The Monthly Comment Mailbag - July 2009 Edition

Since we missed doing this last month, this edition of the Monthly Comment Mailbag will include comments from both June and July. But before I begin, Indians Victor Martinez was traded today to the Boston Red Sox for pitchers Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price. With Cliff Lee traded earlier in the week, Travis Hafner is the new Dean of the Cleveland Indians, making his Indians debut on 03/31/2003 (beating out Jhonny Peralta by two-and-a-half months).

On with the comments...

Chris Harris, who I didn't realize actually reads my humble little blog, commented that I "most famous (or infamous) Topps Gold-Exclusive card of them all: the Brien Taylor autograph from 1992 Topps Gold (#793)." Well, I did only because the regular set had 792 cards and his card was #793. His card obviously did not replace the checklist, so writing about his card was never an option for me. You have to give me credit on getting Kerry Woodson mentioned at least.

To gritz76, I don't know how or why Wakefield got snubbed in this year's base set. You'd think because he plays for the BoSox that he'd get a card (isn't it a rule that every Red Sox player get a card???) For the record though, Wakefield did not get a card in both the 1995 Topps (although he did appear in the 1995 Traded set, his first Topps Red Sox card) and the 2000 Topps sets (in this case, he did not even show up in that year's Traded set either).

To 2009 A & G Codebreaker JD's Daddy, hope you found that Wally card. If not, you'll find it as the bonus card from this year's 15-card Red Sox team set. And no, shorthanding the base set isn't the reason to create an update set, but because of the limit that Topps puts on THEMSELVES, they have to cut players and then team collectors have to hope that the update set will include them. This can all be avoided if Topps went back to the 792 card set. But I digress.

To bailorg and Sharpe, I knew I'd get heat for saying Ankiel was the Cardinals' Dean over Albert Pujols, and I did look to see if Ankiel was ever DFA'd (designated for assignment), but I couldn't find any information on that at all. Does being removed from the 40 man roster (which I did find) constitue being removed from MLB service time??? I don't know the logistics on that. Hey, if the Cards could get rid of Ankiel, then there would be no doubt, right???

To dayf the Cardboard Junkie, you must have missed my post about regarding the first ten bonus cards appearing in 2009 Topps Hobby Factory sets. Here is the original post. And to save time, the players who make up card numbers 1-10 are:

• 1 David Price, Rays
• 2 Rick Porcello, Tigers
• 3 Ryan Perry, Tigers
• 4 Brett Anderson, Athletics
• 5 David Freese, Cardinals
• 6 Koji Uehara, Orioles
• 7 Elvis Andrus, Rangers
• 8 Trevor Cahill, Athletics
• 9 Andrew Bailey, Athletics
• 10 Jordan Schafer, Braves

To madding, I'd love to see those too. Chris Harris, Mr. Stale Gum himself, actually posted a link to the website of Chris Speakman, the artist who's drawings will make up the cards. To get a better view of Mr. Speakman's work, go to sportspropaganda.com. Needless to say, they are awesome.

And finally, to friend of the blog TDLindgren, while the sell sheets do show that the Legends of the Game inserts will include Ruth as a Red Sock, and other legends in the unis of other teams, I did not see anything regarding more SP's, especially of said players pictured on different teams. I am hoping that there are no SP's in the U & H set. I'm still short five of the MLB SP's right now (still crying about seeing that the girls from Dinged Corners gave a Mike Schmidt SP card to a Phillies fan, but hey, I snooze, I lose).

So that's it for this month's edition of the Monthly Comment Mailbag. Keep on leaving those comments. That way I know that people are still reading my blog. If all goes well, this should be the first month (July 2009) where I reach 4,500 unique visits in a month (according to SiteMeter), which would be a record high for me. But then again, who's really counting right???

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama