Bud Collins

This being finals weekend at The All England Club in Wimbledon what better cards to post than Bud Collins. To me, who grew up in the 1970's, Bud will always be the voice of tennis.

Here's Bud back in1968 with Muhammad Ali

Check Out My COMC Cards #3 -- Fukudome & Fontenot

The Cubs have a team of likable guys who right now are playing like crap. Here are a couple of likable guys. I picked up two cards of each of them. Total cost was 58 cents.

2007 Topps 52 #29

paid $.10

Mike reminded me of SNL's Darrell Hammond on this card

2008 Topps Year in Review #YR86
paid $.08

Mike had a great start this year but only hit .138 in June. No 7-7.

2008 UD Timeline #232
paid $.20

Like Fontenot, Fukudome got off to a good start this season but had an awful June.

2009 SPx #21
$.20

This card looks better in person. The scanner doesn't pick up the shininess of the background.

Who's Next, Bump Wills?

Another Cub's second baseman is trying to sell me cable service.

Who's next:

Manny Trillo?



Glenn Beckert?


I know, Bump Wills!

Card of the Day

1990 Skybox #311

Am I wrong or does it look like former Pacers head coach Dick Versace is wearing a shower cap?

A bit of Versace trivia, a la Michael Nesmith's mother invented Liguid Paper--- Dick Versace's mother, Tere Rios, wrote the book that the the 60's TV series, The Flying Nun, was based on.

Check Out My COMC Cards #2 -- Carlos Zambrano

More cards from my first COMC shipment:

I have a modest collection of the key players of what I like to call the Piniella Era Cubs, Derek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano, Carolos Zambrano etc. I ended up with a bunch of them in my COMC basket. I think the Piniella era is coming to a close and at this point my plan is to only continue to purposefully add to my collections of two players whether or not they stay with the Cubs.

That being said here's Carlos:

2006 Topps Turkey Red (red) #345
paid $.09

2007 Topps Co-Signers #65
piad $.10

2008 Topps Co-Signers #82
paid $.10

2004 SPx #51
paid $.10

2006 SP Authentic #21
paid $.10

2007 SP Authentic #10
paid $.10

Carlos has been a disappointment for the past two years but Friday's tirade against his teammates has dropped his stock even further. Glad I only paid $.59 for these. With them my Zambrano collection stands at 46 cards.

COMC Clarification

A testament to my bad writing? One reader of mine was led to believe that COMC took six months to ship my cards. Just to clarify--I've been making purchases for six months. COMC will hold your cards and you can choose to have them all sent together at any point. I waited to request shipment until now. The cards came within a few days of my request. I was very pleased both with the cards and with COMC's service.

Check Out My COMC Cards #1

I just received my first batch of cards from Check Out My Cards. I don't know if this is a record or not but I made my first buy back in December of last year. Has anyone else waited that long to have their cards shipped? Well, since this is my first experience with COMC I thought I'd do a series of posts sharing the results.

Just because he's having such a crummy summer I'm going to start with this card:

2007 Allen & Ginter's #213
Paid $.25

I feel bad for Lou. He went into this season with high hopes. He got rid of his clubhouse cancer, Milton Bradley, and had what looked like a pretty good team. Unfortunately the club started out with major middle relief problems and slumps for it's two best hitters. The relief has improved but the hitting has not. Recently, Steve Stone got on his case about not playing Tyler Colvin enough and now he's had a relapse of the clubhouse cancer in the name of Carlos Zambrano. Just not a good year for Sweet Lou. I'm still predicting he doesn't make it to the end of the season with bench coach Alan Trammel taking the reigns for the rest of the year.

Cubs Fanpack

A while back I requested a fan pack on the Chicago Cubs official website and had just about given up when a small padded envelope arrived this week.

Here's what the Cubs sent me:

1. A thank you note which was inside a white envelope with a Cubs logo (not scanned).


2. A Cubs sticker

3. Two different schedules.

4. A photo of pitcher, Randy Wells.

Not bad especially considering the request was online and didn't cost me a cent. Double not bad that they didn't send a picture of Milton Bradley.

Would You Buy Cable Service From This Man?

This came in the mail the other day. Ryne Sandberg is trying to get me to switch cable companies. Sorry Ryno, you may be the next Cubs manager but I'm satisfied with my current cable company.

Peek-a-Boo

William Peek-a-Boo Veach was born on this date in 1862. Why don't we have great nicknames like this anymore? The closest the Cubs have is "The Riot", Ryan Theriot.

Here's Peek-a-Boo's obit from the Sporting News: