"Look at me, Rex Banner - I have a new hat!"

So, a lot of cool kids would start this post out with embedding a video of Maclemore's "Thrift Shop."

However, I am not a cool kid, at all. I'm a 26-year-old washed up athlete/environmentalist trapped in the body of a hobbling, bitter suburbanite. I'm out of touch, but I find my world much more interesting than those of the black-high-sox and neon green Miami Heat fiddy-9 fiddies you'll find on the sleakest of young gentleman (read: douchebags).

Mini-rant aside, I recently was conned into a mall/AC Moore/Rescue Mission trip in order to end up at the local Farmer's Market-Tree Nursery-Greenhouse.

The mall was uneventful - the girl had to get some electronic scent blowing candle things while I wandered - already under the influence of an irritating headache, the chemically enhanced atmosphere of Bath and Body Works was the last place I wanted to be. Thus, her purchases were made, and we traveled more or less across the street to an AC Moore, where she bought...something...and I walked away with some discounted felt pens for my field notebook at the Ol' Quarry.

Then, on the way to the Rescue Mission. We dropped off a couple bags of clothes - as we always try to donate before buying clothes from the same place at mercifully low prices.

Now, this particular RM has been a honey hole for me and my thrifting pleasures. Among my excellent finds include: Majestic New York Mets pullover hoodie, Ken Griffey Jr #3 Reds shersey, Texas baseball t-shirt and long sleeve t-shirt, multiple Toronto Blue Jays hats (their AAA franchise used to be here, nwo it is The Nationals) and last but not least - a Mitchell & Ness Chicago Cubs 1909 hoodie - which at the time, cost a cool $85 from MLB.com.

Anyways, I quickly made my way to the men's shirts, and almost immediately, was awarded with this:

 A bright orange, in my size, Boise State Broncos tee. An excellent start to my adventure. With this having an orange tag, the total, at 50% off, came to $2.

Feeling fat and sassy after that find, I ventured to the next rack to find this:

Iowa baseball! In yellow! My job often requires me to be on roadsides doing surveys or working at construction sites, so all of the birghtly colored tees I can find fit well into my connection. I've been coming up empty on yellow lately, and this was a hugely welcome addition, for the deep-pockets for a marked price of $5 - which later scanned as $3. Good deal, as this one was practically brand new.

I always make my way to hats here, as well. There's a Little League which uses MLB and MiLB logos for heir teams - and although I found a very cool Louisville Bats/Local Car Dealership one, it was incredibly dirty, so I had to leave it. I did, however, find this:

I had no idea what this one was until I turned it over to see CAL STATE FULLERTON scrolled across the velcro strap. Cal State has a pretty sweet angry Stampy logo, which somehow represents a mascot of the Titans. Cal State is the alma-mater of some decent big leaguers, including mainstay of this blog - Ricky Romero, who is hardly even a AAA pitcher at this point ($2).

Sigh.

Along a more successful favorite team of this blog, I bring you to one of my more awesome finds so far. Feast your peepers on:

Hooooo man, that is sweet. I want to camp in this hat, blaring some CCR from my Trans Am stereo and blast a few silver bullets. I look like a total jerkass wearing it around, but I just don't care.

Awesome is awesome, and you cannot beat $2 awesome.

#bowmaning

Sometimes, you've just got to beat the odds.

Lately, I've been having good luck in doing so.

Two blasters of Gypsy Queen netted me two jersey swatches and two rare Travis Snider mini parallels.

When 2013 Bowman came out this past week, I fully expected my luck to change.

Of course, I have always had quite excellent luck with Bowman.

Just not this good.

Two blasters of the stuff pulled me in a few nights ago as a freshly stocked Sprawl*Mart shelf beckoned to me after the more-often-than-not barren Target shelves left me longing for some guys  have never heard of.

It was an easy spend. And as the first thing I've opened since GQ, it felt good.

Of course, Bowman 2013 is no Bowman 2012, 2010 or even 1997. But it's a nice set, and something not everyone devotes much time to. And I like it. It's collecting, not conforming, so I think I will stick to Bowman, while everyone bitches and moans and mopes and waits up Series 2 comes out and then they can bitch about that again, too.

So let's get into it. Bowman, of course, has base cards. This year, the design just isn't that great. The card stock is nice, the cards have a good weight, and the sheen is nice.

There's also that new-card smell.

Very few stick out as favorites, photograph-wise, but these will do for show-and-tell:

That;s a greast shot. Mostly because you no doubt know what just happened. I'm a bit puzzled as to what "blue" team catcher that is in the background. My hunch says AJ Ellis.

That's a great looking base card. Notice both of these blokes are cut off around the knees. This is a theme in 2013 Bowman, and I hope it doesn't continue. On the other hand, I wish Starling Marte all the world of continuance in his performance. I'm becoming a big fan of his, and am also starting up a nice collection. Might have to rainbow this card with at least the colored paper parallels.

I like prospect, unlike pretty much everyone else of late (GET OFF MY LAWN!!!), and Bowman is chock o'block of them.

That last little bit was brought to you by my Volcanology professor, a rather uppity Scots(wo)man.

Schoop is one of the few bright spots in the 2013 Bowman Prospects class. It's just not that good of a year.

As with every Bowman release, there is"The One." The One prospect that fully numb-brained prospectors lose their shit over, and this year, Carlos Correa is The One. An argument can be made that Byron Buxton is also The One for 2013, but I didn't pull his card. So, there's that.

PS Correa is better.

Anywhoooo, there are also gold cards.

I wouldn't mind if the gold cards went away from Bowman. They work better for The Mothership, so just leave it. The good news is this one is going away, with the help of a well-time trade with a Kemp Kollector, well-known in the parts.

While I prefer the simplicity of the Top 100 sets of years past, the chromification of the insert this year isn't so bad. I wonder, though, what they'll do for the Chrome release.

Double Chrome?

These fall at 1:12, so pulling out two of them from 16 packs was quite welcome. I would welcome more of these.

Going against my pre-set theme of posting from common to scarce are the International, or if you're 'Merican!, hometown parallels. Luckily I got a Blue Jay. Unluckily, it's Tyler Gonzales, who excites me about as much as steamed celery. That's a Texas flag behind him, if you were wondering. Yet, if you cannot recognize a Texas flag, you're probably from, of, I don't know, Croatia or something.

The one behind the substantially-awesome-name Socrates Brito (say that outloud to yourself) is a Dominican flag. If you rip enough of 13 Bowman to pull some Internationals, chances are you'll see quite a few of those.

The Cody Ross and Jurd Weaver flaggers similarly show off the draped flags of New Mexico and California, respectively. I really like the Ross, which is something I never thought I'd say. I'm curious as to whether Nick Swisher is in the set or not, as his flag would be that of Ohio - the only US state not featuring a rectangular field to their flag.

I like minis, and I like refractors. However, these fail as the former. They're not very mini at all. More like the minis that Topps has been stuffing down our throats in '12 and '13. I did, however, pull some prominent Prospects, both of which are hanging in the Bigs right now.

That is if Rondon hasn't walked in seven runs at once yet.

But he throws 100 MPH!!!

Meh.

Hey! MOAR refractorz!! Sort of. I guess these are paper refractors, but don't call them that. They're silver ice parallels and normally, they drop 1:24, yet I picked up two in 16. I'm down with it. Aside from one being a Met, the other is Jairo Beras, a lesser-known but still very legit prospect in the, you-guessed-it, Texas Rangers org.

But like I said, I really spanked the odds with these boxes. How much so? How about two cards falling at 1:34 packs:

 ...I'm always a fan of Bowman autographs, but it seems like every auto is on a sticker now. Think the companies are listening to our cries for on-card autos? Think again. In case you cannot read the foil on the autos, they are Danny Salazar of the Cleveland Indians organization and Jamie Callahan of the Sawx. He'll fit in at Fenway if he ever makes it

Last but certainly not least, the highlight of my two boxes, falling at a wholesome 1:67:

Mmmm. Orange. Elvis is following me around of late after I criticized his new mega deal with the Rangers. But that's fine, I like him as a player. And I like orange. 

Progressions.

Firstly, I need to apologize for my sparse posting of late. The HP scanner was sentences to death a few weeks ago, and a replacement has yet to be acquired.

If I'm honest, I just don't care for use either my Droid Bionic or Fujifilm mini SLR for taking photographs of baseball cards, yet in order to keep any sort of regular posts happening here, I have to. All of the following, as well as the Liriano splash above, are from the Droid, which I will admit takes great landscapes in well-lit situations as well as getting some extra refractory glow from cards.

But it's not the same. So, I apologize for that, but also, it doesn't much matter, and there is not much I can do about it anyway.

On to some new arrivals.

The above Rymer Liriano is yet another 2012 Bowman Sterling autograph. These can be had for cheap, especially when the prospect in question is going to miss the entire season with Tommy John surgery - which is surprising for an outfield prospect, but also less career-threatening than it would be for a pitcher.

I picked it up for $.99 is addition to a pile of six 2013 Topps Tribute base cards contributing to my reverse box-break of said product.

As you can see, I picker up Giancarlo Stanton ($.86), Andrew McCutchen ($.86), Jose Bautista ($.86), Yu Darvish ($1.85), Reggie Jackson (&.85) and Harmon Killebrew ($.85). Those prices include the outrageous shippinh that the ebay seller charged - but I can't blame him, really, and all but the Liriano auto and the Darvish had starting bids of $.01. I received no competition to land them.

So where does it put me in the 2013 Tribute Box Challenge?

Goal	275
Total	21.64
Remaining Budget	253.36

That in American Dollars. No rupies or dongs or rubels about it. Eight of thirty-five cards down, and only $21 in. I may try to do this in less than fifty dollars, but then I may be getting kind of greedy.

Something else I've been slowly chipping away at is my 2012 Pro Debut and Heritage Minors logo patch collection.

After a few months waiting on Topps to fill some redemptions, I now have these:

Out of desperation, I drafted Jean Segura in the later rounds of my own, personal fantasy league, and damn, he's good. I also roll him out there with Starling Marte, and the two have been carrying me of late. Oswaldo Arcia hasn't been to bad, either.

It's hard to even call Segura a prospect at this point. He's shown very few weaknesses.

Mason Williams, on the other hand, is another case. He recently got a DUI after failing a field sobriety test - yet legally, he was below the .08 blood/alcohol content for Florida. Light weight.

Seriously, though. Not something that should be joked about. Stop drinking and driving you entitled assholes.
_

The next is probably my favourite of my recent additions.

This Javier Baez, a very highly-touted Chicago Cubs prospect, is totally baller. I was very close to winning a combo deal with this and the Wilmer Flores (Port St. Lucie Mets), but was somehow outbid on the Flores.

Initially, I wasn't really psyched for this one. But I got a pretty good deal, and after I removed the cookie crumbs or whatever the shit the seller dribbled all over it, the green and red and orange looks pretty badass.

The Boise Hawks definitely picked a strange color combination, but it does look pretty awesome.

In case you're wondering, I now have:

Javier Baez - Boise Hawks (Chicago Cubs)
Heath Hembree - Richmond Flying Squirrels (San Francisco Giants)
Mike Olt - Myrtle Beach Pelicans (Texas Rangers)
Anthony Gose - New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Toronto Blue Jays)
Taijuan Walker - Clinton Lumberjacks (Seattle Mariners)
Jonathan Griffin - Missoula Osprey (Los Angeles Angels)
Will Middlebrooks - Pawtucket Red Sox (Boston Red Sox)

..and they're all pretty baller.

While all of the previous cards fit into my personal challenges, protests versus the industry, or insert set collections, I most recently won this shiny beacon of awesome for one of my player collections, Francisco Lindor:

Preeeeeetttttyyyyyyyyy.

This is my second Lindor relic, both of which contain this nice blue swatch which I am pretty sure means they're both from the World Futures Game jersey you see in the photo. On the other, he's pictured with the Lake County Captains, another blue team.

Lindor is featured as a prospect/set filler in 2013 Bowman with a once-again regurgitated Topps photo. le sigh.

Stay patient, readers. Looks like it will be until June for me to purchase another scanner. But it'll come, and it'll be awesome.

Towards the Goal: The Reverse Tribute Box

A few days, possibly even a week ago at this point, I decided to cook up another FU to the folks at Topps Cards.

Their Tribute set from this year looks nice, just like last year's, but I'll be damned if I could tell the difference between the '12 and '13 sets. Taking a look at the cards available on ebay, I decided to go after a few. After I received my first autograph of Salvador Perez for less than the price of half-of-one-pack and only numbered to /35, I decided that I would reconstruct a box of the stuff: thirty cards, three autographs and three relics and a pile of parallels.

My perez, a "sepia" parallel with not a single bit of sepia-tone to it, cost $10. The above Jose B. Reyes, a blue parallel of a dual-memorabilia piece...$5.50.

