Stupendous Start to Second Half

With an extra day of rest that the Halos certainly needed, our current arch-nemesis the Boston Red Sox were swept out of town yesterday after our SECOND come-from-behind victory in a row. The hero on Saturday was pinch hitter Erick Aybar who TRIPLED with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 7th driving in the tying and winning runs. Yesterday the heroes were Howie Kendrick and Casey Kotchman with HUGE RBIs in the 8th. The Angels have now taken five out of six against the BoSox this season, and swept them for the first time in 7 years. This is after Manny Ramirez' spectacular whale impression in the Sixth that allowed a couple of runs to score and begin the rout. Pictures can't describe this moment, and after about ten minutes of searching, I found the OFFICIAL highlight video. Leave it to MLB to take the fun out of this, it was originally posted on YouTube, and then removed

Mitigating this joy are two things: One - the Sox were without David Ortiz and Two - it's only July. The Angels really need to prove that they can defeat Boston in October, seeing is that they've killed us in three out of the Angels seven total playoff appearances. I, for one, will NEVER forget the 1986 ALCS when the Halos blew a 3-1 series lead, with ONE out to go and the lead, and Donnie Moore gave up that two run bomb to Dave Henderson. In fact, no true Angel fan should ever forget that moment, because it lead directly to the Bill Buckner error in the WS, and also to Donnie Moore taking his own life several years later. While one player's mistake lead to beloved infamy, the other lead to suicide.



In the immortal words of Marvin the Paranoid Android: "I'm not getting you down am I?"

Sorry about that.

ONTO better things, at 60 and 38, the Halos have the best record in Baseball at the moment, the vaunted Cubs and Rays are both a couple of games behind the Angels currently. We also have the largest lead of any first place team at 9 games. Should we start prepping for the post-season already? HECK NO! There's still two and a half months of baseball to play, and as the late Gene Mauch proved in 1964, no lead is ever safe.

Still, it's an exciting time to be an Angels fan. I'm really, really hoping to get down to the Big A this season, I've made it to at least one game each of the past three seasons, and I don't want that streak to stop. When I lived in San Diego I made it to the Murph on several occasions each and every season, and I don't even LIKE the Padres. For that matter, when I first moved back to L.A. from San Diego in 1998 I went to several Dodger games, and I HATE them. You'd think that I'd be able to get to a few more Angel games each and every year. Damn traffic.

Adventures in eBay - The Continuing Saga

So the Fukodome UD SP sold for nice $46 to a collector in Japan. I shipped the bad-boy out this morning (top-loader inside of a re-used bubble envelope, inside of a USPS Flat Rate International Envelope). I charge an extra $5.00 for international handling because it causes me to actually GO to the post-office, instead of printing out my postage online, and that infuriates me. I'm down with the postal restrictions due to 9/11, but come on, it's a FREAKING CARD.

The auction was a sight to behold to be honest. I did my research first, I checked the closed auctions for ALL Fukudome cards and discovered that only THREE of these SPs had been sold in the last 90 days. That's not a whole lot when you consider how many auctions are on eBay every day. The sold prices didn't vary that much, a high of $53 and a low of $48. I figured that my BIN price of $45 might actually work, but as of the morning on the closing date, there were NO bids. Not even at my starting price of $14.99! I didn't sit and watch the auction all day, I went out, and when I came back the price had ballooned up to it's final price. I was hoping that someone would snipe and drive the price up even further, but alas, $46 for a card out of a $5 pack is pretty good to me.

Of course, after paying eBay and PayPal fees (which TOTALED about $7) my profit is down a bit, but hey, this is 'found' money that I can use on other eBay items, and I have already. BUT that's a post for another time.