George Kell....TV voice of Tiger baseball

I grew up watching the Tigers on our local channel 3 out of Kalamazoo where on Saturday afternoon we could watch Tiger baseball with George Kell being the play-by-play and Al Kaline providing the commentary...great memories watching Chet Lemon with his one handed catches in centerfield which was totally against the way I had been taught to catch a fly ball ( 2 hands!!!)   :)....Steve Kemp, Tito Fuentes, Willie Horton, Jason Thompson, Aurelio Rodriguez, John Wockenfuss, John Hiller, Rusty " I get thrown out at first base from left field" Staub, Dave Rozema, and of course, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych and many others from the late '70s before the great Tiger days of '84....the warm day today got me thinking of baseball again!

Anyways, here's a card I picked up from ebay a week or so ago...price was too good to pass up....just under ten bucks with shipping....nice card but with the old style uniform....I thought it a beaut of a card ( although a darker blue would have been cool)....the scan does not quite do justice as it has a slight refractor shimmer to it...let me know what you think.

more Topps Million Card Giveaway redemptions/ebay pick up

redeemed my Tiger cards that I was able to trade for...posted three of them earlier...here's the rest that were redeemed...the ebay pick up was the Al Kaline it was dirt cheap and I didn't have one...thought it well ...had it in the same stack as my redemptions and I thought it went well with those cards in the scan....I was surprised by the nice condition of the Horton card...although it was not centered very well it had nice crisp corners and was very happy with it....the other vintage cards were definitely worn but hey, they are Tigers and I'll add it to my collection.

Trade with Night Owl

Made my first trade with a fellow blogger ( Night Owl ) and have got to say what a nice experience it was.  I traded him two of the 2011 Diamond parallels ( Lilly and Kershaw ) along wit ha gold Burt Hooten auto from Upper Decks Past Pennant series a few years ago for a Strasburg Diamond parallel from 2011 Topps and whatever Tigers he wanted to throw my way....boy, did he come through with a lot of nice Tigers and even one UM football card (Derrick Alexander) ..."Thanks Night Owl!", and I'll keep my eyes peeled for any Dodger material in my collection that may interest you.  Here are the cards he sent my way.

 

 

My favorite is the Verlander artist card from Upper Deck and the Ryan Perry rookie Topps Chrome

Ebay pickups came today/2011 predictions

The Cabrera is one of the SP's diamond sparkle from Topps 2011 and the Jackson is from 2010 Topps Update....Tigers' pitching looking good so far in spring training....might be one of the better staffs in all of baseball...certainly in the AL Central...predictions for the year:

AL East...going with the Boston Red Sox
AL Central.... Detroit Tigers
AL West...Angels
NL East.....Phillies
NL Central....Brewers
NL West...Rockies

World Series ....Phillies over Tigers....really!

Tigers bat barrel set of 2010

Got my final card the other day to complete the Tigers who are found in this set from Topps 2010 Update

Here's the set:

Spring Training is Upon Us!!!

I have not had much time to scan some cards lately so after school today I decided to scan some ebay arrivals that I had purchased over the last month or two....I also scanned some of the cards I have picked up in some packs and 3 cards from the Topps Million Card Giveaway that I redeemed....I was able to trade all my non-Tigers for Tigers so I was pretty happy about that.

So in honor of the first week of spring training, I give you two young rookies who were first and the second picks in the draft of 2010 by the Tigers ( both were sandwich picks between the first and second round ).....will be interesting if they get a chance to play for our local Tiger affiliate, West Michigan WhiteCaps, a single A team located here in Grand Rapids, MI...both players are highly thought of....welcome to the Tigers!!

 

Nick Castellanos  3b

 

Chance Ruffin  p

maybe some of you remember Bruce Ruffin from a few years ago...Chance is his son from the University of Texas...will be used as a relief pitcher

Gretzky comeback?

 

Now that Forsberg has signed with the Avalance, is Gretzky next?   I think that is a big NO but there was a pretty neat Gretzky commercial for a new Skechers shoe last night on the Super Bowl where he's on the ice hitting some slapshots at some rink and there's 3 guys who act all girlie and giggly thinking Gretzky is making a comeback....I kinda liked it although the Kim Kardashian Skechers  commercial was all right, too!  :)

Anyway, it gave me a reason to show the 1/10 parallel the Heritage Classic High Grade from Upper Deck I pulled a couple of years ago...got Lafleur, Messier, and Gretzky pictured on the front