UUUUUUUUUUTZ!!!!!!111111

I finally got in on the Utz action yesterday.

A card I wanted!

Some cards I didn’t!

These and, well, maybe a couple of others, are available for trade. (I do have a trade in progress with Bo though, so he gets first crack; UPDATE: Bo will take what’s left over, so feel free to make offers!)

As far as the rest of the Utz checklist goes, I’m looking for:

10 Adam Jones
39 Mookie Betts
45 Max Scherzer
61 David Price
83 Jose Altuve
86 Charlie Blackmon
89 Marcus Stroman

(06/17/19 Update: Thanks to Mark H. for the 3 I’ve crossed out so far.)

…and dassit. I love food issue card sets as much as the next person, but it’s a 100 card checklist of cards that are apparently indistinguishable from flagship aside from different checklist numbers and another brand logo, so unless I get a lot of, like, 90 of them somewhere, I’m out after I get my player collection guys.

This Started As A Card Site, Right?: Recent Non-Sports Pick-ups

Yes, I’ve been busy doing a bunch of other things, but cards are the space from which this site originates, so let’s cover a few, in this case some non-sports stuff.

Inching closer to finishing original Garbage Pail Kids Series 1-3 (initially, I was just gonna do 2-3, but I found near-sets of both sides of Series 1 maybe a year or so ago). These were both at a table at my town flea market last weekend, along with this CD…

Yes, it was a pretty good flea market table.

For those wondering, this is what’s left of my GPK want list now:

1985 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Series 1a (matte preferred, last update 04/02/18): 5 (regular back), 9, 33, 41

1985 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Series 1b (matte preferred, last update 04/02/18): 2, 8 (checklist back), 29 (checklist back), 41

1985 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Series 2a (last update 04/02/18): 49a, 58a, 63a, 75a

1986 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Series 3b (last update 06/10/19): 96b 104b 106b 107b 108b 112b 116b 120b 122b

If you’ve got any of these laying around, get in touch!

Yesterday, I hit my usual flea market, and turned up a couple more fun non-sports items…

Look at these mugs, punchin’ a kid. Those rats!

I’ve got the reprint set, but I’ll almost always pick up an original ’60s Batman card if I run into any, and I’ve got the dough.

“LOCKED SWORDS…huh-huh, huh-huh…”

If I’m being honest, I’m down for just about any ’60s non-sports stuff, as long as it’s within my fairly modest budget. I mean, Zorro cards don’t just show up every day…

As I get more and more frustrated with major sports leagues, the likelihood of me getting deeper into non-sports cards increases, though if I got really serious about it, there would need to be a focus and (likely) a cut-off date (as a lot of cards came out in the ’90s).

More cards (the kind with sports on ’em) coming relatively soon. I’ve got a small pile near my scanner, and I’m going to try and do smaller posts so I don’t kill y’all with my usual 40-different-card monster posts.

Second Life

 

I’ve rekindled an interest in being in Second Life over the past month. Have any of you used it before, and if so, are you still using it?

I own a nightclub there called Heck, which has been in Second Life for over a dozen years, but frequently dormant over the last decade. I’m working on making it an active place again.

I’ve also added links to Heck and other places I enjoy in Second Life to the sidebar on this site.

SENIORS!!!!!!!!111111111

OK, so…

There’s an indoor flea market near me that I visit sometimes. Not a huge amount of vendor or merch turnover, but they get stuff here and there, so I end up there from time to time. I went on Sunday, and I got some stuff. As people have been making mention of how long my posts have been recently, I’ll break it up into short pieces, and hopefully I’ll remember to make them all.

Before I get into the other stuff, this was the undisputed highlight…

It’s not a tough thing to get, I don’t think, nor is it an expensive one, but it never seemed to be in the same place as my disposable income and I. I’m so happy that I’ve finally got it.

I mean…when I opened the box in the car, and looked at the first card in it, this is who greeted me…

Look at that beautiful bastard. Look at him! Also: woodgrain! Uniforms I haven’t seen much of! But seriously, oh my god it’s a Pete LaCock card I didn’t have.

It continues…

!

(And that’s COMMISSIONER Curt Flood to you!)

!!!!!

ALSO !!!!!

This set is so good, y’all. I have some other Senior League stuff (I think from Pacific’s line, gotta look at/checklist those soon), but it’s not as amazing as this stuff. I’ll go on…

Somebody card Hal McRae, he looks way too young to be there!

My eyes just played tricks on me with this Dennis Leonard card, because of the placement of the league logo. It looks like he’s throwing the baseball in the logo! Also: I still want someone to do a TV series on the ’70s-’80s Royals, told through  what I’d imagine Dennis Leonard’s perspective to be.

WALT!!!!!!!

This card of Easler is straight-up gorgeous.

The Mad Hungarian!

LeFlore!

Vida Blue, workin’ for the Juice!

George Foster in pinstripes!

Jose Cruz, looking as utterly badass as Jose Cruz always looked on cards.

Fergie!

Figueroa!

Fingers! (For those wondering, total HOF count in the set is 4; along with Rollie here and Fergie, Dick Williams and Earl Weaver both have manager cards in the set, too…)

Aikens, before it got really weird. Glad he made it back from it all.

Otis! (Yeah, this is definitely a set to have if you liked the ’70s-’80s Royals teams…)

Spaceman! (He’s still pitching, isn’t he?)

And, saving the best for last on the card fronts…I present to you the 1989 Topps Senior League Tim Stoddard card, without further comment.

The backs are pretty nice for late ’80s Topps (the stock’s Traded Set-ish), with a decent overview of MLB career stuff, and their stats from the Senior League. I used Dock’s stats because 1. he’s Dock 2. knowing what I know of him, I think he’d be happy to have clean and sober pitching stats highlighted for a change, and I’m pretty sure he was doing good on that front by then 3. it was a very Dock Ellis set of stats (struck out a bunch of guys, walked a bunch of guys, the W-L didn’t do him justice, and no one could hit him) and 4. from flipping through the other cards, his ERA beat most of the league’s by 2-3 full runs.

I showed you all a nice sample size of the set, but there’s a ton of goodness in these 132 cards that I didn’t get to. I paid a little less for it than everyone else was paying for single retail packs of Heritage this past weekend. Seek out this set if you don’t have one yet, and enjoy the hell out of it, especially if you have a bunch of love for the guys I highlighted here, and the era they played in.