So after my trip to Japan I brought back a big stack of cards. There were so many cards in that stack that I had no idea where to start when blogging about them. So instead of condensing them all into a big post (which most of you will only read a quarter of), I decided to blog about them at a rate of three cards at a time. Maybe some of them will make for interesting material, maybe they won't. Let's find out.
Card #1
This is (as best as I could figure out) a 1974 Pepsi-Cola Menko card of then-Chunichi Dragons skipper Kaname "Wally" Yonamine. I showed this card off in my "I'm back from Japan" post and it's fitting it leads off again. This card is rather thick and rather long compared to your average baseball card. I liken it to being the Japanese menko equivalent of those old tallboys cards.
And yes, there were parallels and variations of these cards. I know this because I saw multiple Yonamine's with the "Dragons" and "Pepsi Cola" parts printed in different colors than the gold/blue you see there.
This is also my first Yonamine card and I'm extremely pleased to have been able to get one. Yonamine is a second generation Japanese-American. He became the first Japanese-American to play in pro football (he was a running back for the San Francisco 49ers), then he went on to have a long and fruitful baseball career in Japan. He was an 11-time All Star in Japan, he was a league MVP in 1957, a four-time Japan Series Champion, and a Japanese Baseball Hall of Famer. The menko card above comes from Yonamine's tenure as the Dragons manager, during which he became the first ever foreigner to manage an NPB club.
Card #2
The second card I'm showing today is this incredible follow-through shot of Takuma Achira.
Achira was drafted by the Chunichi Dragons in the fourth round of the 2013 NPB Player Draft. Drafted out of the Industrial League (the Japanese equivalent of indy ball in a way), Achira is armed with a low-90's fastball, a slider, a curveball and a forkball. He made his ichi-gun (big league) NPB debut in 2016 and struck out 14 batters in 14.1 innings. In 2017 he was limited to 13 innings but won the ERA title as a member of the ni-gun (the minor league) Western League Dragons affiliate.
Achira was rumored to have been heavily favorited by former Dragons GM/manager Hiromitsu Ochiai, so exactly how much longer Achira will actually stay in the Dragons org remains a mystery. I wouldn't hold out much hope on him staying much longer though. At least we'll have that follow-through shot forever though.
Card #3
This is James Paxton's Bowman Chrome autograph from 2012. One of my collecting buds in Japan got this as a replacement for an Anthony Rendon autograph, and it was a pretty good one.
Paxton was drafted by the Seattle Mariners and made his MLB debut with the club there. In six seasons with the Mariners he's had his fair share of good moments like a no-hitter, some bad moments like numerous injuries, and weird moments like the time an eagle landed on him.
With this Paxton BoChro autograph I now have all four players involved in the trade. Paxton, Justus Sheffield, Erik Swanson and Dom Thompson-Williams.
And that concludes the first installment of my three-cards-at-a-time series. Got a lot more in the works right now, I think this series/concept is here to stay!
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
The NPB Draft in Japan is very weird. In America the baseball draft is structured in a way where if you draft someone, you have exclusive rights to sign that player to a contract. In Japan the baseball draft is structured in a way where multiple teams can put in a bid for a player and you literally have to hope your team gets drawn from a hat (a box to be more accurate) in order to get exclusive contract negotiation rights.
This is one of the reasons why the Chunichi Dragons have never really been able to build a great farmsystem despite finishing among the worst 5 teams in the NPB these past few years. They'd usually lose the negotiation rights to whichever coveted amateur they were after in the raffle.
But in the 2018 their luck changed. They actually won the rights to negotiate with elite high school prospect, Akira Neo.
Neo was basically the number one high school prospect coming into the 2018 NPB draft. Even the Yomiuri Giants and Nippon Ham Fighters put in a raffle bid for him. He's got solid contact skills and an impressive amount of pop for a high school kid in Japan. He's a shortstop by trade but he does also have a low-90's fastball. Prior to the draft he had aspirations to be a two-way player like Shohei Ohtani, but has since decided that he wants to be a more complete shortstop.
The public consensus on Neo appears to be that he's a really really good player who people would be really excited about if he had been drafted by any team other than the Dragons.
This negativity comes straight from Dragons fans I know BTW. The Dragons do not have the best track record when it comes to developing talent. In 2018 they saw their 2017 Central League Rookie of the Year middle-infielder Yota Kyoda suffer a terrible case of the yips, former top pitching prospect Shinnosuke Ogasawara took major steps back, Yuya Yanagi had an up-and-down 2018, among other such development issues.
