To Free Or Not To Free

So throughout the blogosphere people have been freeing their cards from their grading case tombs.

I usually stay away from cards that have been graded in the first place since if they're deemed so valuable that their owners got them graded, they're not worth my time.

However, I do have one graded card in my collection.

My T206 Jack Chesbro.

I've had this card for over a year and I've gone back and forth between keeping this Chesbro in that accursed case or letting it out.

I only bought this card graded because I wanted to know that I was getting a genuine T206 Chesbro. Although Jack Chesbro isn't the first name you'd think of when you think of vintage players with counterfeit cards, it's not out of the realm of possibility either.
Also because raw ungraded Chesbros go for a lot more than the ones that were graded poor do.

Now I'm a cynical sob so there is a part of me that wouldn't be shocked if this was fake anyway (I do not trust any grading company completely, only to a certain extent). For now I'm giving this the benefit of the doubt and saying it's real (looks good to me anyway). And quite honestly I don't think I could've gotten a T206 Chesbro for a cheaper price.

Here's the #firstworldproblem though. While I didn't buy this Chesbro as an investment (none of my cards are investments), I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be it's last owner.

The thing with me is that almost none of my cards are nailed down. Any Yankees card I have could be shipped off to The Lost Collector or The Dutch Card Guy or Draft2Dynasty or really anybody at any moment and these T206es are no exception. Even if I don't just give it away I could very well trade it or even sell it.

I suppose I could free it and, if I wanted to, regrade it later if/when I decide to part with it to sell it but here's another #firstworldproblem.

"How do I know that it's going to get graded as a Good 30 grade again?"

For curiosity's sake I did ask some T206 vendors at the card shows I've been to for their thoughts on this Chesbro. The crease on the upper left side is distracting and could push the grade down to a poorer one. So much so that one has to wonder how this got a Good grade in the first place.

Well okay, after typing all that out I've come to realize that the big issue for me isn't resale value or whether or not I plan to keep Chesbro around long term.

No, the real issue is that I'm too lazy to bother cracking open this case. I'm the lazy bum who says no to a card just because the other guy put it in a screw-down case that I'll need to open later with a screwdriver. Do you think I'd bother going through the trouble of trying to crack this plastic open?

And for that matter, how does one successfully open these things anyway? Is there a weak spot on one of the corners? Do I just bang on it with a hammer? What if the card gets damaged when I release it?

I'd love to be able to insert this Chesbro into a mini top loader and then put it into my prized Yankees cards binder, but not if it means actually having to put in effort and risk the card getting damaged in the process. I'll just have to hold out hope that one of my go-to guys for T206es at my next card show will have a raw ungraded Chesbro they'd be willing to swap for this one.

What do you guys think? Do you think it's not worth the effort too or do you think I should get off my behind for once and free Chesbro? And if you do think I should free Chesbro, do you have any ideas on how to do so? I'd at least like to know how people bust these things open with little damage to the cards.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

The Legend Of Big Hirok: Putting On Pinstripes

After four years of pitching in Los Angeles, Big Hirok became a free agent. He wanted to play for a contender and came to the big apple to pitch as a New York Yankee. Signing with the Bronx Bombers on a 1 year $10 million deal.

News of Kuroda signing with the New York Yankees was largely overshadowed by a trade the Yankees had conducted with the Seattle Mariners which sent then-top prospect Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi to Seattle in exchange for budding ace Michael Pineda and Jose Campos.

While many were busy analyzing what Pineda would bring to the table long term, the fact that the Yankees had acquired Kuroda went somewhat unnoticed.

Those that did notice naturally had concerns. Kuroda had been pitching in the inferior National League in the mostly pitcher friendly confines of the National League West. Now he was moving into the best division in all of baseball where there wasn't an automatic out every eight batters and the stadiums are joke ballparks smaller.

Initially things did not go as well as Hirok and the Yankees would've liked. His Yankees debut did not go well and naturally the New York Media and the New York fans weren't pleased. His first half was a bit of a mess.

According to Kuroda himself, there was a point where he would've been worried for his life if his home in New York had had a veranda (which it didn't). After all we are dealing with New Yorkers.

However, as time went on the calendar turned to June, Kuroda started to turn into the starter everyone expected. According to Brooks baseball the release speed on his sinker started to go up from the 90-91 mph range to the 92-94 range. And the rest of his arsenal followed suit.

