Card Collecting over Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving I was lucky enough to spend a few days in the warm weather in North Carolina visiting family. I cannot think of the last time my whole family was together for Thanksgiving. Along with the warm 70 degree with and the awesome dinner my sister made I was also able to talk baseball and card collecting with my brother-in-law The Snorting Bull. He was going through some cards and put some aside for me that he knew I would enjoy. Besides receiving some cool cards I also got some really good tips on collecting from him.

The first card that he had for me was from 1989 Bowman set that he was putting together. Being a huge Ken Griffey Jr. fan he had this awesome rookie for me. The thing that is cool about the card is the fact that it is slightly bigger then your typical baseball card.

The next three cards come from the 1998 E-X 2001 set. This is one of the coolest base set cards I have seen. I would have been 9 years old when this set came out and it was long before I serious collected. I could have a few of these in my collection as a kid, but with them being sold there is no way to tell. The cards feature Tony Clark (one of my favorite Tigers as a kid), Ivan, Pudge, Rodriguez (before he was a Tiger) and Justin Thompson.

After making the comment about how cool the E-X 2001 cards were, the Snorting Bull was talking to me about older card sets that had the same idea. He found a 1998 Topps Tek card of St. Louis Cardinals, Mark McGwire and he added it to my pile. He must have had a few of these to give up a Cardinals card.

The one current Tigers card that he had for me was of Miguel Cabrera from the 2015 Gypsy Queen set. It features a piece of his uniform and is #/25. Always great to add a Cabrera card to my collection.

The last card is a dual autograph card of early nineties Detroit Tigers, Frank Tanana (left) and Mickey Tettleton (right). During the nineties the Tigers didn't have any great teams. Tettleton had his best part of his career during his four years as a Tiger with a career OPS+ of 135 in Detroit. Tanana spent eight years in Detroit and had a career ERA+ 99 with the Tigers.

Trade with The Snorting Bull

A couple weeks ago The Snorting Bull and I worked out a trade. Last week he posted the cards I had dealt to him. I received my cards this afternoon once my card mule (a.k.a. my mom) returned from her vacation visiting him my sisters and my nephew.

Both of my pick up come from the Topps Pro Debut series. First up is Detroit Tigers 2014 First Round Draft pick Derek Hill. The card features a commemorative pennant patch of the Detroit Tigers Single A team. Hill only being 19 years old still has a way to go to prove if he will live up to a first round draft pick. Excellent speed on the base path and a great defender in centerfield. The question will be the bat.

The second pick up for me is of the Washington Nationals top prospect Lucas Giolito. Same type of card as Hill's with the commemorative pennant patch. Giolito was the 16th overall pick in the 2012 draft for the Nationals. He is known for his command and his control on the mound. His fastball averages between 93-96 mph and has even touched triple digits. He could reach the majors as soon as next year. Definitely someone I will follow closely the rest of the year.

Thank You Snorting Bull

Last week my parents went on a vacation to see my two sisters, brother-in-law, and nephew in North Carolina. For my dad it was more of a working vacation with the projects my sister had for him to do. I decided to stay in town, because of the busy end of the month for my job. When my parents returned home and stopped over and had dinner with them and talked about their trip. My dad told my mom to get what Eric (The Snorting Bull) gave me.

Again I will state I am a huge Ken Griffey Jr. fan. I grew up in the 90's idolizing him as a player. Even to this day he is ranked right at the top of my list as my all time favorite baseball players. Eric had this print laying around and didn't have much use for it and thought it should go to a good home. This is a print done by the artist Rick Rush and it is 1,877 out of 5,000 in production. I know pretty big number, but still cool to me. The picture shows Griffey's sweet swing (one of the best swing in all of baseball). From what I read it is suppose to be during the 1997 season when he was chasing the current home run record of Roger Maris' 61 homers. He would finish the season 5 short with 56 home runs.

Thanks again Eric a.k.a. The Snorting Bull!

#MyCardMonday

My brother-in-law, The Snorting Bull, has started a #mycardmonday where you show one of your favorite cards every Monday. He has been doing this for awhile now and has challenged people to start doing it as well. I figured why not starting doing this with a card that is connected to him.

A little background before we get to the card. Growing up as a kid I would buy a pack of cards here and there, but wasn't really much of a collector. I had a maybe 100-150 cards and when I went off to college for one year I was going through somethings trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I had no money and that Christmas of 2010 Eric (my bro-in-law) helped me sell my cards. Now fast forward to March of 2012 I decided to get into collecting. That March I was in North Carolina visiting family and told Eric I was interested in starting a collection.

I showed Eric a few cards that I had but they were nothing special. Well about a month later Eric tweeted me a picture of this Cabrera Triple Threads card. He told me he actually had a couple copies (if I remember correctly) of this card. Then he dropped some of the best news as a collector. He  said he would give me one of them. Being a Detroit Tigers fan or just a baseball fan in general you know how special of a player Miguel Cabrera is and as a baseball card collector his cards usually aren't very cheap.

Thank you Eric a.k.a The Snorting Bull for helping me out with my journey of collecting baseball cards and reintroducing me back into this great hobby!