Golf Weekend Filler: 2006 TriStar Farm Hands

Today begins my weekend of golf with two of my college golf teammates and a few of my friends in Omaha.  Today, my friend Brett (who flew in last night) and I are driving out to Gothenburg, NE, where we'll meet up with Dave who is driving out from Denver.  We'll be playing a round of golf at one of my Top 5 favorite courses of all time, Wild Horse Golf Club.

Wild Horse G.C. is a links-style course set in the Sand Hills of central Nebraska with wide-open fairways; large, receptive greens; strategically placed bunkers; and not a single, solitary tree or water feature to be found.  In other words, it's perfect. 

Just like this on-card auto.

Colorado Collection: Chase Headley

My newest addition to my Colorado Collection is MLBer Chase Headley.

There are many great things about this card.  First, the autograph is on-card.  Second, I love the old school 1952 Topps design.  Finally, the back of the card shows that he was born and raised in Fountain, CO, which is located 10 miles south of Colorado Springs on Interstate-25.

Chase had a successful high school career while attending Fountain-Fort Carson High School.  He went on to attend the University of Tennessee and was a teammates with Luke Hochevar during the 2004 and 2005 season, culminating with a trip to the 2005 CWS.

In 2005, Chase was drafted by the San Diego Padres in the second round and has spent his entire career with the Padres organization.

U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!!

One of the first Luke Hochevar base cards I remember picking up last summer was this 2005 Upper Deck USA Baseball card from Luke's time on the 2004 USA National Team.

Last week, I noticed a handful of autograph and jersey cards from this series popping up on eBay, so I picked them up.

The first one I found was this auto/jersey card, serial numbered 257/275.

Then, I made a rookie mistake on these autograph cards numbered to /595.  I really wanted one and both of these auctions were ending at about the same time, so I placed a bid on both fully expecting to be out-bid on at least one of them.  And wouldn't you know it, I won them both.

I like how Upper Deck used different photos for the different styles of cards.  Much more interesting than having a slew of cards with the same photograph.

Also, I don't know how to classify these autographs.  They aren't stickers (which is good), but I don't think they quite qualify for "on-card" as best I can tell, the autographs were signed on a different piece of paper and then incorporated into the card.  Maybe these could be "cut" autographs?

While I'm on the topic of USA Baseball cards, I also have these 2004 Upper Deck SP Prospects National Honors cards that feature a piece of authentic game-worn jersey swatches.

Last spring, I was able to watch a USA Baseball game here in Omaha when the USA National Team played a game against the Japanese National Team at Rosenblatt Stadium.  And a few weeks before that game, my wife and I watched the USA Women's Soccer team play against the Swedish team at Creighton University.  Both games were great fun.  What Omaha lacks in professional sports, it more than makes up for in amateur athletics.

Lost in Translation

I've had this John Stockton card long enough that I don't remember where it came from.  Most likely, I bought it on eBay years ago.  But I could be wrong.

Anyway, as far as I know, this is my only foreign language card in my collection, but you wouldn't know it by just looking at the front of the card.

Looks like a fairly striaght-forward Upper Deck 1992 John Stockton card.  Flip the card over and you still might not notice anything out of the ordinary.

At least, not until you begin looking underneath the stat-line.

I'm not a language expert (as many who have been reading this blog for a while may have noticed, I barely understand the English language), but I'm going to venture a guess that the top paragraph is French and because there is an English paragraph underneath, I'm going to guess that this card was released in French Canadian Quebec.

Even if I'm wrong, I still like having a foreign language card in my collection.

Hochevar Price

UPDATE:  Just thought of a better title for this post -- "The Law Firm of Bowman, Sterling, Hochevar, & Price" or something to that effect. 

I was hoping to use this card to announce/highlight the Royals v Rays series, but I grew impatient and decided that I didn't want to wait until the end of July to show it off.


Below is a 2007 Bowman Sterling Dual Autograph of Luke Hochevar and David Price, serial numbered 83/275.

The sticker autographs don't bother me all that much.  The silver stickers seem to fit nicely with the "sterling" design of the card.  The pictures are nicely sized, even if I'm not a fan of these mid-pitch mug-shots.

After David Price's Cy Young Award runner-up season last year, the lower numbered versions of this card are well out of my price range now.  I'm proud to have a card that has the autographs of back-to-back #1 Draft Picks.

Pictures from Warner Park

I mentioned yesterday that my wife and I would be making our first trip out to the newly built Warner Park to see our first Omaha Storm Chasers game of the season.

The Wife and I next to the new mascot.

The new stadium is great.  Very family and fan friendly.

And very spacious, especially compared to the tight quarters that was Rosenblatt Stadium. 

I got to see a bunch of the Royals' prospects in person, which was nice.

Mike Montgomery was Omaha's starting pitcher.

Mike Moustakas was at third base.

And he batted in the clean-up spot.

Eric Hosmer was the designated hitter for the Storm Chasers.

Lorenzo Cain was in center field.  He was one of the players that KC received from the Brewers in the Greinke trade.

One of my favorite aspects of the new park is that it allows fans to wander around the outfield (something you couldn't do at a minor league game at Rosenblatt Stadium).

Fans even have the option to purchase tickets to sit in the outfield grass.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a Friday night.

Am I a Super Collector?

I consider myself a Luke Hochevar super collector.  But, my question is would anyone else? 

