Congratulations: The Lesser Milestone Edition

As most of you know by now, this is a Met-centric blog, so my first priority is to issue congratulations to Jason Isringhausen on his 300th save!  Sure he did not turn out to be the superstar starting pitcher we Met fans had once hoped, but notching 300 saves is no small task.  So congrats Izzy, hopefully Topps gets you a card in its 2011 update set.

PS: Congrats to Jim Thome too, he has been a very likable player over his career and I was happy to see him get to the 600 HR mark.

2011 Topps Baseball Stickers... Yes you read that right

So, I was shopping in the local Target the other day and decided to check out the card aisle (pretty much a normal stop for me).

What I found was a bit surprising, though, because I had not heard anything about these in the blogosphere before I saw them on the shelves (which is not normal for me).

2011 Topps Sticker Collection

At $.99 for eight stickers I decided to pick up a pack and see how the stickers looked.

First, fresh off the DL, a Brain McCann sticker.

Decent pose and nice clean design... not bad.

Now if you are curious about the size, I took a couple of comparative photos to help you envision that aspect of the stickers.

First, here is a normal sized A&G Jason Bay card compared to a Starlin Castro sticker.

Next, we have a mini A&G Jordan Zimmerman compared to a Chase Utley sticker.

So basically, they are smaller than a normal sized card but wider than a mini.

The backs of the stickers simply have a number which I am guessing corresponds to their spot in the companion sticker album (which I did not purchase) and a bunch of copyright info.

I think they are kind of interesting, mostly because we have not seen baseball stickers for several years now.  I probably won't go out and buy too many more packs, but I was happy to grab this one.

If anyone picks some up and wants to unload the Mets, shoot me an email.

I'll leave you with some other stickers I got from the pack.  Let me know what you think.

.... and now a word from our sponsors

Hey everyone, I'm taking a quick commercial break from blogging and fantasy baseball to review a product from a sponsor of my blog.  Easy Canvas Prints worked out a deal with me whereby they sent me a canvas print to review on my blog and I put up a link to their site on my sidebar.

The concept of their website is easy to understand: you pick a photo from their website or your own collection and they turn it into a canvas print.

I went with a 8X10 print of one of my most memorable baseball moments: leaving Shea Stadium after the final game and the closing ceremonies.

Let me set the stage for those of you who were not there.

The Mets lost the last game of the year after blowing a lead and by the end of the Mets game the Brewers had already won their game ensuring that the Mets season was over and that the game I was at would be the last Met game ever played at Shea.

After staying for the very bittersweet closing ceremonies, I took a picture that I had Easy Canvas Prints turn into this canvas for me:

It is a fitting photo because the clouds and impending darkness of the day's end were a metaphor for the closing of the stadium.

It looks especially nice on the canvas because the added texture of a canvas gives the photo more character than one could get from a simple photo.  For those of you familiar with UD Masterpieces, this is the real deal feel of what Upper Deck was trying to mimic in the texture of those cards.

Now, one of the interesting options that Easy Canvas Prints gives you is how you want the edges of the canvas to look.  The three basic options are to simply wrap the edges of the photo around the edges of the canvas, to use a solid boarder for the edges, or to mirror the edge of the photo and use the inverted image as the edge of the canvas.  Now I know that last option might be a bit difficult to understand, but that is the option I chose so here is a picture of the edges of my canvas.

So as you can see, the bottom of my canvas print is the mirror image of the bottom of my photo (the other edges follow the same system).  I thought this was a really cool option to have and it turned out looking great from all angles as a result.

I have to say that I was really pleased with the way this turned out and would definitely use Easy Canvas Prints again for my sports and family photos.  I have never done a canvas print before this, but I had always thought about it.  This is going to look great hanging in my office!

So, check out Easy Canvas Prints' website (there is a link on my side bar as well as one at the top of this post), I highly recommend them.

I also want to thank Brendan who contacted my on behalf of Easy Canvas Prints.  He was great to deal with and if he is any indication of Easy Canvas Prints' customer service then the quality of the company goes far beyond just their product.