Whose Blog is it Anyway?

For almost as long as I've been blogging, I've been following the wonderful Oriole-centric blog known as The Five Tool Collector, featuring the musings of the world's biggest Billy Pierce fan, CommishBob.  For a little over three years now, I've subscribed to his posts about Pierce oddballs and Baltimore Colts ephemera without ever making contact with the man behind the keyboard, beyond a comment here and there.  What can I say - I'm a bit of a wallflower.  Thankfully, not everyone on the blogosphere is as reserved as I am.

A couple of weeks ago, the Commish reached out to me on Twitter and let me know he had something that he wanted to send my way.  I'm never going to turn down free cards, especially from such an established blogger; however, this mailing had a very clandestine aura around it.  Without divulging exactly what he was sending, the Commish informed me that the first part would actually be for my wife.  Hmmm...

This flock of ducks flew into town a little bit quicker than part two.  I don't have his note in front of me right now, but, as I recall, this mini, key chain water fowls were part of a charity function at the school where the Commish works when he's not waxing nostalgic about baseball cards.  If you've been paying attention to this blog, you know that my wife collects rubber ducks with the ferocity that I do Cubs trading cards.  Thus, these duckies were an awesome, unexpected gift that made her quite giddy.

I should take this opportunity to mention that this is the SECOND envelope in recent weeks that's included something for my wife as well.  I forgot to properly thank him in my trade wrap-up post last week, but Adam from Cardboard Clubhouse also threw something in for my better half;

That is a Batman Lego set, something that Adam correctly surmised that my wife would like, based on this post.  Batman is certainly one of her favorite superheroes of all-time (however, Wonder Woman ultimately wears the tiara for that honor); plus, we both agree that Lego Batman was the best movie of the year, so far.  We're childish - okay?

To bring this all back together, the wife just so happened to have the perfect place to store her new mini-figure and bat-gadget:

On the back of her Joker rubber duck.  Yes, that is a thing.  It all comes back to rubber ducks with her.  Adam, thank you for including that Lego set in with your latest round of cardboard - it was greatly appreciated and my wife is tickled pink that people keep mailing her stuff with my cards.

At this point, I'm starting to wonder if my blog is being slowly taken over by the lady...

Anyway, back to the Commish's mailings.  While part one was exclusively for my lovely wife, part two was promised to be exclusively for me.  Rubber ducks are cool and all, but I definitely prefer my cardboard rectangles.  The Commish certainly did not disappoint on that front.  On Monday, the second bubble mailer arrived on doorstep and it started off with a bang:

Normally, Chapman would be brought in to close, but he's going to lead off the baseball content in this post.

This shiny, chrome parallel from the latest version of Topps Heritage looks quite nice in hand, even considering my distaste for Aroldis as a person. Interestingly enough, while Chappy appears as a Cub in this flashy parallel, his base card features him in his new-again Yankee pinstripes. You might be wondering to yourself, how does that happen? Well J Meeks from My Cardboard Habit actually has a nice write-up with an answer on his blog and you should check it out when you get a chance.

Accompanying the mercenary Cub was a further sampling of Heritage:

I haven't bought much Heritage this time around, even though I'm one of the seemingly few who like the "burlap" design.  Thus, I'm thrilled to have so many singles popping up in trades over the past few weeks. 

I already had that League Leaders card on top of this column (thanks, Stealing Home!); but, now with two, I can include one each in my Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lesters PC's.  Plus, as you might have guessed, anything with World Series folk-hero Kyle Schwarber or reigning MVP Kris Bryant on it might as well be gold in Chicago; so, any time they roll into my mailbox, my wallet feels a little bit safer.

Speaking of recent products that I haven't opened much of in 2017...

I've opened two packs of Opening Day since it was released - the price point is phenomenal, but the parallel/repeat nature of the base set really dulls the enthusiasm.  At least the inserts show some creativity.