As of my last count, I have over 160 unique Hochevar cards and 200+ if I am counting doubles.  But, according to Beckett, there are 648 unique Hochevar cards that have been released.  Which puts me at about 20% of the way to my goal of having one of every Hochevar card released. 

I have nearly all of his base cards and am fairly far along in the inserts.  Most of the gaps in my collection are low numbered (and multi-numbered, i.e. /25, /50, /100, etc.) autographs, 1/1 cards (including printing plates), and short printed inserts.

I know that 100% is an unattainable goal, but I don't think 50% is unreasonable (especially now that I have to wait until Series 2 and/or Update for his current releases).

I've seen people mention on twitter that they have hundreds and even thousands of cards of a specific player (which is mind blowing to me, considering I probably don't have more than a thousand cards in my entire card collection).

And, at one point in the mid-90s, I would have considered myself a John Stockton super collector (at least for a kid).  But I've fallen so far behind in his cards that I don't even want to look up how many of his cards there are now.

So my question is when can a person consider themselves a super collector?  Can I continue tracking down missing unique cards or should I start stockpiling duplicates?

Getting out to the Ballpark

My wife and I are headed out to take in our first Omaha Royals Storm Chasers game at  Werner Park.  Werner Park is one of the two new baseball stadiums opening this year in Omaha, the other being TD Ameritrade Park which will be home to the Creighton BlueJays and the College World Series.

I thought I'd get myself in the minor league baseball mood by showing off some of the Omaha Royals cards I have.

I bought this signed Luke Hochevar card at my LCS last year.

And no, there is nothing wrong with my scanner, the photo used on the card is actually that fuzzy.

I also picked up this Omaha Royals team set when I attended my first Omaha Royals game.  The first card in the set is Luke, so I couldn't pass it up.

And the rest of the team.

And the set also included the always popular Team Mascot card.

I was kinda bummed that Herman the Nut didn't get any stats on the back of the card because he was my favorite.  I even had my picture taken with Herman and my friend Ron at a Thirsty Thursday (aka $1 Beer Night) game in 2009.  

Herman is the one in the middle.

Colorado Collection: Louis Amundson

Today's newly elected member of the Colorado Collection is Louis Amundson.

A graduate of Monarch High School in Louisville, CO, which is located off Highway 36 between Denver and Boulder, Louis is currently a member of the Golden State Warriors of the NBA.

After high school, Louis attended UNLV and spent time with the Utah Jazz, Philadelphia 76ers, and Phoenix Suns before joining the Warriors.

My 1st Free/Redemption/Contest Won/Tebow Card

A couple of months ago I won a Tim Tebow redemption code from the Cardboard Collections blog.  I entered in the redemption code and then, as the months passed by while Topps processed my redemption, I forgot about the card.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find an unexpected envelope in my mailbox last week.  Inside I found this card.

Thanks to Colbey for running the truly simple contest and for hooking me up with a free card.  It'll make a great addition to my Denver Bronco binder.

Playmakers

Last week I showed off some of my early John Stockton inserts, one of which was from the 1992-93 Fleer Ultra Playmaker set. 

I mentioned that I might try to collect all the Playmaker cards since there were only 10 of them in the set.  There was a BIN auction of the set on eBay, so I made an offer.  $2.00 (+shipping) and a few days later, this set was sitting in my mailbox.

This set features the best point guards "Playmakers" of the early 1990s.  With the exception of Kenny Anderson, the photographs were well selected and show off the dribbling, passing, and offense-running skills of these great guards.

The photography on the back of the cards compliments the "Playmaker" moniker well.

It's a visually appealing, small, and cheap (i.e. Jordan not included) set of some of my favorite years of NBA basketball. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for any other insert sets like this one in the future.

A Cashe of 'Stache Cards from My LCS

I some free time last week, so I spent over an hour sitting in the back room of my LCS sifting through stacks of late 70s and early 80s cards in search of mustache cards.  My Mustache Set was really taking shape, but I had precious few cards from that time frame.

Well, no more.  I walked out of the LCS with nearly 100 mustache cards.

One player who was missing from my Mustache Set was Rollie Fingers.  His mustache is legendary, so I was more than happy to give up a dime for this card.

What a fantastic card.

Where Rollie's mustache is refined and sophisticated, these three mustaches are rough and rugged mustaches that would make any lumberjack proud.

Talk about manly.

I'm still in the market for more mustache cards, so if you have some you'd like to donate to my project, please email me and I'll give you my address.

One of the Few Hochevar Rainbows...

...in which I'm no where near completing is the 2010 Bowman Chrome variety.  Surprisingly, I've only tracked down two of these cards: the base card and the blue parallel (#'d 11/150).

 The picture used on these cards is one of my favorites, which makes my having so few of them so puzzling.  According to the BaseballCardPedia, I need to find myself a Refractor, Gold(#'d to /50), Orange (/25), Red (/5), Superfractor (1/1), and the printing plates if I want to consider myself one of the foremost Hochevar collectors.

As for the 2010 Bowman release, I'm only doing a little bit better, since I've managed to add the base card and two of the parallels, Gold and Orange (#'d 51/250), which leaves me needing the Blue (/520), Red (1/1), and printing plates.

This picture pales in comparison as the one used in the Chrome cards.

Hopefully a few of the cards I'm missing from these sets show up on eBay or COMC in the near future so that I can add a few more rainbows to my wall of cards.