Topps Diamond Giveaway: The Truth Is Out There...

I could be imagining all of this, but I have about 50 cards on the TDG site, and I will be having about 12-15 sent to me. I have noticed some weird stuff about the site.

1. I have been offered a 1983, 1984 or 1985 gaylord perry by at least 15 different users(I wasn't paying attention at first) or about 25-30 times since I entered my first code. (1983 dominates with a solid 15 of those) No other single card, or player (out of hundreds of offers turned down) fits this pattern.
2. I get offered cards that I had already tried to trade for...one word: Bots. Accounts run by people at topps to keep it all moving.
3. I also seem to get a lot of cards in the categories I search...brewers, orioles, 1973, etc.

more to come from me later.
you?

Holy Crap Breakdown: I Didn't Know It Was Like That, 2012...

So Topps is the big dog...[edit: only dog], and after seeing the base design from this year's release (gag), I was truly thinking I was going to take a year off from buying too much topps base and getting nothing for nothing, just to bust. This will be that year...but there is more to the 2012 set than meets the eye or even the sell-sheet seen below:

The golds are here...with a sparkle not nearly as annoying as the Diamond Anniversary parallels, but look all you want for a serial #...you will not find one.

Now that we've covered the general, I am going to show you why I have been trolling ebay for 2012 topps since it really hit the secondary.

 The whole theme used for these WS inserts (GU and auto only) is perfect (that's right, I'll come back to this below). It is like the All-Star cards from the Yankee stadium all-star games...it just looks right and proper. ahh, the fall classic. In all honesty, this design is so pleasant to look at it makes me forget all about losing to them in the playoffs.

 awesome. Year of win is in the pin. and there are our beloved thin gold #s again. I will have a Brooksie.

 I really can't believe what I'm seeing here. I was truly a fan of the improvements made to the base inserts, but had no idea how insanely well they would translate into high-end pieces. even the sticker doesn't turn me off this one...my god, it's full of stars...

This was the insert that I got that I will be buying the set of to put in a binder to appreciate forever. This heavy hitter up here is an example of amazing design and forethought.

 So clean, so fresh. So fresh and so clean. And I love these two guys.

 [ The "Say Hey Kid" and2011 MVP Matt Kemp]

 what? omigod. where do these come from? so sick.

 This has been done, we all know it. It was not, however, done when a card made out of gold is worth the price to see a game...just the gold, that doesn't include the "1/1" symbol they stamped on it. Where do these come from?

 These look a little funny with the "brushed bronze" patina, but the design reigns and the symbol stands. At least I assume they are metal. My impression would be significantly changed if it were plastic, but I digress...

 Looking at these cards makes me relaxed like having a dog squeezed into the big chair with me. Unlikely heroes from this WS make these family must-haves.

 Damn that's hot...

 Design,design,design. Holy Cow, from fonts to window cut.

(Am I just blind to manu-patches now? are you?)

 This is the one I pulled from my blaster: I was over the moon. Best manu-patch yet. Really outstanding piece for my FRob collection

 Did you know you could pull this? How many cut autos are floating around the web with people posting things like "how'd I do?" and "Don't know who this is, how'd I do?"...I find this annoying, but that is why I don't buy those products. But Nellie Fox? and that fade....mmmmmmmmmhistoric...

 Did you think you could pull this? holy shit that is one incredible card. Great photo, placement, design, color palate. excellence. I am getting amped just writing this post I am so high on these cards...

 ok, that's incredible. what more could you possibly want from a case(?) hit?

 Coins, whatever, this has also been done. but the coin is not embossed on the card, it is an actual coin in thick-stock that can be removed from its surroundings and is a full-size coin. How could you NOT know if one of these was in your pack?box?case?

 So simply gogeous, I can't stand it anymore. And the CALIBER of players is another thing I would like to highlight here. Total Keepers up and down.
 And just for good measurez: Mickz(probably from a factory set):

T Plush: Gonna keep me sane this year...

A Made Man: NFL MVP AARON RODGERS

First, I want to say that I am not sure which is which, but in the last few years of NFL, all of my favorite players have been Green Bay Packers. Also, My Favorite team has been the

Green Bay Packers since my father taught me to catch.

It just so happens that the Petersons (Grandpa) and Schumakers (grandma) were both from Northern Wisconsin, second generation immigrants from Norway and Germany respectively.

history then, history now, history forever.

Congratulations, Aaron. you gave us a truly gifted performance this season.

My Other Head Is A Sneaker: Best Auction Ever (I think I've used that qualifier before)

     I'll keep this short because I am going "off the record" (if you haven't heard the song by that name by My Morning Jacket, do it)

      This is the goofiest auction I have ever seen. check out this auction for a pair of "air jordans".

 Make sure you check the "fine print"...

While I do collect alot of things, I tend to get the best return on my investment with the cards. My love of the autograph and sports is what started this blog, as sports stars often have little else remarkable about them aside from their stats and script and cardboard.

     For those of you outside the now-open closet that is the "SneakerHead"

(or participant in the "shoe game"), here's a peek. 

 Fancy rubber-leather-synthetic conglomerates created to cover, protect, and even "enhance" your feet, are worth a small fortune.

new, on eBay, Jordans go for $250+ new. And that's the ones that are "hot" or just came out. There are literally 50-100 auctions for the exact same pair of shoes, but all of these people paid $160. That's retail.

these are fake, but they look good.

The president getting the new jordan "spi'zike's" from Spike Lee himself (whom I respect more for his art than his sneakers) is much better news than people getting robbed all over the metro richmond area after waiting hours in the cold for them. (If you are going to publicly announce your acquisition of a $200 pair of sneakers, get a ride home.)

Ones That Speak To Me: B. Phip, Let 'er Rip (aka Not Meant For Stickers)

Great call, getting Brian into this set. This guy was never meant for stickers. He really lets her out on this one, I'll be watching for other ones, as Topps has kept my attention with the recent spate of SPA-like clean white cardstock and on-card autos. They haven't reached UD's impact in that arena, and they still have the gall to use those reflective stickers.

Here's a few other's that really were not ever fully comfortable on sticker, and whom I am glad had a chance to let 'er rip.

 Classic hyper-scrawl from Mr. Ramirez. (p.s. I want to believe)

 Could you have held your "L" and "y" to sticker height? right.

Glorious.

I Want To Care Again: Can a Stain Be Lifted?

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1035799-ryan-braun-milwaukee-brewers-left-fielder-may-be-proven-innocent-sources-say
from bleacher report...
it would be great to get this elephant out of the room. permanently.

Miami "Professional" Baseball: Like catching a real Marlin, it's going to be a struggle.

Wow, if you guys are this big of a disaster in the dead of winter (up here, at least) I cannot wait to see where this s**t flies, having already started to hit the fan and disperse throughout the room of baseball...the Unis, two Shortstops, now you look like Bernie Madoff...I believe this event may likely be too high to register even on the Buehrle meter. Now we can take a moment to imagine if Albert was reppin' South Beach.

        "Following the financial meltdown of 2008, President Bush diagnosed the deus ex machina of the Great Recession like this: "Wall Street got drunk." He was wrong. Wall Street did not get drunk. Wall Street got over. Wall Street made billions underwriting crappy mortgagees, repackaging them as Triple-A investments and peddling them to naïve investors (read: your 401(k), state pension plans); made billions more placing side bets on and against the preceding criminal, but not technically criminal practice; made billions on top of that when the whole unsustainable shell game went belly up, thanks to a massive, unprecedented influx of taxpayer cash -- again: your money -- via TARP and the Federal Reserve's money-for-nothing "discount window," which in turn allowed financial houses to keep handing out the kind of outsized salaries and bonuses that had the encamped residents of Zuccotti Park so peeved."

from Bleacher Report dot com

Live Up To It, or Leave It Alone: It's A Mess In Here

I have too many baseball cards...I have taken a major blow to the collecting soul I have embraced over the last few years. The one that got me into blogging in the first place. Everytime I think of this Ryan Braun news, I get sick to my stomach. I think I was secretly hiding away my true fervor for this athlete since the first box of bowman I opened in 06. He was the first Brewers low-level prospect I invested in after moving back to richmond in 05. I made a lot of money off of a few graded AUTO RCs and kept a "personal" collection" filled with every topps issue and variation of his from both 2007 and 2008 (minus 1/1s).

From 2004-2006 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Brewers were like a god inside me. It had been 7 years since mom and dad passed and I had lived 4-5 of my 9 lives in that span alone.... Going to Miller Park, seeing games in a glorious cathedral where my now long past, father came to see the World Series Braves when he was a teen. It is bigger than my favorite picture of my friend robin and I in front of the park, it is bigger than me going to the park by myself on mother's day. It is something I have been waiting to see in myself...a sea change.
I used to be well aquainted with massive shifts in perception and sudden upheaval of values, senses and awareness. They come fewer now. I feel it happening now. I see the images of the tsunami in Japan, the power of the turn of the earth.

I will be coaching my third year at the HS JV level this winter. I need to let my mind change.

Baseball is a game of physics.

...but physics came first.

Peterson

Ryan Braun: Eye-muffs

Are you truly fucking serious? One of the spate of influences that got me back into collecting? Who carried the brewers in my heart down to virginia in 07, and, along with easily one of the most loveable teams Milwaukee has seen since maybe the short-lived 88-93 "Robin's Egg's" years...

We have yet to hear your "reason" for this positive test, but it was a positive test...like Manny's...and you are a fucking liar. Is it too good to be true? Short answer: yes. Long answer: keep watching baseball til you die. It won't change much.

I have a ton of your cards. I have every 2005-2007 card.

I have every 2007 Topps (RC), AND 2008 topps ROY variation ever printed

I was really looking forward to collecting a rainbow or patch of your

"MVP SEASON"

so much for that shit.

I just feel sick about it, but maybe I'll get better.

even if someone slipped you something during the chaos of the playoff run...

It is still your body, your responsibility, your team, your fans.

they are called that for a reason.

live up to it, or leave it alone.