Baseball Sheep - The Contest!

Howdy all,
Since I have been away from posting for awhile (but still reading all of your great posts), I figured it was my turn to give back a little bit.  I propose we play a little game together.  This game is called "Baseball Sheep."

How to play:
I have created this form which has 20 baseball and baseball card-themed questions.  (Click on it now to see the questions.) There are no right or wrong answers.  However, your goal is to put down the answer that you think will be the most-common answer to that question -- it is not necessarily how you would answer it yourself.  Think of it like the baseball version of "Family Feud."  Don't be too original!  Don't be too wacky!  Remember, you are but a simple-minded sheep who follows the rest of the mindless flock (who also happens to like cards and read blogs). 

How to win:
Once all of the entries are in, I will tally the answers for each question.  You will receive the number of points equal to the number of people who shared your answer on a given question.  For example, if I said "What is a team in the AL East?", and the responses were (Yankees - 12, Red Sox 7, Orioles 1), then each person who said Yankees (the biggest sheep) would receive 12, the Red Sox respondents would receive 7, and the one guy who said Orioles would just get the single point for himself.  I will sum up the score for each of the 20 questions -- HIGHEST SCORE WINS.

Deadline:
I will accept responses until 11:59 PM Eastern on Sunday night (May 11th).  After that I will tally the scores and make a post about it.

Prizes:
I will have prizes for the 1st and 2nd place finishers...likely some '70s-era vintage and modern-era relic cards, which I will post once my scanner is connected.   Or maybe a team-bag full of the winner's favorite team, or something from their want-list (if I have it). There will also be a similar prize for one of the game entrants drawn at random from all the entries -- so even if you are a big loser with your responses, you still can win!  If you promote this contest on your blog (post link in the comments) I will include an extra entry for that second-chance drawing.  

I would love to see us have 25-30 (or more!) entrants in this contest, and I can't wait to see what all the answers are!

So make sure you fill out this form ASAP!  Who's in?

Your Newest Card Collecting Compatriot

2014 Topps Opening Day - OD Stars - Bryce Harper

I hope none of you needed this card.  It came from an 2014 Opening Day blaster I bought this week.  But I didn't open this pack.  This pack belongs to my 4-year-old son, James.  It's his very first pack of cards.  He only knew the Royals players before this (and he knows who Jackie Robinson is), but he thought that this Bryce Harper lenticular card looked pretty neat.

However, that wasn't his favorite card in the pack.  It was this one:

2014 Topps Opening Day - James Paxton

When he looked at it, he didn't say anything at first. Then he read the letters out loud. "J.  A.  M.  E.  S. James!  We have the same name!"

Per his request, both of these cards are now in top-loaders and (blue) taped to the wall next to his bed.  None of the other cards in the pack interested him.  I guess CC Sabathia, Ben Revere, and Todd Helton don't hold the kids' interest as much these days.

I'm hoping that this will be the seed to start a long, enjoyable time for him in "the hobby."  That means now I will have to add a new thing to my want-list:  "Cards of guys named James."  Those should be pretty easy to find.   My little baby is named "Ellis," so if you can set aside some of your Ellis Burks overproduction-era product for him, I'd appreciate that, too.  I won't need it for about 3-5 years :-)

Are any of your kids into card collecting?  How did you go about encouraging that?

Helmet Technology...

1991 Upper Deck Football - #372 - Steve Deberg

...sure has come a long way since the early '90s.  I think the "enclosing the top" part of the helmet was the greatest stride.  Maybe the "replacing the visor with a facemask" was pretty important, too. 

I can just picture Reggie White coming through the line and clobbering DeBerg's visored head right to the turf.

Do Yu like this retail hit?

It's winter, I have a preschooler, so it is expected that we will all be sick around here (we are).  On a trip to Rite-Aid last night, I was buying a bunch of stuff for the family -- Baby Tylenol for the infant, toothpaste for the 4-year-old, and unmentionables for the wife.  As I was heading to checkout, I said, let me see if there is anything I should get for myself. 

This Rite-Aid does not have a card aisle.  It has a "card section" which consists of whatever will fit on 4 little hangers below the Yu-Gi-Oh cards.  Right now that is 2013 Topps Update baseball and various Panini football rack packs.  I'm not much of an impulse purchaser, but I saw the 2013 Topps Update and figured that splurging on a $2 pack would be fun.  Maybe I'd get a Royal!  I didn't have any of the 2013 Update yet, so no dupes...

I grabbed it, checked out, took it home, treated the kiddo, then settled down to see if I got anything good.

First - Chris Getz -- a Royal! casualty of the offseason priorities.

Then, I noticed that the remaining stack felt thick and fairly firm.  What's that in here????



2013 Topps Update - Yu Darvish - All-Star Stiches Relic Card



 That's surprising!   So I guess I made the right choice on that pack.  :-)  This is only the 2nd-time I have ever pulled a retail hit, and my first time from a Topps product.  It's got good colors, and even though I don't collect the Rangers, I think I'm gonna keep it as a reminder to always be selfish when at the store....errr......rather as a reminder of my good fortune.   

New Stuff In My Life

My last post was in October -- so where have I been?  I guess I've just had some new stuff in my life that has taken over my card blogging/collecting time.

Stuff like what??  Well, this is new:

This is new, too:

Once I unpack all my cards in the new house AND put the baby to bed (and rock him and change the diaper)....then maybe you'll get some new posts out of me.  :-)  I've still got a "Ton of Bricks" from JBFJ to post...

The Best Part Of This Post Is The End

In the seemingly never-ending string of packages that Wes/Jaybarkerfan has been sending to my door, he hit me with another mailer.  It was full of Royals, of course, and I finally got it all entered into Zistle and scanned here.


I liked the oddballs that were part of it, and wanted to show those off here.

Baby Billy Butler.

Bubble-Blowing Brett.

Unscannable Hal.

Jimmy Dean, the Sausage King of Kansas City.

"Tetrad?"  Never heard of this.  Lucky for me, there were ONLY 45,000 of these made, so good luck ever tracking down another.  Suckers.

Finally, it's not a JBFJ package without a little intrigue.  This internal envelope was awaiting me...

Oh man!  It's probably a George Brett Rookie - GEM MINT 10 - I CAN'T BELIEVE IT I'VE WAITED SO LONG WES IS THE BEST WES IS THE BEST WELL EVEN IF IT ISN'T THAT IT'S GONNA BE A BILLY BUTLER AUTOGRAPH OR JOAKIM SORIA OR DAVID DEJESUS OR SOMETHING TRULY GREAT!!!!!!

AND THE RESULT IS.....

I just got "Grimace"-Bipped.  There was no photoshopping involved in the above picture -- I just threw them all on the scanner.  Well played, sir.  :-)


Ken Harvey was an outstanding 1B for the Royals.  See his fielding prowess below.

Yep.  He was our All-Star.  Thanks, Wes!

What You Need?

My mother-in-law gave me a Series 2 rack pack from Target for my birthday (she's pretty cool).  I snagged the Royals and a few other cards out of there, but have a bunch for trade if anyone needs these.  I scanned the ones below, and also have a stack of base up for grabs.  Between the A's/Wright/Dodgers/Braves/Indians collectors out there, I figured this would all be spoken for pretty soon.  So...if you need these, let me know in the comments what you want.

(The Snider is a die-cut...Ryu and Smith are the Target parallels.)