Contest at Too Many Grandersons!!!

Too Many Grandersons is having a cool NFL contest tonight. Get your entries in quick. Pick the final score of the MNF game tonight between the Titans and Jaguars to win some 2008 Football Masterpieces cards.

my new obsession

In case you haven't noticed it yet, my new obsession these days is trying to get caught up on all my trade posts. Hopefully I can give everyone their day in the sun because I really do like the cards they send over. Plus, having them out on my desk gives me a chance to pour over them a few more times before they are relegated to the binder.

I still go through my binders semi regularly, but it still isn't the same as when they are new.

Having said that, I really feel like I need to devote some time and obsess over how I can properly memorialize the cool cards that people sent over.

Kelly, from My Baseball Obsession-itis sent over some cool cards that will fill many little holes in my want lists.

One insert from 2009 that I originally had little interest in last year was the Legends of the Game subset. I liked some of them, others not so much. I guess it was hard for me to wrap my pea brain around the different numbering systems depending on where you bought the cards from. Having a desire to complete every little set and subset out there makes me think that it would be too difficult to get all these cards especially considering that I would never know if I had all of them or not.

I've traded many of them away, but when I see a player come around that I want to start collecting I can't help but try to put out a request for these cards.


One such card is this Johnny Bench card. It's a photo taken from a game, but obviously not an action shot. Still, it's a nice card. I really need to do more research and find out what kind of lenses where used in those days. I have seen quite a few cards that feature this type of "double circle" bokeh in the background and it's bothering me that I don't know what equipment produced this effect. Bokeh is the type of background blur that occurs in the unfocused part of the photo. It's the out of focus circular orbs that you can sometimes see in photos.

I finally did some research and figured out that the reason that the Bokeh looks like a "donut" is that the lens is a catadioptric lens. It's a mirror lens that photographers sometimes use because of it's light weight and I guess at one point they were less expensive than normal lenses. One problem is the fact that the aperture was usually fixed at f8 or f11. That would make it harder to photograph night time subjects or at least night time subjects in action. I've seen so many cards recently that have had subjects from the '70's that have this sort of donut bokeh. It looks a little distracting to me sometimes. If I ever get around to it, I'll try to do a real post on the cards that I'm talking about.

I guess it should go without saying, but I really like the card. I won't put this with my other LOTG cards, it will go in the fledgling Oklahoma binder with my other two Johnny Bench cards.

Next up is another player that I'm sort of collecting, but not really going heavy after. I like Pujols. Especially this year as they played lots of ST. Louis games on cable in Norman/OKC. I like to watch Matt Holiday too. There is another Okie on the team Ryan Franklin, but I only have one of his cards that I know of.

This Pujols card pulls me within three cards of finishing the 2009 U&H Propaganda set!! Yay!

This Dostoevsky brings me that much closer to finishing off the Words Greatest Wordsmiths mini card set.

only 5 more cards now!!

These two National Animals get me within 15 cards of finishing off the 50 card set. Not too bad.

These two cards also represent two places that I would like to visit. Machu Pichu in Peru and the Philippines in general.

Thanks again Kelly. If ya'll haven't had a chance to check out her blog you should. She's a big Red Sox fan who takes really cool photos of her trips to Fenway Park.

inspiration from south florida

As most of you know, our favorite blogger Marck from the Collective Troll blog is a very verbose character. His posts are almost always long and insightful, but never boring. I can't say the same for my own posts, but that's my own cross to bear. When I got my part of the cheap box break in the mail the other day I couldn't believe the amount of cards in that little box. I should have known by the weight of the box that there would be a bunch of cards. It felt like a little brick. A little brick of awesomeness!

I don't think I have it in me to do a Troll-sized post so I'll hit the highlights.

First off the bizarre pack of Space shots Series 3. 8 cards per pack.
I think it's pretty funny that they have a series three of this set. Really? They couldn't fit the entire checklist into one or two series? They had to add in another series. I'm joking, I really do like the oddball stuff. These cards will go nicely in the binder with all the non-sports stuff.

Play at the Plate already beat me to the punch by posting up his pack. I still want to show off a couple of cards that I thought were interesting.

First off the Soyuz 19 from Apollo.
Pretty cool shot when you think about it. Sort of like the cell phone pics people take outside a plane, but obviously much cooler.

"I wish I would've pulled a Yuri G!. It's just the things that she does to me."
I didn't, but I pulled a Yuri V. Close enough. He has really cool hair so that makes up for it.

I'm not sure if Yuri Gagarin was in this issue or not. I always loved P.J. Harvey in the late '90's and this song was one of my favorites:


It's Yuri G from the album 4-track demos. If you couldn't tell earlier that was me rewriting the lyrics to fit the mood of this post.


