Allen and Ginter But not 2011!!!

As we all know Allen & Ginter fever has hit the blogsphere, so I thought I would show off my new Allen & Ginter purchase. It is from the 1888 World Champions set, yes you read that right. This card is 123 years old and for it's age it's in amazing condition.

Albert Hamm was born in Sambro Nova Scotia in 1860, he went on to become a professional rower. He won races in Canada, America even in the UK. He went on to coach the Lurlaine Rowing Club in Minnieapolis. He had to leave the post in 1891 due to bad health, he returned to his home in Nova Scotia where he died in 1891.

He may have died 120 years ago but Albert Hamm has been immortalized in cardboard form for the last 123 years and hopefully this card will last another 123 years.

3000 And 1.

Even though he is a Yankee congrats to Jeter on getting hit number 3000, being the first Yankee to reach this milestone is a great achievment.

Meanwhile on the West coast a young man got his very first MLB hit. Mike Trout reached on a bunt single, only 2999 more Mike!!!!

A J Sends B J.

It's not often I send random e mails to people, but here are the results of one such random mail. About a month ago I came across the blog The Lost Collector, the guy who runs the blog A J is a massive Yankees fan. I had a few Yankees laying around gathering dust and thought it might be an idea to see if he wanted them. A few e mails back and forth and a deal was struck. A J received a couple of Mantle cards and a Phil Hughes GU and a Mariano Rivera GU. In return A J was good enough to send me some nice prospect cards and the two cards you see here. The first is a very nice B J Upton Gold Refractor from the Topps 206 set. I love refractors and Rays refractors are always welcome to my PC. Second card is a Ryan Brett Purple Refractor, as well as being a refractor it's a Rays prospect refractor which makes it even sweeter. So a big thank you to A J for doing the trade and for being brave enough to ship overseas. I would like to point you all towards his blog, even though it's Yankees based it is a very interesting read. He gets some really sweet TTM autos which have made me very jealous.

Are You An Azkal?

As you may know I am currently residing in the Philippines. In the last twelve months something very strange has happened here sportswise. This country is basketball mad due to the influence of the USA, it is the only country in this part of Asia that is not soccer mad or should I say was not soccer mad until about 8 months ago. During late December and early January there was an international soccer tournament called the AFC Suzuki Cup, this tourney is for the lower ranked Asian countries. To everyones surprise the Philippines national team reached the semi finals by beating local soccer super power Vietnam. In the semi final the Philippines were up against another power house in Indonesia, the semi was supposed to be played home and away, but due to the ongoing reconstruction of the Filipino stadium both games were played in Indonesia. Sadly the Philippines lost both games 1-0 to exit the competition.

The country was finally taking notice that they had a halfway decent soccer team. The next set of games were world cup qualifiers against Mongolia (hands up those of you who knew Mongolia had a soccer team). By now the team was known by it's nickname The Azkals which is Filipino slang for street dog. The Azkals brushed aside the Mongol hordes 3-2 on aggregate to progress to the next phase. The next phase was on Wednesday when the Azkals travelled to Sri Lanka for the first leg. Although they played very poorly they escaped with a 1-1 tie and vital away goal. Everyone here is getting very excited as on Sunday the Azkals play leg two at home in Manila. To be brutally honest the Azkals have no chance of getting to the finals in Brazil,but to see a country become soccer mad virtually overnight is really cool. So next time you watch Brazil or Spain just remember on the other side of the world there are low ranked teams living the soccer dream.

I hope the soccer bug stays with Filipinos,the biggest fear is that as soon as they have a bad run all the good work will be forgotten. Maraming Salamat Po!!!!!

Blog Trade Fuji Style.

Here are the goods from another blog trade with San Jose Fuji, if you don't already read his blog may I humbly suggest you take a wander through his musings as it really is great stuff. Anyway onto the trade. I sent Fuji a Pau Gasol Crown Royale Jersey card and a Shaq/Tim Duncan dual jersey card and in return he was good enough to send these two auto cards. When we were discussing the trade I asked Fuji for the Tyler Skaggs auto and nothing else, but as Fuji is an all around good guy he told me it was not enough for the two Basketball cards. So I had to look back through his lists to find something new. I settled upon the Drew Stanton auto, I really like the way Stanton is about to unleash a bomb in front of about 5000 empty seats. As always trading with Fuji was a pleasure. Thank you Sir.

Cool Photo.

As the main focus of my PC's is either pitchers or prospects it's not very often I get a card with a cool photo on it. Pitcher cards are usually the standard throwing style picture and the prospect photo's usually seem to have been taken in a back lot at spring training. So it's nice to have such a sweet card like the above. The card came in a rather large package from Martyn of Arbitarycrap. Martyn is one of the good guys in this hobby, he will often send me a package of cards and ask for nothing in return.

The question about this card is, did Zobrist catch the ball? Did it fall short or pop from his glove on contact with the field. Why is no one watching from the stands? I doff my Rays cap to the photographer of this one. Cheers Martyn...

Rookie Ball Kicks Off.

The Princeton Rays kicked off their season tonight, the Rays have a loaded team this year. Drew Vettleson a 1st round sandwich pick in 2010 was 2-4 with a stolen base.

Justin O'Conner was another 1st round pick for the Rays in 2010. He started this year 1-4 with 2Rbi's.

Finally we have the Rays 1st pick in the 2010 draft Josh Sale. Josh started his pro career with a walk in the first, but in the third inning he hit his first pro homer. Josh was seen as the premier high school hitter in the 2010 draft and hopefully today is a sign of great things to come.