The Incredible Eats set is certainly unique and showcases signature concessions from various ballparks.  For the Cubs and Wrigley Field, we get hot dogs & onions, which I don't recall actually being a thing; I was just discussing this matter with JediJeff from 2x3 Heroes a few days ago.  Of course, I am boring and usually eat my hot dogs plain or with a touch of mustard, so I may be the wrong person to ponder.  That said. wouldn't a Chicago style hotdog been a more apt choice?

Continuing on the "fairly new products that Tony hasn't done much with so far" vein:

This is the very first '17 Topps Sticker to make it's way into my hands.  If we could just blend the Sticker set with Opening Day (original design, bargain basement price point), we'd have one heckuva product.  As it stands, the mini stickers do look quite nice, on their own.  In fact, they almost seem more like a Flagship base design than Flagship.

I especially like that Rizz is doing his best Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli impression here, with the finger guns a blazin'.  Eyyyyyyyyyy!

And now, for some more singles from relatively recent releases:

Here we have Rizzo again with his fellow co-founder of the Bryzzo Souvenir Company - they put the ding in dinger.

If you haven't seen these advertisement spots yet, you simply must take a couple of minutes out of your day to watch them:

#ThisSeason on Baseball: The #Bryzzo Souvenir Company is getting bigger and better. pic.twitter.com/WzwUhB1ScB

— MLB (@MLB) March 31, 2017

You're welcome!

A couple more recent cards, featuring heroes of the young season, so far.  Jake the Snake hurled six strong innings in the Cubs' first win of the 2017 campaign and appears on a Bunt single from late last year (and my favorite product in '16).  Meanwhile, Willson Contreras smashed a three-run homer in the ninth inning to tie their season opener against the Cards, although that game was eventually lost.  Appropriately enough, this Heritage Now & Then insert highlights his first ever MLB home run, which just so happened to occur in his first at-bat, on the first pitch.

Here's hoping these guys create a few more highlights in the games to come.

Wrapping up the baseball portion of the package, we go backwards in time a couple of decades, to the early 1990's.  1991 Donruss might be one of those ubiquitous junk wax era sets, but I'm fairly sure that I didn't have the Ryne Sandberg from that collation yet.  Along with Ryno, the Commish also included a Stadium Club Shawn Boskie from 1992.  Look at all that crisp, green grass; Stadium Club has always been an aesthetically pleasing set.

That was of the baseball content found within the Commish's second bubble mailer; however, that was not the last of the cards to be found.  He was also able to add a few new names off to a pair of my other sporting collections:

The Commish graciously upgraded the Paul Gillis slot in my Blackhawks All-Time Roster Collection from a Nordiques artifact to a proper Blackhawks card.  I tell ya, Paul looks absolutely thrilled about this development on the updated card, doesn't he?

Paul only played 15, unproductive games across two partial seasons with the Chicago ice hockey brigade; so, I'm actually kind of surprised that he shows up on a O-Pee-Chee card in an Indianhead sweater, at all.  I love surprises!

Now, it's time that we transition from the ice to the hardwood:

I have not been pursuing my Bulls roster collection nearly as passionately as my Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks, or even my NASCAR collations.  I'm going to blame that on the fact that Da Bulls have been so painfully underwhelming over the past few years.  That said, I'm still more than happy to add new names to that binder when they come my way, especially when they're member of those legendary teams of the 1990's

Randy Brown was a key component off the bench for the second three-peat and, while he only played one year in the Windy City, Corey Williams earned a ring (coming off of the bench, as well) in 1993.  Those teams were absolutely stacked!

With that, we have finally come to the end of CommishBob's two mailings - there many ducks to bring a smile to my wife's face, several new Cubs cards, a new addition to my Blackhawks All-Time Roster Collection, and two new additions to the Bulls All-Time Roster Collection.  Bob sure knows how to make an introduction, huh?

I know you said not to worry about sending anything back, but I don't know if I can let such good deeds go unrewarded. Although, if , before that happens, this blog makes a full shift over from sports cards to rubber ducks in the near future, just assume that my wife has completed her hostile take over of my blog.

