Friday the Zapteenth

A week or so ago, I got a nice bubble mailer – or a mini zapping – as he referred to it, from Zippy Zappy himself. While I don’t think it’s fair to classify it as a “mini” anything, I have been on the receiving end of his major zaps before, so I understand what he’s saying.

Still, it was a fun, generous package.

The highlight for me was this IP Domingo German autograph. I believe Zipster said he got this from an acquaintance who knows German, and he had two cards signed. He immediately said one was for me, which was so cool.

German has a lot of talent. He came to the Yankees from the Marlins in the Martin Prado/David Phelps for Nathan Eovaldi trade in 2014. After undergoing TJ Surgery in 2015, he made his big league debut last year and was called up to the Majors again last week. He had a nice outing in mop up duty of Sonny Gray last night, firing three innings of one-hit ball while striking out three.

 

Keeping it to autographs, we’ve got two: Mark Melancon and Nathan Mikolas. The Melcancon tricked me. It looks like a sticker but it’s not…it just has the outline there, I guess for the other stickers or so they all look the same, I don’t know. But the outline definitely make me believe it was a sticker autograph until I took the card out to scan it.

I just came across this great article that Mikolas is now acoach in the Marlins system. I hadn’t heard of him since the Yankees released him after the 2016 season, so cool to see he’s now on the other side helping to prepare young players.

Sweet relic of Chien-Ming Wang. I will never forget how running the bases ruined his career.

 

TTM fodder! I am definitely going to send these three cards out for a signature. I love the Bristro card from 2017 Choice. Also, Otto and Bristro have some very pun-able names, so I hope we get to see them with the Yankees one day.

And two cards of the Baby Bombers! While the Topps NOW inserts were a bit of an odd inclusion in 2018 Topps, it’s still a new Judge card. And Topps Fire was straight <fire emoji>, so that’s a great RC of the Yankees new villain Tyler Austin.

So sure, maybe it was “mini” compared to some previous zappings, but it still packed a big punch. Thanks, ZZ!

SuperTraders #20: The Angels in Order

While it’s been a little hard to keep up, I will say that #SuperTraders has allowed me to trade with some collectors I haven’t traded much with in the past. I had a healthy stack of Angels, so I was happy to send those along to Tom of Angels in Order. Tom also sent me a great batch of Yankees from some sets that I definitely hadn’t seen before, which is always fun.

One card of note was from Upper Deck Flyball. I certainly hadn’t heard of this product. Baseballcardpedia tells me it was an interactive set issued in 2005. I was a senior in college then, so I definitely missed a lot of sets around this time.

Here is the back of the card. Do you ever notice how confusing baseball card games seem to be?

Another set I hadn’t seen were these Toys ‘R’ Us issues. From what I can tell, each card was either a future star, young star, or rookie star. They got Bernie’s right!

Again, an oddball I hadn’t seen, this time from 2001 Topps along with Post cereal. I’m surprised El Duque was included as the Yankees representative in this 18-card set, although I am a big fan of his, so no qualms from me.

Salt Lake Bees baseball cards! What a cool looking set! I’m not entirely certain why Yankees are featured on this. Does any know? I think they are great, and clearly a promo item.

Topps Turkey Red are some of the coolest cards out there. The vintage backgrounds look great. This is actually a shiny, glossy version, which I didn’t know existed.

These are so bad they are awesome. Not the card, the photos! Check out the school pictures of these 1991 Yankees draftees.

1993 Upper Deck. The best!

Tom, did you secretly collect Matsui?

I’ll end with a Yankees Wacky card. This one is kind of perfect for me. My name is AJ…apple juice…on a Yankees card? It works!

Tom, thanks for a great package!

Random Yanks from Paul's Random Baseball Stuff

A few weeks back, and awesome assortment of random Yanks showed at my door. Appropriately, they came from Paul at Paul's Random Baseball Stuff. If you don't frequent Paul's blog, you should. He shares some great baseball insights, as well as cool promotions from around the game. While the majority is Mets focused, Paul also frequents the local minor league games, such as Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Trenton, to name a few. He truly is a fan of the game.

One of the coolest things Paul sent was an assortment of pocket schedules, notably from Trenton. Two of them depict Jeter during rehab stints, while another shows Cano. The Jeter in the stars and stripes jersey is just too cool.

I've never seen this Upper Deck card of Jorge Posada. I don't own too many cards from this set. It's from a time I wasn't collecting. It's a pretty cool card. It looks like Posada slid after a ball near the wall in foul territory (and made the catch!).

A bunch of Jeters are always welcome. That Diamond Tributes card is sooo Fleer, but in a good way.

Look how young and innocent Melky looks. Then he did PEDs and still ended up making a ton of money.

Chien-Ming Wang. Stupid interleague play ruined his career. Pitchers don't belong running the bases. While this looks like a Topps base card, it's actually one of those fancy cardboard ones with the old school Topps logo.

A few Sheffs, whose time in NY with the Yanks was very underrated. He got hurt in the third year of his deal, but in the first two, he hit .290/.393/.534 in 2004 and .291/.379/.512 in 2005. In fact, the closest he ever came to winning an MVP was in '04, when he finished second to Vlad. I had no idea.

Mo just looks good on classy cards, such as Turkey Red or Masterpieces.

These Fleer Tradition All-Star cards are cool. I wish Topps would make the current All-Star cards look a little different than just slapping the game logo on them.

There was a bunch more great stuff. Paul, thanks again