Baseball Card Blogs » Cardboard Junkie

Ok, i can quit buying Topps206 now

dayf — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:42:00 +0000

2010 Topps206 Blaster recap

dayf — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:45:00 +0000

I thought I'd do this blaster recap a bit differently since no one seems to be all that concerned with the cards in this set. Instead I'll break it down according to what people really care about in Topps206:

HATS or NO HATS

Base cards -

Hats - 3 (2 SP)

No hats - 35

Has a hat, but not on head - 2

Do-Rag - 1

Minis -

No hats - 7

Hats - 1

Total number of people on this card with a hat - 40

Total number of people in the box with a hat:

Total number of people in the box without a hat:

Undecided - 1 (is a do-rag a hat?)

THE HATS WIN

Bonus stats:

Total number of people who
REALLY REALLY NEED A HAT: 8

Placido Polanco - Pumpkinhead

Dustin Pedroia - Hair retreating faster than the French Army

Kevin Millwood - A nice new cap with something other than an Orioles logo on it might alleviate his depression

Adam Lind - Roosterhead

Alex Rios - Bad case of Picard Point

Colby Rasmus - Mop Top/Ringo's love child

Justin Masterson - need an earring to pull off the Mr. Clean look

Jason Werth - MULLET ALERT

Total number of people who are perfectly fine without a hat: 6

Yogi Berra - Yogi is perfect in every way.

Mike Cameron - Got the Samuel L. Badass look down pat.

Carlos Quentin - Q's got the tousled look that drives the girlies wild.

Cy Young - absolutely perfect 1909 hair.

Joan of Arc - Mess with that woman's hair and she'll CUT YOU

The best card in the entire set:

No explanation necessary.

If anyone cares…

dayf — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:38:00 +0000

I can be seen at 0:39 in the 'Hanson hurls seven shutout frames' clip clapping after Tommy's strikeout. I'm the fat guy in the Braves cap and dark blue shirt in the second row behind the on deck circle behind the lady in the pink shirt.

I feel like a total choad doing something this narcissistic, but sruchris' comment got me wondering if I could spot myself in a highlight. Then Night Owl started detectiving. I figured it would be better to waste a few minutes of my time to keep the readers from going on a wild dayf hunt. So now my incessant reminders that I had better seats at a game than you or anyone in your family will ever have is actually an unselfish benevolent service to humanity.

Card back countdown: #36 – 1992 Donruss

night owl — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:32:00 +0000

Topps wasn't the only company that decided to finally change with the times in 1992. Donruss made a few overdue alterations with its own '92 set.

First, I'll address the front. Gone were the kiddy designs. Apparently the 5th graders Donruss hired to draw the designs for the late '80s/early '90s sets got the boot. Child-labor laws or something. Instead, Donruss chose to emphasize the photo on the card. I wasn't crazy about the light-blue bars, but it sure beat the snot out of what Donruss did in 1991.

However, this is the card BACK countdown. So let's talk about the back:

For me, the '92 Donruss back is so-so. It has its good points -- like continuing the Donruss tradition of featuring a player's full name, only much larger. And I like the organizing of the career highlights, as well as the contract status blurb. Also, the head shot is a first for Donruss.

The drawbacks for me are the limited use of stats (always an issue with Donruss), and the light blue type used for the contract status.

But all of this is overshadowed by one major fact, and basically the only reason why this set is on the card back countdown.

Donruss finally climbed out of a 10-year card back rut with the 1992 design.

In 1981, Donruss debuted with a somewhat different back, using career highlights and a single line of statistics in a vertical format. Then, in 1982, it went with a different look. It was horizontal and featured five years worth of stats. Donruss liked this look so much that it was repeated for the next two years.

There you have, from top to bottom, the 1982, 1983 and 1984 Donruss sets. The only change in set-up is the addition of contract status after the 1982 set, and the different colors. Everything else is the same.

Then, in 1985, Donruss changed its back, ever-so-slightly:

Donruss decided to put a border around the yearly statistics. The 1985 Donruss card back is in the top left corner.

Donruss then beat collectors to death with the same card back for the next six years. The 1986 Donruss card back is at top center, and the '87 card back at top right. At the bottom, from left to right, is the 1988, 1989 and 1990 Donruss card backs. Only the color has been changed.

Then, in 1991, Donruss kept the back the same, but used two different colors to match the two different colors used with the borders on the front, blue for series 1 and green for series 2.

(*sigh*) At least Donruss had never used that color of green before.

So after completely phoning in the card back for a whole decade, we finally got this:

I, for one, was grateful. I actually bought some Donruss that year. I can't say the same thing about the previous six years.

Best of the set:

I'll go with The Kid.

