Book Club - Blockade Billy by Stephen King

You probably don't remember the rookie William Blakely. He came up from the minors when both his team's catchers went down on the last day of spring training in 1957.  While his team searched frantically for a veteran catcher, Billy Blakely would have to do.

But the kid turned out to be good. He could hit homers, hit in the clutch but best of all was his defense. The kid was so good at blocking the plate (in a way which is probably illegal in today's game) that the fans started holding up orange signs saying "Road Closed by Order of Blockade Billy". And this was just one month into the season.

If you haven't read the great little book called "Blockade Billy" by Stephen King, you should.

Movie Review - The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Super hero movie fatigue has started to set in.

There was actually some good acting in this movie. Several scenes between Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and his Aunt May (Sally Field) were the highlights of the movie. And scenes with Parker and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) were also touching. Teenaged love at it's best.

You tend to forget that Peter Parker is a high school student. He's at most, what, 17? In a scene that was supposed to be touching but actually isn't Parker, visits Harry Osbourn who has returned to the city after over 10 years away at school, because his father is dying. Peter tells Harry that he remembers when Harry was there for him when Peter's father died. When they were 6 years old. Later they talk about women in their lives. They've got a lot of catching up to do since they haven't seen each other for 10 years or so, when they were 6. Two recent high school graduates remembering the special bond they had when they were 6. I found this ludicrous. 

The rest of the movie was a torrent of light and sound. A barely recognizable Paul Giamatti (Aleksei Sytsevich/Rhino) crashes an enormous truck through the streets of New York City towing a armored car full of plutonium. Did you know that plutonium was a glowing yellow liquid? Neither did I.  Anyway much mayhem ensues delaying Parker from his high school graduation ceremony, where Gwen is going to make the valedictorian address. Much foreshadowing in this address.

Next up, Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) a shy milquetoast of an engineer at Oscorp is turned into Electro through bright and noisy special effects involving electric eels. He proceeds in several scenes to cause massive destruction across the city with Spider-Man fighting him along the way.

Electro is finally brought down after an eye and ear assaulting battle in some place composed of tall glowing towers.  Then, hardly allowing Spider-Man to catch is breath, Harry Osborn, who having injected himself with radioactive spider's blood hidden in the depths of Oscorp, shows up as the Green Goblin. And if you know the Spider-Man comics at all, you'll know why Emma Stone won't be in Spider-Man 3 except maybe in flashbacks.

And in the end, almost as an afterthought, Rhino, causing more destruction, is stopped by Spider-Man.

As for the music in the film, all I could say by the closing credits was "Please make it stop".

If you're wondering if there is an Easter egg in the closing credits, there is. Do yourself a favor and just leave when the credits start. All you get, halfway through the credits is a scene from the trailers for the new X-Men movie. Which is made by Fox, not Sony.

2014 Bowman base cards

When 2012 Bowman came out I praised the set for finally doing away with the black and red theme that the cards had had for over 10 years.  We're on the 3rd year now of the 'new and improved' Bowman look. As with the past 2 years, the Bowman set features weird photo border effects and white card borders.

I like the new logo, a very smart Bowman B in a baseball. They use the single B logo sparingly, the last time was 2005, the time before was 1994. The foil team logo placed center bottom is good. I mostly like the photo border, very flowing and in the team color like the past few years. I'm not quite sure what the branching items up each side are supposed to be. Arteries? There is also a little saddle thing under the team logo. Kind of pointless.

I never like silver foil on black, but they've had it 3 years running. Maybe I'm just getting old but the team and player names on the front are small and hard to read. 

The photography is bright, but as they've done on the past two years, the backgrounds are blurred out. I think that's OK on some photos, but not on every one.

I think the backs are an improvement over the past 2 years. Not radically different, but I like the use of color for the stat line. I also prefer the white border over the gray from last year's. The player and team names are easy to read and the card number stands out well.

It took me a bit longer than maybe it should have to figure out what was going on in the lower corners. It's a blurred out continuation of the photo.

I bought two blasters and 2 3-packs (to get the purple parallels). Of the 236 cards, only 100 of them were base cards. Nearly all the cards feature a pitcher pitching or a batter batting. There were 4 cards featuring a fielding play,

four cards featuring a base runner,

one card featuring a player on base,

(Mike Trout shaking dirt out of his ear), and one card featuring a catcher,

and no posed shots, or dugout shots or plays at base or home. 90% of the cards look pretty similar due to the sparsity of fielding plays.

As is usual for Bowman, there are no subset cards (like Leaders, All-Star, etc) unless you count the Rookie cards as a subset (which I don't).

Also, the fact that there were only 100 base cards of the 230 cards (much less than half) will probably be distressing for some. There are 220 cards in the set so completing a set by buying retail would be pretty difficult. It's not a problem for me, since I collect for diversity of cards. The bulk of the rest of the cards were either the Prospect cards (44) or Prospect Chrome cards (41). The rest of the cards were mostly various parallel cards. There are only a few actual insert cards. I also pulled 2 prospect autos, one from a blaster the other from a 3-pack.

I'll have another post up with the parallels and inserts later.

Oleander Bonsai

I haven't posted a bonsai photo in awhile.  One of my retirement plans is to spend more time with my bonsai plants. They do not thrive well in neglect.

In late 2008, I got the idea to try and produce an oleander bonsai. My reasoning was that they grow pretty quickly and in no time I'd have something. Here in Texas, oleanders are evergreen, and have flowers from early spring into late summer. I took a cutting from one of the plants in my back yard and got it to root. Then I planted it in a small pot. Here's what it looked line in February 2009.

This was pretty much how it looked when I took the clipping. But there was some encouraging new growth near the base.

The whole plant looked kinda goofy and I wasn't really sure what I could do about it.

Flash forward to today. All of the original greenery gradually died and it only grew two new branches, the one above and another which also died.  But that little branch above, has now, finally, produced buds, and a flower. The first flower in 5 years!

It may not look like much but I'm pretty excited about it. The art of bonsai is pretty much an exercise  in patience. I've been patiently tending this thing for 5 years and finally my reward.

Cards from Baseball Dad

This was a weird trade. Jack, the Baseball Dad, is also a Facebook friend. A few months ago I posted that I was at the Houston Hobby Center for a performance of "The Wizard of Oz" musical and posted a photo of the program. Jack commented and asked if I could get a copy of the program for his wife. Since I was still at the show, this was no problem. I sent him the program along with a bunch of Indians cards.  He sent me back a bunch of Phillies cards, well more than half were cards I needed. And some of them were exceptional.

2004 Topps Pristine #7 Billy Wagner

This is a set I never see for sale anywhere so I rarely buy any of it. I didn't have a single card from the 2004 issue. So a double hit, a Phillie I didn't have and a set I didn't have any of.

2006 Upper Deck Special Effects Purple #737 Aaron Fultz

This was an Upper Deck parallel set, similar to Topps Chrome. I had a couple of the base cards and 2 of the Green parallel. This is from the Purple parallel, numbered to 150.

1965 Topps Embossed Inserts #34 Jack Baldschun

Here's a card I didn't even know I needed. These cards were an insert to the 1965 Topps set. Inserts were pretty rare in those days. Except for the centering, the card is in great shape. But I'm not quibbling over the condition. I love this card.

1989 Pacific Legends II #187 Elmer Valo

This is a set I've never heard of. The back of the card says Valo was born in Ribnik, Czechoslovakia in 1921. baseball-reference.com says he was born in Rybnik, Poland. I suppose there have been a lot of changes in that part of the world since 1921. This guy played parts of 2 seasons of his 20-year career for the Phillies. Good enough to get him elected to the Phillies Wall of Fame in 1990.

1993 Hostess Twinkies #4 John Kruk

I had the Astro (Jeff Bagwell) from the set, now I have the Phillie.

2000 Pacific Ornaments #14 Scott Rolen

I think this is my favorite, a Scott Rolen Christmas ornament! It's die cut and the front is full of holographic foil goodness.

In addition to the Phillies cards, Jack also checked out my 2004 Topps Cracker Jacks want list and filled 5 missing slots. I haven't added a card since October 2011. Thanks, Jack!

2014 Mike Schmidt Topps Gypsy Queen

I'm sure I don't have the world's largest Mike Schmidt baseball card collection, but I've got a bunch of them. Here's my 379 addition to the collection.

According to beckett.com, there have already been 94 2014 Mike Schmidt cards issued. I've got 3 of them. I'm never gonna catch up.

2014 Topps Herigage Clubhouse Collection Relics - Good Deals

I only bought a few rack packs of Topps Heritage this year. I got lucky and pulled a relic from one of them, but I didn't get too many Phillies or Astros. So off to eBay I went.

I picked up this Domonic Brown relic for just a dollar, that's it, a single $1, with free shipping.

Brown had a great year for the Phillies last year, hitting .272 with 27 home runs. He's off to a bit of a slow start this year and the Phillies seem to have an abundance of outfielders.

I also found this card for $5.00 including shipping.

Something new this year, the gold parallel, numbered to 99. I've not been paying much attention to the Astros this year. They are well on their way to losing 100 games again this year (I think that will be 3 seasons in a row). Altuve, at least, is one of their better players.