New Year's baseball card questions.

It's 9 degrees here tonight! After escaping the Arctic Tundra long enough
to run errands earlier today, our family did several relaxing things like
help Lucy watch a few dozen times okay it was only three or four times the
video on YouTube of Miley Cyrus singing the theme song from 'Bolt.'
Other family activities included each of us having to answer the
following questions. It was revealing, so now we want you to do the
same--we'd be interested to know your responses. Please use comments
to answer.

ROUND ONE:

1-If I didn't collect baseball cards, I'd collect _________.

2-My baseball heroes include one you probably wouldn't know from my
blog or comments, and that person is __________.

3-Every New Years I resolve to __________ my collection.

4-If I could spend a day with one person from baseball history, it would
 be ________.

Our family's answers: each of us has been assigned a letter :)

A-pictures of dogs/Pat Neshek because he smiles nice and has a nice signature/increase/David Wright

B-Navajo spoons/Chase Utley/organize [preferably using a Wall-E type
Axiom technology where your cards would float untouched from
envelope or box, be scanned into your system including include from
whom it was received and for what in a trade and whatever
information might be relevant in ways you can't predict now]/Shoeless
Joe Jackson

C-Hamtaro cards/

Jonathan Papelbon/look over/Dottie from League of Their Own

D-Matchbox Lesney cars in original boxes/Billy Beane/

enter into Excel/Gil Hodges

Ok, we just ran those to get you thinking. Now we need to know your
responses!

ROUND TWO: Here are Lucy's questions for you:

1-What is your favorite kind of dog?

2-Who is your favorite baseball player?

3-What is your favorite team?

4-What is your favorite baseball movie?

5-What is your favorite baseball book?

6-What is your favorite card?

Yes, we're asking a lot of you--we need answers to a total of TEN
questions! But sometimes these things need doing. The only prize for
now is our sincere appreciation.

ARCHIVED COMMENTS

Opposite skies.

The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, and the waxing crescent moon
over L.A.:

And Chile:

Micah and...the Braves?

This Micah Owings card is a new addition to the collection. When
there's a bargain to be had, it's amazing how we go against our
own displeasure with sticker autos, eh? Let's see if we can
distract you from this startling propensity.

News comes from our friend Ann C., source of Most of Our Micah News, 
about Micah's participation in the Rally Foundation, which has
the mission of raising money for childhood cancer research
through grassroots initiatives. He recently attended a benefit
bash (along with Chipper Jones,

Kelly Johnson

and Brian McCann)

that helped raise $183,000 for research.

Tom Glavine (remember him? the former Met?) and John Smoltz

have also played a significant role in fundraising for this group.

We thought it might be nice if once in the blue moon we take a
teeny tiny peek beyond the cardboard. Or, for that matter, the
stickers.

Kelly Johnson card photo from onbaseautos; John Smoltz: the Rally Foundation; Chipper Jones
aand BB Abbott photo by Elizabeth Westby.

Mets Looking Left PLUS miscellany.

JV of Treasure Never Buried, the blog vortex of deep thought,
sent us some really sweet cards. In particular one autographed card that
Lucy totally flipped over, which will appear at the end of this post. One theme
quickly emerged as we sorted through the cards: Mets Looking To Their Left.

There's quite a bit going on, including left-looking, in this Jose
Reyes card. That is a busy bottom third of a card.

Same with this Johan card. A certain person in our family who up
until now has ONLY liked Allen & Ginter cards reluctantly admits
a certain admiration for SP Authentic. This is similar to someone
who only drives Bentleys suddenly taking a happy tear around
the block in a Ford Edge.

David Wright's facial expression always seems worried after he
gets a hit.

By the way, the two X cards above came from different sources:
JV on the left and White Sox Cards on the right. This is called
"the meeting of the twain."

