Super Baseball Card Land

Baseball cards and video games from @CommunityGum rule the night. 

There was a time when this whole blogging thing would threaten to eat up my precious video game time, and vice versa. Over the past half-dozen years or so, however, I've found very little time to make these button mashing escapes. Thanks to my first modern console purchase in the last 15+ years years (PS4 Black Friday deal), I've slowly started to carve out some dedicated video gaming time.

I've always been more of a "retro" guy when it comes to the pixelated games, however. 8 and 16 bits are the sweet spot for me. Back before I even made the PS4 purchase (which tells you how long I've been sitting on this post), I was lucky enough to make a claim to copies of Game Boy classics Super Mario Land and Super Mario Land 2, thanks to generous trader and longtime friend of the blog Community Gum.

I am nerdy enough to actually own a "Super Game Boy", which was an attachment shaped like a regular Super Nintendo cartridge that had a slot where you could insert the Game Boy games. This also supposedly brings out some of the enhancements of the Game Boy Color on these old games, where the colors are a bit nicer than the original dull green-on-grey that was a staple of the original machine. Basically, I'm playing the 1989 handheld classic on a 1080p smart TV, technically without any software emulation. (I'm not a very technical person despite working in a tech job, so you could easily convince me that there's an emulator inside the Super Game Boy cartridge and you'd probably be right. Whatever, guy.)

I always to remap the classic 'B' and 'A' button positions used for Super Mario Bros. to an SNES controller in my brain. I end up falling in a lot of pits trying and failing to run fast.

And there were cards, of course! Lots of great cards! Perpetual top prospect Alex Reyes suffered yet another setback recently, this time of his own doing when he punched a wall after a frustrating outing for Triple-A Memphis. Fortunately, it was his non-throwing hand (it broke). Unfortunately, it will probably be awhile before we see him in a Cardinals uniform again. If he can get it back on track, this rainbow foil limited-to-25-copies card may yet be one of the better cards in my collection.

Lou Brock, playing for the St. Louis Somebodies! This is a pretty slick insert from 2017 Donruss Optic (powered by Panini) once you get around the lack of logos.

There are some of those logos that I trust. This is both a mini and a short print (SP), which makes it an MSP. (Please don't let that be a thing.)

Buyback cards are very silly, but I have a few that have been sprinkled around my collection. They're an interesting curiosity that I don't totally mind. I don't think I would ever seek them out in quantity, though.

Panini went for an interesting grey look for this limited-to-199 parallel of the former Cardinals outfielder. He wears Blue Jays blue these days.

Jon also sent a big stack of those Honus Bonus weirdo cards. That set even came with its own limited parallel set, which is indicated by the foil stamp in the upper left corner. I do love weirdo cards, I hate to admit.

More Topps for the Rediscoverin'.

And finally, a healthy stack of this package was also dedicated to the 2017 Allen & Ginter set, one of the many recent Topps sets that I'm still working on. I think I need help.

Thanks again to Community Gum!