Weird Player Combos

Some baseball card blogs that I have been reading express a frustration with new cards and want to cut back purchasing new products in 2013.  The card collectors that are going to buy less packs or boxes, may impact trading in a way.

I enjoy getting some random Dodgers base cards from new sets that I wasn't going to buy anyways.  Products like Bowman or many Chrome products probably won't be purchased by me in 2013 or beyond.  Other bloggers do buy these packs though and some even send me the Dodgers from those sets.  If the blog community as a whole, spend less in 2013, will there be less trading?

If I bought less packs of new cards, then my trade bait will go down.  I will become less likely to pull that Josh Willingham auto that some blogger may want.

It is just a thought. I am just curious to see if less baseball card purchasing will impact the trade aspect of collecting.

The blog community will always have some free giveaways.  I think the contest or just plain old fashion, "here are some cards, please take them," is ingrained in our blogging hearts.

Too Many Verlanders ran a giveaway the old fashioned way and I swooped in to claim a bunch of cards.  The grouping of cards that the blog runner, Dennis, sent me, were an abundance of multi-player cards.  The trickiness of having cards with multiple players on them, is that over time the card may turn out to be downright comical.

Maybe back in 2001, Jose Ortiz was thought of to be a stud like Rod Carew or Roberto Alomar.  This is a really nice looking card with shooting stars and your eyes do follow the progression that Topps chose to showcase.

Ortiz had a short big league career and crushed a whopping 14 homers in 3 seasons.  To his credit, Ortiz did play 17 professional seasons in the minors, Japan and Mexico.  He hit 203 home runs in those seasons.  He was a pretty good ball player but, just not major league caliber.  Certainly not at the level of greatness that was Carew and Alomar.

Should this card go in my Rod Carew section, Roberto Alomar section or a solo page for Jose Ortiz?

Here is a Bowman product that I can enjoy.  This is a '99 Bowman's Best insert featuring Nomar.  The set is called Mirror Image and you can see a lurking player behind Nomar throwing.  See that dude?

Yes, that dude is career scrub, Pablo Ozuna.  The last year that Ozuna spent in the big leagues was with the Dodgers in 2008.  He had 32 awful at-bats where he racked up a .242 on-base percentage.

The only reason that I remember him playing as a Dodger is because I remember questioning, why is he a Dodger.

This is such a nice looking card though, that I will place this in the random Red Sox section of a binder.  Nomar deserves that for being a good baseball player, played decent as a Doyer and for not being Pablo Ozuna.

I still have several more team bags to scope through that Dennis sent me.  I will pull out a bundle of these cards randomly and show off the cardboard fun.