David seems concerned when fielding:

The following David Wright card from JV is what we call
transitional. We will use it to transition to some Barry Zito
cards:

For some reason, throwing arm notwithstanding, the above shot
of David reminds us of Barry. Which raises the question, how can
anyone not love Barry Zito cards? How how how how? Tell us. We
need to know. He combines "flake" with "deep" and "spacey" and
"odd" and "hunky"

and "occasionally quite good" with "sometimes seems overpaid"
in a hypnotizing way:

Actually, even though we carefully transitioned to Barry Zito, we
want to go back for one moment not to Mets Looking Left but to
Random Players Looking To Their Left:

Okay, thank you for allowing that digression.

And in an unrelated development, we must share a mantra we 

now utter when standing outside to pick up the girls at school. 

Every other mom who is there--including many nice ones who 

are talking to us while our mind wanders--discuss weather, the 

PTA, home repairs, politics, you name it. They are wonderful, 

smart, engaged parents. Nevertheless, there's a good chance 

that in our BB-in-a-boxcar brain, Dinged Corners is thinking 

something like, "You can never have enough Micah cards."

JV outdid himself here by sending us a Micah we hadn't seen 

before. Here's the back:

And the front:

Oh by the way, here's Curtis Granderson Looking Left, too:

All righty then.

REGARDING THE MASTHEAD: We became grumpy upon finding 

out about places that are using that particular crate label...you 

can go to tildology for more about this matter and also scroll 

down this blog to find use of the Safe Hit crate label on that 

Fairfield repack box. Tild was spectacularly nice enough to come 

with an alternate, which is now the Dinged Corners masthead. 

Thank you very much, Tild.

ALSO: We have recently received, for whatever undeserving reason, some fantastic 

cards from gca, gcrl, tastelikedirt, whitesoxcards, and saints of the cheap seats, 

among others. We are planning posts to feature more of these cards in the next 

week or so. Just so you know that there are cool visuals coming.

And here's the autographed card from JV that made Lucy so 

happy:

The six facial expressions of baseball players.

This card reminds us that baseball players seem always to wear
one of six possible expressions:

1-the non-expression-that-borders-on-grim look, often when
signing autographs
2-the smile
3-the look of effort (mid-swing, mid-catch, midair, or mid-pitch)
4-the self-satisfied look (watching as homerun leaves park)
5-the worried look (many David Wright cards)
6-Tim Teufel

Are we missing any?

Thank you for the great scan, Night Owl.

The cards of Micah.

 

We are resurfacing from our organizing frenzy (more people will
receive packages soon) and thought we'd start with something
we learned about one of our favorite players, Micah Owings. It
turns out that there are indeed Micah fans out there and this
week we got a wonderfully informative email from one Ann C.
about him.

MO often appends the following Bible verse to his autograph:
Phillipians 4:13, which reads in the NIV as"I can do everything
through him who gives me strength."

It turns out that she too was crestfallen when Micah was traded
to the Reds...not that there's anything wrong with the Reds, but
MO played for Tulane, joined the Tucson Sidewinders, and
worked hard to become a Dback. It was satisfying to watch him
actually BE a Diamondback, and the elements of continuity,
loyalty, and longstanding determination all played out in his
story. In fact, he became an important member of that team,
and seeing him traded away was disappointing.

Thanks to Ann, Dinged Corners now knows a great deal more
about MO, including that our certainty about his goodness as a
person as well as a ballplayer is well-founded. And here's a very
basic fact that we feel comfortable sharing:

we had no idea that a player who is not a big star and hasn't
been around for that long would have so many baseball cards
manufactured with his likeness.

Here is the list that Ann sent me of "the ridiculous amount
of cards" she has thus far collected featuring Micah Owings. Clearly,
we have a bit of work to do:

2003Upper Deck

USA Baseball #USA2 2003 National Team

USA Baseball National Pride # USA2

USA Baseball National Pride #

USA2 G-U Jerseys, gray and white

USA Baseball National Pride #USA22 G-U Jersey, white

USA Baseball Team USA Signatures #S-2, red; and blue

USA Baseball Team USA Signed jersey # USA-J2

USA Baseball Finite Stars and Stripes #USA-J2, game-used blue jersey

USA Baseball Finite Stars and Stripes #USA-2

2004 Upper Deck

USA Baseball Greatest Moments 2003 National Team #USA 191

2005 Topps Bowman

First Year #BDP108 Black, White; Gold (autographed);

