Recent Arrivals, Part II (The Finale)

If you missed Part I, there's not too much to explain; these are a bunch of cards I've gotten recently that I'm getting around to organizing. Solid premise, huh?

The card above is autographed by the original Adam Eaton, not to be confused with Arizona outfield prospect Adam Eaton. I read some thing last year that said the younger one frequently gets sent the older one's cards to sign. This one, however, was sent to the right Adam Eaton.

These Tony Gwynns were paired together; the first one is gonna bring it on down to doublesville and the second one seems familiar too. I think I had it at one point but I put a bid in for them since I didn't see it when I made a quick check. If it turns out I already have one in some completely random spot it doesn't belong, as tends to happen from time to time, that won't be the end of the world.

Here's Tony with his brother Chris, back when Chris was playing for a team not to be mentioned. I didn't really want the Ripken brothers card but they came together and I imagine someone might want it.

I had a copy of this but it was kind of ragged. This one was on Listia for next to nothing so I upgraded.

Reggie Sanders and Greg Maddux were teammates with the Braves for a bit after the former's season in San Diego. Unrelated, I'm fortunate to be able to say I saw Greg Maddux pitch in person. And with the Padres, no less.

One of Maddux's rotation-mates during his time with the Padres was Chris Young, who everyone is obligated to point out played basketball for Princeton. Now fighting for a job as a non-roster invitee at Nationals camp, Young was an All-Star in 2007. He was one of the "final vote" candidates and I voted for him literally thousands of times.

I remember having all three of these Collector's Choice cards when I was a kid but they're new again to me now. That checklist of "The" trade has always been a favorite and I'm now a bigger fan of Luis Lopez than I was a week ago. I guess he's also a Joey Cora fan because he retweeted something I said on Twitter about Joey. That was pretty neat to me.

Fleer showed up to 1996 with the complete opposite of their 1995 set. These are the antithesis of busy and feature crisp, defined photography. The Klesko is some sort of insert in a set of 20 and is glossy with silver foil as opposed to matte with gold like the base Bergman. Also, it has to be pointed out that Sean Bergman is exhibiting some terrible bunting form.

I fortified my Scott Radinsky collection with these two, obtained separately. His Upper Deck rookie card is especially fascinating because of the text on the back.

I don't know of any other Scott Rad cards that allude to his other job. In fact, the only other baseball card I can think of that mentions any punk rock band is Jim Walewander's 1988 Score which name-checks The Dead Milkmen. Around the time this Radinsky card came out, Scared Straight changed their name to Ten Foot Pole. He was pushed out of the band a few years later because the rest of the band got sick of not being able to tour at least seven months out of every year. That's the point when he formed Pulley and they've been together, in some form or another, for nearly twenty years.

Radinsky's 1992 Pinnacle was one of a 12-card lot. I didn't want any of the other cards but I got them all for what I would have paid for just the one, so all is well.

I end up doing a lot of that on Listia. I'll want one card that's part of a group and end up with a bunch to cram in an apathy box.

This doesn't just apply to cards, I guess. I now have some old Jays, Orioles, and Twins stickers thanks to wanting a lone outdated Padres sticker. "Play Downtown" was their slogan during Petco Park's inaugural season of 2004 and thankfully they don't still use that shampoo bottle logo.

I recently started trying to build the 1993 Upper Deck set pretty much from scratch. I had only a few other than the Padres I had but I've started chipping away, very little by very little. These three were packaged together and I have to say I would have bid on this lot even if I didn't need them for a set. I probably would have ended up sending all three to Dime Box Nick eventually because they're all up his alley. He's a fan of batting cage shots, as shown on the DiSarcina and the one with Hard Hittin' Mark Whiten rocking his batting helmet backward is just classic. John Burkett's is even better because it's a twofer- Burkett is signing an autograph while wearing a 1939 throwback uniform. Ehh, I figure he has 'em already anyway. If not, I'll probably get doubles of some of them because that's how set-building goes.

Anyway, as great as the fronts of those cards are, the back of Gary DiSarcina's is even better.

I believe I'll just let that speak for itself.

Last of all, just to bring us full circle, here's the other autographed Fleer Tradition card I've gotten in the past couple weeks, this one of former infielder Damian Jackson. I must say, he looks like somebody just said the dumbest thing ever to him.

Well, that's all for now. I'd like to say I won't let a backlog like that build up again but it seems fairly probable. For now I'll work on trying to produce shorter, more frequent posts. See you tomorrow?

