Trade with reader Scott O.

After this trade post, I should be all caught up on my backlog!  It's only taken me a month and a half to accomplish this task.  This trade comes to me from a reader of the blog named Scott.  He contacted me a couple weeks back about some Orioles cards that he had from my lists and wondered if I would be interested in them.  A deal was struck and soon after these cards showed up in my mailbox!

At a point in time, I was not a Pacific trading cards fan.  I'm not sure what my reasoning was but I have changed my tone over time.  Now I can't seem to get any  enough of Pacific.  The earlier years from 93 thru 97 seem to be tougher to come by for one reason or another.  I all I want is the Orioles!

This Cal Ripken from 1995 Score finishes off the team set. Another one bites the dust but only eleventy billion others to go.

I like the action shot on this card.  I'm having trouble figuring out who that is sliding into second though.  Let's play some "When Was It?"

I'm going to venture to say that this picture was taken on April 4th, 1998.  The Orioles were hosting the Tigers in a Saturday afternoon game.  I'm going to guess by the angle of the sun and Alomar's long sleeves indicating the early season game.  (Game time temperature was 50 degrees and sunny that day).  The orange stripe on the leg of the sliding player tell me it's Tigers outfielder Brian Hunter. He swiped 3 bases on Chris Hoiles that day in a 2 to 1 losing effort. Even though he stole a base the next day (Sunday the 5th) Alomar didn't play that day until the 8th inning.  Even then there were no stolen base attempts by the Tigers in the 9th inning.

Thanks for the cards Scott and thanks for helping me me play "When was it?"!

Trade with Adam of Arpsmith's Sportscard Obsession

I just completed a trade with Adam of the relatively new blog ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession.  Adam has been around the blogosphere for a while but just recently took the plunge and started writing his own.  He's a Giants fan so I sent him a bunch of cards from his wantlists and the 3 Willie Mays inserts I pulled from my Gypsy Queen packs.

This is the card that started the whole trade.  A mini of JJ Hardy.  James Jerry had a great year last year coming over from the Twins and it earned him a 3 year contract to stick around in Charm City and hand off SS duties to super prospect Manny Machado when he's ready.  Both have had slow starts to the season but I'm sure as the weather warms, so will their bats.  If anybody else has any mini Orioles from Gypsy Queen (especially the regular back minis) let me know, I'd love to trade with you.

Adam was also able to send a few Cal Ripkens that I didn't have before.  I chose this one card to show because he's wearing sunglasses while batting.  I think this is the only card that I own that shows him donning the shades while batting.

I still have a soft spot for Larry Bigbie.  Thanks a lot David Segui for ruining his career.  I really like this shot of Larry taking a secondary lead from 1st base.  You just don't see this odd camera angle that often.

Here's the first of two firsts that was sent to me.  This is my first Roberto Alomar relic card.  Though it is just a plain grey swatch, I still like the card.  Donruss Champions was a pretty neat set when it came to the relic and autograph cards but the base set was a little bit of a mess design wise.  There was just too much empty space for my liking.

And here's the second of my firsts.  A Lou Aparicio Bat card.  I think my buddy William also got one of these in a trade recently.  It's a really classy looking card in my opinion of a great player.  Everybody says that Frank Robinson was the missing piece that was added to the 1966 WS Champion squad before the season started.  That's true but Lou was an integral part who was aquired 3 years before the 66 season.  In my humble opinion, Little Louie was just as big a part of the team as the Robinsons were and I think a lot of people inadvertently forget that.

Thanks for the awesome trade Adam, I can't wait to trade with you again!

Trade with Mark of Stats on the Back

I'm going to start back with a nice and easy trade.  Mark from the "mostly defunct"  Stats on the Back blog sent me an email a while back wanting my address so he could send me some cards.  I obliged and here is what ended up in my mailbox:

This Cal Ripken is actually a mini card from the 80s. It's functionally equivalent to the regular 87 Fleer release but only smaller and with a different picture on the front.  Another great addition to my quickly growing oddball Cal collection!

With these 2 '89 Upper Deck cards, I have successfully completed the Orioles team set from "the set that changed modern baseball cards."  It took me longer than I thought but perseverance pays!

Here is a card of new HOFer Roberto Alomar.  I'm just now realizing that the card has the Puerto Rican flag on it.  Puerto Rico is where my wife and I just visited on our honeymoon cruise.  I didn't see Robby anywhere but I did get to tour Old San Juan and the fort that guarded the city in colonial times.  I wish I had gotten to see Hiram Bithorn Stadium but we were only on the island for about 8 hours.

Thanks Mark for the cards!

Trade with Spiff of Texas Rangers Cards

While doing my normal daily blog reading lately, I read one of Spiff's latest posts about him posting all of his wantlists. I am a sucker for wantlists. I guess I just really like helping other bloggers by finding cards they need to reach whatever goals they may have. After a few emails, we had a trade hammered out. I was able to help him out with his Rangers need and he sent me some Orioles I needed. Here's just a few of the great cards he sent me:

This 2004 Fleer Tradtion card of Brian Roberts is one of his earlier issues. While his rookie season was 2001 he really didn't stick in Baltimore until 2003. I really enjoyed the design of 2004 Fleer Tradition. I can't really put my finger on it but I think it's just the simplicity of the card design.

My Pacific collection is slowly growing. While most of the photography from the 1994 Orioles team set is pretty vanilla, I couldn't help but notice the goofy expression on Gomez's face. It's kinda like he's saying. "I can't believe I popped up! Again!" I'm very surprised that he isn't wearing his trademark oversized spectacles I've seen him wear on many other cards!

That's right Roberto, the second time you were on the HOF ballot you made it. I know it's a little late but congrats to Roberto Alomar for being elected. Even though he spent on a short time in Baltimore, I still enjoyed watching him play here.

Thanks to Spiff for the trade. Check out his blog for his wantlists. Maybe you can help him out. While you're at it you mind as well check mine out too!