Golden Giveaway Trade

 A few weeks ago, I unlocked a Reggie Jackson die cut from this year’s Golden Giveaway. Now, if this were the Diamond Giveaway, I would have had hundreds of trade offers to sort. But no one trades on the Golden Giveaway site because: 1. No one logs on, 2. It’s boring, 3. The only cards that exist are these die cuts, and 4. Virtual coins are dumb.

Every week or so I’d log on and check if there were any trade offers for the Reggie. Usually there were about 3 or so. David Wright for Reggie? Nope. Pedroia? Barf. Roberto Alomar? Not bad, but no thanks.

I finally made a few trade offers for some Yankees and landed this:

I would have rather had a retired Yankee or Hall of Famer, but I love Cano and I’m sure these cards are nice. I just wish the experience of trading on this site was more enjoyable.

Cards from Jaybarkerfan's Card Shop

I think Wes from Jaybarkerfan’s Junk has a card shop that he isn’t telling us about. Wes sent me another flat rate box full of Yankees last week. I’m not certain how he has this many Yankee cards from so many different years. My explanation – he has a shop and has been cleaning out the back rooms...you know, the one with tons of boxes of cards from the ‘90s and early 2000s?

Nothing else could explain where Wes gets and store all these cards. My collection of new Yankees has certainly grown by leaps and bounds because of his generosity. Just look at all the team bags stuffed to the brim! Each one was a great time to go through.

Here is a very small selection of the goodies he sent. There were two on card autos! It would take too long to scan everything, so here’s an assortment of cards I particularly enjoyed:

Slow Mo

I'm still kind of in a haze about this Rivera thing. I know injuries happen to every team. It's just the way this all went down for someone who deserves better. There's been a lot of really nice columns written by Yankee writers, baseball writers, even Red Sox writers all saddened by this course of events.

Anyhow, tonight we must move on. The Yanks need to pick it up on offense and get some quality starting pitching. The bullpen needs to rally and whether it's Soriano or Robertson, someone needs to step up and close out some games.

Here is the Mariano Rivera painting that I did last year.

Say it ain't so, Mo.

This isn't a playing career obituary for Mariano Rivera. I'm not ready to do that yet, and for all we know, Mariano Rivera will pitch again. Perhaps I'm being too optimistic, but the best closer of all-time and a pure class act deserves better than this.

Last night, I was watching the Knicks play like crap against the Heat. Such a lifeless team. I then switched to YES to watch another lifeless team, the Yankees, take on the Royals. I was greeted with haunting footage of Mariano Rivera stumbling trying to make a catch shagging a flyball during BP. The initial diagnosis was a twisted knee, whatever that means. I think we all knew it was worse than that. One doesn't get carted off the field for a twisted knee. After the game, another poor showing by the Yanks' bats, the bad news came. Torn ACL. Done for the season. Torn ACLs happen in every sport to players at the top of their games. Derrick Rose just suffered one. Fortunately, Rose is young and has many years ahead of him. Rivera, while I have no doubt could rehab and return, was likely pitching in his final season. What should have been a goodbye tour honoring Mo will now be a sad time for Yankee fans, as we finally face the prospect of someone else closing out games for the Yanks. It's something we all knew we'd have to do eventually - we just weren't ready for it until next year.

There has been unfair criticism about how Rivera got hurt, but I refuse to do so. Shagging flyballs during BP has been part of his routine for twenty years and no one has said a peep about it. It has kept him young and fresh and full of energy. Some of the best memories of playing baseball that I have are the catches my teammates and I would try to make in the outfield during BP. He was having fun playing baseball, as he should have been.

I honestly hope we see Rivera on the mound again. I have no doubt he'd be able to successfully rehab and pitch another year next year. It's just a matter of whether or not he wants to. Selfishly, I hope I see him, if for no reason other than the fact that he deserves a proper send off.

Non-crap from Uncle Martyn

I got a surprise package from Martyn of Arbitrary Crap and Cards Beyond Oceans recently. It was out of the blue, and considering the cards were coming from the UK, it made the package even nicer.

The most meaningful cards to me were in a white envelope. Martyn, or as he called himself “Uncle Martyn,” sent two relics for my son, Joey. Martyn said that they had come damanged and he could play with them. The damage was extremely minimal, I basically had to hold a magnifying glass to the cards to find it. Anyhow, they are two really nice UD Spectrum relics of Chien Ming Wang and Pudge. I’ll definitely add them to Joey’s growing card binder.

Martyn also sent a 2011 A&G AJ Burnett framed relic.

There were a ton of other nice Yanks. Here is a small sample:

Martyn, thanks again for thinking of me (and Joey).

A few cards from Potch

D aka Potch Wheeler recently sent me a stack of cards out of the blue. He sent a bunch of Heritage that I needed, and a few really nice inserts. The orange chrome refractor is incredibly sharp. D and I have traded several times, and I’ll be sure to hit him back up with some cards in the near future.

Tino Tuesday #38: October 1997 Beckett

Who said Tino Tuesday just needs to show off cards? I recently got a package in the mail from Ryan of "O No! Another Orioles Blog" with two old Beckett magazines featuring Tino. This is the October 1997 issue, when he graced the cover after his monster 1997 season of 44 HRs and 141 RBIs. There was also a January 1999 issue of the Yanks celebrating their 1998 World Series win.

I'm certain I had this issue back in the day, but I'm sure I have since thrown it out. I'm thrilled to have it again! I haven't had a new Beckett in well over 10 year, and this certainly brought me back. I immediately flipped through it to see what the hot cards at the time were, and it's funny to look back. Jose Cruz Jr RCs, Travis Lee, Ben Grieve, McGwire...these guys were all amongst the hottest cards out there. Just a good reminder that the next big thing isn't always guaranteed amongst all the Harper mania.

There was a really nice write-up about Tino, and his cards were basically at all-time high in terms of value. His 1988 Topps Traded RC was "valued" at $6.

It was fun to take this trip down memory lane, and I plan to highlight a lot more of the content from these magazines in future posts. Ryan, thanks again for sending these along.