Something To Think About While Ripping Topps 2013

I do wish I was in America this week to buy some 2013 Topps Series 1 but as the rest of you bust your boxes, blasters, and packs do keep in mind we all could be enjoying baseball cards from at least one or possibly two other card companies if Major League Baseball would stop it's monopoly with Topps and treating us like this little kid.      

My Other Blogs

I haven't been updating Heartbreaking Cards as often as I want to and frankly, my scanned card reserves are running low so it might be a slow, slow winter.  But, fear not, dear reader, I have been keeping busy with my travel and food blogs...check them out if you are interested.

Use My Camera








Marvel With A Mango

When You Are Opening Pack At A Hobby Shop

WHEN YOU ARE OPENING PACKS AT A HOBBY SHOP AND SOMEONE TRIES TO TOUCH ONE OF YOUR HITS.

Heartbreakingly Great Names #35: Bimbo Coles

**This series highlights those few lucky [and unlucky] athletes that have names that make you stop and do a double take.**

I haven't done one of these posts in a long while but as I was sorting through some old cards when I was home I was reminded of the greatness of Bimbo Coles.

1991 NBA Hoops #108 Bimbo Coles

Bimbo was born Vernell Coles and so I can see why you would possibly embrace a name like "Bimbo" instead of Vernell.  In almost all the biography's I took a look at to write this post they nearly all have a statement similar to this: "He [Bimbo] received his nickname from a cousin in reference to a line in a country music song."  The sources never mentioned what song exactly inspired the nickname and so I decided to do a little digging.  I was expecting a momentous search with many potential choices to take into consideration.  Instead, I put "Bimbo" and "Country" into YouTube and come up with the answer immediately:

I had no idea that country great Jim Reeves had a song called "Bimbo" and listening to the lyrics I can imagine a Vernell Coles doing something similar to the character of Bimbo in the song.  It was released in 1954 it went to #1 on the country charts.

You can find other posts in the Heartbreakingly Great Names series by going here. 

Knocking Over Your "To Sort" Stack

We've all had this happen to us on a smaller scale I bet.

When A Card Blog Announces They Are Giving Away Cards

WHEN A CARD BLOG ANNOUNCES THEY ARE GIVING AWAY CARDS TO THE FIRST PERSON INTERESTED.

What Happens When I Try To Focus On My "To Sort" Pile

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I TRY TO FOCUS ON MY "TO SORT" PILE. 

Show and Tell #121: Some 1971 Topps Needs Lists Help

Working out trades while living more than 5,000 miles away from your card collection has proven to be difficult at times but I was able to get one complete with Jeremy from No One's Going To Read This Blog.  He was able to take a few of my 1971 Topps high numbered cards off my needs list as well as one card which is a marked improvement from the version I had in my binder currently.

Here are my four new ones with my favorite being the Ike Brown card.  Ike played six seasons, all with the Tigers, as a reserve second baseman.

1971 Topps #669 Ike Brown

1971 Topps #635 Phil Regan

1971 Topps #745 Sandy Alomar

1971 Topps #743 John O'Donoghue

This Don Shaw card is at least a 200% upgrade from the card I already have...that being said, this is one of the blandest cards in the 1971 set...that's an awful lot of white on a card devoted to a Cardinals player.  

1971 Topps #654 Don Shaw

The Card Stocker At Target Has Had Enough!

If you have browsed the sports cards section at Target, you've probably seen the red boxes that hold the clearance cards that are priced at $1.59 or 99 cents.  These boxes are designed to sit on the top of the shelves with the top of the box propped up to attract shopper's attention to these clearance packs.  But more often then not they are jammed into the lower shelves and are really more effort then they are worth to pull them out and see what is available.  Plus, when this happens the boxes get messed up and the top of the box always ends up being slowly destroyed.

Well, the stocker at one of the Targets in St. Paul has had enough of all that!  They have tied the box shut with two pieces of lace so the top of the box won't be destroyed but you can only take one pack out at a time to look at it and there is no way to put it back inside.

Here's the side view:

The next step is that they will probably get rid of the discount cards because sales are down!

FINALLY!

A Picasso Cow outside of Menomonie, WI.

Sorry about the long delay in figuring out a winner...life got in the way as it often does.   In total we had 33 entries for my Mars Attacks Heritage sketch card.

1.  Greg Zakwin
2.  The Dimwit
3.  Fuji
4.  Richard Nebe Jr.
5.  unclemoe
6.  Skroeker
7.  Mr. Kelsey
8.  Jeff Wilk
9.  Kazi
10.  Alfredo Ortega
11.  Matt Pederson
12.  Commishbob
13.  Captain Canuck
14.  Mini Groover
15.  The Diamond King
16.  Skott Jimenez
17.  Play At The Plate
18.  Jasonvorhees
19.  Jafronius
20.  Robert Frongillo
21.  Hackenbush
22.  Spankee
23.  Sean Woods
24.  dayf
25.  CaptKirk42
26.  Andy
27.  Scott Sawyer
28.  Dhoff
29.  Corky
30.  Crackin' Wax
31.  irondequoit36
32.  Archaeomatt
33.  pattiaa

And so I took that list and randomized it three times on random.org and lucky #13 will be our winner.  

And the winner is #13 is Crakin' Wax.  Congratulations and thanks to everyone for the patience in getting this done.