Only because I probably noticed for the first time that year that Griffey was really "George Griffey Jr."

(previous card back countdown selections):

50. 1978 SSPC Yankee Yearbook
49. 1993 Score
48. 1999 Skybox Thunder
47. 2000 Upper Deck
46. 1999 Skybox Premium
45. 1953 Johnston Cookies Braves
44. 1995 Topps
43. 1997 Fleer
42. 1992 Pinnacle
41. 1989 Bowman
40. 1977 Kellogg's
39. 2004 Topps
38. 2004 Topps Total
37. 1992 Topps

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This has nothing to do with the previous subject, but I don't want to create a whole new post for it.

As you may know, one of our fellow card bloggers, dayf, landed some awesomely bitchin' seats at a Braves game last week. He recently put up some photos displaying exactly how bitchin'.

Well, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought, given his close proximity to home plate, "I wonder if dayf's beatific face was preserved forever in photographic form?"

But instead of wondering, I went looking. I have access to baseball game photos. So last night I scoured the Associated Press pix from that game, a Wednesday night offering between the Braves and the Mets. From the photos that dayf posted, it's obvious that he was seated off to the right of home plate.

That was unfortunate, because most of the AP home plate photos appeared to be taken from the general direction of where he was seated. Photos of Heyward, McCann batting are all from this viewpoint.

But then I spotted a play at home plate. And it appeared to be shot by a photographer on the other side of the field.

That is an AP photo of Rick Ankiel getting tagged out by Mets catcher Josh Thole in the fourth inning.

And I am wondering, is the person peering over the gentleman with the gray hair actually dayf?

Click on the image for a larger view. I circled him in red.

I can't be positive about this, as my ability to recognize people in real life is absolutely atrocious. But it sure does look like the Cardboard Junkie.

So what do you think? I suppose only one person knows.

Monkeying around in MSPaint again

dayf — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:27:00 +0000

Did you know Jim Bouton ended his career as an Atlanta Brave? Yep, Bulldog pitched five whole games with them in 1978. Topps totally dropped the ball and didn't make a card of Jim in the 1979 set. I have corrected that error with my own custom creation:

You might recognize the photo from Beardy's 2010 Masterpieces set:

I requested that card because up until that point I had been too lazy to create my own card. I unlazied myself and got to working. It may seem tacky to reuse the same image on two cards like that, but this is only the second picture of Jim in a Braves uniform I've ever seen. The other is on the Ball Four plus Ball Five cover that was published in 1980. There's got to be some more pics of him out there somewhere, right?

Bonus quiz: Can anyone guess which '79 Topps card I used as the base for my custom?

Pics from the Braves-Mets game -1st inning

dayf — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:57:00 +0000

I took more pictures than I thought so it's taken me a while to scrounge through them for some decent pics. I still have a 35mm roll to develop too... Here's some pics from the first inning of the game I went to on September 1st against the Mets. But first a comparison to some pics I took at a couple of other games I attended in the past couple of months.
Here's a shot of Jason Heyward taking a swing at the plate at the July 4th Game at Turner Field.

And here's J-Hey at the plate in the first inning of the game against the Mets.

Here's another comparison, Freddie Freeman (#30) manning first base for the Gwinnett Braves at Coolray Field. this is about the closest I got to Freddie.

And here's the closest I got to Freddie (now #5) at the Braves game. THESE WERE DAMN GOOD SEATS.

Most of the good pictures on my crummy camera phone came in the early innings before the glare from the lights got too bad. I tried to correct the brightness the best I could, but there's only so much you can do on a free phone you get with a contract. Here's a pictorial recap of the first full inning I saw (bottom of the first and top of the second) since I got to my seats a little late.

Here's leadoff man Omar Infante taking some cuts in the batter's circle before the inning started. I was somewhat shell shocked by the view at this point but went into full blown Baseball Madness moments later.

JASON HEYWARD. MERE FEET AWAY FROM ME. MIND = BLOWN. I took more pics of Heyward than anyone else by far. If you watched the game on TV, you would have seen a fat goofy idiot clicking away snapshots all night whenever the director pointed the cameras at the Braves on-deck circle.

Omar digs in on his first at-bat. Omar would single and J-Hey would follow that up with a double that sent Omar to third.

Martin Prado waits for the pitch while Omar stands at third.

Here's Brian McCann stretching before his at-bat. Heyward is hanging out on second in the background.

More McCann stretching because you can't have enough Big Mac.

Prado smacked a double during his at-bat and Jason and Omar head back to the dugout after scoring. Braves up 2-0, which is all Tommy Hanson would need.

Mac heads to the plate and Eric Hinske takes some cuts. Eric is a big ol' burly dude.

Freddie! On deck before his first MLB at-bat.

Hinske's up while Freeman waits his turn. McCann got Prado over to third on a sac fly.

Hinske would hit a grounder to first but Ike Davis went home and threw out Martin. Boooooooo! Freeman steps up while the ump cleans up the plate after the close play. Meanwhile Brooks Conrad causes a big dust storm by scooping up a handful of dirt and rubbing it all over his hands and bat handle.

Freeman would ground out in his first at bat. Yes, some Yokel reminded him that J-Hey hit a home run on his first swing. Mets are now up in the second inning after a 1-2-3 inning in the first.

Chris Carter is up as McCann signals Hanson. Much X-files theme song was played on the organ this evening. Chris drew a walk and stole second.

Tommy H. deals to Carlos Beltran. Carlos flew out and wasn't able to advance the runner.

Finally, here's rookie Ike Davis. Ike also flew out to Ankiel. In fact everyone in this inning flew out to Ankiel.

More pictures to come once I have time. Might be around Christmas, but I'll get 'em up.

SON OF FRANKENSET

dayf — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:27:00 +0000

You knew I couldn't resist doing this, right?

Now that Topps206 is out for its fifth set (2002 Topps206, 2002 Topps206 Series 2, 2003 Topps206 Series 3, 2009 Topps206, 2010 Topps206) I've got enough T206 mini fodder for a new FrankenSet. I actually has enough before, but now I have brand new notched border diamond-cut minis to add to the set.

Like the Allen & Ginter set, I'm trying for a complete set of all the base cards. In A&G, that's 1-350, with Topps206 it's a little trickier. The 2009 and 2010 sets are numbered from 1-300. Then there are 50 short prints. Complicating matters is the original 2002-2003 set is 456 cards.To reconcile this, I've decided to build the FrankenSet 1-300, then pick out 214 additional minis to create a full 514 card set to match the original T206 set. The extra cards allows me to pick the best from the 1-300 rejects, along with the Series 3, short print, and promo minis that have no place in the 1-300 set.

I'm also trying to get a good mix of card backs. All three sets have completely different card stock which is neat. The American Caramel back is causing mixed feelings. It's a cool new design, but it's not an original T206 back. They're a completely different set, actually. I'll put 'em in there, but Topps should have used the Hindu back. I am also thinking of adding a 'Big 4' rare cards to the set by picking up a couple of 1/1 backs or newfangled chromes, but I haven't decided for sure on that yet. Now that Topps is cluttering up Topps206 with history cards, it will be lightly more challenging to add to the set, but I'll manage.

I Can Be Bribed

dayf — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 04:15:00 +0000

I have had an extraordinarily long day, so the pics from the game will have to wait until tomorrow (Or today depending on how long it takes me to write this post). I do have something to share with you, and that is that I am a greedy scoundrel who will post anything for the promise of cards. Ok, maybe not anything, but if you have a blog about cards and you want to give me swag just for a link, I'm not gonna say no. So everybody go an click on this link RIGHT NOW:

TOO

MANY

GRANDERSONS

Apparently the title is a pun or something as there cannot be too many Grandersons. At least 2009 and earlier Grandersons. The 2010 version where he's forced to wear that icky stripey uniform, maybe there can be too many of those.

There are not too many of this blog, one is just right. Dennis AKA caljr3000 has only made 7 posts, but what grand and, er, sunny posts they are! There appears to be a lot of box breaking on the blog which is always nice. My broke ass can't even buy 30 dollars worth of groceries (ok, and a rack pack) at Wal-Mart before being shamed and shooed out the door for trying to used a maxed out card with my wife's name on it so a little box break vicariousness is good, no? So far on the blog we've learned that a whole lot has happened to Jumbo boxes in a short five years.

We've also learned Dennis is a shameless self-promoter which is great for a greedy scoundrel like myself. I only know for sure of one other person who linked the blog so if you are greedy too maybe you can get your mitts on a code. It couldn't hurt to try, and besides, the guy posts Simpsons clips so he can't be all bad. Even if he's a bit obsessed with Wolverines.

1954 Johnstons Cookies Billy Bruton

dayf — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:37:00 +0000

I'm still suffering from a baseball hangover and probably am not going to post anything today. In the meantime enjoy this pristine copy of a 1954 Johnston's Cookies card. I think this was three bucks from Sports Memories when they were in town last year.

Freddie Freeman’s debut

dayf — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:00:00 +0000

I've got 50 things to do today and 47 of them probably ain't gonna get done, but I wanted to give you all a quick taste of the photos I took from my camera last night. Here's Freddie Freeman on deck during his major league debut.

More tonight...