Started A Second Blog

Just wanted to let you all know I started a second blog. It will be a Yankees only blog. I will try to update after every game with thoughts and scores and other happenings in the Yankees Universe. I will leave this blog up for the cards, autos, bobbleheads and such. If you can, go an check it out at your earliest. I'll be back later to update this with a proper post.

New York Yankees Sweet Spot Signatures

Some of my very favorite autographs to collect were the Upper Deck Sweet Spot Signatures. One of the very best ideas Upper Deck ever had was to take a baseball, have it signed by a ballplayer, cut out the signature and put it on a card. Very collectable and looks great displayed. Unfortunately, Upper Deck, in the end of it's run, got greedy and made Sweet Spot a high end product and cut costs on the manufacturing for the Signature cards by using a synthetic baseball which didn't hold the autographs well. As a result, you see a lot of these cards with faded signatures. Because of that, I had stopped trying to collect the Yankees in this set. But I recently got hit with the bug again and I'm trying to get as many Yankees as I can again. I am working on a Yankees only set that Upper Deck put out back in 2003, which I will show at another time. Here are the ones I currently have in my collection.

Jose Contreras. Yankees out bid the Red Sox for him, which may or may not have resulted in Theo Epstein trashing his hotel furnature in a fit of anger. Contreras never panned out for the Yankees as he was very inconsitant during his time in New York. However, his signing with the Yankees gave them a new nickname courtisy of Red Sox President, Larry Lucchino; "The Evil Empire"

One of my favorite Sweet Spot Signature cards is this one of Yankees Hall of Famer, Whitey Ford. Played with the Yankees from 1950-1967. Won 236 games and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Holds the Yankees all time record for wins as a Yankee.

"The Big Unit" Randy Johnson didn't have many signed cards as a Yankee, but had this Sweet Spot Signature card. I bought a lot of Yankee cards and this one was in the lot. Johnson pitched 2 seasons in the Bronx, winning 17 games in both years. While not a dissipointment, he wasn't the fireballing pitcher Yankee fans expected when he came over due to his back injuries.

Former Yankee Captain and current Dodgers manager Don Mattingly. Donnie Baseball has a few highly sought after Sweet Spot Signatures and after Derek Jeter, is probably the most popular Yankee. His Sweet Spot Signature cards often command a good price. I was lucky to get this at a steal for my PC. I am rooting for Mattingly to do a great job in Los Angeles.

Mike Mussina. One of the best Yankee free agent signings, Mussina has one Yankee Sweet Spot Signature card that I was able to grab for under 7.00 off ebay. Moose is a borderline hall of famer and I was surprised that I was able to get this card for so low. Mussina had a terrific Yankee career, retiring at the height of his career, winning 20 games in 2008. I think if he was a Yankee his entire career, he would have broken Ford's all time Yankees wins record.

Sorry about the picture on this one. This is a Sweet Spot Signature of former Yankees second baseman, Bobby Richardson. Richardson played on those great Yankee teams of the 50's and 60's. He won 5 gold glove awards, was an 8 time all star and won 3 world championships in 1958, 1961 and 1962. Always great to get the older players into the collection.

Finally, theres Javier Vasquez. This is one I have shown before. In two diffrent stints with the Yankees, Javier really didn't perform up to his capabilites. I feel he's better off in a smaller market where there isnt a lot of pressure to put up numbers. That's not a knock against Vasquez. He has shown that he can pitch and put up great numbers, just not in New York. Some people can play here, others can't.

After gazing over this collection over the weekend, I think I'm going to try and get the other Yankees that Sweet Spot made signatre cards of, if I can afford them. Then again, shopping for deals is my specialty.

Yankee IP Auto-Graig Nettles

I was able to get Graig Nettles to sign this card at a Long Island card show at Hofstra University a few years back. I was very excited to meet Nettles because, growing up, he was my favorite Yankee. Unfortunately, he was the prime example of how disapointing it can be to meet your idols.

Graig Nettles was traded to the Yankees from the Cleveland Indians before the 1973 season. He was a main clog in those 1970 Yankee teams, appearing in the World Series 3 times and winning 2. He was considered one of the best defensive third baseman at that time. He also set an American League record for career home runs by a third baseman. His best season was in 1977 when he had 37 home runs, 107 RBI's, won the Gold Glove and won the World Series. He was traded to San Diego and appeared in one more World Series in 1984, losing to the Detriot Tigers. He retired in 1988 as a member of the Montreal Expos.

As a kid, his diving stops on ground balls thrilled me. Whenever I played baseball, I would always man third, my number was 9 and I would dive for ground balls, even if they were routine grounders. I remember being so upset when he was traded and rooted for San Diego in the World Series. I always wanted to meet him and when I found out he was appearing on Long Island, I jumped at the chance. My girl friend at the time lived in Brooklyn, so driving from her apt to Hofstra was not a problem.

I remember waiting on line, being real nervous too. I finally got to the front of the line and handed him my card. I told him how big a fan I was and how much he meant to my childhood. He looked at me and said, "Great, kid." and looked back down at the card. Signed it and passed it back to me and I was hurried away by the attendent sitting next to him.

Great, kid? That was all he could say to me? What a rip! I was so upset by it. My girl friend tried to cheer me up, but it was no use. I got the brush off from my favorite childhood ball player. Not even my favorite cheeseburger could cheer me up. Since then, I have soured on Nettles. I have met him twice after at diffrent functions and he was always the same crabby guy each time. Kinda stinks when you expect a person to be one way and you get something totally diffrent. I never heard any horror stories regarding Nettles, so it was a huge surprise to me. I had met a lot of players before him and they were all nice to me, so having your first bad experiance at a signing and getting it from your childhood idol really sucked.

