Showtime 2016, Pt. 1: My collecting personality

On Sunday, just three days into 2016, I hit a small hotel card show at a Holiday Inn about 20 minutes from my house.

This is the new record for shortest wait for a card show in a calendar year, as you might guess. Even better was the fact that I spent exactly zero dollars of my own money on Sunday. Every cent was supplied by cash I received from relatives for Christmas.

Because of that, I allowed myself to be even more liberal with my spending than I usually am. Had it been my own money, I'm not sure I would've dropped a whole 33 cents (from a 3/$1 box) for this buyback Bobby Valentine, one of my favorite cards from the '76 Topps checklist. But I didn't have to give it a second thought on Sunday.

It's always a whole lot easier to spend someone else's money, isn't it?

I wasn't around at the time, but I've heard that hotel shows like this one were quite the rage during the hobby's boom in the late '80s/early '90s.

I was thinking a lot about card shows in the days leading up to Sunday. I'm lucky enough to have both smaller gatherings like this one and big convention-hall type deals (like the one I attended this past November) fairly close to where I live. Each have their pros and cons.

One of the downsides to hotel shows is the fact that they're much, much smaller in size, and thus not as susceptible to producing the WOW pieces of cardboard that bigger shows can. There was almost no vintage to be found on Sunday, and I didn't really buy anything earth-shattering.

Depending on how you look at it, either the 1976/2015 Valentine buyback or the small stack of '81 Donruss singles I found at the first dime box of the afternoon were my oldest finds of the day.

All things considered, however, I think I like these smaller hotel card shows a bit more for the sheer fact that they're a much better match for my collecting personality.

The bigger convention-hall shows are awesome, of course, and have shown me (along with Twitter) that there are indeed extroverted card collectors out there. I am about as introverted as introverts get, and, though I don't know many of you first-hand, I would assume that most bloggers are similar.

Hotel shows are the introverts of the card world. The rooms are a lot less crowded and generally pretty quiet. All the vendors at the show I attended on Sunday seemed to know one another and weren't just there to make a quick buck. I can breathe at hotel shows. There were about twelve tables at this one, and I think I bought something from nine or ten of them.

This fantastic cardboard-vinyl "Greatest Hits" Pedro mashup came from one of about a half-dozen dime boxes I dug through on Sunday.

This hotel show was the one of the same gatherings I attended during my two-shows-in-one-day extravaganza back in April.

I found that almost all of the same vendors were in attendance on Sunday. I'm starting to recognize more and more of the faces of my local cardboard community thanks to these smaller shows. The guy with the dime box of minis at the big show I went to in November was at this one.

At that price, I couldn't help but grab a handful of the ones I missed the first time around.

Even the few new faces in the room had something for me.

One lady had a 7/$1 box at her table (can't say I've ever seen that price point before) that resulted in a couple uber-shiny and awesomely over-the-top late '90s gems.

The El Duque is what I imagine every baseball card would look like on LSD.

The shiny Tiant was another of Sunday's prime dime box suspects.

I usually balk at paying more than a quarter for anything that isn't vintage, but I was a little lax on that rule this time around (again, it wasn't my money). I probably bought more quarter-plus modern cards at this show than ever before. That includes the beautiful '99 Fleer Tradition Stan the Man, which was a fifty-center.

Because you can't get all of the best cards for dimes.

I've made a concerted effort to pick up more Mo cards ever since his retirement, and the dime boxes have produced them by the bucketload.

These are nine of a couple dozen Riveras I bought on Sunday, and a great example of how easy it can be to build a collection via dimes.

I've picked up the pace of my Griffey chase in the last couple years as well.

It'll never be a fraction of a fraction as good as the best Griffey collection out there, but I'm starting to find that, when you take them all together, Junior has some of the best baseball cards ever made.

These two dime finds feature the man doubled over in laughter and looking rather dapper in a sky blue suit.

