The Future is Bright

It's also shiny, and occasionally serial numbered. 

I'm still working my way through documenting groupings of cards received back in November. This one was particularly shiny and full of low-numbered things I collect. Gavin from Baseball Card Breakdown (and new Twitter account @PadresBreakdown -- note to self: starting a side social media project might be a more effective way of getting rid of the eight thousand or so excess Cardinals dupes you own) handed off to me another stellar bunch of cards I needed for my various collections. This one was heavy on Cardinals content, which is a boon to this blog considering its namesake.

Carlos Martinez as the Cardinals ace is still something I'm getting used to. He is tremendously talented, though, and earned his second All-Star nod last season. This purple refractor is numbered to 75.

The Cardinals made a key trade this offseason (Marcell Ozuna) without giving up any of their top prospects, including Jack Flaherty. While Flaherty's results in his brief time with the big league club were, frankly, not great, there is still plenty of optimism for him. It was great to get this silver 2016 Bowman parallel as I've not done well with Bowman parallels of late.

I have a soft spot for the old gold Topps flagship parallel cards, but my appreciation goes up tenfold when looking at these rare hobby-only black parallels. I only have a handful of these in my collection and would love to get my hands on more. Assuming they are still making these, I'm sure I would be pretty disappointed in the black parallels from the past couple of sets considering what they've done with the golds.

Considering my love for the flagship 2003 Topps set, I really ought to think about putting together (or just buying) the Retired Signatures set from the same year. It uses the same design, only with white borders. I wish we could still have all-retired sets. I don't even remember why this isn't allowed anymore. I'm guessing it probably has something to do with The Great Rookie Card Reform of Ought-Six.

Topps Pack Wars was post-MLB Showdown, pre-Topps Attax and was something I totally missed. Scrunching the player photo down to such a small space on the card doesn't really make this super collectible, but the foil backing and low serial number certainly help.

Scott Rolen has been getting a lot of positive attention from the baseball pundits about his Hall of Fame candidacy, even though I expect his vote totals to be low. Hopefully he can stay in the collective consciousness long enough to make a run at the Hall a few years down the road.

Surprisingly, this 2014 Finest parallel does not come with any seizure warnings on the back.

Yadi more or less confirmed what we all suspected yesterday when he announced that he expected the final season of his current contract to be his last season as a player. It's hard to imagine the Cardinals now without Yadier Molina. It also makes me feel really old. It doesn't feel like his rookie year was all that long ago.

Along with the low numbered (/75) "blue wave" refractor above, here's Yadi's base card from the most recent Topps Tribute set. I would never in my wildest years buy a pack or box or whatever configuration of this stuff, but the base cards are great card show finds when you can get them.

It's been a little basketball heavy around here, but I couldn't sign off without at least one Blazers card. I remember James Edwards as a Pistons player (center on those "Bad Boys" teams) but have no recollection of him as a Trail Blazer. My mind is a pretty good resource for even the more obscure Portland players over the years, but the mid-90's P.J. Carlesimo era is a bit fuzzy.

Speaking of fuzzy, I have totally neglected this 2012 Topps Archives 3D insert set along with some of the other smaller collections (Opening Day Stars, Turkey Red, etc.) I should probably check out some of the sites that other blogger people write about to fill some of these holes.