I think Neo will be an interesting player to watch though. Where he plays long term is kind of up in the air, but having him and Kyoda in the middle infield would be fun. The Dragons have a pretty nice core, all things considered. If they can just get some pitching help they do have a chance to make shit happen. Will they? I doubt it but we'll see.
So good luck to Neo. Give the fans something to look forward to.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
As many of you know, I was just on a trip to my motherland (Japan). As always I am tired and very jet-lagged, but happy.
For some reason recovering from jet-lag is always worse when I get back to New York than when I go to Japan. Jet-lag in Japan (for me) is manageable because I often just end up waking up very early in the morning (which is great because I have people to see and places to be). But my jet-lag in the US is terrible. I'm in bed for an entire week feeling like shit. I only get up to eat food or go to the bathroom. I remember watching a show where Masahiro Tanaka even went in front of a panel of various experts and asked them how to get rid of jet-lag because it takes him a week to recover from it in NYC. The experts responded by saying that fornication is the best way to get rid of jet-lag. A lot of it at that. From my experience, good luck trying to get it up. And by "get it up" I mean trying to get your exhausted body into an upright position, let alone any position period besides "almost dying on your bed". And if your partner is also jet-lagged, forget it, either do that shit before you leave or join the mile high club.
Anyway, here's a preview of some of my spoils in Japan.
Hopefully this will hold this blog over in terms of content for months to come.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
P-Town Tom held his annual contest where everyone could blog about their favorite card produced and released in 2018. I continued my annual tradition of waiting until the deadline for entry passed.
So 2018 was a year where I, once again, had to track down Luis Torrens cards in a mainstream Topps product. Surely this is the year where a Luis Torrens card earns the "best of 2018" honors right? Especially after I made a big deal last year about how the great photograph would've made his rookie card in 2017 my absolute favorite?
Well... um, no. It isn't.
I give Topps a lot of credit for creating that awesome Luis Torrens card with one of the memorable photographs ever used for cardboard. But unfortunately the truth is that it's brought down by the fact that there was already a card that used the same photo that had an even bigger impact on me.
Yeah, Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown beat Topps to the punch and used the photograph on one of his kick ass customs. This has largely overshadowed the Series 2 card. Gavin thought that the Topps card would make his custom feel less special, the reality is that the opposite of that happened. Never mind that Jose Ramirez is cut out on the custom, it's Luis Torrens on a Card Gen motif. Nothing against the Topps card, but yeah Gavin's card has the clear advantage.
In a vacuum where the DefGav card doesn't exist, the 2018 Series 2 Luis Torrens plate wins in a landslide. But we don't live in that vacuum and unfortunately Torrens' sophomore offering falls because of it. Let me reiterate that this is NOT a slight against Topps or the hard working people who pandered to me for that one card, but shit happened and it never managed to capture the zeitgeist.
So does that make the custom my favorite? That'd be the easy cop-out answer right?
I guess in a way it's my favorite baseball card made in 2018. Much like last year, consider the cards I'm showing to be in reverse order. The Torrens Series 2 plate at third place, the Gavin custom at second place, and the real winner at number 1.
What won it all this year?
I struggled with this one. How do I justify skipping over my favorite player's card for two years in a row? Was there even a card out there that could? Stranger things have happened right?
Yes. It just BARELY happened.
For the second straight year a hockey card swiped victory away from the easy answer.
That is the 2018-19 Upper Deck Mats Zuccarello base card. I love the card because it's peak ZUUC. Look at him being all emotional after likely making a goal. No it's not quite "Kevin Hayes making a young fan's year" like last year's entry, but it's still good in it's own right. Zuccarello's time with the New York Rangers is basically over. It's a shame but he doesn't really fit into their plans either in the short or long term. Dude's also done an interview where he's exhausted of being a trade chip and worrying if he has to leave the only NHL team and American city he's called home (he's Norwegian BTW). If this season is the last NYR sees of Zuuc, then that is one heck of a card for him to go out on. Energetic, passionate, determined, rejoicing. Just the way we'll all remember him.
So there you have it, my favorite card of 2018.
Before I end this post I should also probably explain why none of the Stranger Things cards made it into the top three. Well the unfortunate truth is that none of the cards I have stuck out to me. Even if I expanded it to cards I don't have, I know that Joe Keery (the actor who plays Steve) has an autograph but that appears to be a redemption. Natalia Dyer appears to have relic cards but I'm not really into those. Yeah no, I love Stranger Things and the card set was nice, but having a "favorite card" out of that bunch wasn't ever going to happen like PTT suggested it should. Would've been great if it had, but unfortunately it never did.
