A Heaping Helping of Heritage

Reader Howard was kind enough to unload another big batch of Heritage doubles on me, more than doubling my current tally from the 2010 set. He also sent over a handful of Rick Ankiel Just preview cards. I'm not really sure what Just is, but three of the cards depicted Ankiel on three different minor league affiliates, apparently chronicling his swift rise through the Cardinals system.

Several of the cards in the package filled some key needs from the endless journey to complete the 2008 Topps Heritage set. For the record, I'm not quite going after a "master set". I don't hang onto any of the Chromey cards, unless they're Cardinals of course. However, I am trying to get all of the black back cards and inserts. You can see a link to my full wanted list on the sidebar.

Something weird happened. I know I had this card at one time. I even have an image of it in my pictures directory on my computer, taken from 2008 before I got a scanner. I even remember posting about getting several different Kershaws from the High Numbers set including the autograph that I traded away. But I had this on my want list and do not seem to have another copy lying around my place at all, so I have no idea what happened. Perhaps Night Owl came and jacked the card like the creepy thief from Gauntlet II.

Here's another strange one. I just saw Luis Durango play in person on Sunday. Even in my hit-with-a-bat-addled fog, I could have sworn that Durango was an outfielder. I looked up his stats just now and I see no evidence that Durango has logged so much as an inning at shortstop in his professional career.

I find it strange that Ty Cobb would be part of the "News Flashbacks" insert set instead of the "Baseball Flashbacks" one. Sure, Cobb passed away in 1961, but you would think there would have been no shortage of newsworthy moments to commemorate.

Finally, to my surprise there was another amazing Heritage variation card from the 2009 set in the package. This is one of the more confounding variations that Topps has come up with, as there's no apparent reason to put a Rays logo on Conor Jackson. You could at least say that a certain element would be amused/outraged about seeing Jeter with a Red Sox logo.

Thanks again to Howard. Check out his want lists here and make him a trade offer.