We shall see.

What's in the Box?

Yay for snow days!

As a result of my working for a school district, I've now had my first official snow day since I was a student myself, way back when.  After all, this is the first real snow storm we've had since I started this tech support job last February.  Thus, I'm going to use this newly rediscovered, child-like sense of wonder and excitement to write about baseball cards.  That seems appropriately juvenile for the occasion, at least in my opinion.  Maybe I'll even bundle up and venture into the frosty wilderness to build a snow man or toss snow balls at city buses.  Who knows, for sure?

But, first, remember those rubber ducks that my wife bought at Savers and I blogged about yesterday?  Well, space is getting to be short for her favorite collection and shelves are no longer capable of accommodating new water fowl additions.  Therefore, she had to get creative with her display method:

And that's the story of how I ended up with rubber ducks lined on top of my dart board.  I'm not liable if I hit one of those, right?  I have a tendency to go through Rick Ankiel-esque bouts of wildness when it comes to the game of darts.

Also, I like how that purple, monster/alien duck-creature appears to be shrugging, as if to say "What?  I'm not supposed to be here?"

I know what you're thinking, "this is fascinating, but what does any of this have to do with baseball cards though?"  Well, here's the thing - while cleaning off the top of the cabinet which contains my oft-forgotten dart board, my wife discovered a dusty, ignored cigar box, resting on the top of the faux-wood enclosure:

Honestly, I have no idea where this box originally came from.  Neither my wife or I smoke, nor does anyone in my immediate family.  So, it's not like anyone would just so happen to have a cigar box to pass around.  Actually, I'm not even sure if this is technically a cigar box.  With that in mind, this curious little box was already shrouded in a cloak of mystery.

Now, I did know that this container was perched atop my dart board; but, I'd always just assumed that was where I had originally stored my extra darts and spare flights.  I mean, it does seem like a good-sized box for such storage purpose.  However, I truly did not know for certain if that was the case.

But, you know what they say when you assume, right? You make an ASS out of U and ME.  At this point, the suspense must be killing you (as it did me):

Okay, okay - no need to get profane now.

Without any further adieu, as my wife was lining up her precious birdies along the top of the cabinet, I cracked open the mysterious container to great surprise.  I must admit, if I had a million and a half attempts, I would never have been able to successfully guess the contents:

Cards?  Really?  How the eff did those get in there?  How long have they been there?  Did I put those there?  My mind was racing with so many questions and great concern for my powers of recall.  I have absolutely no recollection of putting any cars in this box.  Furthermore, I have absolutely no recollection of ever obtaining the cards in this modest stack, whether by purchase, trade, or otherwise.

Here's what I was looking at:

A pair of vintage Topps football, something that is sorely lacking in my collection.  With that note in mind, you'd think that I'd remember acquiring a relative rarity in my binders, especially so since Dick Gordon was a needed man for my Bears All-Time Roster Collection (sweet fro, btw).  I'm assuming that Mac Percival was absent from said collection as well, whenever I obtained these 1972 singles; but, in the time since, I've found a '71 of the kicker for that accumulation.

Little did I know that I already had a Percival, hiding from me in plain sight.  Drat.  At least they're both swell cards, if a little rough around the edges.

But wait, that's not all that I forgot about:

A bunch of Fleer stickers.  I'm gonna have the coolest and blingiest trapper keeper in school!

What do vintage football cards and Fleer stickers have in common?  Absolutely nothing, so I have no idea why I stored these two in-congruent items in a random cigar box hidden on top of my dart board.  Of course, this isn't the first time that I've placed a card or two in a weird, random place and forgotten about them.  However, this is the first time that, upon finding them, my memory was not jogged in any way.  Bizarre.

Oh well, Thanks to my better half's duck acquisitions, I was able to add another name to my Chicago Bears binder without dropping another dime.  I suppose I can't complain about that, eh?

