As if "Boogya" wasn't bad enough

Hopefully you've seen Scott Crawford's post where he points out the insanity that is Manny Machado's The Future is Now insert.

Someone over at Topps has been visiting Colorado for legalized marijuana.

One of my two packs yielded this gem.

Thanks to the god-awful foil you may not be able to read it, but that's a Ryan Braun Upper Class insert. Really Topps?  Why on earth would you put Ryan Braun anywhere near a card about class?

I'm picturing the architects of this set in their underground bunker giggling knowing this card was about to be unleashed on the unsuspecting collectors of the world.

These cards are not for me!

I went by Wally World yesterday morning to see if they had any new Topps blasters.  Not for me mind you, but for the winners of my contest earlier this month.  The one where you could win a blaster of 2014 Topps.

Now it's coming back to you.

I picked up two blasters.  One blaster is for Phungo, the winner of the contest.  I opened the other blaster so I could mail two packs to Matt Pederson, Daniel Wilson, Night Owl and View from the Skybox.

Since each blaster contains 10 packs plus the manupatch, that means I get to open 2 packs plus the manupatch.  Any cards of the Cubs, D-Backs, Dodgers or Royals that I pull from my packs, will be included for you guys that won a couple of packs.  I'll go ahead and show you the manupatch I pulled.

Yay me.  Maybe Nachos Grande will want it.

I did pull one card from the two packs that I like.

It's a Nolan Ryan mini.  Unfortunately, it's got a dinged corner, which is just about right.

I also have a rack pack for The Big Kahuna who won for pimping that contest.  I'll get all these in the mail on Thursday.

Thanks everyone.

Oh yes, for the first time since 2008, I didn't buy a blaster of the new Topps for myself.  I'm in a case break for the Rangers and I'm having too much fun getting good vintage stuff  from my old LCS owner to spend $20 on a blaster of Topps.  You've seen what I can get for $20 or less...I think I'll stick with that route for now.

I hope you guys get some good stuff.

Come to papa you ugly hunk of cardboard

I couldn't tell you exactly when I first saw a 2000 Stadium Club Play at the Plate dirt relic card.

I can tell you that the minute I saw it, I had to have one.  Of course it took a year or more to finally get one.

This is the one I purchased on Ebay.

I never pulled one of these so I didn't know they came with a protective paper covering the front.  That may have been the reason I was able to get it fairly cheap.

Of course, I had to uncover the beauty underneath.

I'm certainly not a Mets fan, but how could I not love this card?  It's as if Topps knew this blog would be here and would need it's very own signature card.

Gee Topps, I take back 37% of the bad stuff I've ever said about you and your Toppsopoly.

The card isn't perfect.  It has a dinged upper left corner and a little chip on the upper right corner.  The dirt is a little sparse too.  I had to move it around just to get it to show up for the scan.

Still...I'm in "like" with this card.  Maybe I'll be able to pick up another one somewhere down the road.

Riding on his coattails

I'm not afraid of a little hard work, but sometimes it's nice to sit back and let someone else do the hard part while you reap the rewards.  I'm not talking about my job of course.  I'm talking about collecting cards.

Not long ago I noticed Judson over at My Cardboard Habit was selling off some of his Rangers Ginter minis. I contacted him and we agreed on a package deal.

It really saved me a lot of work.

You might notice these are all stored in mini sized top loaders!  That is very cool.  I need to order some of those.

What you don't notice from the front is that all of them, except the Matt Harrison, are no number minis.  The Harrison is a Bats Back #10/25.  This doesn't give me a full team set of 2013 no number minis.  I still need Matt Harrison, Adrian Beltre, Nelson Cruz, David Murphy, Derek Holland and Nolan Ryan.

If you have any of those and want to make a trade, let me know.

Thanks for the cards Judson.

A Play at the Plate PSA: We're friends right?

I'm doing something today that I'll never do again.  I'll soon be headed to the post office with 8 packages and in several of them, I used old top loaders that have scotch tape on them.  I'm recycling like a good little blogger.

Well, no more.  I refuse to use those nasty, ruined top loaders anymore.

It may cost me a little more money in the long run, but I just won't be a part of this nastiness anymore.  If and when I receive a top loader with tape on it, I'm tossing it in the trash.

I borrowed this image from Judson over at My Cardboard Habit.  It doesn't have to be an unruly wad of tape like the first picture.  This top loader has one piece of tape on it and it's ruined.  Ruined I say!!

There is a simple and fairly inexpensive way to solve the problem and I think most of you know it.

That's right.  Blue painter's tape.  It comes in a variety of sizes and probably even different brands.  It peels right off top loaders without leaving any of that sticky residue.  Painter's tape should be every trading blogger's best friend.  I don't know how you guys and gals feel, but I'd like to see every old tape residue covered top loader retired by the end of 2014.

Feel free to use your nasty top loaders to mail cards to me.  That way I'll know they're getting tossed instead of recycled!

Oops I did it again...

I really can't help myself.

I've quickly become addicted to it.  I can't get enough of it.

It sort of consumes my every waking moment.

I may need a 12 step program to get over it.

What is IT?  IT is my trips to the retired LCS owner's house.  I went again yesterday.  I spent a couple of hours looking through cards and telling stories with my friend.

Oh yea, I bought a few cards too.

Most of the stuff I picked up was just a variety of Rangers.  I love these old Flair designs.  The cards feel nice and the uniform number in the background is very interesting.

He has a whole mess of these Topps Tek cards.  I picked out all the Rangers I could find.  This set is more confusing than 2008 Moments and Milestones.

This is some sort of reprint that came out in 2001.  I think he has a couple of these complete sets.

I'm always happy to pick up any Chrome Rangers.

This nifty little die cut is a Texas Rangers team checklist from 1998 Pacific.

What are you staring at?  This old thing?  It's just a 1970 Topps Nolan Ryan.

This one will sit nicely with the '68 and '69 Ryans I picked up from my friend on my visit last week.  It's not perfect and has a little ding on the top edge and a slight crease on the back right edge.  Still, I can't complain for the price I paid.

That's it for today and maybe the weekend.  I'm feeling sick again so I might just lay low the next couple of days.

Young love

If you're here hoping to read about teen angst or first love, you're in the wrong place.  Of course that subject matter might get more hits from these internets I keep hearing so much about.

No, I'm here to remind you all that I've still not gotten over Michael Young leaving the Rangers.  Sure, you Phillies and Dodger fans don't care about Michael.  Dodger fans don't want him and I get that.  You don't have the history with Michael that I do.

Michael was Mr. Ranger for a long time.  Young has played 14 years in the Majors and 13 of those were with Texas.  He had 2230 hits for Texas.  He had 415 doubles and 177 homers for Texas.  He drove in 984 runs and scored another 1085 runs for Texas.  He had a .301 career average in Texas.

You'll have to forgive me for not being happy that Young is in the process of finishing his career with other teams.  Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the Dodgers are still talking to Young and would like to have him as a backup infielder, but that Young is considering retirement.  I hate to hear that because he was my favorite Ranger for a long time.  I would also hate to see him end up in New York where the Yankees have apparently expressed an interest in having him as a backup.

I still pick up Michael Young cards where I can and the place where I can pick them up most often is on Ebay.  I picked up a pretty interesting lot of Young cards for a great price last week.

Here we have a 2004 Donruss Elite Status Gold #20/24.  Get used to that shot.  You're going to see it a few more times.

This is a 2004 Elite Extra Edition Aspirations Gold #12/25.

Who needs a card #/25 when you can have one #/10?  This is the Blue Status parallel #2/10.   It's all die-cut and stuff.

Blue not your favorite color?  You can have the gold status die cut #7/10 if you prefer.  Well, not really.  It's mine.

Hey look, it's a different picture.  This is a 2005 Donruss Studio proof #7/25.  There's that building I used to work in again.  You can just see the tip of it under the barrel of the bat.

I like the info on the back of this one.  It says in 2003-04 that Young only went more than two consecutive games without a hit only once and that was a three game hitless streak.  That's a pretty consistent hitter if you ask me.

Moving on, we come to a 2005 Donruss Signature Century parallel.  The design isn't great, but it is a card I didn't have.

It also just happens to be #4/10.  

I just noticed Michael is listed as a shortstop on this 2005 Donruss Team Heroes Showdown gold parallel.  Michael moved from 2nd to short to 3rd to facilitate other players moving into those positions.  He didn't always like it, but he did it for the team.  

The Team Heroes parallel is #3/10.  

Of all the cards in this lot, I have to say this one is the ugliest.  It's a 2009 Topps Authentic Ticket Stub Jersey gold parallel.  It has an authentic ticket stub from the August 5th game against the Yankees.  The Rangers won that game 8-6, but Michael was 0-3 with a couple of walks and a run scored.

The Ticket stub card is #8/10.

My favorite card from the lot is this 2011 Finest purple refractor.  It complements the Young Mosaic Die Cut #10/10 I have in a box somewhere.

The purple refractors are #/5 and this one is #2/5.

This lot set me back a whole $10.  Not to bad for so many low numbered cards.

I'll be assembling some packages today for a trip to the post office tomorrow.  You feeling' lucky?

Another trip to the Candy Store

The candy store is the home of my former LCS owner.  I spent more money on this trip than I've spent before.  A whopping $35.

