How to NOT run an ebay listing…

I came across this listing today and had to laugh. First off, I love this title…

2008 TOPPS ALL STAR GIANT PATCH JUSTIN MORNEAU CPR-JM

Ok, I’ll admit that the word “GIANT” in the title piqued my interest and I had to check it out. I wasn’t really familiar with any oversized patch card from the All-Star Game for Morneau but I figured I should check it out. It turns out that the card being sold is the one here to the right. Maybe it’s me, but this is a pretty much worthless card and they routinely sell for under $2 on ebay.

This ebay listing is a mess. Not only is there no picture, but the description of the card itself is very vague. It doesn’t tell you what product the card is from and thank goodness there hasn’t been any clueless ebay buyer who has stumbled upon this and placed a bid.

Here’s a tip….even if the card you’re selling is likely not to go for much, take a damn picture!! The last time I checked, the first picture is free so there really is no excuse!

One Month In – Let’s Look At The Cubs

Phil Rogers had a great column up this morning where he took a look at some of Jim Hendry’s moves from the winter and gave them a grade and some follow up comments. I thought it was a perfect topic after watching the Cubs bumble their way to a 10-0 loss to the D’Backs yesterday.

The Milton Bradley Signing (F) – This one gets a big fat F because there really is no lower grade to give. At the time of this signing, I was a little aprehensive but Jim Hendry has made good decisions in the past so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Now…it is seriously blowing up in his face. Bradley has been hurt for what seems like the entire month. For some reason he was never put on the DL, which makes zero sense to me. He has also been suspended by the league and has clashed with the Chicago media.

Sadly, we’re stuck with crazy Uncle Milty since Hendry felt the need to throw a 3-year $30M contract his direction when no other teams were really bidding on him. You may remember from some of my past posts, but I was suffering from a serious man-crush on Adam Dunn and wanted him in Chicago. Sure, his defense is crap but these team needs offense and Dunn would have given that at a far lesser salary and fewer distractions.

Hey, Let’s Trade Mark DeRosa (F) – I remember the day this happened and I thought that a trade of DeRosa and his salary would eventually lead to Jake Peavy. Alas, that did not happen so Hendry essentially traded away the best utility man in baseball for some minor leaguers that won’t sniff the majors this year. Why? Was he looking to get Mike Fontenot in the lineup more? Couldn’t that have been done without trading DeRosa? How do you trade away your best backup at positions like 3B and 1B? And….as you can see now, the Cubs could really use a backup 3B that is fit to play there since Ramirez is banged up. DUMB, DUMB, DUMB!

The New Utility Guy – Aaron Miles (F) – This guy does realize the point of an at-bat is to swing the bat like you really intend to hit the ball, right? Seriously, what the hell was this signing? You mean to tell me someone seriously thought we were better off with Aaron Miles than Mark DeRosa? In what freakish dimension does that even make sense? Miles has been a disaster at the plate. I’ve seen 8-9 at-bats where he’s either stood there and not swung the bat or just flails at the ball. Seriously, if that’s what they are paying him for, I’ll do that for half of what they are paying him. Sign me up.

We Don’t Need Another Lefty, We Have Neal Cotts! (F) – I really want to root for Neal since he went to college (Illinois State) in the town where I now live, but this Neal Cotts is not anything like the Cotts who was nails for the White Sox in 2005. He has been a trainwreck in almost every appearance. He is having trouble finding the plate and you can’t be a big league pitcher with a 2.80 WHIP and an opponent’s batting average of .381. Yeah, that’s right…..381! The only reason he has a job is that he’s left-handed. There were plenty of lefty relievers on the market this year but Hendry sat on what he had in Cotts and now we’re paying for it.

Wait….What About Koyie Hill? (A) – Finally!! A decision that actually has paid off! I admit it, I’m becoming a Koyie Hill fan. Hill beat out Paul Bako during Spring Training to snag the backup catcher gig and it has worked perfectly for the Cubs. Geo Soto has struggled this season with his bat and a nagging shoulder injury so Hill has had plenty of chances to show what he can do. The guys handles the pitching staff well and he happens to be hitting .370. So, good job Mr. Hendry…you got one right.

It’s only been one month so there is a chance all of these things right themselves but I’m not going to hold my breath. I think Bradley will remain a distraction the entire year and since Hendry gave him a stupid contract, the Cubs are stuck with him no matter what. The DeRosa thing is the one I think that is going to be the hardest to overcome. Guys like that are valuable for a reason…because they are hard to find. When you have one, you don’t give him away and you certainly don’t replace him with Aaron Miles.

Shameless Plug: My St. Jude Fundraiser

It’s not often that you get a chance to plug something you’re doing to an unlimited amount of people, but with this blog I have just that opportunity so I am going to take it.

I am the director of a fundraiser called the Swinging Bunt Benefit (www.swingingbunt.org). It is put on each spring and raises money for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. The main piece of our event is a slow pitch softball tournament that is done in “draft style”. What that means is that players sign up as individuals and then are “drafted” to the teams by the various captains. It ends up with very balanced teams and we have a great tournament. We have grown in numbers each year and this year we will have 216 players making up 18 teams and that makes us the largest Super Draft tournament in the country, which is a nice accomplishment.

We also hold a Benefit Party on the Friday night (4/24 this year) before the tournament. At the party we conduct a lot of raffles to help us raise our total donation to St. Jude. We actually sell raffle tickets on our website for anyone who cannot attend the party and it is open to anyone. So if anyone is interested you can check out our raffle items and buy a ticket towards anything you’re interested in winning. If you win, I’ll ship you the prize. Just so I know, put “NMM” in the comments field so I know you got there from here.

This is our third year doing this event and I have to say that it is well worth all the headaches I get from planning it. In our first year we managed to raise $3,200 for St. Jude, which I thought was great. Then last year we raised an amazing $8,000 and I was floored! I probably should have gotten this up a lot sooner in case anyone was wanting to order a shirt from us. If you are interested, drop me an email since I have a feeling we’ll be ordering extra shirts soon.

Our tournament is this Saturday and I’m excited and nervous both at the same time. I think I’ve ironed out all the bugs in our three years but it still causes me to lose some sleep in this last week. So if I’m not posting much this week, you now know why.

I’m Embarrassed To Be A Cub Fan

This post will surely make one reader very happy…

Today I will publicly admit that the majority of Cub fans are douchebags! There…I said it. You happy now Jim?

On Saturday afternoon, the Cubs and Cardinals played the third game of a four game series. Late in the game during a vital at-bat against Carlos Marmol, Albert Pujols laced a screamer foul down the third base line and just tagged the third-base coach, Jose Oquendo. And Wrigley Field went nuts with cheers.

Are you freaking kidding me?!? You actually cheer when a coach gets hurt? And believe me….that really hurt Oquendo. Do these drunken idiots not remember that just recently, a first base coach (Mike Coolbaugh) lost his life when he was struck by a foul ball in the head. Granted, Oquendo was nailed in the leg so he’s obviously going to live but being hit with a line drive hit that hard in the leg can still do major damage.

Maybe someone else has brought this up on a message board or a blog or something over the weekend but I felt the need to write about it today. I generally try to stick up for fellow Cub fans but this is just stupid. If you really wonder why other Major League fans make fun of you after this, you’ve had one too many Old Styles!

P.S. – don’t get me wrong, I am still a die-hard Cub fan and always will be, but after this, I’m done sticking up for the morons.

TPP: Peavy Jumbo!

As much as I love my new Patchworks Project, it’s starting to get real tough. I’m finding that I’m very picky about the patch cards I like. It just so turns out that the patch cards I love seem to be the same patch cards that a lot of others love and prices are getting pretty high. I’ve still managed to score a couple that I thought were pretty good prices and I’ll get those up over the next couple of days. This first one to show off is this beauty…

This is a Jake Peavy “Career Best” jumbo patch from 2009 Topps Series I and is numbered #5/20. I actually won this card almost 3 weeks ago and it took forever to get here (more on that later). Maybe I’m a sucker, but I LOVE these jumbo patches. If they didn’t cost an arm and a leg, I would make jumbo patches my new thing and buy only those. But people go crazy for these things and the prices get pretty high. I managed to score this one for what I think is a steal at $40. At the Sun-Times Show I was at a few weeks ago, some seller wanted $300 for a similar Derrek Lee jumbo patch. Are you insane?!? $300?? Ugh! But I digress….

The patch itself is from the front of Peavy’s home Padres jersey and is very clearly the “a” in the word Padres. It’s a beautiful looking patch that features three colors and a good portion of the jersey. I really like it.

Now comes the bad part. If you look at the scan (you don’t even have to look all that closely), you’ll see a pretty significant crease coming out of the bottom right corner of the patch window. That was not there in the auction picture and the seller claimed the card was in “perfect cond.”. Well, let me tell you what happened. This jack ass of a seller charged me $4.00 for shipping and then shipped this card in a plain white envelope. On top of that, the card was in a toploader in between two pieces of cardboard and sliding all over the envelope! Are you f’n kidding me?!?!?

In addition to that one very visible crease, there were creases coming from the top two window corners and one along the left side of the card. Needless to say, I was pissed and I’m still pissed. Listen….if you’re going to sell cards on ebay, you better damn well be prepared to ship these cards in bubble mailers and ensure they arrive safely. There is no excuse for this. The seller received a pretty nasty email from me so we’ll see what he offers to do. I don’t really want to return the card for my money back since I was geeked to win it and I doubt I’ll ever win another one for that kind of money. I would be happy to get a portion of my payment back, which I feel is fair. We’ll see.

Cards I Used To Own: Adam Lind

I mentioned yesterday that I’d put a post out here to show off some Adam Lind cards that I used to own. Lind happens to be one of the hottest players in the league right now and his cards are showing that. Cards that I used to get for $5 are now well over $20 and some cards that I had eyes for before are now out of my budget.

I’m glad to see Lind do well. As I pointed out yesterday, he’s from my home state of Indiana and I try to follow those guys as best I can and I’m glad to see Adam do well. So here are a few things that I used to have:

  

The jersey I got from a box of Just Minors Mystery Jerseys last year. At the time, I had a hell of a time getting it sold. I bet that wouldn’t be the case now. The card I miss though is the Sweet Spot barrel card. It was a nice looking card and Adam provided one of the few silver signatures on the barrels that you can actually make out. I also had about the full set of Lind’s “By The Letter” cards from the 2007 SP Authentic. I didn’t figure anyone wanted to see a bunch of letters.

A lot has happened…

Back from Florida and back into my normal routine finally. I have to say that even though I was at a conference for work, it was nice to get away from my desk and the Illinois weather for a few days. A lot has happened though since my last post so let’s try to get caught up…

1. Baseball season is upon us!! I love all sports but I have to say that baseball is my addiction. People find it hard to believe that I am a baseball fan in general, but it’s true. I could watch any game involving any team at any time. There’s just something about baseball.

2. Milton Bradley is hurt….again….big shocker! Who had the over/under at 6 games?? Sheesh!!

3. Adam Lind is making me look like a Fantasy Baseball genius!! I drafted Lind in our little blog authors fantasy league and he has come out of the gate on fire! I have followed Lind since he was drafted since he was from my home state of Indiana and I had heard quite a bit about him from people back home. So I knew he could swing the bat, but the way he has started this season is fantastic. I really hope he can keep it up. I think tonight I’ll do a “Cards I Used to Own” with the Adam Lind cards that I’ve had and then sold off. Ugh….regret.

And while we’re at it, what a great start by Toronto. Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays dominated the off season chatter for the AL East but this Blue Jays team could surprise a lot of people. They certainly can slug with any team in the league, the key for them is the starting pitching once you get past Roy Halladay. I’d love to see them make a trade for another starting pitcher and really take a run at this. Baseball is a funny game….you just never know.

4. Nick Adenhart….seriously, how sad was that? When I saw the story on Thursday, I was in shock because I had just watched him pitch the night before and was happy to see him turn in a great performance after a rocky tenure with the team last year. The story also made me stop and think because here were three people who were killed and they did nothing wrong. They were struck down by someone else’s stupid decision. Just makes you realize that you can do everything right in your life and it can all be taken away so quickly by someone else’s stupidity. Sad….and scary.