The game of baseball has always been a mental challenge as much as a physical one for Kuroda. In an interview Kuroda claimed that at the beginning of his Yankees tenure there was some teething troubles about adjusting to the AL East and that he wasn't exactly 100% confident. However he also stated that he took things one game at a time and as the season went on his state of mind changed to (to paraphrase) "This is going to be my last season/game/pitch, make it count."

With his #YOLO mentality motivating him and his velocity starting to tick up, he went on a tear and Hirok'd the AL.

Some notable moments from 2012 would be the game where he had 11 k's against the Chicago White Sox, the game where he threw a complete game shutout against the Texas Rangers, and the game where he held the Boston Red Sox to two runs in route to his 16th win of the season that also clinched the AL East for the Yankees.



Kuroda's 2012 was arguably his best season in the majors. He posted a career high 3.8 fWAR and pitched a career high 219.2 innings pitched.

According to Brooks Baseball he used his sinker 1428 times (more than any other pitch) and held opposing batters to a .273 batting average against and a .280 BABIP.

He used his slider the second most with 1071 sliders thrown and held opposing batters to a .228 batting average against and .289 BABIP suggesting that he may have been a tad lucky with his sliders.

His curveball appears to have gotten hit the hardest in 2012 (.438 BAA and .462 BABIP) which probably explains why he used it the least out of his pitches (he only used it 169 times).

All in all, Big Hirok laid any worries people had about him going from the NL West to the AL East to rest by the end of the season. He was arguably the Yankees' ace in 2012. Best of all, he would return for two more years on one year deals. A huge steal for the Yankees.

Hiroki Kuroda himself said that he chose to play for the Yankees and that he was going do everything he could to help his team win even in the most dire circumstances. In that respect Kuroda reflected on his 2012 season and considered it a success, and I do too.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Sources:
*http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kurodhi01.shtml

*http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=3283&position=P

*http://www.brooksbaseball.net/landing.php?player=493133&b_hand=-1&gFilt=&pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&time=month&startDate=01/01/2012&endDate=01/01/2013&s_type=2

How I Got Into Baseball...

During my time in this hobby, I've heard a lot of the stories people have about how they entered the hobby. A lot of the time it tends to have the same theme.

The person used to collect when they were younger, stopped when girls and college entered the picture, reentered the hobby after getting a job and a steady income, struggles to make sense of what the hobby has become today, and you get the idea. I'm pretty sure this applies to a large chunk of this blogosphere and collectors in general.

However, I entered this hobby from a pretty different route and under pretty different circumstances.

I grew up in New York and was a Yankees fan (sort of) but only because being a Mets fan means you're doomed to a life of disappointment, anger, self-loathing and failure. Any Mets fan will confirm that this is true.

I didn't really like or care about baseball until I was a sophomore in high school, in Japan. If you're wondering how I got there, it's an ugly and long story. One day I was under the influence and lying on my grandma's couch when I saw a Mariners vs Athletics game (because Ichiro) on TV. Because this was 2010 it meant I had to suffer a pretty bad game played between an awful Mariners team and an even worse Athletics team. And it was a horrible game. I only kept watching because I was too in dispose to reach the remote.

Well okay the game wasn't that bad. Ichiro (of course) was still good in 2010, and King Felix was manhandling the A's. Then after the game ended some MLB highlight show came on. It was usually just some recap on how the Japanese players in the MLB were doing and some notable highlights. Going from mediocre baseball to some of the best baseball had to offer (for that day) was quite something.

I started watching these highlight videos every day and then one day I happened to watch Stephen Strasburg make his MLB debut and see him Strasburg the Pirates. I got my first taste of the exciting youth movement in MLB and it was sweet.

The next year is when I really started getting into baseball and this hobby. I was high again one day and started remembering how baseball cards used to be a thing. I did a little google search and found that there were four card shops in my city. FOUR CARD SHOPS IN A CITY IN JAPAN! WTF?

I went to one store and picked up a bunch of 2011 Topps cards.

I dunno if it's because I was just getting into the hobby but in retrospect 2011 was a great year to be in the hobby.

Topps was celebrating it's 60th anniversary and they did a ton of fun things like the online codes that helped you dig up random Topps cards, exclusive die cuts and virtual rings (those memories are flooding back to some of you aren't they?).

However I was still trying to "find myself." I didn't think I'd become the prospect-guy I am today, and because the thought of returning to America was so far removed from my mind I could've never imagined that I'd turn into the TTM/IP/T206 collector I've become either. So at the time I was just buying loose packs and hoping to pull something cool. Yeah, I wasn't a singles collector back then, to my detriment.

It also helped that in 2011 baseball had what seemed to be the second coming of Jesus Christ Mickey Mantle with Bryce Harper developing in the minors.

Then in 2012 when I was about to get out of high school, I opened my first box. Fittingly it was a box of 2011 Bowman Chrome baseball. I had seen a few box break videos on Youtube and Harper autos seemed to be seeded at 1 per case so I took a shot with one hobby box.

I opened it with a friend of mine at a McDonalds that was a block away from the card shop. I didn't pull a Harper autograph but I did pull a Harper base card, a really cool Jesus Montero gold die cut numbered to 50 (that I've since shipped off to The Lost Collector), a Khris Davis autograph (that I've since shipped off to Tony) and a Ryan Pressly superfractor (traded for something, I can't remember).

I was new to the whole hobby so I didn't know what the heck I pulled at the time but I can safely say that I'll never have a box as great as that one. The Harper Bowman Chrome base cards are still really popular, Jesus Montero was a top prospect (at the time), Khris Davis became an actual hitter on a major league baseball team and Ryan Pressly even made it to the big leagues as a member of the Twins. It was the kind of box investors would've loved to have. One that provided immediate impact and a pleasant surprise later down the road. Beginners luck indeed.

After that I became hooked. I dropped all of the priorities I had at the time like girls, drugs and preparing for life so I could focus more on the hobby. In all honesty it couldn't have come at a worse time since I was just graduating from high school and was about to go to college as a pharmacy major.

In early 2012 I conducted my first trade. It was with Ryan of This Card Is Cool. It initially started out online but by good fortune Ryan was coming to work in Japan. We got to meet on a day when I had to go to Tokyo to take a college entrance exam and my first trade was made. BTW, I overslept and missed that college entrance exam lol.

Later in 2012 I went "all in" on a player for the first time. That player was my boy Dellin Betances. In 2012 Betances was awful. He pitched his way down from triple-A to double-A and his future in the big leagues had seemingly vanished. Because he had just made his MLB debut the year before, he was the token Yankees rookie that appeared in almost every Topps set in 2012. I took advantage of Betances' fall from grace and picked up a bunch of cards that had just come out for pennies on the dollar. In the process I gave up a lot of nice cards like 1/1 cards of Troy Tulowitzki, a 1/1 Will Middlebrooks RC printing plate, a Bryce Harper team USA jersey relic, and various other things but I had accumulated a LOT of Betances cards.

At the time I was just really happy to have these cool Betances cards in my collection. Two years later I became even happier when Betances emerged as the best set up man in all of baseball.

After I flunked out of medical school I decided to come back to the states and after some fumbling around I eventually turned into the Luis Torrens supercollector/TTM requester/IP autograph hound/T206 bargain hunter/Zippy Zapper you all know today.

So as you can see, my story is pretty much as different as they come. I'm not sure where it'll go from here. But this blog is here to record where this road leads me next. I hope it'll continue to be as crazy and hectic as it's been up to this point.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Oooh, Pretty

No, not that.

This!

2013 Panini Prizm Draft

This, my friends, is a Black Finite parallel of Luis Torrens from 2013 Panini Prizm Draft. It was the first Torrens card I had bought in well over a month, but boy was it one that made the wait worthwhile.

As you can see it's a 1/1 card and is the seventh 1/1 Torrens in my collection.

Ever since I took on being a Luis Torrens super collector I've slowly started to stop buying singles/cards altogether (except when I'm at card shows) to allocate resources to my Torrens super collection.

The thing is that rare stuff like this can pop up at any moment and I want to be ready when they do. I managed to get this for a relatively okay price but the price I paid for this would've been way out of my budget had I been spending my money on other cards.

This just leaves me with the gold (#'d to 10), blue (#'d to 75) and green (retail only, no serial number) Prizm refractors for the non-auto rainbow. Oh boy, another project...

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).