My First Cards of the New Year

Some cards from @nightowlcards (nearly three months in to 2018.)

Well, the pressure is on now, as I suddenly have an unprecedented number of groupings of sports cards to "check in" to my collection, thanks in part to last night's Cardblogger Con NW '18. There's also been a flurry of mailings lately, which I will have to get to... uh, later, I guess?

The first official trade package of 2018 came from Night Owl Cards, which should be of little surprise to anyone considering how many times I've seen his name in my mailbox in the decade I've been doing this thing.

Team photo cards are always awesome, especially when they are older than I am. There's no checklist on the back of these to mark off, so this one is in great shape and not marked up. At some point, I'd like to get a complete run of Topps Cardinals team cards and do one of those huge posts where it's nothing but pictures to gawk at. That would be nice.

Carlos Martinez is a 2-time All-Star and the ace of the staff these days, with Adam Wainwright sliding back towards more of a mentor role. I'm cautiously optimistic about Waino this season, for reasons I can't really explain. But I'm confident about Carlos Martinez. I think he's ready to throw his name in the ring of Cy Young candidates this season, although his prospects will be dependent on how successful the team is overall, of course. Check the number on this one, it's 1/50!

Jason Motte, shown here on a pukefractor from 2011, didn't make the 25-man roster in his Cardinals comeback attempt, but all indications are that he'll sign a new minor league deal to start the season in Memphis. It would be really cool to see him back at some point.

I have a lot of versions of this card, both flagship and Heritage, but this is my first gold parallel. Three excellent pitchers with different career paths.

I know absolutely nothing about 2017's Topps Gallery revival, but it was cool to get this Yadier Molina card from it. It's actually a Bowman Heritage design. It's confusing.

And now, it's on to the set needs. A significant chunk of the package was dedicated to stuff from sets I collect, including this requisite second copy of a Lou Brock/Dee Gordon team-up. There are so many Lou Brock/Dee Gordon cards at this point that I can't really keep track of which ones I am still missing.

This is a gold parallel of perpetually broken former Dodgers prospect Jose De Leon, not to be confused with former Cardinals pitcher (think '90s) Jose DeLeon. Has anyone ever actually seen this guy pitch? I never actually saw whatever configuration of packs that last year's Ginter gold parallels were available in, so I have very few (two) of these cards. It will probably stay that way for years to come, as retail exclusives usually become scarce as soon as the calendar turns to the next year.

It's always great to get a needed short print from a Heritage set, especially one that's a few years old.

Luke Weaver really shined in the waning days of the 2017 season, so I'm really excited to see what he can do this time around. I think I've mentioned this before. Excitement abounds!

At some point I'm going to regret not really paying attention to Mike Trout's cards (or Trout in general). I'm afraid it's going to be like my indifference to Michael Jordan back when he was nearing his peak, which led me to not really own any valuable Jordan cards. I hope I never actually owned his 2011 Topps Update card, because I bought a lot of those packs way back when.