Farewell Charlie Hustle

I was keeping tabs on the Braves/Mets series yesterday when I received word from my wife's Uncle about the passing of Pete Rose. It's still a little bit of a shock, but I guess at 83 years old it was only a matter of time. Sparky Anderson, Joe Morgan and now Pete Rose. I know that the remaining members of the Big Red Machine aren't getting younger and no one knows how much longer those players will be with us. Love him or hate him, Pete Rose knew how to play baseball. I think that passion for the sport is what drew me to him as a collector. That and the fact that he was a flawed individual. He was far from perfect and a very polarizing figure. He made some mistakes and committed the cardinal sin in baseball that will probably forever keep him out of Cooperstown. I wanted to show off the last card I picked up of Pete prior to his passing. This 2010 Panini Century Collection Six Cent Stamp is fantastic. While I'm normally not a fan of Panini cards, in my opinion, this is just an amazing piece of cardboard. I don't have this card in hand yet as it's at COMC headquarters. There was a 3 cent stamp listed on Beckett that I purchased today since I had been eyeing that card for a while but hadn't pulled the trigger yet. I figured I had better grab it since a lot of the Rose cards I had been watching on eBay vanished quickly after the news broke yesterday and I wasn't sure when another copy would show up. There's nothing more I can say about the Hit King. He belongs to the ages now. People either liked him or they didn't. He was a polarizing figure before polarizing became the norm of society as it is today. But no one can argue his drive and determination to play the game hard. A game he loved probably more than life itself. After all, Pete once said "I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball." 

Getting Ready For The Call

In just a few short months we'll find out who will be the inductees of the Hall of Fame Class of 2025. There's little doubt that Ichiro will be a member of that class. I always appreciated his old school playing style of trying to slap the ball into play instead of trying to go yard the way most players approach the game today. I don't think we'll see another Ichiro for quite some time, if ever. That being said, I've had my eye on this card for quite some time and I finally decided to purchase one off of eBay since it seems that not a lot of them are available. This is the 2007 Topps Chrome Japanese version and while they're not numbered, their production run is definitely a lot smaller compared to the English version. According to Baseballcardpedia, six Japanese players had a short print Japanese text version of their card (Matsui, Johjima, Ichiro, Okajima, Igawa, and Matsuzaka). The Hobby odds of pulling a Japanese variant from a pack was 1:82 packs. I'm glad to finally have this card in my collection and though I'm not an Ichiro super collector, there are a few more cards of his that I'm hoping to pick up before he gets his call from the Hall. 

A Different Kind of Elly

Over the past few months the 2024 Topps design has grown on me. So much so, that I thought about chasing a rainbow of Elly De La Cruz flagship cards. That project was quickly dashed once I started looking into what it would cost to acquire just nine different parallels (and we're not talking about short print stuff either). I thought I would go after anything with a print run of 499 or greater, but after I added up the cost the project would have run me well over $700. NO THANKS! Prices have become stupid expensive for stuff that would have only cost a fraction of that 10 years ago. I feel like fanatics has built their business on a house of cards (figuratively speaking) and it's only a matter of time before it comes crashing down. It can't last, and it won't last. Enough of my ranting. Instead of a rainbow I decided to purchase something way more affordable and I'm very happy with these cards. These three Elly cards are from the Topps Flagship Companion set. I love the different images and the prices for these were reasonable. I would eventually like to add a Reds Team set card of Elly to this grouping and place the four cards in a BCW four card screw down to show them off. 

One More to Go!

Just a quick post today. I finally picked up a 2011 Topps Chrome Purple Refractor for my 2011 Topps Chrome Votto Rainbow. Numbered out of 499 I didn't think this would be that difficult to track down but there were only two available. One was listed on COMC for $20....no thanks. The other one I found was at Beckett Marketplace for $7.50. Needless to say, that's the one I went with. Now I'm just down to needing the Gold Refractor numbered out of 50 to complete this project. Not sure when one will appear, but hopefully it'll be soon so I can wrap this up.

Everything's Just Rosie When It Comes To This Bobblehead!

It has been a LONG time since I added a bobblehead to my collection. I really don't collect bobbleheads anymore due to the fact that they just take up too much space. I would like to eventually add a City Connect Elly De La Cruz, but they're way too expensive at the moment. Maybe I'll grab one in a year or two when the hype fades. In the meantime, my in-laws are in the process of downsizing and gifted me with this Rosie Red bobblehead that they've had stored at their place. I've thought about purchasing one of these for a while now but never got around to doing it. I guess it pays to be patient. The Reds gave these out at their June 30, 2018 game when they faced the Brewers. Cincinnati won that game 12-3. The highlight of the game occurred when Michael Lorenzen (who normally pitches) came in to the game to pinch hit and hit a grand slam in the bottom of the seventh for the Reds. 

Still Enjoy Building Sets After All These Years

Back when I started collecting in the mid 80s it was SO much easier to collect sports cards. You had only a few options to choose from and prices for a pack of cards didn't cost an arm and a leg. Donruss and Fleer never tickled my fancy, Score wasn't on my radar, and Sportflics was only available at Toys R Us (where my Mom would only take me for my birthday). That just left Topps and I was content with that. 792 cards to track down was a task that I could easily accomplish. I would normally purchase a couple of wax boxes and trade my doubles with friends to get me over the finish line. Fast forward almost forty years later and I still enjoy set building. I don't buy boxes of new product but I have started putting together some want lists of sets that I always wanted but never got around to chasing. The first is 1993 Topps Finest. I collected the entire set about 5 years ago but for whatever reason I sold it since I didn't think it fit in to my collection and I've regretted it ever since. So, once again I'm going to build it (along with the three promo cards) and hoping to have this completed by the end of the year. I'm also going to add a couple of Donruss Studio sets to the mix just because they're different and I think they're fantastic (1993 and 2003). Maybe I'll decide to chase a set or two later once these are finished, but for now I'll keep things manageable. 

Another 2011 Topps Chrome Refractor Added to the Collection

A few weeks ago this card appeared on eBay for way more than I was willing to pay. There was no "Best Offer" option on the card but I decided to add it to my watch list to see if it would eventually drop in price. A few days later the seller sent me an offer that knocked $25 dollars off but that was still more than I was willing to pay. Finally, last Friday, the seller dropped the price to $60 and I was happy to pay that price for one of the three refractors I'm missing from this project. I'm still waiting for it to arrive in the mail but, that said, I'm happy that this is finally in my collection. Now I just need to get the Purple and Gold refractors to wrap up this project.