Feeling Complete

I'm starting to catch up with my trade posts to the point where I'm posting stuff where I haven't even sent the return package yet. While that might sound good, it's really not - considering that I've been sitting on this package for more than a month. Oops. Fortunately, my envelope full of cards for It's Like Having My Own Card Shop just got packed up and is ready to mail out tomorrow.

In exchange for some Griffey cards to restart his collection (and some super secret Diamondbacks cards we won't tell anyone about), I received a bunch of cards from players on my player collection lists. And more! Because there's always more. This Moonshots card is cool, and looks like it might have partly inspired the recent Stadium Lights inserts from Topps Opening Day. I already had the jersey version of this but I was lacking the regular insert.

I'll never get sick of framed cards. Not now, not ever. Oh Upper Deck, why did you have to be so shady and shoddy and lose your license?

See! Lost your license, you did. Pay no attention to that weird snakey thing on this baseball player that may or may not be an interlocking S, T and L.

Yadi is Erin's favorite current player, so I can't let her not have this card. This is one of those hard to find Target Walmart-only variations. Now I just need two of my own.

Well, Pujols isn't on my favorite players list at all, but his Cardinals cards are still appreciated here. If Upper Deck still had a license, I'd be pining for a new Upper Deck Xponential set. Just forget about the, uh, base cards.

I don't get this set at all, but I see the shiny serial numbers and I just drool. Just kidding. I've never drooled over a piece of cardboard. A cardboard box of mac & cheese, maybe, but not baseball cards.

I also picked up a few 1985 Fleer needs. But this isn't regular, boring old regular 1985 Fleer. This is Fleer Update Fleer. This set used to be untouchable in my youth but is probably fairly cheap these days.

Jack Clark. So serious.

John Tudor had some of the most brilliant and totally under appreciated (nationally, anyway) pitching seasons of anyone in my lifetime. When he was on, he was ridiculous and yet hardly a fireballer.

Finally, here's the last piece of the 1993 Upper Deck puzzle that I needed. I have no idea why I needed this card, but as soon as I learned it (and another "SP") existed, I needed to have it. Now I do. And now you know.

Melvin

Melvin Nieves was rated the 39th best prospect in baseball according to Baseball America in 1993.

His card was also the last regular player card I needed to complete the 1993 Upper Deck set. If anyone has the Nolan Ryan 'SP6' card, please contact me. I will buy you a package of Heritage, or something. I'll also probably try to talk you into a trade.

Thanks to The Angels, In Order for Melvin's card.

Timeless Cardinals

I have to say that it's pretty embarrassing to post about a package I received a month ago and realize that I haven't held up my part of the bargain. The worst part is knowing that this isn't the first time that this has happened, it's not likely to be the last, and it's not even the first time I've made this admission recently on the blog. Such is life, I suppose, but I do appreciate the trade packages I receive and the patience of those who continue to send them to me.

Such a package was sent to me by Spankee of My Cardboard Mistress, which was high on the reward-to-quantity ratio. The card you see at the top of the post is one of the two SP cards that were (I think?) randomly inserted in packs of 1993 Upper Deck. I wouldn't know, personally, because I never pulled or even saw either of them. I still need the other one, but the main set is totally done.

This Ray Lankford 1999 Bowman's Best refractor kind of reminds me of the boxes that clothing from Nordstrom's used to come in back in the '70s and early '80s. Mirrored silver alternating with yellow... niiiiice.

Here's a Timeless Moments Chris Carpenter insert card, with a strange 'P' where the jersey swatch would be if it were such a thing. I must have looked at this card seven times before I realized it was numbered. Cards should never be serial numbered on the front. For that matter, nothing should.

Case in point: Upper Deck was very interested in gold stamping Troy Glaus's crotch, apparently. This is why Upper Deck no longer exists, for all intents and purposes. Okay, maybe not, but it's one of their many dopey decisions.

Speaking of dopey decisions... ha! That was too easy, wasn't it?!

Thanks again to Spankee, who will get something from me soon. I promise. No, seriously, I promise, and not in the "I want to spend my entire career here" kind of way, either.

Super Star Specials Sunday Spectacular

Reader Jim was kind enough to indulge my trade leanings recently by sending over some Cardinals and set needs of the mid-80s Fleer variety. Hopefully Jim is also a patient guy, as I am just now getting around to mailing his package (I think we agreed on this trade a month ago. Oops.)

I'm a huge fan of '80s Fleer cards, and I have to say the Super Star Special cards are a big reason why. This one, featuring three pitchers who threw no-hitters the previous season, is more reminiscent of the current Topps cards that show league leaders.

I prefer this type of Super Star Special card. I imagine most of the photos for these are taken during an All-Star Game, which is why you see cards of star players from opposing teams posed together. Also great? '80s uniforms!

I know I must have owned this card before - probably several times over, actually. I just never liked Ripken. This one goes towards my 1985 Fleer set. I'm still missing a lot of the key rookies, but they seem to be a lot more affordable these days than in the past. I have a feeling getting a good copy of the Clemens card will be a bit annoying, though.

Finally, here's a lone straggler from the 1993 Upper Deck set, which is pretty much done. Incidentally, Wakefield recently announced his retirement and Deadspin had a pretty interesting article on his short run with Pittsburgh recently. I believe I just need one of the weird SP cards to complete what I set out to complete, though I'm still tempted to go after the insert cards at some point even though I've traded a lot of them away in the past.

Let's Put A Bow On This 1993 Upper Deck Thing

Here is my one final plea to help me finally finish off my first substantial set since I've started this blog. I am down to needing just two cards from the main set along with two "SP" cards, which I honestly know nothing about, from the 1993 Upper Deck set. Here's the want list, officially:

• 21 Melvin Nieves
• 66 Tim Wakefield
• SP5 G.Brett/R.Yount
• SP6 Nolan Ryan

I know I've had a copy of the Wakefield card before, but it was in rough shape. Considering that, no matter how much I like the design and quality, this is still at its core a junk wax set, I am making sure that each card in the set is in better than acceptable shape. Can anyone help? I will just go ahead and look online for the two SP cards if I can get the Nieves and Wakefield.

I also want to show off these portfolios that Erin found for me and included with my Christmas haul. I had never seen or heard of these before. They instantly reminded me of the 1988 Topps portfolios that were gaining popularity back when I was still in middle school. The design on these particular folders contains representations of actual cards from the set, but as seen on the reverse, they are merely empty place holders for actual cards. The inner flap also gives an interesting guideline to card conditions, or "rating your cards", something you probably don't actually care about if you're about to slip something into these pockets.

Strangely, the back pocket shows off what the cards on the front would look like in reverse as if they were real cards, which they aren't.

A second portfolio that I received has a different color and shows off some of the Triple Crown inserts from this set. I wonder how many different portfolios were made. I finally found an auction that purports the existence of at least 6 different designs and 4 colors.

Any information about this stuff would be greatly appreciated. If I end up finishing up a few more sets, I may go ahead and pursue some or all of the insert sets as well. For now, I need to get the base set knocked out.

Trade In The Ballpark

I recently completed a trade with The Gooch of In The Ballpark, which consisted mostly of some 1993 Upper Deck (remember those?) cards as well as some other fun things. I already have the only card worth anything (Jeter), so I really don't know what my excuse is for not having this junk wax era set wrapped up by now.

I don't use this word often, but this is just a badass card.

Also included in the trade were some Allen & Ginter minis, which are always welcome around Cards on Cards Central. I have to say that the Monsters of the Mesozoic mini set is among my favorite insert sets ever. Dinosaurs!

Falcon! It's funny, because I remember thinking that animal themed cards were incredibly lame when I was growing up. I remember having some sort of set of wildlife safari cards and not being terribly thrilled by them.

A few Cardinals were thrown in the lot for fun. This is an insert from the 1999 Fleer Tradition set, honoring the two grand slams that Fernando Tatis hit in the same inning. The most surprising thing about that whole affair is that both slams were hit off the same pitcher - Chan Ho Park.

Feeling Good, Feeling Great

The Cards/Phillies NLDS series is now even at one game apiece as every good baseball fan knows. After last night's remarkable game - Cliff Lee had been 94-1 when staked to a 4 run lead or greater in his career including the playoffs - it's now down to the team that can win 2 of the next 3 games to advance. St. Louis has their lefty, Jaime Garcia, on the hill at home facing Cole Hamels in the early game before the Brewers go for the sweep in Arizona.

I'm feeling good enough about this series to post a Cubs card on my blog. Andre Dawson was no mere Cubbie, however, and for some reason he seems to be more or less exempt from my Cubs-hatred. This is one of several cards sent to me awhile back by Bo of Baseball Cards Come To Life! Even though I don't give it much of a mention here, I have made great progress on the 1993 Upper Deck set.

It's amazing to me that anything from the junk wax era is new to my eyes, but this was the case with most of the 1993 Upper Deck cards remaining on my want list. I am not sure what compelled companies to give subsets their own checklists, but we don't get anything like 800+ card sets anymore so I shouldn't complain.

A number of the cards in the package were also "new to me" Cardinals team needs, including Al Olmsted's only appearance on a MLB card. Olmsted apparently made his debut as a September call-up in 1980, pitching decently in 5 late season starts. He would never crack the majors again, though he was apparently traded away to San Diego and back to St. Louis again as a Player to be Named Later in the Ozzie Smith deal.

I have no idea how I never owned this card before. Mike Warren's career didn't quite compare to Righetti or Forsch's.

This is part of the junkiest of junk wax, but that doesn't make it any less needed. I know the ML Debut sets were out for a couple of years (maybe three?) and I am sure I am missing more than just this Todd Zeile card. I'll figure it out someday when I have time.

Trading with The Angels, In Order

As much as I love the Cardinals and love receiving cards of said team, it's almost a relief to open up a package that someone has sent me in the mail and see a bunch of cards from a set or several sets that I'm collecting inside. I feel like I have so many sets on my want lists right now that I'm not getting anything done. Of course, maybe that's me letting my work life bleed into my hobby life a little too much. I received such a package from The Angels, In Order: full of want list needs even if it was Cardinals-free.

Ah, Kurt Miller. Life was so young and fun back then. Just posing for pictures, tossing up baseball in the air... not a care in the world. Kurt Miller ended up with a career ERA of 7.48 with a WHIP heading dangerously close to 2. This packaged knocked out a significant chunk of my 1993 Upper Deck needs, including quite a few of the Star Rookie cards. They can be hard to find in decent shape and I also just, for whatever reason, was missing a lot of them. I'm now down to missing less than 40 total cards for the set, which is nice.

At this point, short printed 2008 Heritage cards are like shiny undiscovered treasures to me. I need a ton of them and have no aspirations of getting all of them any time soon. I was so happy to receive this that I actually posted a Josh Beckett card on my blog.

Included were a handful of 2007 Heritage SPs as well. Rafael Soriano is one of the best closers in the entire league, if not the best. So what did the Yankees go and do? They threw huge money piles at him to not close. He's setting up for Mariano Rivera at the moment. Still, I don't really hate the strategy as Rivera won't last forever and they probably established some pretty good relations with his future replacement by throwing said money piles his way in the meantime.

And speaking of the Yankees, there's this guy. Hopes are dwindling that someone less deplorable will replace Barry Bonds as the all-time career home run hitter, not that Rodriguez himself comes without his own tainted past. Many were looking towards Griffey to somehow be that guy, but he rather rapidly turned into someone who would more likely need assistance crossing a busy street than need a hanging breaking ball to mash over the wall.

Middlin' Cards

A few weeks ago, there was some unpleasantness. I don't want to "talk about the past" or anything, but things got so bad that I decided I need to kick a bunch of Colorado Rockies cards to the curb. Fortunately, I was able to obtain the address of Shellie of The Middle Child, a poor misguided Rockies fan who I will grudgingly give a pass to because of her proximity to Coors Field.

Since I have yet to see a single pack of 2010 Bowman in my area (still!), I had completely forgotten about Chrome cards this year. Then, it dawned on me. What happened to 2010 Topps Chrome? After a few seconds of Google searching, I found out that Topps Chrome isn't coming out this year until the end of the baseball season, which seems really weird. I wonder if there's an issue with the "Chromium" technology this time around, as I've seen several mention that these Bowman cards seem a little bit different than usual, qualitywise.

Albert has been a bit slumpy lately. I think he needs to have a talk with his wife again.

Man, I really love the way the early Flair cards look. If only the Cardinals had better players in the Joe Torre era, although Mabry came back to the club several times over the course of his career.

Here's one for the Ozzie binder. In fact, this might be too good for the binder. I've never understood where the "medallion" is supposed to be in the Gold Medallion Edition Ultra cards. Some are more "gold" than others.

This has to be the oldest serial numbered card I've ever received. It's numbered 9690 of 9799! That's like a 1 of 1 in 2010 years. (I don't think that last sentence made sense.) I know that I pulled an Elite Mike Piazza serial numbered card a couple of years ago from a mid-'90s pack, but this is the first old serial numbered card that I actually care about.

I haven't been a huge fan of most of the Topps Gallery designs that I've seen, but I really like the few cards that Shellie sent from 1997. That frame is great. You could even say that it's golden.

Finally! Someone is paying attention. I am not making a whole lot of progress on my 1993 Upper Deck set, but I did get this restaurant quality Tim Salmon Star Rookie card. Is anyone up for some junk wax style trading?

Finally, Shellie sent this amazing Ryan Ludwick jersey card from 2010 Heritage. This is just a great looking card. I haven't pulled any "hits" to speak of from this year's Heritage myself, so I didn't know that these looked so good.

Thanks again! (P.S. I actually don't mind the Rockies all that much. I just wish they would stop beating the Cardinals senseless...)