Thursday Trading Post

Blog trading is back with a vengeance, you just love to see it. Tom from Waiting Til Next Year  sent me a stack of vintage needs, for which I am very grateful!

Tom tossed in some Twins and a Tiger . . . Can't beat a pile of Hall of Famers in your mailbox!

Ford at Forbes Field finally closed out the package. Thanks again, Tom!

Then I was visited by a friendly Night Owl, who offered a stuffed envelope of great cards.

These guys have been prospects for so long that they are now veterans, and hopefully are just now entering their peak years- The Twins are ready to defend their AL Central crown this year, hopefully with a deeper run in the playoffs.

There were plenty of parallels to go around as well, including one of my favorite current Twins, Eddie Rosario, and one of my favorite baseball names of all time, ZACK GRANITE.

It wouldn't be a Night Owl related post without some sweet vintage, now, would it?

Last but not least was this teeny tiny Willians Astudillo. Thanks again for the great cards, Greg!

Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life! bombarded my mailbox as well, with a bubble mailed packed to the brim with sweet sweet junk wax!

No shortage of horizontal heroes here!

Both named and unnamed needs were addressed with cards from the want list and mini collection hits like these bat rack cards of Ben Grieve and Mike Kelly.

I remain an unashamed and unabashed Barry Bonds fan, so these four were very welcome as well. Thanks Bo!

Tomorrow I will have some more free stuff to give away - GTT, if you're reading this. please reach out to me with your address! You can contact me using the contact form on my blog (viewable in the web version).

Free Trade Agreements

The free stuff Friday train has yielded an unexpected but welcome bump in my trading life. Alex Andy (Sorry!)from Stadium Fantasium claimed a free card and offered me another in trade, this sweet 1969 Topps Rico Carty.

Yikes - I had forgotten about Rico's lost season due to illness, you can see he lost significant time in 1965 as well. Another one of those guys that you wonder what may have been if he was healthy for a full career. Thanks Andy!

Chris aka The Collector claimed some free cards and I received some sweet junk wax needs and Minnesota connected players as well. Brad Hand is from Chaska, MN!

Thanks again Chris!

Of course, as long as we're talking free cards, Let's talk about Jon and A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts. This trio of food issues were too good to pass up, so I claimed them from one of his recent Free Stuff posts.

Last but not least, I bought a pair of Puckett customs on eBay last week - the custom card maker focuses on Don Mattingly, Jose Canseco, and Kirby Puckett customs. These called out to me while I was browsing some "real" Pucketts. I don't mind paying a little bit more for these, they are well executed and will be a fun addition to my collection. I received a few more great packages recently, I'll be sharing those in the next couple days as well. Thanks to everyone who has taken advantage of the Free Stuff Fridays so far, I've had a lot of fun putting them together, and I am happy to find new homes for cards that otherwise would just languish in a box somewhere. And thanks for reading the blog!

Showing Some A-PWE-ciation

Hope everyone is having a safe and wonderful start to their holiday season! I was the recipient of a pair of plain white envelopes (or PWEs) this past week, thanks to Tom from Waiting 'Til Next Year and Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life.  Tom sent 3 cards,  I was surprised to find a Ryne Harper in the envelope! Tom has a formidable Sandberg player collection, I thought the new generation of "Rynes" might make it into his collection as well.

Harper and this Nelson Cruz insert were both featured in 2019 Topps Update and came in a ZZ Pack War post.

Also in that pack war was this promo card of former Twin Tsuyoshi Nishioka! The reverse side has a promo of a jersey swatch for Kyuji Fujikawa, former Cubs hurler. I might need to start a Chiba Lotte Marines collection between Nishioka and of course the great Kennys Vargas. I indirectly owe a thank you to ZZ as well for this cool card! Thanks for the PWE, Tom, I hope we aren't Waiting 'til Next Year to read a new post on your blog now that you are shifting your focus a bit. Best of luck with that wood-working project, sounds like fun!

Bo's PWE was laser focused on a pair of my collections - The Alou family, and the bat rack.

Moises' proud papa, Felipe featured here from his playing days.

A quartet of Manageri-alous! 

To round it out, Bo included this bat rack bunch. Thanks very much, Bo, these hit the spot!

Put Me in, Coach- I'm Ready to Trade

A Coach named Tom sent me this autograph by a Coach named Tom, who signed it for another Tom (from Angels in Order) through the mail. The first Coach Tom is the blogger of Waiting 'Til Next Year who sent along a big stack of cards of all sizes this weekend.

This is a 1971 Topps Super of the Super-talented Tony Oliva, I had the 1970 version, but this 1971 model is new to me!

I bombarded Tom with a stack of Rey Sanchezes (Gesundheit), and he retorted with a Trio of Smalleys.