First Year Chrome #BDP108, Black refractor; Blue refr. ;Xfractor

Topps

First Year Chrome Autograph #UH235 White; Black

2006 Grandstand

Tennessee Smokies Baseball

Southern League Top Prospect (pictured above)

Topps Bowman

Signs of the Future #SOF-MO

Sterling Prospect Refractor, #BSP-MO

Just

Just Rookies Preview 2006 # JRPr-12; Black

Justifiable #JF30; White Autograph; Black; Silver Autograph; Silver

Multi-Ad Sports

Sidewinders team card

2007 Upper Deck

By the Letter Rookie Signatures #152, "I"; "S", letters cut from his name on his jersey

Elements #227 Acetate

Elements #185

Elements #143

Exquisite Endorsements #EE-MO

Exquisite Imagery #EI-MO

Exquisite Imagery # EI-MO2

Exquisite Rookie Biography #ERB-MO

Exquisite Rookie All Rookie Team #ART-MO

Exquisite Rookie Signatures #187 gold; silver

Exquisite Rookie Signatures Dual Sigs #EDS-OC

Future Stars Cy Young Prospect # CY-MO

Future Stars Two for the Bigs # TS-OL

Future Stars Two for the Bigs #TS-OM

Future Stars All Star Prospects #AS-MO

Game Dated Debut, #GDD-OW

Rookie Dated Debuts # RD-MO

Rookie of the Year Predictors # ROY21

Season Highlights Signatures #SHS-MO

Series 1 Baseball Star Rookie #SR41

Series 2 Baseball Star Rookie #89-MO (autographed)

Series 2 Baseball #524

SP Rookie Edition #132

SP Rookie Edition #174

SP Rookie Edition #273

SP Rookie Edition #223

Sweet Beginnings Signatures Sweet Spot Baseball #132

Ticket To Stardom Major League Debut # TS-MO

Ultimate Collection Rookie Signatures # 127

UD Masterpieces Stroke of Genius #SG-MO

Fleer

Rookie Card #402

Ultra Rookies #235

Topps

Chrome #283 Black, Blue refractors; Red refr.; White refr, Black
Xfractor

Chrome Update refractor rookie card # TRC21

Chrome Update #UH169; Copper; Gold; First Edition

Diamondbacks Team Card # 598 Gold Parallel;

eTopps Refractor #38

Rookie 110 red back; black back;

Rookie TRCR90 (1952) Silver refractor; White chrome

Rookie TRCR90 (1952) Gold refractor

Turkey Red #39; #39 Chrome; and #39 Refractor, Black Refrac.

Topps Bowman

Bowman's Best #80, Gold; green; blue

Bowman Sterling #BS-MO; refractor; black refractor

Heritage #236: foil no autograph; plain no auto; foil with auto;
plain with auto; black border plain with auto (67 varieties
before 2008)

2008 Upper Deck

First Edition #76

Series 1, #92

Series 1, All Rookie Team #ART-MO

Series 2, Diamond Collection #DC-14

SPX Young Stars Signatures #YSS-MO

Topps

D-Backs Series card ARI7

D-Backs series card 382 silver foil; gold foil; gold

Topps Heritage

#466

Upper Deck

Exquisite Rookie autograph 1/1 (2007)

Ann has not bothered with multiple-player autograph cards--and
we can see why. The logic behind pairings (and
triplings/quadruplings) on those cards often is a mystery to us.
She also doesn't have all the By the Letter auto cards--a
category that intrigues us, but that's an expensive six-card
commitment! O W I N G S.

Our naive question of the day: if Micah Owings has this many
cards, how many cards are made for someone like Alex
Rodriquez or for that matter Evan Longoria or Tim Lincecum?
Holy paper pulp, Batman.

Dinged Corners CSI: where cut up jerseys go to die.

