A tub full of Ghostbusters and my 50th Sportlots order

Work, work, and more work. Lately, my wife and I have had differing schedules. I work usually from 8am-4pm and my wife will work sporadically throughout the day and most nights until 8pm. It's the life of a therapist, I guess. So, it's my duty to be with the kids when she can't be. Some nights we have a blast, but others, well, it's a struggle. My youngest son is usually the one to make things difficult. He hates to get in the bathtub. This duty falls on me because I'm the only parent around every night. I have been using my old Ghostbusters toys minus my broken Winston - he was my favorite as a kid, his arms and legs are ready to fall off, so I don't let him take him in the bath. So, with the toys in there with him, he's ok with getting a bath. Usually after I'm done washing him, he wants to play with the toys in the water, and I let him do his thing while I get trapped in thought because I can't shut my mind off - ever.

Peter, Egon and Ray getting soaked.

During a bath last week, I was wondering how many Sportlots orders I have actually had over the years. When I checked on my phone while my son was splashing around, I saw that I was at 49. So, I decided that night to change things. While my wife was typing up her notes from her sessions with clients, I was on my laptop looking at all the shiny things that were flying into my Sportlots cart. Now, sometimes I have had some decent luck with Sportlots, but other instances, like my 50th, I had some issues. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Sportlots order, but as most of you know, there are times where things don't go slightly as planned. After about 6 days, a few envelopes came my way. One in particular was supposed to contain 4 Billy Beane 1986 Donruss Rookies. When I opened the package, only 1 card was in the envelope. I looked at the packing slip to make sure I didn't make a mistake, but no, there were definitely 4 cards ordered. So, I had to click the old wrench icon and submit an issue. After a week or so, the seller finally responded and said he was on vacation, and he'd make it right. Yesterday, I received the 3 missing Billy Beane cards. WHEW. 

(4) 1986 Donruss Billy Beane RC's

I always end up grabbing so many parallels and refractors when I'm on Sportlots. Order #50 was no different. I paid no more than $.27 for any of the following parallels and refractors below. Insanity!

Refractors...

Refractors...

More Refractors...

1996 Select Eddie Kennison, Alex Van Dyke and Stephen Davis Artist's Proof RC's


Also, I can't leave Sportlots without looking to see if there are any Collector's Choice Gold Signature cards or Platinum Player's Club cards. Of course, there was a seller that had 14 Platinum Player's Club cards at $.20. I did pay $.35 for the "Big Flabby" Dan Wilkinson card though, which is quite alright with me. The Gold Signatures I found were baseball and they cost me roughly $.50 each. I did get a Jeff Blauser Gold Signature, but someone bought it at my garage sale I had a few weeks back, so I never got to scan the thing. Here is the haul:

(14) 1995 UD Collector's Choice Platinum Players Club

1994 UD Collector's Choice Gold Signature Mo Vaughn & 1995 UD Collector's Choice Gold Signature Tom Glavine

I was also searching in the inventory of the guy who I bought the Mo Vaughn and Tom Glavine from for a few more cards since his $1.50 shipping price was for up to 5 cards. I decided to upgrade a few vintage cards I had since he advised his cards were in Nrmt condition. When they showed up, they weren't too shabby at all! So, here are my upgrades:

1978 Topps Tony Peters RC & 1973 Topps Rick Reuschel RC

The 5th card I added was a refractor of a former Pittsburgh Pirate. It cost me $.62 and I'm pretty happy with it:

1996 Topps Finest Refractor Bobby Bonilla

The next card I purchased was a card I had been wanting for a while now. This player is not to be confused with the player with the same name who happens to be Patrick Roy's brother. Stephane Roy was a QMJHL #1 overall selection back in 1993 by Val-d'Or Foreurs. His junior career was stellar which saw him rack up 239 points in 202 games played. He was even awarded the QMJHL Humanitarian of the Year award in 1993-94. He was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the 3rd round back in 1994 at 68th overall but would never make the NHL. I remember when I was a huge Blues fan, I wondered if I would ever see him suit up for them and it never happened. Due to trades, Roy was the Blues first pick in that draft, and I figured maybe at some point he'd make it. Since I found out he had an autograph that was numbered I had been on the lookout for one cheap. This one was the cheapest I have found at $.40. The shipping for this card ran me $.70, so all in all I'm in $1.10 on this card. Not bad.

1995 Signature Rookies Stephane Roy Auto RC 657/7750

The next 3 cards came from the same seller. If you have been reading, you noticed I bought some Billy Beane rookies from a seller. Well, I finally got around to reading the book Moneyball. My wife, kids and I went on a beach vacation this summer out to the Outer Banks. My parents have a house out there and asked if we wanted to spend a week out there with them. So, we all piled in my wife's new SUV and left at midnight on a Friday night at the end of June. When the kids and my wife fell asleep, I put on the audiobook of Moneyball. When it got to the 2002 MLB Draft, I chuckled quite a few times and basically really enjoyed the book as a whole. After I finished the book (which took me almost the whole week), I was on Sportlots looking up some of the names I had heard from the book. I ended up grabbing 3 Jason Isringhausen rookies from a seller (one came completely damaged) and also grabbed an Eric Davis Rookie Card to maximize my shipping cost of $1.40.

1985 Fleer Eric Davis RC & (2) 1994 Bowman Jason Isringhausen RC's

When I said I was looking on Sportlots for Moneyball names, I wasn't kidding. I really wanted a Jeremy Brown card, but the card that I wanted was a bit pricey. The seller wanted $20 for the card that I wanted. I have only used the Best Offer option a few times on that site, which means I don't usually buy higher priced cards on there. This particular Jeremy Brown card did have a Best Offer option, so I decided to send an offer of $9 (yeah, I'm cheap, so what). I also added in the text box that I was going to add another card he had for sale that was $2 if my offer was accepted. I waited about 7 hours and later that night I checked Sportlots to see that I had the envelope icon at the top of the screen. When I clicked, it showed that the seller had accepted my $9 offer! WOWZA! So, being a man of my word, I added the other $2 refractor that I said I would buy if my offer was accepted. After I received this Brown card, I even bought another on eBay, so now I have 2! Here is my Moneyball haul from Sportlots:

2002 Bowman Chrome John McCurdy Refractor RC /300 & 2002 Bowman Chrome Jeremy Brown Gold Refractor RC /50

I have found great deals on Sportlots, some have been ridiculous. This may fall into the ridiculous category. I was looking for a nice Simeon Rice rookie. There were a few nice ones, but there was a Bowman's Best Refractor RC that seemed too good to be true. Was this thing really only $1.25? Had to be a typo or something, right? Maybe the seller was selling just the base version and passing it off as the Refractor? I had no idea but figured I would add it to my cart along with a $.20 card and see if it really is the Refractor. Well, it showed up and it was the Refractor!

1996 Bowman's Best Refractor Simeon Rice RC

The other card that I had added from this same seller was a card that was a big deal back in 1993. I remember when I first saw one. My cousin Amy had come in town to visit with a few of her friends. She brought over some of her hockey cards, and she let me have a nice stack of them, but one she didn't let me have was a Fleer Ultra Brett Lindros card. At the time, his brother was a big deal, and most scouts figured his brother Brett would be a huge deal as well. Sadly, his career didn't really turn out the way most figured it would. After being the 9th overall selection by the New York Islanders in the 1994 NHL Draft, Lindros would have a hard time putting pucks in the net. He also dealt with concussion issues. Lindros played an enforcer role and frequently landed on the 4th line and never really showed any offensive touch. In 1996, after only playing in 51 NHL games and 2 goals to show for it, Lindros hung up his skates and retired due to post-concussion syndrome. Maybe that's why this card only cost me a mere $.20. At one point in time, I had seen this card sell for $5 at a card show back in 1993. Crazy.

1993/94 Fleer Ultra Brett Lindros RC

Staying with draft disappointments, there was a seller who had both of these cards available for sale. I paid $8.02 for both of the cards, which in my opinion is a complete steal. The 1998 Upper Deck Bronze cards still hold value. Even if the player is garbage. I have always been able to sell these, and currently I own a bunch of them and every so often I will put them up on eBay for sale. Sometimes they sell, sometimes they sit. I still think these older parallels are super cool.

1998 UD Encore Gold Ryan Leaf RC /125 & 1998 Upper Deck Bronze Curtis Enis RC /100

In my last post, I shared something personal. My mom was diagnosed with cancer. I'm proud to say that after having a double mastectomy surgery and testing out the wazoo, that my mom is currently cancer free! At first, she was having a rough time with not looking the same as she did pre-surgery, but she's taking things day by day. She was fit for prosthetics about 2 weeks ago and has been trying that route, but she is thankful that they caught her cancer early. It certainly was tough on all of us and my kids kept asking why they couldn't see grandma for weeks after her surgery (due to having tubes draining constantly from both sides of her) but she made it through. Thank you to everyone who had such nice things to say to me on my post. It really meant a lot. You guys rule! 

While I was visiting my mom one day after her surgery, we had gone through some photos of our family, and I noticed a photo of my brother and I gathering up school supplies and I noticed a green notebook and I shouted, "Mom, do you remember this?" Of course, my mom had no clue what I was talking about. I had to tell her that the green notebook is the one I used in 3rd grade, and I put a Bart Simpson sticker on it, and she flipped out on me for it. She vaguely remembered what I was talking about, so I reminded her that she bought my brother and I a few packs of Simpsons cards while we were back to school shopping since they were on clearance for like $.25 each pack and I got a sticker of Bart in Army fatigues saying, "War is hell, man." Well, I stuck that bad boy right on the front of my green notebook. This would be the notebook I would be using every day in my 3rd grade classroom. My mom eventually saw my notebook before school started and used a pen to chang the sticker to say, "War is hello man." This sticker would cause a big stink in our household that year. The last card I bought from Sportlots for my 50th order was that stupid Simpson's sticker that caused quite the commotion back in 1991. This one's for you mom!

1990 Topps The Simpsons Bart Simpson "War is hell, man" Sticker

Thanks for reading.