Trade Post - GCRL

Time to celebrate another exchange of cardboard (and paper in this trade) with one of the pleatroa of Dodgers bloggers, Jim of GCRL.  This post is actually a combo of a PWE Jim sent quite a while back and an extremely cool item that is unique and fits masterfully in my collection.

Let's start with the PWE contents.

These cards come from a variety of years with my favorites being the Sandoval Dominators card (great design!) and the Runzler Rookie.  I was a big fan of Upper Deck's final release in 2010 and was looking forward to a second series when logo usage litigation stopped the presses.  In addition to Runzler, that set included rookies of future stars Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner.  Glad I completed that team set back in 2010!

 The final card in the PWE was this awesome Vida Blue Hostess card.  This is a great photo of Vida, I am loving the green uniform shirt and hat. In my opinion the A's and Pirates had the best uniforms of the era.  I had a greasy miscut version of this card in my Vida binder that has now been replace by this bright and clean version.

This next item came with a few cards but in my excitement over it, the cards got mixed with some others on my desk and I didn't get a chance to catch a scan of them.  This item is one of the coolest I have ever received in a trade and my eagerness to check it out and get it scanned to share got the best of me.  Here it is for you to enjoy:

 This is a 1978 cover of the baseball bible The Sporting News featuring the Giants starting rotation in their awesome orange unis in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.  So let's list a few reason this is so cool.  1) During this time frame the Giants weren't good, getting a Sporting News cover was notable. 2) This was right around the time I started getting this publication as a kid and with the exception of a few small gaps when I have forgotten to renew, I have kept up my subscription since. 3) I think I have been to this exact spot to visit the Golden Gate Bridge. 4) You may not be able to see it in this scan but it is freaking autographed by all 4 players!

Here is a closeup of the right half featuring Jim Barr and John "The Count" Montefusco.

And a close up of the left half featuring Bob Knepper and one of my player collection guys Vida Blue.

I have quite a few Vida autographs and it looks spot on as real.  He is certainly the most famous of the group so I strongly believe these are all authentic.

Jim indicated he picked this up in a lot of covers he picked up on eBay. I am so glad he sent it my way, thanks Jim!  I am working on putting together a long overdue return package.  Thanks for adding such an awesome item to my Giants and Vida collection.