Birthday Blaster: 2014 Topps Update

My 31st birthday was last Friday the 5th and my 4 month old daughter surprised me with a blaster box of 2014 Topps Update.  Here's the most interesting cards I pulled out of the box.

While I am happy to have a red bordered parallel of an Oriole show up in my box, I wonder what Topps was thinking in the case of picking a photo of Nick Hundley.  Sure it's a fun photo but years from now when I'm flipping through my album of 2014 O's team sets, I won't think that I will think much of Topps "spoiling" the card.  Actually I don't think much of it now.  Surely there is a more "boring" photo they could have used to commemorate Nick's season with the Orioles.

Moving on, I pulled this decent looking insert of the hottest player on the planet.  Not much else to say other than its for trade.

My guaranteed manu-relic happened to be of a player I respect but a team I detest.  I don't need this card so it's for trade.

I guess it's appropriate that the first blaster box that my daughter buys me that I get a pink parallel out of one of the packs.  The particular odds on pulling a pink parallel is 1 in 230 packs.  Upon closer inspection, you can see he's wearing a pink necklace, presumably for Mother's Day. So doing a little bit of research, Elias did pitch 5 innings on Sunday May 11th.  He left in line for the win up 7 to 5 but the bullpen blew the lead.  Any Roenis Elias supercollectors out there need this card?

Here's another one of those pesky red bordered parallels.  Man, there were 20 of those suckers in this box, I would have much rather just had the regular old base cards.  Anyways, I was sad to hear about Taveras crashing his car and passing away.   Drinking and Driving don't mix.

Here's a list of all of my 2014 Topps Update cards I have for trade:

Blue Bordered Parallel: US-118 McHugh, 132 Colvin, 243 Chavez, 266 Smyly, 272 Ellis, 293 Koehler
Red Bordered Parallel: US-35 Stroman, 56 Street, 89 Drew, 113 Taveras, 117 Lackey, 136 Navarro, 144 Rondon, 157 Smith, 163 Santiago, 167 Francoeur, 195 Laird, 225 Avilan, 232 Carroll, 268 Shoemaker, 274 Withrow, 285 Allen, 291 Mcgee, 324 Amarista, 327 Gomes
Red Hot Foil: Us-120 Wolf, 314 Dickerson
Gold Bordered Parallel: US-226 Coghlan
Pink Bordered Parallel: US-220 Elias #d 26/50
1989 Mini Diecut: TM-BB Butler, CG C. Gonzalez,  Vizquel
Fond Farewells: FF-MM McGwire,  PM Molitor, WS Stargell
Future is Now: FN-GP1 Polanco, JA1 Abreu,  OT2 Taveras, NC2 Castellanos, YV1 Ventura, MW1 Wacha
Power Players: PPA-AG Gonzalez, FH Hernandez, GS Stanton, JU Upton, MTR Trout
World Series Heroes: WSH-JP Papelbon
World Series MVP Manu-Relic: WSP-MR Rivera

Multi-Trade Post

Everybody knows that trade posts do not usually yield a high amount of views or comments but I feel that they are very necessary for my blogging.  I like to personally thank my trade partners with an email letting them know I got my package and I also like to shoot up a trade post so I can let everybody else know that there are incredibly generous collectors all over the world.  I didn't trade much during the baseball season this year but I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things.  I think from here on I will be featuring several different trades in one trade post.  So here is a quick recap of the last 5 deals that I've made:  

This blue sparkly Dylan Bundy came to me from Night Owl.  We've traded at least once a year over the the last few and he always comes up with quality cards I can add to my collection.  The only problem with this card is the picture itself.  I hope Dylan makes an appearance with the Orioles this season so that Topps has another picture to make cards out of.  I'm sick of seeing the same photo on all his cards.

Night Owl also sent along these 2 '89 diecut minis for my team set.  My scanner decides to trim the edges of these cards making them into regular rectangles.  I actually wish they were rectangles with the original white borders instead of diecuts but I'm not making the decisions at Topps on how to make cards. 

These 1993 Upper Deck cards came to me from a relatively new blogger by the name of Jimmy who runs the S.Mack Talk blog.  He's still finding his footing here in blogger land so go on over and check out his blog.  Yes I'm building the 1993 Upper Deck set.  In my opinion its Upper Deck's best base set and I'm using the cards for a future project.

If you read blogs you probably know where these minis came from.  Nachos Grande, the Allen & Ginter and Legos wizard made these awesome custom mini Ginters and included them in the package. I think these might be 1/1s since I'm not sure if he has sent a Manny or Crush out to anyone else.

Chris also included this Electric Diamond parallel from the 1994 Upper Deck set of Mike Devereaux.  1994 UD is such a let down from '93's effort but this card stands out for awesome photography.  I'm really thinking about sending this card out to Mike to see if I can get it autographed.

This Frank Robinson manu-relic comes to me from a guy named David Gao.  I don't think he has a blog but he was interested in some of my Cardinals tradebait.  I don't immediately recall what I sent him in return but I'm happy to have this card for my collection.  I'm not the biggest Frank collector around and I still hold a bit of a grudge since he kinda ruined my National experience a few years back by having everybody who bought tickets stand in line for half the damn day.  I coulda been roaming the show floor but instead was stuck in line because my ticket had already been scanned and I was told if I left the line, I wouldn't be allowed to return without buying another ticket.  I know its kind of a silly reason to hold a grudge but I'm an imperfect person.

Thi cards was send to me by a guy by the name of John.  I don't think that he has a blog either but he did have a Zistle page that I was able to pick out some 2014 Topps cards as well ans this Shawn Green Rookie card.  The last card I'm going to show off is a Blue Jays card?  Yeah, it's for my somewhat unnannounced-but-you-can-find-the-wantlist-here-on-my-blog project.  I'm going back through the years collecting rookie cards of all the "big name" players.  I guess you can call it my personal fan favorite rookie card collection.  I plan on making a full post about all of my PC's in the near future so stay tuned for that.

Thanks again to Night Owl, Nachos Grande, Jimmy, David and John for trading with me.

So Long Nick Markakis...

Enjoy him Braves fans!

A Tour of my Man Cave part 2: the Other Side

I hope everyone enjoyed seeing part of my man cave in my previous post.  I would say that I'm very organized and I know exactly where every card in my collection is at any given time.  Some people might say I'm OCD about my cards but honestly if it wasn't this organized, there'd be no way I'd know exactly what I have and don't have.  Anyways, on with the show:

 I guess this is where you could say the magic happens.  I've got my scanner/printer on the far left, my label/postage printer next to it, my scale, toploaders and penny sleeves, my "Cards of the Moment", a stack of blog business cards in front of a box of tradebait I have stashed away for people I trade with on a regular basis.  You can also see my Mac on the right of the picture.

 Just to the left of my printer is where I keep my 3 Cal Ripken PC binders as well as my Nick Markakis and Nolan Reimold binder.

 Above all of those I have a shelf of Orioles knick-knacks.  Bobbleheads, action figures, statuettes, signed baseballs.  There's a little bit of everything up there.

 Farther to the left is my signed 8x10 collection.  All of the Orioles greats are up there.  The cool thing about each of these is that I got to meet each and every player!

Here's the meat of my signed 8x10s.  There's Cal, Eddie, Brooks, and Palmer.   I've met each one of those guys too!  So that pretty much wraps it up for my man cave.  The only thing I didn't show is my TV and my Xbox 360 and games.  I'm pretty sure everybody knows what all of those things look like though.

A Tour of My Man Cave

I've seen several bloggers do tours of their Man Cave / Card Rooms in the past and I've decided its time to show of "O" NO!!! World Headquarters.  It's only taken me nearly 5 years and over 500 posts to get around to it!

Here on the left is where the bulk of my tradebait is located as well as my complete sets.  You can see down on the bottom 2 shelves my "Lifetime" Topps collection.  All of the base sets from 1983 thru 2013 and the update sets from 2005 thru 2013.  I haven't started 2014 really seriously yet so if anybody has extras, please let me know.

The middle shelves with the 6 3200 count boxes is where all of my commons are held.  I can help out on bunches of sets from 1988 thru 2014. I used to have about 15 or 16 boxes of commons but I either donated, gave away, or even sold of a bunch of extra stuff I didn't need.

On the top shelf is where I have tradebait sorted by teams.  In these boxes is where you'll find star players as well as inserts, parallels, relics and even a few autograph cards.

