First Ever Box Break

Check it out! Hot cards! Sick Mojo Pulls! 1/1's!!! All your favorite players being pulled left and right!!!!

But for real, I did not take this seriously at all. Hope you enjoy.

87 Left....

87 more cards.
87 more autographed cards.

That's all I need before I finish collecting the 2001 Fleer Greats of the Game Auto'd set. Not too bad, right?

Now for the good bit. I'm 6.45% done with the set!! Picked up two off Ebay last week.

First was Carl Erskine of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Moments later Alan Trammell of Detroit became a part of the never ending set build.

2/93....2.15% Done

As I've mentioned before (nearly a year ago) I wanted to try and collect the whole 2001 Fleer Greats of the Game Autographs. Figuring that I'd continue my card quest and nothing would happen to side track me I would have a decent collection going a year later. In that time, I've purchased ZERO of the autographs. My count still stood at 1, a lonely Harmon Killebrew that I've owned for 9 years.

Harmon as of two days ago has a new pal. Paul Blair. Paul only cost $6.49, shipping included. Having wanted to get back into my quest, he was the first (and cheapest) autograph to purchase. In all honesty, I had no idea who the hell this dude was until I Wiki'd him. Blair spent 17 years in the majors, 4x World Series Champ, dominated on Defense with 8 Gold Glove Awards (had a solid run of consecutive GG's from 1969-1975), and also works out at Triangle Fitness is Eldersburg, Maryland. Paul also bowls at Kings Point Lanes in Reisterstown, Maryland. FUN FACTS!!!



So there you have it, number 2 on my quest to 93. After reading Guy's Basketball Blog and seeing his Murad chase slowly but surely happen, I wanted to try something that is a bit easier than finding the 2002 MLB Showdown DCI Promos....and I'm not sure I picked the right thing. It's a chase, but it will be worth it. And sorry for the bad picture, the auto isn't cut off, I just took a bad photo. Kill me.

Stuff My Dad Collects: Pt. 2

I was going through a drawer yesterday and found an old shoe box. Not too sure as to why or when the box was put in here I decided I'd pull it out and take a peek.



It turned out pretty quick that the contents were going to be baseball cards. On top were some 1970 Topps cards. The dead give away: 1969 World Champion Mets card.



I know my city is championship deprived but any Mets fans that read this blog, you can get a second look at this card...since ya know, your team hasn't been worthwhile since then aside from '86.



There were a few other 1970's strewn about in the box, however most of the box was from the 1960's era. Overall I'd say there are about 150 cards in this small box.



Why have one Boog when you can pick 3 Boog's?



A little Braves love in with Hoyt and Phil. I wish Phil got a MLB Showdown card.



This is one of my favorite cards of the box by far. I'm a huge Ernie fan and him with the All Time Homer Champ makes this card awesome. Not pristine mint, but who cares it's not going to be sold.



Legend. If I could go back in time to watch one person play baseball, he is almost at the top of my list....Pete Incaviglia is number 1.



Dear Topps,

Fleer doesn't exist anymore, I suggest you steal this deign and then make a set with on card autos. It'd look fantastic.

Love,
Attic Insulation.



This is Joe Pettini. He played baseball in 1981. I don't know what else to say other than this is the best card I have ever seen in my life.



....and then I see this card. Sorry Joe, but Darrell is pulling the hipster look back in the 80's. Goofy black rimmed glasses, v-neck shirt. All while hitting .246 in 118 games, no big deal.



Pfister? I barely know her.



Nice mug Yogi. I was never a fan of close up face photos. I also am not a fan of Yogi, the only redeeming part of him is his first name.




Obligatory Cookie Rojas shout out. What a good looking man. Great pair of glasses. A++


I hope you enjoyed Part 2 of Stuff My Dad Collects. I hope to do these more often, especially considering I have a whole mess of 1980's cards waiting to be posted with goofy looking dudes.

World Series Fever

1998. I'm about to open packs of Sports Illustrated (Presented by Fleer) WORLD SERIES FEVER. 4 Packs of this illustrious stuff.

Inserts are as follows (LOOK FOR THESE!):
10 MVP Collection 1:4
15 Reggie Jackson's Picks 1:12
10 Autumn Excellence 1:24
10 Autumn Excellence Gold 1:240

Oh man there's even EXCLUSIVE FIRST EDITION Parallels limited to only 1! 1/1 SICK NASTY BRO!

Pack 1:
El Dookie Orlando Hernandez
Curt Schilling*
Kerry Wood!
Jason Giambi
Autumn Excellence Gold!!!! Willie Mays
The New Mr. October Orel Hershiser
Edgardo Alfonzo

Well the Willie Mays just made all 4 packs. I've had a pretty solid record going where I open some packs of late 90's cards and pull something rare. At the National Jim bought a box of 1999 Fleer Ultra (I think) and I pulled a Ken Griffey Jr. that was 1:244 packs. Curt Schilling's card just reminds me of how much I hate the guy. Pretentious d-bag whose head is so large from all the steroids he's taken. I cannot wait until his name comes out for doing PED's. It'll be a holiday for me. Speaking of PED's, I got a Jason Giambi card. Creepy photo. He's all focused on something outside of the frame and it's very apparent that he was just injected.

