Animals, Materials and Humans

Baseball cards are weird. 

Red Cardboard had some extras to unload on the card collecting world recently, and I was quick enough to snap up some goodies. Along with a few random set needs, I also put my name in the hat for some Allen & Ginter minis -- the best kind of minis in my opinion.

Erin decided to collect the omnipresent 2012 Panini Triple Play set back in, well, 2012. She's mostly taken a less than passive interest in cards since then (we have too much stuff and not enough space at the moment), but I have continued to try and help her complete this set quest. The last few cards have been difficult to nail down even though packs of this stuff have been in repacks for years. It probably doesn't help that the cards are short printed as you get close to the end of the set, or that there are these weird memorabilia cards that belong to unspecified players from an unspecified league. (There is an MLBPA logo, at least.) Furthermore, some of the memorabilia cards are scarcer than others, with the jersey and bat cards being the most common, naturally. (I have a number of extras of those.) We're down to needing three Hall of Fame cards, a pants (yikes!) card, and a batting glove card. And then, I will never speak of this set again.

MOOSE!

I wonder what the mayor of Miami thinks about the whole Marlins situation. I don't know why people are all that surprised about their fire sale. This is a franchise that has always gone through cycles of overspending and then burning it all down. The only thing that's really changed is that there's a different ownership group.

A fair share of the mini extras (or extra minis?) were of the Cincinnati Reds variety. You're bound to accumulate these things when you're a Reds blogger, after all. Here's former Cardinals star Scott Rolen late in his Cincinnati days.

Speaking of Cardinals, I also was able to acquire my first Topps Fire cards of the year. This set doesn't appeal to me in the slightest, but that's never going to stop me from adding more Cardinals cards to my collection. Oh had a rough second season with the Cardinals, but I would still expect him to catch on somewhere with a major league deal sooner than later.

It was a big surprise to see Edgar Renteria in the checklist (and as a member of the Cardinals), so maybe this set isn't all bad. After all, it is one of the sets that sees the 2017 return of Jim Edmonds to the checklists after a nearly 6 year absence. (Still need to track down that 2017 Topps Archives Fan Favorites auto of his...)