A trade with Spiegel (in-person)

I completed an in-person trade with cool cat Spiegel of Nomo's Sushi Platter at Dodgers FanFest 2013 last Saturday.  This was my first in-person trade outside of a local card shop since I started collecting cards again in 2009.  I traded autographs of Chin-Lung Hu and John Ely to Spiegel.  Here are some of my favorites from Spiegel's trade package:

Chin-Lung Hu is currently playing for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.  I did not know that team or league existed until I looked up what Hu was doing nowadays.  Hell, I thought he was still on the Mets.  The Matt Kemp card is one of those holographic deals.  I think I still like the old "Rookie Card" logo more than the new one.

1995 Score Gold Rush #238, Orel Hershiser.  It is always nice to get new cards of Bulldog.  Hershiser has some interesting photos on his cards.  Look at that expression he's making on the back of this one!  Great.

1978 Tommy John #375 and 1979 Charlie Hough #508.  Nice condition vintage cards.  What do you think, should Tommy John have been elected to the Hall of fame?  The Dodgers have had quite a few knuckleballers in their history, the most recent being Charlie Haeger.  There was also Hough, of course, as well as Hoyt Wilhelm, Tom Candiotti, Dennis Springer, and Nap Rucker.

Three TTM autographs!  1991 Fleer Ultra Rick Honeycutt #249, 1974 Claude Osteen #42, and a 1991 Fleer Mickey Hatcher #206.

Thanks for the trade, Spiegel!

Dodgers FanFest 2013

Dodgers FanFest was insanity.  I want to start off by thanking my fellow Dodgers-blogging friends.  I do not think I could have lasted the day without them.  Pretty much the entirety of the event was spent standing and waiting in some sort of line.  I had fun, though.  Perhaps more so than mutual interests, mutual commiseration and suffering tends to build bonds.  I like that I finally got to meet several of my fellow bloggers, of whom I have only known by name and reputation for a few years until yesterday.  I will use the photos I took to help tell the tale of FanFest:

I arrived at Dodger Stadium around 10 AM.  You can see some of the outfield construction and remodeling here.

The line to get wristbands (!) for autographs did not seem too bad from this point.  But, then I crossed the ridge and saw that the line seemed to have no end.  Spiegel of Nomo's Sushi Platter fame met up with me around 10:20ish AM.  Spiegel and I had drawn up a cursory plan to get autographs from Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu.  The plan was doomed to fail from the start.  The autograph line must have been at least a mile long because it wound, folded, and curved on itself.  I thought that there must have been at least ten thousand people there, though Dylan Hernandez said that the Dodgers thought the number was closer to 21,000.  After about an hour of waiting in line and shooting the shit, Greg of Plaschke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle fame met up with Spiegel and yours truly.

This was where we were a little more than an hour and a half into our riveting line-standing.  It was almost noon.

At some point during our wait in line, Josh Dodgerbobble, Stealing Home and his son met up with the three of us.  Dodgerbobble managed to score himself a Magic Johnson autographed baseball, the lucky duck.  We all traded a few cards and chatted for a while.  Dodgerbobble and Stealing Home left early.  We finally got to the wristband tent some time between 1:30-2:00 PM.  That was a three hour line!  Spiegel, Zakwin, and I each got our one autograph wristband for Hyun-Jin Ryu and proceeded into FanFest.  It wasn't necessarily better inside the event area than what was outside.

On stage right is Matt Kemp playing at DJ'ing and on stage left is Nancy Bea.  As you can see, it was super crowded inside FanFest.  This was the view from where we were standing in line to get Ryu's signature.

More after the jump...

The Law Firm

The sure-handed BenJarvus Green-Ellis is aptly called "The Law Firm," for his most motley name.  The Law Firm's signatures are hard to come by, apparently, as it took me the better part of a year to find and purchase his autograph card at a decent price.  The one I finally got is quite shiny:

2012 Panini Certified Football, BenJarvus Green-Ellis Mirror Blue autograph, #'d 20/49.  It's a beauty!

Now, about getting that law degree...

