More evidence my mail, uh, person hates me ...

So, a few weeks ago my wife was at a large party for an acquaintance she knows from work. One of the people at the party was, believe or not, our mailman.

My wife knew our mailman was going to be there so she made sure to introduce herself to him. When she told him where we lived, he knew immediately what house it was and where it was on his route. Then he said, "yeah, you've been getting these little yellow packages, all within the last six months."

That's all he said. Nothing about, "a pox on your house," "or you should see my chiropractor bill," or "I'll see you in hell." But perhaps not so coincidentally, we've had a woman deliver our mail for the last couple of months. Our old mailman claims he is off on some other company business, but I don't know if I believe him.

Anyway, I'm sure my new mail carrier is wise to everything my old carrier warned her about. Because I think I received 10 or 11 card packages in the mail last week. I've decided to lump three of them together here in an epic post. But that still doesn't cover all of them. More will be featured later this week.

First, we have some cards from Chris at Nachos Grande. Chris is one of the great collectors that I know of current cards. He collects much like me, enjoying the retail shopping process, and we like many of the same sets. But while I kind of go after sets half-heartedly, he's much more ambitious, and I'm sure his success rate is much better than mine.

This trade began out of my plea to get the Marlon Byrd card to complete my 2009 Topps Series I set. Someone beat Chris to sending the Byrd card, but that's OK, because a number of other cards came with Byrd.

Here is a 2007 Ultra card of Derek Lowe, now working for the Braves. The Dodgers don't play the Braves until the last day in July. I'm kind of interested in how they'll fare against Lowe. Now that he's not a Dodger anymore I can say this: I never liked him.

The rest of the cards from Chris that I'm showing are Timeline cards because I love them and I must get all the Dodgers. They're all listed right there for you in my want lists. I like this Kershaw card quite a bit. One of my favorites.

Here is one of the many Timeline insert sets, copying the old '95 SP Prospects design. James Loney is doing quite well for himself lately. I know fantasy players hate him because he's a corner infielder and has only two home runs. But in the real world we like his team-leading 42 RBIs and .293 avg. and respectable .357 OBP.

My favorite of the Timeline insert sets, from the '94 All-Time Heroes. Love the floating heads. This is the 23rd card of Chin-Lung Hu I have from 2008. He's still in the minor leagues.

Thanks for the cards, Chris! Hope you enjoy yours.

I'll follow that fineness up with another bunch of cards from Max, a.k.a, jacob mrley. He sure knows how to send a great selection.

First we have some NOMO PROMOS. (That is awfully fun to say). The Hideo Nomo card on the left is from some Topps Finest thingy from the mid-90s. The card on the right is a '95 Donruss Rated Rookie.

I love the promo cards. I don't have enough knowledge of promo cards, or mid-90s cards in general, to know whether these same cards made it into the regular set (but without the "promotional sample stamping"), but it'd be cool if they didn't.

Moving on to some current cards. Here is the ghostly 2009 Goudey card of Matt Kemp. The thing being clutched in his blob of a left hand is supposed to be a batting glove. It looks more like a sock or a hair dryer or something. These cards are about the 180-degree opposite of "high definition."

A cool 2003 Topps 206 card of James Loney. I am not sure why he is making that face.

Here is an '08 Stadium Club card of "Russ" Martin that has me totally stumped, as just about everything from last year's Stadium Club set does. It's a first-day issue card and it is also numbered on the back (96/599). It's also much, much thicker than a regular Stadium Club card. I've never seen one of these before, and if I've heard of them before, I forgot about them in all of the power-of-three shortprint upheaval. Anyone want to enlighten me?

Going back a ways to 1992 Fleer. Here are two from the Update set. I hope to get the rest of the Dodgers from this Update set soon, so I can be done forever with this icky greeness.

What is this Mariner doing in with a bunch of Dodgers? Well, Max says it's a night card. I'm on the fence. I get suspicious of cards that feature players on teams with domed stadiums. Because it almost always looks like night in a domed stadium. But the thing that makes me think it might be a night card is Nelson appears to be wearing a road uniform. I don't know if I'll get it figured out.

I love this card. This is from the cartoon All-Star Game series that was on the back of Fleer stickers in 1981 or 1982. I have several of these cards, but not this one, which doesn't name Steve Garvey, but obviously features his Popeye forearms. And Garvey was the star of the '74 All-Star Game. The other side of the card features an Orioles sticker, if you care.

Going way back to 1969 when Topps issued a "deckle edge" set. I have this card of Tom Haller already. But I mentioned way back once that I actually wrote his stats on the reverse side of the card (the backs of these cards are basically blank). So it is nice to have a second card that wasn't scrawled on by a kid.

Finally, Max sent me almost an entire set of the 1991 Dodgers police set. I have always seen these police sets advertised in catalogs like Fritsch, etc. But I never bought one. I was under the impression that the cards were undersized, but they're actually oversized. (I don't have a ruler with me right now, but they're around 5x7). The backs feature a short bio and different "Say no to drugs" sayings.

Max confessed that he kept the Gary Carter and Darryl Strawberry cards from the set, which momentarily confused me, until a I realized that he was a Mets fan, and those guys kind of had decent careers for the Mets.

But he also gave up a former Met in Orel Hershiser.

A former Met in Eddie Murray. Former Mets in Lenny Harris, John Candelaria, Juan Samuel and Bob Ojeda.

And Barry Lyons, who I only knew as a Met until I saw this card. I had to look up his career. Sure enough, he played 12 games for the Dodgers in 1990-91. I never knew.

Max, many thanks. I have about a four-card Met pile for you right now. But you know I'll be adding to it.

Finally, I received some cards from Andy of Traded Sets. He was giving away Mike Schmidt cards and said any blogger could have one if they mentioned his site. Well, I guess I'll do anything for free stuff, because I wrote an ode to Mike Schmidt and ended up with not just one of the Schmidt cards, but five of them.

Here it is. It's from a 2006 Topps set, but I don't know much about it. It's done in the style of Schmidt's rookie card from 1973 (a card that he shares with Ron Cey and a card that I'm still trying to get). But the card is much flimsier, in the style of today's cards.

Andy also sent this card:

A Manny Ramirez "Head's-Up" card from this year's Goudey set. I still like these cards and am happy to receive it.

Finally, Andy sent a note along with the cards that said, "nowhere is darker than outer space where it's always night time!" Now, I've heard this phrase before, and I know he was referring to my fondness for night cards, but I still thought, "what the heck does that mean?"

Then I saw this:

A Piece of History card of Voyager 2 floating through the outer space night sky. Now THAT is a cool card. A lot of these POH cards, which feature photos of microwaves, etc., are junk. But how can you not like Voyager 2?

Thanks, Andy. I think I owe you a relic card. But I'm trying to find one of someone decent before I send it off. Unless you really WANT a Bartolo Colon relic (Ugh).

Thanks for staying with this until the end. You have made my mail carrier feel as if she has not delivered in vain.