A PWE from Bru

All this from @marcbrubaker for just a stamp! 

It's Monday night, so this will be a little brief. It's a perfect time to check out a few cards from everyone's favorite 'Stros fan Marc Brubaker.

I have a lot of Edmonds cards, so it's not always common anymore that someone hits me with one I didn't have. This is one of those! It's a parallel from the 2005 Bowman Heritage set. I like these a lot better than the foil cards they put in the next two sets.

I don't know that I've ever seen packs of UD Superstars before. It seems like it might have been some sort of boxed set type of thing?

I just pulled the Chrome version of this card yesterday, but I also needed two copies of this one. I am still working on the Series One Turkey Red set if anyone has any dupes.

There's always plenty of junk wax era needs on my list. This card of pinch-hitter extraordinaire Gerald Perry was one of them.

Thanks again to Bru. I'm liking this PWE thing!

Who Wants a Few Cards?

(Not these cards. Other ones.)

I've got envelopes and I've got stamps! If you're stuck at home looking for something to do, let me know who you collect and I'll send you some totally free cards - anywhere from 3 to 6 cards, depending on what I have. If you have a want list, let me know about that, too -- that might turn into a bigger trade type of deal, of course.

With that business out of the way, let's take a look at a few things from another excellent package of cards from the legendary Night Owl Cards.

It feels like it's been years since I've seen Jordan Hicks pitch, and with the next baseball games an indeterminate amount of time away, it's going to feel like even more years. That's not to mention his recovery from Tommy John surgery, of course.

It's a silly gimmick, but I really like these rookie card medallion commemorative cards from the 2020 Topps blasters. I'm tempted to buy more blasters because I really want the Ozzie and Gibby cards from this, but I'd probably pull some other guy intead.

Here's a great looking trio of '67s. I don't think I had ever heard the name Woodeshick in my life before acquiring the card on the right.

I bought a 2006 Bowman Heritage hobby box recently and pulled a bunch of Dodgers. I had completely forgotten that Night Owl had sent me a bunch of his Dodgers doubles that I needed for the set before I reached out to him to find out what he was missing. Whoops.

Along with the 2006 Bowman Heritage set needs, Night Owl included a bunch of 2019 Heritage needs. All three of these are of the short print variety. You can tell by the elitist looks on their respective faces.

If you want a few cards from me (but not these ones!), just drop me a line in email or in DM on Twitter.

What Else Am I Going to Do?

Another #CrackinWaxMailDay brings the goods from a couple of daily breaks. 

I'm still trying to get used to my new morning routine, which somehow now includes checking Crackin' Wax for their new daily group breaks. This probably isn't the smartest use of my funds considering the challenges everyone is going through, but it's a nice distraction from other more important things going on in life.

These breaks are more on the affordable side of the spectrum. One of the two that I bought into last week was the 2013 Panini Select set. I knew I'd be happy with whatever was pulled, because I only had a base card or two from this set. I was able to significantly increase these numbers by the looks of things here.

A Yadi Prizm (aka refractor) was pulled, just for good measure. These look nice, as expected.

I also took a flyer on a 2019 Panini Donruss dual mega box break, which is something that surprised even me. However, I still needed a few cards from the base team set and... hey, look, now I have them all! For some reason I'd happened into something like five of the variation card of Justin Williams, but not this version until now.

As mentioned, this was some sort of "mega box", which means retail exclusives galore. I didn't pull (or rather Crackin' Wax didn't pull) any of the so-called pink fireworks exclusives for me, but I did land this regular pink holo Yadi. It was a good day for new Yadi cards, that's for sure!

I did manage to land a hit, and not of some ex-prospect who never panned out. Unfortunately, it's a Cleveland Baseball Club card as they were one of my randomly assigned teams. However, you could do a lot worse than this, and it's numbered to just 25.

I'll probably enter some of these, as long as they keep running. I've even been popping into the live chatroom when I can. Apparently this is what I do now.

Cardinals of a Certain Vintage

The good old stuff. 

Another nice batch of Cardinals cards (i.e. dupes) from another big time Cardinals collector, All Cardinals All The Time, arrived last month just as spring training was starting to kick into gear. It seems so long ago, now. This latest packaged leaned heavily towards old cards, something that I am appreciating a lot more these days than I used to.

Here's a trio of '59s, from what is probably my favorite set from before I was born. I blame Baseball Card Magazine and their replica cards they would insert in those, as it was my first look at this design up close and in person.

My scanner really hates old cards these days, particularly the borders. If the cards aren't centered at least 60/40, one of the sides ends up getting lopped off. At some point I might look into a new scanning option, but this has served me decently for more than a decade.

I also reduced my 1977 Topps needs by 4. I chose the card with the 70's Pirates style cap, which was briefly favored by a few other teams as well.

It's another case of the missing side border. Also... how old was Bob here? He looks like a coach or something.

Lastly, here's a more modern card, although it's still more than a couple of decades old at this point. Stadium Club inserts are always appreciated, as they seem to be rarer than inserts from many other sets. This "In the Wings" card from 1998 Stadium Club feels like something you might see in one of the more current sets.

The Card Community Sends Cards

Cards from @CommunityGum to pass the time, because there's a lot of time right now. 

I know whenever I see Jon from Community Gum's name on an envelope, it's time to drop everything and tear into some exciting baseball cards. This time was no exception. Another vast assortment of Cardinals cards and set needs were among the many cool cards I got to thumb through. Andrew Miller and a couple of friends represented the tough-to-find 2019 Walgreen's-exclusive yellow Topps card crowd, and there was certainly more to look at.

This black bordered mini of the Wizard? Not too shabby. Ozzie certainly seems impressed.

There was not one, but...

Two! Two low numbered Scott Rolen inserts from a long forgotten mid-'00s Donruss set. Ah ah ah!

Harrison Bader makes an appearance on a dazzling don't-call-it-an-X-Fractor Prizm parallel. (Seriously, what do they call this, then?)

I call this one the swirly-dirly parallel. Yes, that's its official name!

No scan will tell you how wonderful the Topps retro/throwback parallels are. You just have to see (and feel) them for yourself. I want all of these, seriously.

I recognize this one as one of those Trading Card History inserts from back in 2008, except in Chrome and Bronze form. Nice!

This one may be headed to my Blazers binders, but I was absolutely thrilled that Jon tapped into my 2010-11 Donruss basketball needs. I haven't touched that want list in years, and it desperately needed some attention.

Remember basketball? I miss basketball.

But I miss baseball most of all, especially this time of the year. I even miss Mike Trout, the big lug. Jon also sent a nice stack of 2019 Ginter needs, and with all of this extra time inside I probably should give my sets and collections even more attention. Just don't let me start collecting anything else!

Majors & Minors

Big leaguers and aspiring leaguers in the Cardinals system. 

Bob from The Best Bubble sent along another intriguing package of cards recently, which included a bunch of Cardinals cards and minor league affiliated Cardinals. Let's check out a few on this Thursday night.

Here I have Paul Goldschmidt's awkwardly Photoshopped picture in another version. X-Fractors are fun and were pretty much my introduction to what Topps Chrome actually is. I remember buying a Skip Schumaker 2006 Topps Chrome card around the time I started the blog, after passing up on some much more expensive refractor checkerboard looking things like this one.

Okay, fine, that's some revisionist history. It turns out I bought a pack of the stuff on eBay (?!) before my much more clear memory of paying something like $1 for the Schumaker card at a semi-local card shop. I'm starting to have a hard time remembering what life was like before all of the restaurants and bars closed down, so I guess it's not surprising that I don't remember something from twelve years ago.

This may not look like much, but it's actually an extremely rare insert from an extremely common 1989 Topps set. Apparently these were K-Mart jumbo pack exclusives, and I have no recollection of this whatsoever. I don't think I made many trips to K-Mart stores as a teen or else I would have been all over these.

Now it's on to the minor league portion of the package, which is always fun. Rene Arocha was one of the early Cuban players to come over to MLB, and was pretty good for his brief career in the States.

I'm just fond of the uniform and cap, I have to say. Steve doesn't really look like a ballplayer, but he looks very happy to be a ballplayer nonetheless.

Rick Ankiel is more of a household name, and this was a nice capper to the whole package. As you can see, it's a pretty low numbered card from the 2000 SP Prospect set. Not bad!

Red Turkey Red

@pennysleeves delivers some Turkey Red Red. Red Red Red.

I'm not sure I've ever seen as many of the same Turkey Red colored parallel in the same place as I did when I opened a package from Jon of A Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts back in January. He discovered through another trade post that I was a big fan of the Turkey Red sets, and the colored parallels in particular. If I had the sports card budget I have these days back in 2005 or 2006, I suppose I would have a lot of this stuff already, but I barely touched the stuff back then.

I scanned a few cards from the big stack of red parallels I received, including this card of "Too Many" fame Curtis Granderson.

Rookie Hanley! I have to admit, I don't miss the old official rookie card logo.

Kendry(s)! Somehow these ghostly baseball players shown in front of empty fields is pretty apt for these current times.

I wish that Matt Morris had been able to somehow hang on and also stick with the Cardinals for their 2006 championship, because he was really good when he was healthy.

Uggla! Another blast from the past.

And here's Omar Vizquel. You would think that this was from the twilight of his career, but he would somehow stick around for another six seasons after this. Crazy.

DeJong & More

A football swap with @collec_sport nets some baseball cards. 

Back during the holiday season, I bought into a Black Friday deal from Panini that netted me a couple of their Black Friday packs. I'd never taken advantage of a promotion like this before, and it was pretty much, even if none of the cards fit into my collection. The Saquon Barkley card did, however, fit into a Sport Card Collectors collection, so we arranged a swap where I was able to pick up an autograph of one of my favorite Ducks football players.

I'm not going to show that off today, however. As you might have guessed, I'm holding it back for a future Good Luck Ducks post (hopefully those will be a thing again someday.) Instead, I wanted to take a look at a few of other goodies I received.

This is a really tough card to look at, in all honesty. Some '90s inserts really work, and others are just... what were they thinking here?! Still, I had never seen this card from the 1999 Sports Illustrated set, and it will slide into a nice spot in my binders, in the "Mc" section of course.

I'm not sure why, but whenever I see or hear the name Trevor, the phrase "whatever's clever, Trevor" pops into my head. I don't even know if I'd actually said that out loud before, or even heard anyone else say it. Someone probably did.

I'm always appreciative of people that send me Bowman Platinum stuff as well as other Walmart exclusives. I don't go to those stores and the one sort of around here doesn't stock cards, anyway. (I can't even imagine what a Walmart must be like this week.)

Thanks again to SCC/The Card Guy! If you have any interesting New York Giants cards, think about sending 'em that direction.