The only Trout that matters

The recent election has conditioned me to oppose whatever group is being noisiest at the time. Looking forward to Drunky Cabrera's MVP award this evening.

Now that everyone reading this is pissed off, welcome to Gerald Laird, the Barves' new backup catcher. AKA starting catcher for two months while McCann heals. I've got cards of his all over the place but I wouldn't be able to find one if I looked for an hour so no image for you.

Also also: Wax Heaven is back. Everyone go follow Mario immediately.

DO IT.

NOW.

Now I'm Sad

Wax Heaven is closing up shop. Mario probably got a nice new gig writing for 30 Rock or Time Magazine or maybe speeches for Obama. Whatever he winds up doing next, it'll be successful because the guy puts his all into anything he does. I'm going to miss Wax Heaven though, that was my go-to source for new card information. This summer when I was struggling with life and was really tempted to put the blog on hiatus one of the things that made me change my mind was that I didn't want to get dropped from the Heavenly Seven for going inactive. Good luck buddy and keep in touch. Mario is holding one last contest to cap off the blog, go check it out.

I <3 Mario Alejandro

Yeah, I know, we all do. But I <3 Mario more.

(<3 means 'heart, if you didn't know that already)

Mario is well known for his box break reviews and a little while back , he busted open a box of 2009 Allen & Ginter. Out of that box came some hits, obviously, since every box of A&G has something in it. Here's what he got:

Some of you might recognize that card on the top. While busting my own box of A&G, I came across the base version of that card:


I had a bit of a freakout when I saw this epic card of a Negro League star wearing a Braves uni. I went as far as to call it the Card of the Year, and I am unanimous in that. Building the full set of Red Moore minis from the base to the Bazooka is one of those long term projects that just got put on my To-Do list.

So a couple of weeks ago, Mario e-mailed me and asked if I had picked up any Braves autos lately and that he had a package coming my way, hint, hint. I thought that was really cool and wondered what I could send him in return. I've been looking for stuff to send him, but he cleaned me out of Cansecos and every time I find an Andrew Miller card, he already has 8 of them already. Even the ones numbed out of five. That's a supercollector for ya. So the package arrives and I'm thinking maybe Mario found something cool I don't have yet like a Martin Prado autograph and I open it up and see this extremely well wrapped card:

HEAD

ASPLODE

This, quite literally is the best card I could possibly pull this year. I'm fascinated with Negro League history, I'm a huge Braves fan and A&G is my favorite card set. I honestly couldn't top this if I opened a thousand cases. What's more, I told Mario I'd be on the lookout for a Jose or Andrew card he needs and this was his reply:

Nope. Nothing in return.

So no cards, eh? That's extraordinarily generous. Well, I really want to do something nice for him, so I've devised a plan B:

1. Buy lots of GM stock really quick
2. Infiltrate the Federal Government in the next two weeks
3. Use my insider influence to monkey with the Health Care bill
4. Hide a clause in the bill stating that every American has to get their health insurance from a single provider: General Motors
5. Now that GM has an insurance monopoly, sell stock and become rich
6. Take ill-gotten gains and put in all in time machine technology
7. Try really hard not to get sick because if GM does health care like they do cars... whoa nellie
8. Finish my time machine
9. Test time machine on the neighbor's dog to make sure it's safe
10. Send condolences to my neighbor for their loss
11. Try again
12. Hey, it works this time!
13. Go back in time to the day I was conceived
14. Pump my mom full of estrogen so I become a girl instead of a boy
15. Grow up girly
16. Meet and seduce Mario Alejandro
17. Bear him many healthy children, mostly boys

Those Canseco cards are looking pretty good now aren't they Mario!

Thanks again for sending me the Card of the Year!

(just kidding about plan B, I'd never buy GM stock)

Wax Heaven Contest(s)

I'm dragging this weekend, so until I can get up enough energy and motivation to post something here's something to check out:

Wax Heaven Crazy Spectrum Autograph Contest

You have to have a Wordpress account with avatar (gravatar?) but once you have that just follow the instructions and leave a comment. Simple enough, eh?

Card of the Week June somethingorother

I'll be straight with ya folks, I'm not in a very writey mood this week. I almost just took a week off, but I figured any posts is better than no posts. Today's (whatever day it happens to be) Card of the Week will be low on word count but high on awesome. Behold:

2007 Allen & Ginter Mariano Rivera black press plate 1/1

A couple reasons why this one got chosen: The obvious, and the fact that I'm trying to ramp myself up for upcoming 2009 Allen & Ginter release. It's sad that I'm having to pump myself up about that product, but I am. While stuff like this isn't helping, the main problem is that I want to get a box on the release date, but I probably won't have the money 'till August. I'm probably just overthinking things though and it will all work out in the end. This card right here though is a reminder of why I love the set in the first place. The mini cards, the ornate frames, the faux lithographs (that were even better in 2007 as seen by Mariano's shadow there) and the vintage 1888 design. If this card can't get me pumped about A&G nothing wil.

