Relic In The Tin

Relic In The Tin

Goodbye Wax Heaven
Though we never met at all
You had the content to mesmerize
While lesser blogs did fall
They crawled out of the woodwork
And they commented into your brain
They came to see Canseco
And stayed when you changed your name

And it seems to me your blog lived its life
Like a relic in the tin
Never knowing which game was played
When the cards came in
And I would have liked to have met you
But I’m in the city of wind
McGwire's card burned up long before
Your legend ever did

Exclusives were tough
The toughest scoop you ever made
Blogosphere created a superstar
And time was the price you paid
Even when you retired
The readers still hounded you
All the blogs had to say
Was that Mario we’ll be missing you

And it seems to me your blog lived its life
Like a relic in the tin
Never knowing which game was played
When the cards came in
And I would have liked to have met you
But I’m in the city of wind
Pinnacle closed up long before
Your legend ever did

Goodbye Wax Heaven
Though we never met at all
You had the content to mesmerize
While lesser blogs did fall
Goodbye Wax Heaven
From the man on the South Side of Chicago
Who wishes you the best in your new life
You are more than just Wax Heaven’s Mario

And it seems to me your blog lived its life
Like a relic in the tin
Never knowing which game was played
When the cards came in
And I would have liked to have met you
But I’m in the city of wind
Fleer went bankrupt long before
Your legend ever did

Wax Heaven Trades Shiny And Numbered Things

I never accused work of being fun. There's a reason it's called work and not "super happy fun time". This is the completion of a trade that I had long forgotten about. You see, when I trade with someone enough times, I get to trust them more. When I can build trading trust, I just send out whatever I can when I get it. If I get something in return, fine. If I don't, whatever. Chances are, I'll get something down the line that will balance things out.

I couldn't tell you what I sent out, but about two weeks ago, I received a package directly from Wax Heaven headquarters. There were only seven cards in the package, but these seven cards were truly awesome!

I normally don't collect non-White Sox cards unless they are of Harold Baines or Carlton Fisk, but I do make exceptions every now and again. There are three Carlos Quentin cards with him on the Diamondbacks. The rest are of a certain White Sox player who just hit his 500th home run last year. No, not Frank Thomas, but the other designated hitter/occasional first baseman, Jim Thome.

2007 Finest - Finest Moments Green Refractor #RFM-CQ - Carlos Quentin 098/199
2007 Topps Chrome #93 - Carlos Quentin
2007 Topps Chrome White Refractor #93 - Carlos Quentin 566/660
2008 Moments & Milestones #85 - Jim Thome 051/150
2008 Topps #240 - Jim Thome
2008 Upper Deck #287 - Jim Thome
2008 Upper Deck #391 - Jim Thome

The Thome cards have been mostly avoiding me in 2008. I'm not exactly sure why, but they are. So, it was nice to see a lot of them here. I never would've thought to pick up the Quentin cards, since it doesn't fit into my normal collecting patterns. I will cherish the Quentin cards, knowing that they were specifically set aside for me. That's pretty special to me.

Thank you for the awesome cards! They might be a small amount, but they pack a powerful punch!

Great Minds Think Alike

At the start of Spring Training, Carlos Quentin reminded me of someone. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it always bugged me a little. Then, around the beginning of May, it finally dawned on me. Carlos Quentin reminds me of a young Jose Canseco.

I kept this revelation to myself. Jose doesn't exactly elicit joyful comparisons to active baseball players. There is so much bad mojo orbiting around Jose Canseco these days, that even a compliment can be misconstrued. That's a real shame. Jose was an elite player, in his prime. So were many others accused or confirmed to have used steroids.

While making my daily rounds of baseball related blogs, I came across this article at Wax Heaven. If even one of the best Jose Canseco fans can see this as a healthy comparison, then maybe I'm not so nuts after all. The only question that remains is why I see Carlos as a Jose Canseco type of player.

That part I haven't quite figured out yet. It's not just the home runs, but that is part of it. I'm sure that one day it will slap me in the face and be so obvious that I'll wonder why I didn't think of it before. But until that eureka moment arrives, I'll have to settle for not being the only one who sees that similarity.

Chicago is abuzz about Carlos Quentin. It's not hard to see why. The Chicago papers are calling Carlos Quentin the steal of the off season. I just hope it stays that way. Sometimes the questionable moves by a team turn out to be the best acquisitions.

Heavenly Vixen - Heavenly Signatures

I woke up this morning not expecting much. Tracey went off to her work week and her weekday residence on Monday afternoon. Everything that I ordered or made a trade with came in the mail yesterday. Honestly, I wasn't looking forward to pounding the beat looking for employment. I was delaying that as much as I possibly could.

I was eating a breakfast of three day old gnocchi and a Sprite Zero, which is the cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast, when my newspaper reading was interrupted by my barking dog, Tesla. She was named after Nikola Tesla, the inventor of AC current, the Tesla Coil and the Death Ray. Not the hair metal band!

Tess, short for Tesla, was informing me that the mail carrier had stopped and delivered more bills and junk mail. Not too much in the mail today. The new Rolling Stone. Beckett wanting me to subscribe to their "sports" magazine. Bank statement. Pre-approval for a Home Depot credit card. A plain white envelope from Wax Heaven.

This piqued my interest! I knew this package was coming, but I had relegated it to the back of my mind. I had other projects moved to the front, like moving my growing stack of White Sox cards into pages and into albums. Plus, a baseball related project that I'm not ready to reveal details about, yet.

I opened up the envelope and under many centimeters of plastic and tape was the authentic autograph of Tatiana, the Heavenly Vixen, numbered 01/05! I was secretly hoping for one of the autograph cards, but truthfully, I would've been happy with any card.

This card rocks! This made my day so much better! Thank you, Mario and Tatiana. This kind gesture perked me up today.

When Idols Attack

The blogging community is abuzz with the news from Florida last night. Mario of Wax Heaven finally met his idol, Jose Canseco.

After watching Jose's brother Ozzie play softball a few times, the unthinkable happened. Jose showed up to the game and played. Jose went 2 for 5 with an RBI double, according to Mario.

I can only hope that if I ever meet any of my childhood heroes, it can be under circumstances this cool. Jose even offered to take a picture. Maybe he reads Wax Heaven secretly.

Congratulations Mario! From the way you describe it, the meeting was everything you hoped it would be. I honestly don't know how I would react if I ever met Harold Baines or Carlton Fisk, not to mention the other heroes of my childhood. People sometimes have a funny way of reacting to people that they admire.

Would I be shy meeting Bobby Thigpen? Would I ask endless questions about baseball and music if I met Jack McDowell? Would I get nervous around John Cangelosi? I really don't know. I'd like to think that my tongue wouldn't be tied. I'd like to think that I could have a normal conversation with them. They are all just human beings, after all. Why should it be any different than meeting any other person?

The truth is, it shouldn't be. These ballplayers are all normal people. They have just done something with their lives that garners a lot of attention. Some would say obsessive attention. Then again, it reaches nothing like the coverage of people like Britney Spears or Brad Pitt.

Wax Heaven's Holy Grail

Where do I start with this trade? Well, I thought I'd be cute and dangle the holy grail out there to see if I'd get a bite. Boy, did I ever get a whopper!

Closer to reality, I saw an opportunity to make someone happy and chose to pursue it. If this seems like a lopsided deal, it really isn't. The Canseco card is at $40 Beckett hi and is priceless to the person who received it, Mario from Wax Heaven. I even wrapped the Canseco card in a picture from Monty Python & The Holy Grail that I printed to ensure the maximum effect.

Wax Heaven got:

• 1991 Donruss Elite - Jose Canseco (the holy grail card!)
• 2007 Topps 52 Dynamic Duos - Andrew Miller/Cameron Maybin

White Sox Cards got (well, a bunch of White Sox cards):

• 2006 Bowman Heritage - Lance Broadway (autograph)
• 2007 UD Spectrum Swatch - Tadahito Iguchi
• 2007 Topps 52 - Josh Fields, John Danks, Dewon Day, Ehren Wassermann & Danny Richar
• 2007 Bowman Heritage - Javier Vazquez, Gustavo Molina & Ryan Sweeney
• 2007 SP Rookie Edition - #126 Gustavo Molina, #156 Ryan Sweeney, #247 John Danks, #252 Andy Gonzalez & #253 Ryan Sweeney
• 2007 Bowman Chrome - Jermaine Dye, Jerry Owens & Noe Rodriguez
• 2007 Topps Co-Signers Orange - Mark Buehrle/Joe Crede
• 2007 Upper Deck - Josh Fields, Jerry Owens & Ryan Sweeney
• 2007 Topps Heritage - White Sox Team, Ryan Sweeney & Jerry Owens
• 2007 Artifacts - Josh Fields
• 2007 Topps Turkey Red - Tadahito Iguchi
• 2007 Fleer - Ryan Sweeney, Josh Fields & Jerry Owens
• 2007 Bowman - Javier Vazquez, Josh Fields, Ryan Sweeney & Jerry Owens

From what I've been able to tell, Mario has been happy with the trade. I know I am! I'm very happy to receive a jersey card of Gooch, an auto of Lance Broadway, my first White Sox cards of Ehren Wassermann, Andy Gonzalez, Dewon Day & Danny Richar and a bunch of cards that get me closer to completing team sets.

Some of the cards I already had, but they will be going to a good home. My fiancee's nephew is a huge baseball fan. He's been on a team the past couple of years and I have been sharing my love of baseball cards with him. He seems to really enjoy the ones that show a lot of action, but he's starting to get interested in the ones that look older.

Thank you Mario for furthering my collection of White Sox cards and bolstering the beginning collection of a 10 year old. Yes, we are corrupting the next generation with baseball cards. I wouldn't have it any other way. I guess what Cardboard Junkie says is true, "Do cards, not drugs".

Post Holiday Bliss

Well, my holiday was not entirely baseball free, thank goodness. I saw bits of Mark Buehrle's no-hitter and Jim Thome's 500th homer games on Chicago's local Comcast Sports station. They also replayed a Cubs game that my future mother-in-law was interested in.

No baseball cards unwrapped at Christmas this year, but that's OK. Tracey and I got a lot of gift cards that we will use in 2008. Mostly department stores and restaurants, but one came from a movie theater with style called Hollywood Blvd. It's a place where you can eat a sit down meal and have alcohol in a comfy leather chair and see a first run feature. It's the only place that I'll really go to see a movie.

I was reminded of this fact when Tracey, her sister and I caught a Christmas Day movie at a theater around her. I could barely move in the seat. We saw National Treasure: Book Of Secrets. The first one was slightly better, but that's not saying much. I accept it for what it is, a mindless popcorn movie. I saw a lot of actors slumming it for a paycheck, which is always amusing. The Goofy cartoon that preceded the movie was much better. It was a throwback to the Goofy cartoons from the 50's. It was about how to set up a high definition home theater system. I'm also a movie nut, so it was very funny to me.

When I got a free moment today, I checked the obligatory blogs and sites and ran across this at Wax Heaven. I was intrigued by the headline "White Sox Cards blog saves Christmas". I was very pleased to see that Mario got the cards that I sent over to him. I was hoping that they would arrive on Christmas Eve, but you can't make the U.S. Post Office go any faster, especially around this time of year. I imagine it's a madhouse around there during the holidays.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday and got something that they can brag about. No matter if it was a gift, a gesture, or just being with the ones you love, I hope everyone had something positive this holiday.

OK, I'm done. Back to baseball cards and White Sox related stuff.

Wax Heaven Support

I agree with Wax Heaven about banishing the steroid era players who have been caught. We can't change the games themselves, but we can ignore tainted statistics. Roger Maris still owns the single season home run record of 61. No asterisk, just skill. Sorry Babe, the asterisk is gone from Maris' record. Hank Aaron is still the Home Run King. Welcome back Roger and welcome back Hank. We missed you. If there has to be someone who broke Aaron's record in 2007, change the name to Kurt Brown. I outlined my reasons why in an earlier post.

Most of the high profile steroid users, sorry *alleged steroid users, wore the number 25. Bonds, McGwire, Palmeiro, Giambi, even Sosa at one point with the White Sox. I would like to proclaim the greatest hitter to wear number 25 in the steroid era is Jim Thome.

Jim is a constant professional, who volunteers his off-time to help worthy charities. He's unselfish enough to swing a pink bat on Mother's Day, wear number 42 on Jackie Robinson day, and loves being a team player. See, you can still be a team player and get your numbers. Yes White Sox fans, I loved Aaron Rownd and Frank Thomas too, but Jim Thome is so much better than Aaron Rowand at the plate and Jim is so much better with the media and fans than Frank ever was. I think at some point Frank may have "believed the hype". Although, I am so glad that McGwire for Thomas trade never happened that was almost a done deal around 1992.

When Jim Thome hit his 500th home run, he put a prize package together for whatever fan caught it. Then the fan gave part of that prize to Jim's charity. In turn, Jim offered to fly the fan and a few friends in to the Cubs-Sox game to watch the action in his personal suite. This is the kind of guy the fans should be rooting for. And why did Jim want that home run ball so badly? So he and his father could take a trip and personally deliver it to the Hall Of Fame during the off-season. That is the complete opposite of what Barry Bonds stands for.

C'mon, this is the type of player we need to be rooting for. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was standing in my living room for Jim's entire at bat when he hit 500. I had the grin of a child and started to tear up with joy when that ball went out. I wasn't even angry that he didn't do it the previous night, because I was at that game. It was the first 500th home run to be a game winning home run. Appropriately enough, it came on Jim Thome bobblehead giveaway day.