30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Gasoline, New Orleans Jazz, Ray Jackson, and a Math Lesson!

If you're a teacher, you've inevitably been asked... Why do I need to know how to do this? Well today kiddies... I'm going to explain how I figured out the total amount of money I spent on gas, when I drove to Saturday's card show.

Step 1: I calculated the mileage. According to Google Maps, the route I took is approximately 49 miles. So the roundtrip distance was 98 miles.

Step 2: I calculated how much gas I used driving that distance. Since my Toyota averages 32 to 33 miles per gallon and I drove 98 miles, I estimated that I used around 3 gallons of gas on my trip. In other words, I divided the 98 miles by 32 (miles per gallon), then rounded to the nearest whole number.

Step 3: I calculated how much money it took to fill my car up with 3 gallons of gas. Today, I went to Shell and spent $3.59/gallon on gas. Since I used roughly 3 gallons of gas on my trip, I multiplied $3.59 by 3 gallons. Survey says... $10.77.

Now, I'm sure you're all wondering. Why the heck do I care how much you spent on gas?

The answer is... I don't know. I just wanted to see if I truly spent more on gas, than I did on buying cards at this past Saturday's show.

And guess what... I did spend more on gas. I spent a total of $5 on food, $8 on cards, $9 on supplies, and $10.77 on gas.

In short... the show stunk... but at least I was able to pick up some cheap singles... that when you factor in the cost of food, gas, and time... didn't really turn out to be that cheap. Here's a recap of my major card show haul:

Purchase #1: 76 cards for $7

Baseball Cards

I picked up a bunch of 90's inserts for my PC. My favorites were easily these 1991 Fleer Pro-Visions. By now you understand my obsession over "refractors", so the Jose Reyes was a must. The 1986 Topps Traded Bobby Bonilla and the 1983 Fleer Willie McGee rookies were both must haves twenty-five years ago... which means they're must haves for my 80's rookie card collection. And last, but not least, there's the 1978 Topps Rollie Fingers. This is easily my favorite baseball card in the lot. It features one of my favorite players from the 80's in the classic yellow and brown Padres uniform. Simply beautiful.

Football Cards

An insert of Dorsey Levens for my Packers PC. A Terrell Owens addition to my 90's insert PC. A cool 1983 sticker of The Diesel. A vintage card of a HOF kicker. A gold parallel rookie card of Seattle's overpaid and overrated receiver... who happens to share the same birthday as me. And to top it off... a few 1989 Topps rookie cards of a future HOFer, a Packers legend, and of a current HOFer.

Basketball Cards

It was slim pickings when it came to basketball cards this time around. I had to add the Hardaway, since I love oddballs and Timmy is a legend in the Bay Area. The Baron Davis will fit nicely into my all-new Golden State PC. Anytime you can find a vintage HOFer card for ten cents, you have to grab it... so the Goodrich was a must. Plus, I had no idea he played on the New Orleans Jazz. Actually... I didn't even realize that the Jazz once played in New Orleans. FYI: I started following basketball in the mid 80's.


Finally, there's this sweet 1994 Flair Pat Summit card. In August, Summit was diagnosed with onset dementia, an illness that she shares with my 102 year old grandmother. When I heard the story, I immediately wanted to find one of her cards and found out she was part of a subset in the 1994 Flair USA set. I made several offers on some cards/sets, but nobody responded. And now, I know why. It's because I was meant to find this beauty in a ten cent bin.


Purchase #2: Supplies $9

Yep... I spent more money on supplies, than on cards. That's how bad the show was. If you didn't read my Sunday post, the I'll provide a short recap. I drove almost an hour to get to a mall show that had less than 20 dealers. Selection was poor, but at least I was able to pick up two supplies I needed: Magazine Bags & 8x10 Sleeves.


Purchase #3: An autograph and 5 singles $1


I went back to the guy with 10 cent singles. This time, I decided to get a little crazy and look through his 50 cent singles. That's when I found this sweet 1995 Signature Rookies Draft Day autograph of Ray Jackson.

Who the heck is Ray Jackson, you ask? He's the only member of Michigan's Fab Five to not play in the NBA. And I'm now the proud owner of his John Hancock.

I wasn't able to find any other 50 cent singles, so I ended up picking out five more 10 cent cards... but none of them were anything special... just a few Joe Montana cards for my students.


Freebie #1: 1997/98 Topps Chrome "Refractor" Byron Scott


After making my way around the show... I decided to hang out at my buddy's table. He brought out a bunch of singles that he was selling for a dollar each. I helped him sort the singles and he rewarded me with this sweet refractor of Mr. Scott... who happens to be the guy who hooked me on watching the sport.

This card is actually pretty sweet and has been on my wantlist for awhile now... because it's one of his last official cards from his playing days... and actually includes all of his career stats, because he never dressed during the 97/98 season. Thanks Mike! Appreciate the freebie.

Question of the day:

Be honest... did you know that the Jazz used to play in New Orleans?

And... have you ever heard of the lost Fab Five member... Mr. Ray Jackson?

Happy Tuesday everyone... and Sayonara!

16 comments:

Ryan G said...

I think I recall New Orleans Jazz. But since I've never been a big basketball guy so who knows...

But Willie McGee may be the ugliest guy to ever play baseball.

Fuji said...

Lol... yeah, but the guy could hit. he was one of my favorite 80's ball players.

Captain Canuck said...

question one, absolutely.

question two... I'm not sure who the fab five are.... so no.

Fuji said...

captain - the fab five were five michigan freshman who reached the ncaa championship game. you've probably heard of a few of these guys: chris webber, jalen rose, juwan howard... and jimmy king.

the fifth player was ray jackson.

arpsmith said...

Question 1 - yes

Question 2 - yes and I have actually won a couple beers by answering that trivia question!

Fuji said...

arpsmith - damn... looks like i'm in the minority when it comes to New Orleans Jazz knowledge. congrats on the beer winnings ;-)

Play at the Plate said...

Yes and yes.

Can I get a timeout?

Fuji said...

play at the play - in middle school... we don't give timeouts, we hand out detention ;-)

damn... looks like i need to wear the "dunce" cap when it comes to new orleans basketball history

Ryan G said...

Do kids actually show up for detention in middle school? My high schoolers never showed up.

Mike said...

Yes to both. In the ESPN documentary about the Five Jackso states he could have had a better shot at the pros if he had gone to another school but would not change his decision if he could. That is really a joke. Yes, I am not a fab five fan.

Fuji said...

ryan - yeah, they pretty much respect the rules. i've never had a student not show up. i'm sure they miss some of the administration assigned detentions, but i think if they do, they get suspended.

mike - interesting... i wonder what webber, rose, and howard think.

Jeff Laws said...

no and yes.

Being a Michigan fan, the 2nd one is a duh! to me.

Fuji said...

jeff - finally another guy on the planet who hadn't heard of the new orleans jazz.

Offy said...

The NBA is the worst for displaced team names. The last time that I checked, Utah wasn't known for their Jazz. There also aren't many lakes in Los Angeles. There are plenty of lakes in Minnesota where the Minneapolis Lakers once played.

One of the things that made busting those 6 or 7 boxes of Panini Basketball Hall of Fame were the two Pat Summit redemption cards that I pulled. I ended up selling one, but the other card is going to be a permanent part of my collection. That's like pulling a Connie Mack autograph out of baseball or a Vince Lombardi autograph out of football.

While I like Hoops, I've never been a fan of the college game so the Fab Five question would have stumped me.

Fuji said...

mike - that pat summitt autograph is one sweet pc addition... one of these days i'll have to look into adding one to my collection too.

being a lakers fan, i knew about the history of the team name and their journey from minneapolis... but the whole new orleans jazz thing slipped by me.

Offy said...

It just surprises me that both of those teams, with names inspired by their original cities, kept the same team name when they moved. Being the second most successful team in the NBA, the Lakers have become iconic and now it doesn't even matter that the name came from elsewhere, but I would love to see New Orleans be able to get the Jazz nickname back for their team. Utah can be the Salt Lakers. :)