What's more, Griffey was responsible for my biggest find of the day, at least as far as size is concerned.

At fifty cents, I picked it up in a heartbeat from the aforementioned lady with the 7/$1 boxes.

Talk about getting value for your loose change.

Whether I'm in a hotel room or a convention hall, my mini-collections are always bound to take a beating at card shows.

This Ripken is another notch in the seemingly endless array of tips of the cap from the Iron Man.

These mini-collection hits were all dime finds aside from the Cone, which was one of those 7/$1 box gets.

If Google's math is right, that's about a fourteen-cent box...doesn't have the same ring as "dime box," does it?

Here's a quartet of more recent mini-collection hits of the horizontal variety.

All different prices here: the Moose was a dime (it's actually one of the impossible-to-decipher gold parallels from 2015 Stadium Club), the Eaton and Bogaerts were a quarter each, and the Abreu rookie was a whole buck.

That Prizm card actually isn't half bad...which, given my distaste for the brand, is a high compliment.

Hotel shows might not have those WOW cards, but they might just turn up something you've never seen before.

This Joe Randa IP autograph fell out of the first dime box I hit on Sunday. Autographs in dime bins are extremely rare, and ones of twelve-year big league veterans are even scarcer. For a dime, I was happy to give this abandoned signature a home.

I have to believe it's real, because why would anyone forge a Joe Randa autograph?

The oddballs came out in bulk on Sunday.

The minor league Adam Dunn, Nestle Steve Carlton, and all the others here are fine and good, but my favorite has to be the Sandberg at the center.

Long live the Ryno-stache!

Such high-end cards at a dime per is sure to make me swoon.

I particularly like the Kaz Matsui here because I had no idea he was still playing in Japan (as of 2013, at least) following his departure from the US of A.

Whoever came up with the idea of putting magazine covers on baseball cards deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award.

I'm only half-kidding.

Just last week, I said that Larry Doby's 2015 Stadium Club issue was the only time I'd seen him and Jackie Robinson together on the same card.

There goes that.

Zero-years!

Neither Adam Wainwright (Braves) nor Noah Syndergaard (Blue Jays) ever played a single big-league game with the teams that drafted them, which makes cards of them in those uniforms highly coveted in Dime Boxedonia.

That's my third card of Waino as a Brave, and it cost me a mere dime. My first of Thor as a Jay set me back a full dollar.

And, while we're on the topic of the early years of great pitchers...

...I finally tracked down a card I should've owned a long time ago.

I always thought a Greg Maddux rookie would fall out of a random dime box one day. Stranger things have happened, after all. But it never did. As a Cubs guy, I was a little ashamed to say that I didn't have one of the premier Cubs cards of the '80s, and, furthermore, one of the most sought-after rookies of the overproduction era. (Not to mention the basic fact that it's a rookie card of one of my personal favorite pitchers of the '90s.)

I saw the pencil-mustached Maddux at a table near the end of the show with a five-dollar price tag, and asked the guy if he'd take three on it. I knew it was probably a little more than I could've found it for online with a little searching, but, doggone it, I needed to put an end to not having this card already, ASAP.

So, after going my entire collecting lifetime without owning a Greg Maddux rookie, I now have one. And I have a small hotel card show to thank for it.

If you're a quiet, low-key collector like myself, then take my word for it: hotel shows are the perfect place to spend an afternoon.

Cards of the Year: 2015

You know, 2015 was actually a pretty decent year.

I enjoyed continued success at school and met a lot of great people. I had two more short stories published. I received accolades for some of my schoolwork. I finally landed a steady job, at a bookstore, no less. I'm primed to graduate college in May 2016 and, if things work out the way I'm hoping, will begin applying for grad school over the summer.

Baseball wasn't half bad to me, either. I actually remembered what it was like to watch a good Cubs team. The prospect the Cubs' higher-ups have been promising are finally beginning to blossom. And the World Series was entertaining, and a team I actually like won it all. (Beats another indifferent Rangers, Yankees, Cards, Giants, etc. matchup.)

