Stepping Up To The Plate

Grabbed another printing plate.  If I was a good blogger, I'd go through my collection and find out how many of these fellas I have.  But I'm not.  But I do have a bunch of them and this is one.

Which goes nicely with these:

And, yes, I still dislike this picture. But I do like being 50% complete on another printing plate set.  One of these days I'll complete the 4/4 quadfecta, and that day will be grand.

Back to the Basics

One of the great things about the Hochevar Buy-Out was that it brought me back to the basics of why I restarted my card collection.  Showing off these Hochevars is probably definitely way boring for most readers, but he's the reason I collect cards again and he's the reason I found the card-blogosphere, so I'll continue to show them.

Here's a back from the 2010 A&G base card that, prior to the HBO, I'd yet to own.

And the rest of the backs.

And, if you're keeping score at home, I'm half way through the 2010s, which means that I'm over half way done showing off the HBO cards.

Enjoying Some Birthday Pi

Today I turn 31.  My 30th year had its ups and downs, so I'm glad to have entered my 31st trip around the sun.  As I usually try to do, I have requested that my family bring me birthday pie instead of birthday cake, since pie is the superior dessert.

So, feel free to join me in enjoying a slice of red "pi" on my big day.

(So this was the post I was planning on doing today, but my lovely wife preempted me by putting up the below post.  Good thing she's so damn cute or I'd have to be mad at her.)

Zooming Out To See the Big Picture

About a year and a half ago, I lamented how much I hated the picture of Hochevar that Topps used for his 2010 flagship card.  Looking at the two cards below, a red/orange border parallel and the team set card, it's plain to see that the tightly cropped picture is way worse than the wide shot.

And, since showing off rainbows is what I do now, here are my non-chrome 2010 Topps cards.

Lots of sweet variations of an awful picture.

The Scanner Was Out Of Commision For A Week

No, not the machine. It was fine. When I say "scanner", I'm talking about the person responsible for scanning my cards.  That jackass decided to take last week off. But he's/I'm back. I can tell you're all very excited to hear that.

How about we hop back onto the HBO-train and enter the 2009 section of my purchase. Since the blog had cooled off for a week, a polar bear decided to set up shop on the scanner when I got there.

Not too shabby of a little card.  Here are the rest of the '09 Topps T206 cards in my collection.

Now that the scanner is back in town, be on the look out for some more HBO purchase cards.

Picture This......

......card featuring a picture of the person who signed it.

How cool would that be? 

Buying A Card Sight-Unseen

Will often sometimes lead to owning a headless autograph.

No, I'm not becoming a Broxton collector.  It just so happens that this is my first two-sided autograph card.  Numbered 4/5, the other side of this coin card is another Tristar "cut" graph for my Hoch collection.

Awful design. No picture. Unnecessarily encased in a giant lucite holder.  Ugh, being a player collector is broo-taal when there's a monopoly in town.

3/1

I'm half tempted to only collect the 1/1 cards of the 2012 A&G Hochevar release.  I mean, I'm already over half way there.

Oh, who am I kidding.  Feel free to send me your extra 2012 A&G Hochs.

Black Shirt

No, not the Nebraska Cornhuskers' defense.  The "black shirt" I'm talking about is the piece of All-Star Futures Game game-worn jersey.

And my rainbow continues to grow.

In fact, it's about too big for my scanner.

Box Topper

Being a player collector sure is fun. Take for instance this SPx Rookie Signatures card.  I have no idea how many times I came across a similar card and passed it by because I thought I already had it.  Well, this particular card was listed as a "box topper" in the eBay listing, which piqued my interest. 

After a little research, I learned that it was indeed a parallel to the SP Rookie Signatures card I already owned.

Now, anyone looking at these two cards notices right away that they are different, but when I'm scanning eBay, I don't always do a card by card comparison to the ones I already have in my collection.  So, mega thanks to the eBay seller who was smart enough to label this one correctly as a box topper.

Patchey Elegance

Another recent eBay purchase is this 2007 Tristar Elegance Showtime game-worn patch, and it is absolutely AMAZING looking in person.

It goes great with the other Elegance cards I got in my HBO purchase.

Royal Blue

I'm going to take a little break from showing off the HBO winnings and feature a handful of recent eBay purchases.

First up is a 2004 UD USA Baseball blue autograph of Hoch.

With this new addition, I'm getting really close to finishing off this rainbow set.

