Well worth the wait

Saturday I came home from work with the goal to finish up some yard work before going out for the night with friends. Well when I came home from work I ran into a little bit of a delay with the yard work. Sitting on my front porch was a package from Big D's Cards. I pre-ordered Bowman and Gypsy Queen boxes. Jimmy asked me if I wanted to wait for both to come in so they could ship together and I had no problem with that. Let's start with what I pulled from Gypsy Queen box today.

In the Gypsy Queen set they include a set of mini cards. I am not really into collecting the mini cards mostly, because they are hard to figure out how to store in my opinion. It is cool that they have parallels with the minis. I pulled a Cody Allen and a Nick Markakis both out of /199.

I only pulled on parallel and the regular size cards and I was pretty happy with the pull. Albert Pujols is on track to be a future hall of famer so it is always nice to add one of a potential hall of fame player. Gypsy Queen has problem on of the coolest parallels that I like to add. It is their framed bordered cards and the pictures are indented.

I really excited when I pulled a printing plate. I'm not a Cubs fan, but this was a first one that I had ever pulled. Being a relatively new collector (only the past 3 years) it was a cool card to pull. It is a 1/1 pull, but it was shot down when I was reading The Snorting Bull blog this morning and he said there is one per box about. Anyways I was still happy with the pull.

My first autograph I pulled was a Michael Taylor rookie autograph. A top prospect for the Nationals who saw a little bit of action so far this year in the majors and put together a decent call up for the Nationals. I believe he was called up while Denard Span was on the DL.

Being a Detroit Tigers fan I was actually happy to pull a Yorando Venture autograph. A young power throwing pitcher that has shown signs of being a good ball player. This year he is somewhat of a headcase between the incident with Mike Trout and the Chicago White Sox. I guess he really take offense to batters hitting up the middle.

Now as a Tigers' fan this is a great pull for me. David Price shut down the Royals Saturday night in a complete game. He is looking good outside of one start for the year for the Tigers. I would like to see them resign his to a long term deal, but time will tell.

Now this is the coolest card that I pulled. It was actually in the first pack that I ripped into  also. I'm not a Yankee fan, but Derek Jeter was the face of baseball for a ton of years and is all around great ball player. He will eventually be a first ballot hall of famer. I really like that this relic has a pin stripe also. Makes the card that much cooler to me. This is actually the second Jeter relic that I pulled since I started collecting again.

#MyCardMonday

Over the past couple years it seems that if you are a young pitcher with a lot of promise you there is a high probability that you could have Tommy John surgery and be out of commission for a year. Well, the Arizona Diamondbacks' young rookie pitcher, Archie Bradley last week went on the disable list with a different injury. In a scary incident he took a line drive off of the face from the Colorado Rockies outfielder Carlos Gonzalez. He suffered a right sinus fracture and was placed on the 15 day DL and is hoping to be able to get back to throwing this week.

I somewhat have followed Bradley the past few seasons after getting this card. I was hoping he would have made the majors last year, but again to an injury his season was cut short. He did make the team this year and looked really good early on in the young season. For #mycardmonday I thought I would wish Bradley a quick recovery and I hope he has good long career!

The jury is still out on Harper

A late post for #mycardmonday is better then no post at all. It was a busy day at work for me and with the Red Wings in a good hockey game (unfortunately they lost) I am just now getting to the post.

Back in 2012 the baseball community saw two big name player make their rookie debuts. One really made his name when he came up to the majors (that being Mike Trout) and the other having a bunch of hype even before he was drafted. The latter of the two being Bryce Harper. Over the next three seasons I am unsure of what I think of Harper. He has put together a good OPS+ of 123 over his short career, but only has a career high of 22 home runs and 59 RBIs, both of which came in his rookie season. For as much hype he has received since he came up I would think he should be hitting at 30+ home runs and drive in over 100 RBIs a year. Why I am still on the fence to believe the hype is because he is still young, only 22 year of age. Maybe he will start to produce as he starts to age and mature a bit. Only time will tell.

This video is Cole Hamels "welcoming" Harper to the majors. He threw at him and Harper got his revenge by stealing home. I would be lying if I did told you that I didn't love this. To me this shows me that Harper goes all out. I love that he didn't charge the mound, but decide to show up Hamels by stealing home. I know stunts like this and him running full speed into the outfield fence and injuring himself has caused him some flack from people, but I would love to see some play this hard more often then someone ease up, because of being afraid to piss off a veteran guy or a possible injury. What Harper needs to lay off of is being such a "bro" on and off the field.

I would love to see Harper live up the hype he was given before he was drafted. He does need to mature on and off the field and maybe he will be that 30+ home run guy with 100 RBIs driven in each year, but only time will tell what he will do.

Awesome mail day!

Yesterday was another good day for me when I got out of work. Not only was I done for the day for work, but I was going out to eat with some really good friends of mine. Oh yeah I also had this awesome card waiting for me when I got home. Last week I saw this card posted on one of the many baseball card groups on Facebook. This group I haven't done much with, mostly because I'm afraid to get scammed and I see posts of people saying this person scammed that person. Well I thought I would take a chance on this David Price 2009 Topps Finest manufactured autograph patch. It was a great deal that I couldn't pass up on and it obviously worked out for me. This is my second autograph letter patch card (first being a Porcello) and I love these cards.

I would like to also give a shout-out to my best friend Augie for taking my laptop and cleaning it up for me. Now I write my blog while watching my Tigers!

#MyCardMonday

As a Detroit Tigers fan I will say I am extremely lucky to watch a player who should go down in history as one of the all time greatest hitters to play the game that we all love so much. That player being Miguel Cabrera.

For #mycardmonday I thought I would honor Miggy today. It is truly a pleasure to see him play almost every night in the Old English D uniform. Even with injuries that was dealing last year he still managed to play 159 games. He did have a down year offensively, but a down year for Miggy he still hit .313/.371/.524 with 25 home runs and 109 RBIs. Oh and lets not forget he did lead the league with 52 doubles all while dealing with bone spurs. As of right now he is 8 home runs shy of 400 for his career so it shouldn't be much longer and I will being doing another post about him reaching that milestone.

Once Miggy decides it is time to hang up the cleats, it will only be a few years before he should be immortalized in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It is really something to watch this guy play for my Detroit Tigers.

Mail Day! David Price

I have been slacking off on writing about some of the recent cards I have received in the mail over the past week or so. Mostly due to the fact of being busy at work and that is where I can scan the cards onto my computer. Hopefully in the next week or so I will be able to get caught up on my collection.

In this year's Topps Series 1 set they released their relic cards based on players career highs. Pretty cool that they are incorporating some cool feat that each player has accomplished. Being a Detroit Tigers fan I thought I would start with adding a David Price relic. This card is shows him in his days with the Tampa Bay Rays, more specifically his Cy Young season of 2012. That season Price was dominating on the mound. He would win 20 games and as you can see on the card his ERA was 2.56 to go along with his ERA+ of 150. He would even beat out our Detroit Tigers' ace, Justin Verlander that year of Cy Young.

#MyCardMonday

After missing last Monday I thought I would do a card that is something other then baseball for #MyCardMonday. Today I will show off one of my favorite hockey players of all time, Bob Probert.

Probert was one of the most feared guys to ever lace up the skates. He was known for his fists and protecting his teammates. When he was with the Red Wings he had a motto if you went after Steve Yzerman, the captain of the Wings, you better watch your back.

Kevin Maguire learned the hard way in this video. It might be a cheap shot, but Probert was going to get his message across one way or another. Nobody was going to lay a hand on his captain and go unmarked.

You know you are a legend when a hardcore band, Grimlock, writes a song about you. Here is the song "24" by Grimlock along with the highlights of Probert's career. RIP Bob Probert.