Holiday Breakdown

Wrapping up some envelopes received over the holidays.

Fellow Portland-based blog Baseball Card Breakdown dropped some surprise holiday greetings in my box of the Cardinals variety. Many of these were shiny and/or numbered, which makes things extra fancy. Extra fancy like the Sepia toned Lance Berkman mini (76/99) from his Redbird days.

Austin Gomber is an exciting young prospect from the 2014. His numbers last year at single-A were eye-popping. This is another numbered parallel (75/100) from the 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks set.

Incidentally, I didn't know there was another Prizm set beyond just the, y'know, Prizm set. Weaver is another pitching prospect from that same draft. Bright futures all around!

Gavin also set a couple of Cardinals from the 2010 Topps Pro Debut set. I had to look up Jason Stidham. Let's just say it's not a great sign that he wasn't even the first Jason Stidham to come up in Google's search results. Also, he's not to be confused with Jason Statham.

Well, this is certainly colorful! This numbered (90/99) parallel insert (or is that insert parallel?) is headed for Erin's collection... for now!

Catch a Wave of Fire

Despite injuries -- some major -- the Cardinals are off to a historic start.

For the first time since sometime in the 19th Century, the Cardinals are 19-6. The Cardinals successes on the field typically have been with teams that either squeaked their way into a Wild Card spot or took a Division crown because someone simply had to. This much success this early almost feels like a mirage, but even with the injuries to Adam Wainwright and more peripheral players, it's hard to spot a lot of red flags right now. (Famous last words.)

Here's a few Cardinals cards to look at after Monday's crazy 10-9 win over the rival Cubs, courtesy of The Lost Collector.

This was the special surprise inside a Cracker Jack box (or bag?) from some years ago. Some people would go straight to the bottom of the box looking for peanuts, but I was always more of a caramel corn kind of guy. Someone else can help themselves to those peanuts. I like salted peanuts. There, I said it.

I'll probably never have every version (3) of each of these 1st Home Run inserts for my team collection, much as I still don't have every version of those Chasing History inserts of Cardinals players from a couple of years ago. I'm assuming they're bringing these back for Series 2 and Series 3.

Austin Gomber is a name that wasn't immediately familiar to me, but a little bit of typing reminds me that he was a 4th round draft pick from last year. He's in A-ball this season after starting in low-A-ball last year. In a few years, hopefully people all over will be putting together their own Austin Gomber player collections.