2001 UPPER DECK DECADE 1970's SINGLE BAT GAME USED SET PART II

                                       

         "Now Batting #10 Andre Dawson....." this card truly deserves to be in the set even though Andre came to play back in 1976 the following year he was Rookie of the Year so I agree with this choice. He played 10 years with Expos before trying free agency to see whom would take his blank check which the Cubs were surprised when they got the call in 1987. In 1987 he led the National League in home runs with 49 he won the NL MVP that year despite the Cubs being 6th in the NL East standings. He later moved to Boston for a few years 1 of 2 most people that wouldn't knew that he played there.

          The reason why he chose Boston cause he wanted to play on grass & see if he could reinvent his swing in a different league plus he heard how some of the American League parks were Homer friendly unfortunately it wasn't meant to be so he played with the Florida Marlins thus when he entered the Hall of Fame in 2010 he was the first Marlins player in the Hall. Andre remains 1 of 8 ex-Marlins (people worn the uniform) in the Hall as of the time of this post. The other 7 are Mike Piazza,Trevor Hoffman,Ivan Rodriguez,Tim Raines,Ichiro, 2 managers Jim Leyland & Tony Perez. 

         So my loyal reader do agree that Andre deserves to be here lmk until next time we'll focus on Al Oliver so with that Rogers Hornsby once said "Any Ballplayer who doesn't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American, He's a Communist." 

A 48 CARD SALUTE INSPIRED BY 2 BLOGGERS aka 2001 UPPER DECK DECADE 1970's SINGLE BAT GAME USED PIECE SET

 

                This post will be a 48 card salute to this set here that ya see before you its 1 of 97 sets of this calibur that could be made. For this is the 2001 Upper Deck Decade 1970's Single Bat piece set. This post will be conducted into 50 parts this being the start of that set that I started back in 2001 & concluded it in 2003 with the final piece being Tom Teriffic himself Tom Seaver that I purchased on eBay after playing email tag with a seller selling me the Keith Hernandez piece. I am doing these posts since 1 Mr. Fujimoto of The Chronicles of Fuji who commented that I should do a post on this set I mentioned that I have to talk to someone about it & that person was a 1 Mr. Rosny of Baseball Cards Come to Life I sent him an email about it he said he like to see something like that so with those 2 giving me praise I am going to do it.

                       First as good as my memory is I am sorry I only remember the first one I got & the last one I got but I can't remember how the other 46 came in so instead I'll just focus the 1 card at a time ala like Bo does. I will do them how they are listed on the TCDB alphabetical order by their name. As I mentioned there's only 97 sets of these sets you can make well.....actually 96 cause you'll be reading about my set. You'll read my comments if I agree with Upper Deck if this player should be in this set or not plus you'll hear who I think should been in the set instead in the final post I look forward to hearing your comments on what I have to say about these 48 players some will get some great love for & then there's a few that I think you'll see why I don't think they needed to be in this set. Then when I conclude it with the players who I could seen Upper Deck done but they didn't due to the fact they perhaps didn't have acquired a bat of that player when later on they did or they didn't think that player best represents the 1970s like some that they used.

      First up on the list which will be in my next post on these is Hall of Famer Andre Dawson.  Until the next installment I am reminded of Rogers Hornsby once said about signing Autographs "Any Ballplayer who doesn't sign autographs for a little kid ain't an American, He's a Communist."

SORTING THROUGH 5000ct BOXES

         Since I was let go from working at Dollar General I have been lately started to go through the bulk of my 5000ct boxes that I have of basketball since they were mixed starter lots in them I decided to rearrange them so the next time I am at a show I know what boxes I want to take with me or be able to help someone who might be looking for stuff from those sets & I won't have to go through them all cause they will be sorted so I just will have to pull those boxes that have that set in it & BAM!!!!! I can find what they need or see how close I am to another set to offer as a give away in a contest in the future.

          Most of the boxes are filled with early to mid 1990s stuff sure there's no Michael Jordans or Kobe Bryants or LeBron James  in them nor not many of my hometown team the Detroit Pistons in them cause my LCS guy who sells them at $12 a box cherry picked through them got all what he wanted out of them & usually puts them in his $.10 or $.25 boxes but bigger names well as you know go in the display cases. Anyways as a set builder I have started many of my sets by getting them & then going hunting for the missing ones. Oh yeah my LCS guy does this for all 4 of the sports so if ya are interested in certain sport & would like to see what ya can find or make with them lmk & Ill see what I can do to send ya one of them. 

          As you can see in the picture I have a lot of them to go through currently I went through all those boxes pulled out all the `89/`90 Hoops cards. Then I placed them in 1 5000ct box in numerical order lots of dupes as well some of the variations so if your building the `89/`90 Hoops Master set lmk & I'll see if I can help you out in finding those variations. 

           There's 32 of these Pat Riley's ya see before ya in my way of sorting them & yes those white things on the  bottom of that picture are my giant feet. Maybe I should send them to Pat & have him sign all 32 of them serial numbered out of 32 cards LOL.

                This took me about a good 3 days to gather them all up then putting them in numerical order I can say this if ya want a regular set I could possibly do it.  Now ya can see what I am going through when I get requests for cards in Football & Basketball. Yes I am calling you out Angels Tom,Mr Night Owl,Johnny on the Spot sirs as well anyone who just wants their favorite NFL or NBA teams in singles. Yes I know I mentioned football cause I have them like that in football as well that's next to tackle on once I finish getting the basketball done but I am a long ways in doing that hence why I need a job so I am not stuck doing this dubious honor cause I am not getting paid to do this & I rather go through these when I need to relieve myself from stress at my jobs plus at the age of 50 I ain't getting any younger so I need to do it so if something should happen to me someone wont be like I don't want them etc......

                 Anyways I am taking a short break from sorting out all the `90/`91 Skybox now to type up this post my goal before I go to bed tonight (I am typing this on Friday night) is to get at least to the Milwaukee Bucks team when I took the break I was just starting to pull all the Atlanta Hawks cards in order. So I will end this piece by saying I have a long ways to go still & remember what Rogers Hornsby once said about signing autographs "Any ballplayer who doesn't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American, He's a Communist."

INSPIRED BY DIVAS HOCKEY INK aka `07/`08 ITG O CANADA TRIBUTE

                  Thanks to Divas Hockey Ink a couple of days ago they had posted their cards from the `07/`08 ITG O CANADA & I made a comment of maybe I should show pictures of the ones I have in my collection. Well they commented back they would like to see them so without further Ado I decided to show what I have gotten in my collection of these cards including 4 stamped 1/1 that I got from cracking open 4 boxes of the O Canada at the National Sports Card Convention in Chicago at the time when these cards were released. 

I have included the list of the cards featured in the pictures in the order they are shown 

OLIVER FORTIER ITG O CANADA JRSY

DELANY COLLINS ITG O CANADA JRSY

LELAND IRVING ITG O CANADA JRSY

KENNDAL McARDLE ITG O CANADA JRSY

JAMES NEAL ITG O CANADA JRSY

JOHN TAVARES ITG O CANADA JRSY

JOE THORNTON ITG O CANADA JRSY

ERIC LINDROS ITG O CANADA JRSY

KEVEN VEILLEUX ITG O CANADA EMBLEM

MARC-ANDRÉ CLICHE ITG O CANADA EMBLEM

CASSIE CAMPBELL ITG O CANADA EMBLEM

BRADEN HOLTBY NSCC #’d 1/1 ITG O CANADA NUMBER

BRANDON SUTTER NSCC #’d 1/1 ITG O CANADA EMBLEM

JOE SAKIC NSCC #’d 1/1 ITG O CANADA EMBLEM

PETER STASTNY NSCC #’d 1/1 ITG O CANADA FORMIDABLE FOES JRSY

I've included all the autographs I pulled as well again I placed them in order in how they appear 

The autographs are as follows.

Alex Grant 

Bryan Little 

Colton Gillies 

Colleen Sostorics

Delaney Collins 

Jayna Hefford

Kim St-Pierre

Vicky Sunohara

Yves Bastein

Zack Torquato

                     When I first bought these boxes my local dealer at the time really didn't want to sell the product cause of not many people were warming up to the idea of this product that was around the time of the NHL Lockout season plus being from Michigan there wasn't much of a fanfare for them cause not many Red Wings were featured in the set. Other than Henrik Zetterberg for Team Sweden,Dominik Hasek for Team Czech Republic, Chris Chelios for Team USA all represented in the Formidable Foes part of the set with Steve Yzerman being the highlight for the host Canada Grads other future Red Wings like Darren Helm had his first card featured in this set along & another future Red Wings player of Mike Modano in the Formidable Foes but the hockey collectors in my area weren't to excited on these me on the other hand was glad my dealer had these boxes & for a great price at $30 a box back in the day. I was hoping to pull the Yzerman Jersey or autograph or even Hasek & I would have been happy but you see what I was able to get in the boxes with the exceptions of the 4 that were stamped with the 1/1 THE NATIONAL CHICAGO shown here more closely.

           I got those 4 at the National Sports Card Convention in Chicago that year after opening 4 boxes I was lucky cause they were the last 4 boxes the local dealer had & he was set up at the National & he heard that ITG was going to do something with them so he held back the boxes for me to pick up at his booth. So I could get the exclusives but had I lucked out & pull an Yzerman or Hasek Autograph or Game Used I would given my local dealer the card as a thanks for allowing me to get them but as you can see I didn't luck out but my streak of getting the hated rival Colorado Avalanche by getting Joe Sakic. The funny thing is I didn't get to pick what 4 exclusives I would get I had 4 raffle tickets that sealed my fate on them the last 2 digits on the ticket were the way they were redeemed.  I had to reach in a hockey helmet worn by Dr. Price himself wore it in a beer league game to make it fair so I couldn't look into the helmet & have knowledge of what #'s I would want. Regardless I am just happy with the ones I did get especially with a small & I mean small well......ya could say Itty~Bitty white on the Sakic card that was made into a 2 color emblem.  Well there you have it my slapshot from the center line back in the net via 5 hole with an assist coming from Divas Hockey Ink giving me the go ahead goal with this post so tell me what you think. Would ya be interested in a deeper look of the 2 Game Used sets I made the choices are the 2001 Upper Deck Decade 1970's Single Bat cards shown here.

The other option my 2010 Upper Deck Game Used Jersey cards. Another choice is see what hockey cards are in my 2 Row PC Box similar to the what was in my PC 5000ct box. Let me know in the comments below until then I am reminded of Rogers Hornsby once said about signing Autographs "Any Ballplayer who doesn't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American, He's a Communist."

IF I KNEW IT WAS THAT EASY PART II

 

                     Last week Monday I discuss about how easy its been for me to make the 1968 Topps set I have 76 cards(As of the date of this post) remaining to get for it to be complete but still I can't believe how close I am compared to the 1967 set. So I decided to show you the break down I have on teams still to get according to the TCDB.com site. Please note that some of the cards that feature more than 1 team like the League Leaders as well the World Series cards & combo cards like that of this card

are counted left to find for that team should someone like to send me the complete team set based on the TCDB.com site. Some of the teams had 1 which surprised me that I am close to having all of that team & 1 team which you see has a lot to find still I can only hope that I don't have to deal with the crazies of that team fan base in finding them if I am lucky to attend the National Sports Card Convention this year after getting fired last week from Dollar General. So without further ado here's the lists of the teams mind you back then there were only 20 teams combined 10 teams in each league which is why after if you saw how close the 1967 American League Pennant came down to the final week of the season & why they decided to split up the leagues into 2 divisions during the 1969 season to create the League Championship Series Games plus 4 expansion teams entered to play.

Atlanta Braves=3
Baltimore Orioles=4
                       Boston Red Sox=15 (Most of any team what ya expected from this "Impossible Dream")
California Angels=1
Chicago Cubs=6
Chicago White Sox=3
Cincinnati Reds=6
Cleveland Indians=1
Detroit Tigers=9
Houston Astros=4
Los Angeles Dodgers=1
Minnesota Twins=4
New York Mets=4
New York Yankees=4
Oakland Athletics=1
Philadelphia Phillies=1
Pittsburgh Pirates=6
San Francisco Giants=8
St. Louis Cardinals=9
Washington Senators=5

              So what teams shocked you that I lack that many of them still let me know in the comments below. While doing the research on the break down the 4 teams that I only lack 1 player still to locate was the shocker to me & you already read my comment about the team that has the most. With that said I hate to make this a short post but if I am going to attend this years National I best be looking for a new job instead of not making money so I can continue to look for these missing gems still until then I am reminded of what Rogers Hornsby said about signing autographs "Any Ballplayer who doesn't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American, He's a Communist."
 

TIME TO CHOOSE!!!!!!

 

                    I don't want to take a title from someone like fellow Blogger Bo of "Baseball Cards Come to Life" when it comes to choosing something like his Cake or Gum thanks to me his new series Burger or Gum so instead I went with Time to Choose. What are you choosing for me is simple I need to know which card should I use on my 1968 Spine of the notebook to identify it better the choices are as follows the card you see on top of the one shown here.

                Normally I would use the team card or an MVP of the sports winner of the previous year championship as you can see on my basketball binders I put either Michael Jordan or Bulls card to help me identify that set better.

So I ask you do I use the Team card or the Celebration card for it let me know in comments below thanks sorry for the short post but I am on the fence with this topic until then I am reminded of Rogers Hornsby once said "Any ballplayer who doesn't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American, He's a Communist."

DOLLAR GENERAL NO MORE!!!!!!!

             

                 Well I am no longer employed at Dollar General as of Wednesday. I got the word of my firing once I clocked in when our new store manager asked me to follow her to the back room. All I can say is I knew that it would come but not this soon. This comes after working 7 out of the last 9 days the only 2 days I didn't work were last week Monday & this week Monday. I came in worked when I wasn't scheduled cause the flu-bug was going around & I was the only healthy worker that came in working for the store manager when she was throwing up & pulling her hip out of socket & then another co-worker asked me to cover his shift cause he had Diarrhea & he would cover my shift the next day then call me then next day apologetically saying he couldn't do it & I had to do my own shift then cover for him on last week Friday which I did. Then on Saturday get called early in the morning by the assistant store manager to come in relieve her which I proceeded to do so cause she couldn't get a hold of the store manager or the district manager via texting & she had no one else to ask for help so I came in relieved her worked from 7:30 to 1pm only to have the store manager relieve me cause she thought she had enough strength to make it through the night shift even though she was still throwing up herself & before I left the store on Saturday I mentioned to her that if she couldn't finish Ill come back in & close which I ended up doing & this was even after I drove all the way to my folks cottage which 1 way is 99.9 miles away from where I work just to drop off my mother so she could spend the night with my father at the cottage soon as I left the store at 1pm only to return back to work at 5pm. 

                       The reason why I got fired was cause my productivity I didn't stock shelves when I was working alone in the store even though it's against store policy to work alone in the store & its impossible to run the register & stock the shelves at the same time. I have 2 jobs my other job is working at an elementary school but that's only for 1.5 hours & that's not going to help pay bills now I was suppose to be full-time & yet I was treated like I was part-time I would work at other locations just to get hours some of the times but that didn't matter. I rarely would ask for time off only for my trip to either to visit my friend Greg from The Collective Mind Blog or to attend the National Sports Card Convention or I had plans for my birthday or other family functions but like Cal Ripken Jr I would show up work even if I was under the weather myself I still made it in. I would even come in as I mentioned when it was my day off or if someone was sick or even in mid-shift I get called to relieve someone so they could get better very rare did anyone have to do that for me. Anyways as you read this I am on my way to file unemployment for the first time in my life not counting the time during the pandemic back in 2020 & to try to find another job so I can pay bills & continue my pursuit to complete my sets as well get cards & well Matt from Cards Over Coffee I hate to burst ya bubble but I haven't gotten any 2026 cards yet so your not the last one to get them. I am sorta glad I am not working at Dollar General cause the store was opened 364.25 days of the year the only day they weren't was Christmas cause the pardon my French FUCKING CEO TODD VASOS!!!!!!(He makes $2.1 Million a year nice to be that FUCKING RICH!!!!) believes we need to be open that much while some of us working in bad conditions earn a misely mid wage if anything.                             
                        Anyways I will continue with updates on my new job hunting as well hopefully give some more insights on cards I apologize for this non-card related post but I had to keep my loyal readers an update on my situation with my job capacity. Maybe just maybe if a card shop owner would like to hire this 50 year old to buy collections in the state of Michigan & get paid for doing it let me know Ill come work for ya or if the people who run the company COMC would like to hear a proposal from me let me know I have an idea that could work if out for both me & COMC until then keep reading my blog & I am reminded of the great Rogers Hornsby once said about signing autographs for little kids "Any Ballplayer who doesn't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American,He's a Communist."