1993 Phillies World Series Team: Schilling

Curt Schilling - 1993 Bowman

Curt was the Red Sox 2nd round draft pick in 1986. In 1988, he was traded by the Red Sox to the Orioles with Brady Anderson for Mike Boddicker. He made his major league debut on 9/7/88. In January 1991, the Orioles traded Schilling, Steve Finley and Pete Harnich to the Astros for Glenn Davis. The Orioles and Astros used Schilling mostly in a relief role (he did start 5 games for the Orioles). In April, 1992, the Astros traded Schilling to the Phillies for Jason Grimsley. The Phillies made him a starter and he respond by going 14 and 11 with a 3.81 ERA. In 1993 he had the best season of his career with a 16-7 record and a 2.35 ERA. This, in fact would be his best season until 2001 when he would go 21-6 for the Diamondbacks. Schilling would be the ace of the Phillies staff until 2000, with a record of 112-90 for mostly mediocre Phillies teams.

Schilling was fantastic in the 1993 playoffs. In 2 games in the NLCS he posted a 1.69 ERA and 19 strikeouts, and even though he didn't actually win a game he was named the NLCS Most Valuable Player. He was 1-1 with an ERA of 3.52 in the World Series. Phillies fans will mostly remember Curt sitting in the dugout with a towel over his head while Mitch Williams tried to get out of trouble.

In mid-2000, the Phillies traded Schilling to the Diamondbacks for Omar Daal, Nelson Firueroa, Travis Lee (nicknamed by the Phillies fans, Travis Leave) and Vincente Padilla. Schilling went on to have a tremendous next two seasons going 21-6 in 2001 and 23-7 in 2002. Oh and being co-MVP (with Randy Johnson) as the Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series over the Yankees.

Schilling was traded by the Diamondbacks to the Red Sox in 2003 and the 2004 Red Sox won the World Series.

Through the 2007 Schilling has a career record of 216-146, with a career ERA of 3.46 and 3,116 strikeouts. He has been one of the most dominating pitchers since 1992 and has $106, 158,000 to show for it. He is a 7-time All Star and the winner of many awards (1993 NLCS MVP, 1995 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award, 2001 Babe Ruth Award, Branch Rickey Award, Hutch Award, Roberto Clemente Award, Worlds Series co-MVP and NL-TSN Pitcher of the Year and 2002 NL-TSN Pitcher of the Year).

In my opinion, a future Hall Of Famer.

Schilling has also been a controversial and outspoken person both on and off the field. There is a long article on Schilling on Wikipedia which you can find here.

Song of the Week - Cloudbusting Kate Bush

I have 5,187 songs in my iTunes library. This is one of them.

Kate Bush is an English singer/songwriter who is not well known in the US. She apparently does not perform in public which, I guess, doesn't help her popularity. She is very popular in England, however, and had several hit songs in the late 1970s to mid-1980s. She took a 12-year break from music, recently releasing a double CD called Aerial. The video is one of my favorite Kate Bush songs called "Cloudbusting" from her masterpiece 1985 album Hounds of Love. The song is about a child's love of her father who, for some reason, is arrested and taken away. When I looked up this video I learned that this is only partially correct. It is about a man named Wilhelm Reich a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who promoted many ideas not considered in the main stream of science. One of his ideas was that a machine could be used to harness the life energy within us for, among other things, making rain. This is the real meaning of this song. Reich called this energy "Orgonon" which is in the first line of the song. There is a pretty long article on Reich on Wikipedia. What's amazing to me is that I've been listening to this song for over 20 years and never heard of Reich or his connection to the song. In the video, Donald Sutherland plays Reich and Bush plays his 10-year-old son, Peter. The video is actually an extended version of the song on the album.



I still dream of Orgonon.
I wake up crying.
You're making rain,
And you're just in reach,
When you and sleep escape me.

You're like my yo-yo
That glowed in the dark.
What made it special
Made it dangerous,
So I bury it
And forget.

But every time it rains,
You're here in my head,
Like the sun coming out--
Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen.
And I don't know when,
But just saying it could even make it happen.

On top of the world,
Looking over the edge,
You could see them coming.
You looked too small
In their big, black car,
To be a threat to the men in power.

I hid my yo-yo
In the garden.
I can't hide you
From the government.
Oh, God, Daddy--
I won't forget,

'Cause every time it rains,
You're here in my head,
Like the sun coming out--
Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen.
And I don't know when,
But just saying it could even make it happen.

The sun's coming out.
Your son's coming out.

Dead Bonsai

Whenever I start a new bonsai planting I'm filled with hope for the future and with a vision of what the plant will look like in a few years.

I learned recently that one way to have what looks like a mature bonsai in less time than it looks is to start with a larget plant.

This is a Shumard Red Oak that I bought at WalMart in November 2006. This first picture was taken in May of 2007 after it grew new leaves. I had seen the tree (which is about 6 feet tall here) in the store and looked it up. Oaks are usually hard to bonsai because they grow slowly. I read up on this one and found that it was a fast grower and that it would shed its leaves in the fall (which most oaks here in southwest Texas don't do). And the fall foliage would be an attractive gold color.




This picture shows it still in its original pot after I had cut it down to about 6 inches. It grew back quickly. The leaves are large, but over time a bonsai's leaves will get smaller. It doesn't look like much except a very short tree, but I had hopes that with smaller leaves it would look more like a miniature tree.

The next photo shows it planted into a bonsai pot. This thing had a lot of roots in the 2 gallon pot it had come in. Oak roots are really hard to work with as they are very tough. One thing that attracted me to this particular tree was that there were roots growing above the soil in a square pattern. I imagine it had originally been in a much smaller square pot for much to long.





Here it is in its pot. If you click on the picture you'll get a larger view and will be able to see the above soil roots. After getting it into this pot I thought that I had probably put it into too small a pot. But I didn't have anything larger and figured I could transplant it later.

After I took this photo I trimmed it back some. It grew nicely over the summer. It lost its leaves in the fall, but I didn't think the leaves were an attractive gold color. It was more like they just turned brown. It sat on my backyard bonsai bench all winter looking like a stick in a pot. We had a pretty wet winter but we didn't have a freeze. This was the first winter I'd left the plants out all winter and I was really worried about a freeze.

Well, here is what it looks like now, pretty much still a stick in a pot. By late April in southeast Texas it is very much late in spring. I'm afraid it's dead. I'll keep watering it for a few more weeks but my hopes for this plant are pretty much dashed.

I've learned two lessons from this hobby. One is that you have to have patience. The second is to not get too attached to a plant when it is young. I didn't have much invested in this (I paid about $20 for it and had spent maybe 2-3 hours of time on it) so the loss isn't great.

I'm still sad that it didn't prosper.

2008 Topps Moments & Milestones - Let's Trade!

I don't usually have enough baseball card money to buy a box of premium cards but this year my baseball card fund is flush and I decided to bid on a box of 2008 Topps Moments & Milestones on eBay. I got the box for $71.00 which didn't seem too bad. This works out to just 65 cents/card. I think the cards are very nice. Heavy stock, nice designs, not too glossy, not too much silver foil. The gimmick with this set is that every card is serial numbered. In theory, that means that every card is limited in edition. That's the theory. The reality is different. The base set is numbered to 150. The card shown is #96/150. But note the big number at the bottom of the card. This is card 142 and honors the 201 strikeouts that Matsuzaka had last year. The card shown specifically honors strikeout number 123. There are 150 cards numbered 1 to 150 with the big 123 on the front. There are also 150 serial numbered cards with a big 1 on the front, and 150 with a big 2 on the front. You get the drift, there are 201 times 150 or 30,150 versions of card #142. I've got 4 of them. This looks to be a tough set for a set collector to complete. There is also another set of these numbered to 25 and a third numbered to 10. There may be more but that's all I saw in my box. I still like the cards even with this gimmick and I'm not a set collector anyway. My problem is what I got in the box.

There were 108 cards in the box. There are 189 cards in the set. Of the 108 cards I got, 37 of them were duplicates (like I said, I got four of card 142). Of course, in this set there are no real duplicates. What I mean is that of the 189 cards in the set, I didn't get 131 of them. I don't necessarily want all of the cards in the set but there are 22 card numbers that I want. I've got 31 cards I'm willing to trade. Send me an email and I'll send you a list of what I'm willing to trade and a list of what I'm looking for.

Bring back Topps Stadium Club Baseball

Topps started issuing Stadium Club baseball cards in 1991. 1991 saw some of the first cards printed with full-bleed technology (meaning that the photograph is printed right up to the edge of the card). Although there had been some cards (minor league sets and some insert) before 1991, I think 1991 was the beginning of main-line sets being printed this way. Stadium Club from Topps and Ultra from Fleer were the first.

I also believe that the 1991 Stadium Card is the first major issue card to be printed with a high gloss and with gold foil. Both trends which pretty much took over baseball cards in the next few years. While the Ultra cards were full bleed (at least on the sides) they did not have the gloss or the foil.
Stadium Club has also been known for it's photography. The pictures were always crisp. The action shots were exciting and the posed shots were well framed.

Stadium Club was one of the first sets to produce a serious parallel set. Parallel sets of course were nothing new by 1991. Topps, Fleer and Score had produced high gloss parallels of their main sets since about 1980. In 1993, Stadium Club introduced First Day Issue cards. These had a foil seal which proclaimed that the card had been produced the first day that Topps started printing the cards. Since then we've seen an explosion of limited issue parallel cards which come packaged with the regular cards.
Over the years Stadium Club got more and more bloated with multiple parallel sets, inserts and relic cards. For whatever reason, Topps stopped making Stadium Club baseball cards after the 2003 year. I was sad to see it go but I'll admit to not being very impressed with the 2003 set. It seemed the Stadium Club designers had lost their way.


Trader Crack is starting a petition drive to urge Topps to bring back Stadium Club baseball. Go read his posting. You'll know what to do.

Cliff Walk Postcard - The Breakers

The Breakers is probably the largest of the mansions along The Cliff Walk in Newport Rhode Island. It has 70 rooms with approximately 65,000 square feet. It reportedly cost $7 million to build in 1895. That's about $150 million today. That works out to about $2,300 per square feet. It was built for Cornelius Vanderbilt II. Among other things, Vanderbilt is the great grandfather of CNN's Anderson Cooper. He also had a stroke the year after the Breakers was completed. You can read a short article about him here.What does $2,300 per square feet buy you. Something like this next picture which is the mansion library. According to the back of the card, the Library is "paneled with Circassian walnut stamped in gold and decorated with bas-relief carvings in High Renaissance style". I have no idea (and neither does Wikipedia) what Circassian walnut is but it's got to be something special.
The mansion is a National Historic Landmark and has been owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport County since 1948. It is open to tours by the public during summer months. If I ever get to Newport this is one of the places I really want to visit.

Song of the Week - Worn Me Down by Rachael Yamagata

I have 5,176 songs on my iPod. This is one of them.

This song is from her 2004 CD Happenstance. According to her Wikipedia entry, she doesn't seem to have recorded much since then. Too bad. I really like this song and the entire album.

This is a video which appears to have been made for the song. The video is interesting but what it has to do with the song is entirely beyond me. YouTube has several live versions as well but I liked this better.



