Frozen Tamales and El Toro

Cinco de Mayo is a huge here in San Jose.  I'm not sure what the turnout will be for this year's downtown celebration... but it's normally a pretty big holiday for us.

It's one of the few days I actually consume an adult beverage with friends, while feasting on some carne asada burritos, shrimp fajitas, or street tacos.  This year we won't be meeting up at Mexico Lindo due to the current shelter-in-place orders, but that doesn't mean I won't be celebrating in my own way.

1981 Los Angeles Dodgers Police #34

I'll be reheating some frozen tamales that my former student's mom made for me and sharing a few cards of my favorite Mexican baseball player:  Fernando Valenzuela.

1981 Fleer #140

1981 was a big year for me and Fernando.  I started collecting baseball cards and he started making a name for himself among baseball fans around the world.  Dodgers fans had already gotten a taste of him in 1980 when he made 10 appearances, pitched 17 2/3 innings, allowed zero earned runs, struck out 17 batters, while only walking four.

1981 Topps Traded #850

The next season, he received the honor of starting on Opening Day after Jerry Reuss suffered a leg injury.  He'd pitch a 5 hit complete game shutout against the Houston Astros that day... then go on to have an incredible run that lasted until May 14th, 1981.

2013 Sport Kings Memorabilia

During that time span, he started and won 8 games (7 of them complete games), pitched 5 shutouts, struck out 68 batters, while only allowing 4 earned runs and walking 17.

1983 Donruss #1

He even held his own in the batter's box by hitting .360 in that time span.

2002 Stadium Club World Champions Relics #WC-FV

Fernandomania was born.

1988 Fleer Baseball MVP #40

That year... he became the first and only pitcher to win both the Rookie of the Year Award and Cy Young Award in the same year.  In addition to those trophies, he also took home The Sporting News' Major League Player of the Year and National League Pitcher of the Year Awards.

2005 Sweet Spot Classic Signatures #FV

And to top things off, he helped the Los Angeles Dodgers win their 5th World Series Championship.

2014 Tek Autographs #HT-FV

I wasn't a Dodgers fan, but I couldn't help but root for the chubby faced lefty every time he pitched that season.  I can still picture that unique windup where he'd look up to the baseball gods right before throwing each pitch.

Okay your turn...

Were you a fan of Fernando?

And...

What's your favorite Mexican dish or beverage?

Happy Cinco de Mayo and sayonara!

Wax Stain and a Smile

The first time I traded cards was back in 1981.  I'm not one of those guys who can remember the details, but I'm guessing it was either on my porch or one of my friend's porches.  I'd continue to make trades here and there over the next thirty-plus years.

Between the card shop trades in the late 80's and early 90's, AOL Message Board trades in the mid to late 90's, and SCF/CCW forum trades in the late 2000's... I've probably pulled off more than 500 trades with fellow collectors.

But then a few years ago... it just got to be too much.  My trade bait was outdated and I couldn't keep track of where certain cards were.  Plus I'm not the biggest fan of standing in post office lines.

That's when I made the decision to no longer make trades involving specific cards.

Then two weeks ago, I saw three Tony Gwynn rookie cards available for trade over at over at Dion's IP Autos only.  After going back and forth in my head, I left him a comment and offered to create a list of autographs I had laying around.

I'm not going to lie... sitting down and listing out autographs was not fun.  But after going back and forth, he picked out 17 autographs from my list and sent me these three cards:

1983 Donruss #598

1983 Fleer #360

1983 Topps #482

The cards weren't in the best condition, but I wasn't planning on sending them into PSA to get graded.  I specifically wanted them for my Tony Gwynn binder.

As I was scanning the cards, I was pleasantly surprised to see a wax stain on the back of the Topps rookie card:

Some of you may have read a post I wrote three weeks ago where I mentioned wanting to own a 1983 Topps Tony Gwynn rookie card with a big fat wax stain.  This one isn't exactly big and fat, but it's a start.

Thanks for the trade Dion!  It's my first trade in years... and probably my last for now.  I'm much more into sending and receiving care packages like these PWE's I received last week from a pair of bloggers:

These nine Oakland A's cards are from Marc over at Remember the Astrodome, who I recently discovered has been writing posts.  Unfortunately, they haven't been showing up on my Blogger reading list.  But I promise to make the effort to check in every now and then.

