Two days in a row!

I'm trying to work my way out of this winter chill as the temperatures dip into the negative double digits tonight.  First up: blogging two consecutive days.  And since I'm feeling really feisty, I'll be packing up some much overdue packages to get out in the mail tomorrow.  Step three?  Warmth.

Well, two out of three ain't bad, right?

I put in a recent order with my buddy Mike at Tromp's Sports Cards.  His prices are tough to beat, and he always stocks a nice range of baseball.  And any regular reader of Battlin' Bucs knows I do love me some autographs.  I have had my eye on adding a Nick Johnson signature to the collection for some time.  And while I would normally opt for a major league issue, at $.50, this one was too good to pass up.  My only complaint?  I do wish you could see a bit more of the jersey and logo.  But it does show some nice crowd interaction, and a guy with some super cheesy 90's sunglasses.

Keith Ginter was a pretty forgettable player.  So forgettable that I apparently remember him for all the wrong reasons.  I remembered Ginter being a decent player for the Astros who had a couple seasons with decent pop before fading back into obscurity.

And I was half right.  But his three seasons with the Astros were less than impressive, totaling a whopping 19 plate appearances.  Apparently his two breakout years came for the Brewers, putting up 34 HR's in '03 and '04.  I guess all those NL Central teams kind of ran together in the mid 00's. 

They may not be the prettiest of autographed cards, but for less than a dollar for the pair, I'm happy to give them a place in my collection.  As more of those one time stat/top prospect types from the late 90's and early 00's fade from the collector's mind, I'm hoping steals of this kind might become a little more common for me.