Birds and Such

It's another group break round-up. 

 

It's been pointed out a number of times that I seem to collect a lot of bird teams. Both pro bird teams were heavily represented in the latest round of group breaks I opted in to from Colbey's Affordable Group Breaks. These mostly represent, well, let's call it Q4 of 2023.

I don't buy a lot of football, so most of my Eagles acquisitions are random base cards that I feel like adding to my want list over at TCDB. It's always nice to get some newer stuff, especially since I'm not such a hardcore Eagles fan that I always remember a ton of players.

I certainly don't remember these guys, but I love a clear acetate sports card. This is from some sort of 1996 Collector's Edge set.

There weren't many exciting photos to choose from in my haul from the 1996 Upper Deck Silver Collection, so I ended up just choosing my favorite player of the bunch.

The smaller, redder birds were well-represented as well. The 2002 Topps Super Teams set comes from an era where sets featuring exclusively retired legends could actually exist. I knocked off a bunch of cards from my want list here, including a pair of serial-numbered foil parallels.

Speaking of foil parallels, the 2003 Bowman Heritage break was also fruitful for me. It mostly looks like Haren's regular "knothole" style card, but there is a rainbow foil finish to it.

And speaking of parallels in general, I landed a thick black Pujols parallel, complete with facsimile signature. Not bad!

Last, but certainly not least, is this Albert card from the 2007 Bowman Heritage set. It's a card that I swear I've seen several dozen times over the years, and yet didn't manage to own a single copy of until recently. I own most of this set, so it's a bit strange that Pujols has eluded me so long.

Big Time

A look at the new Topps Big League set. 

 

In the current production schedule, there aren't a lot of new baseball cards to look at this early in the season. For this reason, I'm grateful for the arrival of the now annual Big League set, even if it's never really going to be my thing.

As a replacement for Opening Day, this isn't a bad idea. The design is fairly eye-catching, though the cards are printed on the same somewhat cheap feeling card stock of years past.

It's that tiered rarity system for the base yet that Topps revived for last year's set. I'm quite confident that nobody likes this. The rare set collector probably won't even bother with this product, and the team collectors (like myself) get mad about having to track down rare cards whenever their team lands on that portion of the checklist. These are two foil cards from the most common short printed tier. The cards in the higher tiers will probably stay on my want list for years, just like last year.

Here are some more Cardinals. We get Large Lad Luken, currently back with Memphis for the third straight season, plus a few more well known guys from the active big league roster.

The card backs look similar to the flagship set. It's not a bad template.

Of course, there is the usual crop of inserts to be had. Good Vibrations would probably make more sense in a Heritage or Archives type set instead of something modern like this. I think Ozzie is the only retired player on the checklist, but I'm certainly not complaining about another card of the Wizard in 2024.

Topps Big Leaguers is the most redundant insert set name of the year. These Big League Big Leaguers come in a few different design that look like something out of an '80s children's magazine. (Highlights, anyone?)

Topps did port over their Mascots inserts from the defunct Opening Day set to this one. These are definitely for the kids, and kids at heart.

Orange parallels can only be found in blasters now. Previously, you would find blue parallels in blasters and orange elsewhere. They're still called "electric orange" despite just having a bit of plain orange on the borders. The more common foil cards also come in this orange variety, only, you know... foil.

No one openings Big League packs expecting hits, but I actually landed two autographed cards in the same one blaster that I opened. It feels like the Orioles have had a plethora of prospects run through their system of late.

Both autographs are headed for the trade box. I haven't been able to add this one to TCDB yet, as someone needs to upload a checklist first. (That someone could be me, I suppose.)

March Radness Contest Results

Another contest is in the books! 

 

The 2024 basketball tournament has come and gone, and along with it we have concluded another March Radness contest. It was a tight race this year, with AngelsInOrder taking first place on the tiebreaker. In second place was TDK, with (the real?) J.D. Drew rounding things out in third. The Diamond King also won the pop-up contest during Final Four weekend, with espn36697562 finishing in last place.

If your name is in bold here, please contact me with your mailing address so I can send out your prizes. Thanks for playing!

Three Yadis and a New Contest

A new contest is upon us, and this one is easy to enter!

 

To go alongside the annual March Radness contest, I promised a quick and easy one for anyone who didn't have the time or patience to fill out a bracket. And even if you did fill out a bracket, stay tuned for the end of this post (or skip to the end if you don't like a certain legendary Cardinals catcher.)

Today's cards are from Cardpocalypse, and all three of them are Yadier Molina cards that I've never seen before. (This was a big reminder that I need to reach out to Tim and send him some stuff soon. He's probably really excited that NC State is in the Final Four in both the men's and women's tourneys.) 

Along with the numbered jersey card from the 2019 Topps set came a pair of Stadium Club parallels. The 2019 Chrome parallel above is actually a refractor, but I don't have the kind of scanner that can easily show the difference between refractors and otherwise.

The last Yadi of the trio is this rare Rainbow Foil parallel from 2017, which is numbered to just 25. (It's actually 25/25!) These are terrific editions to my still growing Yadi collection. Between Erin and I, there are quite a few cards of his in our house.

And now... the contest! This is for anyone to join, whether or not you filled out a bracket this year and are participating in March Radness or not. Simply comment below with the NCAA men's team that you think will win it all on Monday night, and tell me how many points that team will score.

• A valid entry example: NC State, 99
• As a reminder, Saturday's games are UConn vs. Alabama, and NC State vs. Purdue. You'll need to pick one of those teams.
• Deadline to enter is Saturday 3:09 PM PDT (6:09 PM EDT)
• If you're unable to comment here for any reason (sometimes Google can be a jerk), feel free to reach out to me via e-mail or direct message somewhere and I'll add your prediction here.
• The winner must pick the winning team and having the closest total number of points scored by that team in the championship game. If no one picks the winning team, I will choose whoever picked the closest score regardless of which team was chosen.
• The winner will get some sort of unopened 2024 baseball pack/box (up to $12.99 in value).
• You can only enter once, so make it a good guess!