Cards Where Other Things Are Going On.

The main point of this card is that Chad Durbin is pitching. However, the secondary action makes this a better-than-average card. Am I right?

Isn't that Curtis Granderson?

What's your favorite card where the main action isn't the reason why you like the card?

Reasons to cheer up.

Because Fred will hit bureacrats in the head with his bat. In a nice way.

Defiantly upbeat, Darryl will appear on a shiny, bat bit off-center card that has this back:

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

Hoyt will be serene. There is little to like about this card, which was apparently designed by somone who had temporarily been laid off from a job designing parking lots. But we love the name Hoyt, and we love that little bit of blue stripe scrunched up into the top left corner of the jersey bit space, yearning to breathe free.

Baseball cards with pictures of more than two players, through the ages, excel. This is a factoid.

We have mixed feelings about Mike, but the point here is, what's going on in the upper right hand corner? Stare at that for a while and it actually brings your blood pressure down; medically proven. Mysterious.

We love love love the Legendary Cuts relic cards. And the old uniforms. And the chaws.

Go ahead, make his day.

Relic cards of HOF players go for relatively little on eBay. We don't understand  this, but like it.

Ah, well there. We feel better.

Captain Kirk's wisdom.

I've been having a horrible, wretched, frustrating week, the kind that makes you feel as if there's pressure building up in your head to the degree that your ears itch. So I'm going to take a few moments here to compile some pleasing cards. Because. It's a Pleasing Card Intermission. A PCI, if you will. A medical leave of sorts. I'm working on it right now, and soon James T. and I will present a post that is pleasing. A pleasing post. In the meantime, I also want to thank you all for keeping the baseball card blogularium churning in such a way that there are always some fun and informative posts to read. It's like Pandora's Box...always, there's hope.

By the way, as food for thought while we package our post, do you know what kind of lights Noah used on his ark?

Thank you to the erudite Rod for the nifty Star Trek cards.

Jim Bunning Assessment.

"Under increasing pressure from Democrats and members of his own party, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) Tuesday night abandoned his one-man filibuster of a one-month extension to unemployment benefits and other programs. In the end Bunning agreed to a deal allowing him one vote on an amendment to pay for the bill’s $10 billion cost. That proposal was offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last Thursday at the start of his filibuster, but Bunning rejected it because he feared his amendment would not pass....

Thousands of federal highway employees who had been furloughed as a result of Bunning’s filibuster will likely be able to return to work later this week, and unemployment insurance checks will be sent to recipients after several days of delay.

To ensure the deal is enforced, Bunning has placed a hold on all the items included in the nightly 'wrap up,' which normally entails a unanimous consent agreement to pass noncontroversial nominations and bills, a GOP aide said. Once the votes have taken place that hold would be lifted, the aide explained." Roll Call newspaper

So, Republicans are thrifty when out of power and wildly lavish when in power (tax cuts for the wealthy, plenty of war financing, use of reconciliation to push through favorite programs, and so on). On this rare occasion when baseball and politics cross over, what is your assessment of Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Bunning?

Genius? Hypocrite?

And, most importantly, how will this affect the value of his baseball cards?

Fuzzy Mets. Testing our Met-tle. Wrightful place. You get the idea.

We received some outstanding Mets cards from Pack War Corky. You know, this fellow:

Fierce avatar.

Among the cards in the packet he sent were some major attention-getters. We may not be the brightest baseball card collectors on the planet, but we thought we knew most of the cool Mets cards out there. Well, Corky proved us wrong. These 2001 Upper Deck cards are fantastic.

They exist in a shady region of strange graphics that are somehow metsmerizing.

And as if this wasn't enough, these cards are fuzzy.

To clarify, the "Mets" and "NY" logos on these cards are FUZZY.

Now, Paul's Random Stuff first introduced us to these cards, but in that strong silent type way, he never revealed the Fuzz Factor! Go figure. So, being shallow, we forgot about the design. But trust us when we say that in person, they deserve attention. They undoubtedly exist with relics in some of them...but a person doesn't necessarily need relics when the card comes fuzzed. There is such a thing as Swank Overload.

Furthering our Metscard karma was the perfect gentleman many know as White Sox Cards. His is one of the first card blogs we ever discovered, and one of the first people we ever traded with. He's a mensch. He glides under the radar sometimes but is a force to be reckoned with. We know this became of the enormous number of referral hits we get from his site.

Steve sent along some 2010s of David Wright:

These are code cards, too. So Lucy will "unlock" them.

Steve also included this 2007 M&M 29/29, which we love:

And a spine-tingling (we're trying not to use the word 'awesome') Zito Effect:

Wait a minute, how did BZ appear in a Metszealous post? It's Steve's fault. We'll let it slip through this time. Deep philosophical thought: I wonder what would happen to our sanity (let alone the Mets payroll) if Barry ever joined the lovable losers?

Thank you, Corky and Steve!

What is the best baseball* card in the world?

As we ease back into baseball card blogging and, dare we say, collecting, we also return to wrestle with The Big Questions: how can we be anti-corporatist but pro-Met? Or any pro-any-MLB team, for that matter? How can we support a hobby that kills lots of trees? How can we reconcile a growing mistrust of materialism with cardboard acquisitiveness? Here's how.

By focusing on inherent baseball card collecting dangers, such as The B-p.

Yes, The B-p happened to us again recently. Sure, there were distractions in the package, too. Suffice to say that when we opened a packet of cards from dayf, Lucy was highly amused by various little drawings and comments from Mr. C. Junkie, and I was all happy about Zito effect cards and stuff. Before we got distracted by the b--ping, before I had to explain the dangers of opening a packet of baseball cards from bloggers these days to Lucy, she was lulled into complacency because right after some good Zitos we saw something underneath.

What lies beneath, you ask? See for yourself. This part, even a 9-year-old can bear: 

Guess what card went into "the most special back page" of the smile/happy binder? Correctomundo, my peeps. Puppies!

And this is why it is so much fun collecting cards with Lucy. This card, you will note, is not signed; there are no bits of clothing attached it; there are no bat shavings. It is not an Xfractor. Yet that triple-dalmatian is now Lucy's favorite card of all time. (Along with many other "favorite cards of all time" sent by bloggers; kids haven't yet refined their elitism abilities.) By collecting cards with her, I remain in direct contact with the pure old days of bike-spoked, rubber-band-gathered, wall-flipped cards that you like, well, just because you like them. Thank you for that, along with all the other thousands of joys you reveal on a daily basis, little one.

Okay, so dayf also tried to distract us with little comments like this one. Mr. CJ has a way of educating us in the most inobtrusive way. I'm sorry to say that it wasn't until I typed "Al Downing 715" into Google that I learned he was the pitcher who threw the spheroid that helped put Hank Aaron into the record books. That's what happens when you are made busy by other topics for months. Your brain gets all dusty. But now we know! And we have another card for our 1972 collection.

Then, as soon as we got feeling safe, we found this. Lucy loved it perhaps because she didn't understand the implications.

And then she got wow-ed by this green DW beauty, and I got caught up in major Zito Effect* (*that is, when you get lots and lots a card of a player, and yet no doubles. It just dawned on me that Zito Effect IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF B--PING!). I won't even show the shocking results of the B-p here. It involved Craig Biggio and will only encourage the perpetrator. We are renting a forklift to remove the results from the premises.

Massive Zito Effect! Ok, that brought down the blood pressure. 

Then, we came to realize that dayf was only joshin'! He was only letting the b-p happen to prepare us for the greatness! It was all a ruse to delay the surprise...this beauty:

Wow. [sniff] We love this guy.

And right now, for the proper finish, I'd rescan the puppy card all by its lonely self so you could see its full glory, but I can't, because the moment that thing came out of the scanner the first time, Lucy ran off with it.

Because it's the best baseball* card in the world.
(*Even though, upon close inspection per a question from BA Benny, it's actually a football card. Funny, because we don't associate football players and dogs in a good way. But you get the spirit, if not the letter, of the happy. Stop making sense.)

Thank you very much, dayf.

Smart people like baseball cards.

Ok, we're back from our hiatus. We now get to share some of the cards we received while we were in suspended animation. It's true we are behind in the realm of baseball card news and blog happenin's, but we'll catch up quickly.

First we present cards sent by AdamE of the extremely fun Thoughts and Sox blog -- and by cards we mean cards with a twist! For instance, sure, we'd seen this Curtis card, but this version is SHINY:

AdamE also sent some Barrys, including these Barrys that are a) Zito-Effective and b) Zoolanderific:

The SPx color tinges mesmerize us. Here is SPx brown tinge, blue tinge:

These great vintage reprints have a theme: and the theme is, 'Kneeling Pose with Angled Bat:'

Here's 'Donruss Threads Unique Approach' to the nth degree:

and some fine text also:

Good trivia: Dave Winfield "remains the only person to be drafted by four different leagues." And then, 'Golden Gophers,' ok? Now THERE'S an upbeat team name that, to be uttered most effectively, should be spoken by someone with a thick Minnesota accent. Like, for instance, probably Goldy himself. 

 

Thank you, AdamE!

And in closing, we present one of our favorite bands appearing on our favorite late night talk show in celebration of one of our two wonderful daughters winning First Place in the Science Fair this week with a data-driven project on Earthquake Wave Speeds! A reliable truism: smart is good! Here, Craig Ferguson presents They Might Be Giants, who present the sun from their most recent great CD, Science is Real:

When baseball becomes a defining moment in family history.

Hello everyone. Our apologies for disappearing for a while; we have been involved in a few extremely time-consuming endeavors and once we finish a jury duty assignment next week, then we're hoping to get back to normal around the Corners.

We're also in the midst of major school projects, including a family history assignment from Lucy's fourth-grade class. We have a longstanding interest in baseball on both sides of our family; see for instance the story from Lucy's late grandpa which you can click at right, below 'Gem Mint Peeps.' Since baseball fervor is a steady element in the clans, it's no wonder Lucy has picked up on it.