I know I still need the blue autograph jersey card, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for it and will wrangle it into my collection as soon as possible.  Also, I like how each different version of the card features a different photograph.  Way cool.

HBO: Fresh off the Presses

Here ye, here ye!!!

Fresh off the presses!!!

I have another printing plate!!!

HBO: Mini-Me

Numbered to 88, this green-back 2008 Goudey is a peach. But the best part is that it only cost me

/pinkie to the corner of my mouth/

ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!

HBO: Premier Signatures

In the HBO, there were a handful of times when I'd add the HBO cards to my cards and end up with a pile of dupes.  Sometimes they were simple base-card dupes.  Sometimes they were low numbered autograph cards.

Take for instance the UD Signature Premier cards below.  The blue cards are numbered to /45 and the gold cards are numbered to /15. 

As my Hochevar player collection gets deeper and deeper along, I'm guessing that these instances of duplicates will occur more and more, which is cool with me.

HBO: Tuesday Triple Play

Good good mornin' all you cats and kittens and welcome back to The Mustache and Lazer Morning Zoo Fest-a-Poluza on 98.1 KROX -- Classic Rock with a classic twist.

I'm the Mustache and you all know Lazer.

*Three lazer sounds:  beew beew beew*

Coming up we'll have you're traffic and weather together on the 10s and 2s, isn't that right Lazer?

*beew beew beew*

So, back to my story.  So I'm in the doctor's office and the doctor comes in all serious in the face.  You know that look don't you Lazer?

*beew beew beew*

I know that's true.  So the doctor, all stern and stuff, says to me, Mustache, you've got to stop masturbating.   And I get all sad, right?  And I say, but doc, why do I have to stop masturbating?  And he says, get this, he says, because if you don't stop masturbating, I'll not be able to finish your root canal.

*beew beew beew*

Get it, Lazer?  Do you get it?  Anyway, it's Tuesday, and we all know what that means.  *beew beew beew*  TUESDAY TRIPLE PLAY  *beew beew beew*

We got some ZZ Top for ya.  *beew beew beew*  We'll throw some ELO your way.  *beew beew beew* Some Seger, some Van Halen, some Alice Cooper.  *beew beew beew*

But let's kick off our *beew beew beew*  TUESDAY TRIPLE PLAY  *beew beew beew* with a little threepeat of Hoch's Signature on KROX.

*beew beew beew* 

*beew beew beew*

HBO: Knock, Knock.

Who's there?

Banana.

Banana who?

Knock, Knock.

Who's there?

Banana.

Banana who?

Knock, Knock.

Whoooo's theeeere?

Banana.

Banana whoooooo?

Knock, Knock.

Who's therrrrre?

Banana.

Bananaaaaaa who?

Knock, Knock.

Who's there?

Banana.

BANANA who?

Knock, Knock.

WHO IS THERE???!?!!!?!?!??!

Orange.

Oh.  Orange who?

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

HBO: Golden Boy

Hoch takes the bump tonight against the A's.  Maybe he throws the season's fourth perfect game, a sterling feat that is worth its weight in gold.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho

It's back to work I go.

And, back to the Hochevar Buy-Out well for the inspiration for today's post. 

Below is a red parallel, #/149, from the 2008 Upper Deck A Piece of History release.

The red parallels seem to look the best with the blue and white Royals jersey.

I Got Da Blues

I've got da
work starts back up tomorrow and summer vacation is over,
lost the club championship when an 18-handicapper shot three-over-par 75 to my 77,
voted off the Nachos Grande writing contest island,
friends and family are backing out of my yearly golf tournament,
one of my tomato plants has yet to produce fruit,
new car shopping,
Murads've dried up in the eBay,
Royals and Rockies are having awful seasons
Bah-luuuueeeeessss!

Also, I've a new blue Hochevar parallel, as seen in the top of the below scan.

So I've got that going for me.

But seriously, starting work again tomorrow has got me feeling blue.  I'm not sure what I'll miss more: sleeping in til my morning golf game or my lunchtime beer.

Who am I kidding, it's definitely the lunchtime beer.  I have no idea why it's taboo to have a cold one with my cold-cut sandwich during working hours. 

UPDATE:  And here's the last lunchtime beer I'll be having til Thanksgiving Break.

She was absolutely delightful, and, as the bottom of the can states, Available Only In Colorado.