Strasburg Debut

For as much hype as there was surrounding the young man, no one would have been surprised if he didn't live up to it. So when he struck out 2 batters per inning in your 7 inning debut, its safe to say that he lived up to the hype.

A better result would have only been possible had he been allowed to throw more pitches. I'm guessing this chrome takes off (as if that's even possible) much like the one below it did so many years ago.

current obsession

2005 sweet spot classic materials. i'm currently at 16 of 83. i have dawson, mazeroski, winfield (both of them), mathews, wynn, f robinson, carter, j robinson, grace, ryan, clemente, carlton (one with stripe, one that's powder blue), paige, perez, and berra. so i guess im looking to trade if you have any extra.

this one has probably been my favorite.

ebay experts needed

there are 2 cards, card x and card y. card x is a game used card of icon a and numbered to 15. card y is also a game used card of icon a, but its a dual game used card and also has icon b on it as well. card y is numbered to 75. the game used material of icon a seems to be the same size, shape, and type in each card.

so here's what i need opinions on. card x is about to go for about $175, while card y is listed at $125 OBO. how much do you think card y would bring in an open auction?

edit: @joecollector, few more notes 1)how could i forget card x is actually a 1/1 sick mojo as its numbered 1/15. i don't think its a big collectors set either. 2)the prices of icon a's other game used stuff does seem to be more heavily population dependent than most. 3)another example of card x that was not properly titled sold for $100 less just 5 days ago. 4) icon b's game used stuff goes for nowhere near what you might expect.

cashing in on heyward part 3

this 3rd edition of cashing in on heyward goes back to 1960 topps. i went to sportlots.com and picked up 21 pirates for a grad total of $19.96 shipped.

less than a dollar a card shipped seemed like a decent deal to me. i'll probably be using sportlots again to continue putting together a 1960 topps complete set.

i'm now left with $4.99 from my sale and i'm currently heavy 22 pirates from the 1960 topps set and one roy face auto.

cashing in on heyward 2nd purchase

my second purchase was this nice roy face auto. the seller had it with a bin/obo of 19.99. so i offered 5 and he took it. 4 dollars shipping (how on earth to you come up with that much?) runs me to $9 delivered. i'm now left with 24.95 from my sale. most of that will go to tomorrow's update.

cashing in on heyward

so i sold my stash of heywards yesterday. i had been buying blasters of 07 draft to find devin mesoraco cards. he went to my high school, and i actually played for his dad in high school. though i didn't find any mesoracos, i did end up with 2 base, 1 chrome, and 1 gold heyward. i packaged these bad boys into a lot and sold them for a final bid of 42.33. add in the 1.75 i charge for shipping and subtract the ebay and paypal fees of 5.39, and we're down to 38.69. shipping and handling is going to cost approximately 2.20. so my net on the sale will be 36.49

this next series of posts will show you what i buy with my net from the heyward sale. now he may be the next coming of hank aaron, but i think most will agree that the cards i buy will be much more fun to add to the collection.
first up: 1960 topps roy face. i'm going to be focusing on my pirates collection with this money, the 1960 championship team in particular. although the pirates were outscored by 28 runs in the series, they won the championship in 7 games. pittsburgh won their games by margins of 2, 1, 3, 1 and lost games by 13, 10, and 12 runs. roy face was the closer on this team. he got the save in games 1, 4, and 5. in the 1960 season, he posted a 2.90 era with 24 saves finishing 12th in the mvp voting and was named an all star.

price shipped: 2.54
cash remaining: 33.95

custom card #10

allow me to introduce you to derek moye. the redshirt sophomore has stepped up big time in his first season as a starter. he's been a huge deep threat, but he could even be bigger. his quarterback, daryll clark, has missed a wide open deep moye numerous times this season. it happened at least twice against indiana on saturday. look for moye to be a safety blanket for psu's new starting qb next year. i think he has the potential to be a first round pick in 2012.

