This and That

Today's post is just a list of stuff. I know in my Pet Peeves entry I decry numbered lists, so instead of numbers I give you bullets. If I could figure out how to turn them into baseballs, I would.

• Did you know that you can get the same Major League Baseball notes that the teams send out to the media each day? For free? Online? Well, you can. Right Here. Download them before each and every game and amaze your friends with the sheer amount of trivia that you know. It's FUN!
  
  
• Yesterday on one of my MANY trips to Target I bought their last three packs of Allen & Ginter retail and proved my theory that you can in fact search them. Out of the three packs one was decidedly thicker, and of course that one had the State Insert in it. The other two, just six cards including the mini.
  
  
• I bought one other pack yesterday, a 2005 Topps Updates and Highlights for $1.59. Mass Market stores tend to have a blowout box of "excel marketing" packs, which are older product for usually either 99 cents or $1.59. The product is usually not that old, and is absolutely unsearched. How do I know? I pulled a jersey out of my pack yesterday. Sure, I don't particularly care about the player, but this particular card shows that a scant few years ago, Topps actually KNEW how to manufacture a great jersey card. First, it's numbered, out of a smallish number too. Secondly, it says flat out that the swatch was used in a specific game (albeit the All-Star game). Finally, though some may disagree, I actually like the design. The colors, while garish, aren't awful and they go with the actual team colors, though that appears to be unintentional. Sure the card is probably worth less than five bucks, but hey, I love getting jerseys out of a pack that costs less than two bucks.
  
  
  
  
• Two pieces that I wrote for Sports Cards Uncensored have gotten a bit of traction. The first is a response to Cardboard Mania and his initial contention that Topps deliberately produced an error card in Bowman Chrome (Kosuke Fukudome at that). The second is a response to his response, and has some great comments, so make sure you scroll down all the way. I don't think the issue is put to bed, but there's a bit more light that needs to be shed on the cards in question. Either way, there's no way that card is worth the mega-bucks that people on eBay want for it.
  
  
• Speaking of SCU, please read this post and if you can, give what you can. A very worthy cause in my opinion.
  
  
• Remember, if you're in my Fantasy Footbal league, the draft is set for Saturday at 12:30 PM. I had to rearrange my schedule for Saturday in order to be available.
  
  

Team Trading - Budget Update

I have received a couple packages that were FAR more than I expected. However, in trying to add some better stuff for my end I delayed sending out longer than I would have liked. I should be mailing out tomorrow four packages, one of Yankees, one of Rockies, one of Dodgers and one of A's. I don't want to invade anyone's privacy by revealing who I traded with, but if you made a deal with me for one of those teams, they should be on their way shortly, and I apologize for the delay.

I'm usually very good with my trades. Over on Pojo.com, where I used to be a Super-Moderator, I have a stellar 100% trader rating with over 70 trades successfully completed. I used to trade on WizKids.com as well, and have something like 40 successful trades there.

With the influx of so many new Angels cards, I had to split my binder up between current and former Angels, which for a lot of teams would mean a lot of switching out cards. Not the Angels thankfully, and I waited until after the big trade before I did this, so while I have some great Casey Kotchman cards, he's now in the "Former" player binder, along with all my faves from years past, though I notice, I could use a few more Nolan Ryan as an Angel cards.

This week just didn't happen for me very well. I know, that doesn't really make sense, but just go with it would ya!

I guess the best news this week is that Allen & Ginter showed up at Target for three bucks a pack! If you're trying to put together a set of this stuff, that's the ONLY way to go at this point, since you're getting six cards for $3 (and usually a 7th too, since the minis are inserted as a bonus) instead of $5 per pack for eight cards. Sure, you may not get the BIG end hits, but if you're like me and cannot afford to buy a box in the first place, you're not going to get the "big" hits anyway.

Plus, and I almost hate to admit this, but the retail A&G packs are somewhat searchable. Packs are different sizes, packs with a mini are thicker than non-mini packs. So far, I'm four for four on minis, including one black border and one short print. I also pulled a Teixiera Jersey, and even though he's pictured on the Braves, the swatch is bright red, so it's going in my Angels collection.