However, I sure am going to be fun when I get older and even more forgetful... pray for my wife!

Burbs Bait

The wife and I had a big night planned this past Saturday in order to properly celebrate her day of birth - dinner at her favorite restaurant, a night out on the Northside of the city, a burlesque show and good times to be had by all.  However, as fun as that all sounds, the anticipation was killing her Saturday afternoon and she was feeling antsy.  Since antsy is pretty much my constant state of being as well and we had plenty of time before we had to get on the road, we both decided to make  a quick trip to the local Savers thrift shop to kill some time.

Thrift shops and secondhand stores are our favorite places to go when we're bored - after all, you can't do much damage to your wallet (unless you're REALLY trying) at such an establishment.

I have to say, this restlessness turned out to be a good thing for both of us.  First of all, her birthday celebrations were only enhanced by what seemed like nearly an entire wall of nothing but rubber ducks:

For those that may have missed that post, my wife collects these funny little quackers with the same fervor that I do baseball cards.  Therefore, this back wall, where Savers bags up all their miscellaneous toys in plastic wrap, was an absolute gold mine for her ever-growing flock of duckies.

I must admit, the collector in me quite enjoys finding new birds of a feather for her as well - I mean, look at those things, they're just plain fun.  I'm especially partial to the chromium water fowl, who doubles as a "magic 8-ball."

However, bath toys were not the only item that caught our eyes at this particular display.  No, no - clearly someone on staff knew that the "Burb Herd" was making a visit to their store, because they brought out the "Burbs bait."  Along with the bags of rubber ducks, there was an assortment of saran-wrapped, trading card goodness hanging from this wall of pure awesomeness:

Of course, I couldn't help but grab a little sample for myself - even though Savers tends to overprice their goods, more so than the local Goodwills.  In fact, I almost put them right back on the rack and walked away, but my better half thought I was being silly, so she snatched them out of my hands and made her way to the cashier's line in the middle of my waffling.  Bless her soul.  For five bucks a pop, I suppose it's still a worthwhile gamble to grab a pair of the dozen or so bags of baseball and football cards that were accompanying my wife's new favorite birdies.

It may have been her birthday celebration, but what could a little gift for myself hurt?  Clearly she had no objection.

At that point, neither one of us could wait to get home to rip into our new bounties.  So, we cruised our way back to the homestead so that we'd have a little bit of time to savor our new collection additions before it was time to get ready for our downtown shenanigans.

The cello-wrapped repack on the right was chock full of nothing but Topps Attax game cards, a set from which I had absolutely zero cards before this weekend.  Thus, this was a more than welcome sight, even if one of the Cubs included was the ever-douchey Matt Garza.  Still, a new Cubs card is a new Cubs card and I have always had a thing for game cards like Attax, MLB Showdown, Hot Button Baseball, etc.  In fact, I have an entire post dedicated to that subject.

Luckily the soul-patched, Matt Clement-wannabe wasn't the only Cub to be found lying in wait, ready to "attack:"

Along with Garza, we have former top prospect Tyler Colvin, hot and cold slugger Alfonso Soriano and the shiny, foil parallel of number 17.  It's pretty tough to see in the scan, but there's definitely a striking difference between the base and the foil cards in Attax.  Also, the foil parallels, while pretty, don't seem to be particularly rare, nor do they do anything to boost the player's desirability in the game itself.

They still look cool though; so, there's that.

Beyond the uniformed Cubs, this custom repack contained a fair amount of future and former Cubs within it's plastic-y confines:

The three cards at the top of this scan are also foil parallels (I pulled their bases, as well).  I've chosen to highlight mostly significant pieces from the Cubs of 2015-16, plus franchise-favorite Derrek Lee.  However, there were more than a few once-upon-a-time Cubs from further in the past, as well.  All in all, my oddball intrigue was significantly piqued by this "Attax Repax."  Bag one was definitely worth the price of admission.

Furthermore, if anyone out there happens to be working on a team set (or complete set) of this once off, mostly-forgotten, game set.  I have plenty of dupes and cards which otherwise do not interest me to go around.  Let me know.

That stack is just the traders

Would repack number two be just as fun, intriguing and productive towards my collection?  I mean, there's only one way to find out right?  Time to rip into that plastic wrap and find out just what hides within.

While repack number one was exclusively cards from Topps Attax, repack number two contained much, much more variety:

For instance, we have short-term Cubs Austin Jackson making his second appearance in this post, this time on a lovely, minor league, TriStar Obak single, commemorating his time with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.  Long-time readers of this blog know that I have a thing for bush league cards of evenutal MLB Cubs; thus, this colorful oddball will make a swell addition to my Nothing Major binder.

Accompanying Austin, we have the oldest card in the pack, a well-weathered/loved "Kong" Kingman from 1976.  This card may have seen better days, but it's hard not to crack a smile when pulling honest-to-goodness vintage from an unexpected source.

Back to that Nothing Major concept, here's a pair of "cool" Dairy Queen Team USA oddities from 1992.  Honestly, before this pack-ripping experience, I had no idea that Topps and the eatery behind Dilly Bars had partnered up to honor USA baseball. I always enjoy a baseball card learning experience!

Both Barberie and Steenstra eventually graduated to the Big Leagues and worked their way over to the Windy City for a brief time, but didn't do much of note in a Cubs uniform.  Nevertheless, if minor league cards are desirable, cards that go back to even before a player's professional days are even more fascinating in my eyes.  These will be joining that Austin Jackson in the same binder.

Oh, look - more game cards.  While pack A was entirely made up of Topps Attax, pack B had a smattering of Wizard of the Coast's MLB Showdown, the original baseball card game of my generation.

While the company behind the ever-popular Pokemon cards tried to extend their influence into baseball, the product didn't generate nearly as much interest and eventually faded away.  That said, it's cards are among my favorite oddballs, with their (mostly) clean photography and deep, varied player selection.  I don't have too many cards featuring Todd Hollandsworth from his time as an extra outfielder with the Cubs, after all.

Those were definitely the highlights of the repack for me - there was a good amount of other less exciting base cards that fit into my Cubs collections, but nothing else that I would call "blog-worthy."  But, there was still plenty of trade bait that I though might be worth sharing on my little corner of the internet:

X gon' give it to ya, in the form of die-cut parallels from Upper Deck's bizarre and mostly superfluous X brand.  I don't know what the whole x-theme had to do with baseball, but it sure did provide us with some interesting die-cuts - DMX and Deadpool references not withstanding.

Also among the traders:

There were some oddballs, parallels and singles from rarely seen sets nestled along with the X's.  I have to say, my favorites out of these puppies are the Wonder Bread Canseco and the Topps T205 Doc Hoblitzell - on the latter set, if anyone has the Cubs' Dave Shean from that checklist up for trade, please feel free to contact me!

By the by, that Kevin Mailloux from Bowman Platinum on the bottom right is an x-fractor, as if segment of the post needed anymore x-themed content.  It's rather difficult to tell from this scan, but it's quite lovely in person.

The rest of repack number two was made up of unassuming base cards from the past fifteen or so years.  Notably, the accumulation was completely devoid of the ubiquitous junk wax that normally populates such a thing - so, that was pretty nifty.  Also, just a reminder, if anything in those last two scans catches your attention, it's yours if you let me know.

Thanks, Savers!

With that, we've reached the conclusion of my Savers experience.

In summation, I was able to add several new oddballs and minor-leaguers to my binders without breaking the bank, some decent trade bait to my stacks of enticement, and, most importantly, I was able to find some bonus birthday gifts for my wife at the very same time.  I'd say that's not bad for an impulsive trip, born out of pure, antsy boredom, to the local thrift store.

Of course, the ducks will soon be completely taking over our living area, but shelf space ain't all it's "quacked" up to be anyway...

...On that cringe-inducing note, I'll just see myself out.

What a Quack

"Rubber ducky, you're the one.  You make bath time so much fun! He he he"

Anybody who's grown up in this country since the 1970's is more than likely familiar with that particular song lyric.  Sesame Street has been a staple of American culture for nearly fifty years now and has created a long line of iconic, Muppet characters - Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, and the Odd Couple-esque Bert and Ernie.  Speaking of the latter, Ernie and his attachment to his rubber ducky is a better love story than Twilight.  Certainly, that little orange puppet would ecstatically would be celebrating National Rubber Ducky Day today.

Yes, this is an actual, declared day of celebration.  There truly is a holiday for everything, these days.  Anyway, someone else who would be right there partying with Ernie and his birdie buddy is my fiancee.

This here is a stock photo (most of our personal possessions are in storage, since we're between permanent homes) but this lady has a synthetic bird for every one of the Chicago sports teams, including the exact one seen above... except Da Bears... she hates the Bears.  After all, she was born and raised in Delaware, right on the Pennsylvania border - prime Philadelphia Eagles territory.

Speaking of which...

She made sure to pick up a properly-attired duck at Citizens Bank Ballpark to honor her second favorite baseball team (converted White Sox fan, psh) when we visited the East Coast a couple of years back.  She decided to name it Ryne, seeing as Mr. Sandberg was managing the Phightin' Phils at the time.

Take me back...

At this point, you can tell that the girl has an awful lot of rubber ducks.  In the background of the above picture, which dates from our previous living abode, you can see two of the three glass vases that were filled to the brim with synthesized water fowls.

Like I mentioned earlier, unfortunately, most of her collection is boxed up in our storage unit right now.  However, she's definitely come across a few more since then.  Since this is a sports-themed blog, I figured I'd show off her more athletic duckies:

Rubber duck collecting must be a secretly booming industry, seeing as there are licensed, souvenir ducks available at just about every sporting event, including the Indianapolis 500.  My fiancee decided to join my siblings and I this past May, for our annual pilgrimage to the "International Sweepstakes" and came away with the perfect souvenir.  Just ducky, even.

Meanwhile, I know she has an official one somewhere (hockey is actually her favorite sport), but this generic, hockey-playing bird on the right looks suspiciously like a Blackhawk to me...  What say you?

These ducks might be made out of rubber, but they sure wouldn't make suitable balls for sport, however hard they might try to camouflage themselves as such.   The soccer, or football, if you're international, duck on the left came into her possession as a gift from her future mother-in-law.  Where it came from, beyond that, I'll never know.

On the right, I won this fowl on Listia as a stocking stuffer, Christmas gift for my favorite duck collector.  It's kinda bizarre though:  the basketball duck looks more like it has goose pimples than hardwood aspirations.  Also, for some reason, it says "Learn to Swim"... last time I checked, Madison Square Gardens didn't have a pool, hmmm.

Now what you've seen above isn't even half of a quarter of her flock.  Just in our temporary living space alone, we have not one shelf....

...not two shelves....

... but three shelves, chock full of rubber duckies and other assorted birds of a feather.  There are train engineers, Audrey Hepburns, Jokers, pilots, pirates, palace guards, and even emos with bills hanging out on our areas of display.

And, like I've been saying, that's only the ducks that AREN'T in storage:

Here's a photo from our moving day... an entire box crammed with nothing but rubber water fowls.  An entire box dedicated to nothing but her rubber duck collection.  What a quack!

I like to give her crap, but I must confess that I am completely complicit and supportive of her obsession.  I buy them, I help search them out and, admittedly take a good bit of enjoyment out of each new one added to her stash.  I am a natural collector, after all.  Plus, conversely, she can never judge me too hard when it comes to my trading card addiction.  It's a perfect balance.

And so I say, to Ernie from Sesame Street, to my lovely fiancee and to everyone who might be reading this blog post - happy National Rubber Ducky Day!  Now go out and... draw a bath and celebrate accordingly?