The Animal I've Become

Yesterday I went to a Staten Island Yankees doubleheader. Why? Because the Staten Island Yankees team set came out.

That can mean only one thing.

Zippy Zappy goes full beast mode on the autograph front.

BTW, the cards all feature photographs by the Staten Island Yankees' team photographer Robert Pimpsner of Pinstriped Prospects.

My first autograph of the day came from Danienger Perez. I'd love to give these guys all a paragraph for themselves but that would make this post way too long. So in the interest of saving time I'm just going to say a few short sentences. Like how Perez here is a utility infielder from Venezuela.

Next up is Jesus Bastidas. An infielder from Venezuela.

This is former big league pitcher Travis Phelps who now works as a pitching coach. He's looking after some premo talent this year.

Next up is Eduardo Torrealba. A Venezuelan infielder who was originally signed by the Red Sox but his contract was voided after the Red Sox were discovered to have used shady methods to sign international free agent.

Here is Dominican outfielder Andy Diaz. After a hot start to his career offensively he's taken a few steps back. The potential is still there but the time to unlock it is running out.

Next up is the Yankees' 14th round pick in this year's draft, Kyle Gray. Someone alert Matt, we've got a WVU alum here!

Here is Canaan Smith, who's missed some time recently due to minor injuries. Hopefully he can put together a strong finish to 2018.

Next up is Jerry Seitz. A Venezuelan catcher who is looking more and more like org depth.

Here is Junior Soto, a Dominican outfielder who was originally signed by the Clevelands but was drafted by the Yankees in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 Draft last winter.

Here is Ricardo Ferreira. Ferreira is a Dominican outfielder. He's got some power and speed but has yet to put it all together.

Next up is Eric Wagaman. A first base only prospect from California. He is tall (6'4").

Here is Tennessean Alex Junior who was the Yankees' 19th round pick. When he was very young kid he thought that he was related to Ken Griffey Jr. (because his own name is Junior).

Here is Virginian righty Aaron McGarity. He was the Yankees' 15th rounder this year and his 2-pitch power pitcher seems to be working well in the bullpen.

Here is Californian righty Brooks Kriske. He was drafted by the Yankees in the sixth round of the 2016 draft and all signs pointed to him rising pretty quickly through the ranks but instead he had to undergo Tommy John surgery and missed all of 2017. Here in 2018 he's looking to make up for lost time.

Next is one of the best starters on the Yankees roster, Juan De Paula. He's been nothing short of stellar this year.

Here is Matt Sauer. He's also been nothing short of stellar this year.

Next up is Nolan Martinez. The Yankees haven't quite shut him down this year yet, but his outings are starting to get shorter and shorter.

Here is Yankees manager Lino Diaz. He's bounced around as a behind the scenes guy for various teams before landing with the Yankees as a coach. This year he's serving as the Yankees' manager and he's super duper nice.

Next up is Andres Chaparro. A Venezuelan catcher-turned-infielder who has a strong arm.

Here are a couple of returns from Chase Hodson. Some of you might remember Hodson as the player I sent a request to last year that was a failure, but was also an extremely generous gesture by the Staten Island Yankees. He also gave me some taco flavored sunflower seeds before the game. Thanks Chase!

Next up is relief prospect Garrett Mundell. He's one of the 2015 draftees I was looking to upgrade for my 2015 autograph project.

Here is another relief prospect in Christian Morris. He's another 2015 draftee I was looking to upgrade for my project.

Here's another reliever in Abel Duarte. He has easy low-90's velo.

And last but not least is an autograph of Brandon Lockridge. Unfortunately he was assigned to the Staten Island Yankees too late to get a card in the set, but he's super nice. He even helped me get Sauer and Martinez's autographs. I'll have to make a custom for him.

And that concludes the autograph haul. 25 autographs total! Woof. Not my personal best record, but it's always good to go home with 20+ autographs.

Now as for the games...

Game one was during the day when the weather was pretty okay. One minute clouds would be really ugly but then the clouds would disappear the next. Anyway the Yankees got outscored 10-1 by the Tri-City Valleycats. Meh, whatever. Shake it off and focus on game two.

Game two things were looking good. The bullpen wasn't too taxed and Juan De Paula was on the mound. 

Unfortunately Mother Nature intervened and the game never got out of the second inning. I'm not sure when the game will be made up because Tri-City isn't coming to Staten Island after this series and Staten Island won't be going to Tri-City anymore this season either. It may just get thrown out :P.

So I think I'll end this post on one last note, about the team set.

The 2018 Staten Island Yankees team set has 35 cards in it. Of those 35, eight are no longer with the Staten Island team. Since I got 23 of the cards signed this time, that means that I only have about four left that I can still get in town. Two of which are players, one is a trainer and the last one is a coach. Wish me luck.

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

2018 IP Auto Count: 42

My Favorite Superhero

One of the topics I've never really gone on on here is the topic of superheroes. I'm running out of content nowadays so, here we go.

The past ten years or so have been flooded with all sorts of superhero movies being pumped out by Marvel and DC. Although the trend is dying down a bit, superheroes are still pretty popular.

I'm sure we all have our favorites. I know many like the really popular names like Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Captain America, etc...

My personal favorite has always been the one and only Static.

Virgil Hawkins is a young high school student in Dakota City who gains his powers of electricity due to radioactive gas. For the record I'm a sucker for heroes with electricity themes (after all, my username is Zippy Zappy).

I originally became aware of Static thanks to the early/mid 2000's cartoon by Warner Brothers called Static Shock. I loved that show growing up and still enjoy it today. In fact the 90's/00's era DC superhero cartoons were all great. Batman The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans, all gold.

One of my favorite aspects of Static was how the stories dealt with issues that were pretty real. Racism, poverty, homophobia, gun violence, gang violence and many more rather serious themes were in it. The TV show was a lot less darker than the comics, but it got key messages out in it's own way too. Although to be honest, I haven't read every Static comic ever printed.

At the end of the day I like what Static represents, inclusion. Static is a key African American superhero, but his character was created by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and Derek Dingle based on the idea of inclusion for pretty much everybody. I'm not African American but I've been able to put myself in his shoes more than any of the other heroes (even the supposedly Asian ones), which made the stories all the more enjoyable to me. I suspect that I'm not alone.

If you're curious who's behind Static, I'd round out the rest of my top five superheroes like this...

2). Green Arrow (Justice League)
3). Captain America (Avengers)
4). Batman (Batman)
5). Raven (Teen Titans)

This list largely skews towards DC because I grew up with the D.C. Animated Universe. I have no clue what the current (if any) reiterations of those characters are like in any modern day live action shows. This is all mostly based on the cartoons of my youth and in Captain America's case, the few movies I've bothered to see this decade.

Green Arrow was my favorite superhero on Justice League Unlimited (although that show did a lot of great things for lesser known DC heroes).

The Captain America movies were the only non-Deadpool Marvel movies I've ever cared enough to see. They were really good and boosted Captain America up to favorable status in my book.

Batman The Animated Series is the greatest superhero cartoon ever created. Bar none. He gets on the top five just for that.

I guess Deadpool would knock Raven out of the top five if he were a superhero but, honestly, he's Deadpool. He's in his own category.

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

Bears (Mild NSFW)

The West Virginia Black Bears are in town you know what that means.

It's time for an old fashioned Zippy Zappy vs Bob Walk The Plank (RIP) Cup. A fierce rivalry between future trade candidates to clear Rule 5 Draft roster spots on the Yankees side and future trade candidates when they reach their second year of arbitration on the Pirates side. Dating all the way back to... um, 2015 I think?

Yesterday was a Saturday which meant that the Yankees were the Pizza Rats. I still think that Killer B's would've worked much better (WU! TANG!).

As always let's start with the autographs.

Until the team sets come out I am firmly in semi-hibernation mode right now. So all I really got baseball wise was this personalization on a certified autograph of Matt Sauer. I wanted him to sign the jersey piece but he signed the little corner instead. Oh well, thanks anyway Matt!

What really made the whole trip worth it was probably this autograph I got of Melanie Iglesias. She's a Brooklyn native who went to high school in Staten Island. She's a model/actress who might be best known for being on Maxim. She's made a few TV appearances here and there and according to her Twitter feed she's started to take up singing.

She graciously took a selfie with me (I blocked out my face to protect the innocent, which in this case is your eyes). She was super nice and friendly.

She also threw the first pitch (or one of them anyway).

She stayed around for an inning or two meeting fans and also stopping by the Yankees bullpen (she hugged Drew Finley). Then she saw the rest of the game from one of the private suites.

And that was my lone autograph. Thanks Ms. Iglesias! Extra thanks for the personalization and message.

As for the game it was cool too. The starter for the Yankees was Harold Cortijo. A guy I do not have any cards of. He was the Yankees' 14th round pick last year and he pitched super well. He went 5.1 innings pitched allowing three hits and zero runs. Amazing. The best part is that he was so quick and effective that the game was in the fifth inning before an hour had passed since the game started. The game finished in a very tidy 2 hours and 17 minutes. Somewhere Rob Manfred got a boner.
Speaking of which the nicest part of Cortijo's performance is that he pitched a total of 69 pitches. Nice. Very nice.

Also nice was that the other Yankees relievers did their thing and the Staten Island Pizza Rats shut out the West Virginia Black Bears 1-0. Pirates first rounder Travis Swaggerty went hitless, he is clearly a bust and the Pirates are doomed to another two decades of mediocrity. Take that Matt!

The only other notable thing was that the special giveaway promo for the day were these special pizza cutters. They were only given to guests aged 18 and up because duh. I love getting stuff that's practical.

And that was my latest trip to Staten Island. Hopefully the team sets come out soon so that I can blog about cards again.

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

2018 IP Auto Count: 17

Sweet Sixteen

So I finally got my first Luis Torrens card from 2018 Topps Series 2 in my hand the other day.

BAM!

Yup, starting off the newest branch of the collection in style with a 1/1.

This is a black printing plate, and one of the two 1/1's that surfaced immediately after Series 2 hit the shelves. The other one is overpriced and I'll be damned if I'm paying that much.

The seller for this plate tried selling it as a BIN for triple what I ended up paying for it via auction. Smart move since LT's card market is limited to me and people only looking to get stuff for me.

As the title suggests, this is the 16th 1/1 Torrens card to enter my collection. As of now I am pretty proud to say that I own a plate from every product Torrens has been included in. Although that excludes Panini Prizm Draft because no plates were ever released for that product and the minor league issued cards (same reason).
Edit: I just realized that I don't have any 1/1's from the 2017 Topps Mini set either. Mainly because I'm not sure they were ever distributed :P.

Even though I've been in a collecting rut, there was a part of me that had enough sense to pick up some of these rarer cards just in case. Plus the fact that this didn't cost that much helped a lot too. I think I made the right call there.

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

The King Came Through

So on our blogosphere we have three kings. The Lost Collector is the king of the TTM, Night Owl Cards is the king of the written word, and Nick The Dime Box King is the king of dime boxes.

Nick's keen eye for the best and brightest baseball cards ever created is well known. He's also known for living in secondary-baseball-card-market heaven as he seems to find a card show or a garage sale or flea market or whatever seemingly every other day and finds something good every time. Best of all, he often shares his findings to the rest of us.

See what I mean?

That is my third Nostalgic Enterprises card and the one I was after the most because it's JACK CHESBRO.

It's been a while since I blogged about him, but Jack Chesbro is indeed still a PC guy. My favorite Yankees Highlanders legend (outside of Luis Torrens). But man did this card break that silence in a big way. Nick even sent along a note saying it'd better suited in my collection. I'm sure it was hard for Nick to part with this oddball of an underrated Hall of Famer, but hopefully I can make it up to him with my next Zapping (not the Zapping I had just recently sent him).

I have three Nostalgic Enterprise cards now and all came to me from Nick. The king of the dime boxes is probably going to end up sending me the entire set one by one.

