eBay Summer Purchases Continued: Catcher Edition

Here are more of my summer purchases off of eBay.  This is what we will call the "Catcher Edition" and focus on two of the Mets well known catchers plus a cameo from a rising star catcher.

First, Gary Carter.  Gary was traded to the Mets from the Montreal Expos after the 1984 season.  In his first season with the Mets, Gary hit a career high 32 home runs and helped lead the team to a 98 win season.  The following year the Mets went on to win 108 games and the World Series.

Next up is Mike Piazza.  Mike came to the team in 1998 via trade with the Florida Marlins.  He immediately made the Mets a better team and reached the World Series in 2000.

The Mets' current catcher does not want to be left out.  Here is Travis d'Arnaud, who arrived from the Toronto Blue Jays via the R.A. Dickey trade.  It looks like Topps used some of Travis' minor league jerseys for these cards.

Zistle Trade #9

This trade was with user neckababy1.  I reached out to him because it looked like he would be a good trade partner, since he is also a Mets fan.  I targeted the Panini products because I still can not bring myself to buy a pack.  Maybe one day...

Here are the Mets I received:

Group Break at Waiting 'til Next Year

There were some "new" aspects of the hobby I had to experience when I started back collecting.  Group breaks were one of those aspects.  

Thanks to Tom over at Waiting 'til Next Year I was able to participate in my first group break.  The break took place over the summer and included 1989 Swell, 1990 Swell, 1991 Swell, and 1990 Pacific Legends.  Sure, it is not the high-end product that most seem to like participate in for group breaks, but it was perfect for me to test the waters of group breaks.

I, of course, chose the Mets for my team in the break.

1990 Pacific Legends and 1991 Swell

1990 Swell

1990 Swell cont. and 1989 Swell

From this break I learned that Harvey Haddix was a pitching coach for the Mets from 1966-1967.  You may have heard of Mr. Haddix as having pitched an unprecedented 12 perfect innings for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Milwaukee Braves in 1959.  His perfect game was ultimately stopped in the 13th inning as the Pittsburgh Pirates lost 1-0.

Tom also threw in a stack of SSPC that I will show in a future post.  Thanks for the extras and for hosting this group break!

eBay Summer Purchases (plus a contest pimp)

I had another round with eBay this summer.  I decided to change things up this time around.  Instead of watching the auctions until the end, I decided to just place one or two bids and see what would happen.  Well, when all was said and done, I ended up with a nice stack of Mets cards.

First, lets start with some vintage Mets.

Next up are some modern cards.

The two auto cards are Juan Urbina and Fernando Martinez.

Urbina is one of the young Mets pitching prospects who has been playing in the rookie and low A leagues for the past few years.  He turned 21 years old this year and is the son of former All-Star closer Ugueth Urbina.  The older Urbina, a 2003 World Series champion with the Florida Marlins, has had an interesting post-career life.

Mets fans will remember Fernando Martinez as a promising prospect that eventually went bust.  He was highly ranked amongst multiple publications as the top Mets prospect.  He played very well in the minors, but just never materialized in the majors.  He also played briefly for the Houston Astros who ended up trading him to the New York Yankees.  He was suspended in August 2013 as part of the Biogenesis scandal.

To close out this post is a little contest pimping.  CaptKirk42's Trading Card Blog is having a contest celebrating the fifth anniversary of his blog.  Check it out and join in!