Sundays Big Game

This is a post from my other blog “Random Thoughts From a Random Guy”.  I’m posting this here too just to let you all know I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth.  I still have my love baseball and baseball cards, but I am currently in the process of trying to purchase a home for my family and haven’t been purchasing any cards.  I will be back, hopefully by the end of the summer.  Here is the post.

Sunday was a big day for me, I took my kids to their first Chicago White Sox game.  If you know me, then you know I try to get to at least a couple a year, some years more than others but I usually at least make 1 game a year.  Since our money is tight, I purchased the tickets in February when we got our tax money.  I purchased us 4 tickets in the handicap section so Cheri could go with us and prepaid for a parking pass.  With the majority of the cost taken care, it made it a lot easier to take the family this month.  All I had to pay for was gas ($35 for half a tank, freaking ridiculous), tolls and food.  I just had a birthday so I had a little spending cash to help with this trip.  Normally when I go to a game, I save money by eating before I go since the cost of food and drink is outrageous but since the kids had never been there, we ate there.

After a quick hour and a half drive to the stadium, we pulled up to US Cellular field.  The reasoning behind the handicap section was mainly for 2 reasons, too much walking to get to your seats and back out to the car, and a more comfortable seat for Cheri to sit in.  While she probably could walk it and sit in the stadium seats, she also would be in pain for a few days afterwards.  But it ended up being better for the rest of us to.  We went through a special gate with very little line (once we figured out where it was), got to ride in an elevator to our level, and our seats were more or less, a row of our own.  The section is essentially the last row in the lower level.  There is a railing around it (with cup holders attached) so we wheeled Cheri up and they brought the kids and I fold up chairs.  Since all the assigned spots are wheelchair accessible, which means they are wider than normal seats.  So our seats of 4 end up being in a section big enough for 6 seats.  Plus since our seats aren’t attached like the rest of the stadium, you can sit back a bit and have lots of leg room.  Plus you can kick back and put your feet on the railing around the sections.  Basically, it’s sort of like your own box section.  We could stand if we wanted to, lean back, stretch, pretty much whatever we wanted without disturbing anybody else.  It was nice to not be confined to your 1 little seat, especially when your fat ass barely fits in that 1 seat.

You can kind of see the section in the picture above.  Lots of room, right behind the nachos in a helmet stand.  When we first got there I tweeted this.

You can see their free jerseys that they got at the gate.  I took them down to the field to get a close up view and took that picture.  But just a few minutes after I tweeted that, I got this response.

Sweet!  So the kids and I headed off to find the the Guest Relations booth.  It ended up being behind home plate so after we grabbed their certificates (and a calendar), I figured I’d take them around the rest of the stadium and circle back to our seats.

On our way back around, we ran into these 2 signing autographs.  That would be Tony LaRussa and LaMarr Hoyt.  LaRussa was the manager of the 1983 team and Hoyt was a Cy Young winner that year for the same team.  The White Sox are celebrating the 1983 season every Sunday by wearing the throwback jerseys that you see above and on the kids.  The line was huge so I wasn’t about to stand in it but I did cut the line just to take the picture.

Here’s the kids in the outfield, showing off their certificates and calendar.  Just for all the smart asses out there, this was an hour before the game started, that would be why the seats are empty.  I don’t want any stupid Chicago Cubs fan making snide remarks, like this idiot did after I tweeted the following.

I don’t know who that is and he doesn’t even follow me.  We weren’t even playing the Cubs (I checked his account, he’s a Cubs fan) so he had to have either been following the @WhiteSox Twitter feed or the hashtag #GoSox.  So he was specifically look to start crap with someone.  I’m tweeting about the great day with my kids and then this idiot steps in.  Luckily, I don’t let anyone goad me into an argument on the internet, I know that’s what they want, so I ignore them.  People are idiots.

Anyways, anytime Cheri and I do something memorable, we always take a selfie.  Plus I took one to use as a profile picture on Viggle.

         

All in all, I had a great day.  The White Sox won, the kids got to see 3 home runs (1 by the A’s, 2 by the Sox) and they got to see the stadium.  I got to see a great game, some action on offense and a couple of great defensive plays.  I think the kids had a great time but they didn’t really seem very interested in the game itself.  So it might be awhile before I drop that kind of money on taking them to a game again.  Then again, it would make a nice family tradition to do a game every year.  We’ll see next tax season.

Here’s a picture taken by the Sox staff that you have to pay to get developed.  Hence the watermark.

I’m still breathing

I know I’ve all but disappeared from here but to be honest, I just haven’t been buying many cards.  I do have stuff I can post but I haven’t been in the mood.  I think a lot of that is just not wanting to do the scanning, it seems to be most of the work.  I’ve gotten some PWE’s from “JayBarkerFan’s Junk” and even one Manila one with an awesome photograph.  And a envelope full of White Sox cards from Uncle Moe over at “My 2008 Topps Set Blog” that was a surprise.

I haven’t gotten completely out of collecting, just the blogging part of it.  I mentioned in my last post that I was changing my collection.  I have added quite a few players (which is what type of collector I was as a kid).  One of these days I’ll get around to posting them all.  A couple of the players I collect were never White Sox players either, which means I don’t have much of their cards yet.  Most of them were White Sox players at a time so I do have a bunch of those.

I have gone through all my cards and pulled the new player collection cards as well as took out all of the White Sox cards that don’t fit into the new team sets collections.  I need to update all my lists yet as well since I took cards out of my team cards to add to the player collections.  I didn’t break up any of my finished team sets, just the ones that weren’t completed yet. 