There were other notable cards too. Like this fun little oddball of the time Kid Elberfeld of the New York Highlanders was allegedly "dragged off the field ... by a squad of policemen".

Apparently the story goes that Elberfeld chased the umpire Francis O'Loughlin all over the fiend over a call he didn't agree with. Apparently he tried to kick O'Loughlin's ass and step on his feet before police intervened. Imagine if a player did that today man.

There were a bunch of other things for my various collections like a Luis Torrens rookie (people are actually sending me Torrens cards now?!), a stack of Matt Stairs cards and some A-Rods, but my favorite was the Trade Up A-Rod card intended to be used for a game. I'm all for physical card games involving baseball.

I'm also all for minor baseball cards, and here's a very fine quartet of cards from the short lived Battle Creek Yankees. The most notable name here is Eric Duncan, a one time top prospect who just couldn't live up to expectations. But I did meet him as a coach way back when.

And those were but a small but surely a great representation of the awesome package sent my way from Dimeboxdonia. Thanks again Nick, you're the best.

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

Bullseye

Yesterday I attended another Staten Island Yankees game. It was between them and the Brooklyn Cyclones (Mets affiliate).

I actually also went to a game on Saturday but that game didn't get me much in terms of autographs so I ended up not blogging about that one. The only notable thing was that Miguel Flames signed my ticket stub.

But yesterday was different. Yesterday was a matchup between two rehabbing starting pitchers. On The Cyclones side was an actual big leaguer in Jason Vargas. On the Yankees side was a rehabbing triple-A starter in Erik Swanson.

Who will also lead off the autograph portion of this post.
Swanson was originally drafted by the Texas Rangers in the eighth round of the 2014 MLB Player Draft. He was traded to the New York Yankees in the Carlos Beltran trade however, and has since blossomed into a really intriguing prospect.
Swanson is armed with a low 90's fastball that can reach 96 mph at times, as well as a changeup and curveball. Swanson isn't ranked too highly on top prospect lists but that's mainly due to the crazy amount of talent and depth the Yankees currently have. How he projects to do long term or at the big league level remains to be seen, but his rehab stint in the lower minors are surely coming to an end.

Next up I finally got Robert Pimpsner. Pimpsner is basically the Staten Island Yankees' official team photographer. He's one of the people behind the top Yankees prospect resource Pinstriped Prospects, and he's really passionate about the Staten Island Yankees. Apparently this card was a surprise that Robert didn't know about until the last minute lol. Also I'm one of the few who actually got him to sign for me. Thanks Rob.

Last but certainly not least is Josh Breaux, the Yankees' second round pick in 2018. Breaux is a polished catcher out of JUCO who projects to be a really solid backstop at the big league level. He's got some ways to go and he'll probably always have to keep having to play better than the catching prospect behind him (Anthony Seigler), but Breaux is talented enough to keep up.

And those were my autographs.

As for the game it was pretty good. Even though Vargas isn't exactly the flashiest name in the world (for comparison's sake the Cyclones had a start from a rehabbing Noah Syndergaard just the day before on Sunday), but he was the first big league pitcher I'd seen since 2015 (which is when I last went to Yankee Stadium). He was pretty good and kept the Yankees to one hit in six innings. As for Swanson he was also solid. A little shaky sometimes but overall he kept the Yankees in the game by keeping it a one run game in 3.2 IP. The bullpen did a heck of a job keeping the Cyclones scoreless for the rest of the game.

A rehabbing Mike Ford and Miguel Flames both hit solo home runs after Vargas exited the game to give the Yankees a 2-to-1 lead, which would later go on to be the final score.

All in all, the game yesterday was a ton of fun. I finally got to see another top pitching prospect I don't see too often (Swanson is likely headed back up to Scranton after Jonathan Loaisiga's injury and Masahiro Tanaka coming off the DL), and I got to see a big leaguer. Good game.

Also I now have autographs of the first three players the Yankees drafted this year.

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

2018 IP Auto Count: 16