Avast, ye land lubbers, he's Walked the Plank

Legendary Blogger Matt of Bob Walk the Plank has retired from the blogging community. While it stinks to lose his regular posts, he's retiring to spend more time with his family and you can't fault that at all.

As a little tribute to one of the first people to make me feel welcome in the blogging community, I'm going to post every Pirates card I've scanned. It's not many, as I'm not really a baseball guy, but I will take any card and there are some.

1958 Topps #4

1970 Topps #188

1991 O-Pee-Chee #293

2008 Upper Deck #337

And...that's it. The Trading Card Database shows that I have 40 Pirates cards in my collection, but these are the only 4 I've scanned yet.

Since that's kind of a light post, here's some more Pirates...whether they ever set foot in Pittsburgh is questionable.

1952 Topps Look 'n See #122

1952 Topps Look 'n See #123

1954 Topps Scoop #92

1954 Topps Scoop #97

Unfortunately, I don't have any cards of the Pittsburgh Pirates that played briefly in the NHL in the 1930s. They are out there, I just don't have any, yet.

Arguably Matt's biggest contribution to the hobby has been organizing the Secret Santa every December. He did it the past two years and it was awesome.
The first year  Peter K. Steinberg got me and got me this:

Then last year Scribbled Ink got me and got me this:

Both were excellent packages of cards that put some great stuff into my collection. The Al Bianchi remains the only 57-58 Topps I've ever received as a gift if my life!  And I even needed a few of the vintage NBA that Paul sent which is a pretty hard feat to pull off!

I thank you Matt, for all that you have done for the community, and just being an overall friend of the hobby. Enjoy your retirement, but don't be a stranger!