Catching Up On Trades Pt. 1

Nothing makes a good day even better quite like yellow envelopes in your mailbox. Over the past week, I've had the luxury of receiving quite a few of these in the past week or so, and because I've been sort of lazy lately, it took me this long to log and scan them. I've been doing a lot of trading the past few weeks, and it's been difficult to keep everything straight as far as who sent what. If I screw this up, and you don't receive proper credit for what you sent, please let me know.

First up is a package from Night Owl that arrived about a week and a half ago. He sent me over some Ginter cards that shrunk my want list a bit, and also sent over a decent sized lot of O's cards. Here are 9 that were selected at random:

2006 Topps Triple Threads Heroes Frank Robinson

1966 was a pretty good year for Frank Robinson. His team won the World Series, and he won World Series MVP, along with the A.L. MVP award and won the Triple Crown AND hitting the only home run in the history of Memorial Stadium that completely left the ballpark. If ever there was a year that should be immortalized on cardboard, Frank Robinson in 1966 should be that card. Plus, it's shiny, and has a crown on it.

2005 Donruss Greats Brooks Robinson

A nice Brooks card. So far Night Owl is 2 for 2 on sending Orioles that I have seperate player collections for.

1986 Topps All Star Set Eddie Murray

Make that 3 for 3. Card design doesn't get much simpler than this, and it works well here.

1998 Skybox Metal Universe Bobby Bonilla

This is actually a Florida Marlins card, but since Bobby's hand has been transformed into a vortex, so I'm willing to overlook that minor detail. What a strange thing to do for a baseball card. I remember Bonilla best teaming with Barry as a member of the Pirates, but he played all over the place later on in his career.

1999 Pacific Crown Royale Delino DeShields

This is another funky late 90's insert. I've really come to appreciate these more and more lately. They were doing some bizarre things back in those days. This is a die cut card in the form of a crown. I think this is probably the closest Delino came to one of those.

1993 Score Boys Of Summer Luis Merecedes

I appreciate how colorful this card is. Mercedes is a player I vaguely remember. I know he was yet another Orioles prospect who just didn't pan out, but aside from that don't know a lot about him.

1989 Donruss Curt Schilling

Curt Schilling trash stache rookie card! Letting Schilling go was the first bad Orioles managerial move that I remember recognizing. It wasn't realized until a few seasons later, but I was 10 or 11, and even at that age I knew that they made a mistake. That's a sweet mustache none the less!

1987 Donruss Cal Ripken Jr. Diamond King

This is the last card from Night Owl. I must have at least 4 copies of this card by now, and don't even care. It's such a great card I'll collect every one of them ever produced, if they're sent to me. Who doesn't love Diamond Kings? Thanks a lot for the great cards Greg!

Next up we have some cards from a trade with The Hamiltonian. I sent off a few Ginter cards and a small stack of Hamiltons, and in return received these 2 cards:

2009 Allen & Ginter's Creatures of Myth, Legend & Terror Unicorn mini

2009 Allen & Ginter's AGR-MM Melvin Mora bat relic

The Unicorn card is so awesome. I really like this insert set, and hopefully will be able to complete it. I think this card gives me 7 out out of 15. I'll probably post them all for you to see in the near future. Thank you very much Hamiltonian, it was a pleasure trading with you.

Next up is a card I received from FanofReds over at Nachos Grande. He was interested in the Dodo Extinct Creatues mini that I had pulled, and for some reason, I really wanted this Brock Yates relic. It might be because he invented and won the first ever Cannonball Run Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Dash (or Cannonball Run for short), but it could also be that I wanted it so badly because his name is Brock. Either way, it's a cool card of an interesting guy.

2009 Allen & Ginter's Brock Yates relic SP

FanofReds, thanks for trading with me, and enjoy your evolutionarily inferior bird card.

That's all for part 1, but rest assured, there are plenty more trades to be posted in the near future.

Hey Melvin Mora... SHUT UP!

If you're not familiar with the situation, click here and here. I think the first link really sums up this whole enchilada. Melvin Mora sort of sucks, and sort of always has. He had 3 big seasons, from 2003-2005 (ironically when the whole Oriole team was reportedly juicing), and really is a borderline starting 3rd baseman to begin with. He was signed as an amateur free agent in 1991, which makes him no spring chicken, at 38 (might not even be his real age). If you subtract his unusually high batting averages from his 3 best seasons, which in my opinion are suspect, considering the roided up gutter trash he shared a clubhouse with for those 3 years, then his batting average is at least 10 points lower than the .278 career mark he currently carries. I personally wanted him gone at the end of '05, despite the great numbers he was able to post last season. I'm sure there are a lot of O's fans who will disagree with my feelings towards Mora, and I've got no problem with that. The only reason he has looked even remotely decent over the course of the last 10 seasons is because the Orioles system had been so weak for so long that he was about all we had. You put him on a team with a truly deep roster, and he's a 6th or 7th place hitter at best.

I will say in Mora's defense, that he has been loyal to Baltimore through some of it's roughest seasons in recent memory, and has blossomed into a pretty good defensive third baseman in the process. His skills however, are clearly on the decline, and in a way I sort of feel bad for him. The writing has been on the wall for at least 2 seasons now that this is a team going through a bit of a youth movement, and clearly re-building. What makes him think he can bat .256 with 3 home runs and 25 RBIs through 100 games and still be in the starting lineup, batting 5th every day? Get a freaking clue, and shut your damn mouth. Did you not just see the Orioles trade George Sherrill for a 3rd base prospect? How much clearer can we make it Melvin?