after all that I only grabbed one card that I really just got for myself.



It's a 1993 Action Packed card of Shoeless Joe. He's sticking his tongue in his cheek on his follow through. These cards are kind of "spongy" feeling and are two obvious pieces of cardboard joined together.





This is only my second Action Packed card. My first was courtesy of the Pack Addict.

They don't look like a typical card from 1993 and that's why I like them so much. The double gold border seems like something from the early 80's not the early 90's.

And, of course they all feature old, great players so that also gives these cards a timeless feel.

I don't want to just post up one card so I'll show off some cool cards from the card dude at the flea market a few weeks ago.

These 1991 Score Football cards are the sketch cards that I really like. The detail in these cards aren't as good as the NFL pro set cards that I talked about here. Also they're not painted, but look like they were done with colored pencil or chalk. I can't tell.

Lots of good players.

I really like the Warren Moon card.

This is my only card so far of Warren Moon. He had the record for most passing touchdowns, attempts and completions until that Farve guy came along. Too bad the card dude didn't have any Farve cards laying around.


The McDonald's in Henryietta used to have a mini shrine to Troy. I know because that's my halfway point to my parents hometown. If I'm hungry and in a rush I always stop by there to grab someting to eat. That's his hometown.


I noticed a couple of years ago they took down all the old newspaper clippings and photos. Maybe they got tired of his play by play work. Honestly I can't tell sometimes the difference between Joe Buck and Aikman sometimes. It seems like ever since I was a kid people have been complaining about the TV or radio guys doing the play by play and color announcing. I guess it's like being an armchair quarterback, everybody thinks they could either do a better job or they want to criticize.



Cool portrait of a quarterback.


Another pretty cool card. Really not much more in this "pack" of cards from the flea market guy except these cards.


If anybody is interested in putting together the 1991 Score football let me know. I have a big chuck of cards looking for homes.


Thanks for reading as I ramble on about my random card purchases.

You know what's cool...?

2008 Stadium Club, that's what. Seems like a lot of people don't like it. I've only acquired two cards via trades, and they were really cool cards. So when I saw discounted packs at Target I had to get a couple.

Here is the first pack that I opened. The second pack was a little lame, so I'm not posting that one up.


Out of the 5 cards, I'd consider 4 of them as good cards. 3 out of 5 of the cards were horizontal action shot cards which is pretty cool.


First card out of the pack was a Chase Utley which is a player I like.


A play at the play card.


Pretty cool. This will probably be put in a stack for Mr. Play at the Plate himself unless he doesn't want it, or he already has it.




A cool Matt Holiday back when he was playing for the Rockies. This'll go into the Holiday binder.



... and a Matt Joyce autograph rookie card. According to the checklist that was included in both packs this is a real auto. It looks a little different than the other autos that I've seen online. The other ones were sticker autos and were off more popular players. He no longer plays for Detriot. He's a Ray now.

If anybody out their likes this card, let me know. I could be pursued to trade it away.

Lastly an Armando Galarraga 1st day issue card.

It wasn't serial numbered though, so maybe it's not like the hobby version. I'm not sure.

I looked these cards up online and they used to be astronomically priced. They're nice cards, but that seems a little expensive to me.

After opening these, I wish I would have gotten more. Instead I picked up some 2010 Topps Baseball. That was my original intent on going to Target anyway. I didn't pull any Million Card Giveaway cards, but I did pull some cool cards in my two packs.

I pulled a Mantle CYMTO based on the 1968 design.


I pulled the base Mantle as well. These two cards are going straight to the Mickey M binder page.



Pretty nice card. I don't really like the slanted horizon line, but I do like the Manhattan Shirts billboard and the out of focus, over exposed water tower in the background though.


I pulled another Matt Holiday for the Holliday binder page.


A pretty good Holiday day of pulling Holi... oh whatever.


A cool Cal Ripken Turkey Red.


This is number 19 in the set. I also pulled a number 27 Edwin Jacson .




I'm not collecting the entire TR this time out, I just want a few players that I like. So these two are up for trade if anybody wants them.


I really like the Legendary Lineage the best. I have two now. The Lincecum/Gibson card and this one:



I like Reggie. I'm not that knowledgeable about Adam Dunn. The design of these cards are the best.

I'm doing pretty good at pulling these Tales of the Game cards and not getting any duplicates.


Out of 9 packs I've pulled like 5 of these. Pretty good odds so far since they are seeded 1-6 packs.

I can't say the same for the CYMTO though. I still have these two for trade if anybody is interested.



These are my duplicates. They're the CYMTO backs and the numbers are 24 and 46. I think the Robin Yount card is the most common of the CYMTO cards. I've seen this card all over the place.

Anyway, that's it for me for now. I'm going to spend the rest of the night avoiding the urge to go back to Target for more Stadium Club packs.


Thanks for reading!

million card giveaway

So, I guess like everybody else I'll post up my virtual pulls from the Topps Million Card Giveaway.

I'm a little late with showing off the cards. I didn't really get much. After 7 retail packs I pulled 3 code cards, which seems like pretty decent odds.

My first card was a 1993 Edgar Martinez.

I don't have any cards from this year, so that's something I guess.

My second card was a 2007 Brandon McCarthy.

I'm glad i didn't pick up that discount 2007 blaster when I was out buying these packs, haha. I still got one indirectly though. Oh well.

and lastly a cool vintage card.



A 1971 Skip Pitlock card. He looks a little surprised to be a part of the million card giveaway. Also, his auto looks like it came from the hand of a psychopath.

The card looks a little miscut. Hopefully that's from the scan and not a miscut card. I'm definitely getting these cards sent to me at some point.

I'm glad I went out and picked up some more packs, and I'm hoping that I get more vintage cards like the Pitlock card.

Honestly I don't know much about the players on these cards. I really like the fact that I got a 1971 card. I haven't seen many of these around here and I'm sure that this one is going to be in pretty good shape. I can't imagine Topps sending out cards in crappy condition.

Hopefully I can pull some more old cards.

Trade with the Collective Troll

Troll always delivers a bunch of cool cards in our trades. He seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to sending out trade packages.

They're all great cards, but I'm going to start out with this one.


It's card number 96 from this years A&G mini set. You guys all probably recognize this card, but it looks so much better in this fashion.

I think all the historic cards look much better with the black border. Actually all the cards look pretty awesome with the black borders.


Interesting fact about Geronimo is that he's interred at Ft. Sill which is in Lawton, Oklahoma. Any chance to insert some random facts about Oklahoma is always welcomed by me, even if irritates everybody else.


Here is the photo that they used in the making of the card.

Keeping with the historic minis is a black border card from 2008 A&G.


It's a Fredrick Douglass card. Pretty cool. He's the Underground Railroad guy. I'm sure ya'll already know that though. It's my only black bordered card from the 2008 set. Actually I only have a few of these cards from 2008 A&G. I need to go back to the hobby shop and get more packs of this stuff.

Another couple of cards from 2008 A&G:




A Delgado mini and a Brian Schneider base card. I like 2009 the best but the other years are pretty cool too. Schneider's with the Phillies now, and it looks like Delgados' out as a free agent, but still it will be nice to add these cards to the Mets A&G 08 binder page.



Seems like every UD card from 07/08 has the same color scheme: medium brown dirt/dark green grass/lighter brown dirt.



A couple of Mike Pelfrey cards.

08's a medium shot




and 09's a closer shot. both showing the pursed lips during a windup. At least he's healthy and still on the team.

Next up is a couple of Johan cards from Moments and Milestones. These are the first M&M cards I've gotten.




They commemorate 245 K's during his 2006 AL Cy Young year. Pretty cool.

I really like all Johan cards even when he's in his Twins jersey.


Trading card history Johan card.




Based on the 1933 Delong card set. One of these days I need to search out some actual vintage cards that these are based on.


He sent me over a bunch of Heritage from 2008.


I still have a few more of these to fill out the team set. Without the Troll I wouldn't have any. No matter how many packs I buy, I never seem to pull any Mets. Honestly I don't really pull that many cards from '08 Heritage that I want to keep, but I still keep trying.

Now I have almost have a binder page of cool Mets.

Now I have a hot of the presses (at least to me) high number Heritage Francoeur card...

..and an older heritage from 2007.


These have cool backs too.


The backs are mainly cartoons with captions with a small area for the stats.

Wow! Another Beltran.




This time a Masterpieces card. Goes right into the Mets binder. He had surgery last month on his right knee and will be out until at least May.

and a bunch more cards for the binder.


The Beltran goes in the A&G binder and the Johan and other Topps cards are all going in the Mets team binders.

Thanks again for the cards. It's pretty amazing that you always know and are generous to send me a bunch of cards that I need.


I'm going to leave you with this card for now. I'm going to use the front of this card for a jumping off point for another post later. Go Ra....I mean Sooners! Go Mets! Jeremy out.