Blog Kiosk: 3/8/2012

Here is a preview image of Matt Kemp's card from the upcoming 2012 Topps Finest set expected in stores on August 8th, via Cardboard Connection. Also, it was announced the other day that Topps signed an exclusive marketing deal with Japanese sensation Yu Darvish.

• Scott Andes at Lasorda's Lair breaks out his Ten Blue Commandments of the Dodgers Lineup.
  
• Beckett released more preview pics of 2012 Topps Heritage cards; including a Kemp and Koufax card. There was one card they have that is just too awesome not to put up here. Check it out below and see Beckett's post with those other pics here.
• Jim Caple at ESPN ranks the best looking Baseball uniforms and list the Dodgers as #1. (Hat Tip: Save the Dodgers)
• Dylan Hernandez at the LA Times reports that Andre Ethier's knee doing just fine. poised for a big year?

  "There's a squareness to him right now," Manager Don Mattingly said, explaining that Ethier's improved balance has translated into a more compact stroke.

• Ever since I was a kid I've had this at the back of my mind. Upper Deck is running a series called "How to Open a Trading Card Shop." Check out Part 1, here.
  
• The Albuquerque Isotopes just released their promotion schedule for 2012 and it includes a Dodger Stadium Replica and a Green Chile Pepper Bobblehead. Cool! See the schedule here.
  
• Bob Lemke asks a very good question. Whatever happened to the autographed baseballs given to the King Faisal of Iraq in 1952 by Jackie Robinson?

  Did they survive the July 14, 1958, coup d'etat in which a faction of the Iraqi army lined up the king, members of his family and servants in a palace courtyard and machine-gunned them? Did they survive the Saddam Hussein rule?
  
  Or perhaps the balls returned to the U.S. in the dufflebag of an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran who "found" them in the palace, museum or archives in Baghdad?

• I don't care much about jewelry, but found myself fascinated by a recent warehouse visit that held thousands of costume jewels made by Joseff of Hollywood and worn in some of Hollywood's greatest films from the Golden Era, via Collectors Weekly.
• Fresh Guacamole. Watch it. Really! Just watch it.

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