To top it all off, 2015 was a solid showing for cardboard, perhaps more so than any single year in recent memory. Sure, maybe I didn't blog about them as much this year, but that's not the cards' fault. Like each and every year since I've started this blog, I've ranked my Top 10 Cards of the Year for 2015.

A lot of great cards hit the streets this year, and it wasn't an easy list to make, but here goes.

#10 -- 2015 Topps Archives Will Ferrell inserts

I'm cheating already.

This first slot isn't devoted to a single card as much as a single idea. Archives was kind of meh again in 2015, but, like 2014's Major League inserts, Topps hit on a winner with the Will Ferrell series this year.

I like Ferrell, but he's by no means one of my all-time favorite comedians or anything. But I did rather enjoy his ten-teams-in-one-day journey in Spring Training this year. Archives printed a card of him in each of the ten jerseys he wore in March.

The idea was a hit, and I remember seeing it being mentioned on national news outlets for a while back then. (It's always nice when baseball cards get a little nationwide pub now and then, isn't it?)

I've only tracked down two of the ten cards in the set thus far, but here's hoping getting my hands on a few more in 2016.

#9 -- 2015 Topps Heritage High Numbers #560 Pat Venditte RC

Pat Venditte, the famous switch-pitcher, got his first taste of big-league ball in 2015 after eight years in the minors.

Topps rewarded him by granting him a rookie card in this year's High Numbers checklist, and, even better, getting a shot that clearly shows Venditte's quirky six-fingered glove. (He's also in Update, but this card is way better, I think.)

Venditte posted a 4.40 ERA in 26 games with the A's this year before landing on the DL. He was claimed off waivers by the Blue Jays in October, so we'll see what he does north of the border in 2016.

Here's hoping this isn't the last glimpse of Pat Venditte on cardboard.

#8 -- 2015 Topps Update "Pride and Perseverance" #PP-9 Pete Gray

There weren't many memorable insert sets this year, but Update's "Pride and Perseverance" series is a huge exception.

The checklist recognizes those who overcame disabilities to play in the majors. Perhaps no single player overcame more than Pete Gray, who made it to the bigs with the Browns in 1945 despite losing his right arm in a childhood accident.

This is only the second card I own of Gray, and by no means did I ever think I'd see him pop up in a standard Topps checklist.

#7 -- 2015 Stadium Club #1 Fernando Valenzuela

Fernando Valenzuela has a lot of great cards out there, but I never thought any of them really summed up Fernando-mania.

This year's Stadium Club made sure to put an end to that.

#6 -- 2015 Stadium Club #298 Larry Doby

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know how great Stadium Club was this year.

SC did everything well in 2015. Modern heroes, past heroes. Hall of Famers, fan favorites. Color photos, black-and-white photos. There is a certain class in black-and-white photography, and that's exactly how I view this excellent Larry Doby/Jackie Robinson combo card. Classy. 

I feel like this image should be hanging in a museum somewhere, and yet I have it stored in one of my trusty nine-pocket pages.

#5 -- 2015 Topps "First Pitch" #FP-1 Jeff Bridges

I usually don't include non-ballplayers in these Cards of the Year lists, but I had to make an exception for The Dude.

It's enough of a baseball card to warrant inclusion here. It's sitting in my Dodgers binder right now, as a matter of fact. Topps struck a goldmine with this year's popular "First Pitch" insert series, and no single card from the set was better than this Jeff Bridges.

Bridges sported his very Dude-esque Hawaiian shirt and jellies as he bowled the baseball to home plate for his first "pitch." 

Obviously, he is not a golfer.

#4 -- 2015 Topps #2 Derek Jeter

This was probably the most talked-about card in the early stages of 2015.

What you see here is the child-like exuberance following Jeter's game-winning single in his final game at Yankee Stadium. Everything about this card is perfect. Perfectly framed, perfectly timed, perfectly executed.

A perfect way to send perhaps the most famous player of my generation into the sunset.

#3 -- 2015 Stadium Club #13 Ernie Banks

Baseball lost more than a Hall of Fame ballplayer upon Ernie Banks's passing in January.

The game lost one of its greatest personalities, one of its loyal ambassadors, and, most importantly, one of its kindest men. Somehow, Stadium Club managed to sum all that up in a single shot, depicting Banks receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom from the Commander in Chief himself.

Hope you're playing two up there, Mr. Cub.

#2 -- 2015 Stadium Club #226 Dennis Eckersley

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I find it interesting that my two favorite cards from 2015 Stadium Club feature former greats as suit-and-tied, post-big league men.

This is one of those cards that seems to be Topps saying Hey, Nick, this card is for YOU. I mean, how better to fit the tone of this blog than a shot of Eck with his giant-headed mascot alter ego?

Baseball cards are not often ha-ha funny, but you better believe this card is ha-ha funny.

#1 -- 2015 Topps #177 Paul Konerko

As I predicted way back when Series 1 hit the shelves, this is the Card of the Year, but it's a lot more than that.

It's the single greatest sunset card of my collecting lifetime.

It's the best card Topps has produced since I started this blog...and probably long before that.

It gives the collector the farewell Paul Konerko deserved, both from a baseball and baseball card standpoint.

It's representative of perhaps the single most fulfilling pull from a pack of baseball cards that I can remember, as far as pure joy goes.

This, and much, much more, is why this was my runaway choice for 2015's Card of the Year. As I've said, it really was a great year for cards, but I can't think of a better way to send out 2015 than with Paulie here.

Happy new year to all, and here's to a heckuva 2016!

Oddball Jenga

One of the last packages I received before my recent hiatus came from the man they call Tony Burbs, a fellow Cubs comrade from the terrific "Wrigley Roster Jenga" blog.

I feel kind of bad that I'm only getting around to posting this three-month-old batch of cards now, because holy cow was this a great trade. It was about as oddball flooded as any package I've ever received.

I was sort of a board game connoisseur as a kid -- I guess I still am -- but Jenga was never one of my favorites, mostly because I sucked eggs at it. In some ways, I kind of felt like I was playing an odd, baseball card version of Jenga while digging through the cards Tony sent.

One by one, I peeled off each card, waiting for the one that would knock everything over. This spiffy Don Larsen (floating head alert!) was a nicely calculated first move that comes from an outstanding St. Louis Browns-exclusive set that Tony posted about a while ago.

Mr. Perfecto was a Brown for exactly one year (1953, his rookie season) before the team moved to Baltimore.

Tony sent copies of these to a few other bloggers, and I'm happy to say that I was one of the lucky recipients.

To the non-collector, these are nothing more than ads for food chains. Strictly recycling bin material. But we collectors know better.

These are baseball cards, and glorious ones, at that.

Tony's next move in this game of oddball Jenga was a strange one.

This is easily the flimsiest baseball card I own. It's acetate, and so transparent that it took me a minute to make out the player -- the Big Hurt -- on the front of it. It's such an odd one that debated on whether or not it was even binder material for a moment. (Of course it is.)

Not surprisingly, it came from Pacific.

Playing cards and magazine inserts made up the next two moves.

I'm not sure that Tony knew it at the time, but Mike Stanton is one of those longtime middle relievers that I love to collect (think Mike Timlin, Arthur Rhodes, etc.).

Middle relief is probably the least represented role as far as baseball cards go, so it was nice to see someone like Stanton get a little pub in the oddball world.

These oddballs are so odd that I don't have a single bit of information on them.

All I know is that Pancho Comibre was a Mexican League star, and Jud Wilson played for the Negro League's Baltimore Black Sox.

The oddball tower was very close to tipping over at this point.

Then came a couple more conventional moves with these food-based oddities.

