I Must Be in the Front Row

Certified awesomeness. 

Trade packages have been coming in fast and furiously of late, which means I have a lot of organizing to do. Fellow NL Central blogger Tony from Off Hiatus has sent me some great stuff in the past, so why should I be surprised that this latest package was any different?

I'm typically slow to learn the names of Cardinals prospects, so I have to admit that Harrison Bader was new to me. He's also new to the binders. Bader was a 3rd round pick out of Florida in last year's draft and is already threatening to crack the Cardinals Top 10 Prospects list soon. His minor league numbers last season looked good so far, but that's coming from someone who spends absolutely no time looking at minor league stats besides occasionally flipping over a baseball card.

Awhile back, I got hold of a Lou Brock themed set from 1993 thanks to another generous blogger. I should have read the back of the COA a little bit more carefully, because maybe then I would have been prepared for this shock. Some of these sets have an autographed card in them, and thanks to Tony, I now own one of these. I can't say that I was ever prepared for a certified autograph of a Cardinals legend, let alone something produced more than 20 years ago.

Here, we see that there were 2000 signed Front Row Premium sets produced, insofar as the first card of each was signed. I cannot stress enough how nice this is of Tony to send it to me.

I also received a bunch of Dover reprints that I'm excited to put in my binders. I actually owned a bunch of these at one time in my life, and if my memory isn't completely a waste I believe they were perforated because you could actually tear them out of some sort of book. I listened to all the older kids in the neighborhood and grumpy store owners back in the day and eventually tossed these things, but now I'm glad I have some for my collection.

Frankie Frisch didn't want to get tossed away, man. Even if it's just a facsimile.

I always appreciate Drake's Big Hitters cards and pretty much all of the '80s Topps oddball sets, especially when they used the full flagship Topps design on the back.

Finally, a large portion of the acquired trade pile was 2014 Panini Donruss. I think I am finally ready to bite the bullet and start checklisting some of this unlicensed stuff. Hey, if Topps had done a better job with their exclusive license, no one would have ever gone out and bought this stuff. Now, it's here, and it's not going away.