5. NCAA Championship…..wow, what a let down. I was actually pretty excited about the game on Monday night and we piled into the sports bar in our hotel and camped out a good viewing spot of the big 25 foot screen. Then the game started and I think it was over in 90 seconds. Seriously….why on earth was Michigan State trying to run with UNC? I really thought Izzo was a smarted coach than that.

6. And now we finally get to Justin Morneau. My man Morneau has gotten off to a so-so start this season, as the Twins have stumbled out of the block to a 3-5 record. Justin has a respectable 7 RBIs after the first week but all 7 of them came in two games (3 and 4). The worrisome thing for me is that Justin is sporting a 6:1 strikeout to walk ratio after the first 8 games. He has always struck out more than he’s walked, but the ratio has never been this wide. It’s still early but I think not having Joe Mauer in the lineup is going to have some pretty telling effects on Justin’s numbers. I still expect him to put up 30+ homers and 120+ RBIs but I think the average may be down this year and the strikeouts up since teams will go right after him since he doesn’t have the protection he once had.

I am pretty confident that that Twins will bounce back and take the AL Central division but they better not continue to suck for very long. I don’t see the winner of this division being a 90+ win team, but it’s best to not fall too far behind early and then spend your entire season trying to catch up. The starting pitching, especially Liriano, has been atrocious this first week. When you don’t have an overly potent lineup, you can’t afford to be giving the other team a bunch of runs. This team just isn’t going to outscore teams each night.

Leaving On A Jet Plane….

I gotta be honest with you, early spring in the Midwest really sucks! For every one nice day we get, we have to sit through 4-5 nasty days. Hell….the other day the temperature dropped something like 20 degrees in a matter of hours and we had thunder-snows! What the hell is a thunder-snow?!?!

So when my manager emailed me the other day to tell me that someone had to back out of going to a conference next week and I was next on the list, it took me all of about 4 seconds to type out my reply of “YES!”.

I mean….come on! Look at this place! Granted, this is a digitally enhanced marketing shot, but who wouldn’t want to spend 4 nights here instead of being in Central Illinois where I think there’s a chance of snow next week??

So Sunday I get on a place in the morning and I’m off to sunny Tampa, Florida until the following Thursday. I’ll be hanging out at the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel and Marina with a ton of other data nerds attending the Enterprise Data World Conference. Sounds exciting, huh? Actually it is pretty interesting stuff and I’ve learned a lot from my past conferences so I’m actually looking forward to it.

Unfortunately the Rays will not be in town those days while I’m down there so I won’t get a chance to take in a baseball game. I also won’t have access to a car so I won’t be hitting any local card shops either, which sucks. But most of all, I’ll be away from my 2-year old for 5 days, which is the longest I’ve been away from her. That part will suck. She’s “my buddy” and I’ll miss her.

And I suppose I’ll miss my wife too.

My team in Blog Wars Fantasy Baseball

Baseball season is right around the corner and that means it is time for fantasy baseball drafts to be held all across the country (and the world for that matter). Last night we had the online draft for a fantasy league made up of some of us geeky blog authors. Dave over at Fielder’s Choice had the idea and he’s running the league and you can see from his post who is in the league.

So we had our draft last night and here is who I ended up with…

Catcher – Brian McCann – This was someone that I was actually hoping to get when the draft started. Soto may have won the NL ROY last year but I consider McCann to be the premier hitting catcher in the majors right now and I think he’ll continue to get better with another solid year this year. Catcher is a position where there are a few really good players and then there is a big dropoff so I always like to greab one of the good ones while they are still there.

First Base – Prince Fielder – I’m really counting on him to be the guy from the second half of last season and not the guy from the first half. I hope he’s over his vegetarian struggles.

Second Base – Brian Roberts – This may be a choice I come back to regret. When I made this selection, I had my choice between Roberts and Brandon Phillips and went with Roberts. I liked his 40 steal potential so let’s hope I made the right choice.

Shortstop – Hanley Ramirez – Yes, I had the #1 overall pick and went with Ramirez. It wasn’t an easy choice though since I really debated on whether to take him or Pujols. Both will fill up the stats so they are both immensely valuable. Ultimately it came down to the position for me. I felt like there were a lot more good 1B than there were SS so I went with Ramirez even though he hasn’t had all that great of a spring.

Thid Base – Alex Gordon – Eventually he’s going to be the big star everyone expected, right? Might as well be now.

Middle Infielder – Kelly Johnson – This was a late round pick so I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to go with Johnson.

Corner Infielder – Chris Davis – I honestly think Davis has a chance to be a star this year. He hits in a great hitter’s park down in Texas and hits in a very potent lineup so he’ll have a ton of RBI chances. Check out his numbers in the last two months of last year and if he can carry that forward, he’s a 30 HR and 100 RBI guy. I hope so.

Outfield – Jermaine Dye, Adam Dunn, Cameron Maybin, Adam Lind, Andre Ethier – My outfield could be a lot better. I focused a little too much on infield and pitching early and let a lot of good outfielders pass by. You know what you’re getting with Dye and Dunn and Etheir established himself pretty well after the addition of Manny last year. The wildcards here are Maybin and Lind. Both can swing the bat but I’ll need them to be consistent from the start.

Bench – Carlos Guillen and Jeff Francouer

Starting Pitchers – C.C. Sabathia, Francisco Liriano, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Floyd – Sabathia in the 3rd round was a no-brainer pick for me. I like Liriano to have a nice bounceback season this year for the Twins so pairing him up with Sabathia was nice. Wainwright should be solid so I’m not real worried there. After those three, it could get dicey. Kershaw has looked good this spring and I’m counting on him to give me a lot of K’s. The word on Carpenter is that he’s also looked good this spring and should be good to go this year so I’m really counting on that. With Floyd, I’m not real concerned with his ERA, I just need him to win 12+ games for me, which I think he’s easily capable of doing.

Relief Pitchers – Joakim Soria, Brad Lidge, Jonathan Broxton – I’m actually REALLY happy with my closers. I tend to always wait too long to grab a closer and then get burnt but last night it seemed like I lucked out since other guys waited even longer than me. Soria and Lidge are very solid so I’m not worried at all there. I think Broxton is going to surprise a lot of people. The guy throws ridiculously hard and is very tough to hit. The Dodgers should win their fair share of games, which means that Brox should have plenty of save chances.

Bench Pitcher – Jesse Litch – starting pitching at the end was pretty bare

So that is the starting roster for Morneau’s Mashers. I like my chances since I feel like I have a pretty balanced team. Yeah, the outfield situation could be better but there are a couple teams with a glut of outfielders so maybe I can work out a trade to better my team. Season starts next week…good luck to everyone else in the league!!

TPP: Two New Patch Cards

I can’t believe how into this patch thing I have become. I’m constantly searching ebay every day looking for some good stuff and I’m finding that it’s real easy to find it and surprisingly easy to not break the bank with some of this stuff. This is some of the most fun I’ve had to collecting in a long time. Two new cards today...

The first is this patch card of Reggie Wayne from the 2008 Topps Triple Threads. First off, no it’s not really this neon green in person. The light from the scanner just made it brighter. As you know, I’m a big Colts fan so getting a patch card of one of my favorite players is pretty cool. The card is numbered #2/9. All in all, the patch and the card design could be a lot better but for what I ended up paying for it, I’m certainly not complaining. I imagine I’ll upgrade my Reggie Wayne entry as time goes on. For now, this will do.

The second new card I got was this Josh Beckett card (#9/9). This is from the 2008 Triple Threads and features patches from Beckett’s All-Star Game warm up jersey from the 2007 game in San Francisco. Some people may not like these cards, but I think they’re pretty cool. They are certainly a step up from Topps’ previous attempts at the All-Star Game patch cards where they gave you a tiny window and just one small glimpse at the patch. At least with these you get three windows and you get a nice view. This was another card that I got for way cheaper than I really expected. I kinda just threw out a low bid on it and it happened to stick. Again, not complaining. Beckett is one of the best pitchers in baseball….when healthy. Sad that you actually have to make that point when discussing him.

I did manage to win a couple other cheap patch cards earlier this week but I didn’t get them paid for until yesterday so it’ll likely be next week before I get them. Most were cheap pickups but there was one card where I put down a serious bid and won it. I’m anxiously awaiting that one.