Here is a card of the first female EVA Savitskaya.

Pretty nifty shot as well.

The bulk of the package was from the nineties and their is no better example of the nineties than this card of Bobby Bonilla.


Wow.
It looks like Kid 'n Play invited Skreech to a House Party, they all got drunk and came up with this card design.

I'm almost certain I have had some school binder with this same design in high school. The photo itself is pretty cool though.

The back is nice too. I like cartoon backs.


Here's a 1995 Stadium Club card of Jeff Kent labeled "Dug out Dirt". Weird.

But again, the back is nice. This time a bigger cartoon.



I'm guessing this is a minor league issue of some sort from the Jacksonville Suns. It's also from the '90's(notice the big 1 9 9 2 letters across the top of the card), but the old photo from the '60's saves it from looking too 90's ish.

This is one of my favorites from this package. This one and the next card are two that still remain in a special place on my desk so that I can display them easily. Eventually they will probably find a place in a binder, but for now I have them out so I can look at them occasionally.


I found a bunch of these Pacific cards online a few months ago. They're thin, but I like the design a lot. It's got an old fashioned look to the layout on the fronts and backs. The older photos of players in their heyday is really nice too.


These Heritage High Numbers are great as I don't have any of these cards. The 1960 is one of the nicest and makes any player look good. I don't even mind the pink, black and white on the Reddon card. It somehow fits.



Lastly, but not least a Heritage Chrome of Gary Sheffield. Shiny is always good. It looks really nice with the other Heritage chrome cards that I have.

I think the only 2007 cards that I own have all come from Marck. He must have opened a lot of 2007 Topps. I haven't pulled a single 2007 card from a pack that I want to keep. Good thing he has a bunch of duplicates to send over.


These two cards look really nice and I didn't have either one. Actually about 90 % of the cards I didn't have yet.

Thanks for hosting the cool break Marck. I know I got a really good deal on the break. I just didn't have the energy to show off all the cards. It was a very generous offer to host the break.

Thanks for reading!

My take on the OU/Texas game: Red River Shootout

This is a view from my seat last year.

This Saturday I will be making my annual trek to the Big D' Dallas, Texas to see the football game featuring my Alma Mater The University of Oklahoma playing against the University of Texas. In the past ten seasons or so one or both of the teams have been ranked in the top ten. 6 times in the past 11 years one of the teams has played for a national championship. (2000, 2003, 2004, and 2008 for Oklahoma and 2005 and 2009 for Texas.)

This year's game has lost a little luster with Texas losing at home last week 34-12 to a 2-2 UCLA team. The last time Texas lost at home (2007 Kansas State) was also the last time they lost to OU in the Cotton bowl by a score of 28-21.

For their part OU has a 4-0 record but have only put away one team (Florida State)by a score of 47-17 while winning by a touchdown or less in the other three games(Utah State, Air Force and Cincinnati).

Team Stats so far:

W L PF PA Home Road Neutral
Oklahoma 4 0 136 94 3-0 1-0 0-0
Texas 3 1 104 72 1-1 1-0 1-0

Team stats based on www.ncaafootball.com

OKLA:
Passing Offense: G Att Com Int Pct Yds TD YDPG
10. Oklahoma 4 171 111 3 64.91 1235 9 308.75

Rushing Offense: G Rsh Net Avg TD Ydspg
89. Oklahoma 4 163 483 2.96 8 120.75

Rushing Defense: G Rsh Net Avg TD Ydspg
93. Oklahoma 4 165 710 4.30 5 177.50

Passing Defense: G Att Com Pct Yds TD Ydspg
90. Oklahoma 4 125 63 50.40 975 6 243.75

Tied for 4th in turnover margin
6 fbl recovery, 6 INT, giving away 1 fumble and 3 INT

Total Defense: G Pl Yds Avg TD Ydspg
97. Oklahoma 4 290 1685 5.81 11 421.25


Texas:
Passing Offense: G Att Com Int Pct Yds TD YDPG
60. Texas 4 140 87 4 62.14 885 4 221.25

Rushing Offense: G Rsh Net Avg TD Ydspg
76. Texas 4 141 542 3.84 7 135.50

Rushing Defense: G Rsh Net Avg TD Ydspg
20. Texas 4 146 396 2.71 5 99.00

Passing Defense: G Att Com Pct Yds TD Ydspg
6. Texas 4 94 58 61.70 515 3 128.75

Tied for 92nd with 4 fumbles, 3INT and giving away 6 fumbles and 4 INT

Total Defense: G Pl Yds Avg TD Ydspg
2. Texas 4 240 911 3.80 9 227.75


Yikes!! Those stats don't bode well for an OU victory. The fact that we are +2 in turnover margin is encouraging though.

