30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

A Few of My Favorite Things: The 90's

I've always used decades to help define my life... and the 90's were my first exposure to adulthood.  The first half of the decade revolved around college, friends, movie, music, and sports cards.  The second half of the decade focused on career, friends, movie, music, and sports cards.

In fact, I loved the hobby so much... I started the decade working at one card shop... and finished it working at another card shop.  Those were the good old days.

And that's what this post is going to focus on.  It's the fifth installment in my Blog Bat-Around series that features A Few of My Favorite Things.  This particular BBA was started by The Collector a little more than a month ago.  With music, movies, and sports cards being such a big part of my life, I knew I had to participate.  To keep posts to a reasonable length, I broke it down into decades.  If you'd like to see A Few of My Favorite Things from other decades, feel free to click the links below:





And without further ado, here are A Few of My Favorite Things from the 90's...


Baseball Set: 1999 UD Century Legends Epic Signatures


Autographs are one of my favorite things to collect... and the 1999 UD Century Legends Epic Signatures are one of my favorite autograph sets ever produced.  Upper Deck's design team did a great job of using a black and white image of Tigers Stadium in the background with a large portrait of the player off to the right.  Then they had the players sign the cards on top of left field.  The blue Sharpie really allows the signature to stand out.

Over the years, I've managed to collect twenty-three of the thirty cards on the checklist:



 

 

 


 


 


 


Unfortunately the final seven cards are pretty expensive.  When any of them actually pop up on eBay (and it's not often), they typically sell for triple digits...  which means that I probably won't ever complete this set.  But it's okay.  I accepted this fact years ago and appreciate the twenty-three that I actually own.


MovieThe Shawshank Redemption (1994)


The 90's were loaded with awesome movies.  I've never actually compiled a list of favorite movies, but if I did I'd estimate that 30 to 40% would come from this decade.  Here are just a few of my favorites off the top of my head:  Braveheart, Last of the Mohicans, Clerks, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Trainspotting, Fight Club, The Big Lebowski, Saving Private Ryan, Terminator 2, Fargo, Forrest Gump, The Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Good Fellas, and Casino are all awesome films.  And if I went and looked at all of my DVD's, I'm sure I could name a few more.

I eventually narrowed the list down to five movies, but ultimately I went with The Shawshank Redemption.  I watched it for probably the tenth time a few weeks ago and enjoyed it as much as the first time I saw it.


SongSo What'Cha Want (Beastie Boys 1992)


The Beastie Boys are my favorite group.  They have been ever since 1992 when they released their third mainstream album, Check Your Head, which took their hip hop style and meshed it with their punk roots.  The result was amazing.

The song that originally caught my attention was So What'cha Want.  This was the first song that popped into my head when I originally started drafting these BBA posts.

Well that's it for today.  I'm way behind schedule.  Normally, I like publishing my weekday posts at 3pm PST, but it's already 3:40pm and I haven't even edited it.  I'm gonna cross my fingers and shoot for 4.

What about you...

Do you have scheduled times for publishing posts?  Or do you just click publish as soon as you're finished writing?

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

20 comments:

Dennis said...

Your posts in this series have been lots of fun, though I thought it was interesting that I'm a fan of all three choices today. As always those signatures are beautiful!

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

I'd be happy with any (1) of those cards, but really really happy with the Spahn or Mathews! I hope you can complete that set one day. And yes, I try to publish my posts around the same time each day.

Mike said...

That autograph set is very well-designed. Very crisp, clear, and attractive. So cool that you managed to get so many of the cards. I hope that you have the good fortune of potentially completing it in the future.

With regards to your question, I have always struggled to write piecemeal, so pretty much everything that I write is started and completed in the same session. Concentration issues (due in large part to past concussions) tend to vary the times in which I can sit down and write for a long period of time, so my blog posts will probably always get published at whatever time actually works for me on a given day. I finally got a new post up tonight and actually opened it with a disclaimer on this general idea, as fortune would have it.

Swing And A Pop-up said...

I will hit publish when I'm finished unless it's the rare occasion when I write two posts in one day. The second post gets saved for the next day.

night owl said...

Re your question: both

As for your '90s choices: the fact that I barely knew your favorite '90s set existed sums up the '90s. Way too much for someone who has had way too little time since 1989 ended. I still need to watch two-thirds of the movies you listed.

Hackenbush said...

That's a great set! And you have a boatload of legends. Who's missing, Ruth and Gehrig? Probably Mays and Aaron, right?