This card came from Mr. Kickass himself, Mario at Wax Heaven. He pulled this out of the box of A&G he bought in his early wax-shredding days. We were working on a trade for every Jose Canseco card I owned (yes, all of them) for some Braves when he pulled it and I mentioned that I might be interested in trading for that card at some point when I found something good to trade in return. Then Mario up and sent it to me as a gift for the one year anniversary of this blog. Mario isn't just generous with his directory, he's generous period.

Mario is giving away a cut sig card of Hank Aaron that actually looks kinda nice

Go over to Wax Heaven and sign up for the contest! All you have to do is let Mario know your name and where you live. So far there's been entrants from Sweden and the Dominican Republic. While every additional entry makes it less likely that I'll win (and I'd lluuuurrrrve to get that card), I'm actually more interested to see how many different states and countries sign up for the contest. You've got 'till 8:00pm tonight so get movin'!

Wax (Heaven) Pack

Mario at Wax Heaven sent a few cards my way to cheer me up and it worked. Like Mark at Stats on the Back, he sent the cards in little mini packs of three or four inside penny sleeves. Since it's a quick, easy and cool post, here's the first of three packs from Mario.

(note: I hit post accidentally so this has now become a live blog complete with embarrassing typos)

2009 Topps Attax Chipper Jones Code Card

Mario posted this card on his blog as part of his Attax review so the code has probably been used ages ago by now. I haven't taken the time to check out ToppsTown yet so I'm not really concerned. I'm going to to a review of Attax sooner or later so I'll leave the complaining about the back of the card for then. The front isn't bad as far as game cards go. If you're wondering about the numbers at the bottom, basically the gameplay is a game of War between the batter and pitcher. APBA it ain't. Chipper is somewhat unstoppable compared to some of the pitcher cards I've seen. Foil versions are even better statwise, so a Gold Chipper is probably one of the best in the set.

2009 Spectrum Chipper Jones

I don't like Spectrum and its $7.50 pack price or Kim Karwhositsface autographs. I do however like the shiny purple holofoil with what appears to be lasers zapping all over the place. The lasers appear to have zorched off Chipper's feet.

The backs look pretty good too, even if it does remind me a bit of UDX. Come to think of it, EVERYTHING Upper Deck has done recently reminds me of UDX. The lasers look more like those spotlights that they use in movie premiers and used car dealerships on the back. That's appropriate considering the set relies on Hollywood autographs extensively and the set is a bit of a lemon. I'll say it right now, though, THIS card looks mighty nice, even though most everyone (including me) likes to bash on the set. It's still probably going to be the only '09 Spectrum card ever featured on the blog though, so get a good look at it.

2009 Topps Heritage Greg Maddux

I wish MLB copied the NFL practice of signing players to one day contacts so they could retire with their long time team. I'm still going to hold out hope that he gets itchy and signs with some team midseason. Actually I'm really hoping he pulls a one game comeback with the Braves like Phil Niekro did in '87. Man, I love this set. I don't think orange, yellow, black and red with a blue uniform is really supposed to work together as far as color matching goes, but it looks good to me on this card.

The cartoon is hilarious. I can see Greg chugging away with his tongue hanging out as he steals that record breaking base. Check out that career stat line. Five THOUSAND innings pitched. Wow. The 2008 stat line is a little disappointing, but it's still not bad for someone who had the Padres' offensive offense backing him up. My favorite stat on the card? 355. One more than a certain juicy fruit fireballer from Texas.

Awesome stuff from Mario and there's still 6 more cards to show off. I tried to find some Cansecos to send him, but it's hard to find something The Completist doesn't have. I'll keep looking though, it's like a Holy Quest for the Oddball Jose. Thanks again Mario!

One for Mario

This is the first Andrew Miller card I've even seen in the wild in about three months, let alone one he doesn't already have. I'm tempted to overnight it to him just so some joker doesn't send him one first. Maybe I should drive it down?

Goodies from Wax Heaven

I'm completely, totally, incredibly behind in everything, but I'm going to post these packages if it kills me. This one from Mario at Wax Heaven arrived in the mail yesterday. I haven't sent him anything in months though and this just came out of the blue. I'm still trying to get my hands on his Christmas present, as the guy who has it now is hard to track down. Maybe this weekend...

Anyway, here are the complete contents of Mario's trade/gift/whatever, probably the last time I show off everything in a package until I catch up. That will probably be about 2013.

The Best Card In The Package:

That's right, a 2008 Timelines Timeless Teams Chipper Jones. that's the best one. I've been picking up packs here and there hoping for one of these for weeks. Now I finally have my Turner Field Stadium shot:

And you can't see the brand new tomahawking Chick-Fil-A cow, thank God.

Three Low Numbered Jersey Cards:

Woooo! Jerseys! Numbered to 130 is still low numbered nowadays, right? Anyway, here's the swag:

2004 Upper Deck Authentic Stars Rafael Furcal #32/75
2005 SPXtreme Stats TimHudson #106/130
2007 Ultimate America's PAstime Andruw Jones #21/75

I didn't have any of these and I'd never seen the Ultimate jersey before. The Ultimate is nice, it's kinda patriotic.

2008 Donruss Threads Aaron & Murph

This is a team set, I think... I'm not sure if the Braves draft pick is in the set or not. I now have an extra Murpoh to send along in the Xmas packages too!

2007 Bowman Sterling Jeff Locke

Believe it or not, this is the first Bowman Sterling card I've gotten my hands on. It looks like... Chrome with delusions of grandeur. Not bad stuff though. Jeff Locke is the prospect Kevin Towers wanted that derailed the Peavy trade, so I guess he's pretty good.

2008 Stadium Club Gregor Blanco 1st day issue #183/199

There were three Stadium Club cards in there, but this was the most interesting. It's a 1st day issue card, but it's really thick and is serial numbered on the back. Is this the hobby version?

A Mess O' Braves

Some Braves to keep and some Braves to give away. I'm still working on the Xmas packages, by the way. I'll have an update for y'all probably tomorrow.

1997 Bowman Chrome

Maddog and Smoltzie! I have neither of these as I didn't get into BowChro all that much in the '90s. I didn't see the point when there was Bowman's Best. these are really nice looking cards though, I can see why they are some of Mario's favorites.

An Almost Team Set of 1997 Pinnacle Ceritfied

The team set is only missing Klesko and I've probably got 3 or 4 of that card. This is another really nice looking set, but all the cards are really curved. And by all the cards, I mean 'every one ever produced in the history of civilzation'. Talk about shiny... you could shave using these things. They all have that protective film on them too. To peel or not to peel, that is the question...

Thanks again Mario! You'll be getting something soon as soon as I track down that guy with your card. Check out Wax Heaven for some more bloggy goodness!

A Surprise from Mario

Continuing on with the mailbox bounty postings, here's some good stuff I received from Mario over at Wax Heaven. I'm not sure exactly what I sent his way to warrant this package, but there's been plenty of packages going back and forth between Georgia and Florida at any rate. My current Marlins pile is starting to get fat so there will have to be another one going south soon. Here's what came in a well protected package filled with lots of top loaders.

2001 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Chipper Jones Home Opener Souvenirs Base

Now this is a memorabilia card. Fluffy clouds, bunting, a future Hall of Famer and the card itself is thick as a brick. Seriously, the card is thicker than an entire pack of Bowman Chrome. The relic piece is from a base, which is kind of weird, but if you look at the back things get a little better.

There's not only a picture of the actual base, but they have listed the exact game where it was used. Not a good game unfortunately, as the Mets pounded the Braves in the home opener at Shea. It's still pretty unique and it's cool to see the exact game the relic was taken from. My Chipper collection just increased by one which is highly appreciated.

Some 2008 Bowman

There's a few Bowman cards in the package including a Quentin Davis prospect card that I don't think I had. Quentin just won a Southern League Championship with the Mississippi Braves, but he looks like he has a lot of work to do before he'll be called up to the bigs. Along with these two there's also a Bowman card of...

Greg Maddux!

Ah, Mario understands that for a few players it doesn't matter what uniform they are wearing, they are always a Brave. Maddux is definitely one of those players. He's practically a Brave here anyway. Just take the R in Padres, move it after the P, add an extra bump to the P to make it a B, then mangle the D until it looks like a V and you've got Braves. There's four Maddux cards in here, including three from Chrome.

Heritage Chrome!!

If I had unlimited money and time the Heritage Chrome set would be one I would chase down a card at a time. The Chrome cards really look good with the '59 design. I'm kind of worried about next year's set though, I love the 1960 design, but I remember seeing some Chrome Wrestling cards that also used the '60 design and they were not attractive. Might be the wrestling guys on 'em, or maybe they were just plain ugly. The jury's out on that one, we'll just have to wait and see. One card that looks absolutely awesome though is the...

Blue Refractor!!!

Daaaaaaaamn these cards look nice! Even the photo with a stone faced Greg about to get caught in a storm at spring training looks good when it's blue refractorized. I want to go out and buy a box of Chrome now just for the blues. But wait, there's...

Even More Chrome

Here's a good chunk of the Braves team set for Chrome. I know I didn't have the Blanco RC yet, I'll have to double check on the rest. There's a nice Xfractor of Francoeur too, just in time for a good September for Frenchy. April through August? BARF. Don't be surprised if Jeff is sporting a Royals jersey next year. KC GM Dayton Moore was part of the Braves organization that drafted Jeff and there's talk that they might be willing to give up a starter like Greinke or Bannister for a shot at Francoeur's potential. After this terrible year, it might be worth it for the Bravos if they can get a solid starter. Lord knows erratic hitting outfielders are much easier to come by than arms nowadays.

A few Goudeys for good measure

I've got the whole Braves team set from 08 Goudey, but now I can work on all those slightly different shaded backs for another team set. Plus where there's Goudeys, there's...

Mini Cards!!!!!

Yeah! I love the Yesco mini and I really love A&G mini cards. Tex? Not so much. Black borders? Oh yass. Two more for the binder right there.

Thanks for the swag, Mario! You might see some Marlins coming your way before too long.