My first trade

I'm not much of a trader. That's partially from being an introvert, and partially from me not having a lot of trade bait, as I don't collect modern cards. However, in the last month or two I actually did my first real trade not in-person, with Nick of "Dime Boxes-The Low End Baseball Card Collector's Journey". I sent him a PWE of reprints, and in return he sent me a very generous package of about 50 Yankees and player collection needs. To show how many holes there are in my collection, only 4 were duplicates. I had a blast looking through the cards, though it was slightly tinged with a feeling of unworthiness. 

                                             

He sent me 11 Mariano Rivera cards, and they were all greatly appreciated, as Mo is favorite player ever. I now have 62 Mariano Rivera cards, which is pretty awesome. 

                                            

Phil Rizzuto is another of my favorites, as he was a Yankee fan favorite, and also because he was Italian. I'm around a quarter Italian, so it's nice how the Yankees have a good tradition of Italian stars. It might actually be the reason I'm a Yankees fan today, because my family has been a Yankee family going back to my great-grandfather, who was born in Italy. Lazzeri and DiMaggio, you know. My Grandpa grew up watching The Scooter, and thought Rizzuto was the best of the New York shortstops (Pee Wee Reese and Buddy Kerr being the other two.)

                                          

This package doubled my Masahiro Tanaka collection from 9 to 18 cards. I'm not a big relic card fan, but I certainly don't mind getting them.

                               

Topps is getting lazy. And for fairly high -end products, too.

                                        

Incredibly, I only had 2 Aaron Judge cards before getting these 5. Judge is my favorite active player, as he's so amazing both at bat and in the field. Now if he could only stay healthy...

                                         

I'd been looking for a card of Ichiro as a Yankee for a long time, so I was very happy to finally get one, even if it is from Panini. 

                                           

I really like getting O-Pee-Chee cards, especially of Yankees. Actually, that's going to be the theme for my next post, so stay tuned. It should come out by Sunday.

                                   

I collect all knuckleballers, so getting some was a real treat. Wilbur Wood had an absolutely otherworldly workload for a couple years there. In 1971 he was out there for 334 innings, and he was just warming up. The next year he labored for 376.2 innings, and posted a 2.51 ERA. In 1973, he had a 24-20 record, and pitched 359.1 innings. That was his last truly insane season, as he "only" pitched 320 innings in 1974 and 291 in 1975. Eat your heart out, Clayton Kershaw.     

                                                         

Hoyt is probably the most collected knuckleballer ever. Pitching in the majors until he was 49 probably had something to do with it.     

R.A Dickey may end up in history as the last knuckleballer, as nobody has picked up the torch now that Dickey's retired. Hopefully someone else will pop up soon.
                  

This card back makes me really like R.A Dickey, just outside his knuckleballing awesomeness. The list of intellectuals in baseball is fairly short, so it's nice seeing that.