Sean said...

Those autographed cards are beautiful! 23 out of 30 is impressive any way you slice it, especially with those names.

I'm very inconsistent with publishing posts. Basically I don't have any regular schedule and just post whenever I have both A) something I think is worth writing about, and B) the time to write it!

Hackenbush said...

I usually post at 5:30 pm central.

Matt said...

Well I always set mine to publish at 1 am. funny thing is, if i publish any other time views go down. So it's always then. I must have a lot of west coast readers.

(i totally dig these autos by the way)

Michael Ott said...

A gorgeous set. I have a couple, but none of the ones you're missing.
I could see Bonds, Maddux and Ryan selling for north of $100 each, but unless they're short-printed or seldom listed for sale I'm surprised the other 4 cards have been so hard to acquire. Hope you manage to wrap it up someday!

Fuji said...

dennis - the thing about my selections is they're usually pretty mainstream, so they're usually enjoyed by at least a few others.

johnnys trading spot - spahn and mathews were two of the last ones i grabbed. if i recall, you can find them in the $20 to $30 range on ebay. if you can find them for cheaper than that... it's worth it to buy them

mike - it's obvious that you put a lot of thought into your posts. i used to be like you, but i've been actually to cut down the length of my posts for years.

swing and a pop-up - i'm going to try and hammer out two posts each day for the next few days... that way my first few weeks of school i'll have stuff lined up. well... at least that's the plan.

night owl - not sure what kind of movies you enjoy... but i'd recommend any of those films you see listed. i even left out a few comedies and anime films.

hackenbush - alex rodriguez, barry bonds, frank thomas, greg maddux, nolan ryan, tom seaver, and juan gonzalez. gonzalez is actually less than $100, but i refuse to spend more than $50 on his signature. for that price i can add a nice rickey henderson, greg maddux, or tony gwynn autograph to my collection

sean - i've been lucky enough to have a few topics to write about (like this BBA), but time is always an issue. got nothing on the agenda today though, so i'm hoping to write at least two posts.

sport card collectors - hmmm... never thought of publishing early in the morning. maybe i'll experiment

michael ott - well the juan gonzalez actually sells for less than triple digits, but he's not a $20 autograph either (although i just checked and a BIN sold for $24.99 ($5 shipping). i just refuse to pay that much money for him. the rest of the guys are definitely short printed or people out there have been stockpiling them, because they don't pop up very often.

Matt said...

I schedule my posts regularly. With a few exceptions here and there I try to keep my posts set for M-W-F. It's great because I can usually build up some posts ahead of time in case I get busy or run into some writers block. The big downside is I'm usually a little behind everyone else when reviewing new products or submitting bat-arounds like this one. (I actually have my decades post set to post next week!)

gregory said...

Those 1999 UD Century Legends Epic Signatures are really well done. Also, Humpty Dumpty was a big fat egg.

The Snorting Bull said...

First, the Century Legend autographs look beautiful together regardless of whether or not you ever complete the set. I scrolled through those scans a few times, just wow.

Second, I post whenever I get a chance. End of the day, beginning, does not matter to me. Just love talking and writing about cards.

Angus said...

I post when I finish whatever post I'm working on. I don't really worry about what time of day it is.

As you know from my list, I love Shawshank Redemption, and even seeing it on this list almost makes me get up and grab the DVD and put it on to watch. Good thing that I'm already working on a series right now, or I probably would.

SumoMenkoMan said...

Shawshank Redemption is my all time favorite movie!!

Fuji said...

matt - don't worry... i usually fall behind myself. this bba started over a month ago ;)

gregory - played on the wall and then broke his leg

the snorting bull - yeah, i don't really get tired of looking at them either

angus - i could easily pop it in right now and watch it too.

sumomenkoman - it's so hard to pick my favorite movie of all-time, because it depends on my mood. however shawshank would be in the running

Collecting Cutch said...

I love everything about this post. Fight Club is one of my favorite movies.

Who are the 7 players left you need for the set?

Adam Kaningher said...

I usually just publish when done, but once in a while I'll write two posts in a day and schedule it for a couple days out.

Fuji said...

collecting cutch - alex rodriguez, barry bonds, frank thomas, greg maddux, nolan ryan, tom seaver, and juan gonzalez (bidding on a juan gone today though). so hopefully i'll be down to just six.

adam kaningher - i'm gonna try and write at least two posts today. if i do, one will be for tomorrow... the other for next week.