Let's Throw it Back

A Cardinals-centric collection of @batcavelv cards from today and back in the day. 

Tracy's Box Breaks is known for posting cheap box breaks periodically, which I always enjoy. Tracy also finds time to kick some other Cardinals my way from time to time. Let's check out a bunch of cards I got back in late November.

It's a rare Toys 'R Us parallel sighting! With the toy chain's demise, the purple parallels were pawned off on another chain store that we don't have around my neck of the woods. I'm not sure if they're continuing to do this for 2020 or not. The Walmart and Target colored parallels ceased years ago, but the idea continues to live on (see Walgreen's for example.)

Speaking of retail exclusives, here's one from the Topps Fire set that you can usually only find at Target. This is a nice gold parallel of Brock's base card.

Carson Kelly showed some power last year in his first shot of regular catching duty, albeit with another team. I wonder how Diamondbacks fans feel about him. This is kind of a busy card design, but I kind of like it.

More parallel madness, with former Cardinal (for six games at least) Tim Cooney appearing on a silver prospects Bowman card. Hey, that's six more games than most people have played in Major League Baseball!

I love "framed" cards a whole lot, so I'm always happy to get these. Goldschmidt is still in Diamondbacks uniform here, and I like that Panini didn't do a whole lot to disguise that other than the usually logo wipes that they do.

Another card of Goldy, shown here on last year's Panini Leather & Lumber base card. I think I missed out on a big opportunity when I didn't buy up all of the discount blasters of this stuff at a card show last year. I did have fun with the one that I opened, at least.

The photo itself doesn't get a ton of space here, but it's great to get a numbered card of any Hall of Famer.

The thing that really kickstarted this particular package was Tracy contacting me about going in with him on one of those Topps online exclusive set deals. That particular week's Throwback Thursday checklist had two Cardinals on it, and I was feeling adventurous and bought in.

They have a very 1990ish Score feel to them, although who knows if that's what they were going for here? There's next to nothing on the back, but I do appreciate the thickness of these cards as well as the overall look. One of the biggest reasons I never got on the Topps Now train even once is that I suspect that, once in hand, the cards weren't going to look or feel much different than any old insert card from the flagship set. These TBTs are really nice, though.

And speaking of throwing it back, check this totally '90s card from Topps Magazine. I love it.

Thanks again to Tracy, who has had a box break up for quite awhile now. I bet there's still time to buy in if you check with him.