What kind of socks to Pittsburgh Pirates wear? Arrrrgyle!

I'm pretty sure I've used this post title before. Or maybe fifteen other bloggers have used an iteration of it. I don't know. A while back, I sent Greg Z over at Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle] a bunch of Russell Martins I had laying around, and he sent me a bunch of cards in return, including some HOFers for my son.

This is a cool card of Lawrence Moten, who is still Syracuse's All-Time scoring leader, as well as the Big East's all-time leader too. I'm always blown away when someone pays enough attention to my ramblings to know I'm a Syracuse fan/alum.

Here's a Topps USA card of Yanks' prospect Peter O'Brien. Although not much of a prospect because he only has one tool, that one tool is power and that's pretty damn cool. He's already got more than 30 HRs on the year, trailing only Joey Gallo and Kris Bryant for the most in minor league baseball. Pretty nuts. I assume he'll get the call at some point late this year or next, but he'll probably never be more than a Shelley Duncan, all-or-nothing kind of hitter. Still, it could be very exciting to watch him.

And here is a sampling of the HOFers for my little guy. He's going to have such a cool binder of cards one day. I just hope he doesn't sell them for beer money when he's 19.

Oh yeah, Pittsburgh Pirates was in the title, right? I'll double up on trade posts and include some cards sent over from our favorite Pirate collector, Mr. Bob Walk The Plank. Matt had a few Tino relics for me, both of which are awesome, and even included an Ivan Nova autograph (sorry for the dark scan). I'm 99% sure this is my first Nova 'graph of any sort.

 

Guys, thanks for all the great cards!

Two more certified Yankee autos

I'm on a serious certified Yankees auto binge. I don't know what it is, but I keep on picking them up. I still love and prefer TTM, but it's so much simpler and convenient to just pick up an auto for $3. No risk, all reward.

Although, to be fair, I didn't pay for this one at all. This was a Listia win. Rarely do Yankee prospect autos surface, but I won this for a very reasonable price. It's a  2013 Bowman Platinum on-card auto of Peter O'Brien. He hit 22 HRs between two levels of A ball last year, and I'd expect him to start 2014 in Double A Trenton. As for the card, I have no idea if it's a Refractor, or if that's how all of the autographs are.

Next up, a PC guy! I snagged this 2011 Leaf Metal Draft Manny Baneulos auto for a few bucks on on eBay. Yes, unlicensed sucks, but Leaf really brings it with some sweet on card autos.

 

Two solid pickups of guys I expect to both play in the Bronx one day.