Mariano Rivera Gets Career RBI #1 !!!!!!

K-Rod walked Rivera which drove in a run. One of the most interesting at-bats I've seen all season.

Oh and he also notched his 500th Career save! The Phenominal Phils, Mr. Coke and Mr. Hughes, both pitched on this historic night without giving up a run. Even Chien-Ming Wang was able to hold the Mets to 2 runs without dishing out batting practice.

This card is courtesy of JD's Wild Cardz.



Destined For History indeed. It's amazing what he's been able to do for almost 13 years with one really awesome pitch.

A Big Thank You to Upper Deck

I won an auction on eBay and when I received the card I got a little panicked. After looking over the card I started to feel like I'd been had. Like someone put a bogus card out there and I was the poor sap who bit.

Well, I emailed Mario and told him I the situation and asked if he knew anyone who could help me figure out if the card was a fraud. He gave me Chris Carter's email address at Upper Deck and said I could try to see if he would help.

I emailed Chris explaining the situation and he emailed back asking for scans of the card. I zipped up hi-res scans of the front and back of the card.

After some time I got an email stating this:

"After reviewing with the MLB brand team, we confirmed this card to be authentic parallel numbered of five."

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Don Mattingly's 2007 Goudey Diamond Stars #/5



I just wanted to extend a thank you to Chris Carter and his team at Upper Deck. It's very easy for an email to get ignored and go unanswered. Chris took the time to respond and gave his people take a look at my card. And for that I'm very thankful.

I know we rag on the card companies a lot and give them a hard time. But it's also good to give credit where credit is due.

Objects in this relic card may appear FREAKIN HUGE!

I know I don't post often but I had to share this. This is one of those awesome things I've discovered since returning to the hobby.

Here are two 2003 Flair Greats Sweet Swatch Classic cards. I got these off eBay thinking the gimmick here is that the relic on the card was larger than normal. The image didn't give any hint to the cards' actual sizes. I got the package in the mail with a bunch of other packages. I had no idea what the heck it was until I opened up the package and exclaimed "Holy crap! Look at the size of these cards."



I posted normal cards so you can see the size difference. These cards are impressive looking in person. If your favorite player has one of these cards I suggest hunting them down and getting them. I was able to pick up the pair for less than $20. The bat card is #ed to 490 and the jersey card is #ed to 880.

2 x Topps Series 2 Jumbo boxes

Topps Series 2 shouldn't surprise anyone. But I think Topps upgraded a bit versus Series 1. I'm happy with the two boxes I got but not overly excited. The boxes I broke were a mashup of the really cool stuff you can get and the utter crap that could line the bottom of your bird's cage.



I know, I was excited to pull that Fred Lewis. I gasped and exclaimed "who the heck is this guy?" Seriously, this auto relic thing is horrifically overdone. Topps and Upperdeck, listen... you have my full permission to make relics and autos hard to get as long as they're very recognizable names in baseball. When I look at my Eric Chavez, my heart gets full and it just makes me want to say "why?" Seriously, why?


Now here is something I did like. The Career Best cards were a pleasant surprise. I pulled a Ruth and Gerhig. Turkey Red is back with what look to be even better images than Series 1. I pulled a Gerhig card and it looks beautiful. Again we have the black and gold parallels.



Here are some WBC cards that Topps decided to throw into the set and I was able to pull a Molitor and Yaz manufactured patch card. I'm sure I would enjoy these if I actually pulled someone I collected.



I really like this gold card and I will enjoy having it in my personal collection. Nick Swisher has won me over and I'm a fan for life. He has a great personality and has brought that "something" to the Yankees and I have to say I enjoy watching him. I follow Nick here on Twitter.

And then there's this card.


I'm glad I pulled something interesting this time around. My Series 1 experience was dull and when I pulled this I felt better. I just think this card is cool. I'm not sure the origin of this stamp but I really would like to find out. If anyone has any information on it I'm very interested.

I'm still working on checking my Series 2 base cards to see if I got the whole set but I'm fairly confident I did this time. If anyone needs any cards let me know, I got tons of doubles so far.

Overall, this experience was better than Series 1. Nothing phenomenal but an improvement over the last time around.

Til next time

It's been such a long time, guess I should be bloggin'

One of the cool things about blogging is that you run the show. You're the program director and you say what the "who, what, where,when, and why" is. But I do love reading other people's blogs a little bit more than I like posting mine. You guys come up with really interesting topics and I'm an avid follower.

With that being said, I've been completely distracted these past couple of weeks due to a new addition to our family.This is Bella (her full name is Bella Bow Wow given to her by Kim). She is a JackChi or Jackuahua which is a Jack Russel Chihuahua mix. She's really Kim's dog but she's become a "daddy's little girl." Her favorite past time is crawling into my lap or arm and falling asleep. We're still adjusting to her and trying our best to potty train her and teach her not to bite us. Things sure do change when you get a little one in the house.

But this is where my head has been at lately. Although, I have gotten some great packges in the mail, busted two boxes of Series 2 Topps, went to a card show and received some interesting things off eBay. So hopefully I'll find time to post some of these things.

Legendary Cuts Already?

While all of us are posting and reading about Topps and UD Series 2. I found this auction on eBay:

2009 Don Mattingly Legendary Cuts

The relic card looks pretty sharp. I think I'll be buying a box of this.