Darwin Barney Gold Glove Replica Stadium Giveaway

I'll probably watch 100+ Cubs game this years between WGN,a friend with an MLB.TV account and hopefully catching the three game series in Washington in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, this will mark about twenty years in a row without stepping foot into Wrigley Field. As a Cubs fan, that's sad in and of itself but it seems like they are really kicking it up a notch in the giveaways department too.

After hearing about the Darwin Barney Gold Glove Replica, I headed over to eBay. I wasn't in a big rush to get one because I know they usually are pretty pricey right out of the gate. Sometimes you can catch things for a good deal when the're listed to end at an odd time or there's some kind of spelling error, but while there were plenty of them available, I didn't see any obvious steals.

Later that day, I read Wrigley Wax's post that he was actually at the game and came away with three(!) of them with help from his family. I'm sure a lot of you team collectors know how tough it is to trade with other collectors of your team. I've been reading WW for two plus years, writing my own blog now for a year but this was the first opportunity I saw to maybe work out a trade. But what could I possibly have of value that WW wouldn't already have?

My usual reaction to a Wrigley Wax post.

When I jumped back into the hobby I came across the Topps Vault on eBay with blank back 1/1's. I picked up a couple of Cubs including Darwin Barney, Ryne Sandberg, and Starlin Castro but quickly reined in the spending. Eventually I picked up the Tony Campanas when I could but no more of these since then. While Darwin Barney is my favorite current Cub (almost by default though), I knew the card would have much more meaning to someone with a Barney PC.

Long story short, the deal worked out! He got his card and wrote about it here and I received my replica trophy:

It looks much better in person, trust me. It's about half the size of a bobble head but just as heavy/sturdy.

I repurposed the hard plastic cardholder that came with my repack box from last week, printed out a small photo of Barney holding the actual award and trimmed it to fit (sort of). You can't see much of the photo once the award is placed inside but the award itself is a perfect fit for the case. It works for me just fine!

Thanks for the trade Paul!

And here are a couple of other fun relevant pictures:

A photo from Twitter of Barney holding the replica, most likely for promotional purposes.

And a little tongue in cheek humor I found.

2012 Topps Jeff Baker

I don’t know why this card intrigues me but it does.

2012 Topps Jeff Baker Bearded Guy

My first thought when I saw the iconic Wrigley Field marquee on the card was one of my favorite blogs, Wrigley Wax, which uses a personalized version of it as the header. As he does with all his new team sets, a few days later Paul posted his write up about the 2012 Series 2 Cubs team set. Knowing of his periodical use of Photoshop to correct Topps mistakes, I left a comment suggesting he make a few alterations to include replacing the marquee with the one from his header photo. You can see his modified version here.

Normally, with a guy like Jeff Baker, this card probably would have been scanned, logged, put in the binder and forgotten about. I took my kids to a Nationals-Cubs game in 2010 and Baker turned down my kids’ autograph requests in a very similar situation to the one in the picture. Suffice to say, I'm not his biggest fan. It’s his prerogative not to sign, but it’s my prerogative to not care if he's one of the casualties of the impending dismantling and rebuild of the team.

But Jeff Baker isn't what I focused on with this card. As I mentioned yesterday, in my Sandberg Sunday post, I've been giving cards a deeper look and trying to learn more about them. Unfortunately, this card asks more questions than it answers.

Who is the bearded guy? Does he know he's on a card?

Did he sign a standard $75 contract with Topps for the use of his likeness that thetoppsvault sells on ebay like the players?

What is he getting autographed? Surely he's not getting signatures on the back of a marquee sign??

A little more research turned up this photo through Getty Images:

Unless he is just using the sign for support, it does appear he’s getting the back of the marquee signed. While the caption given by Getty does not give the name of this bearded fellow, it does mention it was Opening Day against the Pirates on April 1, 2011.

Ah, such optimism for the fan with his sign. As we all know, last year was not the year. And it doesn't look too promising this year either.

A little blog cleaning starts with a good...

SWEEP!

