A Hand-Written Friendship Bracelet

When I was in 2nd grade, if you were buddies with someone you would give them a friendship bracelet. You'd get a couple of pieces of colored-string, braid them together, and BOOM -- instant friendship.  It was a personal gift that took some time and care, which is part of what made it mean something.

Now in the internet age, much is made of the "lost art of the hand-written letter."  With all the IMing, emailing, facebooking, and twittering, actually sitting down with a pen and paper and sending someone a personalized note counts as the height of graceful manners.

Relating this to the blogosphere...I'll admit that I am guilty of sending "impersonal" trade packages.  Maybe I'll just drop a team-bag into a bubble mailer and send it off.  If I'm lucky, I might offer a perfunctory "Thanks for trading!" on a slip of paper that I toss into the envelope.

So.....if the quality scale goes from short boilerplate email (bad) to hand-written letter plus friendship bracelet (very good), how can I possibly place a ranking on THIS?

Gene Mauch

This is by far one of the coolest things I have received from the card-blog world.  It's from TTG @ Friars on Cardboard.  It is a hand-collated pack of manager cards, wrapped in white paper, and then decorated with the cover art seen above.  If a hand-written item is notable...what can I say about a hand-drawn pack?  AWESOME is what I can say.  Keep in mind that this whole thing is the size of a regular baseball card and done in ink.  And this was a "Just Because" package...no trade was involved.

And with that preview...I was hoping the pack would contain that top card.  IT DID.

1987 Topps Gene Mauch

There were several other manager cards from TTG (many of them grumpy, per my preferences), but this was my favorite.  It's a double-dose of grumpitude.

Buck Showalter and Jim Fregosi

Although I didn't know it, not only do I collect grumpy manager cards, apparently I also collect grumpy manager STICKERS. 

2012 Triple Play Sticker - Screaming Manager - #8

Another package from TTG had several Royals I needed, including Jeff Conine jumping rope with the old crossover technique.  Thanks to 4th grade P.E. class, I can do that same trick.  Maybe I should send that teacher a hand-written note of thanks?

Speaking of elementary school, Sherman Corbett and I had the same glasses, apparently.

1989 Topps Sherman Corbett, 1990 Topps Mike Scott

This exceeded anything I could have hoped for, TTG.  Thank you so much.  Know that I appreciate it a ton -- This hand-written friendship bracelet of a pack.  :-)

Chasing Down Some Chicle

I have a 2-year-old son.  I'm still new to this whole blogging thing.  I am also very lazy.

Those are the three main things that contributed to me not hooking up my new scanner for over 2 months.  And since I didn't have a scanner connected, I didn't want to show the results of any of my trades.  But tonight, a sudden wave of productivity washed over me, and I installed the darn thing.  And it works great! 

Back in September, Justin at The Hopeful Chase and I worked out a trade through Zistle.  These guys came my way in one of the familiar yellow bubble mailers.

2010 National Chicle Royals (#152 / #153 / #20)

AWESOME.  Love me some David DeJesus (and all Kansas City Royals), and Alex Gordon is on the way up.  I never got attached to Rick Ankiel as a Royal (there wasn't enough time before he was traded!), but I mostly collect the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back. 

There was one other card I had requested of him:

2010 National Chicle - # 65 - Clayton Kershaw

Art/Painted cards are some of my favorite, and I thought this one was cool-looking.  Besides, aren't there some Kershaw Kollectors (yes, I just made that up) that are reading this now?  If anyone needs it, it's for trade.

Finally, as the blogging veterans know and I am still discovering -- the generosity of many out there is so great as to add "throw-ins" of extra stuff the recipient might like.  Justin was generous to me and tossed in these two beauties:

2011 Topps Stickers!! - Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas - Number 73 and 76.

These were my first 2011 stickers (believe it or not) and was happy to see them.  Just a few more needed for the complete base set.  :-)

So, thanks again, Justin!  You can see his whole post on what I gave him (Eddie Murrays).  It was a very smooth trade, and if you ever get a chance to trade with him I would jump on it.