Awkward: The Baseball Card

Meet Yen-Wen Kuo. Kuo is a 22-year old Taiwanese second basemen within the Cincinnati Reds organization. Bowman Prospect card #80 spits out a few good tidbits about Kuo on the back:

Signed with Reds at age 18...more than competent at second, short and third...accurate arm...fine range...contact hitter than can draw walks...

In three levels of A Ball last season, Kuo hit .256 with a .330 SLG and 1 HR with 30 RsBI in 64 games.

Needless to say, don't expect Kuo to be a contestant in any upcoming Home Run Derbies.

On to the card. Along with the underwhelming stats on the back, the front is...well..it just is. Above anything else, it is quite obvious that the image is "airbrushed" (this term is out-dated, but "photoshopped" is a bit too Microsoft-specific.). Sometimes it is easy to tell:

1. Hat - awkwardly placed, flat-lying "C".
2. Hat - Today's freshly-given-to-prospects caps would still lie rigid on a player's head, with an out of the box feel. This hat is flat reasonably broken-in, and does seem to have some dirt-staining on both the brim and body.
3. Missing Number.
4. Non-dimensional feel to "CINCINNATI" across chest. This was the giveaway. Notice how the middle "I" fits, literally, seamlessly.

Bowman tends to mail in a lot of their lesser-known prospect cards. Take for instance, Chad Jenkins, whom they could not even find a jersey for. Of course, an airbrushing endeavor turning a yellow Kennesaw State jersey into a black Jays jersey would be, well, difficult. I assume.

Though I have to give it to Kuo. He has excellent all-capital English penmanship. Cannot wait until I have bunch of his autos.

I Respect That

Amidst all of the mouth-foaming for Stephen Strasburg '10 Bowmans, I came across this beauty in my daily Base Shredders/Dustin McGowan/Shaun Marcum eBay searchings. I didn't attempt to bid on this one, but I am still happy to see it get the respect it deserves. With Marcum's season so far, it's amazing how a Strasburg Purple Refractor (#/999) is selling for the same amount of this Marcum Red Refractor AUTO RC....#'ed to /25.

New Additions and a Bold Claim

First, the claim.
Give this maybe 2-3 months. I've been seeing a trend in conversation, facebook comments, news interviews and so on. First off, it was kind of funny. Then it was being taken slightly more seriously...

But here it is. By the end of the summer,

ascots will be IN.

__________________________________

Anyways. The extreme lack of new options (in the North) in baseball and hockey cards (the newest release up here is '10 Heritage Baseball.) has me doing pretty much nothing but sniffing around for some more trades and snapping up singles off of eBay. I did purchase a blaster of '09 T206 today, but it was a waste.

As many/none of you may know, I am working on putting together one of the hardest memorabilia sets of all time (seeded 1:288 pack back in the day); 2000 Metal Base Shredders. If you're unfamiliar with the cards, they're fully holo-foiled out game used base pieces of players who "shred the bases". And no, it does not mean fast players. Apparently it was a set more for hitters, and, well, Eric Munson.

For $2.24 Shipped, I picked up this beauty:
Big Mo Vaughn. Rumble, rumble, rumble. How sweet would a patch card be made from that jersey?

Next up, everyone's favorite 20-something who has not pitched in the Bigs for almost 2 full years, Dustin McGowan. The only reason McGowan is my #1 collecting interest is, well, Shaun Marcum's cards suck. Poor photos (except '06 UD), only 2 autos with a few variations, and pretty much allllll base cards. Just not worth the effort. Maybe if he wins 15 games this year that will all change.

First up, 2004 Bowman Autograph:
Not bad. But green? Maybe the Oakland cards looked good in '04.

Next, 2006 Topps Chrome Red Refractor s/n #30/90. Nice, rare, refractory goodness.
So that's red, blue and black complete for this rainbow. Still need base, refractor and xfractor. Doable.

And now, what you've all been waiting for.
My new favorite card.
All the glory of the CN Tower.
Bright eyed and bushy-tailed young Blue Jay form Georgia.
Oh, and inked:
What a glorious card.

**There is currently 0:35.8 second remaining in the Eastern Conference Finals. Mike Richards, the one player I would rather have on my team than ANY other NHL player, just set up a tap-in for Jeff Carter. This team is nasty, nasty, nasty. Chicago is gonna have a bit of a challenge on their hands.

eBay Scores and the Beginning of my Chad Jenkins Collection

So, I'm pretty happy that I socred these three beauties (and when I saw beauties, that's an understatement) from eBay on, oh, Thursday or so. Today, on Monday, I already had them. Pretty solid. Each was $.99, and all three shipped together for $3.00. That's right, three Prospect autos for less than $6.00. I think I made out pretty well.

First up is Rinku Singh. You may remember a few days, maybe a week or so ago I posted how much I loved Rinku's inks. I posted the Bowman '09 Auto, which isn't nearly as attractive as the Bowman Sterlings. I had already purchased this one, so I didn't want to ruin the surprise.

Next is Dinesh Kumar Patel. Patel finished second in the Million Dollar Arm contest, but ended up being the more successful pitcher this year in this summer's Pirates Florida League teams. Mechanically he is mroe sound than Singh, but Singh also has the magic ability of being able to throw with his left arm.

Finally, Chad Jenkins. The back of the cards details a bit about the our newest baby Blue Jay (1st Round, 20th Overall in 2009) saying that he never intended to play professionally, just wanted to play some ball at Kennesaw State and get a Business Degree...then he won '09 Atlantic Sun Conference Pitcher of the Year, going 8-1 with a 2.54 ERA. Welcome to the Jays, Chad.

Super Awesome Autos - Rinku Singh

In 2008, Indian television (not exactly Baliwood or Slumdog Millionaire) ran a Reality/Contest TV Show aptly named "Million Dollar Arm". The program, brainstormed by JB Bernstein, was aimed to find the one Indian who could throw the hardest and most accurate fastball. Rinku won the contest out of 37,000 contestants by throwing 87 MPH. Singh later tried out for 20 MLB teams and was eventually signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates while reaching 92 MPH on the gun.

Singh struck out one batter on July 13th, 2009 and became the first Indian-born baseball player to win a professional baseball game.

Fellow Indian Dinesh Patel also was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, and was runner-up in the MIllion Dollar Arm contest.

Spelunking along on ebay for a Dinesh Patel auto, I came across Singh's 2009 Bowman Auto. I thought it was one of the greatest autos in a long time, mainly because:

• Singh's first language, and script, is not English. Most International free agents that speak foreign languages usually have to learn just the language, however for Singh and Patel, they had to learn to write the language as well.
• All of the letters are printed and rarely touch.
• Some letters, such as the "g" in Singh, are above other letters, very cool.
• Originality! Probabl moreso due to Singh's language and script, but this auto is very refreshing and original, more enjoyable than the cursive letter-LINE cursive letter-LINE autos so many baseball players feature now.

2009 Topps T206 Jumbo Pack Rip

Solid pack. Steep in price, but the quality was premium. We'll start with some solid base cards...

Card 1 - Mickey Mantle Checklist 2 of 7
Card 2 - Todd Helton #200

Card 3 - Tommy Hanson #262 (Rookie Card)
Card 4 - Derek Holland #61 (Rookie Card)
Card 5 - Roy Campanella #224
Card 6 - Derek Lowe #45
Card 7 - Luke Scott #152
Card 8 - Alex Gordon #256
Card 9 - Cy Young #143
Card 10 - David Ortiz #24
Card 11 - Troy Tulowitzki #293 (Added to Player Collection)

And Now for the HITS. Yes, HITS. Although this was a jumbo pack, and I never expect to pull much out of them, this one had two solid hits within it.

Card 11 - Josh Outman Framed Piedmont Autograph

I've got a few autos lately, mostly from ebay bargains (see: Dexter Fowler, Jesse Carlson) but I haven't seen a good on-card auto in a long time. Outman has a solid, legible auto, as you can see in the scan, and the sunset background goes well with the blue framed border. Though I had been a fan of Allen & Ginter's Framed sets prior to this pull, I have to side with T206 here, again, as their mini doesn't rattle around inside and worry me of corner dinging.

Card 12 - David Wright #171 CYCLE Mini #/99.

Very solid pull. I was wondering if there would be minis or bronze/gold parallels in the jumbo packs, and now I know they at least have minis. Pulling my first mini T206 short print was great. Now I want more.