Monday, February 2, 2015

I have this card!!!!


This is one crazy hobby. In the middle of January I posted a card I was in need of for my fantasy football player collection. I'm very, very anal about that collection. I've been known to pass up on a waiver claim because the guy didn't have a readily available card. Yes, I'm that dumb. But whatever.

While researching something else I discovered that I lacked a card for kicker Jose Cortez, a guy I'd had for a few weeks in 2001 and had slipped under my (once thought to be impenetrable) card radar. Googling found me this NFL Showdown card from 2002 (or 2003, there is some debate there). It also showed me that the card was ridiculously difficult to find. I'm still not sure why. I figured I'd spent a ton of time in search of it. Probably even longer than my continuing search for the elusive Randy Burke Colts "card". In the meantime I printed out a internet shot of the card and stuck it in my binder as a placeholder.

Soooo...just four hours after my whining post is published Raz, from the Raz Card Blog lets me know that he JUST BOUGHT THAT VERY CARD! Are you serious? And if it showed up (he said it was a 'sketchy website') he would ship it my way.

To fully appreciate how great that made me feel you'd have to understand my obsession with my fantasy player collection. I usually snag a card of anyone I pick up on our Wednesday waivers before I go to bed or else risk the chance of losing sleep by thinking about picking up a card of that player.

But our long national nightmare is over*. Raz' package arrived Saturday and I've got my NFL Showdown Cortez card. I still am not really sure what they were all about other than the fact that they were part of a game.

The front of the card is about what you'd expect from a card that is part of a dice roll game. If you removed that part you would have a fairly nice looking card. The backs of all the NFL Showdown cards are generic.


But the Cortez card wasn't all Raz included in the envelope. He included some modern Japanese cards including some of current MLB guys. I didn't realize that those existed. I'm fascinated by all the Japanese baseball culture and I like puzzling over the backs of these things.  One of my Japanese card guides has a translation section that helps me figure out the player info and stat categories on older cards. The new ones are easier.






These are the two MLB players of some sort of Topps/Japanese/Sega cards. Like a lot of the modern Japanese cards these have very 'busy' backs.




Last but not least Raz included A&G minis of Manny Machado, Adam Jones and Crush Davis. The Machados are different colors. Never seen that before.


And what's this? A Bob Dylan A&G mini which I've blown up. I only began to appreciate Dylan in the last ten years but in that time I think I've acquired about 75% of his non-bootleg discography.


Now that I've got a Jose Cortez card I'm no longer a worried man with a worried mind. Thanks again, Raz. I'm very very grateful for your generosity.



*=tip of the cap to former President Gerald R. Ford

10 comments:

  1. I'm happy you got the Cortez, but I'm far more interested in the Japanese cards.

    I wonder if that Buehrle is the only one to show him actually wearing a Marlins uniform (as opposed to being photoshopped into one).

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    1. Hell, I thought he was still in Chicago :::blush:::

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  2. Congrats on getting that one! I never got into the fantasy sports deal myself- I tried, but I couldn't keep up. The only fantasy sports I do is dream about cards I can't afford, lol.

    It always strikes me as interesting/funny when the Japanese market cards have random words in English, and all the team names/logos are not in Japanese. But then again I find strange things funny.

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    1. Thru the years my league has been a great way to keep up with my college friends (this was pre-Facebook LOL). Playing with friends makes it good. Playing in some anonymous online league with guys you don't know is not much fun.


      Football is pretty easy. You spend a few minutes a week and you're done. I tried fantasy baseball. It was like taking on a second job. You have to work it seven days a week relentlessly.

      I think you've hit on one of the great charms of Japanese cards, btw.

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  3. Those are some nice cards, and congrats on finding that lost kicker.

    Bobby D!
    As a Minnesotan, we claim Bob Dylan as a native son. My mom and her friend have been crazy about Dylan and all things Dylan since the 1960s.
    "Blood on the Tracks" and "Bringing it All Back Home" are my favorite albums. That's pretty cool that he's got an A&G card.

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    1. He's one of those you love him or you hate him artists. I had a friend in college who was a huge fan. But I never 'got it' back then. I came to Dylan late in life.

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  4. I think I got the Cortez card for $0.50 plus shipping, so it wasn't a huge burden to grab it when I found an available copy. I'm not sure if the seller was aware how in-demand the card seems to be.

    I'm glad you liked the extras I sent along with the main attraction. One of the things that keeps me from trading as often as I'd like is the fear that the person on the other end won't like what I've sent.

    The A & G minis are from a custom set made by a friend of the Nachos Grande blog in the style of 2008 Allen & Ginter, so they aren't official Topps A & G cards. Bob Dylan just happened to make it onto the checklist. There are a few variations in the set, including the Machado background variation.

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    1. I just never snapped to the A&Gs being custom. I didn't snap to the 2008 thing on the front. LOL Goes to show how ignorant I am on current cards.... whoever did them did a hell of a job.

      What made you buy the Cortez? Collect the set? 49ers guy?

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    2. I saw your post about it and thought, "I wonder if I can find that card?" When I did find it I considered just sending you a message with the link so you could grab it, but then I worried that someone else would buy it before you got my message. So I bought it to make sure no one else would, because it was cheap and it was the only copy out there that I could uncover.

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    3. RAZ that makes it even cooler. You did a lot better than I did in finding it. I thought I had really dug hard and I consider myself a pretty good internet detective. I'm going to audit my FF collection soon to see if anyone else is missing. I'll let you know LOL

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