Trade with Crocodile Sports Cards

 A few weeks ago, Greg from Crocodile Sports Cards reached out to me about making a trade. He had a bunch of 1982 cards for my set completion, and I had some newer Chrome and Heritage Twins that he could use. 

I received the cards from Greg today, and since I was off work today, was able to add them into TCDB and cross the off of my physical wantlist as well as get a bunch of other card stuff done. 

Greg sent a huge stack of probably 150-200 cards and got me around to only needing 200 or so to finish the set. Back in the late 2000’s I was living in Lakeland, FL, and my LCS came upon a box of 1982 Topps rack packs. I probably got close to 10 of them trying to hit the Ripken rookie. Never did. It did, however, give me a good portion of the set, including the few other key rookies in the set (George Bell, Jesse Barfield, Kent Hrbek) besides the Ripken. With Greg’s ‘82 lot, the finish line is a lot closer. 

Some of my favorite cards from the stack were who you probably expected, the big names. Tom Seaver, Harold Baines, and base and subset versions of Rod Carew and Fred Lynn. The Gorman Thomas was a cool photo. I’ve always been a fan of Bob Boone. Got his autograph a number of times at spring training games when he was manager of those hapless late ‘90’s Royals teams. With the HOF getting watered down with Jim Kaat, Alan Trammell, and the aforementioned Baines, people should give a longer look at Darrell Evans. 414 HRs, a HR crown, decent number of walks every year. If you let Ron Santo, Gil Hodges, and Jim Rice in, you have to at least take a look at Evans. Mauer got in first ballot with fairly pedestrian number compared to positions other than catcher and was aided mainly by a couple of batting titles, an MVP, and a weak class of catchers to be compared to. I never thought Ted Simmons was a Hall of Famer, and when you stack up Mauer next to him, of course he’s going to be first ballot. 

Back to the cards, a card of the 3rd manager in Rays history and a guy I would actually vote into the Hall (based on his manager credentials mainly). Another Hall of Famer who I feel is in the bottom tier compared to many other HoF outfielders in Winfield. As much as it hurts me as a Tigers fan to say, I think that Jack Morris shouldn’t be in the Hall except for his postseason performances. His career stats are so close, but just not enough without the 4 titles. That card gets me a few away from a 1982 Tigers team set. The next 2 are no-doubt Hall of Famers with Carlton and Ryan. That also helped me finish the Highlights subset. Fernando and Barker aren’t close to being in the Hall but were solid pitchers who both threw no-hitters. 

Remember when I said I never pulled the Ripken rookie?  Well now I have one. Greg told me he had a spare with some condition flaws and that he would include it for cards to be named later. This card is easily the top one of the trade and the best card I’ve acquired in 2024. 

With the toughest card in the set gone, the 219 cards I need to complete the set should be a breeze. There are a few Hall of Famers needed, but most are just stats and commons. The toughest card might be a Lee Smith rookie, but last I checked, the only Hall of Fame reliever with an expensive rookie is Yoda Rivera. Next toughest card is a Dave Stewart rookie, so the 1982 Topps set might be finish-able this year. 

In my Ultimate Topps project, I’ve opted to go with non-mint cards and even reprints to help cut the costs down and get me close to realistically finishing the dream. In 2001, I pulled a 2001 Topps Traded ‘82 Traded Ripken reprint, so all of my 1982 Ripken are finished. As long as the reprints have the correct front and back (which this one does), I don’t care. How do you think I’ve knocked the ‘52 Mantle off of the list so quickly? There are my ‘82 Ripkens next to each other. If only I had kept the autograph I got from him at a Rays game in 2001 to go with it. I believe I have a bat card of him, so that will have to do for now. Thanks, Greg, for getting me close to finishing the 1982 Topps set and for the great trade. 

Earlier I mentioned I had a productive card day, and I wasn’t lying. Besides getting the 1982s updated, I finished uploading my Nats binders to TCDB, and I finished off the first binder of the Rat-Birds (Orioles). I know a bunch of Rays fans who are Yankee haters first, and their second worst team is usually the Red Sox. I actually enjoy the Sox, as they are the anti-Yankees, and with all of the antics last season with the Homer bong and them stealing the division against a decimated Rays pitching staff, my #2 least liked team has to be Baltimore. I’ll be happy to get done with the Rat-Birds binders and get on to the next team, which happens to be Boston. With the Nats being done, that means basically all of my National League cards are logged into the site, save for big name rookie cards, highlight cards, various parallel cards, jersey/bats cards, and any special cards. If you count the total by binders, I have 41 left, give or take 1 or 2, as I have most of my Yankee$ cards not in binders but in boxes. I’m at 76,557 cards according to TCDB, but that number is off a little, as somehow I have an extra 1992 Topps set added, and an extra 1994 Topps set as well as variations added to the site. Not sure how to quickly fix those issues, but I figure at some point I will pass 100,000 cards and maybe finish close to 150,000 when I log in everything. Once that happens, everything is open and I’ll be a trading whore. Start getting your lists ready and I’ll try to help you finish your obscure Pacific sets or your Allen & Ginter inserts or hook you up with Heritage SPs. Just give me some Topps cards I need and we’ll get a trade going. I’m aiming for June or so to finish the project. Or if you are patient with me and lucky enough to do a trade for cards from a team and not sets (like Greg was with this one), I can just look through my binders and boxes and try to find stuff. TCDB just makes it quicker and easier with sets to see what I need, and with not all my cards uploaded, it’s just a process to look through a team binder for a set that I may or may not have in that binder. I really like TCDB, and although it has quirks, I will continue to use it as long as it is available, and eventually I’ll probably purchase one of their t-shirts. 

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day. In the late ‘90’s, our youth group would go to Rock the Universe just about every summer. It is a concert series at Universal Studios theme park in Orlando. 10 or so Christian bands come and perform each day on a Friday and Saturday. I’ve been to about 5 or 6, and we’re going back with our church band tomorrow. I have many great memories from past ones. Seeing MuteMath (one of my all-time favorite bands) perform for the first time live in 2005, getting a set list from Toby Mac and getting his autograph on it another time, meeting Tiffany of Plumb in the middle of the park and getting her to sign a CD. My favorite memory was when I somehow stumbled into what must’ve been an unannounced meet and greet event towards the front of the park one year. I went on some ride, and saw there was a door at the end of it that led somewhere. I followed it, and there was a room with people waiting. I asked, and they said Out of Eden was going to do a question and answer session. Soon, we went into another room, which had chairs and a stage, and they answered questions for like 20 minutes, and signed a CD booklet for me after. I went back around, and saw Raze, a techno band. They signed a poster for me, and the last one was a real great one. When I went in the room the last time, it was none other than the Newsboys, the headliner of the night. I got the whole band besides their guitarist Jody to sign a poster which is hanging up in my man-cave. Lead singer Peter Furler have a great observation when he said that music is so creative. He said there have been millions of songs written since the beginning of time, and you can take them all and put them in the same key, and while many of the chord progressions could be the same, that the melodies aren’t and that more songs will be written and there still won’t be one that is a repeat and that it just shows the creativity and genius of God. While I don’t know if I will stumble into a meet and greet session, I’m still going to have a good time (although my focus and energy will be different as an adult than as a teenager). In the ‘90’s, I was hoping to meet a cute girl, get autographs from the bands, and go on rides. This time, I’ll be going with my cute wife next to me, I might get something signed if the opportunity arises but will mainly be down with watching the bands and listening to the chord progressions, and I might go on rides but not crazy upside down ones. Maybe I’ll do a review of the night on the next post. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy