A Dream Come True

This could be my most important Blog post ever! Dramatic much?....Yes! But who cares, I have huge news.

After 10 years of going hard in this hobby I've secured a job in the industry! If you know me personally you might know that I've been miserable in my professional life. Don't get me wrong, life is good. I have a beautiful home, beautiful wife, and 2 beautiful kids. I even own and operate a Mobile DJ company that literally affords me the opportunity to party every weekend. It's that 9-5 grind that's been a burden of the last decade. Basically the only reason I've stayed so long is to pay the bills, but it finally took it's toll on me. It's very difficult to try and fake being happy for 40 hours a week for 10 years.

So I took a quick look just to see what else was out there, and long story short folks....Starting Monday I will be working as an Account Rep for a major Sportscard/Fantasy/Toy distributor and I am beyond excited about it. During my recent interview I visited one of the main offices in Boston. It was like my own personal Disney land. Their warehouse reminded my of Costco...If Costco shelves were stocked purely with Cards, toys and games. I was even told that part of my responsibility would be to visit upwards of 60 hobby shops a year........What was that? Exqueese me? Baking powder? You're going to pay me to visit shops???? Sign me up! Here's my signature in blood if you need it.

My hectic life has really taken me away from my passion/hobby recently and now I'll literally be surrounded by it daily. I'm hoping this will give me more time to post, blog and research the hobby which I love so much. Maybe that 9-5 won't feel like such a grind anymore.

I'm so excited to start my new venture....Updates to come

Some major flipping to start the New Year

Hey Kids,

It's been a minute since I've last posted. I'd like to tell you that this Blog is back and I'll be updating it regularly, but I'm a busy dude with 2 jobs, 2 young kids and a million other things going on. This busy lifestyle has affected my collecting life too. I've had to chill out a bit which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As opposed to busting a ton of boxes like I normally do, I spent a good portion of last year being patient and picking off some major PC items. Here's what I got and how they came to be.

Over the Summer I popped on 2 boxes of Archives (I love that product). I hit a couple of Monsters in those boxes:

Awesome cards right?!?! Now although I love the movie Bull Durham I don't really care too much for these cards. It was a easy decision to sell.

Next, I decided to enter a single spot break of Topps Transcendent and I'm so happy I did. That single spot yielded my this:

Yet another card that's meaningless to me but I know others are paying big bucks for it. So again I sold.

Here's what I replaced these cards with:

 
























Pretty sweet right? The Jeter is so beautiful and it's my first Certified auto. Here's what's weird about it... I think this is from an UD basketball set. I believe it's the last time he signed while still playing. Whatever it is, I love it.

The Bryant I bought because I have this same card unsigned and oversized from the 2015 National. I wanted an on card auto on an RC to mission accomplished. 

Finally, the Koufax. Not to be morbid but I just have a bad feeling about the "Left arm of God" this year. I wanted to grab an auto of his before (God forbid) he passes and they sky rocket. This was simply a gorgeous card for the right price.

Thanks for the read, I'm hoping to have some more major PC additions to show you throughout the year.

My own personal Yogi-ism

So here's a quick story about the 2 times I met the amazing Yogi Berra.

Back in 2009 I went up to Cooperstown so see Rickey Henderson get inducted into the Hall. The Moment I stepped on Main street I was in Baseball Heaven and literally the first thing I saw was a small tent set up for signings and photos. The tent housed Mr. Berra, Goose Gossage and Harmon Killebrew. 

After waking up from fainting I made my way over to Mr. Berra who was kind enough to take the greatest photo of all time (Sorry National Geographic)

OK, So fast forward 2 years to October 2011 (The timeline is important) I find out Yogi's going to be at the Steiner store at the local mall here on LI signing. I decide to go back to get the above pic signed. 

Here's what transpired when I met Mr. Berra the second time:

Me: Hello Mr. Berra I was hoping you can sign this photo of us
YB: Sure, This was taken in Cooperstown right?
Me: Yes sir, I came up for induction weekend
YB:  Yeah I remember, it was 2 years ago
Me: Wow, yeah....How did you know that?
YB: Because I didn't go last year!

That's right folks.....I got my own personal Yogi-ism. I will remember both of our meetings for the rest of my life!

The Baseball Card Bully

I grew up on Long Island in the 80's. On summer days around 9am, every kid in the neighborhood would congregate on my street, in front of my house to play baseball. We did this EVERY SINGLE DAY. It was our own version of street ball. We'd cut the top off a Wiffle ball bat, load the barrel with wet newspaper to give it weight and then tape it up, usually with some kind of colored electrical tape. We'd self-hit a tennis ball, and run the bases. Curbs were foul poles. We'd yell out "CAR" quickly followed by "Game on" ala Garth in 'Wayne's World'.  Sliding meant road rash. Game's over when the first guys mom called him for dinner. It was the most fun, innocent time of my life.