Spotted my first possible fake patch

Here is a Derrick Williams Finest auto patch. It's not a refractor, and its numbered to 309. So is it just incredibly good luck or a little tampering? You be the judge. Oh yeah the seller has a whopping 12 feedback.

custom card #9

walk-on wr graham zug (now a scholarship) had a nice game against the 'cuse. zug hauled in 6 passes for 79 yards and a score.

custom card #8

so i've been going with penn staters for these last few. here is rb evan royster. he ran for over 1200 yards last year in limited carries. he was expected to break out this year with an increased work load. things haven't been going so well thus far as the o-line has yet to find its grove with 3 new starters (the 2 returning starters changed positions though.) add that in with a gimicky 3-3-5 defense that akron threw at them in game one, and syracuse having 2 of the best defensive tackles that penn state will face. its spells disaster for a running game especially with both teams consistently putting 8 in the box.

hopefully royster's numbers will increase as the line gets more comfortable. he has great vision and acceleration through the hole. he doesn't have great home run speed but he never seems to be caught from behind either. joe always talks about how royster was a great lacrosse player in high school, and that's why penn state really wanted him. so here is a card showing him in his high school lacrosse days.

contest winner

skoormit wins by default. he was the only one to comment. send me your address to kory.j.blose@gmail.com and i'll send out your prize.

custom card #7

freshmen slot man devon smith may be the smallest true freshmen to see action in a penn state opener. standing at 5'7" and weighing 155 pounds, smith is the size of an 8th grader. what he lacks in size he certainly makes up for in speed. penn state coaches say he is the fastest player they have ever seen in pads. the speedster hauled in 2 passes, had one carry, and returned 2 kicks. he totaled 75 yards for a 15 yard average per touch. not bad for the little guy.

custom card #6

so daryll clark had himself a day numbers wise against akron. 29-40, 353 yards, 3 tds and a pick. the numbers were great, but they didn't really reflect how he played. clark seemed a little to pumped up and threw a number of balls high. he was also locking on his receivers and forcing throws. the one pick he had wasn't his fault, but he got away with 2 other balls that should have been picked.

so let's hope he sees his mistakes this week in film review and has a great week on saturday against the cuse.

custom card #5

at last year's draft, i thought brett wallace was a perfect for the billy bean system. he has a great on and draws a ton of walks. the a's did get their man this year in exchange for matt holliday.

custom card #4

the rookie sensation ricky romero.

custom card #3

its a combo 1960 topps with a wave of the future feel. i'm getting addicted to this.

custom card #2

my inspiration for making these can be seen under the blogs list to the right. check out the custom card blog if you haven't already.

first custom card

here is a rough version of a 1983 fleer hank blalock

contest: answer this for me

so maybe this really isn't a contest. its more like a job. so here it is: come up with a way to build a website that stores the completed card auctions from ebay. this database must be searchable by registered users only. also, i want statistics tied to each active player (majors and minors) that are also searchable by a specified date range. i also want the ability to search the completed auctions by a specified date range.

the best answer will get a daniel schlereth 2008 bowman chrome draft refractor auto #ed 103/500. if its a really good, workable, detailed plan that i could put into action (along with you,) i'm offering up a 2005 bowman chrome ricky romero blue refractor auto #ed 023/150. this card won't be a garunteed give away though, but at worst i'll give away the schlereth. what say you? i'm going to let this run for about one week. submit your ideas to the comments, and feel free to submit as many as you like.

allan dykstra is having one heck of a week

check out allan dykstra's stats over the last week. he is an on-base machine. i can't believe billy bean hasn't traded for this guy yet. since august 17th dykstra has collected 11 hits and 7 walks in his last 22 plate appearances. for the year he is only hitting 0.220 on the year, but check out that 0.393 on base percentage.

i've been following dykstra since last year's draft. after looking at what he did in college, i though he was a guy to invest in. i picked up a bunch of cheap autos last year, and they can still be had at a fair price. maybe its because the only autos available right now are through razor and donini.