I had a little bit of money leftover in my COMC account and I used that to pick up some cards for Ryan over at “O No!!!  Another Orioles Blog” to finish that trade.  I received them today Ryan, but I work the next couple of days so I probably won’t get it out today later next week.

I’m also trying to get some cards together for Marcus of “All The Way To The Backstop” together to complete that trade with him.  I also have some vintage to send “JayBarkerFan’s Junk” as soon as I get those together.

Now if I could just get Jeff over at “2 by 3 Heroes” to finish his want lists, I could probably send him another box of White Sox cards.

So as you can see, I haven’t let the sport go, just the blog at this point.  I’m not coming out and saying that I’m quitting the blog, but I have considered it.  So don’t expect a lot of posting coming for awhile, but I may be back in the future.  And you can always follow me at my usual outlets or my personal blog “Random Thoughts From A Random Guy”.  I am around so don’t be afraid to keep in touch.  I am doing a lot of scanning of most of your blogs and if something catches my eye, I will still leave comments.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changing

I’m thinking about changing my collections again.  I was thinking about more or less becoming just a player collector and getting rid of the majority of my White Sox cards.  But I realized that I like my vintage White Sox teams sets too much so I’d have to keep those.  But then where would I stop with the team sets so I figured I’d have to just collect them to the current year.

But I also like the autographs and some of the relics so I don’t want to get rid of those.  So I feel like I’m not really getting rid of anything.  So this is what I have decided, I’m not going to collect all Sox cards anymore.  I will collect what I want to collect instead of having an “all” Sox cards collection.  I will probably add some more player collections to the lists as well.

I haven’t completely thought this out yet but as of right now, this is what I’m collecting.

• Paul Konerko collection – Any and all Paul Konerko cards.
• Tom Seaver collection – Any and all Tom Seaver cards.
• Luis Aparicio collection – Any and all Luis Aparicio cards.
• Billy Williams collection – Any and all Billy Williams cards.
• Dave Dravecky collection – Any and all Dave Dravecky cards.
• Mike Hart collection – Any and all Mike Hart cards. (football)

All of those I was already collecting and you should have known about them.  I dropped the Peyon Manning collection because I just don’t follow him anymore now that he left the Colts and I was never really into football cards anyways.

Here is some additional player collections I am adding and a short reason why if it’s not obvious.  There may be more to come.

• Ryan Zimmerman collection – Any and all Ryan Zimmerman cards.  (He is very active on behalf of Multiple Sclerosis).
• Chris Sale collection – Any and all Chris Sale cards. (That one should be obvious).
• Bill Melton collection – Any and all Bill Melton cards. (I really like him on the pre and post game shows and he’s vintage).

I may add some more, I may subtract some more.  We’ll see.

As far as my White Sox team sets, I am going to continue to collect all of the base sets from the following.

• Topps (1952-current).
• Fleer (1981-1999).
• Donruss (1981-1997).
• Upper Deck (1989-2010).

You may wonder why I stopped at the years I did for Fleer, Donruss and Upper Deck.  Those were the last years they issued an actual team set and not a limited team set.  I basically like team sets to be at least 15 cards.

So anything else that I have, I will be getting rid of or maybe even giving to my son.  I will check with Jeff at “2 by 3 Heroes” before I get rid of anything because he is my fellow White Sox collector.

My Michigan Wolverines collection won’t change any.  It isn’t overly huge because they only make so many cards in their college uniforms.  I’ll let you know if there is going to be any more changes.  I haven’t actually sat down and figured all this out yet so I don’t have want or have lists for the new collections.

I still owe a few trades and I promise I will get to them.  I haven’t forgotten about you.

1973 Topps

Here is the last of my 1973 Topps purchases.  You’ve seen 18 so far and this post will round off that number right at 25 cards.  All these purchased during the COMC Spring Cleaning sale.

It’s either a called strike or no where near the strike zone because the batter doesn’t even look like he’s going to attempt to swing.  Maybe a 3-0 count and he’s taking.

It’s miscut but it’s a team card, I don’t think I have too many of these.  I do like the manager cards.  I like how they have the supporting staff (coaches) as well.

Another team card, yeah.  I always loved the leaders card as a kid, mainly because you could get hall of fame players and they didn’t book as much as their base cards so you could afford them.  I already had that card for my Billy Williams collection.

A rookie cup card but another of those hideous uniforms.  Another great leaders card as well.  More hall of famers, sweet.   And yes, I already had one of these in my White Sox collection because of the Wilbur Wood.

• Total price paid – $92.07
• Average price per card – $0.26
• Percentage completed – 358/684 (52% completed)

These are the final tallies after all of this purchase were added to the totals.  These 25 cards put me over half-way completed and I only raised my price per card by a penny.

1973 Topps

You’ve seen 12 of my 1973 Topps pick-ups the last couple of days from my COMC Spring Cleaning purchase.  Here’s 6 more for your viewing pleasure.

Have always liked the Cincinnati Reds, not much feelings for the San Diego Padres.  I will say those Padres jerseys are kind of hideous.

That, my friends, is a long name.  Not sure I’ve ever heard of him either which there isn’t too many players I can say that about, at least in the 1970’s till now.

Another long name and another Red.  As per typical in the 1970’s cards, you have a photo shopped hat on Andy Messersmith.  But at least I’ve gotten one great action shot out of these 6 cards.

• Total price paid – $92.07
• Average price per card – $0.26
• Percentage completed – 358/684 (52% completed)