2013 Gypsy Queen Checklist is out

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Gypsy Queen? For those who are interested the full 2013 checklist is out and linked below.

PDF Link Here

We get a 350 card "base set", including 50 short prints that are scattered around the checklist instead of being the last 50. To further complicate things, we also get 25 base card variations which I assume are photo variants. The minis seem to follow the same 350 with short prints, but have a much longer list of variations.

On first glance the auto checklist is nice with 3 Rockies including D.J. LeMahieu's first rockies card, along with Jim Abbott and Dave Stewart, two players I followed as a kid.

Small Sportlots Mailday

The ongoing saga of the 2013 Topps Ramon Hernandez rainbow continues with a reasonably priced camo parallel numbered to 99 from sportlots. Along for the ride were a few randoms for the wantlist to make shipping cost per card a little more reasonable. A Drew Pomeranz numbered to 199 from Bowman Sterling, I really like the looks of this set, they don't scan great but look really nice in real life, Chris Cowell and Jordan Pacheco go into the Rockies Catcher collection, Pacheco is a part time catcher so it's nice to get a card of him in catcher gear, even if it's a spring training shot from the terribly ugly Finest set. The Neely is a throwback to my youth as he was the first player I ever actively collected, and finished off with some 2012 Gypsy Queen photo variants that I already had, but were too cheap to pass up and are added to my GQ tradelist.

Deduno, who pitched last night...

 Congrats to the Dominican Republic and Rockies product Samuel Deduno who got his second win of the tournament in the final game and finished with one run allowed and 17 k's over 13 total innings. Deduno only pitched in 4 games for Colorado, but pitched in the Rockies system from 2004-2010, and is possibly best remembered for a series of bad puns.

- Who pitched last night?
- Deduno.
- No, I don't know, that's why I asked you.
- Deduno pitched last night.
- No, I seriously don't know, do you?

 Pedro Strop, who started as a shortstop in the Rockies system led the tourney with 3 wins and was a stud out of the bull-pen, but I have nothing funny to say about him.

Needed Nine (Want List Rev 3)

Just updating my most wanted cards listed on the right side bar.

Acquired October 2013 2013 Topps Pink Ramon Hernandez The quest for the rainbow started with buying the Platinum, still need the following: - Walmart Blue Border - Target Red Border - Pink - All printing plates
Larry Walker 2000 Topps Tek #23 (patterns 3, 8, 11, 20)Part of my acetate obsession, these are the last four needed to complete the Larry Walker set of 20 patterns.
Acquired July 2013 Chris Richard 2003 Topps Total #204 One of the last players needed for the one card of every Rockies player project. Not a player I remember who played in 19 games with Colorado, starting only 3. Interestingly enough he is the Durham Bulls all-time home run leader.
Acquired July 2013 Justin Speier 2003 Upper Deck 40-Man #759 One of the last players needed for the one card of every Rockies player project. A part time closer, saved 9 games with the Rockies in 2003. Had a solid MLB career with a 35-33 record and 17 saves over 613 games.
Acquired October 2013 Aaron Ledesma 2000 Showdown #49 A card that has been on my most wanted since before this blog started, I should should just stop being lazy and buy a copy.
Bobby Jones 1999 Pacific #147 Another player most people never heard of have forgotten about, Pacific was really good for giving cards to players that wouldn't usually get one, I love these kind of cards.
1998 SkyBox E-X2001 #57 Darryl Kile Another acetate card, I always loved watching Kile pitch even though his time in Denver didn't really work out.
Acquired July 2013 Rob Johnson 2003 Topps Total #254 (NFL)  The only card I know of that has Johnson in a Redskins uniform, he only attempted 7 passes in parts of two games so I imagine this is it.
Acquired May 2013 Frank Wycheck 1994 Playoff #190 (NFL) Wycheck's only Redskins card, a carry over from the last list.

Catching up on some scanning: Rockies

A few scans that have been hanging out in my "to be posted" folder to fill up some otherwise dead time on the blog. I think most of these come from a COMC order featuring some cheap autographs of guys you have never heard. Kyle Parker is part of the Rockies affinity towards drafting college quarterbacks along with Todd Helton, Seth Smith, Russel Wilson and possibly more I am forgetting. The three auto's start with Darren Clarke, who pitched in 1 1/3 career innings over 2 games in 2007 as an emergency call up from Double-A Tulsa. Derrick Gibson was a big home run hitter in the minors, but only managed to play 17 career MLB games, all with the Rockies.

Jeff Winchester is the only catcher drafted in the first round in Rockies history, but he never made it passed Double-A in 9 minor league seasons. The bottom left is my first booklet card, kind of a boring card with a plain grey "game used" piece of Helton's uniform, but for under $4 I jumped on it. Finished off by a Tulowitzki prominently showing the number 14 he wore as a rookie.

WBC Thoughts from a Canadian

First of all, I am officially bored with spring training, it has been a month since most teams reported and we still have 3 weeks until games start to count for real. While watching the World Baseball Classic games this weekend I got a touch of meaningful baseball, these games seemed like playoff games. When it comes to putting the teams together there is lot of "who cares, the big stars aren't even showing up", but for the players that do show up, you can tell how much it matters. I will not go into the Canada/Mexico brawl to much, but I have to say I was a little proud at how the Canadians stuck up for each other, to me it showed they were a team that cared on the outcome and not a collection of random players in an exhibition game. The success of teams like Italy and the Netherlands make for interesting story lines, and seeing what relatively unknown players like Canada's Chris Robinson and Mexico's Sebastian Valle and Eduardo Arredondo is always interesting. Even though Canada is out, I still look forward to the rest of the games and fin myself wishing the WBC came around a little more often.

New Card Blog Pimpin

I recently posted a trade with Kyle D that was set up through email, now he has his own blog. He is a top quality trader and I am just putting it out there if people are interested in following a new card blog.

http://nolansdugout.blogspot.com

Acetate Appreciation: 2000 Bowman's Best NFL

Expanding the Acetate Appreciation series into football cards, 2000 Bowman's Best was a 150 card set on regular cardboard stock set, but the complete set was paralleled with acetate. Serial numbered to 250 and seeded at a rate of 1 in 22 packs, or roughly one per box, the parallels featured the same design as the base set with the background clear. It's a pretty nice design on the front of the card, but the back of the card has a lot of wasted space on the player cutout.

Blown Budget Mailday: 2013 Topps Platinum

We have a new record holder for the most I have spend on a single card. This is the first true 1 of 1 I have ever owned (I don't count printing plates because there are 4 of them), the thrill of the bid on eBay got the best of me here. It's a card I was pretty sure to never see again, but not being a huge fan of Ramon Hernandez, I could have lived without it. Interesting note, as far as I can tell Hernandez is the active leader for homer runs by a catcher with 160. There are have been trade rumors all winter, so I have officially jinxed Hernandez to either get traded or have a terrible year.

Between this, MLB 13: The Show and saving for 2 boxes of Gypsy Queen in April, March will be a slow month for card purchases other than chasing the rainbow on this card, I already have the Black and will be on the lookout for the rest of the parallels and maybe try and get a frame display or something for them.