Now, both of those are more than I'd like to spend on cards, but at the same time, I would never, in my life, purchase a high-end box. My greatest box purchase at this point? 2010/11 Panini Rookie Anthology hockey at about $60 at the last card show I went to.

So, pick 30 2013 Topps Tribute cards, mostly one-by-one, for a fraction of the cost? Or take a steel-toed $275 kick in the testicles from Topps and purchase a box?

No thanks, Topps.

The thrill of opening your packs isn't worth it anymore.

Progress: 2/30
Total Spent: $15.49
Budget Remaining (DA Card World price $275 - Total): $259.51

Unrelated

On a side, I picked up the hella refractory Drew Hutchison from another reverse-box caliber product, 2012 Bowman Sterling. I personally loved the design of 2012 Sterling, while most complained quite a bit about it.

I've only picked up a few from it so far, including 5-8 Francisco Lindor autographs, a few Stryker Trahan autos (including one very awesome refractor) and the Lindor base refractor.

This one cost me the most, as you may have guessed.

That there is a mighty fine purple refractor on my favourite busted Blue Jay, Drew Hutchison. Normally I don't have many cards #ed lower than /50, so finally pulling in a Purple Refractor /10 of one of my favourites was quite enjoyable.

More coming soon. Maybe even a sad post about getting old and stepping away from the game you love. 

About Time (and autographs).

Blogging about baseball and hockey cards without a scanner lends to some difficulties.

I will admit, however, I do not hate it nearly as much as I intended.

The use of digital (handheld) photography for posting cards does have one perk, in which the repetitive narrative of "the scan doesn't do this card justice" is completely thrown out the window.

Bowman Platinum is one of those sets, along with many refractors from Topps and Bowman Chrome and Finest, in which scanning the cards doesn't quite give the true light-bending properties of the card.

Take this Brett Lawrie relic-auto. While the sticker may not be incredibly obvious in a scan - neither would the eversweet rainbow stock of the card. This is a blue parallel, numbered to /199, and I landed it for the price of what a base version usually runs. There are also green (eww) and gold parallels, but since Brett is rocking the Jays deep blue batting practice Jays jersey (which matches the swatch! rejoice!) the blue version looks the best other than the base refractor, which seems kind of rare lately.

But what is it that I love the most about this card? Check out that autograph. For Brett Lawrie, that thing is immaculate. Let's take a look at his more recent inkings:

Ugh. This may taint my quest for the reverse-box of 2013 Tribute.

What the hell is that

AHH! Look away!

The thing is, Brett Lawrie collectors, or possibly autograph collectors in general, have taken notice. Brett's Red Bull-induced autographing process since 2011 (I am assuming the '12 Bowman Platinum in the first picture is from a set of 2011 stickers) has led to lower values of his cards, rather than the cleaner, crisper autographs you find on the early-2012 and 2011 releases. Perhaps this coincides with his call-up in late summer of 2011 and the flurry of off-field action he may be seeing, including appearances, endorsements and so on. He is the Canadian Jesus, after all.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what those other clean autographs look like, behold 2012 Gypsy Queen:

Holy YES.

and his 2011 Bowman 1stie:

This would make no one blue.

Or maybe it's the ever-growing number of tatts messing up is penmanship. 

Challenge Accepted, Again

Yes, things have been slow on this blog.

Yes, there is still a void on my desk where a printer-scanner once took up entirely too much real estate.

And yes, I will continue to try and post things here and there until there is a new scanner, preferably wireless, taking up precious real estate somewhere in the house.

While the last two Topps releases were duds, I've been picking up some singles here and there, some from ebay (though that has become infuriating), others from a very awesome card show and some from a  few trades which have been completed recently.

Yet with many of recent ebay seller jackholing (which, of course, I blame more on ebay than on sellers trying not to go under), I still managed to make a couple big adds this weekend with what you may call "good to very good" seller conduct.

The first of which, was this:

Jonathan Griffin is a 1B prospect in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. Currently, he's playing with the Mobile Bay Bears (AA). The Missoula Osprey were his home in 2011 where he killed the Midwest League to a .295/18/59 line in only 71 games.

In 2012, he was even better with the Visalia Oaks - hitting 26 HR with 98 RBI (archaic stats, yes, but advanced ones are hard to find on low-minors players) in (mostly) full season of 128 games.

Before looking up his stats, I knew nothing about him - but it looks like this guy can mash low-minors pitching. Hopefully for him and the Grindin' Diamondbacks, he can carry it into the Bigs.

