Sunday, October 18, 2009

Tribe Cards from Westgate-on-Sea!

Do you know Jack?  How about John?



Most of you know him as JackPlumstead on The Pursuit of 80's(ness), and I usually refer to him as "John from across the pond."  No matter how you look at it, when a package of cards comes from Westgate-on-Sea, I know there will be cool stuff and that I am trading cards with a guy in England (and NOT England, Arkansas either)!!  I realize this is a bit of a digression here, but take a moment to stop and think about that - trading baseball cards with people all over the world.

When I was a kid, I had a group of friends (my brother, Mike, David (not myself, of course, another one), Anthony, a few others) that loved to trade cards.  We were young and naive then, so we liked to glue the cards into sprial notebooks.  Then, when it was time to trade, we would rip the cards off the pages and trade them.  We never cared what the BACKS looked like, it was all  about the fronts and who was on them.  We even made insane trades for checklists if the right person's name was on the thing.

Fast forward to today.  My circle of trading friends has grown immensely, and now it is more than the folks I see on a regular basis (or on any basis).  Thanks to Internet in general and "the web" & blogging specifically, I am trading cards with people from all over the US (one of which lives about 35 miles South or so) to other countries!  Perhaps I am being a bit dramatic to some of you, but I am young enough to se the world as flat as it has become, but I am also old enough to appreciate exactly what that means.

Whether you are a country music fan or not, Brad Paisley sings a song now in which one of the lyrics goes like this: 
"My grandpa was in World War II, He fought against the Japanese.  He wrote a hundred letters to my grandma; Mailed em from his base in the Philippines.  I wish they could see this now, Where they say this change can go.  Cause I was on a video chat this morning, With a company in Tokyo."
Web pages, online checklists, blogging, audio podcasts, online video box breaks, trading cards with far away lands.  We live in some pretty amazing times.

And speaking of amazing things, THANK YOU, JackPlumstead, for some VERY cool cards!  I am a huge fan of the thick Fleer eX and Flair cards!  I also like the Topps Attax cards. I know a lot of folks don't but, I am a big kid at heart, so anything that is 'gamish' appeals to me!  The Sizemore StarQuest foil card is a great example of how companies should use foil on cards - just enough for a WOW! factor, but not so much you can't read the bloomin' thing!  I like the blackout 2009 Topps cards, too.  They're different. 

I also appreciate the Joel Skinner card.  I think he got the royal shaft when he was cut from the team during the de-Wedging of the Tribe.  Skinner was not the greatest Triber to play for the team, but I believe he is one of biggest FANS of the team.  I don't know how many players feel about such things, but if I had played for a team and then was working on the team in ANY capacity after my career was over, I'd call that pretty fulfilling. 


I loved getting these! Again, thanks a bunch!!


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