Food is responsible for the majority of the oddballs out there, and Drake's and Post are some of the better known ones around.

Tony even added a couple pieces to my tiny Japanese card collection with these two.

I don't know who either of these guys are, but that's really irrelevant when you think that these cards traveled across the Pacific to get here.

I'll eventually own these cards when I'm a billionaire.

Until then, I'm happy with the reprints.

Minis are most definitely welcome to play this game.

A&G might not be an oddball set, but I like to think that the minis are among the last oddballs we have left.

The tower wobbles!

Yes, believe it or not, here is a baseball card of Billy Crystal. Crystal's lone spring training at-bat with the Yankees in 2008 (a strikeout, of course) was commemorated with this card from the good people at Tristar.

I remember when it hit the market. I made a push to snag a copy, failed, and then kind of forgot about it until Tony came along seven years later.

I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie.

I remember Tony digging up a goldmine of these Sportflix singles from his local thrift store a while back.

I pounced when he asked if anyone wanted them, because, in my world, it's something of a crime to not claim 3-D singles when the opportunity arises.

The potential for sudden disaster seemed to be calming with these two hits to my "anthemic" mini-collection.

The Chamberlain actually comes from the 2008 Topps Yankees team set, and is one of the few that features an (odd) image that differs from his standard 2008 Topps card. I specifically claimed the anthem shot of (ex) Nats manager Matt Williams from Tony because I can't remember the last time I've seen an anthem card in a current product.

Phew, the tower didn't collapse...until...uh-oh...

BAM!

The pieces hit the table with a thud once this beauty fell out of the package.

I remember Tony posting about finding a small lot of these oddities at his LCS a while ago (though I can't find the exact write-up now), and he was nice enough to shoot this Kirby Higbe my way. It looks to be some sort of playing card (the back features a very playing card-esque design, like this), and the version I own appears to have been trimmed at some point.

I'm guessing this card came out when Higbe was still a Cub, which means that it was released anywhere between 1937 and 1939. Higbe wasn't the greatest human being (he started a petition to have Jackie Robinson barred from playing for the Dodgers in 1947), but I'm still glad to have this pre-war oddball in my collection, no doubt.

Higbe may have sent the tower sprawling, but the good news is that that's a good thing when it comes to this game.

You can't lose at Oddball Jenga.

Christmas in the fall

Before I start, I'd like to wish all my blogging buddies out there a very Merry Christmas!

I'll be working tomorrow (the airport never sleeps), but I wanted to get a post up before the holiday since this blog has been dormant for about a week now.

The other day, I noticed that I still had a few trades to post from my pre-hiatus days. I figured it'd be as good a time as any to run through a few PWEs/small packages I received before my hiatus back in October, when, you know, there were actually leaves on the trees. (My apologies for the delay in posting them.)

The first batch of cardboard comes courtesy of two separate envelopes I received from Shane of "Shoebox Legends" fame. I've found that I've kind of stumbled into a PWE war with Shane as of late, which is nice because I honestly never know when something from him is going to show up in my mailbox.

This first PWE kicked off with an awesome play at the plate of The Wizard (of the Electric Diamond variety) that I'd somehow never seen before.

Shane was also nice enough to add a couple parallels to my blossoming Corey Kluber collection.

Subconsciously, I think I try to collect at least one current guy from every big-league club. My brain must've noticed the lack of current Indians in my binders, and figured the Klu-Bot was a good fit.

Not a bad choice, considering the guy's a former Cy Young winner and all.

Shane's second PWE started with this terrific A&G mini of my favorite current White Sock.

Definitely one of the best bat barrel shots in recent memory.

More player collection hits, new and old.

As a Cubs fan, I feel a little conflicted about my decision to start collecting Matt Carpenter. He's a rival, sure, but I'll be darned if the guy can't hit. 

But seriously, dude, try not to hit so much against the Cubs next year, okay?

Shane capped off the PWE fun with a couple of the most (in)famous throwbacks ever.

