Making Introductions

Hello Hanley Ramirez.




I understand your feelings are hurt and you don't want to move to third base, even if it means Jose Reyes can play short and your awful team will be better. You want to restructure your deal, the contract that NO ONE forced you to sign, thus forcing the Marlins to consider trading you.





Let me introduce you to Michael Young. Michael Young was the Texas Rangers' second baseman from 2001 to 2003. The Rangers brought in Alfonso Soriano and Michael moved to shortstop. He started there from 2004 to 2008. In 2009, the Rangers brought up Elvis Andrus to play short so Michael moved to third. He started at third base in 2009 and 2010. The Rangers signed free agent Adrian Beltre to play third in 2011 and Michael didn't really want to DH. Guess what? He did it. Once the season started, he didn't say a word about being unhappy. In 2011, he played DH, 3B, SS, 1B and 2B. He had a career year. Oh yea, the Rangers made it to their 2nd consecutive World Series.

Stop your whining and play.

Another Clandestine Hookup with the Mistress

Ok, it wasn't really a secret. Spankee posted the heck out of his group break. Surely by now you won't be surprised that I took the Rangers.

I received a great variety of different products and if I wasn't being a lazy you know what, I'd be able to tell you how many of these helped with my want lists. Here, for your card viewing pleasure, is a 5 card sample of the greatness bestowed on my by My Cardboard Mistress.





How about we start with some junk wax? This 1988 Donruss Pete Incaviglia proves that Mike Napoli wasn't the first one in Arlington with a manicured beard. Now that I think about that, I'm a little uncomfortable that I even noticed it. Let's just move right along.




How about a nice Charcoal parallel of two guys who are part of the Rangers front office and one guy who would never sign with Texas as a free agent. Inexplicably, I can't get enough of the 2008 Heroes set. I've bought numerous discounted blasters. Dont' judge me. I feel bad enough about it already.





It wouldn't be a random group break if I didn't post something shiny. This is a 2009 Bowman Chrome card of the newest member of the Rangers starting rotation, Neftai Feliz. You might have heard of him.






I'm not peeling the protective coating from this 1999 Finest Rusty Greer so don't even think about suggesting it.





The only Rangers hit of the break was a nice one. This 2001 A Piece of History Game Used Bat Ivan Rodriguez card is marred only by the congratulations note on the back with the name Richard P. Williams attached to it. Otherwise, it's a great card and I like the bat window in the shape of a baseball diamond.

Adam, aka Spankee, thanks for a great break. It was a lot of fun to follow along and I appreciate all the great cards.

I stand corrected...sort of

Yesterday I posted that time was running short on the Diamond Giveaway promotion. Thanks to Derek and Dawgbones, I discovered the deadline I posted wasn't accurate. Even Topps doesn't seem to know exactly what is going on with the deadline.

The Diamond Giveaway site still says the deadline for redeeming codes and requesting delivery for cards is 12/31/11.

The Topps website gives a different, if slightly impossible, deadline. On the site, the deadline for redeeming codes for Series 1 and Update is said to be 1/31/12, the date listed on the code cards. The deadline for redeeming codes for Series 2 and all other activity on the site is 6/31/12. Trading and card delivery will be available until that final date.

I have two problems with the final date of 6/31/12. First, why is the deadline for Update BEFORE the deadline for Series 2? That makes no sense. Second, and I'd like Topps to make special note of this information, there is NO 31st day in the month of June. Never has been, never will be. How does a major company even post a deadline that occurs on a non-existent date?

I guess I should just say don't hold me to any of the deadline dates you've seen posted here. How am I supposed to know what I'm talking about when Topps doesn't know what they're talking about?

I remember...

As many of you know, I served in the Navy way back in the 1900's. (That's what my 9 year old calls those days.) I was stationed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base from 1991 to 1994.

I'll never forget the first December 7th I spent at Pearl. It was the 50th anniversary of the attack. President George H.W. Bush was coming to speak at the memorial service and volunteers were asked to wear our dress white uniforms and line the streets. It was an awe inspiring day for a 21 year old kid and one which I'll never forget. Now, 20 years later and 70 years from the date of the attack, I still recall the feelings I had that day.





A tragic day for our country quickly turned into the rallying cry that would turn the tide of war on opposite sides of the world.





My thoughts this morning are with the men and women that were lost on December 7, 1941 and all the brave souls who lined up in recruitment centers over the next 4 years as the United States took the fight to the enemies of freedom and democracy.

My prayers are with every man and woman who is right now, at this moment, serving on a ship, at a forward operating base, flying an aircraft or watching the back of the soldier next to him. We owe a debt of gratitude to every single one of them.

December Contest Winner

Thanks to everyone for your responses to the December Contest questions. I won't drag this out as I know you just want to know who won.

I entered all the names on the randomizer at random.org. I changed things up this time and added all the name in the order of your comments. There were 185 entries and the randomization went like this:




The winner is....way down below. Just in case you didn't want to see the name before you watched the video.






























Congrats to our winner, The Rhubarb Runner over at "e rayhahn, rayhahn".

On the off chance that some of you watched the video, I don't really have a speech problem. I was trying to drag the word "list" out while I scrolled down, but it sounds awful. Now you know why most of my videos feature ZERO commentary.

Thanks again to everyone for an outstanding response.

Time's running short

The Topps Diamond Giveaway gimmick...I mean promotion, ends at 11:59:59 PM eastern time on December 31st. That gives you 25 days and some change to get any codes entered and cards shipped. My son is going to be disappointed because he only has 21 rings, leaving him 24 short of the special edition set. No worries, I have one and he'll end up with it anyway.

I'm not doing the great Diamond Giveaway contest I did last year. It was fun to accumulate all those unwanted cards and trade them for a couple of real winners from 1954. Like I said, it was fun, but it was a LOT of work. Maybe I'll try again next year if Topps is doing it again.

I've been trying to whittle my portfolio down a bit by trading small lots of cards for older cards. It's tougher to do this year, especially with time winding down in the promotion. I managed to get one trade offer accepted over the weekend.

I offered up a couple of '73s and three '80s cards for this beauty from 1959:




I didn't really go on the site thinking I'd make an offer for this, but I didn't have anything special in mind (I've been unable to get any '56 play at the plates this year). When I logged on, this card was in the list of recently unlocked cards and I thought it would make a nice addition to my catchers collection. I also thought it would look nice next to this Frank House I traded for in last year's Million Card Giveaway.





If you're planning on entering any codes or getting your cards, don't forget the deadline is fast approaching.

December Contest...The final question

Many thanks to all who have answered one or more of the first four questions. The links to the first four questions are provided in case you missed one of the questions.

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

I'm going to make this very easy. I like easy contests and you've all been good sports about answering the other questions. All you have to do is tell me, if you were to win this contest, would you rather have an Update Value Box or a prize of equal value?

That's it. Thanks for playing along.