Who's Your Buddy Boshers, Who's Your Pal?

2010 Perfect Game USA

Obtained thru a trade on Sportscollectors.

This card was accidentally mailed to the wrong recipient, and I received that guys card accidentally as well.

We both remailed.

Nice to know there are honest folks out there willing to send something back that came by mistake.

After getting an August call up, Boshers appeared in 25 games for the Angels last season, his rookie year.

He struck out the only batter he faced, Jason Kipnis, in his debut.

Don't Be Sad, 'Cause Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad

I'm borrowing from Meatloafs immortal lyrics:

I want you

I need you

But there ain't no way

I'm ever gonna love you

Now don't be sad

'Cause two out of three ain't bad

True Dat!

But in this case two Angels out of four ain't bad either in this pack of Prizm.

#79 Todd Helton.

Zero out of One.

#159 Mike Trout.

One out of Two.

F19 Brandon Phillips Fearless.

One out of Three.

And you know it's coming since this is a 4 card pack...

#259 Nick Maronde.

Two out of Four.

SCORE!

A Coronary From Too Many Verlanders

I received a box in the mail from Too Many Verlanders because we recently traded.

As I slowly opened the coffin shaped box, so as not to disturb the contents, which I assumed were baseball cards, an arm suddenly shot out at me, like the last sequence in the movie Carrie, and I screamed like a girl as I jumped back.

As fear griped my heart I thought I would die of a coronary right then and there.

ELIZABETH!!

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but you can clearly see the arm in there.

And I knew what was going to be in the box since we had discussed the trade already.

But I had to dig, dig with all my effort to free the individual that was buried under the avalanche of foam peanuts.

I knew time was running out that soon they would die the extreme death of suffocation.

My hands were bleeding from the frantic dig, fingernails torn or completely ripped off.

Yeah, yeah.

I basically blew like the Big Bad Wolf and peanuts went flying.

All in an effort to free the 1998 Kenner Starting Lineup Extended Jim Edmonds figure.

Jim looks great on a shelf at Command Central.

Ahhh, the Edmonds card I wanted so that I can check it off my Starting Lineup Want List.

Jim had just days before been freed from his plastic bubble on card stock, original packaging.

With much consternation Dennis and I discussed the idea of opening up the package in an effort to make shipping easier and more affordable, knowing full well that value of the piece would take a drastic hit.

I gave the OK since I would have opened it up when it got here anyhow.

I believe Dennis words on the attached note were, 

"OMG I opened it!  It's worthless!"

Classic.

After the ordeal rescuing the Edmonds piece, I saw that I also scored on a bunch of Tim Salmons I needed and a stack of other Angels cards going back to 1976.

All good stuff.

This 1996 Pinnacle card is way cool.

It's made on that see-thru material, not sure what you call it, 

and feature like the card says, the Team Nucleus.

But to think about that outfield of Anderson, Edmonds, and Salmon and what could have been.

Do you know who the Angels got for trading Jim Edmonds?

Kent Bottenfield and Adam Kennedy.

Bottenfield played in just 21 games and Kennedy played a key role in winning the 2002 World Series for the Angels, so maybe, given that, it was a worthwhile trade.

But Man, what could have been.

And lots of other goods.

Now I just need to go check my pants

after that terrifying experience.

Mike Napoli From Spring Training - LAST YEAR!

This came in yesterdays mail:

2006 Topps '52.

347 days from the Red Sox Spring Training facility.

I saw that Napoli had been catching up with his mail.

Took You Long Enough!

That's what the note said.

I have to assume that this is in return for some cards I sent Night Owl, and probably sent a while ago.

It was a nice surprise though since I don't remember sending anything.

I reached a point in my collecting where I stopped keeping track of trades: what I sent to whom, when I sent in, when to expect something in return.

I keep track of who I owe for sure (even though I forget sometimes, or misplace the piece of paper I noted it on) but not what I send out.

It's very freeing you know.

I'm not into accumulating massive amounts of cards.

I've narrowed my focus.

That means that anything outside that focus is excess, and is just sitting in a box ready to be discarded or doled out.

Now would I like to get something in return if I send that excess out?

Sure.

But I'm not gonna concern myself with it.

And I'm certainly not going to try to keep track of it.

I'm just always overjoyed when I get a package in the mail, no matter what the contents,

no matter what the reason.

1991 Score Rising Star.

Completes this Angels subset for me.

All three of these guys had pretty decent careers.

DiSarcina is will be the Angels third base coach this season.

I'm looking forward to that.

1985 Fleer.

Four more closer to this big team set.

Don Aase drooled some chew onto his cheek and Daryl Sconiers isn't looking too happy about the turd that just landed on the brim of his cap.

2013 Ginters Mini.

Believe it or not, just the second mini I've obtained from 2013.

I've mentioned a few times how far behind I got with last years cards.

I'm thinking 2014 will put me even further behind.

I just don't have the cashflow.

2013 Chrome Update MB-9

At first I thought this was just another Chrome card until I turned it over.