Gone, she's gone
How do you feel about it
That's what I thought
You're real torn up about it
And I wish you the best
But I could do without it
And I will, because you've worn me down
Oh, I will, because you've worn me down

Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told
Worn me down to my knees
I did everything to please
But you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her

And you're wrong, you're wrong
I'm not overreacting
Something is off
Why don't we ever believe ourselves
And I, oh, I feel that word for you
And I will, because you've worn me down
Oh, I will because you have worn me down

Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told
Worn me down to my knees
I did everything to please
But you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her

She's so pretty; she's so damn right
But I'm so tired of thinking
About her tonight

Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told
Worn me down to my knees
I did everything to please
But you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her

Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told
Worn me down to my knees
I did everything to please
Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told to me to do
But you, you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her

Trade with Dinged Corners

Last week I posted my experience with breaking a blaster box of 2008 Upper Deck Spectrum. I got an email shortly after from Dinged Corners offering me every Phillies card they had for the Mike Piazza jersey card I pulled from the box. By the time I had their email, I had pulled another Piazza card from the second box I bought. We reached an agreement for a selection of post-2000 Phillies and Astros in return for the Piazza, a couple of other duplicate Spectrum cards I had and some random cards featuring smiling players. I mailed off their cards today and received my cards from them today. Of the 38 cards they sent me, I didn't have 27 of them. I buy a lot of cards so that is a much better percentage than I expected. And not a dud in the lot. I am especially appreciative of the 2007 Bowman Heritage as I had almost no Phillies from this set. I also really like the following three cards:

2005 Leaf Gamers Roger Clemens

I only had 2 of these cards and neither were a Phillie or an Astro. And Roger Clemens is always a good choice.


2005 Leaf Century Roy Oswalt

I only had 1 of these cards and it happened to be Mike Schmidt. Roy O is one of my favorite Astros, so I was happy to get this one.


2000 Pacific Daryle Ward

Now, this may seem as an odd choice for one of my favorite cards in the set. An obscure set featuring an obscure player. Well, it turns out that I didn't have a single card from this set. My card collecting goal is to collect as many different kinds of cards that I can. If the cards are Astros, Phillies, or a large handful of certain other players, all the better. I have a separate set of binders with a sample of each type of card I have. This card goes right into that set.

Patricia and Lucy, thanks for a great selection of cards!


Update: 4/21/08: see what I sent them here.

1993 Phillies World Series Team: Mulholland - Rivera

Terry Mulholland - 1993 Topps Gold

Terry was the Giants 1st round draft pick in 1984. The Phillies acquired Mulholland, along with Dennis Cook and Charlie Hayes for Steve Bedrosian in June 1990. Prior to 1991, Mulholland seems to have been used as a middle reliever and spot starter. The Phillies made him a starter in 1991 and he responded with a 16-13 record in '91, 13-11 in '92 (including 12 complete games to lead the league), and 12-9 in '93. He was the starting pitcher in the 1993 All Star game, was 10th in the league for ERA and 2nd in complete games (with 7). He won one game in the Division series and lost one in the World Series with a combined ERA of about 7.

In February 1994, the Phillies traded him and Jeff Patterson to the Yankees for Bobby Munoz, Ryan Karp, and Kevin Jordan. Terry played for a number of teams from 1994 until he retired at 43 in 2006. He played for the Yankees, Giants, Phillies (again), Mariners, Cubs, Giants, Cubs, Braves, Pirates, Dodgers, Indians, Twins and Diamondbacks. Most years he played for 2 teams. He lasted 2 years with the Twins. As before 1991, he seems to have been used as a spot starter and reliever. He finished his 20-year career with a 124-142 record and an ERA of 4.41. He earned over $13,000,000 during his career.

Mulholland pitched the first no-hitter in Veterans Stadium history on 8/15/90. He faced the minimum 27 batters. His other claim to Phillies fame is that he started the last World Series game in 1993, the one Joe Carter won with a walk-off home run off Mitch Williams.

Ben Rivera - 1993 Upper Deck


Ben was signed as an amateur free agent by the Braves in 1986. The Braves traded him to the Phillies in 1994 for Donnie Eliot. Rivera was 13-9 for the Phillies in 1993 with an ERA of 5.02. He only pitched 2 1/3 innings in the playoffs. In his World Series outing he gave up 4 earned runs in 1 1/3 innings. He was 3-4 in 1994 and spent two months on the DL. He was a free agent after the 1994 season and not signed by anyone.