Orange you special

Any Los Angeles-area bloggers going to Dodgers FanFest this coming Saturday?  I might go!

The cards in 2012 Leaf Valiant Baseball are strange looking.  What's with all the fleurs-de-lis?  They are pretty nice cards though.  Here are two Dodgers prospects from said product:

Jesmuel Valentin, orange refractor autograph, #'d 97/99.  Valentin, a shortstop and native of Puerto Rico, is a top-five Dodgers prospect.

You probably know about this dude already.  Yasiel Puig, orange refractor auto, #'d 41/99.  The Dodgers signed Cuban defector Puig to a seven-year, $42 million contract back in June 2012.  Hopefully he will turn out to be a great investment like Yoenis Cespedes for the A's, hm?  Like Valentin above, Puig is also a top-five prospect.

Let me know if any of you are planning to attend FanFest.  Maybe I'll see you there!

Weaver and Musial

Much of the mystique of legendary sports figures comes from the stories that are told about them.  Here are men and women who do things many of us can only play at, or perform feats we can only dream about.  Few fans know them personally, yet these venerated persons feel so familiar because of the oft-told tales of their trials and tribulations.  I'm sure many of you have heard or read a lot of stories about Earl Weaver and Stan Musial over the past few days.  I certainly read much about Weaver and Stan "the Man" when I was a kid.  I read about them in encyclopedias and sports books.  I was nerd.  I still am, in fact.  What sports fan or collector isn't?

Here's a funny little book my girlfriend gave me:

I owned a bunch of books like this when I was a kid.  The story of Earl Weaver's first "Double Heave-Ho" appears in this book.  The infamously fiery Weaver was ejected from both games of a doubleheader three times in his career.  By all accounts, he seemed like a manager I could get behind.  I would perhaps copy his style, were I to coach a baseball team.  Unfortunately, there is no story about Stan Musial in this book.  One can say the best story of Musial, though, is one of his career - as a humble master of his craft.

These are some of my favorite cards:

2009 Triple Threads, Stan Musial triple relic jersey-bat-jersey, #'d 15/18.  Emerald parallel?  It's from the first and only box of Triple Threads I've ever purchased.

2011 Leaf Legends of Sport, Earl Weaver autograph, #'d 05/14.  Leaf should also make a signature card of him hollering or kicking dirt on an umpire.  Nice, calm photo of Weaver though.

Rest in peace, dudes.

(Did anyone watch the Falcons vs. Niners?  Atlanta really blew it.)

Sponsored box breaks: 2012 Leaf Memories Baseball

I also filmed an Atlanta Sports Cards-sponsored two-box break of 2012 Leaf Memories Baseball, in addition to the break I did for 2012 Leaf Inscriptions in my previous post.  This mid high-end product was fun to open because it was a bit nostalgic, as I owned several of the 1990 Leaf cards when I was younger.  Those old cards were probably thrown away or sold in garage sales at various points in my life.  Wouldn't it be wild if some of your old Leaf cards made it in as buybacks in Leaf Memories?  Here's the video:

I would say Leaf Memories is medium-risk, medium-reward in general.  But, as you can see, I did pretty well for myself!  I probably pulled the most short-printed checklist card ever.  I am not sure what other collectors think about Leaf's recent releases, but I've really enjoyed what they have put out in the past 2-3 years.  There are way too many Pete Rose signatures and products out there right now though.  That dude is signing anything and everything.

My video box breaks for 2012 Leaf Inscriptions and 2012 Leaf Memories Baseball also made it on to Atlanta Sports Cards' blog.  Awesome!  Now if I can figure out how to make my Flip HD camera stay in focus better...

Sponsored box break: 2012 Leaf Inscriptions

Here's a video for a sponsored box break of 2012 Leaf Inscriptions I did, courtesy of Atlanta Sports Cards.  This is a very nice product if you like autographs!

Donnie Baseball!  Awesome.  Lead us to victory this year, Don!  I will post some nicer, high quality photos of the card once I get around to photographing some of my recent acquisitions.