Countdown to the NFBC

[Glenneration X]

Just 77 Days 'til the greatest game in the universe. When those live drafts begin, may the Force be with You.




In the recent Mastersball Magazine draft, Gene McCaffrey takes Lord Zola deep.....




Greg, mustache a little longer this year, tosses out a player to be drafted with Tom Solo looking on.....




The Emperor Lawr Michaels trying to Strike Back.....




Most importantly for this draft or any other in the universe, what position would you draft her for?

[Glenneration X]

Just 76 Days from now 'til the first picks of the live NFBC draft season are made. 76 Days ago, I was making my first pick in another type of draft, the inaugural All-Time Draft.

Today the NFBC has about a dozen slow drafts ongoing and industry types are starting to ramp up their "Expert" drafts (sorry Doughy). Both fantasy players and writers doing their prep trying to figure out what stats ballplayers will be putting up in 2012. 76 Days ago, with the off-season just underway, neither the registration page nor the draftroom for NFBC slow drafts obviously yet formed and with no industry mocks having yet taken place, some of us were trying to decide what stats already in the history books were the most valuable for fantasy.

The brain"Childs" of Shawn Childs, two of these drafts were held and the participants included some of the best and most known players in our game or on our boards, Shawn himself, Gekko, Zola, Pausma, Toxic, Navel Lint, many, many other great players....and Rockit was there too. Gekko, Steve Wells, and John Stadtmueller cashed, Zola & Dave Schovein kept score, and even Doughy helped facilitate the blind rounds.

Though I won nothing, I gained plenty. The participation in a great new format, a blast of a good time, and mostly an increased appreciation and knowledge of what some of the greatest in the history of the game have done. 76 Days from now, we'll see who my 1st picks will be, 76 Days ago it was Jack Chesbro.






By the way, if you think it's tough choosing between Pujols and Kemp or Kershaw and Halladay, try choosing between these guys......

[DOUGHBOYS]

Cleavage is fleeting, these guys are forever.
Thanks Glenn, loved this one

[Edwards Kings]

Cleavage is fleeting, these guys are forever.
Thanks Glenn, loved this one

Falling or fleeting?

[Glenneration X]

Cleavage is fleeting, these guys are forever.
Thanks Glenn, loved this one

You're welcome Doughy. Still let's remember that just like there's classic ballplayers, there's also classic cleavage.
Enjoy.



Even the King knew that some cleavage was just too hot to the touch.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Heaven.....

[Glenneration X]

75 Days left to form our strategies for the NFBC. One of the most utilized strategies for these drafts is another brain"Childs" of our friend Shawn, his renowned 75/75 plan.




Think these great Highlight Makers would have been helpful through the years in making that strategy successful?




Still, let's not forget pitching's got to be a part of any successful draft strategy.
(My subtle way of including a Seaver card in this post. )




By the way, the 1975 Topps were the first baseball cards I collected. I remember my father and I visiting the corner candy store in Brooklyn when I was 8 years old and him buying me my first pack. There were two Mets in the pack, Rusty Staub and Wayne Garrett, and my father told me how any Mets cards were special because they were our team. I brought the cards to school the next day and was introduced to the sport of flipping cards. Not knowing the cardinal rule that you never risked flipping any Mets, Yankees, or All-Star cards, I lost both Mets. I was devastated. Still I was hooked on baseball cards.

I continued collecting cards through my early teens but eventually the interest in the hobby faded for me, especially when collecting turned into an investment hobby and the market started being flooded by all the different brands and specialty sets. There was just too much to keep track of. Still that 1975 set holds a special place in my memories and my heart. Many years later, I guess about a decade ago, I ran across a mint set on E-Bay and bought it. When it arrived, glancing through the cards brought me back to my childhood. Since then, I've been meaning to buy some other sets from my childhood, the 76 set, 77, 78, a few others. I just haven't gotten around to it. Still, I have the 1975 set that remains my favorite of all time and after all these years, Staub and Garrett are safely back in the fold.

[DOUGHBOYS]

The '61 and '62 cards do it for me, Glenn.
I went to a collector and told him to get me a set of each. His eyes lit up. He said, "Do you know how much that'll cost?"
I said, I know how much I'll pay. He gave me a puzzled look.
I said, "Look, I don't care about grade or mint condition, people like yourself have turned my memories into a money-making 'hobby', I enjoyed baseball cards till that happened. But at the same time I sold my cards to people like you, so I'm being a bit hypocritical here. Anyway, I want those cards with spoke marks on them, with folds and dog ears on them. I want the memories, not an investment."
He told me to go away.