The MB numbering threw me for a loop.

Is it an insert of some sort?

I had to do some research to figure out it was from the Chrome Update set.

Told you I was behind.

1963 Fleer.

All I can say is wow.

And these two are beauties with sharp corners, good coloring, and centered well.

I would consider these a huge sacrafice on Night Owls part to give them up.

So they are very appreciated.

If you noticed the slight rim,especially around the Lee card, thats because I scan my cards in 9 card pages and I had two others on the backside for a second scan.

It's not some weird miscut or anything like that.

Good things come to those who wait...

even though I wasn't really waiting on these good things to come.

Bible Card Sunday - Mark Thurmond TTM

Recently received these cards back after only 8 days from nearby Katy, Texas.

Mark added Romans 1:16

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile."

Set Needs From Scott Crawford

I think these came unwarranted.  But I'm not sure.  

Maybe as a followup to a recent trade?  Don't recall.

But Angels team set needs none the less.

These Sportflics never scan well do they.

Just need 3 more now for the team set

44 Reggie Jackson

59 Mike Witt

127 Kirk McCaskill

Added 2 more for this nifty, "you can find these in any dimebox" 1992 Donruss Coke cards.

These two came still individually wrapped up with 3 other regular Donruss cards.

I just HAD to open them.

That leaves me having to find these:

13 (1979)

15 (1981)

18 (1984)

24 (1990)

Good stuff Scott.

Dude, Good Things Come From Chavez Ravining

Did you know that the Angels infant seasons were played at Dodger Stadium?  

And that the Angels referred to it a Chavez Ravine, not Dodger Stadium, when they were playing there?

Because of the history there Chavez Ravine holds a special place in my heart.

And now so does Alex of Chavez Ravining after sending me some SWEET stuff.

Okay that may have been a little weird, but you bloggers know what I mean.

Lets jump right in with a big scroll of the goods.

Gold parallels, die-cuts, refractors, Xfractors, gold, chrome, minis, red, blue, emerald.

That Purple Pujols chrome refractor is numbered 151/199.

Dude, a little bit of everything!

Probably one of my most beautiful posts ever.

Thank you.

What Does Estrellas Mean Anyways?

Fellow Angels fan Rob reached out to me after reading my entry about the 1984 Topps set I was trying to complete.  He had some '84 Topps available, and was willing to send them my way.  He too is collecting the set as well as the 1982 and 1983 sets, so I was able to send some cards in return.  He's also tackling the 1992 Donruss set, which I was also able to help him out with.  Got lots of those sitting idle in a box.

As it turned out, I was able to tackle most of the 1984s I needed through other trades, but Rob was willing to send some Angels around, particularly some 2003 Donruss Estrellas, which I hadn't heard of.

Not a bad design.

The rows of grey boxes give them a punch-card look which works well.

Look at the angle of Glaus' bat.

Looks like a mini bat he's about to tomahawk chop.

Ah-ha.

Aside from the dreaded re-use of the same photo,

when I saw the center card it looked familiar so I went to the 2003 binder and sure enough I had one already.  But only that one card, I don't have any of the others.

I was very happy about that.

And a mini poster to boot.

I have to assume these were a one-per-pack insert.

The baseball stitching design on the 2003 Donruss Estrellas logo is really sweet.

Kinda ominous like a snake about to strike.

1995 Topps Prospects card with Mike Sweeney (not the Royal) and George Arias.

Sweeney played only 1 year of rookie ball ending with a 17.47 ERA.  I wonder if he got injured and just decided to give it up.

Arias played 4 seasons with the Angels and Padres, then went to Japan for 3 more years.

Add to those a handful of other cards and I got some pretty cool Angels stuff.

And then there were these: 

1977 Topps strip cards!

The card on the left is perfect, Angel Paul Hartzell surrounded by Dodgers Tommy John and Stan Wall.

Dave Chalk makes it on the other strip with a nice Goose Gossage pre-stache card.

Rob said he was given a stack of these strip cards but didn't know much about them.

He figured maybe they were test strips.

There are no perforations so they aren't like some old stadium giveaways I have.

I looked around and found some on ebay but no description of how they were issued.

And my Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards doesn't mention them either.

Hmmm.

Whoops!

After just publishing this post I went back to Command Central and found another bubbler Rob had sent for helping with the '92 Donruss set.

It included these:

I absolutely love 1996 Leaf Signature Series cards!

What a great design, one of the best ever.

Thanks Rob!

My Emotions Are Running High

Down to the last handful of cards for the 1995 Skybox Emotion set.

I'm still missing cards even though I've created the 1995 Skybox Emotion blog to (slowly, I know) go through this set.

Fortunately the cards I need are at the very end of the set, so I have time before I get there.

I picked up these cards on Sportlots recently.

#7 "Conditioning"

This was the last Cal Ripken Timeless card I needed for this 15 card insert set.

These two N-Tense cards got me closer to the last insert set I need to finally complete this whole set.