Yes, Bailey, there are much worse ways to spend money
than buying a blaster with nothing good inside.

For example. There's a whole new shipment of these sealed
cardboard envelopes at Kmart. Inside are exciting things like a
pack of 2007 Turkey Red stuck with industrial strength glue onto
white cardboard, perhaps leftover shirt cardboard from Macy's.



Also included are pre-searched-and-felt 2007 Topps and Upper
Deck packs!



This photo is what we call foreshadowing:



Peering down into the envelopean abyss, there's this:



Maybe we'll get a Mickey Mantle jersey bit! We are never naive
or hopeful!

Reality check: it is a bit of a Jeff Kent jersey.

Well, at least in the picture he's wearing a Mets uniform. But
what uniform is that jersey from?

Don't despair, though. In case there aren't enough tchotchkes
in the world, we can proudly display Jeff Kent's authentic jersey
bit on our desk using the EASEL.

We are intrigued by the text back here. The language says, "The
enclosed piece of jersey was cut from..." [ouch?] an Authentic
[capital A!] Jersey [capital J, unlike the previous mention] from
the player picture on the front. [The wording makes us
concerned, as we picture Jeff fighting off the cutters.] This
Authentic Jersey was obtained from the Upper Deck Company."
FROM the Upper Deck company.

So Upper Deck sells jersey tatters to redistributor Vintage in
Conroe, Texas.

Oddest thing of all: the jersey is not attached to anything the
size of a baseball card. So even if it was a Mickey jersey (um,
that is, Jersey), what would collectors do with this?

You know, if we bought enough of these, we could build our own
patchwork Jersey!

Homemade Cards Department.

I've read great posts like these lately, but Lucy has not. Yet, out
of the blue, today she came in an said she was going to make
her own baseball cards, and handed me this--the team names
and logos she came up with. Cosmic. She must be somehow
tuned in to the blogosphere. The sets are a'comin'.

Mexico Trees
New York Dogs
Texas Books
Florida Warriors (actually, it seems to be Florda Warriors)
Georgia Lamps
Illinois Lunchbox
Albuquerque Rainspouts

We like Micah.

 

One of the aspects I liked most about the Mets when I was a kid
(other than the fact that my very cool mother liked them) was
their unbelievable hustle and wide-eyed enjoyment of the game.
We loved the individual team players but also the team's
personality. Right now, I see that cohesive, driven personality in
the Diamondbacks. Is it just me, or do the current Mets seem
weighed down by gold chains and lack of drive? I suspect they
are "eh" about Willie Randolph, the manager. That's what I
suspect. Worry not, I won't let them go, or give up on the team.

But right now, when we crave Pure Mettified Joy, we watch the
Diamondbacks. The games lately have been unbelievably
exciting and the young players have an appeal that stems from
their earnestness. It's fun to watch Micah play because he hits,
slides, lurches around, gives it everything he's got. He's always
very dirty by the end of his stint. On July 26, 2007 Micah hit his
first Major League home run against Byung-Hyun Kim of the
Florida Marlins; he has a record-setting pitcher batting average
that earned him the 2007 Silver Slugger Award. Bob Melvin,
Diamondbacks manager, is something to behold...including using
Micah as a pinch hitter now and then and considering putting
him at first when he's not pitching so as to get his bat in the
rotation.

Anyway. We like Micah. This is our third cool MO card. "That is
now my FAVORITE CARD," said Lucy, and thus it made the blog cut.

PS The managerial contrast tonight between Bob Melvin and the
opposing manager, Saint Joe Torre of the Stinking Yankees (yes, I
know he's wearing Dodger Blue now because the SY only wanted
to give him a teeny one million dollar raise) pretty much sums it
up for me. Go Bob.

Smiling Heritage. All righty then.

 

The proportion of smiling baseball players is about the same in
Bowman Heritage 2008 as it usually is, which is to say, relative
few and far between. This pack included an unusually mellow-
looking Jeff Kent that has been included in the LSS (Lucy Smile
Statistics).