Look what the Kemp dragged in

So today as I was flipping through my various boxes in trying to pick out some stuff for a potential trade with another blogger, I was perusing my box of almost-complete and sort-of-started sets.  The almost-complete ones are all on my set wantlist while I left the latter there to have them together in case I decided to pursue them later.  As I was sorting through a small stack of Bowmans, I noticed I had put a couple in penny sleeves, as I occasionally do when I know a rookie is worth enough to try to keep it in good shape.  Who was this mystery RC, a card I had totally forgotten I had?

None other than Greg Z.'s man-crush, Matt Kemp!  This is, of course, his 2005 Bowman RC.  Now that I know I have it, I'm reserving it for the prestige of my baseball RC PC.

My pre-trade sorting wasn't just lucrative because of the Kemp, though--I even found three 2009 Bowman singles I need towards that set, which is pretty cool since I already needed just a small handful.  If I've taken anything out of this, it's that putting in the effort to find some cards to trade is good karma.  As opposed to being symbolic of the worst parts of the hobby and screwing over Greg, which is definitely bad karma;  Chris Olds, may every football box you bust from now on contain nothing but Bilal Powell and Akili Smith!

It's like a virtual card show for about two-fiddy, plus WTF Chris Olds?

Mandatory Blowout purchase section:

Yadda, yadda, Blowout, right?  I realize I just did the mad libs thing, so I'll just keep this one simple:  six cards for $17 as they were $2.50 each out of the guy's Picasa Web Album (which he was still calling a Bucket for some reason).  I grabbed three for me and three that were trade bait, which explains the card show reference in the title--almost every time I go I get about 50% PC stuff and 50% trade bait, but never on purpose.


Trade bait:

• Brooks Foster 2009 Bowman Draft College Letter Patch Auto "R" (#039/173) (North Carolina)
• Aaron Brooks 2001 Topps Reserve auto
• Syndric Steptoe 2007 Leaf R&S patch/auto/RC (#093/299)

The Steptoe is destined to go to Tim, and if he doesn't take it, he'll be dead to me (people will say "Did you see Tim's latest post?" and I'll say "Yeah, it's a shame the way he went, though, at the fireworks factory--who would have thought he'd get run over by a clown car there?").

The other two are up for grabs for now.  The Brooks is a BA Benny-preferred card, but I'm certainly open to offers since I probably have more than enough to send his way.

Now for the stuff for me:

Adrian Arrington 2008 SP Rookie Threads Signing Day auto:  I'll start by saying I really like the design on these for some reason.  It might be the way the autograph section really pops, plus you can't really tell it's a sticker until you look up-close because it's clear.  It doesn't hurt that Arrington has an interesting autograph.  This is #18 of him in my collection and continues my streak of nothing but autographs of the former Michigan WR.

Charles Woodson 2006 Fleer Fabrics jersey:  W00t for doubling my Woodson hit collection.  Although he's pictured here as a Raider and the swatch might actually be from a black Oakland jersey (I really can't tell), I'm counting this as a Packers card because that's the listed team, that's who he just won the Super Bowl with, plus Oakland just outderped themselves and spent a THIRD-ROUND PICK in the supplemental draft on Terrell "Everybody murders" Pryor.

Jason Avant 2006 Prestige jersey RC:  A nice green rookie-year swatch of the sure-handed receiver.  I'm hoping for good things for Avant with Vick QBing now that he has a full year under his belt back from suspension.  This is Avant #17 for me, by the way.

Look for more, as usual, pretty soon, including another very exciting addition to one of my baseball PCs!

WTF, Chris Olds?:

I generally object to many of the things that Beckett's editor Chris Olds does--his box breaks annoy me to no end, and of course he's part of the "Hobby has never been better" up-your-ass smoke-blowing committee--but I picked today to ask "WTF?" about his latest piece of "journalism."  Here, Olds explains why Bull Durham is not his #1 baseball movie.  So far, so good--I'm not sure it's mine, either, and I have a hard time choosing one above the rest.  His main beef is that the teams Durham plays in the movie are geographically ridiculous and overall inaccurate.
While I disagree with this as a major reason to knock a movie down on your list, I don't dispute his right to use whatever criteria to order it.  What I'm most annoyed by   is that the article/editorial has zero purpose:  it's very short, its lazily-written, and most importantly, it doesn't even mention what his #1 baseball movie IS.  If you enjoy one-to-two sentence paragraphs explaining inaccuracies and literally nothing else, you're in for a treat.

It's crap like this that really makes me appreciate my fellow bloggers for the interesting and often insightful content they bring every day.  I won't pretend that as an English major I don't cringe at the usual array of spelling and grammatical errors that come with the territory (I'm only human!) but at worst I still get about 10 blogs worth of content a day from my subscriptions that trump the drivel Beckett's editor decided to crap out today.  Maybe Beckett needs to do a better job of incorporating user-generated content from, you know, the collectors that give its magazine a reason for existence (or, not really since its been a long time since the prices have been anything but obsolete).  That's my long way of saying, "WTF, Chris Olds?" and it may not be the last time I do.