Next up is Curt Schilling.

Weird Card File - 1988 Topps UK Minis

These cards were marketed by Topps in England to the host of baseball fans there starving for baseball cards.

Except for their size (about 3 by 2 inches) and that they are printed on white card stock, they share a lot of the features of other Topps issues of the late 1980s. The photos on the front are either action shots or candid shots of the player sitting or standing around. The team name is featured prominently on the top and the player name on the bottom. The card fronts are finished but have no gloss.

The backs are also fairly conventional with the past year's and life time stats, the player's personal statistics and some little tidbit about the player. Lloyd was nicknamed "Shaker" in high school. Wouldn't you like to know the full story behind that?


One thing not normally found on baseball cards is a little feature called "Talkin' Baseball". Here, Topps attempts to explain the terminology of the game. I picked this card to show because of the detailed definition of the word throw.

"A Throw is the act of propelling the ball with hand and arm to a given objective. A Throw is to be distinguished from and not to be confused with a pitch".

Baseball is big in some parts of the world, but I think Europe isn't one of them. In the late 1970s, I shared an office in work with an engineer from my company's plant in France. He arrived here during the 1977 World Series. He was staying at a local hotel until he found an apartment. At night he would go to the hotel bar and watch the World Series. One morning he drew a line score, the type that shows runs, hits, and errors. He showed it to me and asked "Who's winning?"

The next summer we got him to play softball with us. Although he was a pretty good athlete, he was hopeless at softball. We tried to get him to buy his own glove but he said he'd never be able to explain to his friends in France what it was for.

By contrast, he was an enormous basketball fall. He knew all the Philadelphia '76ers and was thrilled to be able to see Dr. J and other players live. He had season tickets to the '76ers within a week of getting here.

Song of the Week - So Says I by The Shins

I have 5,076 songs on my iPod, this is one of them.

The Shins were a band I never heard of until my daughter introduced them to me a few years ago. Their first album, Oh, Inverted World, was released in 2001. This song is from their second album Chutes Too Narrow. Their third album Wincing The Night Away went to #2 in the US charts in 2007. This video is from an appearance they made on The Late Show with David Letterman.



An address to the golden door
I was strumming on a stone again
pulling teeth from the pimps of gore when hatched
a tragic opera in my mind...
and it told of a new design
in which every soul is duty bound
to uphold all the statutes of boredom therein lies
the fatal flaw of the red age.

Because it was nothing like we'd ever dreamt,
our lust for life had gone away with the rent we hated
and because it made no money nobody saved no one's life.

So we burned all our uniforms
and let nature take its course again
and the big ones just eat all the little ones
that sent us back to the drawing board.

In our darkest hours
we have all asked for some
angel to come
sprinkle his dust all around
but all our crying voices they can't turn it around
and you've had some crazy conversations of your own.

We've got rules and maps and guns in our backs
but we still can't just behave ourselves
even if to save our own lives, so says I, we are a brutal kind.

Cause this is nothing like we'd ever dreamt
tell Sir Thomas More we've got another failed attempt
cause if it makes them money they might just give you life this time.

2008 Upper Deck Spectrum box break

I haven't done a box break (or even a pack break) on my blog and since I just got this today and I don't see it on any of the baseball card blogs I usually read, I decided to give it a try.

2008 Upper Deck Spectrum. I got this blaster box at Target. $19.99 for seven packs, 4 cards per pack. Target was also selling single packs for $2.99. The box was a slightly better deal, plus the box proudly proclaims "One Game-Used Memorabilia Card in EVERY box."

The box has a Major League Baseball holographic label and a curious "Made in USA Unleaded" label.

Also, "Look for Derek Jeter Retrospectrum Cards!".








First card is Jason Bay of the Pirates. Next is Ken Griffey, Jr. Not too long a wait for a star card.

The cards are glossy with a refractive foil background. The color is primarily blue. Sometimes these kind of cards scan up real colorful but these didn't. They are very rainbow-like however.

Is it my imagination or is Griffey looking a bit, shall we say, heavy in this photo?












The back is also glossy. There is a player head shot at the top. Stats go back to 2000. That looks standard on all the cards.

The Upper Deck hologram logo is on the bottom right, along with a code number to enter into the contest on the Upper Deck website.












Brandon Webb (Diamondbacks), Michael Young (Rangers), Carl Crawford (Rays, note they are the Rays this year, not the Devil Rays), Dan Uggla (Marlins), Scott Rolen (Cardinals, a star card for me), Miguel Tejada (I think the first Tejada card I've seen in an Astros uniform), David Ortiz (Red Sox), Hanley Ramirez (another Marlin), Freddy Sanchez (another Pirate)

And this must be a Derek Jeter Retrospectrum card. This is card #75, so this is going to be a big insert set.

Nothing special on the back. This card features Jeter's 6th All Star game in 2004, where he went 3-3.













Brandon Phillips (Reds)

Ian Snell (the 3rd Pirate in the box). This card jumped out at me. It's green and serial numbered (95/199). My guess is that this is a parallel insert set called Spectrum Green.

The back looks the same as the regular card.













Jim Thome (White Sox, star card for me), Fausto Carmona (Indians), Alex Rodriguez (Yankees, a real star card).
And here's my game-used card. A Mike Piazza Retrospectrum Swatches. Mike is featured in a Mets uni here. His Mets career is briefly summarized on the back. This card is numbered RS-MP1, so I expect there are other Piazza cards in other uniforms.













J. J. Handy (Brewers)

A Yankee Stadium Legacy card featuring Joe Gordon. It is card (and game) number 1,592. 9/23/1942: Yankees beat the Nationals 4-1. Gordon was a nine-time All Star whom I've never heard of. He played exactly 1,000 games for the Yankees and had exactly 1,000 hits.

Delmon Young (Twins), Ian Snell (Pirates, great I've got the regular and the green of this guy), Roy Oswalt (my second Astro, and one of my favorite Astros, who's making his third start tonight).

Another Jeter Retrospectrum (# 19) card but this one is red and serial numbered (28/99). So at least two parallel sets. This card recalls Jeter's first multi-homer game on 8/20/97.

Another Jeter Retrospectrum (#27). This card mentions that Jeter broke the single-season HR record for shortstops in 1998 with 19.











Finishing up with Russell Martin (Dodgers), Chris Carpenter (Cardinals) and Chris Young (Padres).

I'm pretty happy with the box. I think the cards look better than last year's Spectrum cards. I got a good selection (although I'd trade the Pirate cards for some Phillies however), and two of the parallels. I'll probably buy another box if I see them again.

Update 4/12/08: I was in WalMart today and saw the 2008 Spectrum blasters so I decided to buy another on. What a disappointment. Of the 28 cards in the box, 16 were cards I already had from the first box! Including the Mike Piazza jersey card! And no variations either. And still no Phillies!

Bonsai

Brush Cherry

This is my latest bonsai. I bought it at a home and garden show for about $30. It's about 7 inches tall. It doesn't look like much now because it needs some training (which I'm pretty inept at). The mottled look of some of the leaves is due to water spots from being misted. You can see (click on the photo to make it larger) some bright green leaves in the front near the bottom. This is new growth in the 2 weeks since I bought it. The dealer said I can keep it indoors and that it will get flowers. I suspect it will not get flowers if I keep in indoors but I'm not ready to put it outside yet.

I have a mix of inside and outside plants. Some won't grow at all indoors so you have to leave them outside year round. Down here in South Texas, summers can be hard on bonsai. I have to remember to water them every day. It's only April and some of them have already taken a beating.

Coming up in a future post will be a Japanese maple. Bonsai Japanese maples are pretty expensive so I'm going to make my own. I found a potted plant about 2 feet tall at a local nursery for $11. I'll post the photos of the conversion process.