Over the next few months there will be a ton of Baseball releases, most of them mid to high end products that I have no interest in whatsoever. Once a single pack of cards goes over the $10 hobby level, I'm priced out. I can splurge every now and then on something that costs $5 to $10, but I'm more likely to purchase packs that give me more bang for my buck, which is why products like Upper Deck Retail, Topps Regular, Topps Chrome, Heritage and Allen & Ginter are my go-tos for the year. At least I know what I'm going to get, and I wouldn't mind putting together full sets of any of those products. Do you see the commonality between those four sets? Yeah, they're all under three bucks a pack at retail. Heck, regular Topps is the same price Hobby or Retail. Chrome is only a buck more at Hobby than Retail, and so far, I've been luckier with the Retail Chrome packs, pulling many more decent cards from Retail than Hobby.

I'll probably dabble in the update sets, but as the Basketball season draws closer and the Baseball season winds down, my collecting focus will waver back and forth between the Angels and the UCLA Bruins in the NBA. Because when it comes to Basketball cards, I'm not a team collector in the normal sense, I only care about cards of former UCLA Bruins, which in the past hasn't been that tough of a challenge. This year with two top five picks, I'm probably looking at some decent cash for rookie cards, but I'm hoping I can trade for what I want anyway, or use eBay money, which reminds me, I've got some stuff to list soon.

Sigh, the Angels have now lost TWO in a row, both games they should have won. The bullpen hasn't been especially good lately, even Frankie (or K-Rod for the abbreviation challenged) hasn't pitched very well of late. He's in his contract season, and looking to score big with a multi-year contract. Conventional wisdom would say that that Halos will go after Teixiera with a big money deal, but they also have Garrett Anderson at the end of his contract too, so the off-season should be very interesting. However, winning a World Series just might make some of those guys want to stay for less.

I sure hope so, the team the Angels have right now is probably the best I've ever seen, and they are damn fun to watch.

Wanted to Trade...plus...A'n'G

OK first of all, there's something WRONG with my browser. Every time I try to type a title in the title box it turns into some weird boxes. So then I have to write the title in the entry box and cut and paste. Same thing happens in the labels, which is why the last few posts haven't had any labels.

I'm using Firefox 3 for the Mac. I'm sure someone knows what I screwed up. I was messing around with my built in fonts a few days ago, I'm sure that screwed something up.

Here's the real point of this post:

I Bought Some Allen & Ginter packs today

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Three whole packs at five bucks apiece. I was going to buy a few more, BUT I found G.I. Joe vehicles at Target earlier in the week and I blew the rest of my paypal money on the Ram/Trouble Bubble set.

Did I get anything good? Well, yes, actually I did. I pulled a Carl Crawford Framed Jersey. Pretty cool actually, and it was a fresh box, so I kind of messed it up for anyone else. But then again, if that was my "hit" in that box, I would have been massively disappointed.

Still, it's a Jersey, and I'm hoping I can trade it for something cool Angels wise.

Which reminds me, one of the reasons that I started this blog in the first place was to do more trading. To that end here's my proposal:

Send Me Your Angels and I'll send you your favorite team!

I love busting packs, so I buy them all the time. But I don't care about ANY of the cards in the packs, except for Angels. So, I'm totally willing to trade pretty much everything I pull for cards of Angel players.

I usually sort all my non-Angels in to team lots, except for the really big super-stars and inserts that I think I might be able to get a special trade for. So my team lots won't have any jerseys or autos, and probably not any serial numbered cards either, but other inserts will be in there. I don't have huge lots at this point, probably no more than 50 cards per team, and there's certain sets I won't include because I may be putting together a set at some point.

So if you've got Angels to unload, I want 'em, ALL of them. Commons, Stars, everything. I don't even care about doubles. I do prefer that they are near mint.


I've already made one deal for the Washington Nationals, so I won't have any Nationals for awhile. Lemme know your team and whatcha got, and hopefully we can make a deal.

Email wmnoe at yahoo dot com.

I do have four jerseys right now, Ben Sheets, BJ Upton and one other I forget and I can't be arsed to go look up. Plus I pulled that Crawford, and I don't mind trading that. I'll take any Angels relic for those straight up.