2012 Summer Clearance Trade - It's Over

Well, thanks to everyone who participated in the great 2012 Capewood's Collections Summer Clearance Trade. The last cards were mailed out last Saturday. It was the largest trading event in the baseball card blogosphere (as far as I know), involving 23 trades in just over 5 weeks and thousands of cards changing hands. There are still three teams left which will be available for a limited time. They are:

A's

Rays

Royals

This post will highlight just a few of the cards I received. I intend to feature each trade in a future blog post but that will take some time. I'm still going through the cards I received and I'm waiting for cards from a few of the trades. Later posts will feature links back to my trading partner's blogs.

This also happens to be my 1,000th post. I've been doing this since early 2008. Sometimes it gets hard to keep going, but trading events like this remind me that there are a lot of great cards I have that I only have because of the great contacts I've made through the blog. So the posts will keep coming.

1976 Topps Traded #68 Ron Reed

I have most of the Phillies cards from the 1970s but Larry managed to find 14 I didn't have, including most of the 1979 set.

1982 Topps #636 Pete Rose/Steve Carlton

This was the last 1982 Topps Phillies card I needed. Thanks Scott.

1985 Topps #760 Nolan Ryan

I'm not really too interested in pre-1995 Astros cards but a Nolan Ryan card I don't have is always welcome. And I have a soft spot in my heart for 1985 Topps since it was the first year I started collecting. Thanks Max.

1990 Classic III #8 Wes Chamberlain

 I've only ever seen one card from this set before and I had to pay for it on eBay. Thanks Greg G.!

1993 Select #79 Mitch Williams

 The Wild Thing, one of the improbable stars of the improbable 1993 Phillies. Thanks Greg A.

1996 Metal Universe #172 Jeff Bagwell

This metal foil monstrosity is from one of the most bizarre sets from the mid-1990s. Another thanks to Greg A.

2002 Absolute Memorabilia #67 Lance Berkman

I don't believe I ever saw these cards for sale anywhere in 2002 so I only have a couple of them. Thanks, John.

2005 Bowman Draft Picks Chrome #86 Tommy Manzella

 I had the gold version of this card. I still don't have the regular version. This guy hasn't made it to the major yet. Thanks, Jeremy.

2006 Upper Deck Kids Mascot #2 Phillie Phanatic

The last, and obviously the most important, card I need to complete this 3-card set. Thanks Larry.

2009 Topps 206 Mini Piedmont #39 Jayson Werth

Werth may not be a Phillie any longer but we loved him when he was. Thanks Kerry.

2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary #460 Cole Hamels

Instead of unloading Hamels, the Phillies signed him to a big long term deal. Thanks for the card Nathan.


2012 Topps Archives #7 Cole Hamels

Another great card from Greg G. Thanks!

Song of the Week - Devil's Arcade by Bruce Springsteen

A great song from Bruce's 2007 album Magic.



Remember the morning we dug up your gun
The worms in the barrel, the hanging sun
Those first nervous evenings of perfume and gin
The lost smell on your breath as I helped you get it in
The rush of your lips, the feel of your name
The beat in your heart, the devil's arcade

You said "Heroes are needed, so heroes get made"
Somebody made a bet, somebody paid
The cool desert morning and nothing to save
Just metal and plastic where your body caved
The slow games of poker with Lieutenant Ray
In the ward with the blue walls, a sea with no name
Where you lie adrift with the heroes of the devil's arcade

You sleep and you dream, your buddies Charlie and James
And wake with a thick desert dust on your skin

Voice says "don't worry, I'm here
Just whisper the word tomorrow in my ear"
House on a quiet street, a home for the brave
A glorious kingdom with the sun on your face
Rising from a long night as dark as the grave
On a thin chain of next moments and something like faith
On a morning to order a breakfast to make
A bed draped in sunshine, a body that waits
For the touch of your fingers, the end of the day
The beat of your heart, the beat of your heart
The beat of your heart, the beat of your heart
The beat of your heart, the beat of her heart
The beat of your heart, the slow burning away
Of the bitter fires of the devil's arcade

Movie Review: Batman: The Dark Knight Rises

We've seen the three big comic book movies this year: The Avengers. The Amazing Spiderman and now Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.  All of them were pretty good. If I had to pick the best of the lot, it would be Batman.

You know the story: Batman meets girl, girl steals his mother's necklace, an enormous guy with a mask beats the crap out of Batman, Batman rises, the day is saved.

This is a powerful story of pain, betrayal, redemption, and things blowing up. The main characters are back. Christian Bale probably spends more time as Bruce Wayne then he does as Batman. Wayne is a broken man in the beginning of the movie and I think Bale does a good job with it. Michael Caine is back as Alfred and has more of a part then in the previous movies. Alfred hates to see a broken Bruce Wayne but would rather he be broken then dead. Gary Oldman is once again Commissioner Gordon. He's about to be out out to pasture but with the crises he seems to be the only one who can hold things together. And Morgan Freeman is back being pretty much Morgan Freeman.

There are three new characters. Of course, there is Bane, played by Tom Hardy. It's hard to say much about his acting as he plays the whole movie with a mask that covers his mouth and nose. He is certainly the most menacing character in any Batman movie so far. Joseph Gorden-Levitt plays a young cop named Blake. He maybe represents what Batman and Commissioner Gordon once were, young and full of life, not broken by the terrible things they've had to do over the years. And then there is Anne Hathaway as Selina. She is not once called Cat Woman in the movie but that's who she is. She plays the character with a mix of pathos, lightheartedness and guile that works well. And no matter what happens her lipstick is perfect.

I only have one complaint about the movie and I can't tell you what it is because it would be a terrible plot spoiler. There are several surprise turns in the movie, which I also won't detail, but one of them, toward the end, was a shocker which left me a bit disappointed. Not nearly bad enough to ruin the movie but disappointing just the same.  I'll just say it involves Cat Woman and Bain and leave it at that. You'll recognize what I'm talking about when it happens.

If you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for?

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter - First Look

Now that I've posted all the teams for the 2012 Summer Clearance Trade I can get back to what passes for regular blogging around here. Eventually I'll post some of the cards I got back in the trade but for now, let's look at the recently released Allen & Ginter.  I bought two blasters at Target. I've got a bid on a hobby box on eBay and I'm hoping I'll win that by the time this posts.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter #269 Mike Schmidt

I'm going to lead with my all-time favorite player. As far as I've been able to tell, this is the first time Schmidt has appeared on an Allen & Ginter card. I think I like the design this year more than last years, although, the old fashioned border reminds me a little too much  of 2012 Topps Gypsy Queen. The back of the card looks pretty much like every other year of A&G.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter #33 Chipper Jones

As they have done for a few years now, the horizontal cards feature the player in an action shot. This year, the background cut-out appears to be the same shape on every card. I looked at a few horizontal cards from last year and I don't think they used the same cut-out on every card. Unfortunately, the photo of Jones they chose to use ends up with the top of his head and his hand cut out of the picture.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter #278 Fata1ty

There is the usual bunch of cards featuring "Champions" in other arenas than baseball. This guy is identified on the back as "the first superstar of electronic gaming". Wikipedia says he was inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame in 2010. Really, there is such a thing as the International Video Game Hall of Fame?  I've got to get out more.

There is a mini-card in each pack. The parallels of the regular cards look to be the same as last year. I pulled some black-bordered and A&G backs but nothing special.  There are also mini-card inserts. I got one each of these.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini Culinary Curiosities

Also known as pufferfish, a meal for people like to risk their lives while spending extraordinary amounts of money on a meal. There are 10 of these.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini Man's Best Friend

Well, you can hardly go wrong with cards featuring doggies. A 20 card insert set.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini People of the Bible

15 cards, pretty much evenly distributed between the old and new testaments.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter World's Greatest Military Leaders

Another 20-card set.

Now for the full-sized inserts.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Baseball Highlight Sketches

I pulled 2 of this 25-card set.


2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Historic Turning Points

I pulled 2 of this 20-card set. I have no idea what this thing is supposed to be.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter What's In A Name

I got one of these in every other pack. There are 100 of them and I'm tried of them already. These look like there should be a relic-containing parallel, but apparently not.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter World's Tallest Buildings

The last time I saw this building, Tom Cruise was hanging off the windows.


2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Code Cards

It wouldn't be Allen & Ginter without some sort of mystery. Did anyone ever solve last year's? This year it looks like a murder mystery. Was Lennie Guttman murdered and is Dan Proot a suspect? Do I care?  I pulled one card per box. I'm guessing I'm not going to solve the puzzle with only two cards and maybe a couple more from the hobby box.

2012 Summer Clearance Trade - Yankees Taken

The last team of the Great 2012 Summer Clearance Team. The team many of you, I suppose, have been waiting for. I case you missed them, these teams are still left from previous posts.  Look back for these:

A's
Rays
Royals
Tigers 

This will be my third, and maybe last Summer Clearance Trade. I'm going to feature each team in an individual post to give you an idea of the cards available. I have cards from each team, except Astros and Phillies. The deal is, I'll send you a bunch of cards of your favorite team, you send me some Phillies and/or Astros you don't want.

The cards I'm dealing are junk wax, no relics, autos or hard-to-get parallels. They are mostly base cards but from a wide variety of sets. Most teams are loaded with more recent years (2010-2012) but I have a lot of cards from the 1980s and later gotten from repacks.

 You can send me as many Phillies/Astros cards as you want. I'll be featuring each team in alphabetical order over the next few weeks. The first person to claim a team by making a comment in that team's post gets the team. This is hard to coordinate so I'm not taking any advance reservations.  Good Luck!

I've got a fair number of Yankees here, 88, in fact. Here's a sample.

1989 Topps Glossy All Stars #7 Rickey Henderson

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions #62 Yogi Berra

2008 UD Masterpieces #64 Joba Chamberlain

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter #130 Robinson Cano

2012 Topps Heritage #382 Joe Girardi

2008 Upper Deck X Xponential Chien-Ming Wang

2012 Topps #110 Mark Teixeira

2012 Summer Clearance Trade - White Sox Taken

Only two teams to go in the Great 2012 Summer Clearance Trade. This has been exhausting! There are still some teams left fro previous posts.  Look back for these:

A's
Rays
Royals
Tigers 

This will be my third, and maybe last Summer Clearance Trade. I'm going to feature each team in an individual post to give you an idea of the cards available. I have cards from each team, except Astros and Phillies. The deal is, I'll send you a bunch of cards of your favorite team, you send me some Phillies and/or Astros you don't want.

The cards I'm dealing are junk wax, no relics, autos or hard-to-get parallels. They are mostly base cards but from a wide variety of sets. Most teams are loaded with more recent years (2010-2012) but I have a lot of cards from the 1980s and later gotten from repacks.

 You can send me as many Phillies/Astros cards as you want. I'll be featuring each team in alphabetical order over the next few weeks. The first person to claim a team by making a comment in that team's post gets the team. This is hard to coordinate so I'm not taking any advance reservations.  Good Luck!

I've got 47 White Sox cards just waiting for you. Here's a sample.

1989 Fleer #510 Jerry Reuss

Certainly not the best card in the bunch but how often to you see cards featuring pitchers, especially American League pitchers, with bats.

2012 Topps #105 Paul Konerko

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter #35 Adam Dunn

2011 Topps 60 #109 Luis Aparicio

2012 Topps Heritage #271 Alexei Ramirez

1985 Topps #466 Tony LaRussa

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions #143 Pete Derrick Rose

I assume that everyone likes these Goodwin Champion cards as much as I do even when they don't feature a baseball player.

Song of the Week - Deltron 3030

This will be a pretty unusual Song of the Week. I am not a big fan of hip hop but I really like this album. I first heard this song on a 2002 television series called Robbery Homicide Division. It featured Tom Sizemore as the head of the Homicide Division of the Los Angeles police department. It was a very gritty show, very dark, very violent. It showed that being a policeman in LA was a very dangerous business. This song played under the opening credits. In the opening show of the series, the first 7 minutes of the show were just this song playing while a police car cruised the mean streets of LA.



Robbery Homicide Division only lasted 10 episodes, probably because Tom Sizemore was starting that long slide down into drug addiction and arrests. It didn't help that 10 episodes wasn't enough time for a show like this to build an audience.

As for the music, here's the first line of the Wikipedia article about it: "Deltron 3030 is the 2000 debut album by hip hop supergroup Deltron 3030. It is a rap opera concept album set in a dystopian year 3030."  What's not to like about a description like that? After looking for this for many years in iTunes, the album finally showed up last year. I had only heard this track but I like the rest of it as well. If you're interested go read the whole Wiki article.

2012 Summer Clearance Trade - Twins Taken

Teams are going fast but some I posted earlier are still available.   Look back for these:

A's
Rockies
Rays

Sorry it you're looking for Rangers or Red Sox cards. These went pre-clearance to long time trading partners.

This will be my third, and maybe last Summer Clearance Trade. I'm going to feature each team in an individual post to give you an idea of the cards available. I have cards from each team, except Astros and Phillies. The deal is, I'll send you a bunch of cards of your favorite team, you send me some Phillies and/or Astros you don't want.

The cards I'm dealing are junk wax, no relics, autos or hard-to-get parallels. They are mostly base cards but from a wide variety of sets. Most teams are loaded with more recent years (2010-2012) but I have a lot of cards from the 1980s and later gotten from repacks.

 You can send me as many Phillies/Astros cards as you want. I'll be featuring each team in alphabetical order over the next few weeks. The first person to claim a team by making a comment in that team's post gets the team. This is hard to coordinate so I'm not taking any advance reservations.  Good Luck!

I've made trades with quite a few team collectors but I've never connected with a Twins collector. Surely they exist! This explains why I have 130 Twins cards gathering dust. Here's an sampling of the many cards I'm offering.

2007 Topps Turkey Red #90 Justin Morneau

2007 Ultra #107 Joe Mauer

1994 Pinnacle Museum Collection #487 Matt Walbeck

Here's that rare parallel card you need to complete your Matt Walbeck collection.

1990 K-Mart #22 Kirby Puckett

These 1990 K-Mart cards show up all the time in repacks.

1988 Topps #45 Kent Hrbek

2009 Upper Deck 20th Anniversary Retrospective #2325 Adrian Peterson

OK, this guy is actually a Viking. Can you believe a card numbered 2,325?

2010 Upper Deck #306 Joe Mauer

2004 Throwback Threads #112 Jacque Jones