Here is a recollection from her Great Aunt Jean, who is 84 years old, that we enjoyed very much, and hope you do as well. Besides being a great look back, it offers an account of why our Aunt Jean is a Yankees fan--an explanation we hadn't known before:

When I was in sixth grade I lived in Long Island [back when there weren’t many stores and it wasn’t densely populated as it is now]. My mother gave my older sister Mary money to get me shoes in Jamaica, Queens. But instead of doing that, she said to me, “Okay, we're not gettng shoes. We're going to the Polo Grounds and you can see your first major league baseball game.” When I heard that, I was in seventh heaven.

[The Polo Grounds stadium was located at 155th Street in Manhattan.]
I was elated! I loved the right fielder Mel Ott, who in his career hit 511 home runs.

And during the game, he hit a home run! It was such a beautiful day. I learned how to cheer with everyone else, and that instead of sitting alone in your house listening to the game on the radio, being with the crowd was exhilarating. I was on a cloud the whole way home. And that was when I knew I had to live in Manhattan.


Eventually I graduated Northport High School and went to live with my older sister Helen and brother-in-law John. They lived on Adrian Avenue in Upper Manhattan, around 225th Street.

Then I became a truly avid New York Giants fan. And I was working in Manhattan! I remember that at a game I met the office manager of the Giants and he liked how much of a fan I was. He invited me on the Sam Arrow Radio Show for fifteen minutes to talk about the team as a representative female fan. I was shaking like a leaf the whole time. But he asked who my favorites were and besides Mel Ott I said Alvin Dark, who was a very consistent player.

Later, he took me to Toots Shor and we met some players and the singer Dean Martin. As the years progressed, the Giants left New York City for California. For a while, they would put the games on TV but there was a three-hour time difference and soon they stopped doing that. I needed a New York team to root for.

I could not root for the Mets because to me, they were the ex-Dodgers. I just couldn’t root for them, so I rooted for the Yankees...and I’ve been a Yankees fan ever since.

Alas, Aunt Jean's reasoning for becoming a Yankees fan seems completely understandable. Learning this was an enlightening moment for us. Also, her personal New York geography includes such a vivid memory of the Polo Grounds, which was in shouting distance of Yankee Stadium.

And so on both sides of Lucy's family, there are sweeping green swaths of outfield that help everything make sense.

Many thanks to Aunt Jean. Also, please stay tuned to Dinged Corners for an upcoming feature on wonderful cards sent to us from blogger friends, including dayf and AdamE.

Is this anything? Hint: YES.

Sure, you may come up with an answer that's close. But while you're probably snowbound, can you get all psychic on us and guess EXACTLY what that is? Hah. We think not. More on this momentarily.

There Was Ebullience in the Desert after we found a bunch of cards in the mail the other day from none other than the proprietor of Sign Here...and Here, who writes about autographs and a good deal more. He says he had prepared this packet for a trade a while back that fell through, and he thought we'd like the cards. It seems he was correct. This packet of mostly David Wrights presented a vivid Zito Effect (that is, lots of cards of said player exist, and we have scads, yet most of what we received was brand new to us). It's embarassing to admit we didn't own this adorable 2005 Topps Bowman Heritage 1951-style card:

That is an excellent smile, sir!

This Sweet Spot is, well, sweet (back date 2004):

We for some reason did not own this Topps Chrome bat waggler (right):

Let alone the Topps Finest Classic-Wright-Tongue-Sticking-Out-to-Accentuate-Earnestness (left).

Below left,  a chrome version of Topps 1958 style, wherein DW grins in a way that suggests he perhaps ate a bad fig. On the right, continuing the medical theme, a Bowman Chrome in which DW seems weary, to an extent that makes us want to drive an ambulance onto the field to offer him some glucose and a ride:

2007 SPx, which has three different pics of the Mets third baseman on one card:

How many other sets include three different photos on one card? We ask you.

Lucy's favorite David card of all time, but in WHITE, and numbered 240/660:

We'd never seen this Fleer Patchworks 58/99. We're always impressed when players don't throw the bat after a hit but kind of places it down carefully:

You get the picture, a wonderful packet of Wrights. There were other Mets and then the occasional special "oh here." Such as: Billy Wagner in that incomparably great Topps Special Blue, and even a Curtis:

Then, back to the original question, Is This Anything?:

And you knew it was, in fact, anything. You may even have known it was a Mets Stripey Relic Card! But did you know it was Shiny Level 10 Mike Piazza jersey with Level 10 Stripe?

You see? We told you it was, indeed, something. Chrome the Game, baby:

AND, finally, we present, from this package,

a wax pack of New Kids on the Block cards.

Super Gloss. This group was popular in a period in my life when I had absolutely no awareness of pop culture. Could this be a better reminder of 1989iana?:

Do you suppose he has any hair or Cosby sweater regrets? And wait a minute, isn't that Nick Jonas?:

It turns out, even in the card realm, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

So thank you, Mr. P., very much indeed!

Postscript: To those of you buried in snow, we leave you with this inspired Canadian When Life Gives You Lemons Make Lemonade Suggestion: