Happy Easter: 2013 Gypsy Queen and Opening Day

I got a few cards for Easter this year. I got a Value Pack of 2013 Gypsy Queen that has the 3 packs and 3 framed parallel cards and I got two jumbo packs of 2013 Topps Opening Day. I'm going to show off the entire contents of the Gypsy Queen value pack, but just the inserts from the Opening Day.

First up are the three framed parallel cards. I think these cards look great and I'd be willing to trade these for D-Backs, so just let me know.

Pack #1 only contained 5 cards, but that's because one of them was a jersey card of Alex Gordon. I can't tell if the swatch is from a jersey or patch. I'm leaning towards patch. This is also up for trade if you have a D-Backs relic from this set. just let me know.

Pack #2 contained a Roy Halladay No-Hitters card, a Profar rookie, and a Josh Hamilton mini.

Pack three contained B.J. Upton and a bunch of retired stars including a Sliding Stars card of my favorite all-time player Ken Griffey Jr.

 Here are the inserts from the two 2013 Topps Opening Day jumbo packs. The Baxter mascot card has already been traded to my son. I think he's going to try to get it signed tomorrow at Opening Day.

Spring Training Autograph Success: Cincinnati Reds

Two days ago we got Reds prospect Billy Hamilton at the parking lot on a baseball. We just asked him to sign it, which he did. But in retrospect, I should have asked him to sign the sweet spot. Oh well!

Today we got Bronson Arroyo to sign one card and then we got Mike Leake to sign three cards. He personalized each of them.

TTM Success: Bobby Doerr

I sent a card to Hall of Famer Robert P. Doerr last week (3/18/13) and got it back yesterday (3/25/13) just one week later. Always awesome to get a Hall of Famer back! Bobby signed my card and included half an index card with a different address. So if you plan on sending him a ttm request, use the address below.

Pack Break: 2013 Topps Opening Day

Yesterday was filled with yard work and running errands. My two older boys helped me out in the yard and with the money they earned they decided to get a few packs of 2013 Topps Opening Day from Target. We got four packs in total (two for my soon to be 7 year old, 1 for my 5 year old, and one for me). My oldest son was really happy to pull two Diamondbacks (J.J. Putz and Paul Goldschmidt) an Albert Pujols Superstar Celebrations card and a Baltimore Orioles Mascot card. He turns 7 next Saturday and will be getting some more Opening Day for his birthday! My other son got a nice Andrew McCutchen Play Hard insert and was happy! I think I did pretty well for $0.99. Here are the cards I got.

This Brandon League card was on the top of the pack.

The blue parallel numbered to 2013 was a few cards later. I don't know why but I think it's cool to get the base and a parallel of the same card in the same pack. The blue parallel works really well with it being a Dodgers card. GCRL contacted my about a trade yesterday, so this will be headed his way, assuming he needs it.

I got base cards of Granderson, Santana, Ryan Howard, and Carlos Quinton.

I also got a Ballpark Fun insert of Dustin Pedroia. 

Win a game-used Troy Tulowitzki bat courtesy of Christian Colonel

Christian Colonel, a.k.a. @Batting4MyBoy on Twitter, is going to give away a Troy Tuluwitzki game-used bat when he reaches 5000 Twitter followers. He and Troy were teammates in the Rockies organization. Christian is an awesome guy that provides entertaining tweets and is constantly giving away autographed cards, balls, and bats. In fact, I just won an autographed ball tonight! Anyways go follow him on Twitter right now for your chance to win a game-used Tulo bat.

pic.twitter.com/aNXpyi2NbP

Spring Training Autograph Success: Arizona Diamondbacks plus a former Phoenix Suns player

Like I said in my last post, the Indians played the Diamondbacks in a night game yesterday out in Goodyear. my family had tickets to the game so my boys and I went to the Stadium early and got a nice spot to get D-Backs autographs. There were quit a few players that signed, but I didn't have cards for all of them, but we got a few good ones.

Kubel was the first player to come over. We only had one card for him to sign because we got him a few weeks ago.

Cliff Pennington came over and signed as well. This guy next to me was kind of annoying. He was talking to Cliff about how great he was because he had given his son his batting gloves earlier this Spring and then when Cliff left, he said "Thanks Chad!" Wrong sport Dude!

Josh Parr came out and signed for just a few people and was headed back into the dugout, but I called him by his first name and asked him to sign my card and he came back over and signed our card. 

Steve Sax was the last person that we got to sign. He signed three cards, one for me and each of my boys.

Almost forgot, but former Phoenix Sun Cedric Ceballos was at the game. He threw out the first pitch and did some of the public address announcing later in the game. During the first and second inning he was set up though at a table to sign autographs. I didn't know he was going to be there so we just had him sign our tickets. 

Spring Training Autograph Success: Cleveland Indians

The Indians played the Diamondbacks in a night yesterday. I took my boys over to the Indians practice fields before the game. We got there a little late a some players had already gone in, but we were able to Michael Bourn (who we hadn't gotten before) and Jason Giambi.

As you can tell, my Sharpie wasn't working very well, so I was glad he used someone else's black sharpie to sign the other card.