Zistle Trade #74: mattdamick

This was a quick trade with Matt.  He reached out with a simple request.  One PWE later and I received some nice cards.

Seeing Keith Hernandez in an Indians uniform is quite strange.  He isn't too fond of his time there either.  He batted right at a .200 average which was a career worst.  He retired after his one season in Cleveland.  He rarely mentions it during Mets broadcasts and pretty much changes the subject when it is brought up.  I also read something somewhere that he won't sign anything featuring him on the Indians, but I think there are some Leaf Buybacks out there that he has signed.

Seeing Gary Carter in a Giants uniform is also strange.  He only played one season with the Giants and mostly as a platoon player.  His best playing days were behind him at that point, but he did reach a catching milestone while playing with the Giants.  He became the all-time NL leader in games caught as 1,862.  He added to that total by playing a couple more years, but I believe he still holds the NL record.

Zistle Trade #66: The_Sandlot

Our next trade is from Joe.  He reached out with a trade offer around the time I was starting to get a bit burned out on trades.  Props to Joe, who was patient enough to wait for things to settle.

Joe sent along some nice cards to fill out my collection.  A few well known players in their pre- or post-Met days.  He also sent along a couple of micro cards which are terrible to store.

The last card is probably my favorite.  It is of Michael Fulmer, who never threw a single pitch for the Mets.  He was sent to the Detroit Tigers for Yoenis Cespedes at the 2015 trade deadline.  Fulmer was another young Mets pitching prospect that had some good upside.  Turns out he had Rookie of Year upside as he was given the year-end award for his stellar 2016 season.  This trade might be one of the best examples of a trade working out for both teams.  

Zistle Trade #65: sam383

It has been a while since my last post and a lot has happened in the baseball world.  We will leave the real world out of this because that shit is crae-crae.  Anyway, the Chicago Cubs finally won a World Series in an exciting 7 game series against the Cleveland Indians.  Bill Murray and Eddie Vedder will die happier men.  Free agents have signed and players have been traded.  Bryce Harper wants to be the $400 million man, allegedly.  Nobody seems to want Jose Bautista.  Relievers are getting paid.  There is no lock out, but there was never going to be one.   

On the Mets front, Cespedes and Walker are both returning.  Bartolo Colon is now a Brave.  Jay Bruce is still on the trade block.  There will be an unfortunate, but appropriate, suspension of Familia.  Syndergaard is lighting fire on social media.

Spring Training is right around the corner.  Players will start to report and continue to get ready for the new season.  Some will participate in the World Baseball Classic.  Before we know it, Opening Day will be here.

On the card front, I have been keeping busy making trades while my beloved Zistle is around.  There is really no information available that suggests that Zistle will stick around.  It sucks to be in the dark.  I also had another go around with COMC's Black Friday special.

Speaking of trades, here is another Zistle trade.  Dave reached out with another trade offer shortly after our previous trade.  He was looking for a bunch of Gypsy Queen needs and offered up something solid in return.

You can not feel bad when you receive some vintage needs.  My favorite is probably the Cleon Jones in the middle of the top row.  I like action shots on vintage cards for some reason, but probably because they are not as commonly seen as modern cards.  It is always nice to receive some Gary Carter Expos cards, too.    

Zistle Trade #58: mkaz80

I had a good run of posts there for a hot minute.  I figured out how to schedule posts, so I got a bunch of draft posts published.  I made a pretty good jump in catching up to present day.  Then the Summer came with beach trips, yard work, and going to some baseball games.  Now, I am sort of back where I was wanting to get closer to present day.  So, let us start to catch up, again.


This next trade was completed at the start of the year and was a real New York Mets trade.  Mark is Mets fan with a healthy collection of Mets cards of his own.  He has his own blog over at This Way to the Clubhouse.  It is fine read not only for Mets fans, but card collectors in general.

I have been meaning to work out a trade with Mark for a while now.  It sounds like he was doing the same.  We are essentially the perfect trade partners.  We both have plenty of duplicates that the other needs in their collection.  Even after this trade, I still have over a hundred Mets cards Mark still needs according to our Zistle matches.

This was one of the larger trades I have completed on Zistle.  It would take me a while to scan all of the great cards I received, so there are some of the highlights.
 

The cool thing about these large trades is that you can see the changes to the team over time.  Starting above, George Foster represents the early 80's Mets.  Gary Carter arrives from the Montreal Expos and we go into the mid to late 80's Mets with Dwight Gooden, Howard Johnson, and Lenny Dykstra.  The 1990's start with some veterans hitting their declining years and young players just starting their Major League careers.

During the mid-90's, the new crop of players takes full effect with Jeff Kent, Rey Ordonez, Todd Hundley, John Franco, and Rico Brogna.

Towards the late-90's, some younger players were traded and established players like Bernard Gilkey, Carlos Baerga, Robin Ventura, John Olerud, and Mike Piazza were added to the team.

The early to mid-2000's saw the arrival of David Wright and Jose Reyes.  The highlight play from those years is depicted by the center card above.  The Catch.  Then we have our first no hitter from Johan Santana.

This was a fantastic trade with Mark.  Look forward to the next one!

Zistle Trade #54: scottbdoug

Here is another trade with user scottbdoug.  Scott has not been on Zistle very long, but he has settled right into the community.  He is one of the more (maybe even the most) active member on the forum and often times posts useful information for traders.  Also, it looks like he has a blog going on over at Cardboard Collecting.

This time he reached out with a request with some Fleer set needs.  Here are the Mets (along with some post-Mets Gary Carter) I received.

I am not sure if it is mandatory or just customary for Canadians to offer O-Pee-Chee cards, but I seem to get them mostly from Canadian traders.  I am sure those cards are just more plentiful up north, but I wonder if anyone feels like they have to throw them into an offer just because, you know?  I am not complaining though, as I can just ask for them to be taken off the trade.  Just wondering.  I will stop now.

Zistle Trade #22

Zistle user, BucCollector, reached out to me with a trade looking for some various Pirates and some basketball cards.  I generally can not turn down a trade that gets rid of my basketball cards.

I do not mind getting some junk wax oddball cards. We all know what the main sets look like and these are a nice change of pace when dealing with junk wax cards.

Finally, a card that can pretty much sum up the Mets from 1992 to 1995.  I guess you can expand that up until 2035 as the Mets will be paying Bonilla a little over $1 million dollars per year due to a contract negotiation with his release before the 2000 season.

Fun fact:  the "V. Wells" you see on the above card is the father of former MLB player Vernon Wells.  The artist Wells has done numerous pieces of art for many players over the years.

Zistle Trade #18

This Zistle trade was with user Bumfan.

This was a simple trade.  In my quest to find good homes for my unwanted football cards, I found Bumfan had a some on his want list.  I sent some his way while getting these in return.

Charlie O'Brien played for the Mets from 1990 to 1993.  He was their starting catcher until Todd Hundley was brought up to the majors.  Charlie is probably best known for introducing a hockey-style catcher's mask to the MLB world.  He began using the mask while playing for, whose else, the Toronto Blue Jays in 1996.

Now you can find Charlie selling his own brand of Charlie O's Products.  Sadly, these are not cereals, rather a line of hunting scents.  Well, I think that is what they are (I am not a hunter).

Zistle Trade #15

Here is another trade completed through Zistle.  This one with user pb68.  I sent him some Cleveland Cavaliers and Oakland Raiders for some Mets.

Here are the cards I received in return:

Nicko Riesgo is an interesting card (and a name that rhymes!).  He never appeared in an MLB game as a Met, but had one decent season playing for their single-A Florida league team.  I think that this 1991 Bowman card is noting that accomplishment.

He would make it to the majors with the Montreal Expos in 1991.  His first of only four game appearances was a contest between the Expos and the Mets.  He recorded his only MLB hit off Frank Viola that game.  He would go hit-less in his other three appearances and after that he was pretty much bounced from team to team.  He would never reach the big leagues again.  He would later become a replacement player with the Boston Red Sox in 1995 during spring training while the players were on strike.  

Zistle Trade #11

Here is another trade completed through Zistle.  This one with user richardsonpilot.

He initiated the trade mainly looking for some Donruss Diamond Kings.  He offered some Mets and a handful of other cards I was looking for to complete some PCs I am working on. 

Here are the Mets I received:

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 #6

I am still working through my Zistle trades.  Here is one with user ToppsTradeKing.

This trade was not as smooth as all of my other trades I have completed on Zistle.  Not being truthful about what you sent, saying you sent the cards out when you really did not, and not following through to correct things is a not cool.

Anyway, I mostly received some junk wax cards.  The cards were mostly ones that I used to have back in the day and wanted back in my collection.  The Mets related cards I received in this trade were:

It is a little strange that three different Gary Carter cards look so similar.

Getting Chuck Carr in a Mets uniform was something that eluded me.  I saw Chuck play quite a bit when I lived in South Florida and he played for the then Florida Marlins.  He played quite well for the expansion Marlins team and even led the National League in stolen bases.  He pretty much started to regress after that 1993 season.

I learned of him playing for the Mets (only 16 games, though, from 1990-1991) while he was playing with the Houston Astros in what turned out to be his final year in the majors.  He started that 1997 season playing for the Brewers, but was released after he popped out on 2-0 pitch.  He missed a take sign which upset the Brewers manager Phil Garner.  When confronted, Chuck seemed to channel his inner Rickey Henderson by replying "Chuckie don't play that game.  Chuckie hacks on 2-0."