Rain and Organize

Every baseball card collector has a day that they spend several hours sorting, viewing and cleaning up their card collection.  Actually, every collector of anything, from stamps to bottle caps, probably has a day where they spend sifting through their collection.  A collection needs some order and is best not left to being stored as a chaotic mess.

Today is my sorting day of my collection.  It is a day of grey skies and rainfall.  It is also a day where I have no work and am caught up on my schooling.  What a perfect day to put a dent in some of the stacks of cards and packages by my bedside.

I consider some other blogs to be friends of the Platter.  These are bloggers that I have been trading with over the years, they may occasionally leave a comment on one of my posts and they have earned my respect as a writer.  "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog is one such blog that I consider to be a friend of the Platter.  That blog is run by an Orioles fan named Ryan.

His computer was down for a bit and he has gotten back to posting after a hiatus.  Ryan probably missed posting on his blog.  During his hiatus, he may have even pulled or purchased an award winning piece of cardboard and was unable to show it to the masses due to technical difficulties.  That is a painful situation for an card collecting blogger.  It is good to have him back in the mix.

Ryan sent me these cards a while back.  I just haven't been able to show off a card like this Tadahito Iguchi autograph because of school and probably a little laziness.

Some collectors may open up a trade package and consider the autographed card to be the best of the lot.  I am not one of those collectors.  The Iguchi signature may have the most value or worth but, it certainly wasn't the best looking card that Ryan sent me.

This Hideo Nomo card was the favorite one that Ryan included in the bubble mailer.  Don't let the ugliness of the New York Met uniform distort your view of this great action shot.  The only thing that would have made this card better was if this card came out a year earlier when Nomo was a Dodger.  This still rates highly and is my favorite Nomo Mets card that I own.

This Mike Piazza weightlifting card probably would have been my favorite card from this trade if it weren't for some of Piazza's comments towards Vin Scully.  Piazza mentions in his book that Scully was critical of Piazza during his contract negotiations with the Dodgers in the late 90s and this soured the LA fans on him.  Scully doesn't turn any fans against anybody, he isn't critical of any player's contract and he never threw Piazza under the bus.  This was such an odd person for Piazza to try and go up against.  Scully is God and you never tempt your fate by creating a false rumor about God in your biography.

Therefore this card is just a notch below the above Nomo card.  Piazza will always be viewed differently in my mind after what he was saying about Scully.

Piazza even made me enjoy a card that features him with a greasy mullet and him pumping iron a little less than I would have before.

Welcome back to blogging, Ryan and thanks for the trade.