So there you have it, Zippy's favorite card of 2018. Yell it from the Heavens Zuuc. You've earned it.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
On Twitter I see a lot of tailor made content creation tweets where the original tweeter poses a question and everyone quote tweets it with their responses. One that I never could do myself was "what is the perfect album where every song is great"?
I was flummoxed. In all my time as a music listener I'd yet to encounter an album where every song is great. The closest most albums get to perfection is that every song is good except for one song which I just can't enjoy, either as a song itself or in the context of the album.
And yet so many people kept bringing up album titles with zero hesitation. Do these people seriously consider the albums they brought up to be completely free of filler or anything short of pure genius?
I'm calling bull on all of them. If I listened to those answers I'm sure I could find some shitty songs (to me) that wouldn't make them so perfect (to me). I honestly think they're just shouting out whatever their favorite album of all time is.
So I guess if I were to find perfection that might be a good place to start looking.
For me that distinction goes to The Killers' Hot Fuss. Love that album. BUT, is it perfect to me? No. I love it as a whole off of the strength of some of my favorite tracks of all time like Somebody Told Me, Mr. Brightside, Change Your Mind, Midnight Show, All These Things That I've Done (so many good songs!). Unfortunately there are some songs that I feel lag a bit. Andy, You're A Star especially sticks out to me as a super weak link. It's basically album filler when you compare it with the first half of the album and it sure sounds like it. Andy's also kind of the point where the album starts to tail off for me. I like On Top just fine and if it were the worst song on the album it would probably have a better case of being perfect, but unfortunately it's not. I can't vibe with Believe Me Natalie either. Everything Will Be Alright is a song I've really come to like, but I need to be in a specific mood where I want to listen to "Closing Time by Supersonic, but more drunk". If you like those songs that's great and I'm glad for you. But all I can do is be thankful that Change Your Mind and Midnight Show are in the back to make sure I don't cut off the album completely at the halfway point.
So I basically don't like half of this album as much as the other half. And yet it's my favorite how?!
Honestly it's just because the songs I really like are that great. Those are songs that make me glad I got to listen to and enjoy them during my miserable existence. I've listened to Somebody Told Me over 2,000 times in my life and it never gets old. I take a break every now and then, but just when I finally hit the refresh button it sounds as exciting and amazing as it did the first time I heard it.
So if my favorite album ever can't be perfection, how else do I find it?
Well the alternative approach I took is to look at an album with the least amount of "duds" on it for me. Maybe none of them have anything as meaningful or great to me as "Somebody Told Me", but the hope is that they don't have any "Andy, You're A Star"s either.
One album came to mind.
Told you I'd blog about this band. Expect more in-depth blogposts (PLURAL!) about Cryoshell to come later though.
My mind immediately went to this album because before my old iPod nano broke, I reached a rare milestone with this album. I've played every song it 100 times. That never happens. Usually I just play the songs I really like on an album infinity times and the rest tend to just go rot. But in Cryoshell's case, I actually listened to the album in full (in theory) 100 times.
So is this that great of an album? Ehhhh, not really.
I love this band and this album, but I'll be the first to admit that it does sound a bit like they recorded two different songs and repackaged them a few times. Maybe to diminishing returns.
Let's break it down.
The truly great songs on this album (to me) are Creeping In My Soul, Bye Bye Babylon, Feed, The Room, and Come To My Heaven. Those of you who grew up with Bionicle might remember the first track Creeping In My Soul too.
The okay-good tracks on this album (to me) are Closer To The Truth and Feed. This is where I start to notice a pattern. My favorite songs were all very upbeat, or at the very least they had a more distinct rock edge. Something to give the songs some life, energy and flavor. These two tracks are Cryoshell with less of all three. Luckily some stray but distinguished guitar chords and overlapping vocals near the climax bring some much needed boosts.
Unfortunately that can't be said for the rest of the album (which is basically just Trigger, Murky and No More Words). Not even a passable guitar solo in Trigger can save it from being a droning borefest to me. The other two don't even have that.
I've mentioned before that I hate ballads (unless they're certain Barry Manilow ballads) and this band is not immune to that. How did I listen to all of these songs 100 times? I must've done something dumb like leaving my iPod on while going to bed or something.
Okay so never mind, Cryoshell's basically in the same boat as Hot Fuss. Lots of bangers I enjoy, but a few that just weigh down the whole thing. Back to phase one for me.
It was at this point that I started to have deep philosophical musings about whether perfection is possible to someone like me. I listen to most albums thinking I'll enjoy about 2-3 songs it and the rest of it will be passable, forgettable or outright trash. Could an album really do it for me? Could an album succeed where albums by my favorites like The Hives or Bob Dylan or J. Cole or Modest Mouse, or music legends like The Beatles, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, and Marvin Gaye all failed?
