It's Embarrassing

I'm pretty organized... until I'm not.  There's a special place in my office where I put things like side projects, eBay and flea market purchases, and other random items like blogger care packages get added into the stack.

Over Spring Break, I started tackling some of the packages.  There were a couple of boxes from John over at Johnny's Trading Spot and Woody over at Sports Card Forum.  I sorted those cards, but they still need to be scanned and documented.

Last week, Reader X commented on a post that reminded me that he sent me a box back in January that I've been sitting on for far too long.  Well I opened it up and was blown away.  Like John and Woody's cards, they've been sorted... but not scanned.

Stuff is piling up, so I'm making their packages... along with padded envelopes from Dennis @ Too Many Verlanders, Bob over at The Best Bubble, PWEs from Jeremy at Topps Cards that Never Were and Adam at Thoughts and Sox, Ryan's advent calendar, and three new packages I received from Rod at Padrographs a priority on this blog.

I would take a photo of this stack I've built, but honestly it's embarrassing.  The fact that I have stuff dating back to last year that still needs to be documented is embarrassing.  It's time to sit down and hammer out some thank you posts.

I'm gonna kick things off with a twenty-seven year old item that I never knew existed.  But before I get to it, let's start with a cardboard appetizer:

1996 Zenith Mozaics #20

This mid 90's insert featuring dufex technology and my top two favorite baseball players of all-time were inserted at a rate of 1:10 packs.

The third player featured is Wally Joyner who spent four seasons with the Padres from 1996 to 1999.  He was their starting first baseman all four seasons, but I'm a little surprised that Pinnacle chose him over Ken Caminiti who won the 1996 NL MVP Award.

Okay.  Time to show off the main course:

1999 Salvino's Baby Bammers

Now I'm familiar with Salvino's version of a Beanie Baby.  But until I saw this staring at me from the bottom of Reader X's care package... I had never seen one packaged like this.

Every Bammer I had ever seen prior to this was sold individually and free from a carded back.  I love it!  It's items like this that I'd never buy... but I'll proudly display.  Unfortunately I don't really have any wall space in my office.  That means... I'll be taking this into my classroom and hanging it up there.

Can't wait to see how long it takes for one of my students or colleagues to see it and comment.  When they do, I'll say I'm proud to have a teddy bear version of my favorite baseball player and some guy named Wally.

Thank you Xavier!  Sorry it took me four months to open up your care package.  Hopefully it only takes me a few weeks to hammer out the highlights from the rest of your box.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!