Not Dead Yet

A big trade stack from @dimeboxman as the trade deadline approaches. 

The 2018 Cardinals season can probably be best described as a merry-go-round where people are constantly falling off. It's been more thrilling, it's been dizzy, and there's been a surprising number of casualties. The club is just barely above .500, their staff ace keeps finding new ways to get injured, but they're not out of the race just yet. There's just hours left before the non-waiver trade deadline, and you still don't know if this team is buying or selling.

Someone who is always buying (transitions!) is Nick from Dime Boxes. Back in April, he sent me an envelope stuffed full of cards I could use, and it took me until late July to make things square (and write this post.) I'll delve in to some of the cards that he sent, because that's what I do here.

My Twitter feed has been pretty consistently flowing with random pictures of baseball cards these days, but I always seem to drop what I'm doing whenever someone posts a Bowman Heritage card. I need to get more of these things.

I'm not sure about the border color here, but the rest of this card is pretty cool. I like that it's not colorized.

This feels like the 10th consecutive season that Lou Brock and Dee Gordon have shared a Heritage Then & Now card. I'm a bit tired of it. Next year should break up this duo, with 1970 being an anomalous year for Brock and the stolen bases category and Gordon moving over to the American League.

Nick sent along quite a few cards I couldn't really identify, including a minor league card of an obscure player that I have a PC for. Nice!

This is from one of those many attempts at a baseball card game set, apparently, and it's another thing I'd never seen before. It's officially known as the 2007 Trade Up set.

I think it's safe to say now that Topps Fire was my least favorite thing of 2017, which also means that I still need a ton of cards from said set for my team collection. I surely didn't open any of this stuff.

Here's another mystery item. This is from 2013. I guess I could check out the website, right?

'90s Pacific parallels! Swanky!

I blinked and nearly missed this year's Gypsy Queen set, which is fine with me. This is another one of the very weak areas in my collection. I feel like I didn't see much of any of this stuff on the shelves, although I'm not often tempted. I should probably go to next month's card show and try to pick up what I'm missing.

I will always have a soft spot for 1986 Topps, the first set I ever bought packs from. Somehow, I never actually had one of the Willie McGee cut-from-the-bottom-of-the-box cards from this. I really love this picture, which is clearly a photo from Spring Training in Florida in the '80s. Look at these kids in the background that are just hanging out at the park, not even watching Willie McGee!

Finally, it bears mentioning that Nick sent me a healthy stack of Heritage needs, mostly from the past two years. These aren't as much fun to post about, but I did pick the young talented Phillies starter Nick Pivetta to represent the lot.

Thanks a bunch to Nick, and everyone else who has been patient with me!