What Kevin Youkilis and I Have In Common

Ok, there seems to be a lot of rumbling across the blogosphere about the 2013 Heritage Kevin Youkilis card. Apparently the fact that his head takes up 99 percent of the card causes others to laugh hysterically or in Night Owls case, exclaim:

Craaaaaaaaaaa-ni-uuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmm!!!!!!!!

For those of you who have yet to see the Kevin Youkilis Cranium card, here it is.

 

 

 

Now I have an issue with this card as well. But not in a comedic way. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't like this card for a reason none of the rest of you can lay claim to.

I have been told multiple times that I look like Kevin Youkilis.

 



I've been told this by strangers, co-workers, even my fiancee says I resemble him.

 

Now for the record, I don't think I do. Especially not now.

 

 

So what really bothers me about the Kevin Youkilis Cranium Card is that if I, Swing And A Pop-Up had a card in 2013 Heritage, apparently it would look like this:

 

 

 



Lovely.

Cards From The Binder (Chapter 2)

Here's the rest of page 1 from "the binder".

Some more 1991 Proline football:

  



Bernie Kosar. I bought 3 boxes of this because it was $15 a box, I was in college, and I liked the fact there was an autograph per box. No other reasons necessary.





 Everson Walls. I have to admit in the 70's and early 80's I was a huge Dallas Cowboys fan. I could name every player and Everson Walls was one of my favorites. So I was quite happy to get this even though he is a Giant at this point.

 

 

1994 Signature Rookies Chris Brantley auto. I got this when I would buy cards through the mail. He ended up with the Rams in 1994 and the Bills in 1996. He played in 22 games and scored 1 touchdown. He also played for the New Jersey Hitmen in the XFL.

 

 

 





Finally, a Andre Tippet auto on a 1989 Topps card. I can't remember if I got this myself or if someone got it for me. I certainly didn't get it in a pack.  

 

Well, that's it for the first page of the binder.

 

As one of my college professors used to say when class was over:

 

"I don't tap dance."

 

That was our cue to leave.

 

Have a good night everybody.

 

 







Wearing the Late Crown

Well since I'm a few days behind everybody in buying my first pack of 2013 Heritage, this will probably be a ho-hum post to you all. It's rather fitting because it was...(spoiler here)...a ho-hum pack.

I went to Wal-Mart after work and plunked down $5.98 for a 20 card rack pack. Weren't they $4.98 a year ago? I don't remember. You know, they say that's the first thing that goes when you get old, your memory.

So here is my first Heritage card of 2013!

 

 

 



359 - Wilton Lopez.

 

 

 

I'll wait for all of the excitement to die down before I continue.

 

 

 

 

Well, that didn't take long.

 

 

 

 

In addition to the usual stats and person information, the card backs have a trivia question and you can get the answer by scratching the white box next to it with a nickel or dime for the "magic answer".

 

 

 

 

Or you could just put the card up to the lamp in your living room and read the answer that way. The actual reason for me doing that was because my eyes don't appreciate the orange on white design. In other words, I have a hard time reading the card backs. You know, they say that's the first thing that goes when you get old, your eyes.

 

The lighting in my living room probably doesn't help either. One of my main complaints about these energy saving lightbulbs is that now I have to have 5 lights on instead of 1 in order to see anything. Looks like I'll need to get some "energy wasting" lightbulbs if I want to read these card backs in the future.

 

Here's the rest of the pack:

 

401 - Alex Presley

423 - Tops In NL (Matt Cain/Buster Posey)

242 - John Jaso

352 - Alexei Ramirez

268 - Justin Ruggiano

461 - Marco Scutaro SP

 

 

 

 

68 - Cameron Maybin

382 - Mike Fiers

142 - Daniel Murphy

238 - Joe Nathan

293 - Ubaldo Jimenez

154 - Dee Gordon

70 - Brian McCann

176 - Ervin Santana

254 - Nathan Eovaldi

HC49 - Chris Sale Heritage Chrome 259/999 (which is probably also my vision)

 

 

 



4 - American League Pitching Leaders

144 - Darwin Barney

245 - Jordan Pacheco

 

 

 

Well that was dreadful.

 

 

Everything I've read has told me to stay away from Heritage 2013. My first experience confirms that.

 

 

So will I collect it?

 

 

Of course I will, because you know, they say that's the first thing that goes when you get old, your common sense.



 



The One Baseball Card I Want

Is there a card that you've always wanted but so far you just haven't picked it up? I'm not talking about a '52 Mantle or a George Brett rookie, I mean something that's just a couple of bucks. In my case, I've seen the card several times, but for whatever reason never picked it up. And it's from a set I should be working on finishing rather that buying new stuff.

 

 

 

The 1979 Topps Bump Wills error card. I think this was the first error card I was aware of and it looked so cool to me. When the '79 set came out, I think it was around $5, maybe more, and that was way out of a 10 year olds price range for a single card. Then when I got older, my attentions were drawn to other card conquests. But I've decided I really should focus more on finishing what I've already started than I have in the past. Now I know I could just go to ebay or Amazon and just get it there, but that's no fun. I want to see if someone out there has one they'd like to trade. It doesn't have to be autographed, in fact I'd prefer that it wasn't. So if you've got one you'd like to trade send me an email at swingandapopup@gmail.com and let's work something out. Thanks for reading!



Cards From the Binder (Chapter 1)

From what I've read from other bloggers, a lot of you seem to keep your collection in binders. I have way too many cards to do that. I keep my sets in the standard 200 count, 300 count, etc. boxes (depending on how big the set is). I also have plenty of sets where I only have a few cards in the set so I keep those in plastic cases. Plus I also have several monster boxes of cards that haven't made it into my sets and even more monster boxes of dupes. I do have one giant binder where I've stashed an assortment of cards and some autographs I've gotten at card shows.

So let's look at the first half of page 1, shall we?

Mosi Tatupu autographed card. I used to attend a lot of card shows in the early 90's. Most of them had autograph guests. Since I rarely seem to get "hits" when I buy packs of cards (when I swing I tend to pop-up. Get it?), most of the autographed cards in my collection I got in person.

 

 

1995 Lee DeRamus Auto. I only bought one pack of Signature Rookies (I think it was $6.00 a pack - very expensive back then), and you got one autograph per pack. I couldn't lose, or could I? He was drafted by the New Orleans Saints in 1995 and played two seasons for them.

 





 



Some of these cards I could not tell you how I got them. This is one of them. Todd Pridy was drafted by the New York Mets in 1990 and the Florida Marlins in 1992, but never made the major leagues.

 

 

Jamie Keefe autograph. I got this in person at a card show. He was a local boy, and not too many players in my area get drafted by a major league team. The Pirates drafted him in 1992, but he didn't make the major leagues either.

 

 

 

 

1992 Pro Line Profiles Anthony Munoz. I couldn't afford very much while I was in college, so I would get boxes of this for $15. I liked it because there was one autographed card per box. The autograph is actually on the back of the card.

 

 



 

 

So that's the first five cards of the first page. I would show you the entire page, but it took me about two hours to get this far. I'll show more of what's in the binder in later posts.

 

For those of you who manage to post once or twice a day and include scans of cards, I salute you.

Early Days of Collecting

As I had mentioned previously, I started collecting baseball cards in 1977. I have two younger brothers who started collecting at the same time I did. So how did we know whose cards were whose?

 

 

 

 

 

And that's how we kept our collections separate. My brothers stopped collecting in 1978, so I didn't need to "label" my cards anymore. (Thankfully?) none of us got the Eddie Murray rookie. 





Repack Rewards

My baseball card budget isn't very big, so I buy a lot of repacks. There is a Dollar Tree that I drive by on my way home from work (that is if I drive in the opposite direction first), and they always have some sort of repacks there. Sometimes they have all baseball, sometimes they have all football, and occasionally they will have five card packs of that years Topps baseball or football (no inserts, just base cards). Right now they currently have this:

These have a little bit of everything; baseball, football, hockey, basketball, golf, olympic cards, even volleyball cards can be found in these repacks. Lately they've been basketball and hockey heavy. So you'll generally find cards like this:

Or like this:

Or like this:

(It's the scanner's fault the top of the card is missing.)

 

 

Generally I will look at them all and toss them in a pile to be sorted later. But now that I've launched "Sortageddon", I was forced to revisit the latest unsorted pile of dollar store acquisitions. Lately what little baseball that has found its way into these repacks has consisted mainly of 2001 Bowman Chrome. I did not have any previously but now I have about 9 cards. One of them was this:

 

 

A 2001 Bowman Chrome Miguel Cabrera! From a dollar store repack! Who's in charge of quality control there?! Give this person a raise immediately!

 

(For those who care, it currently books for about $15. Not bad, not bad at all.)