A card show trip recap - a dollar boxes of doom addendum

I forgot to share this in the last post, but it's basically the cards of players who made their debuts in the 2000s - these should end up in my decade stars binders if I can ever get things straightened out where there is the space to add these cards in or possibly be part of new pages [if I can round up more cards].

I might have put the Robinson Cano card back because in some respects his playing career with the New York Mets represent a death crawl ending in his release from the team - I'll give him some love for his distinguished career, aside from the two PED suspensions and the occasionally whining by fans about him dogging it on the field.

Adam Jones and Hunter Pence are part of my decade stars collection so I guess I do collect them by default - though maybe both players end up on being more on that obscured, semistar tier especially when they aren't playing anymore.

Jones played in Japan in 2021, which maybe the same as not playing anywhere besides but the big leagues - he maybe one of those guys who I wanted to collect on the side and his draft pick card from 2003 maybe a nice add to whatever cards I have displayed of his.

Pence is one of those fan favorite personality guys who may have a second career as a color commentator - I left that numbered insert once before and decided to just grab it, rather than have second thoughts over not making a dollar card a keeper.

Ranking the 30 MLB teams on my watch - Baltimore Orioles #15 of 30

Chris Davis, Manny Machado and Adam Jones make this team go round and round - though it remains to be seen whether Davis can duplicate his monster season, whether Machado can recover from the leg injury he suffered and whether Adam Jones can continue to be a center fielder with the ability to hit with some pop.

I do wonder what happened to Nick Markakis - he bounced back to play 160 games this past season but isn't the rising star he once was in his mid 20's, especially when he had a .356 slugging percentage.

Is the corpse of Brian Roberts still haunting the team ?] - it's been suspect that he hasn't been able to play a full season since 2009.

I'm sure he is still a fan favorite with the Orioles, even though he has only gotten to play on a sporadic basis - but I wonder if he was doing something in his mid 20's that caught up with him in his 30's.

Has Matt Wieters' star dimmed [?] - once annointed a future superstar at catcher, he's been a decent player who hasn't quite lived up to the massive hype and had a down season with the bat in 2013.

Autograph requests through the mail received: Adam Jones

Adam Jones c/o Baltimore Orioles [spring training] - I sent an autograph request to the Orioles' centerfielder on 2/25 and got a SASE back with one card signed in blue ink on 4/7/12.

The other card I sent wasn't returned [an 2011 Donruss Elite Extra Edition].

I only sent 10 spring training requests in 2012 and the only other response was on 3/8/12 - when I got a 'return to sender' for a request I sent to Detroit Tigers prospect Jacob Turner.

Autograph requests through the mail received: Adam Jones and Felix Doubront

Adam Jones c/o Baltimore Orioles [spring training] - I sent an autograph request to the Orioles' centerfielder on 2/18 and got my SASE back with two cards signed in black on 4/4/11.

Felix Doubront c/o Boston Red Sox [spring training] - he had signed one signed card in black Sharpie in about a month, but part of the autograph had stuck to the inside part of my SASE, so I'm going to try to remove the autograph with either an eraser or a nail polish remover.

I haven't made up my mind whether or not I lose sleep over these things but I'm anal when it comes to signed items - I don't like imperfections in the way the autograph was signed including but not limited to smears, smudges and bubbling.