Kendrick Owns the Wagner

The secret is now out. Purchase nearly 3 years ago for $2.8Million, the owner of the famed T206 Honus Wagner Baseball card once owned by Wayne Gretzky/Bruce McNall and then Walmart was a industry secret. It was put away in some hidden vault thought to never see the light of day again.

Well, the collector has come out of the dark and has finally revealed himself. Current Managing General Partner/ Owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Ken Kendrick, bought the card. On top of that, he is loaning it, along with a couple dozen other rarities to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for special display starting tomorrow.

If you live in the area or plan on visiting and have never seen it, go take a good look. I had seen the card several years ago at The National Convention in Anaheim and it is quite simply a beaut. It is one of the cleanest, brightest and sharpest examples of a T206 card I have ever seen, rumors about its trimming notwithstanding.

Warm Up for Slash

Get ready for an electric Star Spangled Banner tonight as Slash will be on the field to rip out the jams. Below is a vid, from Beto Duran's TwitVid of his rehearsal this afternoon.
Hat Tip: DuranLA TwitVid:

Video Link:

eBay: Drysdale Pin

This pin is a rarity. It measures just under 3.5 inches in diameter and features Don Drysdale in front of a blue background. I have seen very few of these over the years.

eBay Auction Link:

2010 Topps Finest Dodgers

Topps recently released their 2010 Topps Finest set- the third Baseball card set of the season for them. As always, they are shiny and represent one of their higher end offerings. A box will run about $100 bucks, and they only consist of 12 packs with 5 cards in each one. Below are the Dodger base cards. Only 5 players are represented. That's not that bad considering there are only 150 cards in the set.

Special inserts include parallel refractor cards of each base card that are even shinier, but with different color hues. Additionally, you can find "1 of 1" printing plates, autographed letterman cards of some rising rookies, rookie patch cards and some inserted autographs. The only Dodger insert I know of is the Clayton Kershaw Finest Moments Autographed card. See that card at the very bottom of this post.

Matt Kemp

Manny Ramirez

James Loney

Clayton Kershaw

Russell Martin

Clayton Kershaw Autographed Insert

Jackie Robinson Day Pics

Here are some pics found on twitter celebrating Jackie Robinson Day yesterday.

Here is Kareem's jersey.

(pic Link: DodgertownUSA Hitpix)

Tommy can be so funny.

"Kareem knows it's going to rain 10 minutes before everybody else."

(pic Link: TommyLasorda Twitpic)

Can you name these famous faces?

(Pic Link: DodgertownUSA Hitpix)

Here is a great pic from were it all started in Brooklyn. The stadium is no longer there, but, at least, they do their best to remember the old shrine.

(pic link: YFrog:dkcholo)