These have been rather famously dubbed the "Bloody Mary" and "Technicolor" jerseys of the '70s, and I think both labels, for better or worse, fit rather well.

Here's a first.

I found this sweet Donruss Preferred Vlad tin inside of a package I received from Tom of the terrific "Waiting 'til Next Year" blog.

It's the first time I've ever received a tin via trade, and now I kinda wish companies would package more of their cards in tins nowadays.

This package was stocked with standard-sized Vlads as well from both his Expos and Angels days.

And just when I thought all was right and well with the world...

...Tom went ahead and Biebered me.

I have no words, except, just...why, Tom?

Why?

But back to happy, Bieber-less thoughts.

I received this Clayton Kershaw insert as part of a return package from Shane (yes, another shane) from the "Cincinnati Reds Baseball Card Collector" blog. Shane noticed that I'd picked up a Kahn's Pete Rose oddball at the National this year, and asked if I'd be willing to part with it.

I did like the Rose, but when a guy with a blog title like that contacts you, there's a good chance he needs the card more than you do. I didn't mind parting with it. And, hey, did you know Clayton Kershaw shares a birthday with Wyatt Earp?

You do now.

These two leaping legends came from a trade with Bryan of the "Golden Rainbow Cards" blog.

Am I the only one who actually liked the yellow parallels last year?

I don't often make it a point to track down Photo Variation SPs these days, but this one was on my most-wanted list.

I don't know if reader Jeremy T. knew that when he sent it over, but it's a treasured add to my binders either way. The base version of Paulie in 2015 Topps will be ranking very high in my Cards of the Year countdown, and this SP comes very close to matching the base card's beauty.

Just by looking at this shot, even a casual fan would know how much Konerko meant to the South Side of Chicago.

The PWE I received from the Tony of the terrific "Off Hiatus Baseball Cards" was, ironically, the last envelope I received before I went on my hiatus.

Inside, I found a fantastically odd assortment of cardboard, which is par for the course with Tony. First up is this Jeff Reardon, a card that didn't strike me as anything strange until second and third viewings. Only then did the questions start coming.

1) Is that an airbrushed cap?

2) Donruss did airbrushing?

3) Since when did the Expos wear plain purple hats?

Up next are a couple sweet oddballs of Ryno and The Kid.

Tony has probably added more oddballs to my collection than any single blogger I've met.

Case in point.

Harmon Killebrew is one of my all-time favorites, and I like to think I've built up a formidable collection of his over the years. Even so, this '65 Topps Embossed card of The Killer had escaped me until Tony came along.

These Topps Embossed cards were never the best-looking, but, then again, there's no such thing as a bad card of Harmon Killebrew, is there?

Finally, we have a PWE from Jeff of the terrific "Wish They Still Came With Bubblegum" blog.

A&G might not come with bubblegum, but it does come with minis, and Jeff was nice enough to shoot this King Felix my way. Hernandez is one of those guys who I've basically been forced to collect. His cards seem to pop up everywhere I go. I think this mini finally pushed me over the edge.

I can now say the words: I collect Felix Hernandez.

Here's a couple of my favorite Cubs cards of 2015.

The Banks is a gold parallel of his legendary 2015 Stadium Club issue, and the Russell is one of many cards I hope to accumulate of the young Cub second baseman in the years to come.

That Russell-for-Samardzija deal is looking pretty good right about now.

A couple for my Griffey and Freddie Freeman collections.

I was never the biggest fan of stickers as a kid, but I've always liked them on baseball cards.

And how about a neon-yellow George Brett Kellogg's issue to close things out?

The number of cards in my Brett collection has almost tripled in the last year or so, and this will definitely take its place as one of the centerpieces in that fold.

With trade partners like this, it really does seem like Christmas is a year-round phenomenon here in the blogosphere. (Bieber aside.)

Here's hoping Santa fills your stockings with cardboard goodness this year.