Greetings and Salutations

First and foremost, thanks to Tony Burbs, Tim B., The Lost Collector, Dimebox Nick and defgav for getting me hooked on online card trading through blogs, trades and contests.  Without those welcoming gents, you wouldn't be reading this.

A little background:  I'm a husband, father of two, working a full-time job and [finally] working on my bachelors.  (This means I won't have anywhere near the time allowed to post more than a couple times a week, if even that).  I served in the Marines for 8 years, traveling around southeast Asia and the west Pacific.

Last year, a friend of mine took me to a couple Cubs games at Wrigley.  The first was against the Reds/Johnny Cueto, with the rock solid Jason Hammel starting, on June 12th (before his injury).  This was the only game dropped in the series (Starlin Castro however walked-off the next two).  It was a very chilly, misty day, we sat in the newly opened RF bleachers, and got this as the promotion that day:

They should've given blankets.  Didn't matter.  It was cold, rainy, Cubs lost 5-4 thanks to a couple errors, but I was hooked.  Hearing stories about Rizzo and Lester overcoming Cancer, among countless other stories, how could you not root for this team?  Oh, and hearing about some guy with dreamy eyes that rocked Spring Training, and didn't stop when called up to replace an injured Mike Olt at third base... I'm sure you've heard of him.

*Sparkle*

I couldn't wait for my next Cubs game, which came a month later.  My buddy kept telling me how great it is to see the Cubs & White Sox play each other, so we secured tickets for one of the games at Wrigley.  By the time we got the ticket though, all that was left was the VERY top row of the second deck, along the first base side.  Couldn't see LF at all, let alone the video boards.  Was irrelevant, because there weren't very many highlights for the Cubs since, oh yeah, these guys were pitching:

This one didn't end well for the Cubs either, as the Sox took a 2-0 lead in the top of the 1st that they would not relinquish, finishing with a score of 5-1.  Sale was, well, Sale, and it was the odd numbered month version of Lester.

Didn't matter, I was still hooked on the team, but should've gotten tickets for the following game when Big Jake was starting.  Oh well.

In the past I have been to a couple other baseball games, one at New Comisky when I was 12, I think, can't remember for the life of me who the Sox were playing, but didn't think anything of it at the time.

Same goes for a Padres game I caught back in 2001, during Boot Camp, of all things.  Didn't really pay attention to the game, was more concerned with getting a break from the craziness of boot camp, and stuffing my face with "Pogie Bait", ie. nachos and soda.  Background on this, a millionaire that as in the same battalion back in the day pays to send companies in that battalion to either Padres or Chargers games, when possible.

But now, thanks to the boys in blue from the north side, and my buddy Sean, I have Cubs fever.  Good part is I don't feel I came on as a bandwagoner, because of the timing.  Yes, I became a fan during the 97 win season that led them to the NLCS, but A) they lost both games I attended, and 2) iirc, they weren't in wildcard position yet, and had dropped 10 of the past 19 games.

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I grew up a Husker fan, played some little league, and collected [mostly baseball] cards from roughly 1988-1992, right in the heart of the "junk wax" era.  I finally took all that old wax out of storage to dig around looking for Cubs cards, which were fairly plentiful.  I didn't remember this, but I must've been a Blue Jays fan as a kid, as that was definitely the biggest stack out of all the teams.  I was happy to find a handful of Greg Maddux, Ryne Sandberg, Darryl Strawberry and Nolan Ryan cards, along with a few other HOF players, including this guy:

HOLY CRAP!! A Randy Johnson Rated Rookie!!  Mind you, I hadn't touched my cards in roughly 20 years, had heard a few names after getting back into baseball, and figured this might be worth something.

Well then.  From here, I started my research and learned of the "Junk Wax" era, and that these are virtually all worth piddly poo.  All good, unless I managed to dig up something that was worth thousands, I wasn't planning on selling anything.

I was in this originally just to collate the cards I had, then hook up some friends (again, not really knowing that they were commonly referred to as "junk").  Then I picked up a few flagship packs, some Fairfield packs, and really started having fun.  Then I found the trade blogs, saw that Tony Burbs needed 1 card that I had (Donn Roach minor league card), and it took off from there.

There will be a few posts regarding completed trades, a contest I won, and of course, some trade bait.

Otherwise, I'll post whenever I have time, share them on twitter @stetsonaw, and on Google+.