Basically what I've seen in a few UT games and 4 OU games is that Texas is lame on offense and pretty good on defense. OU seems to be pretty streaky on offense and have bent (a lot) and not really broken down too much on defense. We can't run and neither can Texas. The only positive spin that I can put on our horrible rushing defense is that two of the 4 teams that we have faced have a run based offense in Utah State and Air Force and hopefully facing an immobile quarterback in Garrett Gilbert will help OU in their pass and run defense. I'm only saying this as running Qb's have always given us trouble. Teeing off on a slow QB is to OU's advantage. (Keeping my fingers crossed)

Now with the fun stuff. I've been going to this game since 2004. Currently I have a 2-4 record at the Cotton Bowl. My first game was in 2004 and we won 12-0. I endured a beat down in 2005 and '06 and saw my team win 28-21 in '07. 2008 and 2009 were both pretty close games. I would love to notch another win over the Longhorns. Actually I would love to avoid the drunken brawl outside of the stadium this year.


Last year I had to endure this crap all game long. Waaaay too many Longhorn fans in our section. For the uninitiated this is a "Hook'em Horns" thing. We have our own version, but I didn't think to get a photo of it. It's basically the same thing but upside down.

Apparently about 5 other schools use this same hand gesture. I didn't realize this,but the Hook'em Horns gesture was in response to the widespread popularity of the "Gig'em" gesture at Texas A&M, which was in response to Texas Christian University(TCU) which has a Horned Frog as a mascot. OU has an official hand gesture which is lame. I think a girl came up with ours so out of shame I'm not showing it here.

The series started in 1900 with a Texas win 28-2. It should be noted that the first game was played 7 years before Oklahoma Statehood. Oklahoma was known as Indian Territory at that time.

Currently Texas leads the series 59-40-5. The game has been played in three locations: Norman, Austin and of course the Cotton Bowl.
The Cotton Bowl has been the site for the OU/Texas game since 1929. The game has been sold out since 1941.

Notable trivia about the game.

The game is known now as the Red River Rivalry. Prior to 2005 the game was known as the Red River Shootout.

Since 1945 one or both of the teams have been in the top 25 except for 5 times.

The Red River is the river that acts as a border through much of the two states.

Former Governor Alfalfa Bill asked the state militia to monitor the border during the Red River Bridge War of 1931.

He also asked the Oklahoma National Guard to enforce ticket sales at OU football games.

Seriously, this guy is a nut job. Having said that, if anyone has any Alfalfa Bill Murray cards or memorabilia laying around let me know. Dude's nuts, but still an interesting character.

The game is held at the State Fair of Texas where you will see a ton of people going to the fair as well as 92,000 fans looking to have some corn dogs and fried coke before the game.


If I saw this shirt this year I would change the caption to read," Texas,you're F***n out(of the national championship picture) and "OU you're F****n in (a lot of trouble with your horrible defense.)



My dad was really interested in getting a t-shirt like the one this girl is wearing. She was only interested in telling us inappropriate stories of her being "kidnapped" the night before in some sort of white trash drama. Also, she seemed really bothered by the fact that I had taken her photo. Honestly I could care less.

Here is a shot I found online that shows the 50 yard line division better than I could describe it.



The stadium is split at the 50 yard line, but in recent years I have seen a lot of burnt orange in our section. I have had to sit by 3 UT fans last year taking the space of 1 seat. Sucks. Bench seats are hard to enforce, but I did my best to squeeze those three guys out hoping that they would leave and go squeeze in on their own side, but they never did. I recall them cheering loudly when Bradford went down with an injury. I immediately thought of those three clowns when Colt McCoy went down with an injury in the NC game against Alabama. Karma's a bitch indeed.

Here's a shot of the flyover last year.


And a shot of the OU band taking the field. Sorry, didn't have a chance to get the Texas band.

No matter how hot it gets, or how drunk you get there is absolutely no passing out until halftime.

Maybe I'm taking this sign too literally.


A mass exodus of OU fans leaving the stadium. This sad sight has been repeated too many times in recent years.



A quick pic of the coolest hat I've seen. If I ever become a hat wearing guy I'm getting one of these. This would go great with one of those Hawaiian themed sports shirts.

I hope everybody likes my quick rundown of the OU/Texas rivalry. Look for me in section 137. I'm going to be the guy in the red shirt. Haha.

Here's a snippet of a DVD detailing the game. It's a bit long, but the even longer version is probably too much for someone who isn't a fan of either team. The Dvd is really nice though if you are into college football.



Hopefully I haven't jinxed myself by writing this pre-game review. Last time I did this we lost. I'll have a good time nonetheless.

Thanks for reading!