This Rubbermaid container is where I keep all of my shipping supplies.  You can see all of the yellow bubble mailers inside.  There's also my tape dispenser, index cards, and envelopes inside.

 

This rack is where most of my Orioles PC is housed.

Here on the top shelf is a box of odds and ends Orioles stuff as well as trade bait.  I seem to acquire a fair amount of trade bait from my own team.  Next to that box is the relic box where all the bits of jerseys and bats are.  On the far right is where all of the Orioles autographs are housed.

The next shelf down is where my Ultimate Rookie card binder (more on that in an upcoming post) and my Star Players binder is.  The 2 binders on the right are empty at this point in time.

The next 2 shelves is where my Orioles Team Set binders reside.  Each team set is in a binder categorized in alphabetical order by year.

The bottom shelf is where a my favorite Orioles players binders live.  The unmarked binders the the right of those also house player collections like Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, Manny Machado, and Chris Hoiles to name a few.  There's also my "One card of Every Oriole" binder, my "Failed Orioles Prospect" Binder, and my "Orioles Parallel Insanity" binder.  More on those later.

We'll stop here for now and I'll finish it off in part 2.

Last Chance for my Last Chance Tradebait.....

.....before I offer a different way to get my Last Chance tradebait.  Confused?  Yeah, I thought you'd be confused but maybe it will drum up some views here.  In my last post I offered up a bunch of cards that I'm trying to get rid of that I don't need anymore.  I got a couple of people interested in the "set lots" but I also got a good amount of people interested in team lots.  I'm going to list what I have left below and let anybody who wants the cards to claim them before Sunday evening.  After that I'm going to sort them out by teams and offer them up in my next post.  I'm not looking for much of anything in trade.  If you don't even have anything to trade me, just help with the shipping cost and I'll send them to you.  Enough rambling:

2012 Topps Heritage ~50 cards
2012 Topps series 1 ~100 cards
2011 Topps Heritage ~100 cards
2011 Topps ~150 cards
2010 Topps A&G ~20 cards
2010 Topps Heritage ~75 cards
2009 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee ~125 cards
2009 Upper Deck Icons ~30 cards
2009 Upper Deck Goudey ~50 cards
2009 Upper Deck ~75 cards
2009 Topps A&G ~20 cards
2009 Topps 206 ~50 cards
2007 Upper Deck ~75 cards
2007 Topps Update ~150 cards
2007 Bowman ~50 cards
2007 Bowman Chrome ~50 cards
2006 Upper Deck series 1,2,update ~200 cards
2006 Topps ~50 cards
2005 Upper Deck ESPN ~35 cards
2005 Bowman ~100 cards
2004 Upper Deck ~150 cards
2004 Fleer Tradition ~75 cards
2003 Upper Deck ~100 cards
2003 Donruss ~150 cards
2003 Bowman Chrome ~25 cards
2003 Bowman ~100 cards
2002 Upper Deck ~150 cards
2002 Bowman ~150 cards
2000 Topps ~75 cards
2000 Bowman ~150 cards
2000 Bowman Chrome ~40 cards
1999 UD Choice ~200 cards
1999 Topps Opening Day ~150 cards
1999 Topps ~50 cards
1999 Fleer Tradition Update ~75 cards
1999 Bowman Chrome ~75 cards
1998 Collector's Choice ~75 cards
1998 Upper Deck ~40 cards
1998 Score ~75 cards
1998 Fleer Tradition ~50 cards
1998 Bowman's Best ~50 cards
1997 Collector's Choice ~75 cards
1997 Donruss ~50 cards
1996 Fleer ~50 cards

Last Chance Tradebait

When I cleaned out my commons boxes over the past few weeks I ended up with about 12,000 cards that I don't need anymore.  I'm not sure how to rid myself of them at this point so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  But, before I open it up to the general public, I'd like to offer them up to the blogging community first.  Claim whatever you want but know that I can't fully cover the shipping costs.  Throw me a few bucks Paypal and I'll send them your way.  Or, as always I'm definitely open to trades!

I'm not going to count each stack so the figures here are just my guesstimation.

2012 Topps Heritage ~50 cards
2012 Topps series 1 ~100 cards
2011 Topps Heritage ~100 cards
2011 Topps ~150 cards
2010 Topps A&G ~20 cards
2010 Topps Heritage ~75 cards
2009 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee ~125 cards
2009 Upper Deck Icons ~30 cards
2009 Upper Deck Goudey ~50 cards
2009 Upper Deck ~75 cards
2009 Topps A&G ~20 cards
2009 Topps 206 ~50 cards
2008 Upper Deck Goudey ~50 cards
2007 Upper Deck Goudey (reds and greens) ~100 cards
2007 Upper Deck ~75 cards
2007 Topps Update ~150 cards
2007 Bowman ~50 cards
2007 Bowman Chrome ~50 cards
2006 Upper Deck series 1,2,update ~200 cards
2006 Topps ~50 cards
2005 Upper Deck ESPN ~35 cards
2005 Bowman ~100 cards
2004 Upper Deck ~150 cards
2004 Fleer Tradition ~75 cards
2003 Upper Deck ~100 cards
2003 Donruss ~150 cards
2003 Bowman Chrome ~25 cards
2003 Bowman ~100 cards
2002 Upper Deck ~150 cards
2002 Bowman ~150 cards
2000 Topps ~75 cards
2000 Bowman ~150 cards
2000 Bowman Chrome ~40 cards
1999 UD Choice ~200 cards
1999 Topps Opening Day ~150 cards
1999 Topps ~50 cards
1999 Fleer Tradition Update ~75 cards
1999 Bowman Chrome ~75 cards
1998 Collector's Choice ~75 cards
1998 Upper Deck ~40 cards
1998 Score ~75 cards
1998 Fleer Tradition ~50 cards
1998 Bowman's Best ~50 cards
1997 Collector's Choice ~75 cards
1997 Donruss ~50 cards
1996 Fleer ~50 cards

After all of these it's mostly just a bunch of junk wax, if you are interested in any cards from that between 1995 and 1986 please let me know.

All of My 2014 Tradebait

I've been terrible at posting my pack breaks during this year.  I realize its next to impossible to when nobody knows what cards I have to trade to get one going.  Listed below is my entire list of 2014 cards that I have for trade.  You can also find my entire trade list just below my blog's banner as well as my full wantlists.  Let's get some trades going!

2014 Bowman:
State Flag Parallel: 13 Gattis, BP59 Neuhaus

Blue Border Parallel: 212 Rosario #d 392/500

2014 Bowman Platinum:
Gold Parallel: 48 Molina, 61 Latos
Ruby Parallel: 46 Pedroia
Prospect Refractor: BPCP47 Stroman, 51 Odor
Prospect X-Fractor: BPCP91 Sardinas
Prospect Purple Refractor: BPCP952 Glasnow, 89 Arroyo, 95 Paulino

Prospect Red Refractor: BPCP38 Giolito #d 24/25
Top Prospects Diecut: TP-CE Edwards
1989 Bowman is Back: 89BIB-GS Stanton, JB Baez

2014 Topps:
Red Hot Foil: 5 Lynn, 232 Owings, 154 Iannetta, 493 Tejada
Green Border Parallel: 439 Bradley Jr., 490 Morrison, 381 Smyly
1989 Mini Diecut:  TM-32 Davis, 39 Banks, 53 Canseco, 63 Gonzalez
Breakout Moment: BM-14 Myers, 24 Griffey Jr.
Future Is Now: FN-5 Profar, 13 Cespedes, 22 Fernandez, 31 Wacha, 32 Wacha, 40 Bogaerts, 41 Bogaerts
Power Players: PP-191 Perez
Saber Stars: SST-8 Cabrera
Upper Class: UC-15 Longoria, 45 Sandberg, 48 Aaron

2014 Topps Update
Blue Bordered Parallel: US-118 McHugh, 132 Colvin, 243 Chavez, 266 Smyly, 272 Ellis, 293 Koehler
1989 Mini Diecut: TM-BB Butler, OV Vizquel
Fond Farewells: FF- PM Molitor, WS Stargell
Future is Now: FN-GP1 Polanco, YV1 Ventura, MW1 Wacha
Power Players: PPA-AG Gonzalez, FH Hernandez, GS Stanton

