Catching Up: Surprise Box from Howard

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for making my daily trip to the mailbox a far more rewarding endeavor than it used to be. In the past, it was always Comcast ad, Comcast, bills, bills, nothing, Comcast, nothing, bills. These days, I can at least look forward to throwing manila envelopes and the occasional cardboard box into the mix. (Plus, Qwest ads have replaced the Comcast ads since I dropped their services entirely.) The surprise packages, as I'm sure everyone agrees, are the best because you generally have no idea what's going to show up inside. This isn't always a great thing (hello, Mr. Leon Roberts) but it always proves to be exciting.

One such box came by way of Howard who I had previously completed a very generous trade with. This included my second (I think?) 2010 Upper Deck card. I am not ever going to add that set to any of my want lists, so it will be interesting to see how close I get to completing the Cardinals team set without making so much as a minimal effort. (Don't tell anyone, but the stadium card looks really nice. I am not authorized to tell you what stadium it is, however, and you can never prove any Major League Baseball transpires within it.

Aside from the Turkey Reds, which I would collect no matter what, the Legendary Lineage inserts are pretty much the only inserts that I like from this year's Topps. Yes, that includes the Yer Mom cards. For some reason I'm just not wild about reprinted cards on the current UV-coated flimsy Topps stock.

This Chris Duncan jersey card was as much of a surprise to see as the box was itself. It's my first Duncan solo relic (I have a card he shares with Pujols) and I heard recently he's going to start the season in the minors. I'm hoping he rebounds and gets some decent time in the majors for some team, though I'm sure he'd be a better fit in the American League than he would with the Nationals. I wonder if there are any Duncan relics that are soaked with tobacco spit...

Howard sent over a big stack of 2007 Bowman Heritage cards including this Ryan Braun rookie. Expect to see my 2007 Bowman Heritage want list finally show up here on the blog in the next couple of days.

There were a few foil cards from the set included as well. They're easy to obtain at one-per-pack, so I may as well collect them too.

I believe Howard is the first person to ever send me a Portland Beavers card through this thing I have set up here. Even better, this is Kurt Kepshire - a former Cardinal. It's increasingly likely that this will be the last season of Portland Beavers baseball... AGAIN... and it's so upsetting that I haven't brought myself to write anything that one could construe as rational here about what is transpiring. Let's just enjoy Kurt's card with the old Civic Stadium outfield in the background as we count down the final days of (what is now called) PGE Park's baseball use before it's converted into a full-time MLS outfit.

Okay, onto bigger and sunnier things - the Portland Trail Blazers. Oh... ugh. There's been a black cloud hanging over this team lately, too. There's another thing I don't really want to talk about. I had forgotten about Kevin Thompson, the Blazers second round draft pick in the month I graduated from high school... all 14 NBA games of him.

I won't stop posting Arvydas Sabonis cards. In fact, had I come to start this thing up 7 or 8 years ago, there's a fairly good chance this would have been an Arvydas Sabonis blog.

Does anyone miss the old-school NBA All-Star uniforms? No? I guess I don't, either, but it would be fairly entertaining if they used retro all-star jerseys in one of the games sometime in the near future.

I'm not sure what the Skytech Force is, but I'm sure glad Uncle Cliffy is a part of it!

Thanks again to Howard. Next up are some cards from a certain Wasteland...