It worked out well, I found somebody else who 'got me' and I can look at players of my generation as I remember them.
Like Ann-Margaret, in my minds eye, they never get older.
That's for real life

[Sack]

Glenn X:

That TOPPS set brings back some good memories. Similar to you, I started following baseball in 1971 by starting collecting the Topps cards and following the players in the box scores. The 71 Black Border set will always be special to me in that those were "my first". About 600+ cards if memory serves, I have attempted to put the set back together over the years and have reached about 500+. Condition wasn't important - just seeing those players snapshots in the uniform of the day was enough for me. Joe Torre had a big year and I remember hearing all about this young lefty from Oakland striking everybody out. Vida Blue was his name. Back then, the Mets were on Channel 9 and the Yanks were on channel 11. No sportscenter or baseball packages. Visiting teams carried weight because it was the only time you could see your baseball card heroes on television was when they played the home team. While I LOVED the shots of Ann Margaret, the baseball card themed shots were especially cool to enjoy. Nice job!

[Schwks]

In 1977, as a 6th grader, I was a baseball card scaling shark. Scaling was the game in which you scaled the cards against a wall. Whichever card ended up closer to the wall, netted its owner both cards (or if more then two were playing, all of the cards scaled). Leaners, where you got your card to lean against the wall, paid double, as did kissers, where the winning card was closer to the wall AND touched the card of the other scaler.

I would go to the bathroom, and give the sign to the other players, who would then follow me at an appropriate interval. In this manner, I was able to collect most of that year's series. Of course NOONE risked Mets or Yankees, so those would have to be obtained via purchase. Of course, the cards were bent, scraped and mutilated from the scaling, but who cared?

I am editing in the fact that it was desirable to scale last. You had to call going last and you would say:

"Ive got Larrys"

I do not know where the phrase "Larrys" came from.

[Winston's Empire]

1988 Topps for me Glenn!
It was the 1st year Andre Dawson was on a Cubs card and the first year I was allowed to ride my bike all the way to the gas station to buy a pack of cards! At the end of the summer my Grandpa took me to Arkansas with him to see my Great Grandmother and he stopped at almost every gas station / store on the way down to get a pack of cards for me! He told me that I would get a better variety of players buying them in each state along the way. I still remember playing with those cards in the back seat of that car all the way from Wisconsin to Arkansas and back again! Today I still have those cards along with sets from 1974 - 1994 or so. Lost interest in baseball for about 5 years after the strike, plus I learned that chicks had boobs along the way and that cut into my baseball card time! Thanks for the trip down memory lane pal!

[rockitsauce]

[quote="Sack"]

Back then, the Mets were on Channel 9 and the Yanks were on channel 11. No sportscenter or baseball packages. /quote]

I'll never forget those days. Ralph Kiner saying some of the dumbest stuff a "sportscaster" could say (and I LOVED the guy ) on 9, Rizzuto & his Holy Cow on 11 alive! and w/ respect to Vin Scully, the best there ever was, Harry Kalas. Yup, we got the Phils too, on channel 4.

As a litte kid I remember watching the Yanks w/ my grandfather, a die hard Yankee fan. The Mets were horrible then. Not much has changed there I knew every player on that '77 Yankee team, but ultimately my mom made sure I saw the light and joined the ranks of PHILLIES NATION

[Money Men]

That 75 set hold special memories to me...my dad bought a bunch of cards for me that year - I was one at the time. Found them recently in storage and am working on finishing my first set. Also continued the "tradition" and have almost put together a full set for my boy from his birth year in 2002.

Oddly enough, I'm selling some old cards on ebay to step up in class from my debut in the online event last year to either the Main Event or NFBC XII this year.

[Glenneration X]

Some great followup posts on baseball cards guys, thank you.

One common theme in these posts is how the memories of baseball cards or baseball itself bring us back to a happy time in our childhood, memories we seem to want to relive by reaquiring the sets of our youth.

Interesting that another common theme is how the condition of the cards were and are meaningless, it's just having the cards themselves that are of importance. It makes me think back to when we were kids, when after opening a pack of Topps cards, you'd find most uncentered, many faded, and always that one with the stain from the stick of gum in the pack. You know the gum, the rock hard stick that smelled great but tasted terrible. It didn't matter. We weren't looking for mint cards for investment purposes. The only cards of real value to us were those of our home team or maybe an All-Star or a record breaker. What we did with the cards were also what was important, whether it was flipping them in the schoolyard, or placing them in our bicycle spokes, or scaling them, or collecting those of your home team and enjoying them with your father or grandfather or brother. Great memories that bond us to other generations and other times, when life was simpler for us, and our biggest worries were losing Rusty Staub and Wayne Garrett flipping in the schoolyard.

I wonder if kids who collect cards today still flip them or scale them or put in them in their bicycle spokes. I wonder if whether all they actually do is grab the special insert cards and throw them in the sleeve of an album or cardboard box. I wonder if someday down the line, those memories will mean the same to them as ours obviously mean to us.

[Glenneration X]

74 Days 'til the 2012 NFBC Overall Championships. Amazingly, between Lindy's pair of Main Event wins and his Online Championship title, he already has three to his name. In my lifetime, there's only been one baseball team of any era that's been able to pull off the same feat.




I know, I know, the Yankees of the late '90's did it as well. However, they actually had four, and I'll have to save them for next year's Countdown in case Lindy does it yet again this year.



To make up for it, here's your obligatory boob pic.






Alright, alright, here's a non-animated photo of those Fighting A's of the mid-70's......




....as well as a non-animated pic of a Simpson in a bikini.

[MadCow Sez]

1975 Topps was my year as well.

The Stop-and-Go in my hometown used to pitch entire boxes of cards into the dumpster behind the building when the gum expired. Honestly, I didn't think that crap could expire. That said, this situation was heaven to a 4th grader. My buddy lived in a house behind the Stop-and-Go and would tell us when the boxes were at their expiration date. The next day, into the dumpster we went. We netted several boxes in unopened condition over the summer, whereupon they promptly became an integral part of my bike, tossed at a wall, or traded. The "hot" cards of the time in southern Ohio were the Reds cards. Go figure.

Ultimately they all ended up being thrown out by my mother.

[Quahogs]

Lowy you dropped the ball on your excellent baseball card segment. How did you not follow it up with the "Morganna" card ?



Morganna and I go way back. We were an item in high school before she became famous. She never forgot me... see the picture !

[Glenneration X]

Morganna and I go way back. We were an item in high school before she became famous. She never forgot me... see the picture !

Steve, that's only because you were her first.....that lunch period.

[Glenneration X]

73 Days 'til the start of the 2012 NFBC. Just have to remember, if going through a rough patch or off to a tough start, it's a long season. Never give up hope because as my Mets have proven, anything can happen and Ya Just Gotta Believe.

[Edwards Kings]

'68 for me, but my favorite set is '74. They had so many errors. "Washington National League", Felix Millan with no position, inability to spell Bob Apodaco...Apodecca...Apodoco...Apadaca...Apodaca!

[Quahogs]

more Met themes... momma mia Get ready for 69 days left gang but after that Lowy can then theme the WIN total for the '12 Mets ! 68, or 67, or 66,....

[DOUGHBOYS]

Since this is Hall of Fame induction day...
When getting to nine, he can include the number of players that played with the Mets in the Hall of Fame.

Seaver
Ryan
Mays
Ashburn
Henderson
Carter
Snider
Spahn
Murray

When getting to one, the only Met to have the body of his Hall of Fame work while playing with the Mets, Seaver.

[Glenneration X]

Ummm Doughy, you forgot Alomar and Yogi, two others that justified their Hall of Fame resumes while with that breeding ground for immortality, the Mets. In fact, Stengel, Kiner, Koufax, and even Jackie Robinson probably owe a great part of their Hall of Fame status to their association with the Mets as well.

And Steve, shhhhh!!! I'm sure before you let the cat out of the bag, noone had a clue on where I would be going with # 69 in the Countdown.

[DOUGHBOYS]

I did forget Alomar
Yogi along with a few other Hall of Famers were on the Mets bench.
I was only referring to players...

Happy 50th anniversary this year to the Mets!
Which means a big year for the most famous Met during that history...
Mr. Met
Sorry Glenn, couldn't resist

[DOUGHBOYS]

Another Met, Mike Piazza is eligible next year alongside Clemens, Bonds, Sosa, and Schilling.
Is he a first ballot Hall of Famer?
Or does he get lost in the controversy that the others will stir up?