Pack 2:
Gary Sheffield
Brian Hunter
Pudge
Jim Thome
Juan Gonzalez
Rusty Greer

3 Rangers. A Triber. And Brian L. (Please don't forget the L) Hunter. Great Job!

Pack 3:
Albert Joey Belle
Jeff Bagwell
Jaret Wright!!!
Andy Pettitte
Manny Ramirez
Ricky Henderson SI Cover
Andres Galarraga

2 Indians one being Jaret Wright. Plus an Andres Galarraga which is basically a icing on the cake. And an Albert Belle where he is unfortunately on the White Sox, and ironically smiling in his photo. I'm gonna go off here for a bit and say that I honestly believe that Albert Belle never used PED's or Steroids. He had plenty of solid years and then got hurt and never was the same after. God that sounds like a steroid user. Nope, I'm going to still say he never used anything and is clean, I don't care if I'm biased. If you disagree here, you are wrong. Maybe.

Pack 4:
Derek Jeter
Paul Konerko
Pedro Martinez
Bobby Bonilla!!!!
MVP Collection Tom Glavine (1995)
World Series Preview SI Cover
Magnificent Moments Bucky Dent

And the high of these packs just crashed right after seeing the Tom Glavine card. Thank you Fleer for briging to light my cities inability to win any sports championship in 65 years. The blow is only softened up a bit by the Paul Konerko Dodgers card as well as the Bobby Bonilla card. Jeter card is awkward in that he looks sorta queer in his stare and the fact that he was just knocked down by a pitch. It's either that or his FILA arm band, I'm not entirely sure.

I'll try and have some sort of pictures up via camera or scanner later, if possible.

2001 Fleer Greats of the Game

I've got a new life collecting goal:

Complete the autograph checklist for the 2001 Fleer Greats of the Game Baseball Set. 93 Cards. A daunting task by any means. I didn't expect there to be 93 cards in the auto set, at all.

I've been meaning to try this for a few years now. I've always been in love with the one autograph I do have. I pulled it back in 2001 at Easter. I received a few packs of cards in my basket (yeah, I still got a basket), and received a redemption. It was for the Killer, Harmon Killebrew. I had never heard of him, but my dad told me all about him and even pulled out his autographed ball of Harmon.

I don't think any card I have ever seen has come close to the solid design of the 2001 brand. Very basic yet fancy looking. Just having a few and displaying them would be really neat.

The only task I have right now is to try and find a checklist of the 93 guys. All I know right now is that I need 92 more.

14 Years Ago....

There used to be a card store at the end of my block. I was 8. Every Saturday after my bowling league a few friends and I would go over there with about $5-$10 and spend it on cards. Collector's Choice was usually our main focus due to the stickers we could get. None of us ever actually used the stickers, we just liked to collect them.

We'd look through the cases and see all the "rare" cards that we couldn't afford. You know, like that 1989 Fleer Ken Griffey Jr. card that was priced at $50. "Man I'd do ANYTHING for that card!" was the most common thing said amongst us. We'd buy our cards and go back to the bowling alley and open them up.

My dad and I actually got to run the store for one day. Probably one of the best days in my 8 year old life. I just wanted to open all the packs, but I was stopped. The owner of the store did give me and my dad a bunch of packs for helping him out though, which I opened in the first 10 minutes of being there.

The store closed within 2 years. The guy barely made any money and his stuff was ridiculously priced. On the last day I wasn't able to make it to the store, but my friends did and they had boxes and boxes of packs they got for nearly half off, I was pretty upset about that.

I'll never forget the day I bought (at the time) what I thought would be the most expensive pack of my life. It cost me $5. It was Leaf Studio '96. My dad wasn't very happy when I returned with only one pack purchased and no money to give back, but this pack was going to give me the best baseball cards I've ever had.

I don't remember what I exactly I pulled from those packs, but I did get one of my favorite cards of all time. A Ken Griffey Jr. Masterstrokes Insert /5000. This was the first ever serial number card I had ever seen, and even my dad had no idea what serial numbers meant. Back then, /5000 was a huge pull. Now it's worth nothing. I was told to go back to the store and buy a penny sleeve and top loader for the card. I did just that.

1994-1998 were probably my favorite year of collecting cards. I was just finally understanding all the sports and actually knew who most of the players were in all the Big 4 sports.

The best part about all of this is looking back on my "prize card binder" which is still somehow intact after 14 years. The first page are Mickey Mantle reprinted cards. Second page is full of Griffey cards. My favorite page by far though is the one full of Fleer 95 cards. Bip Roberts, Doc Gooden, Marty Janzen (wtf), Mark Portugal (what), Andy Benes, Royce Clayton (haha), and Ricky Bottalico are the studs on that page. Another page has a die cut Jimmy Haynes card that I remember pulling and saying this card would make me rich. Well it didn't, but it did make a hell of a blog post nearly 15 years later.

Hopefully over the course of the next week I can get a really old scanner to work and upload some of my prized collection up to AI for everyone to be jealous of.