I didn't scan everything because some of the cards were picked up specifically for other people.  The bulk of the money was spent on two cards.

This is not one of the two cards.  My friend had a binder with an almost complete set of 1996 Leaf Limited. I pulled out all the Rangers like Dean Palmer.

These cards do a great job of showing how dirty my scanner is...(mental note, pick up some screen cleaner).

More Leaf Limited...

a little more...almost done.

Finished.  What a way to end too, with Night Owl's my favorite player, Will Clark.

He had a whole bunch of thees Stars 'N Steel cards too.  I picked out Pudge and Juando.

I might have picked out a couple for other people as well.

These 2001 UD Hall of Fame Gallery cards are nice.  I found a Bench.

Nolan looks happy to be in the collection.

I did scan a couple of the vintage cards.  That's a very colorful 1959 Topps Braves team card.

Slowly, but surely, I'm picking up all of his 1955 Bowman cards.  I got two this time, including this Andy Pafko.

I don't always scan the backs of cards, but I Pafko's biggest thrill in baseball was interesting.  His mother got to see him hit a grand slam, but didn't see him play again as she passed away two years later.  I wonder if she was ill during that time or if there was another reason she didn't get to see him play again.

My total cost for these cards, plus about 50 other "modern cards", 15 cards from the late 50's and a couple of jersey cards  was $10.

The last two cards cost me $25 so they must be good right?  They are, but you'll have to wait until the next post to see them.

I know, I know, I'm sorry.  I don't want to blow your mind completely and totally all at one time.

The Greatest Card in My Collection...and a close second

If you read my morning post, you know I'll be sharing two cards I picked up from my former LCS owner.

These two cards set me back a total of $25.

I'll let you be the judge of the whether I got a good deal or not.

Pure greatness.  The 1969 Topps Nolan Ryan in pretty damn good condition.  I'm holding the card in my hand (or was a second ago) and the scan isn't as nice as the card.  That roughness on the top edge isn't nearly as noticeable looking at the card in hand.  There is that little blemish just to the right of the "N" in Ryan. It's a real beauty and a card I've wanted for a long time.  

The back looks just as nice. I honestly never thought I'd have this card in my collection and certainly not in this condition.  

The '69 is not the star of this post however.  

Let me introduce you to this amazing new addition to my collection.  

It's not the prettiest card or the best designed set, but it is THE card I've been pining after for over 20 years. It's not perfect.  It has a crease the runs from the "R" in Rookie diagonally down across Nolan's cap and over to the right edge.   

You can see the crease a little better on the scan of the back.  The centering looks really good on the front, but it's a little off on the back.  I do NOT care.  I am in love with this hobby all over again after getting this card.

A couple of trips ago, my friend the retired LCS owner, showed me a binder he had recently acquired when he purchased an entire collection.  It contained all of Nolan Ryan's base Topps cards up to 1993.  I was so envious of that binder.  He told me he wanted to sell the whole thing to one person.  I told him I was very, very interested, but that I wouldn't be able to buy the whole thing at once.  He was happy to let me buy a card or two at a time.  Well, long story short, I've purchased the first two cards from the binder and I couldn't be happier for two reasons.  One, I have these cards and two, they only set me back $25.

I don't really need the Nolan's after about 1974, but since he's giving me such a good deal, I'll probably pick them all up and keep them together.

I bet you can guess where I'll be headed tomorrow.

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Bwaaaaaaaaa....haaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaahaaaaaa...

Bwaaaaawaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaa...

Can't.  Stop.  Laughing.

Ice Ice Baby

If you get the reference from the title, I'm sorry.  You may have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

It's easy to see that Neftali Feliz get's it and he's excited!

I picked up a few 2013 Bowman Ice parallels over the last few weeks.  I think they look way better in person, but then again, my scanner does a pretty crappy job with fancy schmancy cards.

Oh Derek.  Were you really playing with your dog when you hurt your knee?  Everyone says you were playing hockey, but I don't want to believe that.  Microfracture surgery is nothing to sneeze at and I think the powers that be over at the Ballpark are fooling themselves if they think you'll be back by the All-Star break. I hope they are right!

Joe, we hardly got a chance to appreciate your greatness.  I'm glad you did so well here in Texas, but I have to with nothing but miserable failure for your new team!  Don't take it personally. Oh yea, these Red Ice beauties are #/25.

Since Derek Holland is out for a big chunk of 2014, I hope Matty Harrison can come back strong.  He's #7/25.

I was all set to announce Derek as my favorite current Ranger when the news about his injury broke.  Now I'm undecided again.  This red beauty is #4/25.

How many days...minutes...until Spring Training!  I'm so ready.