Saturday odds and ends

A very important milestone today.  Of Course, Jeter got 3000 on a homer.  He went 5-5 on the day in a show of true greatness.  It does make me a bit sad I suppose because I know Jeter only has a couple years left.  The same feeling when The Unit, Griffey, Gwynn, Ripken all retired.  It's not the goal but the Journey and that journey is coming to an end.  I've always thought "For Love of the Game" embodied this the best.

Speaking of the Journey, I am slowly winding my way toward my goal of completing my masterpieces sets.  As you may know, I have been 2 away of the 2008 Masterpieces Green /75 Baseball and Football sets for some time  I'm 28 away from the Blue /50 Baseball set and in the teens for the Football /50 sets.  Slowly but surely.  Wax prices have sky rocketed some I am a bit stuck with waiting for singles to show

As for the 07's, I am well below 50 for all of the /50 and above sets.  There are 630 total cards in all 7 sets, thus I am over 92% there.  It has been an extremely expensive endeavor and I will be glad to finish, but after such a monumental task, I 'm not really sure where to go next.

In this sentimental post which was inspired by an auction email I got there are 3 other things, ok maybe 4 I want to cover.

First, this Gehrig Jersey:

It's from the 1934 Tour of Japan.  I really hope that a card company DOES NOT get its mitts on this and cut it up.  Such a shame when this happens to an historical piece like this.

We would have played for Nothing:

Worth a read.  Yup, still rather have the plain old cardboard basecards than the UV coated, foil stamped, super glossy, full bleed crap we have today.

On to Mantle:

Although Mantle was great, haven't we ridden this train enough times.  There are so many Mantle books out in addition to Topps putting him in every set from now til eternity that I am a bit sick of this.  Now sets have more retired players in them than current players....it seems.  I know thats not true and it might seem a bit ironic because I collect masterpieces, but I do get sick of the retired players being in every set.  Not just a few mind you.