2014 Allen & Ginter:
SPs: 306 Ryu,  310 Alonso, 314 Arenado, 322 Konerko, 326 Olt, 328 Wilson, 334 Johnson, 338 Pettitte, 340 Eckersley
Mini: 26 Jenkins, 42 Lake, 139 Ellsbury, 144 Oberholtzer, 185 Bautista, 212 Fister, 232 Smith, 325 Strawberry
A&G back mini: 50 Hernandez, 79 Adams
Black Bordered Mini: 118 Schefter, 267 Clancy
World's Deadliest Predators: WDP-10 Hyena
Air Supremacy: AS-04 P-51 Mustang, 13 F-15C Eagle, 19 Hawker Hurricane
Coincidence?: AGC-02 King Umberto and the Waiter
Festivals and Fairs: FAF-06 Songrain Water Festival
Worlds' Capitals: SC-07 Washington DC, 16 Mexico City
Natural Wonders: NW-09 Marble Caves, 16 The Wave at Coyote Buttes, 19 McWay Falls
Pastime's Pastimes: PP-JB Bautista, MC Cabrera, PF Fielder, RD Dickey, SS Strasburg, TT Tulowitzki

2014 Topps Chrome
Refractor Parallel: 8 Cespedes, 25 Bogaerts, 56 Jeter, 73 Weaver
Purple Refractor Parallel: 11 Aoki, 27 Kuroda, 159 Hosmer, 210 Santana
Xfractor Parallel: 12 Almonte, 146 Freeman, 195 Gonzalez
Orange Refractor: 182 Trumbo, 188 Wong, 194 Teheran, 196 Kipnis, 212 Anna

Sepia Refractor: 102 Moore #d36/75, 209 Lambo #d17/75
Topps Shelf: TS-GS Stanton

2014 Gypsy Queen:
SPs: 302 Jackson, 311 Goldschmidt, 318 L. Gonzalez,
White Paper Parallel: 111 Banks, 229 Lester, 271 Cobb, 258 Carlton, 143 Pedroia
Mini Parallel: 87 Minor, 91 Ozuna, 107 Encarnacion, 123 Hernandez, 136 Stargell, 142 Cole, 185 Brett, 243 Kemp, 246 Brantley, 270 Mattingly, 292 Feliz

Mini Red Parallel: 135 Gio Gonzalez #d 87/99
Dealing Aces: DA-MS Scherzer, YD Darvish
Debut All-Stars: AS-PF Fielder
Glove Stories: GA-AR Rizzo, CC Crawford, JI Iglesias
N174: N174-CK Kershaw, YB Berra, MS Scherzer, MR Rivera, YP Puig

Gypsy Queen Relic: GQR-AS Andrelton Simmons

Trade with Tom of The Angels in Order

Within the last month I completed another trade with Tom of The Angels, In Order.  He sent out a sort of APB in a post that he was collecting the 2009 Upper Deck base set and I answered the call.  I  had just cleaned out a bunch of cards from my commons boxes and a large chunk of '09 UD happened to be one of the stacks.  I was able to help him out with his set and also scored some O's cards for my collection too!  Here's just a small sample of the cards he sent:

This pair of 2014 Topps cards goes into the team set binder for this year.  I haven't been keeping up with the new releases this year as much this year but I think I'll be able to get back into it full force over the next few months.  

I was very happy to see these 2 cards in the package.  They are going as upgrades in my "One Card of Every Oriole" binder.  There aren't bunches of cards of these guys in Orioles duds so tracking down cards of these guys wasn't as easy as you'd think!

These 2 Orioles farmhands from 2002 Bowman have the unfortunate pleasure of being added to my "Failed Orioles Prospects" mini-collection.  Not a knock on these guys but they just never were able to put it all together and make it to the majors.  Teams draft roughly 50 players each year and usually only 4 or 5 make it all the way to the big leagues.

Speaking of failed prospects, this guy totally fell of the face of the earth a few years back.  He had a pretty decent debut with the parent club, was sent down to the minors again and hasn't really been heard from since.  I think he got suspended for either PEDs or something and that's why the O's cut bait with him.  With Jonathan Schoop at 2nd Base now, Ryan Adams has become a faint memory with most O's fans.

Here's a Scope-fractor of a guy who's always in the front of most Orioles fan's minds. I guess this is an appropriate card to show him making a great catch when he just took home another Gold Glove this past week.

Thanks a bunch for the cards Tom and I'm glad I could help you with your set!

Group Break Good Luck

Hey Everybody, I'm checking in with what seems like my 1 monthly post.  I know I don't post much anymore and hopefully that will change in the near future but that doesn't mean that my collecting habits have really changed that much.  Sure I hold my "purse strings" a little tighter because of all the recent events that have happed over the last year or so but it has probably made me a better collector overall.  Seems strange, but paying less for cards makes you appreciate them even more.  That being said, I was able to jump into some group breaks on eBay for some recently released products and I think I did really well for price of admission!

First up is the Stadium Club break I got into.  It cost me maybe a few bucks more than I wanted to spend (which I'll get into at the end of this post).  I think I did OK with the results but I was really hoping get Jonathan Schoop rookie autograph.

I did land this nice diecut Cal Ripken card which will go directly in to my PC of him.  I didn't get the base card to join it in the binder but that's ok for now.  I'll wait for the secondary market to settle before adding it, unless somebody has one to trade me!

I also got this rainbow foil Manny Machado which I was pleasantly surprised to get when I opened the mailer at home.  I didn't see it on the video, nor did the breaker pay it any mind.

I didn't get the full team set from the 3 box break but I did get most of it.  I can't complain about the Ripken diecut either!

The next group break I got into was a 2014 Topps Update 3 box.  One box was a Jumbo (so a 99% guarantee of a team set) and 2 hobby boxes.

I ended up with 2 nice Adam Jones inserts.  Not bad at all..

2 Gold Bordered parallels that I won't need to chase down.

2 Cal Fond Farewells which I'm happy about.

Last but not least, this Nelson Cruz Autographed relic card from the All-Star game!  Its numbered 15 of 25 and wow, it's a really cool card.  I've seen a few of these on the 'bay go for a bout 60 bucks.  Even for a sticker autograph, I'm still happy with it.  Some of the ones I've seen on Ebay Nelson's autograph went off the sticker so I'm glad I ended up with one where he "stayed in the lines"!


The last group break I was in was a Bowman Chrome half case break.  I got in to this one with high hopes of getting an Adrian Marin prospect autograph but didn't get one.  But I did get some Marin love in the break:

This is one of the Static refractor #d13/35.  Not bad.  Adrian Marin was drafted in 2012 out of high school in the 3rd round.  He played on team USA in international competition and the Orioles have aggressively moved him through the minor league system by making him one of the youngest players at each level he's played.  That strategy may have hurt his overall numbers a bit but the talent is there.  He just needs to continue to hit and tighten up his glove work a little more.

So 3 group breaks for the price of a blaster and a half.  I don't think I did awful and I surely couldn't have bought the cards for less money.

Thanks for looking at my post!

Live Baseball: 2014 ALDS Game 2 Tigers @ Orioles

     I've been away from writing this blog for what seems like years.  Blogs come and blogs go but the blog-o-sphere continues to turn no matter who is writing.  This isn't a comeback, nor is it a farewell.  If you read my last post that was way back around Father's day, my life was about to change.  Life changes all the time but having a child alters the course of your life permanently.  At that time my wife was due to give birth to our first child right around the last few days of August.  As fate would have it, due to some late term complications my daughter was born about 5 weeks premature on July 25th!  She came out kicking and screaming and very full of life!  She was in the NICU for 4 days and we were able to bring her home at 4 pounds to start enjoying her!  It's been one milestone after the other and today she weighs just over 8 pounds and her doctor is very happy with her progress!  If you've had a new baby at home you know that sleep is at a premium and most of your free time is spent getting some shut eye.
     So that's how I can explain most of my long absence from blogging.  The other parts of my absence can be attributed (but not limited) to watching baseball on TV, endless visitors to see the new baby, maintaining our vegetable garden, working as much OT at work as I can get, my brother-in-law's wedding, and just those every day things that pop up to take time away from hobbies.  Over the last few weeks or so, I've started to get my head back slightly above water and I've returned to the hobby I love whenever I get a free moment.  I've been working on a couple of projects to streamline my collection but I'll tell you more about that in the near future.
   So what does all of this have to do with the ALDS Tigers at Orioles game 2?  Not much, I just got off on a tangent!  In the midst of all of the chaos that has enveloped my life this year the Orioles are having the best season since I've been alive.  I was born about 2 months after they won the WS in 1983.  I've been able to keep up with them pretty much all season yet hadn't been able to attend a game during the regular season.  I can proudly say that I've been to an MLB playoff game.

     By now, nearly everyone knows how game 2 went.  Watching it on TV is one thing but to be there in attendance with 48,000 of your closest friends is another!  It is bar-none the best baseball game I've ever been a part of or attended in my life.  I'll never forget it!
   I'm glad I was able to attend with my good buddy William from the daily updated blog Foul Bunt, his son Chris, my friend Scott, his son Austin, and Scott's dad Wayne.  This was Austin's first MLB game and wow he picked a good one!  He was even able to score a batting practice ball from the Tigers' bullpen coach!  Going to a MLB game is great but going with friends makes it that much better!

I'll spare everyone the details of the game and just show some of the souvenirs I got while I was there.

I got this lapel pin because it was one of the cheapest things I could find but also because I think I'll be able to look at this when I'm 100 years old and the memories of this day will come flooding back.

I got this score card, not because I keep score during the game but just as another cheap souvenir to remember the game by.  Does anyone know how they got Buck to smile for this picture?
 

Last but not least is my rally towel!  If you watched any of game 1 or 2 you probably saw everyone swinging these around like crazy people.  I'm surprised that I didn't rip the corner off this thing as many times as I swung it around my head!

Lastly, I'll leave you with a picture that I took yesterday of my daughter with the rally towel.

What I Got for Father's Day

I guess this onesie could partially explain my absence from blogging.  I usually get some new cards from the dogs for Father's Day but this year I actually got this from my wife.  This was not a surprise however, since we've known since before Christmas we are having a baby.  Baby Hughes will arrive in late August/early September.  My money is on September 5th.

There are several other reasons why I haven't been posting and this will be a short list with little explanation.

1. Gardening has become my #1 hobby right now.  Since early spring I've spent a good amount of time working in our vegetable garden.  It's about 1000 square feet so it takes a lot of effort to keep the weeds, bugs, and varmints out.

2.  I've been playing a lot more XBOX since the beginning of the year.

3.  Topps really isn't holding my attention that much with the products they put out.  All of the "low-end" stuff they put out just doesn't have much feeling anymore.  This hobby has become a rich man's game with all of the high end products that come out anymore.

4.  I've really cut back on buying new products because of reason #3.

5.  I was put in charge of my church's community garden so that took some time organizing and helping some members get their plots ready for planting

6.  It's somewhat more relaxing for me to watch a ballgame on TV when I come in from working in the garden than it is to blog.

7. My company decided that everyone at my facility makes too much money so they decided to give everyone a 12.5% PAY CUT effective July 1st.  (this will eat into the card budget even more).

I have some long overdue trade posts that I need to put up as well as some trade bait from some pack breaks that I've done over the last 3 months of my hiatus.  I won't make any promises as to when I'll get those posts up.  Thanks for bearing with me!

Trade with Patrick of Hot Corner Cards

A quicky trade post today.  I send Patrick of Hot Corner Cards some of my 2014 Topps Tigers that I pulled and he sent me some various Orioles cards that I needed.  Patrick has become a good trading buddy of mine and he didn't disappoint with this package.

There aren't a ton of Luis Aparicio Orioles cards out there.  I understand that he isn't normally associated with the Orioles since he only played a few seasons in Charm City.  Anyways, This manu-relic is actually from 2010 Topps.  I'm still not a huge fan of the manu-relics Topps shoves down our throats but this one is ok in my book.  I'm surprised at the amount of detail that is in this particular card.

Patrick also helped out with a few 2014 Topps Orioles needs.  He sent me a couple base cards as well as these 2 Wei-Yin Chen parallels.  The Robitussin-fractor will go in my Orioles Parallel-o-mania binder and the Gold bordered will go into my 2014 Orioles team sets binder.

I'm still in need of quite a few flagship, Heritage and Opening Day Orioles cards from this year and last year. My card collecting budget has been cut in half over the last year so I've almost stopped buying packs and hobby boxes just because new products are out.  I've had to become much more selective on what I buy and search for more deals.  I'm trying to get the most bang out of my buck if you will.  So if anybody has any Orioles cards from my lists that I need I'd love to trade with you especially if I've never traded with you before.  I love making new personal connections with people that read my blog!

Thanks Patrick for the great cards!