Needless to say, I won't be going out of my way for Nettles anymore.

2008-09 Black Diamond Martin Brodeur Quad Jersey

With yesterdays 4-1 loss to the Boston Bruins, it seems like the Devils quest to make the postseason is pretty much dead. Unfortunately, the Devils horrific start was too much to over come. It's not that they're mathmatically eliminated just yet, but with about 9 games left and the Devils being 9 games behind Buffalo for the 8 playoff spot, they would have to win out right and hope for a lot of help from those in front of them to get in. It's going to take a miracle I think.

Broduer, dispite missing games due to injury, is having a solid season yet again. He is 21-23 with a 2.46 GAA and a save percentage of .902. He also has 5 shutout wins. In December, I was sure this would be his final season, but it looks like he will be back in net next year. That is good because he looks like he can play another year or two.

I managed to add this beauty to my Brodeur pc on Monday. It's an ebay win. Not numbered, but it looks great nonetheless. My Brodeur game used collection is growing and I look forward to add more to it soon.

What Should I Do?

I gotta be honest with you all, I'm not a huge fan of how this blog looks. To me, it's pretty plain and not exciting. When I read some of the awesome blogs here, I see some of the best pages around. Pages like Wrigley Wax, Vin Scully Is My Home Boy, Dodgerbobble, Hoopography, just to name a few, all have these colorful, eye pleasing pages with some awesome banners topping their pages.

So, I ask you, how do you all do that? I'm not the most computer literate person in the world. I'm lucky I know where the power button is on most of these things. Plus I see some bloggers actually have lists of what's in there collections and what they are looking for. I wanna get in on that.

One of my "blogging goals" is to tighten up my page, make it look a lot better than the it does now. Maybe I offer a contest and give a nice prize to whom ever helps me give this page a much needed make over? Do I just go out and pay someone to do this?

What do you guys think? Any help would be much appreciated from everyone.

Thanks.

New Add to Yankees Auto Collection:Enos Slaughter

I was finally able to add this HOF'er to my Yankees autograph collection, Enos Slaughter. Slaughter played 19 years in the majors, from 1938 to 1959. Although he spent the majority of his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, he had 2 stints with the Yankees from 1954 to 1955 and from 1956-1959. He also played with the Kansas City A's and finished up with the Milwaukee Braves.

Slaughter was a 10 time All Star and won 4 World Series championships, winning 2 with the Cardinals and 2 with the Yankees. He is best known for his "Mad Dash", scoring from first on Harry Walker's single during the 1946 World Series against the Red Sox. It turned out to be the winning run of the World Series that year. For his career, he batted .300, with 2,383 hits; 169 Home Runs and 1,304 RBI's. He might have gotten to 3,000 hits had he not missed 3 years due to his military obligations during World War II. His number 9 has been retired by the St. Louis Cardinals and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985 via the Veteran's Committee.

I checked this auto against other Slaughter autographs I seen on ebay, including some cuts and it looks like the real mccoy. I got this for under 5.00 dlvd. Very pleased to be able to cross off another Yankee off the autograph list.

Another new addition

Well, It's been a while since I've been able to add 2 boobleheads to the collection in a weeks time, but thats what I was able to do this past week. First the Derek Jeter Bobble arrived, then I got this gem in the mail.This is a Woody booblehead doll, customized to him wearing Yankee colors. Anyone who collects bobbles knows that Disney released Woody and Buzz Lightyear bobbleheads wearing the colors of various baseball teams. Off the top of my head, I know that the San Fransisco Giants and the Chicago White Sox had Toy Story Bobbleheads released. I'm pretty sure the New York Mets had them as well. Not sure who else. I do know of one team that did not have them and that was the New York Yankees and I wanted to rectify that.

Enter my new friend Paul. He, like I am, is a member of a great bobblehead forum over at bobbleheaddolls51565.yuku.com/forum. If your a bobblehead collector like I am, I strongly urge you to join up (and tell them yankeesjetsfan sent you). He had originally made a Giants Woddy bobblehead. I let him know how good it came out and he dropped me a line letting me know he would be willing to make one for me, wearing Yankee colors. We negoiated a price and my Wody arrived yesterday.

I think Paul did a fantastic job with it. Lets take a closer look.

As you can see from the first picture, Woody is decked out in the Yankee road grays. Here's a picture of him from the back. Woody has his name on the back of the uni and is wearing a number 04. He also has a pull string, which helps him talk. Then again, if you've seen any of Toy Story Movies, you know that Woody really didn't need the pull string to talk.

Here's a view of Woody's cap, sporting the world famous interlocking NY of the New York Yankees

And finally, a view of the block on the base of the bobble, also sporting the interlocking NY.

I think Paul did a fantastic job of this customization and I'm very happy to add it to my Yankees bobblehead collection. Customizing bobbleheads are starting to become a hobby that a lot of collectors are trying their hand at. If you on youtube and run a search for slideball and SamuelYLam, you will see videos of some amazing work. I've been wanting to try my hand at converting the Peanuts bobbleheads that were given out by the Giants, Pirates and Angels, but it seems Samuel beat me to it. You can also check the bobble boards for some pics of other work as well.

I have been wanting to add more variety to my bobblehead collection. Although Disney has made Mickey, Goofy and Daffy Yankee bobbleheads, of yet I have been able to snag any of, they did not make any Toy Story, nor were there any Peanuts Yankee bobbleheads produced. As a fan of both, being able to customize these bobbles will be a fun way to add to the growing collection. Hopefully, my efforts will turn out as nice as Paul's Woody.

Thanks Paul.