Number 998.....Wil Myers Bobblehead

I picked up a new bubblehead for my baseball card room about a week and half ago.  Since the best card shop in the area closed down recently a group of collectors from around the Raleigh-Durham area have banded together in a Facebook group to talk, trade, and sell cards.  It's a good group of people who all used to hang out at Big D's Card Shop.

One of the group members ventured down to Spring Training in Florida to check out several different team camps and also made a stop by Rays Fan Fest.  I had asked him to keep an eye out for a certain lost bobblehead at Rays Fest, but they sold out rather quickly.

The Rays had several other bobble heads that they were selling at their Fan Fest, so I still ended up with a really cool item for my collection.  This is my second Will Myers bobblehead and was a giveaway last April 15th at The Trop.  The bobblehead commemorates Myers winning the American League Rookie of the Year in 2013.  

I like the look of the front of the bobblehead.  It's a really accurate representation of what Myers looks like after he swings and hits the ball.  His front arm might be a little bit low, but overall it's excellent.  The bat is always behind his head with one hand low on the bat.  MLB has posted dozens of Myers Home Runs on YouTube.  They all look like this.......

and the actual video.......

The uniform and details with Myers appearance are pretty well done too.  Here's a quick glance at the side and back views of the Will Myers Bubblehead.......        

Myers is wearing the Sunday blue alternate uniform, the long pants with the shin guard are a staple of Myers gamely appearance.  Overall an excellent addition to the collection.  I am going to have to clear off some space next to my Durham Bulls bobblehead of Myers and get a picture of the two together.  A big thank you to Jon for taking time to pick this up for me on your trip.   

Number 997.....

It's a dreary Monday and I am not feeling too terrific today, so I am going to give you a short, simple, and sweet post for your reading enjoyment.  This offseason I added several players to "People Whom I Collect List" and now that the season has started I cannot let you, my loyal readers down, with a poor effort on players I might have introduced you too during the long off season.

Here's a player I hope to see in Durham towards the end of the summer.  Last year Johnny Field took home the Rays Minor League Player of the Year and managed to hit an even .300 with a .376 OBP, and .488 slugging at two stops in Low A and High A.  I am guessing he's going to spend the whole season with Double A Montgomery, but I can be optimistic right?  On to the baseball cards....

I have already picked up a bunch of the Johnny Field cards out of last year's Bowman Draft product and some of his USA Baseball autographs from Panini, so my card today is going to have to tide you over until Topps, Leaf, or Panini decides to make a 2015 Johnny Field card.....

This Field card comes from the unlicensed 2013 Donruss Elite product and features him wearing his college uniform with the Arizona Wildcats logos airbrushed off.  Not the most attractive card, and at 725 copies not the hardest to find, but if you're going to collect a player even these types of cards are nice to add to the collection.  This would actually be a cool card if Donruss had left the college logos on the uniforms, like they did in the Donruss Elite sets from 2007-2010.  I guess after 2010 they became more unlicensed than they previously were......

closer to 1000......

#MyCardMonday

When I was a kid I always seemed to end up at baseball card day.  I do not think it was anything intentional, but I have a Cardinals team issued set from a stadium giveaway from almost every year between 1988 and 1995.  The Cardinals team sets were pretty typical of baseball cards that were given away by teams.  They had a sponsor stamp somewhere on the front and a big advertisement on the back.  One year the set was issued by Kansas City Life Insurance, another year it was sponsored by the St. Louis Police Department, and the card I am sharing the week for #MyCardMonday features an ad from the U.S. Forest Service.

The cards have been hanging out in a big Rubbermaid container I have filled with ticket stubs, scorecards, and different programs that I have picked up over the years attending baseball games.  I had a great time looking through the cards a few days back and decided to pick one to share this week.

This Ozzie Smith was my favorite in all of the sets.  This card was from the 1988 Cardinals Team Issue set, that's a cool Smokey the Bear in the corner, and features a cool picture of the Hall of Fame shortstop hopping over Gary Gaetti in the 1987 World Series.  There is no better name on the 1980s Cardinals than Ozzie Smith, throw in a really sweet picture, and this is a cool card.  Here's a look at the back......

Love the cool cartoon PSA with Smokey the Bear.  The cards in almost all of the team issued stadium giveaway Cardinals sets are oversized including the 1988 set.  The card is 4 inches by 2.5 inches which made storage an issue.  My Ozzie card is not in the best shape and I honestly thought about possibly just replacing my set.  Storing these team sets in a Rubbermaid container was probably not the best idea, but they are really cheap on Ebay.

3 Years!!!

Three years ago today I started my blog The Snorting Bull by posting a cool Topps Triple Threads card of one-time (for a short time) Cardinals relief pitcher Brian Fuentes.  He was not actually a Cardinal at this point, but I liked the fact that the card had patch pieces from the 2009 All-Star game in St. Louis.  I still have the card in my collection and proudly have the card in my stack of untouchables.  It's sentimental value is pretty high in spite of the fact that the card is a Brian Fuentes card.

Since starting my blog three years ago I have met so many cool people who share my love of card collecting and have taught my a lot about this hobby.   My 994 posts, this is 995, have given me a chance to share in the excitement of adding new cards to my collection, and also share the cards that were here long before I considered sitting down for a few minutes each night to type up something about a cool card or a cool player.  

I cannot thank my readers enough for taking time out of your day to stop by my little corner of the internet and check out what I have to say about baseball cards.  Writing about my hobby has been so much fun, and page hits are not my end all, but somedays I am just simply shocked at how many people stop by this page.  It has grown exponentially over the past three years.   I enjoy reading the comments, emails, DMs, PMs, Tweets, Facebook and Instagram comments, and finding fellow collectors who love collecting cards or just like talking about sports or life in general.  

Thank you again!

2015 Topps Heritage Part 2

I am on to the base set for the second half of my Topps Heritage post.  The 425 non-short-printed base cards are usually not too hard to find, but those 75 short prints and different variations always seem to take most of the summer to put together.  However, I am going to need a little bit of work to put together the 425 base cards.  I have not quite finished putting sorting the cards I pulled out of my two boxes and retail packs, but I am guessing I am going to need more than 50 base cards and 50 short prints.  

In going through the stacks of base cards and sorting them into a set I have narrowed my favorite cards down to three based on my baseball rooting and viewing interests....

First card that I love in the base set is Jason Heyward.  I know this is somehow airbrushed, but I am hoping this is a great year for Heyward and the Cardinals.  Pujols is gone, Holliday and Wainwright are getting older, it's time for a new star to take over for the Cardinals.  I have started to dabble in Heyward cards, but have not gone all in quite yet.  Still slightly nervous that he won't live up to expectations or he won't sign with the team at the end of the year.  Anyway, this is the first Heyward card in a Cardinals uniform that I have added to my collection and I am hoping there are many more to come.  Great card and easy favorite out of the Cardinals cards.  

Second card favorite card goes to former Duke Blue Devil Marcus Stroman.  I enjoyed watching The Stro Show during his time in Durham and also at USA Baseball.  I have followed him through the Minors and into the Majors last season.  This will be Stroman's first full season in Toronto and he should have a good year for a good Blue Jays team.  If you are on Twitter be sure to give Stroman a follow.  He is easily one of my favorite players to follow and you will appreciate how hard he works at his craft.  

Last card goes for a former Durham Bulls player B.J. Upton.  I am guessing we are probably down to our last card of the Braves outfielder with B.J. on the card instead of Melvin.  Upton was the star player of the Durham Bulls when I first moved to North Carolina a decade ago.  The first opening day I went to at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park was ended on an Upton walk off Grand Slam.  B.J. has had a rough couple of years with the Braves, and while I am guessing a turn around will likely not happen for B.J., but I hope he at least puts up respectable numbers.  

2015 Topps Heritage Part 1

I am going to break down my Topps Heritage boxes into two posts this weekend.  Even though my favorite local card shop closed recently, the shop owner Jimmy, is still helping all of us card collectors in central North Carolina with our wax.  I picked up two boxes of the popular annual Topps product which, this year, is based on the 1966 Topps set.  Here's a quick look at a base card......

More on the base set tomorrow morning.  I was happy that Topps returned to coding the backs of the Heritage set cards to help collectors pick out the different variations.  The bottom of the base cards feature the numbers 253 as the last three digits of the code.

I am going to focus on the variations and inserts that I landed in boxes in this post.  I pulled some nice cards and was happy with my boxes.  I would have loved to have landed an autograph, but the short prints and variations were really nice in my box.  Let's start out with the inserts, since they have been basically the same since the start of the Heritage product in 2001.  

The basic inserts in the Topps Heritage year in and year out are the Now & Then set, which features league leaders from the past year and design year, Flashbacks, which feature both sports and non-sports events from the design year, and the New Age Performers set, which features younger star players.  There are also Chrome cards this year.....

and there are also several different box toppers.  I pulled an original 1966 Topps card and one of these  mini card sheets....

My two relic pulls weren't bad.  I would have loved to have pulled an autograph, but two nice players here with the Wright having a centered pinstripe.  The Mauer also has a pinstripe, but it is way over on the very edge of the window on the card.  Now, my favorite parts, the short prints and variations.  

The high numbered cards, above 425, are short printed and seeded at about 1 in 3 packs.  There are a total of 75 short prints and I ended up with 19 different short prints in all.  The basic short prints have the 258 code at the end....

I pulled two variations on the short prints.  I pulled two of the action variations.  A Tanaka and a Puig....

and the code on the back of the action short prints....

Finally the best card of my box at the odds in 1 in 140 packs is this great looking Mike Trout Banner Swap short print.....

Nineties Night

I spent a little bit of time working on my 1998 Stadium Club set last weekend.  After much sorting I found a full base set and a bunch of doubles and some really good inserts.  I am probably far enough away on most of the insert sets that putting together a master set of inserts would be a difficult task, but I was really close on one of the cool inserts in the Stadium Club product.  

I am not sure that my scan does this card justice, but this card comes from the 15 card Royal Court insert set......

These cards had a nice silver foil finish and were seeded at 1:36 packs, or one per box and a half.  Somehow I ended up with 11 of the cards in my collection.  I am not sure if I had worked on putting together this set at some point, but they were there in the box.  That means I needed four cards, all of which were pretty decent cards.  

A little bit of shopping on COMC netted me the last four cards........

I am happy to close out a nice looking insert set from the nineties with these four cards.  I am not a huge COMC shopper, but I must say, if you are looking for a few cards to fill holes in sets it is a great site.  I ended up paying slightly more than $10 for the four cards and got flat rate shipping on the items.  I picked up one more card with this order, but I will save that one for another day....