Mailday Motherload - Trade with The Daily Dimwit

[82Redbirds]

I feel kind of bad because I've never made a blog post about any of my trades up to this point, and I've traded with quite a few of the people that follow my blog (and a lot of others that don't). Does that make me a lazy blogger? Am I inconsiderate to the people I trade with? The jury is still out on that one. But while they're deliberating, let me tell you about my most recent trade with fellow blogger Sam at The Daily Dimwit.

I happened to find The Daily Dimwit like I assume most of us find new blogs. I was following someone's blog who was following someone else's blog, (and they told two friends, and so on, and so on) who was following The Daily Dimwit. Anyway, he had a post up that caught my eye and after reading it, I noticed he had a want list up for the 2010 Topps baseball set. I said to myself, "Self, you also are working on that set and have quite a number of duplicate cards that this collector might need. Why don't you take a look at his want-list and see if you can help him out?" Well, before you know it, I was diggin through my boxes getting out 2010 Topps, 2008 Masterpieces, and 2007 Bowman Heritage cards for him. All I did was just shoot him an email letting him know that I was sending him some cards he needed. (I wasn't really too concerned with what I would get in return.)

Flash forward about 3 or 4 days and I get a large bubble wrap envelope stuffed with cards I needed for my 2010 Topps set. The thing that was so cool about this trade was we never hammered out any details about who was sending what cards and how much the book value was of the cards, etc, etc. This trade couldn't have been any easier. It pretty much consisted of us trading addresses and looking at each other's want-lists.

In my attempt to appear to be an amature statistician, I wish to share a few fun facts about my package full of baseball card goodness that I received from "The Dimwit."

1. I received 120 cards in my package (one hundred twenty). That's more cards than you get if you bought a blaster box from Walmart. In fact, that's exactly a blaster box and a half. Now couple that with the fact that every single one of those cards were on my want-list, knocking a significant chunk off my collecting needs for the year, and you have one nice mail day.

2. 96% of the cards I received in my package were inserts. If I were to open a new pack of 2010 Topps baseball (Series 1, 2, or Updates) I would probably get 5 or 6 base cards with 2 or 3 inserts in an 8 card pack. That's approximately a 25-35% rate of insert to base cards. I know I needed a lot fewer base cards than did inserts, but that is an incredible percentage.

3. 13 of the cards in my package were Cardinals or players that spent a significant amount of time in a Cardinals uniform (Johnny Mize as a Yankee, Ozzie Smith as a Padre, and I count George Sisler as a Cardinal even though he played for the St Louis Browns). I have no idea what the ratio is of Cardinals to other teams in the set (nor do I care to study the check-list that closely) but in my book, that's a respectable representation of St Louis ball-players.

So I think I've beat this horse to death at this point. I'll just share the list of the cards I got:

Base:
6 White Sox
62 Kevin Millwood
216 Mike Cameron
247 Andre Ethier
309 Gerald Laird
416 Ruben Tejada
559 Nick Markakis

US-289 Adam Kennedy
This card finished off my Updates base set.


CYMTO
5 Luis Aparicio
24 Robin Yount
27 Nolan Ryan
34 Dwight Gooden
36 Bo Jackson
41 Manny Ramirez
46 Pedro Martinez
48 Ivan Rodriguez

51 Albert Pujols
What can you say? It's Prince Albert.
52 Kevin Youkilis
64 Whitey Ford
65 Duke Snider
70 Harmon Killebrew
71 Eddie Mathews
73 Gaylord Perry
74 Jim Bunning
86 Paul Molitor
89 Steve Carlton
92 Robin Yount
107 Chipper Jones
110 Cole Hamels
111 Ichiro-Pujols
118 John Podres
128 Willie McCovey
136 Steve Garvey
137 Frank Robinson
141 Reggie Jackson
149 Darryl Strawberry
152 Barry Larkin
153 Eddie Murray
160 Derek Jeter
163 Piazza-Griffey Jr
167 Jason Bay
172 Ubaldo Jimenez

Legendary Lineage
3 Babe Ruth-Alex Rodriguez
4 Lou Gehrig-Mark Teixeira
6 Jimmie Foxx-Manny Ramirez
7 George Sisler-Ichiro
9 Honus Wagner-Hanley Ramirez
11 Mike Schmidt-Evan Longoria
13 Reggie Jackson-Adam Dunn
18 Gary Carter-David Wright
25 Tom Seaver-Roy Halladay
30 Rickey Henderson-Carl Crawford
33 Carlton Fisk-Victor Martinez
34 Eddie Mathews-Chipper Jones
37 Jackie Robinson-Ichiro
39 Phil Rizzuto-Derek Jeter
42 Lou Gehrig-Albert Pujols
50 Tris Speaker-Jacoby Ellsbury

51 Juan Marichal-Tim Lincecum
I prefer the cards with both players from the same team on this set.
55 Rickey Henderson-BJ Upton
56 Brooks Robinson-Ryan Zimmerman
58 Honus Wagner-Andrew McCutchen
68 Mark Teixeira-Logan Morrison
69 Tom Seaver-Mike Leake
70 Ernie Banks-Starlin Castro
71 Jim Palmer-Brian Matusz
72 Larry Walker-Justin Morneau
73 Steve Carlton-Jon Lester

Peak Performance
1 Albert Pujols
2 Tim Lincecum
6 Steve Carlton
17 Reggie Jackson
21 Jimmie Foxx

23 Stan Musial
Congratulations to Stan Musial for receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

27 Tom Seaver
28 Johnny Mize
30 Prince Fielder
33 Cy Young
42 Ryan Braun
47 Roger Maris
55 George Kell
58 Magglio Ordonez
59 Derek Jeter
68 Andre Ethier
69 Ryan Zimmerman
72 Chad Billingsley
73 Adam Dunn
74 Dan Uggla
75 Jermaine Dye
78 Mark Reynolds
87 Troy Tulowitzki
88 Phil Rizzuto
93 Robin Roberts
95 Al Kaline
98 Victor Martinez
107 Carlos Pena
109 Colby Rasmus
118 Austin Jackson
114 Mike Leake
116 Starlin Castro

Vintage Legends
1 Lou Gehrig
2 Johnny Mize
3 Reggie Jackson

5 George Sisler
I don't know why I think of players on the Browns as if they were Cardinals. I'm sure Mets fans don't think the same way about the Yankees.
6 Willie McCovey
10 Babe Ruth
13 Eddie Murray
15 Jimmie Foxx
16 Thurman Munson
17 Mike Schmidt
22 Roy Campanella
28 Ozzie Smith
30 George Sisler
31 Babe Ruth
32 Reggie Jackson
34 Mike Schmidt
37 Eddie Murray
39 Roy Campanella
46 Rogers Hornsby
47 Jimmie Foxx

Thanks for the trade, Sam.

If you don't follow The Daily Dimwit, go check his blog out. There's some good reading there.


More...