Finishing up some current year needs thanks to @batcavelv
As usual, the second series of this year's Topps flagship set is a continuation of the first, which meant another round of cards to get thoroughly annoyed at. I still despise this set as much as I did when I first laid eyes on it and still haven't bought so much as a single pack this year. (The jury is still out on Chrome, but I will feel pretty dirty about it if I decided to start buying those things all of a sudden.) After I came up empty in trying to find a group break to join like I did for the first series, I ended up snagging the Cardinals team set in full from Tracy's Box Breaks through a good old fashioned trade.
Along with choosing the hilariously named "Many Healthy Returns" card, I decided to scan this card of cult hero Tommy Pham. Pham is good for an occasional home run outburst, but I'm also never quite sure he looks like a full-time major leaguer. He's had about a million injuries in his career, so it wouldn't be fair to just call him a late bloomer.
Carlos Martinez has been really good lately, except for that time on Saturday when he was not. This is the formerly serial numbered blue parallel version of his Opening Day card. I bought the Opening Day team set awhile back but still need most of the parallels and inserts because that's how the world works.
Here's trio of Gypsy Queen minis, including a rookie Piscotty, this year's Musial insert that uses the same photo they roll out every year (it does look nice, though) and a Wacha from last year's set.
Exclusive! Limited! Edition! This is a great old oddball card that I needed for my binders. Does this count as a food issue? Squirt is food, right?
Speaking of food, the impetus of this trade was getting my hands on a couple of Tracy's Yadi cards from the Walmart frozen pizza set. I have done this now, and am now done with collecting the few Cardinals in this release. One copy goes to me and the other goes to Erin, and now we never have to think about Walmart for another year. I'm curious, by the way, about the Walmart-esque sitcom that I've been seeing commercials for during the Olympics. Is it any good?
Chrome looks the same - I saw a few cards at my LCS this weekend. I will say this about Chrome: how they handle that honeycomb design for parallels looks cool in Chrome. At least on the refractor cards I saw. You don't notice the pattern until you tilt it to catch the light. It works well.
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