A Random Trade with Paul

A Random Trade with Paul
January 19th, 2012 by slangon

I recently completed a trade with fellow Mets fan and Jerseyite Paul from Paul’s Random Baseball Stuff. I always enjoy a good trade in general, but there’s something especially nice about pulling on off with another fan of your favorite team. If nothing else, it helps to clear out some of the massive piles of Mets doubles that you’ve built up. I was able to hit one or two cards that Paul needed for his vintage Mets sets, along with some other goodies I was able to scrounge up. For his part, Paul sent me a stack of late 90’s/2000’s cards that I had been in dire need of. Getting vintage cards is always awesome, but it’s also nice to be able to cross off a bunch of newer cards. At least in my collecting odyssey, those always seems to get overlooked.

Anyway, here’s a quick glance at some of my favorites of the bunch.

1997 Topps #180 Rey Ordonez

I could probably count on 2 hands how many cards I have from this set, but I’ve got to say, it’s sort of growing on me. As far as I’ve seen, and remember I said I could count on 2 hands how many of these I own, the photography is pretty awesome and even the weird fading, semi transparent frame has sort of grown on me. I also dig Rey-O. The first time I ever played fantasy baseball, I picked him as my shortstop. Needless to say that didn’t work out so well for me.

2002 Topps #378 Jay Payton

Jay Payton is another old Met that I have fond memories of, even if those memories are solely based in my head and not in reality. I think it all stems from the fact that for some reason during the 2000 World Series, I was obsessed with the fact that the Mets starting outfield (Timo Perez, Jay Payton and Benny Agbayani) made a combined total of like half a million dollars on the season as opposed to the Yankees starting outfield (Dave Justice, Bernie Williams and Paul O’Neil) who made a combined total of over $27,000,000 on the season.

2003 Topps #60 Roberto Alomar

For some reason, I don’t have too many recollections of Robby Alomar playing for the Mets. I wonder why that is.

2005 Topps #13 Tom Glavine

I know a lot of Mets fans have a sour taste in their mouth about Tom Glavine. I guess between having pitched (very well) for the Braves for so long and being a big part of the notorious Mets collapse in 2007, it’s kind of understandable. I more look at the good times. I just wish he hadn’t forgotten how to pitch that day.

Paul also sent me a big chunk of the cards that I needed for my 2006 team set. Those were really some of my favorites because I happen to really like the 2006 design and the 2006 Mets team is one of my favorite squads in recent memory.

2006 Topps #69 Braden Looper

See my comments regarding Roberto Alomar.

2006 Topps Update #41 Shawn Green

Shawn Green was a Met for a brief second, but I really liked him while he was here. I’ll always remember the first game of the 2006 NLDS when he fired a BB to Jose Valentine who fired a BB to Paul LoDuca who gunned down not 1 but 2 Dodgers at home plate. I don’t remember if Shawn Greens hat fell off or not, though.

2006 Topps Update #126 Endy Chavez

I got so excited earlier this off-season because I heard grumblings that the Mets might bring Endy back. Unfortunately the Orioles snatched him up. Oh well. We’ll always October 19, 2006, which I hereby declare to be Endy Chavez day.

2006 Topps Update #228 Carlos Beltran All-Star

Beltran is another of those guys that I sometimes get the impression that a lot of Mets fans didn’t like. I just don’t understand that at all. I thought he was incredible during his time as a Met and lived up to his giant contract as well as anyone could’ve expected. I was legitimately sad to see him go, but I understand why it had to be.

2006 Topps #431 Julio Franco

I absolutely love the fact that during Julio Franco’s tenure with the Mets, he broke pretty much every single “Oldest Player to…” record there is. On top of all that, he was the last active player in the Majors to have appeared in R.B.I. Baseball on the NES, which came out in 1987.

2006 Topps #102 Xavier Nady

I was really bummed out about what happened to Xavier Nady during his time with the Mets. Right field had been pretty much a revolving door position for the Metropolitans since that patch of grass was patrolled by Darryl Strawberry and it finally seemed like they found a nice player in Nady. Then Duaner Sanchez had to go and blow out his shoulder because he wanted a snack and the Mets needed to trade Nady for Roberto Hernandez. What makes that worse is they got Ollie Perez as a throw in.

2006 Topps Update #188 Carlos Delgado Postseason Highlights

Sometimes I forget how awesome that 2006 team was, and this guy certainly had a lot to do with that. I remember that year constantly hearing about how Delgado had played in the most games without having played in the post season out of all active players at the time. Well, he sure as hell made up for it in a hurry. His very first game he went 2-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs. In total that year, he put up a .351/.442/.757 line with 4 homers, 3 doubles and 11 runs batted in. I guess when you have to wait 14 years to play in the post season, you have a lot of pent up energy.

By the way, I mentioned above that the 2006 Topps set was one of my favorites. One of the things that I love about it is that it is a non-retro set that actually had cartoons on the back, such as this one from the flip side of Xavier Nady’s card.