2008 SP Legendary Cuts Memorable Moments

When I first saw this card in the preview image on eBay search, it looked as if it was a cut of some type of document or perhaps some message from a fortune cookie that Timmy ate before his best start or something, but upon further inspection, it is nothing. It’s kind of difficult to read but I think it says: “Lincecum fanned a career high 12 batters in a 13-0 win over Arizona on 7/1/07.” I’m not exactly sure how accurately I read that, but something to that effect. Now I am wondering why this card is a 1 of 1. The text looks like a fortune cookie fortune and has it’s own box on the lower left hand corner. Why this is a 1 of 1 serial numbered card, I am not sure. In fact, it really shouldn’t be. It’s like those damn Moments & Milestones cards that are not only ALL serial numbered, but in many different parallel colors. If this was autographed or had a patch that was actually FROM that specific game, then fine, but seriously…a little too much serial numbering and 1/1s at that guys.

Quick Trade Updates

I got two packages in the mail today – one from Lonestarr over at BTHE and the other from Chris at Nachos Grande. The one with Chris was just from last week and boy does he ship fast. On the other hand, Lonestarr was one of the first trades I ever made. In fact, I think he was the first comment I got about a trade like a month ago. I finally received his package, so better late than never right? He put threw in a ton of extra stuff in the package and unlike the Cubs, he didn’t choke! (Sorry, I had to throw that one in there).

Amongst a ton of Giants cards, I also got a GU Eric Surkamp when he was on USA Baseball, which is pretty cool. I loved the old school cards from the 90s and older because they really brought back memories: Mark Leiter, Bonds with varying degrees of facial hair, and also one of the best players to ever put on a Giants’ uniform, the late Rod Beck. I will never forget the way he swayed his arm before he made a pitch. I also got a good amount of Giants’ cards from Chris as well, mainly from the 2008 Goudey set. Oh, in addition, I Lonestarr also contributed to the Lincecum collection with two new cards that I didn’t have. Well, I have the cards, but they’re different parallel versions so they will fit right in: a 2008 Baseball Heroes base card, and a 2008 Upper Deck Series Two card (The series one and series two are basically the same card but numbered differently and the series two has shiny silver stamped logos). I am now up to 44 unique cards! I am a little less than halfway from Mario’s 90-something collection of Andrew Miller. I still can’t believe he’s trading away that Andrew Miller/Tim Lincecum dual Chirography autographed card. That is one of the nicest dual signature cards I’ve seen. It’s also one of the more affordable Lincecum auto cards as it only goes for $25-30 bucks on eBay as opposed to over $50 for some others. For my collection, I collect any and every card that has Lincecum on it, regardless if he shares a card with someone else. In fact, it makes it all that much cooler if it is a dual or triple player card. But I guess he would much rather have just Miller on a card. That’s cool too I guess.

Well, after the additions from these two trades, I have 2 more to ship out tomorrow and that will net me a few more 2008 Allen & Ginter cards. I am now only 7 cards short of finishing the entire set. I have never finished a set before so this is the closest I’ve ever been. Please if you have any of those 7 cards left uncrossed out on the want list, leave a comment or e-mail! Thanks!

A Fanpost from the McCovey Chronicles

If you haven’t read the McCovey Chronicles, go take a look. It’s probably the best San Francisco Giants blog out there, filled with witty remarks and constant Dodgers putdowns. I usually read it daily, but the offseason has been pretty slow until I came upon this fanpost. Now I’ve heard input from sports writers to bloggers to average fans about Lincecum’s Cy Young chances, but never before have I heard it from an ump. This is from travisam; take a look:

Hey everyone, just thought I would pass this along.

I live in Des Moines Iowa, and we have 3 umpires from here in town that are all top notch MLB umpires.  All 3 of them have worked, or are still working the playoff’s this year.  2 of them, Tim Mclelland of the George Brett pine tar HR fame, and Eric Cooper have a radio show here in town on Thurs. nights called “Ump’s Eye View”.  They talk about all sorts of stuff in the game, and take calls.

Anyway, I called in last night and told them I was a big Giants fan and wanted to know who their pick for NL Cy Young award was.  Cooper started to say something, and Mac jumped in and said “It’s not even close.”  He said “Tim Lincecum, and it’s not even close.”  He said he talked to 3 of his other umpire friends that worked Timmy this season and that he was the  best pitcher they saw all year.  Anyway, I thought that was cool as umpires get a closeup of every single pitch that every pitcher throws.  Let’s hope the voters see the same thing!!

Very interesting indeed. A little over one month and counting until the NL Cy Young award is announced! Don’t forget to put in your vote for the winner in the contest page over on the top right hand side. Pick the pitcher, # of votes, and place breakdown in the comments. (AP photo by Eric Risberg)

Don’t worry Boch, it’s money in the bank, he’s got this!

2007 Tim Lincecum Rookie Card Checklist

So one of the first websites that I came upon while perusing the web on info about the hobby when I was getting back into it this summer was the About.com Sportscards site. This website is basically run by Nick Tywalk who has been an avid sportscard collector for more than a quarter of a century, which is hard to believe since he looks pretty young to me in his picture. Anyway, a while ago, he came out with a ton of lists for rookie baseball cards. Basically he had a checklist for a bunch of players for their rookie cards as well as a description of their career. I thought this was neat, but he excluded Lincecum from the fold so I’ve been bugging him to come up with a checklist for him too. He just posted one this morning and I’m going to share that with you guys below:

In 2007, with the Barry Bonds era winding down, San Francisco Giants fans and collectors had to be wondering who would step in and fill his hobby void. They didn’t have to wait long, as that same season saw the arrival of ace pitcher Tim Lincecum.

Not that Lincecum was an unknown quantity by any means. He was first drafted by the Chicago Cubs late in the 2003 MLB Draft, but he decided to take his big arm to the University of Washington instead. Lincecum found college ball to his liking, becoming the first player ever to win the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year and Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year awards in the same season. After shunning the pros again in 2005, he added the Golden Spikes Award in his junior season.

The Giants responded by taking Lincecum 10th overall in 2006, and he quickly blazed a path through the minor leagues. He made his Major League debut in May of 2007, and though he started slowly, he rode a hot streak through the middle of the summer to a 7-5 record, striking out 150 batters in 146 1/3 innings.

That turned out to be just a taste of what Lincecum had in store for batters in 2008. Mowing down hitters with a team-record 265 strikeouts, he led the league in K’s, went 18-5 and was named to his first NL All-Star team – though illness left him unable to play.

With velocity approaching 100 mph, an expanding arsenal of pitches and durability that you wouldn’t expect from his small frame, Lincecum looks like he’ll be leading Giants hurlers for years to come. And collectors love strikeout artists, which should mean good things for his 20-plus 2007 rookie cards. Nine of them are autographed, giving hobbyists looking to grab some of his rookie ink options at multiple price points.

2007 Tim Lincecum Rookie Cards

• Bowman Chrome # 217
• Bowman Chrome Draft # BDP11
• Bowman Draft # BDP11
• Bowman Heritage # 202
• Bowman Sterling # TL – autographed
• Bowman’s Best # 93 – autographed
• Exquisite Collection Rookie Signatures # 163 – autographed jersey card #’d to 199
• Fleer # 428
• SP Authentic # 147 – autographed, #’d to 50
• SPx # 106 – autographed
• Sweet Spot # 138 – autographed
• Topps Update # 158
• Topps 52 # 130
• Topps Allen & Ginter # 274
• Topps Turkey Red # 88
• UD Black # 69 – autographed, #’d to 99
• UD Masterpieces # 82
• Ultimate Collection # 124 – autographed, #’d to 299
• Upper Deck # 918
• Upper Deck Elements # 243 – #’d to 550
• Upper Deck Future Stars # 181 – autographed, SP
• Upper Deck SP Rookie Edition # 124

I think I have 10 of them, but his list looks a bit different from what I had in mind. The Bowman Chrome should be autographed as I have two of them. Anyway, just a neat little list to have. I would like to get the rest of the rookie cards, but it is still difficult to get the autographed ones. I will try to focus now on only trading for the base ones that I don’t have like Topps ’52 and the Fleer, since the I doubt anyone has the autographed ones that they would trade. You can check out the rest of his baseball rookie card checklists HERE.

Update on The Collection

Thanks to JV from Treasure Never Buried, I am now that much closer to finishing the 2008 Allen & Ginter base set. I am now only 14 cards away from finishing so if you have any of those, please leave a comment or e-mail me for trades. I still have a bunch of doubles from 2008 A&G as well as 2008 Baseball Heroes and 2007 Bowman Chrome. I am still waiting on two more trades from Lonestarr and Chris from Nachos Grande to go through the mail. Supposedly, I am going to receive them soon.

Anyway, the collection I am referring to in the title is not the A&G set, but rather the Lincecum Collection that I have building for the past two months. JV sent me one of the largest Lincecum packages through the trade. Not only that, but they were 7 cards that I didn’t have and also of those 7, 4 of them are rookie cards! This has bumped up my collection to 42 different cards! Keep those cards coming. I am very lacking in cards for 2006 (I guess only TriStar came out with cards that year), and also 2007 – the majority of cards come from 2008. If you have any cards that isn’t on my collection list, please comment or e-mail so we can work out a trade.

I have mentioned a couple times that I have recently thought about selling off the collection because I’ve had a fall on hard times, but it’s things like these that keep the collection alive and well. I also feel like I would rather sell off the cards that I bought off eBay, but it’s harder to sell off the cards that I got from trades. (Be it as it may that the cards through trade are base cards so they are intrinsically hard to sell, but still!) I also updated my Flickr pictures so now it is up to date with all 42 cards (43 if you count that one that is undergoing inspection from USPS for insurance liability).

Crap bags

Oops, did I say crap bags? I meant to say grab bags. Why anyone would want to buy these things are beyond my comprehension. I understand why a seller might want to put something like this together to sell. A seller would do this to get rid of all their crap shoot cards, bad hits, etc. that they don’t want anymore and to recover some of the losses that they may have incurred while buying a box or something. But why would anyone pay any amount of money for grab bags? They are filled with bad cards. Some people advertise these hits for $10-$20. You could probably find these same cards individually on eBay for a couple of bucks. Now this may not always be true, but I promise you, it is true for the majority of cases. I am trying to stop people from throwing their money away. If you want to find a better way of throwing away $20, go to Walmart or Target and buy a retail box. That’s even better than a grab bag.

Serial Numbered Zero Dollar Bill

So how far reaching the realm of sports cards collectibles can get? An artist created this “zero dollar bill” to distibute at Wall Street in response to the economic crisis that we all face today. They are numbered to 10,000 and will be given out for free. Is this a statement or shameless self-promotion during a time of crisis? I think it’s both. The artist makes an interesting reference to the downfall of our economy, but at the same time, by signing the copies of this bill and also serial numbering it out of 10,000, she is essentially putting some value on this rather than had it not been numbered. This might be seen as a piece of history – a second “Great Depression,” if you will and this piece of art might portray this era in time. Smart gimmick.

Artist Laura Gilberts' print 'The Zero Dollar' - picture provided by AP/Mary Altaffer

A Bondsian Act?

Barry Bonds has now been out of baseball for a whole season so where has his unspoken ban from ever playing baseball in the major leagues driven him? Apparently, he is doing charity work for the Children’s Hospital palliative care program and giving speeches at charity events and signing autographs for kids in hospital care. Now the media has always painted Bonds as a jerk to everyone including his teammates, media, and fans. It’s always nice to have nice guys in baseball such as Barry Zito, but when he was still playing, I always enjoyed watching him play. In fact, Bonds is one of the main reasons why Giants baseball was so exciting to watch during the 90s. He may have been a jerk while he was playing, but I’ve always respected his game and skill. Yeah, yeah, yeah, talk about the steroids. We all know he did it, even the fans in San Francisco, but we still love him as a player. He still would’ve been a dangerous hitter without the steroids and I think he would be in the Hall regardless. But he made some bad choices and got mixed with the wrong crowd. In any case, he’s doing good work helping out some kids who could really use a lifter. Some people in the media might portray this as an act to make himself look better in court, while I think he might actually be softening up and giving back to the community the right way (or I’d like to think so anyway). Is this an act of kindness or just another act? You decide.

Pictures provided by the Associated Press (AP) – Original article found on Yahoo Sports.

Thoughts on Diamond Debut Tix

Have you guys ever seen this kind of card before? I haven’t seen it mentioned in any of the blogs so I’ll take my crack at it. It’s basically a ticket stub that’s framed into a card. The ticket is from the debut of that player and is numbered to 20 I believe. I’m not sure the value of these as there hasn’t been many that sold, but I recently came upon a Lincecum one on eBay that’s selling. This comes as an insert from the Topps ’52 remakes. I feel like this is just another gimmick along with hair and the like. Basically, these are supposed to be artifacts in the future as they are a part of baseball history if the guy actually turns out to be any good. what’s next? Framed, chewed sunflower seeds? Maybe some gum pressed between two plates and framed, or perhaps some fingernail clippings of your favorite player. What the hell Topps?! They took a ticket that basically 39,980 other people had and framed it. Look at the size of the picture of the player. He’s the freaking size of a tic tac. Stop doing dumb things.

Regardless, if it sells for $5, I will buy it haha (because I’m dumb). Anymore and it is not worth my money. By the way, the only one I found to sell was an Alex Gordon one for $27 + $3 shipping = $30 total. I would not pay $30 for a stupid framed ticket of their debut. Maybe if they autographed the ticket, then they would be on to something…autographed and also the ticket was made in silk print…and framed with an Allen & Ginter frame…and made of 24k gold…then maybe.

Very Angry at the USPS

I have hated the post office in the past for many things, including lost packages, but this is a new low. Last week, I saw Dave over at Fielder’s Choice blog commented on an entry about the retail Baseball Heroes box that I got. In it, I got a bunch of cards that I had no need for including some Rays and a Don Mattingly Yankee’s Stadium Legacy card, which he didn’t have. I happily thought it would be a nice celebratory mail package for him and the Rays’ recent success in the playoffs. Because I’ve been trying to save money as of late, I just packaged it up in a toploader and sent it off in a regular mail package. Unfortantely, I got an e-mail from Dave tonight who received the package and said the envelope has been tampered with and the cards were gone, replaced only with ripped out magazine pages.

This is pretty unbelievable and obvious that someone did something at the post office. I delivered myself to the post office and saw them put it in the box. It was the last group of packages that were going to be shipped out that day so I knew he would get it early this week. This reminds me of that article of that guy who was addicted to cards and he stole cards from the mail. I mean this is nothing that extreme because those cards were worth no more than a dollar or two at most, but still. It irks me to know that people are doing this at the post office. What if that was a very valuable package I sent off? I usually don’t buy insurance since most packages are trades that don’t contain valuable cards. I usuaully use bubble mailers too, but this was an exception since I was low on cash and the cards weren’t too valuable.

It’s just a very upsetting situation to top off a horrible start to the week. Just what we need, dishonest people during a shitty economy.