Birthday Party

Yeah, so, I'm turning 30 on Tuesday, so yesterday, my wife arranged a surprise party for me at our local bowling alley. I had discovered that a party was happening the week before when she got off the phone with her parents, but I was still surprised about all the people who came. It really made me feel good.

Max came and spent the whole weekend with me, which really meant a lot to be able to spend the weekend with my best friend. We spent a good bit of the time watching old wrestling dvds. We also went to the ballfields yesterday and hit around. I found a golf ball while we were there and made a bet with Max that I could connect with it in less than 5 swings. I threw the ball in the air and hit it more than 500 feet on the first swing. Talk about clutch.
So, I got a bowling pin from the bowling alley in celebration of my birthday and everyone in attendance signed the pin. I thought this was really cool and it will definitely go in my china cabinet when I can re-establish my card room. (Will need a new house first).

I love where Max signed his, and you can see toward the bottom where my boss, Terry, signed it. I was amazed that he made it from Charlotte. It made me feel good. I work for a really good company with some really good people.

Another Tobacco Card - Rube Waddell

I got another T206 off of Ebay last week for a very reasonable price (under $30.00) because of watching Ken Burns' 'Baseball.'
A 1909-1911 T206 Rube Waddell. As you can see, it is in rough shape, but I'm still happy. Below shows that it is a Piedmont back card, which is pretty cool as well.

Hearing stories about Waddell are pretty funny. He would chase fire trucks during games. Opposing fans found that they could distract him by holding up puppies or shiny objects. He was Manny Ramirez before Manny. I bet, if he were playing today, he would be crucified by the news media (and probably diagnosed with some form of mental disorder). I doubt we'd see headlines that read 'Rube being Rube.'

Tobacco Card/Hall of Fame Pickup - 1909-1911 T-206 Addie Joss

I have been watching Ken Burns' 'Baseball' lately in preparation of the upcoming release of 'Inning 10.' During my viewing of this groundbreaking documentary, I have been trying to research some of the historic players of the early days of baseball. I have been checking out ebay auctions, seeing if I can get some cards of a few of these hall of famers at a decent price.

I happened upon a T-206 Addie Joss last week and was able to win it for less than $20. Not bad. As you can see it is all effed up. The back of the card is what I had shown last week. I do intend on watching the youtube video of the glue/paper removal once I can tell that my connection is dependable. I'm still a little leery of putting a 100-year old card in boiling water. I have enough geology books here (studying for part II of the ASBOG exam) to dry the card out, but I'm still scared I'm going to mess it up (worse than it already it is).

Joss is the only Hall of Famer to have played less than 10 years. He was forced to retire at age 30 when he contracted tubercular meningitis. It was this disease that took his life a year later at age 31.

The first 'All-Star Game' was played for the benefit of Joss' family.

Joss was elected to the Hall of Fame via the Veteran's Committee in 1978 with a career won-loss record of 160-97 (for 9 seasons... WOW), a career ERA of 1.89 and 920 strikeouts. Joss played his entire career with the Cleveland Bronchos/Naps (Indians) from 1902-1910.

What I Did This Weekend

I took this weekend off from the card shop so I could witness history....


After wrecking his car on November 1, 2008, it looked like my dad was going to sell off everything and retire from drag racing.

His Pro Modified 1963 Corvette had tagged the guardrail, flipped and caught on fire. His HANS device (neck protection) caused him to be caught in the car while it burned. He got out ok, was shaken up a bit, but hadn't felt right about the car since.

He attempted to race again in April 2009 and got as far as making the burnout, but shut the car down when fluid was leaking from the engine. Possibly the same thing that caused his car to get out of shape when it wrecked.

He shelved the car for almost a year and a half, and indicated that he was going to sell it and retire from professional drag racing.

I suppose the 'bug' kind of crept into Dad's psyche recently as he indicated about a month ago that he was going to run at Farmington Dragway, but plans were foiled when the guys who had volunteered to crew for him backed out at the last minute. Dad rode to the track that weekend anyway and saw how packed it was and wanted to get back behind the wheel even more than before. He lined up more dependable help and set his sights on September 4th.

Max and I decided that we would check out the race, as Max had never been. I hadn't been to a race since September 2008, so it had been a long tim for me, especially since I grew up at the race track.

We also had the opportunity of watching my older brother Kenny race his dragster. He won co-rookie of the year for Farmington Dragway last year. He was in a three-way tie for 7th overall in the series points standings this year before the race started. Kenny ended up losing in the third round of competition, but his car was fast all night long.

Dad was allotted 3 qualifying passes and improved each time. Sadly, there weren't a whole lot of cars there for Dad's class, but it was still a competitive bunch. He ran 4.23 seconds, 4.20 seconds then 4.19 seconds in the first through third runs respectively. Not too bad for not having run in 2 years.

Finally, in the first round of eliminations (only three cars made the final eliminations due to others having to back out with mechanical failures), Dad lost while running 4.14 seconds to his opponent's 4.10 seconds. It was a very competitive race, and was definitely worth watching. After a 2-year layoff, with a 12-year old race car (normal shelf life for one of these cars is 2-3 years), an 8-year old engine (normal shelf life for one of these engines is 1 year), the engine is approximately 70 cubic inches smaller than most competitive engines out there for this type of racing, and a 56-year old driver who definitely had to have a little bit of nervousness, it was a very successful Saturday at the drag strip. I am very happy to say that after the race, Dad said that he WAS back and was planning on updating some aspects of his car (not buying a new one, though because the one he has is still good) to be more competitive in the future.

I need some help... maybe

Hi everyone. So, I won a T206 card off of ebay, and I was fully aware of the condition it was in. I got the card for less than $15 bucks, so I'm really satisfied with it. However, I may need some help with it. Maybe.
As you can see, the card is a Polar Bear back, which is pretty awesome, but, someone pasted it into an album. I'm thinking that it might be possible to remove the paper, but I don't want to try anything that will mess the card up worse than it already is, AND I think, maybe the paper adds something to it.

Sooooo, anyone got any thoughts? Leave it as it is or try to restore the card as best I can??

Greenville Drive vs. Asheville Tourists game 8/29/10

The whole reason we drove all the way to Columbia, SC (other than seeing my brother) was so that we could catch a Greenville Drive game. My brother had told me that Greenville's field was pretty nice, and it would be another different park I could go to this year.


Fluor Field is pretty nice. I liked the building paralleling the field, reminiscent of the Warehouse in Baltimore. You can see how packed the place was; the game had playoff implications, as I believe Asheville and Greenville were tied before this game atop the league standings. We were on hand to witness a pretty good game and ended up with some free baseball. Greenville ended up winning with a walkoff wild pitch. It would have been nice for a little extra drama, but I'll take what I can get.

Here are my son, Chris and my niece Harper enjoying the game. I could have done without the little leaguers bowling them over trying to get one of the outfielders to throw them a ball. I slid down the hill and threw some elbows to make sure our kids weren't trampled. Chris found it amusing, but Harper didn't know what the hell was going on. She did enjoy the game. I also bought her very first pack of cards earlier in the day, a pack of 1990 Topps for fifty cents. She enjoyed looking at the pictures, then threw them in my brother's floor board (she's 2, so thats understandable).

Columbia Trip Part III

We went to a second card shop in Columbia during our trip and picked up a few things. I'll post some of the others later, but I wanted to post these MLB Exclusive cards that I got for free.
YES, Nolan Reimold. Welcome back to the majors Nolan!!! (He got called up today when rosters expanded). I grabbed a few notable players of these cards, since the guy was giving them out for free.

I read the back of Reimold's card and got a little surprise. Max was a little surprised that Reimold was part of the set and the back says '...50 of the greatest players in MLB history.' I like Nolan Reimold. He's probably one of my favorite active players now, but greatest of all time? Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Here is one of the greatest ever... Cal Ripken. Yaaay, another Cal I didn't have already. I like the way these cards look. Pretty simple.