Facebook Brings Home Another Lost Card!

And then there were two...

IT'S OFFICIAL

This morning I completed a trade that landed me a Lost Card and it's all thanks to this great Facebook group that I joined a little over a month or two ago.

It's a "private" Facebook Group that hasn't really stayed all that private!  When I joined "Baseball Card Collectors and Trading~ Keep It Real", they maybe had 2,500 members.  In the last couple of months it has ballooned to over 7,400 members.  

The group is great and well run.  I've not made any trades on it, but have enjoyed watching others complete trades, help newbies figure out what they've got, and just plain congratulate others on excellent pulls they've made.  As satisfying as blogging has been for my cardboard addiction, this group has basically taken it to another level.  I actually discovered it through my buddy, Nathan from high school, who had been looking to unload a Bryce Harper auto...

Yeah... it's the same buddy who almost completed a trade with me for a Machado prospect auto that would've netted me that Harper.  As you recall that deal fell through because Santa brought him a Machado auto for Christmas and I didn't get my ass in gear and complete the trade in time.  Funny thing is I was only going to use that Harper as trade bait for one of my bigger Lost Card needs, specifically the Derek Jeter Sweet Spot auto.

Well he'd been shopping the Harper in this group for a quality Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle relic card (not to toot my own horn, but I'm fairly certain I nudged him in that direction).  A member in the group named Robert threw up an offer for a pair of Mantle relics and one of them happened to be my Lost Card!  Nathan wasn't interested in the pair and I sent a message to Robert to see about pulling off a deal.

The exchange actually took place around midnight Saturday morning as I checked in to a hotel in WV after a 5 hour car ride from Baltimore.  Nothing eases the pain of a long car ride like the prospect of a trade for a Lost Card... well... that and a nice stiff drink!  I thought hard all weekend about what I was going to deal for this particular card.  Lucky for me Robert was pretty clear about what he collected... 

Red Sox, 500 HR Club, 3,000 Hit Club, and Triple Crown Winners.

I knew I had some cards that would fit the bill that I was willing to part with!

I came back home Sunday afternoon and sent Robert my offer and it was loaded!  Check it out!

2004 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade Rafael Palmeiro dual relic 240/250

2012 Topps Tribute Eddie Mathews bat relic 48/99

1982 Topps Bob Bonner RC... J/K Cal Ripken Jr. RC

2012 Topps Tribute Roberto Clemente Green Parallel 29/75

1978 Topps Eddie Murray RC

2009 Topps Legendary Lineage Mickey Mantle commemorative patch 13/50

2011 Topps Lineage Ivan DeLock autograph

2000 St. Louis Cardinals NLDS ticket stub signed by Stan Musial

Did I mention my offer was loaded and pretty much nailed everything he was looking for?

Robert was gracious and actually has read my blog and knew about how important it was for me to get these Lost Cards back.  He took my offer and in return I landed a Lost Card that I have particularly coveted.

!BOOM!

2000 Fleer Tradition Update Mickey Mantle Mantle Pieces game used pants relic

The thrill of pulling this card personally stayed with me for a long time and I've always regretted losing this card the most out of all the cards I gave up when I sold them in my time of need.

Now it's back!

And to bring it full circle I can still say that Nathan's Harper auto still ended up bringing me a Lost Card!  

So thanks Nathan! (Later that same night Nathan pulled off a trade that landed him a triple bat relic of Babe Ruth to /25.  Did I mention how GREAT this Facebook Group is?!?)

More importantly...

Thanks Robert for understanding just how important this adventure is to me and for being a part of the journey!

I'll be dropping off the cards in the mail tomorrow and I'll update the blog with an exciting MAIL DAY!

Stay tuned...

and

Thanks for reading!

Baltimore Dogs and Baseball

I'm having one of those rare Saturday's today.

Just a perfectly productive day and some free time for work in the man cave.  I kicked off the day getting up early to drop the wifey's car off for an oil change before heading in to the office, you see she happens to be going to see her old girlfriend tonight and daddy's got the night to him self. 

Now I couldn't get too crazy.  I still had my daughter to take care of.  So I got out of work around 11am and headed home just in time to put her down for a nap.  My wife was going to be using nap time to get ready for her trip and I was free to get my night started in the cave.  Ever since I've started to reel in my Lost Cards I've thought about how I should display them.  Up until now I've only kept them filed away in the catalog, but I had to do them justice and put them out to be seen.  I looked up display cases online, but the truth of the matter was that I'd rather spend the money for a display case on actual baseball cards.  There was only one thing I could do...

