Young and Patchy

Cardinals and Blazers gems from @CardpocalypseNC officially kick off "Catch Up Month". 

I'm finally back from two separate baseball-themed summer vacations, so it's time to get to work. By work, I mean, post about cards that have been sitting around for months. My goal is to be completely caught up before the month is over. (Where have we heard this before?)

First up is a slick batch of Cards on cards and Blazers on cards from Tim of I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning. The card of the recently demoted Harrison Bader comes from one of those fancy online-only sets that Topps likes to use to line our email inboxes with targeted advertising these days. It's a bit thicker and glossier than your average Topps card, which makes me think it's probably similar to the pricey Topps Now stuff they've been doing for several years now.

Meanwhile, the Yadi photo variation is always appreciated. Even though the 2017 design is one of the worst things I've seen slapped on so-called cardboard, it's always cool to see a memorable moment captured on a baseball card. This one is headed to Erin's collection.

The NBA offseason is so short these days that we're already talking about training camp, contract extensions and things of that nature. CJ just got paid ($$$$), extending his stay in Portland to at least five years by adding on three and one hundred (seasons and million dollars, respectively.)

Zach Collins is someone that a lot of people are excited about, at least in Rip City. Zach is entering his third season and figures to get a ton of minutes now with several frontcourt mainstays departing and Jusuf Nurkic expected to be sidelined for quite awhile yet. He did just suffer an injury in offseason workouts recently, but training camp hasn't been ruled out for him yet.

While shiny Prizm cards are all the rage these days, Zach's green rookie parallel is no match for this super cool (and thick) patch card. It's numbered 13 out of 25.

Thanks again to Tim!