Three for Three

 After managing to put a bowtie on two ongoing trades I've had with collecting friends in Japan, I wrapped up a third. This time with Twitter user @you_oh_, this trade was a lot less focused as it was centered more on the two of us just randomly chucking cards we thought the other would enjoy over any sort of cohesive main piece.

Might as well lead off with what was one of the more interesting cards in the package, at least to me. This is part of a set of cards called "Michi No Eki" which refers to resting stations for people driving long distances in Japan. Normally in America rest stops are limited to dingy McDonalds and gas stations on the side of the highway, but over in Japan these rest stops are sometimes places people actually drive to rather than just stop by en route to somewhere else. The reason for this is that these rest stops really put a lot of time, care and resources into making them almost worthwhile destinations. They tend to have very special foods you can only get there along with souvenirs that are a mix of the local culture of that prefecture for travelers to then tell other travelers. It's very Japanese that they make these things efficient, and even more Japanese that there's a card set dedicated to them.

The one above is of a stop called Nankoku Furari in the Kochi prefecture. I've never been to Kochi, let alone driven a car through it, but if I ever have the opportunity I'll have to check it out.

As far as actual baseball cards there were some 2021 Topps offerings but what really caught my eye were these Calbee cards from back in the day. These are quite small compared to modern Calbee cards but these photos are so fantastic that I don't really care. Look at how the colors on these things pop.

The backs have the players' names and some fun blurbs on them as players and people.

Luckily there were some recent Calbees in the mix too. The big highlight among these being my first Takaya Ishikawa card. Ishikawa was the Chunichi Dragons' first round pick in the 2019 NPB Draft out of Toho High School and was seen as one of the best prospects among the high school ranks. The Dragons won the lottery to get draft rights to him.

There was a quartet of normal-ish BBM cards in the mix too. Like my second Ishikawa rookie, an image variation short print of Shuhei Takahashi (thanks to NPB Card Guy for confirming), a super sparkly parallel of Toshiya Okada that the scanner failed to pick up, and an even shinier Masahiro Araki parallel that also failed to scan properly.

Although at least it's numbered to 30 copies. Also this graph shows how many hits Araki had every season during his journey to 2,000 career hits.

Finally for the second Japanese trade in a row we'll end on some Yu-Gi-Oh cards, like my first Sevens Road Witch from the revamped Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel format. This is incredibly sparkly with an atomic refractor like shine going on but the scanner failed me again.

Also managed to get the regular foil version of the Sevens Road Witch and DMG the Dragon Knight. Always a welcome card to get.

Even better when the recently released variation with alternate artwork is in the mix too.

It's a shame this card isn't useable in competitive decks that could actually win games, but as collectibles they're fine.

And that was my third trade with one of my Japanese collecting buds. No autographs or anything this time, just clean fun.

あふりかなさん今回もまた楽しいトレードありがとうございました！

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Something Something, Patience

 Back in June I blogged about how I managed to conduct my first trade with a Japanese trading partner since the shipping options to America reopened in Japan. Here's my second that's also been in the works for a long time. With longtime trader 89anco.

This wasn't the main piece that started this trade. I didn't even know it was coming lol. But a 1/1 autograph of a player I saw in person is always a plus in my book. A heck of a card to just randomly get lmao. This Leonardo Molina printing plate autograph is from 2014 Bowman Inception.

And despite being a plate the back looks like this. It has the regular back and everything but with the 1/1 stamp. What's even more interesting is that the regular card for this is rather thick as Inception prided itself on thick card-stock to make it feel more high-end. But this plate is slender. Which suits me better. Thick cards are overrated unless they're that way out of necessity like jersey relics.

Like this card here. It's a costume card and autograph of Japanese beer vender-turned-model Honoka. I've blogged about her cards before and this is like my fifth autograph of hers. It's also my second relic-autograph combo where on one side is the relic (a part of her lace vest).

And on the other side is the autograph.

This was a late addition that I kinda asked Anco-san for at the last minute. It's an autograph of Japanese wrestler Saki-sama, aka Saki Akai. She's a professional wrestler who does a bit of modeling and various other ventures one does when you're conventionally attractive on the side. Her wrestling gimmick appears to be that of a villainess role, and she's part of a unit that heavily takes anime themes. Personally I like how she's the type who'd adopt a big hat and rose on top of an all black get-up.

Anco-san was generous enough to also provide her base cards and the little blurb on the back tells me that she also wrestles in France. I had no idea women's wrestling even went on in France.

Alright easing off of the degeneracy there we have this lovely heart parallel of Enako-san, someone I've blogged about before. This scanned like garbage but in person the card has like cool x-fractor-ish action going on where instead of shiny cubes and lines we get shiny hearts of various sizes and colors. It's quite cute. Also this is numbered to 150. Considering how popular she is, that's not nothing.

The OG anime waifu. Not sure the scanner handled it as well as it could've but all of these are incredibly shiny. The one on the left even has a gold border effect in person.

Alright time to snap back to reality with an autograph of Roberto Kelly. The only notable/good Yankee you'll find in the awkward post-Henderson/pre-Jeter era of the Yankees. As by that point Don Mattingly was effectively made of glass and the rest of the Yankees roster was hot garbage although Bernie Williams was starting to come into his own.

All in all another fantastic trade that I hope was worthwhile for Anco-san because it sure was fun for me. All gold I tell you.

あんこさん毎度楽しいトレードありがとうございます。

As always thank you for stopping by and take care.

Like a Unicorn

 As many of you are no doubt aware, the retail scene for baseball cards has gone nuts during the bubble. So much so that Target has (for now) banned baseball, football and basketball cards from their shelves.

I took this picture back in May but recently the store brought back Pokemon cards. This still applies to the three major sports though.

It wasn't like I was having the best of luck finding baseball cards before COVID-19 really warped reality but this pretty much meant whatever was in the aisle here was going to be limited to gaming cards like Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh!, with the occasional NHL stickers.

But what caught my eye ended up being my first retail purchase of a pack of cards in nearly a year.  A hanger pack of 2021 Parkside National Women's Soccer League trading cards. I'll be the first to admit that I don't really follow the sport of soccer but I do admire women's soccer since it's something the USA and Japanese teams are actually good at and have a solid shot at winning it all. I also thought that this would be a fun opportunity to get to know a whole new sport (to me) and its players.

Here are some of the base cards I pulled. Some of these you might have already seen in my most recent TTM round-up post. I like the design for this set a lot. Very clean and simple, and there's enough real estate for a good clear picture as well as the team's logo and who's on the card. These four in particular represent what I usually expect from soccer cards (based on WCCF cards and others that I've had over the years), shots of players running or in motion with the ball close by.

But I found that there was a lot more variety. There are a smattering of cards that use poses like the Taylor Otto card but you can also find some interview cards like the Lynn Williams card there. Also much like hockey, the goalie cards offer some nice variety too as the Kailen Sheridan shows.

These are the backs. I do think it's clean and neat. I'm not sure what to think about scanning a QR code for statistics, seems a bit like a cop-out. I appreciate it and also think less of it at the same time.

There were also a few parallels and inserts. The two on the top left are foil parallels and my scanner reacted poorly to them, as the inability to read Havana Solaun and Gab(b)y Seiler shows. There was also a black and white parallel of Gina Lewandowski, a "vintage" insert which had different cardstock of Christine Sinclair, a Luminescent insert of Julie Ertz and a Promising Prospects insert of Schuyler (pronounced Skylar) Debree. The Promising Prospects insert is also the red parallel since this was purchased at Target. The retail exclusives still live on folks.

The backs of the special cards above for those who were curious. The parallels at the top don't look any different on the back.

All in all I found this break to be very enlightening and fun. It's always good to see how other sports are doing in general and in the niche world of sports cards. You can find the full checklist if you're curious enough here. It looks as though I missed out on a photo variation short-print and autograph (looks like these are present in other sports cards too now lol), but I'll take what I can get. I've since sent out many of the cards I did happen to pull as TTM requests and a few have come back. Giving me an even bigger opportunity to get into researching the players and this sport.

So that was my first retail break in a long time. With no Topps Utz cards this year I had figured I wouldn't be getting any sports cards via packs this year, but life has a funny way of working out.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Six Days of Fun

 Man, that week went by in a flash. But here we are, in the aftermath of a six game series where the Hudson Valley Renegades took on the Brooklyn Cyclones.

I didn't go to the games on Friday and Saturday. I don't know if it's just a combination of me being a little out of shape after a year in quarantine or just that I'm older now, but going back and forth into the city on three straight days just fucking wilted me. I'm not sure where I had the energy to go to so many Staten Island Yankees game when I was in college. But I made sure to go on Sunday, the game started earlier than usual which meant that I could actually stick around for the whole game. Might as well since this is the last game the Renegades would play in Brooklyn/NYC for the rest of the year.

By this point I had already acquired the autographs I had set out to get (and then some), but on Saturday a card I ordered had come in and not even 24 hours later...

If this is my last IP autograph of the year, I'm satisfied.

The Hudson Valley Renegades did release a team set of sorts this year. I didn't obtain one before this series (most of the names in it are long gone anyway) but I did manage to get an Anthony Seigler I purchased as a single on eBay in. In a way it seems just right that my lone IP auto of a Yankees affiliate era-Renegades card is Seigler. At this point he's catapulted to one of my favorite players of all time, right up there with Luis Torrens and Thairo Estrada. He's just that nice and fun to talk to, the kind of guy you just want nothing but the best for. And after years of injuries slowing him down, I want nothing more than for him to dominate and make Gary Sanchez feel nervous.

The game in a word was wet. Light rain was forecasted around the time the game was set to start and though it'd let up by the time the game started, there'd be rainfall later in the game. Not enough to delay the game or force it to be rescheduled, but just enough that it was annoying. The fans in the stands escaped to the upper decks which had roofing. 

It certainly doesn't help that since we were in Coney Island there was wind coming in from the Atlantic Ocean. You could have an umbrella or a poncho (most had neither), a part of you was getting drenched regardless. Luckily for me I brought an umbrella, a hoodie, and I bolted to the team store to buy a towel to wrap around my neck. An old trick my grandma taught me was to keep my neck warm when the body starts to feel chilly/cold.

Despite the cold, wind and light rain the game had its moments like Everson Pereira blasting a two-run home run. Also very cool was that Anthony Volpe (one of the Renegades players and a former Yankees first round pick) had a whole cheering section made up of friends and family who came up all the way from New Jersey just to root for him. Seeing them go nuts every time Volpe came up to the plate and had a productive at-bat was fun. Thanks to the strength of another strong performance from Randy Vasquez (5.2 IP with 11 k's!) the Renegades had a 4-3 lead heading into the ninth inning but unfortunately the Cyclones scored two runs and hit a walk-off sac fly. The final score was 5-4 in favor of the Mets underlings (BOX). Thus ending the six game series where the two teams split the series with 3 wins apiece.

As cool as it was to watch a whole game from start to finish for once, it was a bit bittersweet for me. This capped off the last time I'd see these guys in the city. I'm not entirely sure I have it in me to drive all the way up to Hudson Valley again. But then again that just speaks to how well this series was for me as a fan.

I only went to four games and in that span I got to know a bunch of the players (and a few got to know me), I got autographs, a ball and topping it off is something I only got once before during my time as a Staten Island Yankees fan.

Yes, a baseball bat.

This was given to me by catching prospect Saul Torres. We were pretty friendly with eachother by yesterday's game and he told me he was going to give me a bat. Lo and behold he did! In return I gave him Hi Chews. This is extremely cool, it's the second bat I've ever gotten (the first being Luis Torrens back in 2014). I can't thank Torres enough and appropriately enough I've catapulted him to one of my favorite players of all time. The same tier as Torrens, Estrada and Seigler.

And that caps off the Renegades in the city series. All of this was absolute fun for me. Being able to go to games, get to see crowds again, get close to the players, autographs, etc... I missed this all so much.

(Left to Right) Muñoz, Torres, Seigler

Big thanks to the Renegades players for what was an incredibly fun series. With their playoff berth all but locked, fingers crossed they can win it all this season.

As always thanks for stopping and take care.

2021 IP Auto Count: 21

These Guys Are Nice

 It's rare that I accomplish everything I set out to do, autograph-wise, at a game and get even more than expected. But that happened last night because the Renegades are just that awesome.

While the The Renegades have just been manhandling the Cyclones all series long and they were looking to keep it going tonight. It's incredible how despite all of the promotions and trades to the core that propelled Hudson Valley to the top of the standings, they haven't lost a step and simply got new talent to keep them at the top. So good.

Of course a big reason for that is thanks to Everson Pereira. I managed to get the 1/1 superfractor-ish thing signed and just like that I've acquired two 1/1 autographs in two days for a mere fraction of what actual 1/1 autos go for. Love it.

Coaching staff cards are always a fun bonus to get signed and Gerardo Casadiego (great name) was kind enough to oblige. He's the pitching coach for Hudson Valley this year after spending a few years in the lower levels (mostly Pulaski) the last few years. I've spoken to him a few times and he's very nice. During his active playing career Casadiego pitched for many teams in the Montreal Expos, New York Yankees, Colorado Rockies and Baltimore Orioles organizations, reaching as high as double-A. After a few stints in the Venezuelan Winter Leagues he retired as an active pitcher and went into coaching not long afterwards.

And last but certainly not least is Danny Smith, the strength and conditioning coach. A position he's had for various lower level affiliates for the Yankees, like the Staten Island. Smith graduated from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford with a Sports Medicine degree and later got his masters in Sport and Exercise Science from Gannon University. He then went on to serve as a conditioning coach at the college ranks before joining the Yankees organization. He's currently in his fifth year (possibly fourth, I'm not sure if he was employed by the Yankees last year) with the organization and thus far he's done a great job of keeping everyone ready.

And those were the three autographs I came into the game hoping to get. I was perfectly satisfied with this. But then...

By fortune a lot of the pitchers in the bullpen have came to recognize me. A few of them remembered me from Staten Island but everyone at least remembers me now as the guy who smuggles Hi-Chews into the stadium to give to the players (all these players love Hi-Chews man). I gave a few bags to Sean Boyle before the game (some of you might remember him and his awesome TTM autograph earlier this year) and he offered to give me a ball. I had no idea he got everyone who happened to be standing around in the bullpen to sign it before giving it to me.

From top to bottom that's Sean Boyle, Nelson Alvarez, Nick Ernst,

(top to bottom again:) Derek Craft, Edgar Barclay, Matt Minnick, Freicer Perez,

(top to bottom again:) Carlos Espinal, Randy Vasquez and Charlie Ruegger.

10 autographs, one ball. All awesome awesome awesome names. This was so fucking cool. I hope that I've been able to give these guys enough Hi-Chews during these games because man, this gesture was so great. I'll never forget it.

As for the game, the Renegades continued their win-streak against the Cyclones by winning 5-3 (BOX). Every part of the lineup (from the top prospects in the first five slots to the underrated contributors at the bottom) was firing on all cylinders as everybody reached base at least once via a hit or walk in this game (except for Saul Torres who came in as a defensive replacement in the later innings and didn't get an at-bat).

Also peep this Pete Alonso "flex" plushie the team gave away last night. It features former Brooklyn Cyclone Pete Alonso wearing a belt, a reference to how he won the HR Derby title two years in a row. A quirky interesting promo for sure, one only the minor leagues could deliver.

And that was my latest game. So much awesomeness. I'm not sure if I'll peep the rest of the games but I do have an idea in mind as a big thank you for the ball (and for the team being so awesome in general, everyone's so fucking nice).

All in all these three days have been very enjoyable and I'm glad I took time off for this. I needed this.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

2021 IP Auto Count: 20

Back to Back

 Been a while since I've been to two minor league games in a row, forgot how much energy it takes.

No complaints though, I'll take more baseball and a chance to get more autographs. The great thing about Tuesday's haul is that it virtually narrowed down what I still needed coming into Wednesday's game. Laser focus is my preference, as my player collection of Luis Torrens clearly shows.

Autograph-wise I only got one player, Saul Torres.
Torres has been an interesting catching prospect for the Yankees for a few years now. He was signed out of the Dominican Republic back in 2016 and made it stateside rather quickly. His progress dipped a bit following several repeat stints in rookie ball, but this year he's finally made it to high-A.

I've had two of Saul's cards in my box of cards to one day get signed for years now and I'm glad I was able to knock off both last night. How far along Saul's professional career gets along remains to be seen but I do have a soft spot for catching prospects in the Yankees farmsystem and it's nice to have this serve as a reminder.

The ballpark was crowded (or moreso than you'd expect for a Wednesday night game) so I missed out on the rest I intended to get. But two is always better than none.

The game itself was fun. It was the battery of Mitch Spence and Austin Wells on Wednesday and they brought it just as much as Randy Vasquez and Anthony Seigler did on Tuesday.

Spence followed up Vasquez's performance with six shutout innings of his own and although the Cyclones tried making things interesting near the end of the game, the Hudson Valley Renegades came out on top 3-2 (BOX). The lineup was still as a lethal as ever. Additionally the bottom half of the lineup also had one hit a piece and were also key parts of the game. The flashier names occupy the top of the lineup but all nine guys are ready to pummel you into dust if you throw even the tiniest mistake.

And that was my latest game.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

2021 IP Auto Count: 7

Post-Deadline Promotion Madness

The last time I blogged about seeing a minor league game it was mostly just me ranting about having to drive. This time we're heading back to familiar territory.

Yup, back in the city. Brooklyn.

Whether or not I'll ever drive to see the Hudson Valley Renegades in their home stadium again remains to be seen but when I saw that they were going to be playing six straight games in Brooklyn I took the whole week off to accommodate for this. I'd rather spend a little over an hour moving around in the subway rather than spend hours in a car.

This Brooklyn series was also important for another reason. In the time since I first saw the Renegades their roster got a huge shakeup. Due in large parts to trades and promotions. During the trade deadline their infield of Josh Smith and Ezequiel Duran got traded to the Texas Rangers in the Joey Gallo trade, and just on Monday it was announced that Everson Pereira, Austin Wells, Eduardo Torrealba and Andres Chaparro would be getting promoted from single-A Tampa. They join Anthony Volpe and Randy Vasquez who were called up the Renegades a little while ago. Also Josh Breaux was promoted to double-A Somerset. That's quite a shake-up. Hudson Valley lost three key parts of their offense and gained three equally impressive bats as well as an interesting arm.

Anyway onto the autographs.

This time things went smoother for me by virtue of finally getting Anthony Seigler this time. Last time he was preoccupied with pre-game warm-ups and luckily I had a better time in a more familiar ballpark. Always feels good to get a 1/1 signed.

Anthony was nice enough to sign a second card I had, which was a choice card of him as a Pulaski Yankee, the first professional card of his ever made that was also a short print (no, even minor league issued cards are not safe from that gimmick).

Most of you may have forgotten that I was able to complete a Pereira rainbow a few years ago. Upon hearing of his promotion I prepared all four cards in hopes of getting an IP rainbow. Unfortunately Pereira is one-per so he just signed the one base. I'll see if I can maybe ask him to sign the 1/1 before another game. After that is anyone's guess.

My last but definitely not least autograph came from Pat DeMarco. DeMarco is a Vanderbilt product who was fun to watch in 2019 because he was a Staten Island native. Not sure how many of his family members are coming to see him for this series but it's not too far from his roots. Somehow I missed out on him in 2019 so it was fun to get him this time.

And those were my autographs. Quite a leap from one to four, I'll take it.

The game itself was rather nice. On the bump was Randy Vasquez, an interesting prospect who was originally reported as going to Texas in the Gallo trade before it was revealed that he was staying put. That whole thing brought a lot of prospect evaluators out of the woodwork claiming Vasquez was an interesting lower level pitcher. I believe it, he cruised through most of this game, pitching six innings of one hit-ball with two walks and 10 strike-outs. There was a brief injury scare but he stayed in the game and dominated the Cyclones.

Supporting Vasquez's effort was a lethal, albeit top-heavy, lineup that was Anthony Volpe-Everson Pereira-Austin Wells-Anthony Seigler-Jacob Sanford. Volpe, Wells and Seigler are all former first round picks. Pereira is a former IFA crown jewel. Sanford is an interesting prospect for people in the know. That's a hell of a way to make up for the loss of Oswald Peraza, Duran and Smith good lord.

All told the Renegades won 5-0 (BOX). Every Renegade had a hit in this game. It also finished in a tidy 3 hours and one minute. By the hour mark we were already into the fifth inning somehow. Not bad.

So yes, Coney Island isn't Staten Island but it's still the city and a lot more familiar to me than Hudson Valley is. Gotta take advantage of the remaining five games if I can/need to. Just glad that I can finally say I have an IP/TTM/Certfied autograph trifecta of Seigler now though, that's fun af.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

2021 IP Auto Count: 5