Getting closer

I have no time for Halloween this year. I have a sick kid. I have a super, mega-intense night of work ahead of me, and World Series Game 3 is approaching. Can't we postpone Halloween a few days?

Somehow, I do have time to post. And just as oddly, it's a trade post. I've been falling behind again on these.

To illustrate, the cards that I'm showing arrived more than a week ago. They're from Dan of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop and Duane of Democratic Roadkill. Both arrived at my door on the same day, and it was quite a day because both of them knocked down some set needs.

In fact, they hit four of my set wants in all, and I'm very close to completing all of those sets now. So that was a very big day. Whatever day that was. Wednesday, I think. Maybe Thursday. Anyway, it was big.

First the cards from Dan. He noticed I was still foolish enough to want '08 Stadium Club cards and sent me some. I now need just 14 more of the diabolical divisible-by-three cards and then those full-price blasters that I continue to see will never enrage me again.

Here are the cards. No words:

Some cropping and aligning issues with those cards.

Dan also made sure to hit my 1993 Upper Deck set needs. I now need only 11 more cards! I better splurge on a binder, huh?

I am pretty certain that Magadan is airbrushed into his Marlins jersey and helmet. It is odd to see that on an Upper Deck card. That's pretty much a Topps thing.

Mike Scioscia as a Padre. I completely blocked that out.

Mets. Or, soon-to-be Dodgers, for the guys on each end. Poor Ho-Jo never got to know the pleasure of wearing Dodger blue.

Albert Belle is a bad man. I think that's what this painting is trying to say.

The Hawk is more my style.

And how about this? Dan sent a new Cracker Jack mini card of Zach Wheat after a blogged about how I dropped the previous one he sent down the air-return vent. Yay! Thanks, Dan!

The rest of the cards are from set-collector extraordinaire, Duane. I sent him a bunch of A&G minis that I don't really collect, and he found some key A&G stuff for me.

The two 2008 World's Greatest Victories cards that you see here complete the Greatest Victories subset for me. Yahoo! I am officially, OFFICIALLY done with '08 A&G. Well, except for one thing, as you'll see.

Duane found two of the three remaining Dodgers minis that I needed. He didn't find the third. So I am still lacking Rafael Furcal, which would then officially, officially, OFFICIALLY complete my '08 A&G wants.

He also sent a Jason Schmidt no-numbered mini, which is what kicked off the trade for me in the first place. I don't know why. It's just a missing number. Why do I care?

And he threw in three A&G back mini Dodgers.

But then the surprise. Duane sent a whole stack of 1988 Score wants. Wow! I now need just 36 cards to finish off the set.

I am showing Armas first because I have noticed that '88 Score cared about making sure the entire bat got in the photo frame more than any other set. They refused to crop part of the bat out of the photo. One of these days I'm going to show all of those cards. It is so weird of '88 Score to do that.

A key 1988 Score of rookie Tom Glavine. I like this card better than his other 1988 cards.

Remember the Raines card I showed earlier? Remember how tall he looked? Now look at him. He looks like Eric Davis' puppet.

I have owned Steve Garvey's first card for a long time. But it took me over 20 years to get his last card. Finally.

Two guys who were of better use to the Dodgers in 1988.

The first of the cards in the Reggie Tribute Score series. Not nearly as nice as Reggie in an Orioles uniform. That might be the card of the year.

The future Cardinals hitting coach. Look at McGwire in the photo. Do you think McGwire ever heard these words: "Mark, you don't have to kill it."

Lastly, a card of Ripken, just because.

Thanks, Duane for all the cards.

Happy Halloween.