“Historic” Purchase

Ok so I’m abusing the word “historic” here, but I as a collector like cards that have a history, but are new enough to have come out while I was alive. Like the 1990 Topps Frank Thomas NNOF RC, 1989 Upper Deck Griffey RC. In a lot of ways I’m the opposite of a prospector. A card blows up, goes through the roof and I’ll think “Man, I want that”. 5-10 years later the market may have died for the card completely but that’s when I come back to it and buy it for the memory of what it was. I recently bought several Griffey RCs graded in the 8s and 9s. Not because I think it’s a good investment, but because I remember looking through Beckett and seeing the outrageous prices graded RCs held.

Anyways on that note I just thought of a card, well a set, that made a huge impact in recent baseball card history. 1997 Upper Deck Game Jersey.

Aubrey Huff Knows How to Offend a City (old news)

I mentioned Aubrey Huff quite awhile back in regards to the Oh Say Can You Sing CD he was featured on along with Matt Ginter, Ben Broussard, Scott Linebrink, Coco Crisp, Jimmy Rollins, Omar Vizquel, Jeff Conine, Sean Casey, and Kelly Wunsch.

Well his song was spoofed after he called Baltimore a “horseshit city”on Sirius Radio’s Bubba the Love Sponge show and I know I’m in no way breaking ground here, but I figured since I had video for his version I should put up the video of the spoof. It’s pretty funny, but watch out for language. After the break.

What the Zeus Virus Looks Like

I thought I knew about all the phishing techniques, and they all sounded pretty avoidable. How in the hell had I never heard of this? It’s a beauty and it’s called a Zeus Virus.

Zeus is a financial malware. It infects consumer PCs, waits for them to log onto a list of targeted banks and financial institutions, and then steals their credentials and sends them to a remote server in real time. Additionally, it may inject HTML into the pages rendered by the browser, so that its own content is displayed together (or instead of) the genuine pages from the bank’s web server. Thus, it is able to ask the user to divulge more personal information, such as payment card number and PIN, one time passwords and TANs, etc.

Not only can most virus software not detect it, but you can be looking right at the effects of it and fail to see it yourself.

Brian Giles Retires

Seeing that Brian Giles retired is no surprise. What is surprising is how I came across the news. I was just looking through transactions on MLB.com and amid all the assignments and options I saw “RF Brian Giles retired.” Simple as that. I don’t know if the story made the MLB.com News front page. I’m sure it didn’t make the main MLB.com front page (correct if I’m wrong). I only mention this because, it’s wild how quickly a guy, even a solid major leaguer, can disappear from baseball. If I hadn’t looked at the transactions I might not have figured it out for a really long time.

Refreshingly Blunt Thoughts From Mark Grace

I was just looking through the January 25, Sports Illustrated with Brett Favre on the cover and I came across a little blurb in their Scorecard section. Former Chicago Cub and Arizona Diamondback, Mark Grace was explaining why it was he never used steroids in his playing career. “I just new that stuff was really bad for you. I am single now. I was a single guy then. I like my sex life. I want to be able to perform. It’s kind of funny. It’s kind of not. That stuff will tear you up as far as your manhood is concerned.”

Dock Ellis and the LSD Induced No-Hitter

If you have never heard the story of Dock Ellis’s June 12, 1970 no-hitter this is the way to hear it. In fact, even if you have heard it, you still need to see this. You see Ellis was high on LSD, not to mention he’d just taken Benzedrine when he threw that no-no. Now using drugs isn’t cool at all. But with that being said, one of the reasons it’s not cool is that drug users tend to accomplish very little. So it’s pretty remarkable that Dock was able to go out and throw a no-hitter while in such a state of mind. So listen to his account of that crazy day.

It should be noted that Dock Ellis later went on to live a drug-free life and worked as a full-time drug counselor before his death in 2008 and accomplished much more in his life than simply throwing a no-hitter on LSD.

New Printing Plate

I got another printing plate today. This means I’ve gone from zero one-of-ones to three in just a couple months. Which just goes to show how common and far from rare they are. Individually of course, they are very rare. But if you want a “one-of-one” you can get one easily. This is a Chris Denorfia 2006 Flair Showcase. Denorfia played 67 games for the Cincinnati Reds from 2005 to 2006, so it’s a good card for my team collection. He has not really made a hobby impact or an impact in the big leagues, but only a few do. He’ll be headed to spring training with the San Diego Padres and hopefully he will see some time on their big league roster this year.

He only has one standout item on eBay right now and that’s 2006 Upper Deck Auto-Facts printing plate. The seller wants $49.95. I don’t think it will sell. I got my plate for much cheaper than that.

Mark Grudzielanek Signs With the Indians

Cleveland signed Mark Grudzielanek to a minor league deal today. Is it just me or does it seem like he’s been in baseball for forever? I looked at his stats though and the one-time All-Star did hit .299 in 2008 in 86 games for the Kansas City Royals so he seems still quite viable as a major league baseball player though he didn’t get a shot in the bigs last season. Hopefully he’ll find a spot on the big league roster this year.

It’s amazing how few of his items you’ll find on eBay considering he’s played 14 seasons up to this point.

Aroldis Chapman Card to Get

Right now could be the best time ever to sell Aroldis Chapman baseball cards. If he doesn’t live up to the hype the prices will fall, and probably drastically. Naturally that means it’s not a good time to buy Chapman. Even though his cards do have room to grow more valuable, it simply isn’t likely. Being as he is a new Cincinnati Red, I’d like to add some Chapman cards to my collection. After scanning eBay though I decided I’ll wait. The prices aren’t horrible or anything, I just don’t want his cards so badly that I can’t wait for them to devalue. That being said, here is a Chapman card I came across that would be an awesome addition.

eBay Gift Cards on eBay

I just noticed that if you search eBay for eBay gift cards you’ll find them going for a dollar or two above their value. I looked and you can buy them on eBay with free shipping. You can even get them personalize and customized. But people would rather pay a slight premium to get them from other sources. Can anyone explain this to me? Frankly it seems stupid. Take this one for instance $100 in gift cards. Currently at $103.53 and the seller only has a feedback score of 28. What gives?