If I had a vote...

Since the Hall of Fame vote comes out today, I thought I would toss out a question... If you had a vote, who would you vote for? I think the writers can vote for 5 players on the ballot. Here is what my ballot would look like:

Rickey Henderson (Can't wait to hear his speech... 'Rickey is the greatest of all time and now Rickey is in the hall of fame...')
Jim Rice (Come on, he should have been in a long time ago)
Bert Blyleven (How is he not in yet)
Andre Dawson (Former MVP on a last place team, great hitter, played on bad knees almost his whole career)
Harold Baines (Has almost 3,000 hits. If he had not been traded from the White Sox twice, into platoon situations, he would have had 3,000. Plus, he was a great player for a long time.)
Honorable Mention:

Tim 'Rock' Raines
Jack Morris
Don Mattingly
Mark Grace
Tommy John
Dave Parker
Lee Smith

Mark McGwire may not ever get in. I think that he was a one-dimensional player, but was the biggest star in the game and that should make a difference. Me, personally, I think he should get in eventually.

Pleasing the Mrs.

Although my loving wife STILL feels like my card collecting is 'just a phase' that I will apparently grow out of, I have been trying to get her interested in collecting. I have foolishly tried to pick up cards for her from time to time (mostly Detroit Red Wings hockey cards). They all end up in my card room with me having to file and sort them away... I'm not too big a hockey fan, so with them being left in my care, they pretty much get buried in a 5,000 count box alongside former Orioles I stick in there like Sam Horn, Mike Devereaux, Adam Loewen, etc. never to be seen again. For Christmas, I decided to go 'all out' in my attempt to get her interested and filled her stocking up with nothing but Ichiro cards (her supposed favorite player). They currently reside in front of my china cabinet in the card room awaiting her to add them to the old lock box that my Ripken collection has out grown. She was surprisingly very happy with the assortment of Ichiro cards that I, P.A. and Pete put together for her, and I think she finally has some interest in folowing a player and looking for his cards. It all paid off for me when I ordered 2 boxes of 2001 Topps from bbcexchange.com (and told her about them WHEN I ORDERED THEM...). When they arrived several days later, she grills me 'When did you order these, how much did they cost, do I look fat in this outfit, etc.' I told her: 'Dear, you DO realize that the series 2 box right here COULD have an Ichiro rookie card in it?' She stopped nagging and said 'If you find it, its MINE.' SO, when i pulled the card, I shout into the kitchen: "Mal, would you like to see what an Ichiro Rookie Card looks like?" She stops in the middle of making the 50 pounds of ham she was making for dinner and RUNS into the living room to see... Naturally, I already had one, as I purchased it from some kid selling a collection at the shop, so I held it over her as if I didn't have one at all. "Dear, I need the card to complete my set..." and her response: "like hell you do, you probably already have one and are just being an ass..." We know each other too well.....

2 1991 Topps Box breaks...

Over the past 2 weeks, we (Pete, P.A., Kimaloo and I) busted 2 boxes of 1991 Topps at $20.00 total ($5.00 for each of us) for each box. Obviously, there wasn't the promise of a 'big hit' or anything like that (with the exception of looking for the Chipper Jones RC. I traded to P.A. a card of some old man who beat the snot out of Robin Ventura (Nolan Ryan) for some guy who played a lot of games in a row (Cal Ripken) when we broke the first box. I felt it was a pretty nice straight-up trade. Ater the second box yesterday, I have to say, I had more fun opening this stuff than I have had with some of the more recent releases. I liked how we would mock the awesomely bad mulletts, the stars that never were, etc. It had us reminiscing about Bo Jackson, Howard Johnson, Nolan giving an uppercut to Ventura, Cal and Billy as brothers and double play partners, etc. I highly recommending getting a couple of friends together, each dropping 5 bucks and opening a box of some 90's 'crap'. You just might remember why you fell in love with cards when you were a kid, instead of feeling all 'doom and gloom' about the collapse of the late 90's or the overabundance of autos and GU cards today. Here are some of the highlights from the 1991 box bust at All About Sports (shameless plug) last saturday and yesterday......I think the Roger Clemens is a really great photo, sometimes action shots aren't necessary and you can 'tell a good story' with a still photo... I had to put the Cal and Brady cards on here, one, because of the trade with P.A. (Nolan for Cal) and the fact that I was literally excited when I pulled the Brady (Ooooh Cool is what I said I think...). Finally, I think the best photo I saw out of the cards I opened was this:

Packing

Due to having to pack all my stuff and getting the house put on the market, posts will not be as common for the next few days/ weeks. I will try to keep up, though. If anyone is thinking about moving to the Charlotte area, come buy my house!!

Completing the Mail Day trifecta...

I got this in the mail today. I can't afford the mint version, so this one will do for my 1955 set. What do you guys think??

Some nice autos...

I consolidated some stuff today and scanned these two cards. I love the Markakis/ Roberts dual Auto. What would be even nicer, would be if the Orioles would get off of their butts and sign both these guys to extensions... I can only hope. The Pujols is just awesome. It is one of my favorite autos (I still love my Johnny Cueto where he signed it 'Johnny.' I'll scan that one for you guys later on. Check these out first...

Knocked a big chunk out of my 1955 set...

I went to AAA Collectables today in Matthews near the office... I got a bunch of 1955 Topps (30 of them), some 1970's (14 of them), a bunch of 1995 Donruss (for $2.00; 46 of them) and finally, this awesome card: