Favorite TV Shows, Allen & Ginter Style

I was reading a blog post a few months back (I don't know who wrote it), but they basically questioned why Alex Trebek hasn't been on an Allen & Ginter card yet. Champions like Ken Jennings and Austin Rogers have, but not Alex. I figured that since Mr. Trebek was diagnosed with cancer this year, that maybe Topps would decide to include him in the set, but since I am too lazy to look for preliminary checklists for the 2019 set, I guess that will remain to be seen. That got me thinking of maybe making a custom, and then looking at other customs for the set. That led me to create a list of (most) of my favorite TV shows, and include Allen & Ginter customs for them. Since this is a baseball card blog, and there aren't any sports shows represented, I thought I would start off with a 2009 Allen & Ginter Usain Bolt custom. I don't know why Topps didn't cash in on Bolt during the height of his popularity.

Here is the list of (some of my favorite TV shows).

1. BIG BROTHER (2018 Allen & Ginter Tyler Crispen custom)

If you would've asked me in 2011 what Big Brother was, I would've probably said it was a TV show, but couldn't tell you what it was about. Then in November of that year, I started dating my wife, we were engaged in February 2012, and that summer, my wife flipped the channel to Big Brother during the premier, and the rest was history. I was drawn to the fun competitions, the endless ways the game could be played, and just how difficult it was to win. I loved the backstabbing, alliances, throwing competitions, and just about everything about it. I was hooked by a few episodes, and have watched every season since. I chose Tyler for the custom, as he was on last season. He came in second place, but I think the jury voted wrong, and Tyler played a way better game. He is one of the best players I have ever seen play the game in the 7 or so seasons I have watched.

 2. THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS (2019 Allen & Ginter Kristoff St. John custom)
Don't judge me, but my wife also got me hooked on The Young & the Restless. Although some of the plot twists can be dramatic and unrealistic, it always leaves you hanging at the end of the episode and leaves you wanting more. Kristoff St. John played Neil Winters, and he tragically passed away this past year, so I decided to give him a custom.

 3. JEOPARDY (2019 Allen & Ginter Alex Trebek custom and James Holzhauer custom)
I may miss an episode every now and then, but Jeopardy is something nice to watch in the evening after my son goes to bed. I like trying to see how many questions I can get right, and most of the time, I have a decent chance at running any sports catergories. Alex, of course, gets the first custom, but how can I post about JEOPARDY and not include James, who would've set the all-time record for most money earned if not for that lame lady who only beat him who could only last 3 days afterwards. I still don't know why he didn't bet it all after final Jeopardy. He would've beat her with his bet or everything, and the way she was playing, you didn't know if she wouldn't get it, and you have to bet FOR yourself, and not against.

 4. PROPERTY BROTHERS (2011 Allen & Ginter Scott Brothers)
I'm probably stretching things here. I think I love shows like Fresh off the Boat, World of Dance, Forensic Files, Law & Order SVU (about 8 seasons ago before it got all anti-Christian and political) a little more, but I figured I would keep this post with shows that most people have heard of or watch. Property Brothers is good to watch for a few episodes in a row, and it's not as boring as most of the other shows on HGTV that sometimes make me want to blow my brains out if I see more than one episode in a row (Love it or List it, My Lottery Dream Home). The Scott brothers are pretty popular, and recognizable, so why wouldn't Topps put them in their A/G set?

 That just about covers it. I could probably list more shows, but I really wanted to get this post done before I had to leave the house, and these customs took a long time to do. One last one, though. I have never watched an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, but why, o why has Topps not made a card of Chuck Norris?  Can you imagine how much the cards would go for if they were lucky enough to land a relic from Chuck or sign him to an autograph contract. I would for sure want one of each, and he would be the pull of the product, in my opinion. Here is a 2009 Allen & Ginter of Mr. Norris.

I have finally finished organizing my Favorite Player binders, and just have my Highlights, Rookies, Relics, Shiny, and new Sunset card binders to go. I think I'll take my time with them. I have pictures taken of all of my PC cards, so I will try to update them soon. I have also almost finished the 1964 Topps missing player checklist, and it will probably be done by the end of today. I am toying with the idea of not only finishing the 1953-1963 Topps checklists, but also completing the ones from 2002-2018. Those last ones might kill me with all of the roster shuffling, but it's possible. The year is almost halfway done, so if I could finish a few more checklists as well as all of the customs in the 1993 Topps set, I will call it a win.
I hope you enjoyed this latest post about some of my favorite TV shows. Are there any I should add of any cards from the Allen & Ginter sets that they should make? I'd love to hear ideas.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

Contest winnings from Rod

Recently, Rod from Padrographs held a contest on his blog. He opened a ton of packs/blasters, and had everyone guess how many hits he would get. DHoff of Coot Veal and the Vealtones guessed the correct number, and he got the first 3 picks of all of the hits, as well as cards of his favorite team. Congrats to him. I was 3rd in the randomizer, and I picked a 2018 Topps Holiday mini of Jose DeLeon #d 25/25. Rod was also nice enough to send me a bunch of Rays from the huge pack bust, and threw in some extra goodies which turned out to be a highlight of the package. Here are the Rays that he sent me. 

These cards really helped me out with my 2017-2019 Rays sets. I rarely open any Gypsy Queen, Pro Debut, Archives, Gallery, and open a few packs of Heritage, Opening Day, and Big League, but I usually don't end up with too many Rays from those sets at the end of the year. With all of the nice trades I have been involved with lately, including this one with Rod, I think I may be close to completing a few Rays teams sets in those years.  I am especially excited about the 2019 Bowman Wander Franco rookie. I was looking for some Rays on COMC a few months ago, and have heard Franco's name mentioned as one of the Rays best prospects, but Franco didn't have any cards in my price range. The '19 Bowman Rod sent me is my first Franco, and I'm excited to finally have a card of him.

Next, Rod sent me a pack of '92 Fleer and '93 Fleer. I haven't busted too many packs of either, so it was nice to get them, and they will help add to those sets. The 1993 pack was a really good one for me. I pulled a nice insert that gave me a nice card for my Favorite Player Collection. More on that in a minute.

Here are some cool Ogden Raptor cards Rod sent me. A while back, Fuji did a post on his best friend in middle school, Chris Amos, who played in the minor leagues and appeared on the set. I didn't get the Amos card, but I think this whole set is cool, so I'm glad that I have a handful of cards from the set. These will definitely go in my special card binder. 

Lastly, here are some Tigers, and guys for my Favorite Player binder. The last card is the insert from the '93 Fleer pack, a Rafael Bournigal Major League Prospects card. It was so cool to pull an insert of one of my favorite players from a random pack sent by a legendary blogger in a trade package! And not just any player, but an awesome guy who was nice enough to put up with a semi-annoying fan like me and do nice things like give me a ride home from the YMCA and sign cards for me, come through my line at the grocery store I cashiered at when he could've went through whichever one was shorter, and write a nice reply to a ttm autograph request I sent a year or two ago. Here is a link to his page with all of my cards of his and the full stories.

If all of the cards in the trade package weren't enough, Rod was nice enough to send me one more card that is currently en route. One of the hits in the contest was a Sidney DeJong '07 Upper Deck Future Stars World Future Stars Purple parallel card. I already picked up the card online, but I asked Rod if he happened to pull the base card. Rod said he did, and was nice enough to put the card in an envelope and send it to me.

Rod, I promise that when I get this Padres replacement player set finished and get some more ink for the printer, that the set will be the first thing I print, and I will get it out to you, hopefully giving you some more cards that will get signed for your Padrographs project. You went above and beyond with this contest, and you are truly one of the good guys in this hobby. Thank you for the awesome package.

Tomorrow, I have a few projects in the yard that will probably take up the first half of the day, but I am hoping to get done and have a few hours to organize my Rays binder. It is going to be so much fun to put all of these new cards in the binders and see what they look like. Whenever that is done, I will start on the Favorite Player binders, taking pictures of all of the cards as I do them. After that, I will start updating each players pages, and eventually put all of my Rays/Tigers/Favorite player cards into my Trading Card DB inventory. It is going to be a long process, but it will be worth it in the end.
Thanks for checking out my latest post./
-Jeremy

A journey back to 1996

In one of San Jose Fuji’s latest posts, he mentioned how he liked magazines such as Beckett during the ‘90’s. I just happen to have a few Beckett’s from that era, so I thought I would do a post and look back at one of them. This one is from the December 1996 issue.
I have no clue who is on the cover, because both the front and back are ripped off from years of love. I must’ve got this one for Christmas that year.

The issue starts off with a Best & Worst article, highlighting some of the highlights and lowlights of 1996.

Beckett didn’t realize how prophetic they were about Bud Selig. He sucked in 1996, and he sucked during the rest of his tenure as Commissioner. I also liked how they acted like the Detroit Tigers were so bad. They needed to wait until 2003.
The inserts mentioned were a nice memory of when inserts were actually fun and not the same crap Topps gives us year after year.
I also liked how the hobby trends called out companies on making pointless low-numbered cards and unnecessary parallels.

I liked the last one. Although there have been rumblings lately of negotiations not going well, baseball hasn’t had a work stoppage since 1994.

  

I wasn’t a big fan of the Who’s Hot list. I enjoyed the Hot List as far as cards and sets. I figured I followed baseball closely enough that I knew who was hot and who wasn't, so this section was always a waste of time for me.

 Oh, the old price guide! Every insert set listed. Many cards listed per set. Now, you just get any of the hot or stood-the-test-of-time rookie cards, a calculator for Hall of Famers' autograph and game-used cards or #rd cards, and that's about it.

 I figured I would scan a page of the current years' Bowman set and let you look at some of the prices. Not too many guys from that set panned out.

 '96 Topps was always a fun set for me. I remember pulling a '52 Mantle reprint out of a pack that had a Ken Griffey, Jr. base card showing at the front of the pack. I thought I would've been able to retire when I pulled those 2 cards as a 13-year old.

 Here is the Hot List I cared about. Most of those cards still hold some value today, apart from the '91 Ultra Williams. Bernie had rookies in '90 Bowman, Donruss, Score, and Topps, yet an Ultra card from the next year was his most popular one. Go figure. Note the number of shows in the page next to it. The hobby needs more card shows.

 Readers Write was always a laugh for me. Either some guy wanting to know if a card with a mis-spelled name was worth thousands of dollars, or someone complaining about a card being tough to pull and not worth what they spent to try to pull it from packs. This one is no different, with guys asking what set cards are from, a guy thinking a wrongly numbered card would be worth a lot, and a guy complaining that A-Rod's rookie wasn't worth more. I would love to see some of the rejected letters. It's kind of funny reading the Pulse of the Hobby about 13 years later and seeing that all of these guys (save Andruw Jones and A-Rod) are Hall of Famers. A-Rod might get elected, and Jones deserves more consideration with his Home Run total and his gold gloves.

 Here is an article about 1996 Leaf Signature Series when it first came out. It shows that Beckett doesn't keep a good archive system. I read somewhere in the last few years about an Otis Nixon  card from the set that nobody had any info on. If Beckett would've kept this article, they would've known that the cards were stolen from Nixon's car, and that's probably where they came from.

Lastly, an article about all of the Home Runs in 1996. I love the comment in it about steroids. 

So there you have it. An old Beckett from about 13 years ago. I have a Beckett from 1993 that I might review next, as well as a number from 2006 or 2007. If you guys like this, let me know, and I'll keep the series up. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

3 Replacement Padres

It's been kind of crazy with me lately. Seems like whenever I think I might have a chance to do customs or write a blog post, something happens, and I have to wait. I finally had a day off with nothing to do (other than attempt to build a flower box around a tree stump), so I decided to post some of my latest customs for the 1995 Topps Replacement Player set.
I thought I would do the Padres next, as Rod from Padrographs recently said that he couldn't wait to see them. Well, here they are.

 Jim Campanis, Jr. is the son of former MLB catcher Jim Campanis. Junior has Topps cards in the 1988 Topps Traded (Team USA), and 1992 Topps sets (Catcher Prospects), as well as a 1992 Donruss card.

Lee Henderson and Kevin Schula were minor leaguers, who just appeared on minor league issues.

That is all I have so far for the replacement project. I kind of let card organizing take priority right now. I finished my Detroit Tigers binders, and boy, do they look great. The Rays are up next, but I'm going to hold off for a week or so. Rod was nice enough to hold a contest on his blog, and I won a cool 2018 Topps Holiday mini card of current Ray Jose DeLeon #d to 25, plus Rod promised me some more Rays, so I think once I get those, I will start updating the Rays binders, and then what will probably be a highlight for me, the Favorite Player binders.

Custom-wise, I haven't worked on any checklists (just have the '64 and '51 sets left), but I did update the 2019 Topps page to include all of the 1st Round Draft Picks from last night, and I am also working on some templates for the 1976 Topps set. It is difficult with the different pictures for the different player positions, but I am slowly getting each one finished, and after that, it should be easy to make templates for different teams.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

Million Cubs trade

A while back, I contacted Beau at Million Cubs Project and got a trade going. It took me a while, but I sent him a box full of Cubs for his collection, and he came through and sent me a nice box full of Rays/Devil Rays. Here is what I received.

This is the box I received. There were so many cards from sets that I never busted packs from. I think I finished a number of Rays Upper Deck sets, and I got a good selection of Topps and Bowman cards I needed. 

There were so many cool cards, and I chose to highlight some cards of my favorite players and a card I hoped to receive. I got a card of Joey Gathright, Elliot Johnson, 2 Justin Ruggiano’s, and 2 Ben Zobrist’s for my Favorite Player binder. I can’t wait to organize that binder in a month or so. The very last card is a Million Cubs custom. I saw one of those on a blog, and was really hoping to get one. Now I have one, and it will go in my Cubs binder.

I am working on organizing my Tigers binder, and I think in a month or so, I will start my Rays binder. My birthday is coming up, and I may get a gift card or some baseball cards, and that could easily turn into some new Rays cards. There is also a contest going on at the Padrographs blog , and I claimed the Rays, so I’m excited to hopefully add some more to my Rays box to put in binders. All of the bloggers out there are really a great group of selfless people who go out of their way to hook up other collectors with cards that would enjoy, and I hope to do the same for the community and be a positive representative of Rays collectors and guys who do customs in general.
Thanks for the great trade, Beau, and thank you for checking out my latest post.
Jeremy

RIP, Billy B.

I read that Bill Buckner passed away 2 days ago, and I decided to do a post with all of the customs I have of him. Bill was a great hitter, who amassed over 2,700 hits. He also was a great fielder, who battled ankle problems towards the end of his career. If not for injuries, he could be a Hall of Fame candidate, and with the stupid 15-person panels voting anyone in, I really hope that they decide to give him a better look. Bill wasn't missing too many Topps cards during his career, just an '87 Topps Traded, '88 Topps Traded, '89 Topps, '89 Topps Traded, '90 Topps, and a '91 Topps sunset card. I finished his '89 Topps, and '91 Topps cards, leaving only the '87 Traded, '89 Traded, and '90 Topps cards missing.

1989 Topps custom

1991 Topps sunset card

Because of his photo in the play, I guess this would count as a Bill Buckner custom as well, although I choose to label it as a Mookie Wilson custom, and remember Bill as a great hitter, who was pretty solid with the glove as well, before the injuries to his knees. 

1987 Topps Mookie Wilson World Series Highlights

 

I have an index card that is technically signed by Mr. Buckner in one of my random binders, as well. I wrote to him requesting an autograph, and he sent a note back letting me know that he charged for his signature, but then he signed his initials, which is kind of funny. I think I might put it in my binder next to one of his Red Sox cards. 

It's sad that he died so young. Enjoy these ballplayers while they are still here. RIP, Mr. Buckner. You will always be a Hall of Famer and a World Series champ with me.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

Some surprise Bowman packs

I got home from work today, and came home to some bags of groceries from Target on our kitchen table. My wife had went to Target, and although I didn’t need any new packs of cards, she was nice enough to get me a hanging pack of ‘19 Bowman. Here is what I got.

The rookie cards. Perhaps these will be worth something in 10 years. 

The Camo parallels. Gavin, if you want the Padres and the Lux card, they are yours. 

Finally, a Castellanos for my Tigers binder, a deGrom for my Favorite Player binder, and a Refractor for the shiny binder. A fun 3 packs to open. I’m kind of hoping she gets me some Bog League packs next time. My birthday is coming up in about 2 weeks, so we’ll see.
Regardless of whether or not I get more packs, I do have a package from the Million Cubs Project coming soon, and that should be full of Rays for their binder. I don’t know why there aren’t more Rays in card sets. Nobody cares about Rays cards that they pull from packs, and from what I can tell, nobody really blogs about Rays. Give them some respect. They are a Major League franchise, there hole stadium is a cool place. Don’t knock it until you’ve attended a game there. Most people think domes are weird, but after going to the Trop so much, it’s almost weird for me to see a baseball game in a non-dome stadium. Sure, it’s in a bad location, but if the team was moved to the Orlando or Tampa area (in the right spot), it would thrive. They have built up a decent franchise, and are usually playoff contenders. They need more cards, and I will take any Rays cards I can get. Give them to me instead of throwing them out or in a junk box. I have plenty of Yankees in my junk box to trade. To anyone who has traded me Rays, thank you so much. What is one mans junk is another mans treasure, they say.
I started working on organizing my Tigers binder, and once I get that Rays package, I will get my Rays binder done, then the Favorite Player binder. I’ll update the Favorite Player pages for each player, so if you are interested in looking at those, stay tuned.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy