i grabbed some bench

i think you all know that daniel from it's like having my own card shop hosted a contest over the summer with some pretty nice prizes. i entered and won, and thanks to matt at diamond jesters, i had the second pick.  with the 1956 topps hank aaron already off the board, i went for a 1968 topps johnny bench/ron tompkins rookie card:

that's some good vintage!

daniel included some other cards in the package he sent, including a 1998 topps minted in cooperstown parallel of jose vizcaino

a 2014 topps allen & ginter don sutton black bordered mini parallel

and a 2017 topps triple threads kenta maeda card

among others.

around the same time as the contest, i was able to meet daniel in person at a diamondbacks game. i was in phoenix for a night and luckily the dbacks were in town as well, facing bryce harper and the phillies. as luck would have it, daniel was also planning to attend the game.  it was stadium number 21 for me, and in person blogger meet number 7. we were able to chat following the game until the ushers told us to leave. guess they had to vacuum the fake turf in private.  anyway, it's always fun to put a face to a blog.

i hope to get to most of the other 9 stadiums in the next couple of years.  so, if you are near pittsburgh, cleveland, detroit, philadelphia, flushing meadows, the bronx, miami, atlanta, or tampa, and up for a meet up, let me know!

thanks for the contest and your time daniel!