This also showed up today:

Mini Salvador Perez. Nothing about Perez is mini (ladies ;).) Dude is a monster behind home plate, and moves surprisingly quick for an Easter Island model. But why am I showing this card? Because it was a free throw-in. Which I love. Free things. I love them.

It was thrown in to possibly distract me from this awesome:

Oh, Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce that is a fine-looking card.

When I bid on this, I didn't expect to get it. Salvador Perez cards are pretty hot, even with his "slow" start to 2013 (the three weeks of sky is falling!). Like I mentioned above, Perez is a big dude. I cannot imagine him trying to use his bear paws to grip a tiny Sharpie to sign this card, let alone a sticker auto. So of course, he took up the whole thing, writing across the gaudy-yet-glorious gold foil facade.

This card has inspired me.

A box of 2013 Topps Tribute will set you back $275 at Dave & Adam's.

In one box of Topps Tribute, you will get six packs of five card, for 30 total cards.

What has this disaster inspired me to do?

Reverse-assemble a box of 2013 Topps Tribute for less than $275.

How I will do it: purchase six hits from this set.

Purchase 25 base cards from this set, 20 regular and 5 parallels.

Ideally, I'd like to go after players I enjoy. I mean, why spend so much time and effort looking for shitty autos?

This Perez will be my first towards this odyssey. It took me $12 to acquire.

$263 to go. 

A Career in Baseball Cards: Kirt Manwaring - 1988

Rookie cards are a funny thing. Some are awful. Some are awesome.

They're kind of like business cards or resumes.

"This is who I am."
"This is what I have done."

It's up to whoever is holding the card at that time to read into the picture, the text on the back, the presentation of the borders, the weight and feel of the cardboard.

A rookie card carries some responsibility. Some weight. It's the one card of a baseball player that every fan, or at least collector, should know.

As rookie cards are almost always posed (the good ones, at least), I always wonder how that conversation goes between ballplayer and photographer.

"Next up...Kirt...Mannering."

"Manwaring, sir."

"Listen, meat. I have 88 more minor leaguers to photograph in Giants colors today. Hit .280 in the show and people will know your name."

I assume that at this point, Kirt would crouch down, tear off a smile, chuckle, and go catch a bullpen session.

_

Kirt actually made his major league debut in 1987, but with the parlance of the times, his rookie cards did not appear until the following season.

Immediately, the card-collecting community was blessed. His 1988 Donruss is a gem of a rookie card. Somehow, the black and red and blue border doesn't clash with the catcher's gear and Giants uniform. And of course, the RatedRookie logo. Oh, how I miss it.

His 1988 Topps Traded isn't so bad either. Catchers in on-field caps is rare enough, and a mesh interlocking SF, the pride of the 1980s and the classic Giants home whites - not to mention the 65-lb Rawlings catcher's mitt - harmoniously take a collector in the height of the junk-wax era to the roaring 50's of classic posed catcher shots.

Shades of Yogi Berra?

Well, it's a reach. But I've been stretching and I think I can make it happen.

Notice the COMC logo on all of these cards. I have not yet purchased a new printer/scanner, thus, I am subject to scavenging COMC.com, so much more than a baseball card clearinghouse.

Also: how often do you see a full crowd in the background of such a posed shot? It's the subtleties, man. It's the subtleties that keep us card bloggers in business.

Of course, rookie cards often have action shots.  While I don't recommend this for any aspiring card producers, it still happens.

And in 1988, I am sure it was a welcomed sight with the amount of posed shots accumulating into 660-card sets.

If you want action, 1988 Score is for you.

This 1988 Score (Traded?) is right for any prospecting collector, as along the left border, you have a warning.

There are ups and downs in this game. One moment you're hitting .394 to start a season, and a second later while stealing second base, your ankle asssploooodes and you're out three months. Sorry. The Jose Reyes wounds are still open and festering.

Anyways, actions shots! Rookie Prospect!

Kirt may not have lead up to expectations out of the gate for San Francisco. Of course, I was two years old, so my apologies for not remembering the season as if it was today's beat at work.

He hit .250/1/15 in 1988, reminiscent to what i might be able to hit in the majors if given a full season to train and given the height of my athletic ability.

One home run. On the way to a career which totaled a thunderous 21 dingers over the course of 13 years.

Kirt Manwaring, the Pride of Elmira, New York.

To be continued...