On rainy days when we couldn't play, a select few would get together to trade cards. We'd go around the room for hours looking at each others collection, putting together trade bundles and then usually having it all fall apart at the last minute. So everyone went home with the same cards they came with. We called it "Trading Table". I don't think it was for any particular reason, we just thought it sounded cool. It was during one of these Trading tables that I had a memorable trade scenario play out that's worthy of mentioning here.

This particular rainy day found us all at my house going through stacks of cardboard when a random neighborhood kid, who we were not friends with came to my door. He said he'd heard we were trading and was interested in sitting in. We didn't really know him, we just knew we didn't like him. He also had a rep of being a bit if a bully, so we let him, basically because no one would tell him no. For the sake of this story I won't tell you his name. Let's just call him Shmohn Shmandaro. After sorting through some stuff Shmohn spotted something in my pile and his eyes lit up. He said, "Dude, do you know what you have here? That's Reggie Jackson's autograph. He was referring to a card I pulled earlier in the week, it was one of those 1990 Upper Deck inserts. It was obviously one of the facsimile auto's. This one:

Well, the bully wanted it. I even told him it wasn't the real one, but he wouldn't listen and insisted we trade for it. So here's my pickle, dude offers me a semi-beat up 1980 Rickey Henderson Rookie card. This at the time was my holy grail, condition didn't matter. So I traded him for it. Pretty good right?

Wrong, The next day Shmohn and his dad come knocking at my door saying he wants his sons Rickey Rookie back since I traded him a bogus Reggie auto. I shakily told the dad that his dumb-dumb kid full on knew it was a fake and yet he still wanted it. Long story short, I gave the cry-baby and his daddy back his Rickey.

Fast forward to last week. I picked up a box of 1990 UD High #'s for $17. It was an awesome break and totally covered my need for nostalgia. I even got a Re-tweet from Upper Deck about it! The best part? I pulled 5 more of that exact Reggie:

I Really wanted to go find Shmohn Shmandaro and throw them like Chinese stars at his fat head (Which is bald by the way). But screw it, I'll just keep them. I'll put them in a display case....Right next to my 1980 Rickey Henderson PSA 9 Rookie Card. 

Warning: A Lot of cows were harmed for this post.

Ok I decided on a new PC item last night and I could use your help. Prior to this Blog I had a Tumblr, and my very 1st post was about my all time fave card: Read the post and see the old blog HERE
Anyway, I found my original Mickey last night and decided to do a BIG GLOVE PC. I want any and all card depicting players goofing-off with over-sized baseball mits. 

Here's what I've found so far:

Who Knew? Mickey Hatcher rocked the big glove twice on cardboard! 

A-Gone and Juan Guzman also packed some large leather, but you'd have to Flip JG's 94' UD card over to find it!

Puig put on the oversized for an SP in 2013 Topps Flagship:

Ok, So here's where i need you help. I got my hands on all 5 of these through Ebay, COMC, and Some I had. I even found this awesome photo that I'm going to put on cardboard through the RookiesApp.

I just can't seem to track down this one!

So if anybody can help me with this one, or more importantly if you could pass along any info on others I don't know about, I'd truly appreciate it. 

Thanks in advance!
YnB

This is why we trade

I've been fortunate enough to meet some amazing collectors via Twitter and this Blog. I'm a big fan of trading cards, I"ll trade with anyone anywhere. This recent transaction with Twitter friend Kevin (Aka @porterman20) was exactly what trading cards should be about. Kev is a Red Sox guy, so it's a perfect fit for us, I send him some Sox he sends me some Yanks. We've done this a few times over the years. This last package I got from him was awesome! 

It's an awesome mix of Hits, Base, Slabbed and Vintage. Everything this Yanks collector could ask for. Now, admittedly I don't mess around much with grading, and what I do mess with is normally through PSA.  I may have had a change of opinion though after getting this sick Munson SP, it looks great in it's BGS home. And what bout that Yogi? That card is everything I love about collecting. I love the mini, the frame, his face and that old cloth.

Kevin, I can't thank you enough! I look forward to us continuing to build each others collection for years to come. 

For the rest of you, This is how I trade: If you collect a certain team I'll send you hits, inserts, base, and anything else you may or may not be looking for, I just ask for a comparable package in return. Shoot me a message if interested. 

@RookiesApp Making Cardboard dreams come true!