Help

Unknown Upper Deck Ken Griffey card

I got this card in a repack at Target. At first glance, it looks like a 2000 Upper Deck Victory card. In was resting next to a Mark McGuire Upper Deck Victory and a Cal Ripken Upper Deck Victory in the pack. I thought, well, Upper Deck Victory wasn't that great of a set but at least I got some good cards. After closer inspection however, I don't think this Griffey card is a Victory card. For one thing, instead of the Victory logo on the front there is an Upper Deck logo. The actual Victory cards do not feature the Upper Deck logo anywhere on the card.
The other difference is the back. This card is numbered KG1. Makes me think it was part of an insert set. According to Beckett, there were no insert sets in 2000 Upper Deck Victory. There were a lot of Griffey cards in the base set. There was a 49-card subset called Junior Circuit which commemorated important moments in his career (1st home run, 100th rbi, etc).
I like buying these repacks (this one was put out by C&I Collectibles because there is always the chance of getting some odd ball card. But I'm stumped on this one. If anyone thinks they know what this is I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Disappointment

Baseball Snack Pack

I was in Kroger yesterday and saw this plastic tub with the following label:

Hey, there are baseball cards in there. Couldn't see from the outside what might be in there but I thought for $2.25, what the heck? First the good news. Caramel corn, bubble gum (shaped like little baseballs with lettering like "Home Run" on them), peanuts and an 'energizing fruit snack". The package is put together by Norwegian Jake's Mountain Food and Gear.
Good looking stuff except perhaps for the fruit snack. It feels like gummy bears inside which I don't care for. And the gum is better than Topps baseball pack gum (although just).

And the baseball cards? Well, I was hoping for some cards specially made for this little box. Maybe with airbrushed team logos. I haven't seen a set like that in awhile. What did I get? A pack of 2007 Topps Opening Day!? I did get Ken Griffey but I've already got him.

Does anyone recognize the stadium pictured on the lid (click to make the picture larger)? You can just make out the roof of the third base dugout. It says "Welcome to SHE". Shea Stadium? I found this partial list of American baseball stadiums here and Shea is the only one that fits.

Song of the Week - All Along The Watchtower

I was looking for something else and stumbled on this. Two of my favorite performers doing one of my favorite songs. Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen teaming up for the Bob Dylan (by way of Jimi Hendrix) song All Along the Watchtower. This past Friday the final season of Battlestar Gallactica started. If you're a fan of that show, you know the connection to this song. "There's gotta be some way outta here..."



There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
Theres too much confusion
I cant get no relief
Businessman they drink my wine
Plow men dig my earth
None will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth
Hey hey

No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke but uh
But you and I weve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hours getting late
Hey

Hey

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Bare-foot servants to, but huh
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approachin
And the wind began to howl
Hey

Nice Card File

2007 Legendary Cuts Legendary Materials


Steve over at White Sox Cards posted one of these a few days ago so I thought I'd post mine. There have been a number of posts in the baseball card blogs lamenting the low price of relic cards, especially relic cards of Hall of Famers. Here are two more to add to the mix. I paid $4.24 for the Schmidt card and $7.30 for the Carlton. And that's including shipping. The Schmidt books at $15 and the Carlton at $8. Regardless I like the cards. The singles feature a nice high gloss and textured gold foil. Both of these have a jersey piece with a stripe. I don't know if that's a coincidence or not.

2007 Legendary Cuts Legendary Materials Dual

On the dual card, two of the cut-out letters are backed with a jersey piece. Before I got these I thought that pieces from two jerseys (maybe a home and an away) were displayed but now that I have it, I think it's just a larger piece from a single jersey. The dual card features a textured silver foil. I paid $6.50. It books at $9.60.

2007 Legendary Cuts Legendary Materials Triple

The Triple has three of the letters filled. Duh. This card features copper looking textured foil. I paid $7.84. It books at $12.

2007 Legendary Cuts Legendary Materials Quad

I don't have one of these. There were only a few on eBay when I bought the others and they were going for $15-$20. More than I wanted to pay for the players available.