Still looking for these last 5 cards:

6 Ken Griffey Mariners

7 Mark McGwire Athletics

8 Mike Piazza Dodgers

9 Manny Ramirez Indians

10 Frank Thomas White Sox

Sportlots has a few of them, but they're in the "couple to several dollar each" range and I'm not in a position to purchase them right now.

Oh so close on this set though.
Any help appreciated.

Completed Angels Team Set - 1999 Metal Universe

Horrible scan of this nice looking set.

2 Jim Edmonds

45 Chuck Finley

63 Troy Percival

82 Tim Salmon

154 Garret Anderson

178 Darin Erstad

236 Darin Erstad Caught on the Fly

253 Troy Glaus Building Blocks

276 Darin Erstad MLDP

X Marks The Square

Another 9-card Listia lot of Angels.

I keep hitting the same seller up on these, I think he's been baiting me knowing that I'll bite.

And as long as there's at least two or three cards I need in the lot, and I can get them cheap (under 1000 credits), I'll keep biting.

So of the 9 card lot guess how many I needed?

Two.

And I got them cheap.

Both criteria met and two new Angels cards.

5 Days Of Howard Bagby - Day 5 Cool Angels Cards

These cards are only a tiny fraction of the Angels cards Howard sent in the package.

You saw the picture of the big stack.

These are just a few that I picked out to show.

Just a few that drew my attention.

1996 Pinnacle Summit Foil #13

1994 Leaf Checklist #200

1992 Upper Deck Home Run Heroes #HR28

Always liked these inserts.

2003 Upper Deck Forty Man #832

WAY too much writing on this card.

"Upper Deck"

"Game 3"

"Forty Man"

"Glaus breaks early tie in game 3 victory"

"2002"

"World Series Flashbacks"

"Troy Glaus"

"World Series 2002"

But still a cool card.

2004 Upper Deck Diamond Collection #54

1999 Upper Deck HG AuSome #1

1998 Leaf Fractal Matrix #141

Much cooler card than it appears.

Has those spiraly Spirit of St Louis engine cowl thingies if you know what I'm talking about.

Anyhow, that was just a very small smackeral of the Angels cards I now have to sort, catalog and binderize.

Lots of work ahead of me.

And with that, thanks Howard for an awesome box of cards.

5 Days of Howard Bagby - Day 4 Pacific Trading Cards

I can state with a fair amount of certainty that I never ever bought a pack of Pacific Baseball cards 

in the late 90's early 2000's.  I was never drawn to them.  

That may be because it seemed I always found them loose on the card aisle mixed in with the football cards or in the way of the Topps and Upper Deck Cards, or on the floor.
There was never enough of them around to buy more than one or two packs if I had decided to purchase them.

They never seemed to have a home box to be nestled in.  

I also always found their design to be a bit gaudy with too much foil, especially used in the font making it near impossible to determine who's card it was or what position they played.

Also, the Pacific issues confused me.  

I've seen Pacific, Pacific Collection, Pacific Crown Collection, Pacific 2000, Pacific Paramount 2000, Pacific Invincible, and probably a couple others over those years.  And what it says on the front of the card doesn't always correspond with what it says on the back.

So if I had the cash, it was Topps, Upper Deck, Fleer, Donruss or Score.

As a result of ignoring them for many years though, I found myself at a serious lack in my team collection for Pacific Trading Cards.
Anyhow....

Howard sent me a ton of Pacific Angels cards, probably at couple team sets worth, definitely enough to complete a couple teams sets already started.

I'm just gonna show off the design of the cards he sent and what I like dislike about them.

1995 Pacific Collection #57

LIKE: full bleed photo, small Pacific logo in upper left.

DISLIKE: Angels logo not centered in the baseball.

Anal, I know.

1996 Pacific Collection #271

LIKE: full bleed, Pacific and Angels logos balancing each other.

DISLIKE: the players name isn't legible.

1997 Pacific Collection #10

Hate it.

1998 Pacific Collection #8

LIKE: full bleed photo, small Angels logo

DISLIKE: the pinstriping, but it's growing on me..

okay I like it now, no complaints.

1998 Pacific Paramount #6

LIKE: full bleed....

DISLIKE: massive unreadable foil obstruction at the bottom.

1998 Pacific Invincible #4

LIKE: white framework with rivets, ink Pacific logo.

DISLIKE: ghosting, small foil font and flame.  I think they used a dartboard for logo placement.

1999 Pacific #2

LIKE:  it's okay.

1999 Pacific Crown Collection #6

LIKE:  Now we're talking! Beautiful design.

My absolute favorite.

1999 Pacific Paramount #6

LIKE: pretty good too but the foil font still irritates me.

2000 Pacific #2

LIKE: yep, good balance.

2000 Pacific Paramount #5

LIKE: orange background.

DISLIKE: if thats home plate under the logo it's upside down and not flat.

"Third Base" is microscopic.

Great selection of Angels needs obtained.

I don't have to always like the design, but I always like getting them!

Last installment from Howard: Cool Angels Cards