DFW Card Shops

Nick's Sports Cards

Nick's Sports Cards
7522 Campbell Rd #119, Dallas, TX 75248 
(972) 248-2271
Mon-Fri 11 am - 7 pm | Sat 10 am - 6 pm | Sun 12 pm - 5 pm

Triple Cards
2452 K Ave
Plano, TX 75074
(972) 509-5263
Mon-Fri 11am- 8pm | Sat 11am- 6pm | Sun 11am- 5pm

Duane's Sports Cards

SMP Sports Cards
1671 W Northwest Hwy, Grapevine, TX 76051
(817) 251-1752
11 am - 6 pm Tues - Sat, Closed Sun & Mon


Duane's Sports Cards 
2817 Galleria Dr, Arlington, TX 76011
(817) 652-3416
Sun 12 pm - 5 pm | Mon 11 am - 5 pm | Tues-Sat 11 am - 6 pm

Teddy's Reviews

Nick's Sports Cards  

Favorite shop in DFW! Nick & Debbie are awesome and run a great store!
They have a great selection of vintage that is fairly priced (check out the vintage grab bags!)
I always dig through their boxes of hits and RC's, you never know what you will find for a good deal. I buy all my new boxes here, since new releases come in at release time and are decently priced.
I try to go buy Nick's a few times a week, they are constantly getting in new cards and it's such a fun place to be. 
Definitely visit Nick's, it's a fun shop with a Cheer's like atmosphere.

Triple Cards  

Triple Cards is a cool shop in Plano ran by a nice fellow named Al. They have boxes and boxes of cards by brand, product, and year in # order. If there is a particular card you are looking for to complete a set, this is a great shop to go to to hunt down that card. Triple cards also has a clearance hits section that I usually dig through, that has 5-10 yr old hits marked down. I end up at triple cards once every month or two.

Duane's Sports Cards 

I've only had a few chances to visit Duane's. One of the owners explained to me that the shop was shared by 4 folks who ran their own section. So you shop each owners section, due to each having different cards. There was a ton of cards to dig through and I spent a few hours in the shop. The owners I've met were super nice and very helpful. I wish I was able to make it to this shop more often, had some good deals and bulk deals there were fun to dig through.

Other Places to get cards in town:

Walmart & Target - I usually pick up clearance repacks, rack packs, etc. I also buy 2 Blisters or Blasters of retail here of the Hobby Boxes I buy. Like to have a little retail in the mix.
Walgreens
Movie Trading Company- They sell $1-$4 repacked 50-100 cards. Lots of junk wax base. I go when they have a big sale, buy 1 get 2 free, etc. just because of how cheap it is.
Sports Authority
Dick's Sporting Goods
Rally House - usually priced double what retail is.

If you know of others in DFW you visit, let me know!
teddyballgame@tedstrange.com
@teddyballgamebb



 

How to Read a Slash Line

The Slash line, or triple slash line, is a easy way to state a batter's performance with 3 quick stats.
The batting average (AVG), on-base percentage (OBP), & slugging percentage (SLG) are listed with slashing separating each number.

Reads like this:

Babe Ruth career slash line .342/.474/.690

So Babe Ruth had a .342 career batting average, with a .474 on-base percentage, & a .690 slugging percentage.

You will also see the slash line listed with a 4th number. The 4th number is On base percentage + Slugging percentage, known as On base plus Slugging or OPS. This number is the two added together, so the Bambino's slash line would look like this:

Babe Ruth career slash line .342/.474/.690/1.164

How the numbers are calculated
Batting Average (AVG) - Hits / At Bats
On Base Percentage (OBP) - (Hits+Walks+Hit By Pitch) / (Plate Appearances)
Slugging Percentage (SLG) -  Total Bases from Hits / At Bats

Total bases from hits is found by multiplying:
1 x Total Singles
2 x Total Doubles
3 x Total Triples
4 x Home Runs


What does it all mean!?
Now that you know what it is, how to read it, how it's calcualted, you need to know what it all means and why those numbers are significant.
How can you judge good batting performance from those 3 numbers?
We first need to determine what is good.

Batting Average -
What is great?
Ty Cobb holds the record for the highest career batting average at .366
Hugh Duffy holds the record for the highest single season average at .439

Top 10 Career Averages (via baseball-reference.com):

Rank	Player (yrs, age)	Batting Average	Bats
1	Ty Cobb+ (24)	0.3664	L
2	Rogers Hornsby+ (23)	0.3585	R
3	Shoeless Joe Jackson (13)	0.3558	L
4	Lefty O'Doul (11)	0.3493	L
5	Ed Delahanty+ (16)	0.3458	R
6	Tris Speaker+ (22)	0.3447	L
7	Billy Hamilton+ (14)	0.3444	L
	Ted Williams+ (19)	0.3444	L
9	Dan Brouthers+ (19)	0.3421	L
	Babe Ruth+ (22)	0.3421	L

What is good? 
Having a batting average above .300 is considered a very good batting average.
Ending the season, above .250 would be considered a good batting average.

What isn't good? 
The Mendoza line is traditionally known as the mark of poor hitting. Mario Mendoza ended the 1979 season at 0.198 (the mendoza line) and was frequently joked about in the clubhouse for not hitting above .200. George Brett made the term popular by mentioning in an ESPN interview, after which the term was frequently used to describe sub-par hitting.

Example Chart:

On Base Percentage -
 On base percentage league average in the modern era is .340. Ted Williams holds the career record at .482 OBP. The lowest career OBP is Bill Bergen with .194.

Rank	Player (yrs, age)	On-Base%
1	Ted Williams+ (19)	0.4817
2	Babe Ruth+ (22)	0.4739
3	John McGraw+ (16)	0.4657
4	Billy Hamilton+ (14)	0.4552
5	Lou Gehrig+ (17)	0.4474
6	Barry Bonds (22)	0.4443
7	Bill Joyce (8)	0.4349
8	Rogers Hornsby+ (23)	0.4337
9	Ty Cobb+ (24)	0.433
10	Jimmie Foxx+ (20)	0.4283

Slugging Percentage -
The highest potential slugging percentage is 4.000, all home runs for every at bat.
The league average for SLG is typically around .400 - .440.
Having over .500 SLG is great performance, and landing above .600 is amazing.
A low slugging percentage would be .250 - .300.

Rank	Player (yrs, age)	Slugging  %
1	Babe Ruth+ (22)	0.6897
2	Ted Williams+ (19)	0.6338
3	Lou Gehrig+ (17)	0.6324
4	Jimmie Foxx+ (20)	0.6093
5	Barry Bonds (22)	0.6069
6	Hank Greenberg+ (13)	0.605
7	Albert Pujols (13, 33)	0.6001
8	Mark McGwire (16)	0.5882
9	Manny Ramirez (19)	0.5854
10	Joe DiMaggio+ (13)	0.5788

Now that you know!
Here's some stats!

Career Slash Line:

Babe Ruth .342/.474/.690
Ted Williams .344/.482/.634
Joe DiMaggio .325/.398/.597
Mickey Mantle .298/.421/.557
Lou Gehrig .340/.447/.632
Jackie Robinson .311/.409/.474

Current (07/2013):
Miguel Cabrera .373/.461/.680
Troy Tulowitzki .347/.413/.635
Yadier Molina .345/.387/.497
Michael Cuddyer .344/.393/.590
Chris Davis .332/.406/.728