D.I.Y.

Basic Woogenomics states if you don't feel like paying for a display case, build one out of scrap wood lying around your basement!

So that's what I did...

Now I didn't plan on writing about it, but my wife came out and saw what I'd done half way through and she told me it would make a good blog post. So here I am and there you are... now where was I?  Oh yea...

I had an old TV stand sitting in my rubbish corner of the basement and it had this removable shelf and I decided it would be a good board to use as the base to my display case.  Besides an old TV stand the rubbish corner also has a stack of scrap wood including various lengths of wood trim.  I grabbed four scraps of trim and did my best to measure them for cuts to fit the board.  I would be basically making them mini shelves to have the cards displayed properly.  However I don't own any power saws and only have an old fashioned bow saw.  So I taped all four together to make it easier to cut them to size and it actually worked okay.  I sanded the ends afterwards and while it wasn't "exact" it looked good enough.

I then laid out the distance between shelves to have the top 2 only hold standard sized top loaders and the bottom 2 shelves be spaced enough for graded cards.  After I had them placed I nailed them down and that's about the time I started snapping photos.

Above are the four pieces of trim nailed to the shelf of my old TV stand.  Once it was all nailed together I spray painted it all black.

I laid it on a crate to dry and it was around that time that my daughter was getting up from her nap.  Not bad work for deciding to get creative on the fly in a 2 hour window.

Once it was all dry, I drilled a hole in the top center of the board and then screwed it to a good spot on the wall by the shuffle board table.  

Once it was up on the wall I noticed the spots I had missed with the spray paint.  Always thinking on my feet I quickly devised a plan...

and I did a little coloring.

Problem solved!  Check out the final results!  Looks GREAT in my own humble opinion.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and also really impressed that I could make something like this out of scrap wood laying around the basement. Just goes to show what you can accomplish with a little Do It Yourself attitude!

Now normally this is where I'd end the post, but I've just gotta tell you about the best hot dogs I've ever made in my whole entire life... and I just happened to have eaten them tonight and be documenting the whole way.

For those who have not already been privy to this delicious take on the American Classic, may I introduce you to the one and only...

The Baltimore Dog

The Baltimore Dog is essentially a hot dog wrapped in fried bologna.  Here is a step by step tutorial on how to make the best Baltimore Dogs right in your own kitchen!  If you live in Baltimore I recommend you pick up a pack of Esskay All Beef Hot Dogs and 1/4 lb. of Esskay All Beef Bologna (The brand recommended by your Baltimore Orioles!)

The best way to cook your hot dogs other then the grill is to take a sauce pan and fill it with about an inch of water and get it to a boil. Then pop a couple of doggies and steam cook them covered till just about all of the water has cooked away.  Add a table spoon of butter per hot dog and fry the out side of the hot dog to get a crisp skin.  Once you toss the butter in to the pan with the hot dogs and you get it all melted I recommend you take a half  an onion chopped fine and drop it in to the pan.  Once the onions are perfectly cooked down your hot dogs are ready.

Simultaneously while cooking the hot dogs take another pan and melt some butter and fry two pieces of bologna per hot dog and also toast your buns.  Once that's done it's time to build your Baltimore Dog!

Lay out your toasted buns and place your two pieces of fried bologna down.

Next lay down a bed of your cooked down onions.  Raw onions would do just as nicely.

Then lay down your hot dogs...

And lastly top with ketchup.  Some people think this is child's play, but I will always favor ketchup over mustard on my hot dogs.

Plate with some hot fries and you've got yourself a Baltimore classic!  My wife would never eat like this for dinner, so naturally I took advantage tonight and was left wondering why I only decided to make two. They were so freaking good! The only thing that could have made this night better would've been an Orioles win.  They lost a tough 1-0 pitchers duel.  Danny Duffy lost a perfect game in the 6th or 7th and Bud Norris only gave up one run in the first inning and pitched in to the 8th.  Tough to take a loss like that when you pitch that well.  At least I got to watch it in The Cave.  Even if it is the smallest TV on earth it's nice to enjoy the space I've worked so hard to put together.

Well that's a wrap on this post.  