Yeah it can. It was made by Fit For Rivals.
Unfortunately Fit For Rivals broke up in 2018 but their debut album Steady Damage is definitely one that rewards repeated listens. At least for me. This is my real answer to the "album with the least amount of duds" question (Cryoshell was there to make sure you all got some exposure to it). There are none here. Why? Well a big part of that is that this all non-stop energy. No ballads, no droning snorefests that feel like quadruple the stated time. Just pure rock from the second the album starts to the second the album ends.
But energy alone isn't enough. Luckily for me Renee Phoenix and Thomas Amason (and every other past member of FTR) can deliver some really solid tunes. There are some insanely catchy hooks on this if that's what you're into.
Also a lot of the songs are masked with a sense of bitterness. When I want angry breakup songs or songs to express being pissed off in general I expect stuff that's on this album. Lots of resentment and pure disappointment that makes you want to let out a scream. Or belt shit out with a low-toned scream I guess. Can you believe that Renee Phoenix was only 22 (or so) when she recorded this?
One problem though. I can't recall any of these songs individually since they all tend to blend together. Thus showcasing the downfall of having an entire album operating on the same frequency.
So Steady Damage really is the antithesis of Hot Fuss. Nothing on it will mean as much to me as Somebody Told Me but nothing on it will make me want to skip it automatically like Believe Me Natalie. That's pure consistency right there.
As far as I'm concerned that's as close to perfection as it can get. I'll take it until an album where every song is the greatest thing I ever heard comes out (if Daft Punk can't do it then no one can).
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
5. Get to 10 Bowman Chrome Luis Torrens base autographs
A
Finished the year at 17.
4. Get to 10 Filip Chytil Young Guns rookies
F
Never bothered to get more than the two I already had. This is why your goals should never be specifically about the cards you're super focused on at the time of establishing your goals.
3. Zero boxes or full priced blaster boxes
F
Bought a hobby box of 2018-19 Upper Deck MVP, a blaster box of 2018 Bowman and two blaster boxes of 2018 Topps Stranger Things Series 1. My soul hurts just typing that out.
2. No more card shows
F
Went to two. At least the two I went to were great though.
1. Budget!
F
Don't think I went a month where I didn't buy cards in some capacity. I kept the purchases low-ish (other than in August when team sets came out for the MiLB teams) but woof, I need to set more specific parameters with how to spend money.
Well that was disappointing.
Unrelated Scan #2
2019 Goals
6. Get to 20 Bowman Chrome Luis Torrens base autographs
Giving myself an extra sixth goal this year. I'm only three cards away from hoarding 20 LT BoChro-Prospect Autographs. It's so close I can taste it!
5. Go a whole month without buying any baseball cards
Tried this once and worked. Gonna do it again.
4. $50 budget cap per month (Except August)
I'M INCLUDING STAMPS, ENVELOPES, INDEX CARDS AND SHARPIES INTO THE CARD BUDGET THIS TIME. TTM SUPPLIES AND IP AUTOGRAPH SUPPLIES COUNT TOWARDS THE BUDGET. ADJUST YOUR CARD BUDGET ACCORDINGLY, KENNETH!
3. Keep it to two blaster boxes (at most) for the year
Every now and then I get the itch to rip (and stock up on wrappers). The idea is to avoid hobby boxes or anything even more expensive than that and stick with blasters. One blaster box might not be enough to quell my hunger should something cool like Stranger Things Season Two come out, so I'm giving myself a generous two box limit. Of course the obvious loophole here is that loose packs and even rack packs are fair game. I assure you all that I will exploit that loophole a lot, because I've been doing so since 2014.
2. Reach 100+ TTM's
Since I started collecting TTMs in 2013, I've had an unending streak of 100+ returns per year. Gonna try to keep it going this year too.
1. Keep Blogging
Halfway through the year I realized that I had a legitimate shot at blogging at a consistent rate for the entire year. Something I hadn't been able to do since 2015. The idea was to blog on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, along with extra posts mixed in for various occasions. I'm not sure if I can keep it up in 2019, but it was nice to know that I managed to reach double digit blogposts for every month in 2018 during a year when every other blog appeared to start slowing down and in some cases shut down completely for prolonged periods of time. The loose goal I've got in mind for next year is to at least reach 10 blogposts per month. Think I can do that.
So there we go. I think the 2019 goals are a lot more obtainable than they were in 2018. Wish me luck. I wish all of you luck with your goals as well.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