There was a big stack from my various vintage and junk wax wantlists, covering cards throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Scioscia is my favorite from this grouping.

Even a card from the 1960s sneaks in there! Great stuff hitting all the arbitrary mile markers.

Modern Twins as well including a pair of Pucketts from 89 Donruss mini sets.

And hey, look at this! Big time vintage with 1954 Topps.

I didn't know Harvey Haddix's nickname was "kitten"! That's awesome.

This is probably my favorite Bowman's Best design - the team color scheme turned out very well.

I checked, Tom, I didn't have this Vargas card! I'm was really pumped, because I've probably passed up buying this parallel more than once for fear I already had it. But I only found dual patches, quad patches, dual bat pieces, and auto versions of this card in my collection. Is Vogelbach in this set as well? My condolences either way!

Last but definitely not least, Tom gifted me this Sandberg rookie, a key need on my junk wax wantlist. This is a really nice gesture considering Tom has one of the more extensive Sandberg PCs.

                                                         RYNO CANNOT BE CAGED!

Thanks so much Tom, awesome cards.

Playing it Cool

If I mention the name of his blog, do I jinx it? Tom from Peoria sent over a #supertrade extravaganza.

He mentioned in the note (written on the back of that calendar page) that he was emptying out his trade box, which is A-OK in my book.

Joe Mays started an unfortunate trend in Minnesota of giving pitchers multi-year extensions after one good season. Twins fans can probably reel off several names of those bad contracts. But Mays did have probably the best season of the group, he just couldn't repeat it.

I remember pulling a Gold Leaf Stars after opening 15 packs of Leaf over the course of several weeks. Inserts used to be a cause for celebration!

Minis! These were both new to me.

Tom delivered a big hit as well! This relic/Auto combo is numbered to /299. A very cool card!

Thanks very much Tom! Without directly saying anything, I hope things go well for your preferred sports team in that "thing" they are playing in this week.

One of the Giants of Super Trading

 A big surprise came in the mail from P-Town, which means Tom from Waiting Til Next Year was on the case.

 The Twins' fans are Waiting Til Next Year themselves, it's been a while since they have the solid starting pitching like Pascual / Kaat / Mudcat Grant et al.

 Not gonna lie, I was more excited about A-Gone than Adam Johnson on that card....

 There's a better pitching Johnson, and some of the better corner infielders in Twins history - Koskie and Hrbek were better than you remember...

 I love this Frank Viola parody art card - good stuff.

 This was a scanning trial and error- I was trying to get a better view of the hologram on this Upper Deck Diamond Gallery special set.

A pair of Kennys!!! I just won an auction on eBay for a very special Kennys, that I will show when it arrives, but these two are very much welcome as well.

Thanks Tom!

Thanks for Waiting!

As the pages of the calendar turn, we get closer and closer to the new season. Tom from Waiting Til Next Year sent me a nice collection of cards recently. I'm trying to get all the trade posts written up and posted before Opening Day. Wish me luck, I'm way behind!

 It's a shame that Harmon didn't have a card in the 1969 Deckle Edge set, Topps did everyone a solid by including him in this more recent incarnation. A little late, but still appreciated by this collector! Thanks Topps.

K-Mart still has at least one location in Minneapolis, and they even have cards. Inexplicably, they are more expensive than Target's offerings, so I didn't buy any the last time they were in there. When the above beauties came out, K-Mart was king.

A little bit of prospecting going on, Bowman always has the kids before everyone else now.

I don't even know what to say about this one... "Weep-a weep-a weep-a squeak squeak scratch" ? If Dave does another signing in the area this year, I will try to get him to sign this!

A quartet of more recent favorites - Mauer is currently the last man standing on an active roster, it would be great if he can get one more shot at some playoff heroics.

Here's the guy to steer that ship back to the post season - looking back, I think Molitor was a bit underappreciated in his playing days. He's 10th all-time in hits. That's after missing nearly 300 games in his prime due to injuries, including almost his entire age 27 season. If he had played those seasons, he might be closer to 5th all-time. He averaged 200 hits per 162 games for his whole career. Hopefully his work in the dugout can yield similar results!

Tom finished the package with three on card Autos - Erickson's career stretched all the way to 2006(!) but my fondest memories came in his first few seasons as a Twin. He was traded away in his prime years to Baltimore - all the Twins got in return was Scott Klingenbeck and Kimera Bartee. Allan Anderson pitched for the team in both 1987 and 1991, but was left off the playoff roster in both cases. He was a valuable back-end / swing man on those championship teams. Tolbert was a more recent Twin - he was around for both the 2009 and 2010 beatdowns at the hands of the Yankees.

This year I'm more hopeful than I've been for years that the Twins could get to the playoffs, and I think Tom should feel similarly about the Cubs. Thanks for the cards, Tom!