Favorite Card Of The Day!

The XRC!As a kid,these were what separated the men from the boys.I say this because you were considered to be "Da Man" If you were fortunate enough to own a players extended rookie card.An 89 Topps Walt Weiss was cool to have,but easy to obtain.Having a players XRC from an Update or Traded set meant that you had to do some leg work to get over to your closest hobby shop to either ask the vendor to break up a set for you or special order a factory sealed box.You couldn't find traded sets or packs at your nearest, neighborhood corner stores so you literally had to go the extra mile If you wanted some of that Topps Traded goodness.Known more for his defense,Walt Weiss was the third Oakland Athletics player In a row to receive ROY honors In 1988 (Canseco '86,McGwire '87).

Is It Obvious That I'm Still A Canseco Fan?

Every now and then a new Canseco related item will make an appearance here at my  Sport's Pub as he was my Idol growing up.As a kid,I hit with an open stance like him,swung ferociously hard like him,and even imitated his nervous twitch whenever I'd step up to the plate. Canseco was "THE SHIT" from  mid to late 80's ,and those who didn't love em',hated em'.There was no in between really.He was either crushing the ball for your favorite team or hitting a granny against them.I was an Oakland fan,and made  it a point to catch as many Oakland A's games and Canseco AB's as someone living on the east coast could.There was a time where I thought that I could never forgive Jose for what transpired during the infamous steroid trial,writing a tell-all  book and throwing certain ball players under the bus.Then I came to a realization.Everything he said was true!Baseball was throwing him under the bus for something everybody in the game had been guilty of doing also.And he didn't really snitch on anyone as MLB already knew what was going on,but,whatever.Anyways,regardless of the facts,I've learned to forgive and forget and I feel MLB should do the same by letting these guys back into game(Pete Rose, Canseco etc.) Yeah,yeah,yeah they did things they weren't supposed to but the contributions  to the game are indisputable and far outweigh the penalty imo.The long end short of it Is If MLB wants to ban players on the basis of moralities and poor decision making,then someone in the upper echelons of Major League Baseball should also be banned for turning a blind eye to it all.The people who run MLB are beginning to take on this enlightened,Illuminati-esque complex and It's really starting to piss me off. Wheeew,Holy rant!O.K. now that I've got that off my chest we can proceed to the initial purpose of this post and that is to showcase any and  every new Canseco item to make It's way into the Pub.Yesterday I got two items in the mail - 1988 Jose Canseco Kenner Starting Lineup figure and  a 2001 Topps Chrome reprint of  Canseco's 1986 Topps Traded rookie card!Both are tremendously awesome items and ones I would have loved to own as a kid.1988 marked the debut of Kenner Starting Lineups so essentially this would be Canseco's rookie SL figure.

I never gave much thought to the fact that none of these SL figures had batting gloves.No batting helmets either.A few years later, Kenner would add those batting gloves and batting helmets to certain figures in the line. Here's my 1998 Canseco next to the '88 version.

Now on to the reprint!I would have killed to have a chromed out Canseco RC as a kid!It really Is a beauty.I had no clue this card even existed until recently coming across it on Ebay.Comparison shots below :)

I had to take this baby out of the loader and enjoy It's raw- someness! 

Stay tuned for new additions to the Can-Stash! 

Rookie Cards!

When I first got into collecting cards, I was  12 , and knew little about the accompanying terminology. I knew players, stars mainly, and teams. Hell I didn't even know they were worth money until one Christmas when someone bought me a card collecting kit with a tenuous price guide that only had a few sets listed with their card number and  value. There was no better feeling than matching the number on the back of your card with the one inside the price guide and finding out It's monetary value!I remember flipping out when I saw that my 1988 Topps Darryl Strawberry was worth 15 cents! I didn't know how popular  Rookie Cards were until I checked my price guide one day and realized   that players with a (RC) next to their name seemed to be worth a little more than the common players, even more than some established stars. Some players also had (FS) next to their names ,which stood for "Future Stars".Certain ,more prominent rookies had that written on the fronts of their  Topps rookie cards .My cousin and I had just bought a crap load of 1989 Topps  wax packs ,looking for a player named "Alomar" who was listed as a  (FS) and was worth 2 whole dollars!That was a lot for one card considering  each pack was only 50 cents.

  I was big on Canseco ,so naturally the card to have was HIS rookie. I saved up and my dad put the rest In ,towards a small set of cards put out by Topps called the "Topps Traded Series".These sets were released initially in the late 70's after every regular set and featured about 130 of the games most recently traded players and a slew of young rookies as well. The set I saved up for was the 1986 release, which  featured Canseco's rookie as well as Will Clark's, Bo Jackson's and Barry Bonds!

I think that set started It all for me as far as obsessing over rookie cards. From that point on you weren't considered cool If you owned the card of a star player, you had to have his rookie , too, to be considered a serious collector. Well , as serious as a 12 year old collector could be ,anyways. Down below are a couple of other popular late 80's,early 90's RC's from my personal collection. I'm not really collecting many cards theses days but I'll buy the occasional early 80's RC of a childhood favorite when the chance presents itself. I don't have an extensive collection but I'll be more than glad to see If I have something you might need and wanted to trade for ;) Enjoy the pics!