Basketball Cards - Kareem

I have a confession to make. I've been hiding something from you. I collect basketball cards just as passionately as I do baseball cards. In fact, since I'm coming clean today, I also want to add that I collect football cards as passionately as baseball and basketball. Do you still like me? Can we still be friends? The blog world seems highly concentrated on baseball cards. That's understandable. There are just a lot more of them around. When you think of card collecting, you think of baseball by default. In fact I must admit that the name of my blog came about by totally overlooking the others. The Lakers and Steelers never even crossed my mind. So please indulge me, as I plan to sprinkle in more posts about football and basketball card collecting.

Now that that's off my chest, in basketball card land, I collect complete sets from 2004-05 and older. I collect Lakers team sets since. See my basketball card want list page! I just recently added it. My recent COMC order included some cards of the player I consider the second best basketball player ever to play. The first is a Finest X-fractor. The second is a Finest Refractor. The last two are Panini Prizm Prizms.

Oh, and as far as hockey card collecting goes, it is a very distant fourth. I only collect team sets of the Dallas Stars.

Cards with a Story - Yaz

Another COMC order arrived today. It was heavy on Carl Yastrzemski cards. Yaz is my favorite player of all time. I got to see him play once in person. It was his last game in the Metrodome in Minneapolis in his last season. I don't remember who won the game, Twins or Red Sox. But I do remember late in the game Yastrzemski hadn't played yet. Even though he was on the visiting team, the crowd really wanted to see him play. They (we) chanted "Yaz! Yaz! Yaz!" over and over again, the whole place. The coach did sub him in when the Red Sox were batting. When the crowd saw him get up from the bench, put on his helmet and head out to the on deck circle, they errupted. It doesn't get any better than that for a little Yaz fan! Here are the cards that came today.

2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Cognac

2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary

2012 Panini Prizm Prizms

2012 Panini Prizm Green Prizms

2003 Topps Gallery Rainbow Refractor

2012 Topps Archive 1967 Stickers

1981 Perma-Graphics

Some Vintage from COMC

I picked up the following in a recent COMC order.

I don't remember Rod Carew playing for the Twins. My earliest memories of him are with the California Angeles. He would start the all-star games at first base which I didn't think was fair because I liked Eddie Murray and thought he was better and more deserving. But where I grew up was Twins territory, and Carew's accomplishments and popularity were still fresh in people's minds.

I always kind of liked Phil Niekro.  I was intrigued by the knuckleball, played around with it, but never threw it in games. When he was with the Yankees I didn't know yet that Red Sox fans couldn't also be fans of any Yankees.

I also picked up some Steve Carltons, a Jim Palmer, and a Dave Parker. 

Geeking Out Times Two

There are two things that I can really geek out about; baseball cards and science fiction.  You know about my passion for baseball cards, but I've never talked about sci fi on the blog before.  I love both Star Wars and Star Trek.  I have a couple hundred cards of each from back in the day, nothing special.  I don't actively collect anything from either.  But I do keep watching.  I'm currently working my way through the entire collection of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on Amazon Prime (for the second time).  My favorite series was Star Trek Voyager.  Star Trek: Next Generation was pretty good, as was the original series.  Enterprise was not so good.  I've seen the new incarnations of Star Trek movies, but am not really a fan.

As far as the Star Wars movies, they are all phenomenal.  That includes Rogue One. I can't wait for episode eight in December!

If I could choose the best way to blend both of these passions, sci fi and baseball cards, it would be to have a baseball card of my favorite sci fi actor in my favorite team's uniform.  Well lo and behold that's exactly what Topps did with the First Pitch series!

There might be a few other Red Sox First Pitch cards I go after, but this will be by far the best!  This was #8 on my most wanted list.  I picked it up on COMC along with some other cards I hope to share soon.

No LCS for You

The last couple of weeks I've been to a couple small midwest towns. The first was Grand Forks, ND. On the way into town I googled card shops and one came up. It closed in 30 minutes so I hightailed over without looking at it too closely. The place was called Grand Cities Games. I knew I was in trouble when I pulled up. The shop focused on Magic cards and the like. If that's your thing then it looked like an awesome place. I asked where the sportscards were and was pointed to a little shelf not even knee high and about two feet long. There were some Topps baseball sets from the 2000's and some packs of even older stuff. Strike one for the week.
A couple days later I was in Mankato, MN. The story is about the same, except I didn't have to rush to beat closing time. But it too was a Magic card shop. They had two little boxes of baseball packs from the 90's, and that was it for sportscards. The place is called Double Play. Again, if Magic is your thing, you'll probably like this place. But for me, it was strike two.
I was pretty bummed, so before leaving Mankoto I made a last ditch effort to find some sportscards by making a trip to Dollar Tree. I remember reading on some of your blogs that they sometimes have sportscards. And they did! They were a year or two old, but I was desperate and bought a couple packs of baseball and a couple more of basketball. Here's what I found inside.

If you're interested in any of them, let me know.

My First Topps Series 2

I saw the Red Sox Series two team on eBay for a reasonable price, and it arrived yesterday. I really like the Topps card design this year. In the past I've waited and bought series one, two, and the update set altogether after they were all released because that was most economical. But being in the sportscard blog-o-sphere now, and seeing all of your passion and excitement, has rubbed off on me. I'm too anxious to get the new cards that I can't wait this year! Thank you, my blogging friends, for reawakening the hobby for me!!!

Shadows in 1994 Upper Deck

I received in the mail the other day the Red Sox team set from 1994 Upper Deck.  Some of your blogs on the subject have made me more aware of player shadows on cards. I'll admit it's something I've never noticed all these years. This team set has a lot of shadows. What do you see in the shadows?? 

I see a bi -cuspid.

I see an octopus.

I see a lightning bolt.

There's no shadow here. But it's pretty rare to see an umpire as such an active contributor to a baseball card photo. I don't know about you, but I think the umpire is hitting below the belt.