non posting post

I have been out of commission since last Friday with a case of the gout and some other mystery injury, that makes it very hard to sit for long. I have a doctors appointment for tomorrow evening at 5 PM, PDT.

Cardboard Appreciation, Part 2

Here is a card that GCRL, Cards on Cards and I can all appreciate. It features a play at second, a Cardinals legend and Hall of Famer and a Padres legend and Hall of Famer. This is back when I could afford to buy a pack of Stadium Club baseball. This card has it all, two guys who started in the Padres organization and ended up in the Hall of Fame. Plus it looks like Tony is going to be safe, if you look by his back elbow you can see the ball on the way to the Wizard. This is why I like baseball cards they capture so many different things, including one of his 319 stolen bases, which makes him 125th on the all time list, right between Steve Finley and Larry Bowa.

Cards for You

I have more cards than I want. I've found many people to give them to, but there are still a few teams that have no homes. Please write me at Padrographs@live.com if you want some of the following teams, Nationals(with or without Expos); Twins; Rockies; Blue Jays and Rays. All I am looking for in return are San Diego Padres. Thank you for your time.

More Outgoing Mail

I made it to the post office today and used the ever popular Automated Postal Center to mail out some more packages. I sent some stuff to Wrigley Wax Jr., Cheese and Beer, Autographed Cards and Cards on Cards. I have a few teams that I don't have any one to send to the Diamondbacks and Astros are two off the top of my head. I will list the teams that I don't have anyone to send to, probalby tomorrow. Cause right now I just sat down to watch and see if the Padres can beat the Phillies again. I remember talking to Charlie Manuel when he managed the Portland Beavers. This is the first chance I have gotten to see the Padres play this year.

Raul Casanova

Raul Casanova hit his first home run for the team that drafted him 12 years after he was drafted. He was drafted by the Mets in the 8th round in 1996. In December of 1992 he was traded to the Padres with D.J. Dozier and Wally Whitehurst for Tony Fernandez and a player to be named later. In 1996 he was traded by the Padres with Richie Lewis and Melvin Nieves for Cade Gaspar (whose father played for the Padres in the '70's), Sean Bergman and Todd Stevenson. Over the next few years he signed as free agent with the Orioles (two or three times), Rockies, Brewers, Rays, Red Sox, White Sox, A's and got traded to the Royals and finally signed as a free agent with the Mets in December 2007. On April of 2008 he hit his first homerun for the Mets. I got this card through ebay.

Outgoing Mail

Today I sent stuff out to Punk Rock Paint, Phungo and John Hollod (I can't remember what blog he writes) and have stuff ready to go for Cards on Cards and Autographed Cards. I am getting things ready for Wrigley Wax Jr. , Roll out the Barrel and Cheese and Beer. Hope you enjoy what I am sending.

TTM Success

Last Friday was agood mail day. I got Cha Seung Baek and Dave Kingman back in the mail. The Kingman came back even though I didn't mail it with the prescribed fee. I bought the Young for 99 cents plus $3.95 S&H. Please enjoy.

Topps Big Stix

Yesterday I went out shopping for Nitrous Oxide, for our whipped cream maker, while I was shopping at Fred Meyers I saw a card rack. No blasters except for last years stuff and Topps SI, nothing I really wanted. Hanging above them were Magic and the like and in between were Topps Big Stix. For $9.99 you get two backer boards, one with the checklist of the 100 stickers and 5 5X7 stickers. On each sticker the player, the team logo and the ball with the players name are removable from everything else. These have a 2008 copyright on the back of the package, but this is the first time I have seen them or even heard of them. All of the cards are available, let me know if you want one. Send me your address at padrographs@live.com

Joseph Christopher Carter

Ah, the joys of organizing your collection. One day a couple of years ago I decided to organize my colloection of autographed photos. As I was sorting through the photos I found a Joe Carter autographed photo, which looks a lot like this pose, signed "To Rod, Happy 33rd Birthday, Joe Carter."Pretty cool a player from my favorite team wishing me Happy Birthday. As I continued organizing I found another picture of Joe in the same pose, that I got signed at a card show. It was signed "To Rod, Happy 36th Birthday, Joe Carter." So I have two identical pictures signed with essentially the same inscription signed 3 years apart.

Joe Carter is in the Hall of Fame, actually he is in four Hall of Fames, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Wichita State University Hall of Fame, the Missouri Valley Hall of Fame and the Kansas Hall of Fame. For some reason I thought that Joe had spent a couple of years with the Padres but looking at Baseball-Reference he was only with the Padres for 1 year. He played in all 162 games for the 1990 season and hit 24 homeruns. He is best known for his years with Cleveland and Toronto (some home run thing), but he also played for the Cubs, Padres, Orioles and Giants. He played from 1983 to 1998, he played in 5 All Star games and won two Silver Slugger Awards. I think that I got this signed at the same card show that I got the second photo signed at.

TTM Success

No scans today, I am writing to y'all on an old, old laptop. I got Cha Seung Baek in the mail yesterday, it was on an '08 Timelines die cut card. And today I got back Dave Kingman, wait for it, Signed. I didn't include the prescribed fee, but I did include a duplicate of the card I made for him to keep. I will show scans when we get our big computer back. We had no internet for a couple of days and I kept up with you all on breaks and lunch at work. I also picked up a signed Walter Young "52 Rookie Edition off the bay. Talk to you later.

Cardboard Appreciation, Part 1

I will admit that I freely stole this idea from Night Owl. This will be a semi regular feature on Padrographs from now on. I am trying to expand beyond just autographed Padres cards, so I will feature some other things every so often.

I bought a box of 1986 Topps off of ebay not too long ago and am working on building the set. The first time I had ever bought a box of cards was back in 1986, from Portland Sports Cards and built the set, after buying another box from Baseball Cards and More. I still have that '86 set, in a box with a note on it that I wrote to my son who was born July 9, 1986. I talked about the set, the times and how I felt about him coming into my life.

As I was opening this box I came across the Tony Perez card. This card moves me for a couple of reasons. One; it shows the torch being passed from one generation of player to the next, 1986 was Tony Perez' last season in the majors and it was the first full season in the majors for Eric Davis. Two; this was the year I first became a father and if you don't think changes things, you haven't become one. This is one of my all time favorite cards and I am starting a new notebook page for my cardboard appreciation cards.

Cesar Carillo

Cesar Carrillo was a Padres draft pick in 2005. Since then he has played his way up to AAA Portland, I expect to see him in San Diego later this year after Jake Peavy is traded. I got this card signed through the mail a couple of years ago.

Opening Day 2009

It is almost time for the Padres to beat the Dodgers on Opening Day. I have started to try and get the opening day lineups from every year from 1969 to the present. The earliest year I have completed is 1984. I have used baseball almanac to get this information. The cards are presented in the batting order. I will use whatever cards I can I prefer, the players in Padres uniforms and on a vertical card. I have found that some of the players don't have cards for a year that they were in the starting lineups. I have posted the players I need on my want list.

TTM Success and My New Project

I spent the morning running errands and buying cards at Heaven Spent Sports Cards in Tualatin. I picked up a bunch of 70's Padres for my newest project. I am trying to assemble cards of the Opening Day Starting Lineups from 1969-2008. My parameters the cards should be horizontal, single player cards from the year in question, they should be Padres cards but up until 1981 I am not sure that will always be possible. I think some of the players may not even have cards in the 70's for the year. I know I won't have a 1973 card of Dave Hilton, unless I make one, cause he is between a couple of better known third baseman on the '73 card, guys named Cey and Schmidt. I will be posting my want list soon for this project. I have several of the late '80's team already done.

When I got home from shopping and doing other errands, including picked up a Garvey piece I had framed and matted, I got the mail. There was a card of coaches signed by Sonny Siebert. I had sent it to him several years ago and he sent it back with a note saying that he required a $7 donation, part of which went to charity. I kept meaning to send it back with the $7 dollars, and finally did last month. I already have everyone else signed on other cards. I sent the Kingman card off before I found out that he charges five dollars, so hopefully he will send it back with a note and I will send it out again.

Book Review, Card Sharks

Card Sharks, How Upper Deck Turned a Child's Hobby Into A High Stakes, Billion Dollar Business by Pete Williams; 1995; 278 pages; MacMillian Publishing, New York, NY; 002-629061-8; 3/26/09-4/2/09

For those of you who don't know I read a lot and actually review everything I read at readerman.net . I worked at the two biggest baseball cards shop in Portland, from 1990-1997, during much of the time period covered in this box.

A couple of collectors wanted to come up with a way to prevent cards from being counterfeited. So they started shopping the idea around and as it got bigger, the two inital collectors got pushed out. And in came Richard McWilliam, who as portrayed here comes accross as a narcisstic, power hungry, tempermental despot. The story of how Upper Deck got started is pretty amazing, how these two collectors took an idea to make a better card and it turned into a monster. Upper Deck has increased the quality of cards throughout the market, but it has also fueled in an increase in investors taking over the hobby and looking for the hits, versus people collecting for the fun of it. Most collectors still do it for fun, but the card companies don't seem to think so as much of the product is aimed at the high rollers. The business practices of Upper Deck in reprinting cards after their inital release were whispers I heard while working at the card shops, but this confirms those whispers. I wouldn't buy any Upper Deck stuff for investment purposes, but will buy cards of players I want. Well written and well researched Mr. Williams is a must read for all of those who stocked up on UD back in the day. RRR

TTM Success and TTM Going out

I got the Glenn Hoffman card back yesterday, I made it and sent it to him back in early February, it took 42 days to get to Peoria and back.

I have been looking for a Dave Kingman card with the Padres, but had been unable to find one. So today at lunchtime I cobbled this together. I know that many of you are much better, but this is my homemade art. I am sending it to Mr. Kingman in the hopes that he will sign it. I am also sending out to Josh Hamilton and James Darnell tomorrow.

Javier Peterson Cardona

I found a few players that I had left out in my scanning and editing, so the next few days will be out of order and then we will return to our regularly scheduled programming. By the way I ordered spring for Portland, but I think it must have gotten delayed in shipping, cause winter is still here. Enough already, at least baseball starts in four days.

Javier Cardona was drafted by the Tigers in the 19th round of the 1993 draft but did not sign. The Tigers tried again in 1994 taking him in the 23rd round. He made his major league debut on April 3, 2000 against the Rangers. He played part two seasons with the Tigers before being traded to the Padres with Rich Gomez for Damian Jackson and Mat Walbeck. He split time between the Portland Beavers and the Padres in 2002, playing in 15 games for San Diego. He played his final major league game April 14, 2002, but stuck around the game for three more seasons. In March of 2003 he signed as a free agent with the Cubs, in April of 2004 he signed with the Mets, in February of 2005 the Rockies signed him as a free agent. In April he was sent to the Cardinals as part of a conditional deal, in June the Cardinals sent him to the Indians as part of a conditional deal for John Rodriguez. In March of 2006 he signed as a free agent with the Red Sox, but I can't find any information that he played in their organization at all. I believe that I got the card off of ebay.