CYku

Unemployed no more
Chris Young got signed yesterday
He's back with the Mets

My Month In Zanesville (featuring token mentions of Jay Payton and Chris Young)

Jay Payton was born in and went to high school in Zanesville, OH. How did I come to discover this? Well, for a month four years ago, I read Z'ville's paper for a month straight and each day their sports section has a box featuring his up to date stats just like my local Parkersburg News & Sentinel does for our native son Nick Swisher. Why was I reading the Zanesville newspaper for a month? I'm glad you asked.
Our story begins with me driving the two hours from my house to Columbus to watch my friend Matt Fagtard's band Dirty Alleys/ Dirty Minds open up for Cheap Sex and The Scarred, help move their instruments and gear from their practice house to the venue and to of course hang out and party before, during and after the show. I started drinking before noon and was predictibly extremely drunk by the time the show started at 7 or so. As would be expected, I kept drinking and much of the night is grayed out. I remember giving three tattoos over the course of the day including one to the singer of The Scarred that I finished no more than five minutes before they took the stage. I remember giving my keys to Matt before the show and the last thing I remember is being given a throw pillow and being shown a piece of floor to sleep on.
The next thing I can remember happened three or four hours later. I was awoken by the worst sound I'd ever heard- an indescribable cacophony of metal on metal. I looked to my right and was nearly blinded by the bizarro double rainbow of more sparks than Jennifer Beals's day job scenes in Flashdance. The front right of my beloved Jetta was pinned under the cab of a semi! I was driving! Well, to be more realistic, I was in the driver's seat while being dragged at 90 MPH. What?!?! In spite of my terror, bewilderment and still present hammeredness- likely aided by adrenaline from the shock of finding myself in the situation of closing my eyes on a floor and opening them in my car certain I was dying, I managed to manuever my miraculously still drivable car from what I thought was our executor. I drove a few more miles before being bluelighted by Ohio Highway Patrol; that part of the story goes exactly as you'd expect it to. I was awakened after maybe two hours of sleep in holding and led before the judge. Still unbelievably drunk, I plead no contest, expecting a fine and maybe a day in jail since it was a first offense. The judge, noting on record that my appearance indicated a blatant disregard for society, instead sentenced me to thirty days. That's how I came to find out where Jay Payton is from.
I got to watch the Padres one time- on my last day there. It was when CY took a no-hitter against Pittsburgh into the ninth. Until that point, I wore a poker face the whole time I was there in times both bad and not quite so bad because that just seemed like the thing you were supposed to do. But when ESPN cut to the game, I was jubilant. All the happiness that had no reason to leave to show itself for over four weeks came out that moment. As you know, my joy was short-lived as Joe "Makes Me Hate My Own First Name" Randa wrecked it one out later.
During my time there, I wrote to my then-wife every day. Here are some excerpts:
Saturday, August 26th...It is so hard to think with these crackheads in here: "HAAAAA- YEAAH, NIGGA! NAH, F'RIL, DOE; F'RIL, DOE; YEEAH, NIGGA- HAHAHAHA" on and on repeating each others' nonsense trying to act hard ending every sentence with "nigga", YELLING FOR NO REASON constantly even when it's just one, endlessly talking about all things crackish, making loud noises for no reason, more jibberish repeated at least two times apiece......Everybody's out there watching the Browns game- I was out there for a few and a guy asked me "You like the Browns, nigga?" All I could come up with was "I'm wearing their colors aren't I?"
Thursday, August 31st...I keep having very realistic dreams and all I ever do in them is get drunk. I had one last night- I recall sitting in the backseat of someone's car drinking 22s out of a plastic bag. Typical... I have never heard the word "nigga" as much in my life as I have these past eleven days. It's like there's a contest and everyone's getting paid per use. It's ridiculous. These kids didn't get that from the streets, they got it from movies. That- and my cellmate who is the most flagrant user of "nigga" at the dumbest times is my height or less and the same build. He wears a 4X jumpsuit. Yeah. He and a few other "tough guys" fooling nobody but themselves like to not wear the part from the waist up and roll or tie it around their waist- or just have it on but unsnapped all the way down so you can see their "draws". The most retarded was when one of these goons was wearing it the first way I described so he had to walk around with his blanket over his shoulders wrapped around him to stay warm. Seriously. That's even dumber than the guy flipping through the channels stopping for a few minutes on the Weather Channel. You can't make this shit up...
They're watching the MTV VMAs- I stuck my head out because I heard the Chili Peppers but AFI won and of course my "bunkie" was like "You like them." Me: "Uh, no. Fuck them." Him: "But you gots to. Look at they hair." Me: "No. Fuck them." Him: "Aw, they GANGSTA, nigga...(jibberish)" OH, IT JUST GOT BETTER. As I was writing the word "jibberish" we got called out for head count so the interrogation resumed. "You like dat 'You're beautiful' song?" (it came on earlier so now, NO LIE, at least twice every minute you hear someone "singing" those two words as high-pitched as possible) Me: "No, I don't." This went on. One guy suggested I might like Marilyn Manson. Nope. "Who you do like?" "Uh, Social Distortion, The Bouncing Souls, Ran..." "Yo, Norris you eva hear of Search of Da Planet? He say he like them."
Tuesday, September 5th...They're out there watching some lame-o movie that they watched last week just because Angelina Jolie's in it. Whatthefuckever. One, she's weird looking and two, I don't get the whole being completely rapt with someone fully clothed on TV that you think is attractive. They haven't been here that long. I think it's more of a thing they do to let everyone know how straight they are. I don't think it's a jail thing; I think it's more of a macho douchebag thing. If they were "on the out" watching a football game they'd start hopping and pointing at the screen any time they showed a cheerleader: "Yo, she BANGIN', dawg!" Thankfully, I'm not the only one here who's not an idiot. Well, no, I take that back. If I weren't an idiot, I'd be at home right now. OH! That reminds me of a few days ago; I got done with the crossword puzzles, Jumble and cryptowhateveritscalled so I took the paper out there and set it down. Immediately, this curious no-neck picks it up and looks at me suspiciously and asks "You smart or something?" You could almost see the wheels turning in his head: "Must... eliminate... all... intelligence." So, the first thing that popped in my head was "No, I wouldn't be here if I was smart." He said something that sounded like "aw. Huh." but could have been just about anything and walked away. So, I sat there and read the A-section for at least five peaceful minutes before the lightbulb went off in his disproportionally small, shaved head. He walked up to me and said (remember- it had been five minutes) "Hey, I'm in here. You sayin' I'm not smart?" It took every ounce of inborn self preservation to keep from bursting into laughter before I could straightface a "We all got caught"...

CY & I: Cub Busters

Part II of the Joey lovefest will have to wait another day; I'm at my sister's house watching her kids so I don't have access to my pics of his cards. Here's a little something to tide you over:
My friend Shane and I have a pretty good system; whenever I pull any Cubbie cards, they go straight to him and whenever he gets any Friars on cardboard such as the '09 Signature Stars CY to your left, your pal TTG's collection gets a little bigger. Despite being a fan of the hapless Northsiders, Sheezy and his delightfully depraved fiance Tara are two of the greatest people you'll ever meet. I'm pretty sure they think as highly of me, seeing as how I am their beautiful daughter Aubrie's godfather- hell, they even entrusted me with naming her!

Back to baseball, Shane and I are like any other red-blooded set of friends in that we root for the other's team when it doesn't affect ours but talk mess like crazy any chance we get. Case in point: the Christmas before last, I bought him a Cubs jersey with #84 on the back. After he opened and examined it, he said something to the effect of "Sweet, you put the year I was born on it!" Now, I know when he was born but between the time of me buying it and him saying that, that fact never occured to me once and I told him as much. He thought about it for a second before the light bulb went off and he said "Oh, fuck you, Joe! At first I wanted to wear this every single day; now I want to set it on fire!" Score one for me.

Just to make this even remotely about CY, I will say that one of my all-time favorite images is the one of him about to punch former Friar Derrek Lee in his fear-stricken face.

See Why

First off, I'd like to apologize to my readers (both of you) for my week-long absence. Yeah, I know I threw that Antonelli up on Monday but I'll be the first to admit that was total BS. Things have been hectic abut I should have been prepared- that's why I'm churning out a few tonight to keep in the queue for days I'm swamped or just lazy. Anyway, on to the card...

It's crazy; I have exponentially more late 80s to mid/ late 90s cards (Pads and otherwise) than anything else but for some reason I'm constantly featuring and blathering about current ones. Maybe it's because they're still novel to me as opposed to the stacks of Padres past which I've perused repeatedly to the point that they're only slightly less weathered than my first copy of Ball Four (if, for some strange reason, you haven't read the greatest book ever written by anybody about anything, come back later to see what I've written about CY- right now it's much more imperative that you go straight to amazon.com or your friendly local bookstore) or possibly it could be that these players are fresher in my mind therefore easier to come up with cohesive thoughts about. I mean, seriously, what the hell am I gonna say about Roberto Friggin Petagine?

At any rate, here's my favorite of five Pads I scored the other day from a half-off ten pack box of 08 Topps. This particular quadrilateral commemorates the five shutouts occurring around the league on May 30, 2007. I'm equal parts amazed and pleased that CY got front billing amidst a cast including Zito, Lowe, Bedard and Sergio Mitre. None of the starters pitched an actual shutout, all bowing out to their respective bullpens.

On a side note, I went to the game the day before this one and it was definitely not the sort of affair worth printing a card about. Boomer Wells started, Li'l Giles got tossed early and, yeah, we lost.

'08 Heritage Checklist

It's an '08 card, but appears to be the '07 team- I'm pretty sure I spotted Mike Cameron and Broke in there. It's hard to tell since all of the faces are so effin' tiny. One thing I do know for sure is that the guy in the middle of the top row is totally CY.