Nick Strikes Again, Pt. I

There are few things as great as pulling a bubble mailer out of the mailbox, looking at the return address, and seeing that it's from Nick of Dime Boxes fame. He has repeatedly mailed me nothing but awesomeness. Odd thing is, we've never made a formal trade. I won his first contest and he sent me a slew of great Padres and some other assorted gems; I sent him back some cards I thought he'd like and a casual pattern emerged. This "non-trade" method of trading is definitely my favorite. The surprised joy of unexpected new cards is what I imagine Christmas must be like for kids whose mom isn't in some cult that thinks it's a pagan holiday so you get screwed out of presents and everyone in school thinks you're a weirdo. But anyway, as I was saying... envelopes from Nick are great and this one was no different.

Up top are two of the first I saw and two of my favorites. I have very few A&G cards and this one is nice. Topps managed to photoshop the new uniform on him correctly- unlike Carlos Quentin and Huston Street's Heritage issues- but he hasn't had the dreads since he shaved them of in May, 2011. Details. It's a good look, though. I wonder if he misses his dreads as much as I miss mine? ...That McCovey is a thing of beauty.

Next up are some oddballs. That Chase is my first Padre from the 2012 Triple Play set. I got a pack of them as an impulse buy this summer and I'm a fan. They're cheap and fun, which seems to fit the Triple Play mold. I looked up both of the players on the Old Judge cards; neither made the majors but Randy Curtis did get to AAA briefly for two organizations.

Everyone likes O-Pee-Chee, right? I love that split second right as you're about to put a card on the doubles stack and then you notice that it's not a Topps logo. I'm going to assume that everybody else stores OPC cards side-to-side with their Topps counterparts also.

I feel like '84 Topps are underrated. For as much as I like them, I didn't have very many before now. Of these, all but the Kennedy are new to me. I also enjoy the logo in place of an extra face shot on the manager card. My favorite of the bunch is Gwosdz, though. It's pronounced "Goosh"; his teammates called him "Eye Chart".

Camouflage! Of all the camo jerseys the Padres have worn, the original ones as shown here on Mark Kotsay his first time around are my favorites. The camo jersey on Yefri Carvajal is of the Fort Wayne Wizards, before they became the TinCaps.

Here are a few randoms I didn't have. I'm sure everybody reading this knows that Rick Wise had the greatest individual game ever so I'm not going to bother you with the details.

This hasn't even been half of what he sent. I'm going to make this a two-parter just in the interest of anyone who might happen to be reading this. I've been neglecting this blog for a while so this will help get me on a roll. Thanks, Nick; not only did you send me incredible cards, you got me blogging here again!

All Kinds Of Goodness (A Listia MegaPost)

Man, I have gotten soooo many cards from Listia. Not the past few weeks but that's a whole other story. I always- well, nearly always- would tend to take pictures of them almost right when I got them with the intent of posting them but we see how that turned out. So, I might as well show and tell about a slew of them so I can delete a bunch of pictures off of my lappy. Try not to get bored because I saved the best for last- and, trust me, it's worth the wait. It was worth the years of waiting it took me to get it.

First things first, up top are a few 2012 Topps I hadn't gotten yet. I already had the regular Logan but the Target Red Border was a nice addition.

Here are a couple of Geese. I didn't realize I already had the '88 Fleer when I bid for it but, as I recall, it was only 40 credits which equates to roughly one thin dime so I'm not complaining.

I had seen the card on the left before but never stumbled across it. On a side note, Mark Davis has got to be one of the most obscure Cy Young winners. Wait, that didn't sound right but I'm pretty sure you know what I mean. In other words, your casual fan would likely have never heard of him. On the right is a '95 Fleer. Dime Boxes' Nick always refers to it as the LSD set and for good reason. I remember at the time, the big deal was that they used a different design for each division. Amazingly, the NL West template was probably the tamest of the bunch. Eddie Williams is pictured here in his second of three tours of duty with the Padres.

I really like this Heritage issue of cult favorite Will Venable. Great smile, great card. I pictured it with a couple of actual '61 Topps cards. I actually got those on Listia as well; I've scored some pretty sweet vintage there and have started to post some of it over at NotPadres.

I've written about that Strom card before- well, kinda. Gotta love R.J.'s fro and that jersey. Don't gotta love Bobby V... Bleh.

Roberto Petagine had a long, successful career in Japan and even came back stateside in the mid-zeros but, again, that's a story for another time. It was hard to get a good picture of that Hermanson but you get the idea of what it does.

I have always really liked the '78 Topps design. A couple of these are doubles but they're all great. I spy with my little eye so much cool stuff in these eight cards. Two number one overall picks (Ivie and Almon), three mustaches, and two pairs of nice sideburns. There's a future Friars hitting coach in Merv Rettenmund and an early fan favorite in Gene Richards along with one of the most awesome names ever, Mike Champion. Also, why in the world is Richards choking up like that?

Here are a few of the many, many, many Gwynns I've picked up on Listia. I could, and very well may, do a megapost on just those. Or get back in the habit of doing "Tuesday's Tony Gwynn", "This Thursday's Gwynn" and stuff like that. I need to revive "Mustache Monday" too.

Wow, I'm not even halfway through my backlog of Listia picks so this officially just became Part I. But, I promised you a grand finale and this card won't disappoint. It's one I've wanted for yeeeeears and was beyond thrilled to get. It was part of a vintage bundle along with a 1970 Hoyt Wilhelm, a '73 Al Kaline, and others but was the only one I cared about.

IT'S THE COLONEL!!! Can you hang a star on that baby or what?!?! It's actually in remarkable condition for a 55 year old card. This is one I will absolutely not part with. Unless Jerry himself wants it but I don't see that happening. I already had a couple of '57 Topps cards but this was always the one I wanted to have. And now I do!

Well, that's that for now. There will be an inevitable Part II of this; I won't guarantee when but I'll try to make it soon. As always, thanks for reading; have a great Sunday!

Cards From Sam, Pt. I

Recently I gathered up a bunch of my Padres doubles, some other cool Padres cards and some Yankees cards and mailed them off my pal and yours Sam. In return, he sent me a whole slew of cards, including a ton of Padres and some non-Padres cards of favorite players of mine such as Joey Cora, John Kruk, Jay Buhner and Scott Radinsky along with some one-time Padres pictured with other teams. [side note: Sheesh, I have used the word "some" so much already.] Also included were four autographed cards, two of which are pictured above and the other two which will lead of tomorrow's Pt. II.

That's the whole batch. On the left are the Padres and the others are on the right. We'll dig a little deeper into the left stack tomorrow and I guess I'll write about the ones on the right over at NotPadres.

Kotsay Comes Through Again For The First Time

Tonight, Mark Kotsay did exactly what he was brought on board to do this time around. Brought in as a pinch hitter down by a run with No-Dog and Childish Cambino on in the eighth, Kotsay smacked a dub to center, scoring both. These were the only runs the Padres would need as Huston Street came in and picked up his second save. Bro Hymn!

Kotsay's Return

Mark Kotsay did pretty well for himself in his first game as a Padre since 2003. He singled twice in three at bats and took a walk. Not a bad day's work. He did ground into a double play but I'll let that slide; I try to keep it posi around here.