Till next time...

Thanks for reading.

Epic Update!

!!!WOW!!!

Where'd the time go? It's 11:24 pm and in exactly 36 minutes my little girl will be one years old.  This time last year my wife was getting prep'd for surgery and I had no clue just how much my life was about to change.  Being a father has by far been the greatest achievement of my life.  It hasn't been easy, but it has always been a joy.  Part of being a new daddy has been the realization that my hobby is going to take a back seat from here on out... a lot.

So I haven't bought a single box in the last year.  But I have made a few trades and have purchased one or two packs very sparingly.  And I'm happy to report that I've made some good pulls!  As well I've acquired a few cards for the PC and that would include not one, but TWO Lost Cards.

That's right boys, Woogie has his Lost Cards down to just 3!!!

The first one I got back was the Steve Carlton Fleer Greats of the Game autograph card.  In order to get it I traded away a couple of solid cards from the collection including my Pete Rose autograph card from his Leaf product and a 1982 Donruss Cal Ripken Jr. RC.  Check'em out below.

The seller was really cool to work with and the transaction couldn't have gone more smooth!  Welcome back Steve Carlton!

Check out all the Lost Cards that have made there way home since I've started blogging about this quest.

Once I pulled this trade off I felt my luck was getting hot.  I was trolling eBay and found one of the 206 mini booklets I needed for the low price of $10.  I took a chance and just put the minimum bid and ended up being the only one interested enough to put one in.  So all of a sudden my 206 collection is only 4 shy of being complete.  Check out the latest edition!

2010 Topps 206 mini booklet Lincecum and Halladay.  Take a look at the total lot!

I posted about this newest addition to a new Facebook group for Baseball Card collectors hoping that one of the 6,000 strong members had one of the 4 left.  Sure enough someone messaged me that they have an extra Josh Hamilton/Hunter Pence and are going to hook me up with it!  I can't believe my luck sometimes!  I haven't been at this a whole year and I'm just three shy of a complete set of case hits!

If you or anyone you know has Sabathia/Pettitte, Mauer/Bench, or Utley/Howard please let me know.  I'm ready to make some deals!

The mojo doesn't stop there either.  I found myself on a rare occasion with a $10 spot in my pocket.  Now i've already said I haven't purchased any boxes since my daughter was born, but I really haven't even picked up any packs either.  Well I couldn't take sitting on the side lines any more and had to get a few packs of the new 2014 Topps Heritage.  My LCS had them for $3 a pack so I picked up 3 and then a 2012 Topps Series 2 pack for $1 out of the dollar bin.

I sat in my car and ripped them open.  What a rush!  Ripping wax for the first time in a year and I actually hit on two relic cards and both are solid hits!  Check it out!

2012 Topps Cut Above Tim Lincecum relic 9/50 and 2014 Topps Heritage Chris Sale relic with pin stripe!

I didn't pull really much out of the other two packs of Heritage, but who cares! I got the hit from the box!

That'd be enough action to last me the new few months or so but it doesn't end there.  I found another Lost Card online.  The seller and I talked trade for a bit, but couldn't come to an agreement, but at the same time this specific card is so short printed and hard to come by that I couldn't pass it up.  It was online for $30 or Best offer.  I offered $20 and he accepted.  I'd have like to have gotten a better deal, but I can't complain!  Welcome back the latest Lost Card!

2008 Topps Triple Threads Eddie Murray STEADY 6x relic /27.

This means I'm down to just 3 Lost Cards left.  The Mantle and Jeter are pretty much always popping up on ebay.  It's just a matter of finding someone who is interested enough to trade with me.  The Juan Marichal is going to be a different story.  It's the one Lost Card I have yet to see pop up on ebay.  I see in Beckett it's print run is listed as 90 so it is a SP.  Hopefully it pops up soon and I can jump all over it.

The additions to the collection have been awesome and the Cave looks great.  I'll be excited when I complete this mission and I appreciate everyone who has been along for the ride.  I ended up staying up late tonight to watch my Orioles win in the 10th inning for their 5th in a row.  Hopefully they can get the sweep tomorrow for a nice Mother's Day/Birthday gift for my two favorite girls.

As I end this blog post it is 12am on the nose.  Happy Birthday to my wonderful daughter Julia Ruth!

Daddy loves you.

Thanks for reading!

Till next time