That Jeter is useful after all

As a Dodger fan, i don't have much use for the captain of the Yankees. If a ballplayer can drive someone crazy with the total number of bloop hits he accumulates, then Jeter has reserved a room with my name on the door at the area loony bin.

He aggravates me to no end, as any good Yankee should. But ever since 2009 Heritage came out, I've found that Jeter has his benefits. Especially when he's a short-print Jeter.

I have pulled the Jeter All-Star short-print twice already. And since I'm not collecting the whole set, I have sent it off in a trade each time. The Jeter card isn't the only card I sent in each trade, but it is the card that kicked off the trade talk both times.

The latest destination for All-Star Jeter was Minnesota, where Yankee fan, Eric S., of The Pettitte Pursuit, resides. One of these days I'm going to find a kick-ass Pettitte card that he doesn't have. Even though I don't have half the eBay-combing skills that many collectors do, I'll stumble across something one day.

But even without a suitable Pettitte card, the Jeter card and some other 2009 Heritage cards helped yield some Dodgers in return. Here is some of what Jeter brought:

A Heritage card of Greg Maddux. Again, Maddux is photoshopped into a Dodger uniform. The lettering on the cap isn't right, and even the coloring of the cap is off.

Manuel being Manuel on a Heritage card. Manny isn't crushing the ball like last year -- not that I ever expected that to happen -- but he's still hitting .326 and making things go in the Dodger lineup. The Dodgers are leading the National League in total hits (134), runs (82), RBIs (81), OBP (.393) and batting average (.302). And reliever Will Ohman used Manny's bat to get his first career RBI on Saturday. America may run on Dunkin', but the Dodgers run on Manny.

I also received the Joe Torre Heritage card, which I featured yesterday, from Eric. That means I'm down to needing two Dodger Heritage cards -- Matt Kemp and the Dodgers coaches. If you can spare those two cards, let me know.

Thanks to bloggers I have a fair amount of the 2009 Topps flagship gold Dodgers. Billingsley is already 3-0 this season. It's too early to be giddy about the Dodgers' stats, but I can't help it.

A fine '09 Upper Deck First Edition card of Nomar, who is now sporting the green-and-gold.

Eric also dug into the vault and found two early Mike Piazza cards for me. This is a 1993 Topps gold card. Some of you may consider this a Carlos Delgado card. But you would be wrong. And those of you who consider this a Donnie Leshnock card, are really, really wrong.

This card is from the '93 Upper Deck Fun Pack set. I had to do a little research on that. I sure do appreciate the cards of Piazza from his early years. I still don't have any of Piazza's true rookie cards. I believe there are three from 1992. But one day they will be mine.

All in all, I'd say that Jeter card came in quite handy. So much so, that I hope I pull another one. Because someone else needs one.

But just because I've found a use for Jeter doesn't mean he can go back to hitting bloopers. And he needs to back away from the plate a little bit.