The other PWE came from Chris over at The Collector:

Chris was the author of an amazing series that featured MLB's All-Time Teams.  The posts were very well researched and highly anticipated by his readers.  He rewarded a bunch of us with some free cards.  I chose the four you see above.

Thank you Dion for my first trade in years... and thanks Marc and Chris for these very generous care packages.  I should be sending out some PWE's after I finish sorting the collection of cards from my mystery bags and I'll make sure you guys are included.

Oh... and if you stopped by hoping to see something Star Wars related, I actually celebrated May the 4th a couple of days early.  If you're interested, click here.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

A Different Kind of Set Building

2009 Topps Heritage Heroes of Spaceflight Relics #SSC3

1981 was a pretty exciting year for firsts.  The STS-1 became the first orbital space shuttle flight when the Space Shuttle Columbia launched on April 12th at the Kennedy Space Center.

On August 1st, MTV is officially launched and impacts a generation of music enthusiasts.

1992 Starline Americana #125

A little over month later on September 25th, Sandra Day O'Connor takes her seat as she becomes the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

1981 Fleer #574

1981 Topps #261

1981 Donruss #119

And somewhere within those twelve months, my parents bought me my very first baseball card set (1981 Fleer)while on a trip to Seattle.  That year also involves my earliest memories of collecting baseball cards in general... as I can vaguely remember trading 1981 Topps and Donruss cards with the other neighborhood kids.  It would ultimately play a huge role in my life off and on for the next thirty-nine years.

But I'll save that story for another day.  Today's post was inspired by Trevor over at Bump and Run Football Card Blog.  He started a Blog Bat Around and asked his readers to write a post about a collection outside of sports cards or sports memorabilia, so I decided to show off my collection of Legos.

According to my records I started with the purchase of this UCS Lego set:

Google Image

I've been a Star Wars fanatic first took me to see the iconic film when I was four years old.  That's approximately four years before I opened my first pack of baseball cards.  At some point, I became obsessed with Boba Fett and his ship:  Slave I.  It's still one of my favorite ships in the saga.  My set sat on a shelf in my office as a display piece until I put it in storage to create space for other Star Wars memorabilia.

I never built this set and I'm not even sure I intended to.  Like unopened wax boxes, I also enjoy collecting unopened Lego sets.

I quickly learned that although I found pleasure and comfort in building Lego sets, they were a little more challenging that I anticipated.  So far, I've stuck to smaller sets that require three hours or less to build.

Here's a look at the nine different sets I've constructed...

Set 75038:  Jedi Interceptor

Set 75135:  Obi-Wan's Jedi Interceptor

Set 75153:  AT-ST Walker

Set 75168:  Yoda's Jedi Starfighter

Set 75172:  Y-Wing Starfighter

Set 75173:  Luke's Landspeeder

Set 30611:  R2-D2 (2017 May the 4th Promotion)

It took a few years, but I stepped out of my comfort zone and built a couple of Lego Architecture sets:

Set 21043:  Architecture San Francisco

Set 21047:  Architecture Las Vegas

In addition to these sets, I have at least ten, maybe twenty more that are in storage.  The three that are standing in the on-deck circle are the Lego Iconic Chess Set (set #40174), the Volkswagen T1 Camper Van (set #10220), and an X-Wing Starfighter (set #75218).

In addition to those three, I just ordered the Boba Fett Helmet (set #75277) and preordered The Razor Crest (set #75292), since Lego is in the midst of their annual May the 4th promotion.

I'm not exactly sure when I'll get around to building my next Lego set, but in preparation for this post, I did go out and purchase this special vacuum attachment that helped me dust all of the sets pictured in this post.

If you're interested in reading about other collector's hobbies, I encourage you to check out Trevor's phone card collection as well as Greg's political, sports, and rock band button collection.

You can also share your other hobbies in the comment section below.  

Better yet... join in on the Blog Bat Around and write a post about a hobby outside of collecting sports cards or sports memorabilia.

And you didn't think I'd leave you without playing...

Happy Saturday and sayonara!