Christmas Package #1

I am blessed to be a Michigan Wolverines fan. Not only because they are the best university on the planet, but also because it has gotten me a relationship with Dennis from "Too Many Verlanders" who us bloggers know, is one of the most generous card givers out there. He continually sends me cards even though I'm not that great at giving back.

Dennis sent out a bunch of Christmas packages and I was one of the lucky people to receive one. I'm going to spread it out between a few posts because I don't have a lot coming in right now and I want to make sure I stay in the habit of blogging. I know how I get when I don't post for awhile.

We'll start off with something that Dennis and I don't agree with, baseball teams. Our teams are actually foes, in the division as well as the fans. I'm sure he's plenty happy to ship off all his White Sox cards away.

We'll start with 3 more Frank Thomas cards which gives me 438 cards of his. I really like the Finest, you know, because they are shiny and I had a couple of the leaf subset above, but this one was new to me.

He also through in a couple of 2006 Topps that I needed. This is the 80th card of the World Series hero Jermaine Dye and my 27th of Vazquez. I'm still about 6 cards away from completing that team set though.

He also sent a couple of these Pinnacle Clear Vision cards of Alex Rios. I hadn't seen these in person before, they are pretty slick. These 2 cards give me 38 cards of Rios.

Last but not least, he sent this die cut card of Rodon which is also a pretty cool looking card from Panini. Leather & Lumber used to be a Donruss set and I liked it back then as well. This is my 39th card of our former Opening Day starter.

In the next couple of posts, I'll start hitting on some player collections that Dennis sent me. The last post will feature the 2 cards that shocked me to see.

Yo Yo Tuesday

This will be the last post of my first box of cards from my cousin. Next up will be the Christmas gift from Dennis which had a couple of items that shocked me. Santa Dennis was very generous this year.

First though, this player is moving up the ranks. He struggled last year as a rookie but made tremendous strides this year and is still expected to improve. He could possibly be a future multi-year all-star, he certainly has the talent to be.

These 12 cards of Yoan Moncada give me 72 of his and considering he's only been in the league a couple of years, I'd say his numbers are moving right up. He was a highly touted minor leaguer for Boston before coming to the right Sox but he has a ton of cards before he even became pro. TCDB has him at 2,583 cards already so I have plenty more to go.

Not the normal Luis seen here

I got more cards that came from my cousin to show today. I'm going to pick out a few players and showcase those cards in each post. At least until I get through the 800 card box that he just sent me, today. He buys out collections, and then sells them off in pieces and he always sends me the Michigan/White Sox cards. The bad part is, he sends me dupes and all and I've done the preliminary flip through all the cards he sent today, and about half the box are dupes of the cards in the box, I haven't even checked those against what I already have so it may be only a quarter of the box that I need.

Until I get through today's box, I'll keep showing cards from the last box. Today I'm going to show the next player we'll see in the bigs. I'm hoping he'll be on the team after spring break but we may not see him until a month or two into the season.

Lots of shiny up there. These 6 cards more than doubled my Luis Robert cards as I only had 4 to begin with. So that's 10 cards, according to TCDB, I only need 584 more.

Sox Stickers

I'm still throwing up posts of some stuff that my cousin sent me since I'm no longer purchasing on Ebay. We chatted on the phone yesterday and he informed me that he has another 800 count box almost full to ship to me. Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

I just wanted to throw up a quick post of a few stickers that he sent me that I loved, mainly for the memories.

Best I can tell is the top 2 are from 1982 Fleer and the bottom one is from 1983. I remember wanting all these when I was a kid and if those years are correct, I was only in my 2nd and 3rd year of collecting which puts me around 10 years old (yeah, I'm old now). I loved these.

I got these along with 16 cards from the late 80's and 90's in the box. I won't show those here as there is nothing fancy but they were needs. I'll be back with some more modern cards in the near future.

Random Players From My Collections #6

I haven't done one of these in awhile and I'm just sitting around doing nothing today so here you go. I have 3,357 (up 12 from the last post) players listed in my collection.

#2746 - Felix Mantilla (1 card)

If you're familiar with TCDB, then you know that a high number means that it's going to be a player with 1 card (I have over 1,300 1 card players). Felix is obviously part of the Vintage collection with this 1965 Topps.

According to TCDB, he has 54 cards, 11 of those would be part of my Vintage Collection so I have 10 more that I need to get.

#1976 - Eddie Williams (2 cards)

I didn't know who he was by name but upon seeing the cards I have of him, I do recognize those. I went ahead and showed both since I only had 2.

According to TCDB, he has 97 cards, there are other White Sox cards of his that I will need to get but I'm not going to click on each one to see if he's with the Sox. He only played there in 1989 according to Baseball-Reference.com.  He was in the majors for 10 years though.

#1369 - Lerrin LaGrow (3 cards)

I recognized his name but probably just because it's an odd name. I figured he was a Vintage Collection guy and I was right, except that he is evidently a White Sox Collection guy as well.

As you can see, I have 3 of his cards, the first 2 he is with the Tigers. According to the TCDB, he only has 23 cards and only 5 of those I still need for the Vintage Collection.

Maybe I should call these posts, players that I only have a few cards of, since over 2,500 of the 3,357 players have 5 cards or less. Then again, the players I have a bunch of you probably have already seen the cards here so it's probably good the way it is. Only thing off the top of my head is to random all the players I have 50 cards or more, 6-49, and 5 or less just to spread it out. We'll see, maybe I'll change it up, maybe not.