A Jumbo PWE Round-Up

Most rectangular things in rectangular paper envelopes from @sanjosefuji @dvdgao and @vossbrink on a World Series off-night. 

 

There was no baseball to watch tonight, but there's always plenty of cards to look at. Let's tear into a few more plain white envelopes that I received over the summer. First up is a photo mailer from Fuji. I owned a bunch of these jumbo-sized Donruss Action All-Stars cards (I believe that's what they're called?) back when I was a child, and let's just say that they weren't taken care of properly. At some point I guess I threw them all out.

Now that I'm a smart adult or whatever, I have a three-ringer binder with specially-sized plastic sheets to hold big Cardinals cards in. Isn't collecting fun?

I do like the postcard look of the 1983 set. The Donruss All-Stars set carried on for quite awhile, but eventually by 1988 they reduced the cards down to standard size and made things a bit less fun, aside from the one-per-pack stand-ups that were included.

The 1984 design is pretty basic, especially when compared to the flagship 1984 Donruss set.

Both of these cards show off Cards players in their baby blue road uniforms, which they have brought back (in a way) for Saturday games only in recent years.

Fuji also sneaked in a regular-sized Trail Blazers card. Clifford Robinson (RIP) appears on this Topps Gold parallel from the 1993-94 set. Nice!

Cardinals fan David sent along two envelopes stuffed with set needs, and also included this Matt Holliday card from a long lost high end Topps set from a decade ago. The card looks really nice (full bleed photos always work) and it makes me wonder when or why Topps Marquee was killed off.

The rest of the cards were all Heritage and Ginter set needs. I know you're probably not here for the boring old base cards, so I just scanned the inserts for your viewing pleasure. Christian Yelich probably wishes he could get in a time machine with Cody Bellinger and go back to 2019 when life was good. But then again, a lot of us have probably been thinking that these days.

In 2020, Heritage was one of the only things that was relatively easy for me to buy, so I feel like I did a decent job at collecting the set. The inserts, on the other hand, I didn't do so well with.

The photo seems to imply that Joe Frazier knocked out Muhammad Ali, but they actually went 15 rounds without anyone getting knocked out. Do they actually allow people to beat the hell out of each other for 15 rounds these days?

I only recently learned that Yoenis Cespedes has a younger half-brother in the Chicago White Sox system. Now I have passed that knowledge onto you.

I know it's very fashionable to complain about Joe Buck (I do find this amusing) during the playoffs, but Alex Rodriguez on the pre- and postgame shows is something else. And by something else, I mean not great.

Last up for tonight is a single card from Nick Vossbrink. He sent over another terrific custom card, this time of blog fave Ozzie Smith. It features his iconic backflip.

Stats are really all you need on the back of a baseball card... as long as it's full stats! Once again, I am envious of all of your custom designs.

A Ginter-Heavy Grab Bag

Baseball cards and more from @30aweekhabit including some set needs. 

 

Back in the fall I reached out to $30 a Week Habit as I had some extra football and Allen & Ginter cards to dispose of and was trying to clear up some space. I need to remember to keep doing this sort of thing, as things are still very cramped here making space a very valuable thing. In exchange, I got back a nice package of Ginter cards that I actually did need, plus a few other things.

You can never go wrong with a card of The Big Hurt, even if it is from his post-playing days. If I had been into fantasy baseball back when Thomas was with the Sox, I'm sure I would have wanted to draft him high.

Here are some of the minis that were included with the package. We've got a comedian, a couple of current players, some postal history and a guy on the outside of the Hall of Fame.

There were Cardinals cards to be found as well, which is apt because this is a Cardinals blog after all. These are a couple of green parallels from the 2019 Gypsy Queen set. GQ is usually one of the earlier drops in the Topps release calendar, so I would imagine we'll be seeing the 2021 version soon enough.

Lastly, I was surprised with this Juwan Johnson parallel from the 2020 Score football set. Johnson got into a few games with the Saints this season and caught a few passes. Let's hope that even bigger things are ahead for him.

Allen & Ginter is Coming, Eventually...

Cards from the venerable retro themed set courtesy of @nightowlcards have me contemplating what I want to keep collecting. 

Every year, part of me hopes that the Allen & Ginter set is canceled, just to let me breathe a little and save some books. Don't get me wrong -- I still really like the cards for the most part. But here in 2020, with the likelihood of me finding cards on shelves anywhere hovering somewhere around zero, I'm not sure I have it in me this year. I did find that the set, usually a summer staple, was delayed until mid-September. I'm not sure if that's going to change anything for me in terms of finding cards or being excited to buy the cards (online, I guess?)

Everyone's favorite avian blogger Night Owl did send me a really nice stash of Ginter cards from past releases that will be quickly heading to my binders as soon as I find some time to do some sorting. Here's an array of non-baseball minis, featuring that weird sport(?) that was on ESPN2 a lot when most major sports were shut down, plus a dog, a pirate and some other important looking people.

I did not know that Max Kepler was German until I saw this card. Admittedly, I don't really follow the Twins much, but I have heard that they are good now.

 

Birds! There's even an owl from the Owl.

Even though I feel like 2018 Allen & Ginter was everywhere, moreso than other recent years, I somehow didn't have even a single copy of this card. This is headed to my Cardinals binders in the 'B' section.

Another Twin by was of Night Owl's team, the Dodgers. It's weird that the Dodgers seemed to struggle to find a place for Maeda in their rotation. I guess that's the curse of being loaded with high priced players year after year.

Set Needs and a Yadi

Dodgers fan @markle05 hooks me up with some quality cards. 

The end of the deluge of trade packages sent to me over the summer is actually in sight. I still have a ton of work to do and a lot of cards to show, but I feel like I'm making (some) progress. This latest batch came back in late August from Alex of Chavez Ravining. Alex sent over a stack of needs from recent Allen & Ginter and Heritage sets along with a few Cardinals goodies (the best kind of goodies.)

From the depths of the 2017 Allen & Ginter set, and more specifically the World's Fair insert set, comes this card of the Biosphere. No, this isn't the thing that Pauly Shore had to live in as the plot of some '90s movie, as the World's Fair cards only showed the real life wonders of the world put on display.

I haven't made as much progress in this year's Topps Heritage set(s) as I would have hoped by this point, but this short printed card of the former Cardinals Piscotty put me a little bit closer. When the SPs are a full 20% of the set, you know you have your work cut out for you.

I don't know that I've ever been in a fantasy league that strictly used K% as a stat, but I wouldn't be opposed to it. I'm not sure that Randy ever knew or cared what his K rates were, though.

Here's a Heritage (High) insert from 2017 of newly crowned champion Trea Turner.

Well, I promised you a Yadi and I delivered on that promise. Well, actually, Alex was responsible for the real delivery. This is a brand new (to me, at the time) jersey card that fits well in my collection. I do miss the days when all of the memorabilia cards in Allen & Ginter sets were framed minis, but I like the design of this one here.

The Allen & Ginter Motherlode

@cardboardhabit helps me build a set the laziest way possible. 

Allen & Ginter is a popular set every year, at least with the blogging crew. For that reason, I can always count on someone having a ton of available extras to help me out. This time, Cardboard Habit came through with a massive assortment of cards from the set I should have dug a little deeper into this past year. Maybe 2018 will be the year I actually manage to collect something on my own?

I can't even explain the sheer volume of cards I received. It was larger than any reasonable person could cram inside a padded envelope. Along with Adam Wainwright, I scanned all of the Cardinals that are heading to my Cardinals binders -- which means I need another copy of these.

As you can see, there were heaps of minis. I do like minis. Everyone should like minis. This group includes the recently departed (to the A's, not to the afterlife) Stephen Piscotty.

Of course, the Ginter bounty was full of non-Cardinals representation. I just selected a few to scan. Let's face it, you've seen a lot of these cards before elsewhere.

Unsigned Free Agent Alert! Unsigned Free Agent Alert!

Was Young MC even in this set? Please tell me he was.

She looks a little sneaky. Better keep an eye on her.

Would you allow yourself to be examined by this sketchy device? I'm sure this came with zero health concerns whatsoever.

Now, excuse me while I get back to sorting. This was quite an impressive stack of cards.

Answering the Call

Cards in a time of need. 

Bru from Remember the Astrodome was the latest to answer the distress call to get me closer to my goal of completing an Allen & Ginter set sometime while we're all still on this planet. In addition to the sweet Private Stock Alan Benes parallel, I received a nice stack of needs from the most recent A&G offering.

Before we get to the Ginter stuff, here's one more card down from my 2016 Topps Heritage want list. Cardinals have stopped showing up on league leader cards in recent years, which is too bad if you ask me.

