The Trading Post #4: Bob Walk the Plank

Matthew might have one of the best blog names in this whole community.

Bob Walk the Plank is now on my rapidly growing list of trading partners. I sent him some Pirates in a blind trade, and he quickly responded with a shipment of his own. His trade post is already up, and he appropriately picked out a few Bob Walk cards to display.

What an unfortunate name for a pitcher, by the way. Almost as bad as Grant Balfour.

Matthew must pay a fair bit of attention to the MLB at large, as one of three autographed cards he included was from Drew Stubbs' collegiate days. One has to keep up pretty closely to follow all these players around.

2008 Donruss Threads Diamond Kings Signatures #DK-9 Drew Stubbs /465

Stubbs is a fairly obscure player, and he didn't have a spectacular year with the Rockies, but I always appreciate cards of current or former Rockies, even if they're pictured on a different team. Pre-expansion draft cards of the early Blake Street Bombers—such as Walt Weiss on the A's or Vinny Castilla as a Brave—make pre-1993 sets a bit more interesting.

1992 Fleer #666 Vinny Castilla RC

It seems that the Rockies used to do quite a few more transactions than they have in recent years. There has been persistent buzz that Tulowitzki will be traded to the Yankees, but other than that, they've been pretty quiet on the trading front. Perhaps their long-awaited new GM will change that a bit.

But I'm glad they hung on to this guy for his whole career.

2005 Donruss Elite Series Black #ES-24 Todd Helton /100

Todd Helton was a Rockie for 17 years, in fact, matching his uniform number, which the Rockies retired in August. The concession stand in left field at Coors Field is even named after him.

You know you've made it when you have your name on a hot dog stand.

In a team bag separate from these "hits" was a complete oddball set! Sets like these rarely contain more than a couple dozen cards, so it's surprising how unusual it is to find the whole checklist in one place.

1989 Topps Cap'n Crunch #9 George Brett

1989 Topps Cap'n Crunch #20 Kirby Puckett

More than anything, the thing that bugs me about unlicensed sets are those giant blank baseball caps. But I guess they call them oddballs for a reason. One can only imagine how much Cap'n Crunch was required to obtain the entire 22-card set—and in what state the roof of your mouth would be in after all that cereal.

Thanks to Matthew and others, I have plenty of cards to sort! This will be a fun activity to do with the World Series on TV, which commences Tuesday. I wouldn't mind seeing George Brett's Royals take this year's championship. The Giants are not to be counted out, as we've seen in recent years, but the Royals haven't lost a game this whole postseason, even eclipsing the record tied by the Rockies in their 2007 run.

Thanks to the generosity of my readers, I've done nothing but trade posts on this blog all month, and there are still more where that came from!