Airbrushed Fridays: 2007 Topps #133 & #470

I'm going to break from the usual format today because I stumbled across something truly weird in the airbrushing/Photoshopping department. I probably noticed this before, but I'm just now getting around to fully appreciating the Topps Double Trouble that was laid upon the collecting public in 2007.

Yes, these are two clearly Photoshopped cards, using identical photos, from both Topps Series 1 and Series 2. It's almost as if Topps meant to make amends for their ills in the second series by providing a non-Photoshopped image of Sheff with his new team. But alas, it was not to be, for the same altered photo found its way to Gary's Series 2 card, with the same wall of stats and same cropped inset photo on the back. Shameful. Doubly so.

Airbrushed Fridays is a weekly feature as the name seems to imply. If you know of a card with an altered photograph that you'd like to see featured, please contact me. You probably won't win anything, but you never know!

A New Want List + Hits to Trade

I've added another set to the unfortunately growing list of things I'm chasing. I've been squirreling away a few 2006 Bowman Heritage cards over the past couple of years and finally found an opportunity to buy a bunch of packs at an affordable price. This inspired me to put together a want list, which should be live before I go to sleep tonight. In 11 hobby packs (at $1 each!), I managed to snag three hits, and they were all pretty nice.

Before I get into that, however, I wanted to address today's big Cardinals news - that Chris Carpenter is probably done as a major league pitcher. That's not shocking or anything, but I think most fans like we were hopeful that he might be back for one last hurrah after the man went and got a rib removed (!) last year just so he could pitch again. Wow. Unfortunately, it looks like the nerve issues that were causing all the problems are still lingering, and the team announced that they don't expect him to pitch this season. Ouch. Carp went from being a relatively obscure comeback story to pitching dominance to the kind of player that every fan of every team he doesn't play for completely hates. But that's okay with me, and there's no way the Cardinals win either of their recent World Series rings without him. He may never be a Hall of Famer, but he's a Cardinal Hall of Famer - a Willie McGee, if you will.

On to the hits! This is an on-card Alex Gordon autograph. While Keith Olbermann was buying up all of the so-called mistakenly printed Gordon cards in the Topps base set, the Bowman arm cranked out a much nicer card that any Gordon fan would love to own. I almost don't want to get rid of it and I couldn't care less about the Royals.

It's Ryan Howard! And a pinstripe! Usually when I pull jersey cards out of a 7 year old pack, it ends up being Morgan Ensberg.

Gary Sheffield and a chunk of his bat? This is numbered 04/49. Maybe it was the batboy's bat. Maybe the bat came from Sports Authority. Who knows?

There were other Cardinals (not for trade!) in the packs that I opened, and one of them was a mini Juan Encarnacion.

Adam Ottavino had a cup of coffee with the Cardinals but never panned out as a prospect. He resurfaced last year as a league-average reliever with the Rockies.

Brad Furnish didn't fare so well.