Originally Posted by Stanley Kuppchaser
If I had any shame I wouldn't tell this story on myself, but it's too damned funny not to share.
As I've too often said, nostalgia is something that draws me into PT.
Now, I didn't bother with the collections at all last year, didn't even give 'em a look. I was too busy trying to fix my Mundy mess. Well this time, when I saw that two of the players were Eddie Plank and Chuck Klein, I decided that the first mission to pull ten cards with Port Ruppert was the one I would sort of chase as I built the team.
For the Mundys, it turned to be the old Philadelphia Athletic, Ed Plank. So, whenever I finished a non-live AH scan, I'd do a quick AH for the Oakland Athletics, for quick ending auctions, but mostly using buy now for the cheaper cards, and, if the end time was no more than 10 minutes, throwing in a last minute bid for a pricier card. I knew I was overpaying a bit, but I figured I might be able to get it for 5,000 or so, and I would be happy to pay a 20% mark-up for Eddie Plank.
A little back story is needed here. Back in the mid-60's, and even into the 70's, when were "too hip" for it, a group of us would play stickball nearly every day when we were kids to adolescents, and then on week-ends into our late teens. One guy had a big picnic table in his backyard and we'd play his Strat-O-Matic baseball game. After a year, we all pitched in to buy some Strat-O-Matic oldtimer sets. After that, we'd draft the cards onto teams and play out a few seasons a summer, even keeping stats for many of them. There were always at least four of us, but we had gotten as high as 8 league members on occasion. My, did those cards get dog-eared.
Two players I always drafted first, and I could always get them, were Eddie Plank and Chuck Klein. We lived in New York, and of course, the Babe always went first, with Walter Johnson second, and Cy Young third, with Cobb or Hornsby or Gehrig, etc. No matter when I picked I took Plank first,, even skipping Ruth, and because we reversed the order each round, get Klein after him, but usually in a later round. His card was not in the top ten, so there were some I wouldn't pass up for him. It struck my funny bone that they played for different Philadelphia teams, which I didn't know ever had two teams, and that helped spark my love for reading baseball lore.
Back to the main story.
When I saw that they both were in collections, I decided on the race to ten, and then a slow, couple of week addition to the team. Yeah, right! I was happy that Plank's Athletics won the race to ten. In retrospect, that set the stage for tonight's sad senior-itis saga. It was pure nostalgia-driven excess that got me to the point where I lost my patience and was around 4,000 PP into it with three cards in the 70's to go. You should see what those cards go for. I set a strict limit of 1500, then 1800, and finally 2000 for the three. Until this afternoon, I couldn't budge on any of them. The cheapest combined price was always 2400 or more. And, for the past three or four days, I've showed the same steely discipline I showed last year with the Cy Young card.
Time for a brief turn in Chuck Klein's direction. If you read last night's tale, you know how sorry I feel for the terrible pack luck of my Memphis Chicos. I wanted to something nice for them because they are on the Asylum Keepers log-in name, who were my only team to win an OL crown last year. This year, their one piece of really good luck was to pack an Aaron Nola card. That was a sign (to me) that the baseball gods were smiling down in the Memphis sky. They had also pulled two of the 70's and three 60's Phillies. I was actually disciplined this time and got the card for around 4200, and still was able to save the Nola to sell. Chuck Klein joined the Chicos for this season.
Just one more tiny bit of set up. For the more than a week, I would type both the city and nickname together in the search box. Why? I dunno, for some dumb old man reason? Finally, I got smart to myself and just started typing in the city alone.
For the past three days, I got continually disappointed by the numbers that typing "Oakland" was getting, and raising my budget, yet still not able to buy any of the three I lacked. Typing "Philadelphia" brought such joyful numbers and I even saved the Nola.
Which brings us to this afternoon. I was just ending a brief PT session and was going to head downstairs to play a board game with the family. I clicked on "2010 Live" in the drop down, typed in "70" as the low price, typed in the city name, clicked "end time asc." and hit search, just as one of my sons called to me that they were ready. I walked to the top of the stairs called out, "Be right there!"
I walked back to the computer, intending to just exit the game and go play. Then I saw the screen full of names in white, with buy now prices I couldn't believe! Without a second glance I bought three cards for a total of 1750 PP (!), 250 (!) under my budget at close to the 20% mark-up I could live with!
And the Port Ruppert Mundys got - three Philadelphia Phillie cards to use in silver tournaments.
Because the only player that will appear as a duplicate on one of OL teams is Willie Mays, the best ever. Just feels right.
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