Happy Long Weekend

Time to kick back and relax!

I'll be taking in my third game this week at Target Field. This place is amazing to watch a game. Tonight it's Slowey versus Colby Lewis. This will also mark my first game with Theodore. He'll never remember it, of course, but it's exciting all the same.

To celebrate I'm finally getting around to showing off another of the Goudey SPs I crossed off my list this month. I've also got a trade to post where another blogger helped me out with this set as well.

HBL Week 6

I figured I'd kill two birds with one post. Above is the third of four Goudeys I picked up in an ebay lot a couple weeks back. I've been slow to post and wanted to get it out there. I believe if they'd have made an entire set of these cards I'd have collected that as well. I like the cartoon details on the front, it just appeals to me.

Over to the HBL. My team has made great strides in the past two weeks. The pitching has really picked up with Peavy, Verlander, Beuhrle, Kenndedy, and Jeff Niemann. I can't say enough good things about Jeff Niemann this year. He's really starting to make his move toward the top tier of pitchers. He always had a really nice K rate in the minors and I've been comparing his career path with Ben Sheets (hopefully not the injuries). It took Sheets three full seasons before he finally brought the WHIP down and K-rate way up.

As good as the pitching has been the hitting has been equally terrible. Then came the injuries . . . to Benji Molina and Troy Tulowitzki. Molina, fine, I'll put AJ Pierzynski back in. Tulo? Well Tulo I was counting on busting out of his yearly slow start pretty soon, but he's hurt again. Am I surprised? Nope. Did I plan for this? Yup. Derek Jeter, you're a lucky man. You were going to grab some pine this week due to your all around crappy play, but you get a reprieve in the form of a Tulo quad injury.

I've been unhappy with Jeter all year due to his non-base-stealing. At this point I'd rather be playing Rickie Weeks at DH. More RBI, more runs, and more SBs, but then again, Rickie is due to be hurt in a week or so.

Lance Berkman is the other hitting I'm putting on notice. We will not abide another crappy week from you Lance. One more week Lance, that's it. We're sitting in the top half of the standings and I won't let you ruin things.

Lastly, Jay Bruce, I love you, but it's time to sit. I've got Marlon Byrd burning a hole in my pocket as well as most of the NL pitchers. So that's it, Jay Bruce sits till he hits (above .270).

Sports Royalty Mike Bossy

I must confess. I don't know who Mike Bossy is. I'm not even intrigued a little bit to find out.

Maybe once fantasy baseball stops destroying my will to live I'll look into who this guy is. For now, enjoy his portrait.

On a separate and somewhat related note I commented on a post over at Sewingmachineguy on Cards. This turned out to be an excellent idea as I'm now set to receive a few more of these Goudey short prints to try and complete my 2009 set. In exchange I plan to hit a few of his 2009 T206 needs.

Anyone who follows through on a comment from me, to my blog, to my needs list and actually knocks a few off is alright by me. Thanks for taking the time to poke around - it's much appreciated.

Jack Morris Goudey SP

Hello Jack Morris! In a Tigers uniform no less.

Jack Morris is a borderline Hall of Famer in my book. I could go either way. If he got in, I wouldn't be upset. If he was left on the outside looking in I could see why people felt that way too.

I don't use wins as a way to measure how great a pitcher was, but he did win at least 14 games over the course of 13 of 14 seasons culminating with his 21 win season in 1992 with the Blue Jays. That season is one reason you can't take wins seriously. 4.04 ERA. Those 21 wins were a product of an explosive Jays offense.

Morris did have approximately 8 seasons of dominant pitching. Do you need to be a pitcher who strikes out a batter per inning to be dominant and get into the Hall of Fame? In the roto world we live in now, it almost seems like you have to for quite some time. Morris averaged only 5.83 strikeouts per nine innings over his career, and had a WHIP of nearly 1.30. I believe these are the things keeping him out of the Hall.

In the end, I'm glad to add Jack to my Goudey collection. I'm still searching for more short prints from last year, and if you have any laying around, please let me know, I'd love to take them off your hands one way or another. My needs list is in the right sidebar.

This Jack Morris card came as part of a 4 card lot on eBay.

Bob Gibson Sports Royalty

Truely a member of baseball Royalty, Bob Gibson did me the honor of appearing the in pack I grabbed from Target this weekend.

For the record, I'm picking from the scraps of Goudey packs left at my neighborhood Target. I want to say there were six packs left when I decided to dip into the leftovers, and I've now bought three of them.

I've netted a Curt Schilling card I needed for my set, a Ted Williams short printed base card, a Vlad Guerrero Heads Up, and now the Bob Gibson card. Suffice to say, I might be done pushing my luck on those leftover packs.

Bob Gibson is also one of my favorite players from the past. His stats from 1968 still make me wish I could have seen a game of his from that year. Pure Nintendo numbers, 1.12 ERA, 22 Wins, 0.85 . . . just silly.

Welcome to my collection Bob.

I'll be sure to append the list of Sports Royalty cards I've found thus far, so as to possibly facilitate trades down the road.

Goudey Short Print Treasure Hunt

This weekend marked the first time I'd purchased a pack of Goudeys in over a month. Honestly, it felt like forever, and I missed them, so while I was at Target Friday night I grabbed one pack. Oh, also, I mistakenly grabbed a pack of 2008 Topps Series 2. I thought I was grabbing 2009. Lesson learned, never grab and run. Look carefully, both ways, lest you walk away with something very undesirable.

Anyway, I was excited to see that my Goudey pack was useful. Prior to opening this pack I was down to needing only 10 cards for the base set of 200. Make that 9, and welcome aboard Mr. Curt Schilling.

It helps that I love Curt Schilling too. He and Mike Mussina were definitely my favorite pitchers of the last decade, and yes it helps that they lead my fantasy baseball teams to greatness, I won't lie about that.

Now, back to the short print treasure hunt. I was lucky to have pulled a Ted Williams to go with my Whitey Ford and the Johnny Bench I received in my bundle of Goudeys from Card Cache. Now I'd like to go for all of the short prints, and I grabbed this list courtesy of Cardboard Junkie:

201 Brooks Robinson
202 Carlton Fisk
203 Gaylord Perry
204 Jack Morris
205 Rollie Fingers
206 Ron Santo
207 Sparky Lyle
208 Nolan Ryan
209 Whitey Ford
210 Phil Niekro
211 Ryne Sandberg
212 Jim Palmer
213 Joe DiMaggio
214 Johnny Bench
215 Ted Williams
216 Robin Yount
217 Ozzie Smith
218 Reggie Jackson
219 Yogi Berra
220 Mike Schmidt

For the time being this will be my Goudey focus. I'd especially love to trade for the Jim Palmer or Robin Yount cards to get this started. For convenience I've listed the cards I have in bold. Once I've tackled these short prints from the base set, I'll look at getting the Sports Royalty and Heads Up cards. I'm also currently looking for more 4-in-1s and will post a list of cards I need/want this week.

I have some 2009 Goudey Minis I'm willing to trade. You can check out my previous post here.