Have you ever scanned a card before realizing that you meant to scan an entirely different card? That's what happened with Mr. Glazer here. I have no idea what to say about him, but I was going to say something complimentary about Didi Gregorius until I realized I scanned the wrong thing. Monday nights are not my sharpest.

Three World's Fair inserts were crossed off, including this Statue of Liberty card. I want to say something about the state of this country at the moment, but it's getting late... so I'd better go.

2017 Allen & Ginter Want List is Finally Up

Another plea for cards. 

The want list is finally up, and you can check it out here. It's lengthy. Does anyone have an extra Aaron Judge to trade me? I have his 2017 rookie cards from Bowman, Heritage and Archives that I would be up for swapping one of for his Allen & Ginter equivalent. I have a funny feeling I'm never going to pull that one.

Collecting Moments of Indecision

Is it time to give Allen & Ginter a rest? 

Every year it seems I question my own sanity and wonder if I should stop collecting the Allen & Ginter set. I enjoyed it the most in 2008, but it's had it's moments over the years as they've continued to add more and more inserts and other silliness. In the end, I always come back to the base cards, and I really don't like them this year.

Last year's design won me over, but I am really not feeling the 2017 version. This is the "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" version of Allen & Ginter.

I don't like it. However, I do like that I got some Cardinals out of this set, courtesy of a huge blaster deal I went in on at a website I don't care to repeat. The deal was one blaster, plus one retail jumbo pack (the $5.99 variety) and a store exclusive 5 card set (not Ginter related) for less than $19. With two of the lots, I qualified for free shipping.

Let's have a look at some more cards from the packs I tore into as soon as they showed up on my doorstep. Topps honored the World's Fairs of the past, a concept that seems like it was ripped out of another dimension at this point in my life.

This is just one full size card, but it makes me wonder if there were too many insert design concepts floating around the office and someone got the clever idea to combine two of them. I haven't gone fishing since I was a little kid, but jerkbait sounds like a funny word to me.

Like many of the inserts, this one has a familiar feel to it, if not exactly recycled.

I don't know my revolutionary battles any more, but I probably should.

There are still mini inserts. This year, we get horses as our featured animal.

The Required Reading minis show that people sure did talk funny in them thar days of yore.

Oh yeah... baseball players! This is a baseball card set, isn't it? The beauty mirror frame looks a little more fitting with this black bordered design.

Cool. I forgot to warn you all, by the way, that this post was going to be a little image heavy.

The big baseball insert set highlights great individual game performances by noteworthy players. This was Ichiro breaking the single season hits record.

Here's Maris's 61. Come to think of it, neither of these last two cards are about a particular great game as they are commemorating the day a big record was broken.

Monorail? I can't even see the word without thinking of the late, great Phil Hartman.

Found along with an absolute atrocity (the double-stamped 1999 buyback), here's a crappy '88 card. I actually used to have a Graig Nettles branded glove when I played Little League, so I have nothing against the man. This is just like upgrading a Taco Bell bean burrito to a Taco Bell bean burrito with extra onions.

Did anyone really call Piazza the Pizza Man? That seems lazy. I don't remember this.

The recently demoted. I'm hoping Piscotty has a big bounceback year in 2018, as we all know Tommy Pham is due to suffer another absurdly unfortunate injury. (JUST KIDDING, HE'LL BE FINE!)

Billy Ripken's bro.

This is more fitting of the concept to me. Here's a guy who isn't a HOFer (or HOFer to be) yet. He just went out and had himself a day. He threw a 2-hit shutout with 9 K and 0 BB one April night.

This looks like it's from a completely different set, reminding me of Tristar Obak or some other weird off-brand thing. Is the "Dude" motif supposed to be clever?

Today's horse.

Another fish and a thing that hooks said fish.

Why, oh why, is "granny" spelled that way?

I scanned this card thinking it was an insert card, but it's just a garden variety mini version of a base card of trees. This apparently commemorates a large (record breaking) scale tree-planting effort.

If you still have a poster on your wall of an active Tigers player, it's probably going to be Verlander. People can talk all the want about how much it makes sense to accumulate prospects and commit to a franchise rebuild, but it's got to be tough to think about selling off your team's history for some unproven kids.

It's time for me to go read some Thoreau and think about what I've done. (I'll just pretend I'm not actually too busy reading Rick Ankiel's memoir right now.)