Bargain Blaster

Featuring the familiar One Exclusive Patch Card Inside!

I had a $5 off coupon burning a hole in my pocket and finally put it to good use last weekend. Along with my first dip into 2014 Allen & Ginter territory, I also snagged a 2014 Topps Series 2 blaster at a more affordable price. By this time of year, I usually stay far away from the base set because I am usually running out of Cardinals to collect. That's not the case this year. I have a feeling I will still be working on the team set proper by the time the calendar flips to 2015.

The manupatch card could've been worse, I suppose, but I have never successfully traded with an A's fan. When you couple that with the fact that Cespedes was recently traded and probably isn't all that exciting to an A's fan these days (a theoretical fan at that), I am probably not going to be able to get rid of this any time soon.

This was a big pull for me. Craig got traded just as I was starting my vacation a few weeks ago, and his past contributions to the team will be missed. Unfortunately, it seems like he's broken now, so it's quite understandable that he was dealt. Joe Kelly, on the other hand... don't get me started. I will break things.

These don't really do it for me, but they're not terribly easy to find. If anyone is sitting on any of these flashy red Cardinals, you know who to get in touch with.

I could have saved this for a future Airbrushed Friday, but this is a pretty boring card. I would have liked to have seen more of Bourjos this year than what we've gotten, but Jon Jay has been on fire lately.

I think I have 8 of these. Does Bundy even exist anymore?

Red hot blue jay.

These are really boring. Have I mentioned that?

Nomar had one of the stranger careers in recent years. He succeeded at crossing over into pop culture mainstream consciousness (I remember the SNL sketches), but wasn't able to play at a high level long enough to be a serious Hall of Fame candidate.

R.I.P.

Gold bordered cards are pretty ugly and unmemorable this year. I bet that's going to change in 2015.

This is the second short printed variation that I've pulled from Series 2. After making some money back on my Evan Gattis bedazzled Photoshop thing, I ended up with a Futures jersey variation of broken Jose Fernandez. Any takers?

McGwire looks awkward here.

The only thing Matt Harvey is SaberStarring in this year is SaberRehab.

Pujols looks more and more like a comic book villain/tough guy with each passing day. I ended up with something like 20 of these Target parallels, but I didn't feel like scanning them all.

I entered my code online and nothing happened.

Zimmerman looks to be the latest of a series of star players that I wasn't familiar with at all when I returned to collecting to be on the last legs of his career. Is that fair? Maybe not, but I remember Topps introducing me to players like Nick Markakis, Grady Sizemore, Brian Roberts and Zimmerman way back when. Now their days of appearing on insert cards seem to mostly be behind them, though Markakis is still a solid regular and plus defender.

As always, send me an email if you're interesting in anything here aside from the Cardinals cards.