Most of the time, sweeping the worst team in baseball (Sorry Marcus!) isn't something to get all excited about. But when your team gets swept in 4 consecutive series to make for a 12 game losing streak, there probably isn't a whole lot to get excited about anyway. I wasn't able to watch yesterday's Cubs game (stupid CSN, more games on WGN please!) but I followed the game log online while doing a few other things. These days, I'll take any victory and the come from behind walk-off variety makes it that much sweeter. 

I've been fiddling with some other custom card designs and a great photo from yesterday's game inspired this newspaper-ish one:

   

I originally had it all black and white but it looked a little too blah so I kept Darwin Barney in color. The design was loosely based on this old Ernie Banks card although I'm not a big fan of the red lettering: 

(Ernie Banks 1961 Nu Card, photo courtesy of Wrigley Wax)

I would love to hear any feedback, suggestions and even critiques. 

On to the housecleaning...

I went through my list of those following my blog and if I wasn't following their blog(s) yet, I am now. If I missed you or know of one I should be following, let me know because I'm always looking for more. 

So after I mentioned the other day that I regretted selling someone a couple of teams from the Case Break at a cheaper price just to be rid of them and that it may have unintentionally given them an edge on winning anything randomized, that said someone felt besmirched. That was not my intent! I explained that I didn't realize the possible implications and was merely disappointed in myself for not seeing it. He explained his team had already been selected, he was merely looking for trade bait and that anything extra would have been just that, extra.

Well, we hugged it out (email wise) and decided to dissolve our transaction. I refunded the money, no hard feelings, no backroom deal shenanigans or collusion (as alluded to in a separate email by a third party). Maybe this only worked out because I didn't pull anything worth randomizing but I wanted to air everything out and put it to bed now. Learn something new every time I do a break.

That said, I now have a couple of teams available for trade bait of my own from the break. Willing to move these as team lots or pick and choose to help fill your sets:

Angels - Jered Weaver x7, Dan Haren x8, Albert Pujols x9, Ervin Santana x6, Jordan Walden x9, Torii Hunter x6, Mark Trumbo x8, Howie Kendrick x6

Indians - Grady Sizemore x7, Shin-Soo Choo x8, Justin Masterson x7, Ubaldo Jimenez x9, Carlos Santana x8, Asdrubal Cabrera x6, Lonnie Chisenhall x8, Casey Kotchman x8

Mets - Tom Seaver x6, Johan Santana x7, Darryl Strawberry x7, Ike Davis x7, RA Dickey x6, Lucas Duda x9, David Wright x9, Gary Carter x7

Rays - Matt Moore x6, Jeremy Hellickson x8, BJ Upton x6, Desmond Jennings x6, Evan Longoria x8, Ben Zobrist x8, David Price x8, James Shields x9

Rockies - Drew Pomeranz x6, Troy Tulowitski x6, Todd Helton x8, Marco Scutaro x7, Carlos Gonzalez x9

Twins - Joe Mauer x7, Justin Morneau x6

I could probably be persuaded to part with some of the Cubs and Nationals team sets as well.

Also, my Want List has been updated for Archives. I'm in the middle of some trades for GQ and Bowman so those lists are completely up to date just yet. Thanks for any help!

Jerome Walton

Since I just posted my Want List yesterday there isn't anything to update. So as promised, here is more Jerome Walton.

Thanks to two very helpful members over at sportscollectors.net (Macey225 & rifon), I knocked out over 30 autographs from a childhood favorite at very reasonable prices. Now, before you judge, I don't normally go so overboard on one player's signature like this. And both were paid signings not just some random public sighting.

Also, I do have a soft spot for the 1989 Cubs, AKA the Boys of Zimmer so what started out innocently enough as just a couple of Topps cards, an ice cream helmet and my ATCRCS card, quickly turned into, "Let's see how many Cubs cards this guy has!" Thanks also go to Paul from Wrigley Wax for providing such a comprehensive checklist. The post itself is old but links to an updated file at the very end. I'll start with the ATCRCS (seen unsigned at the end of yesterday's post) and another set card with the rest to be shown off in the future, maybe a Signature Saturday.

Today's ATCRCS card of the day: