Wrapping Up Series 2

Except that I still need a million and a half inserts and parallels, as usual. 

Without ever having to get my hands dirty and open a pack, I've managed to put together the Cardinals team set from this year's flagship Topps Series 2. After Baseball Every Night's super generous group break, I entered another one put on by Tracy's Box Breaks. This time around, I ended up with both the Cardinals and their NL Central rival Milwaukee Brewers. (Don't worry, I didn't set those ones on fire.)

Jose Martinez, who was coincidentally demoted to AAA today to make room for Dexter Fowler's activation from the DL, was the last base card I needed. He was a ten year minor leaguer who finally got the call late last season, and made the big club out of spring training. He's a pretty solid hitter who will likely provide some pop off the bench in September, assuming he's not recalled before then.

While I didn't land a hit to speak of, I was pleased to add another card of the Wizard to my collection. Ozzie has his own binder. He's privileged. This is a nice look at a different photo of the "Go Crazy, Folks!" moment that we don't often see.

I did pick up my first gold parallel from the 2017 set in closer Seung-Hwan Oh. Oh has been very, er... hittable this season. I think his velocity is down. Yeah, probably not a good sign.

I still miss the old metal serial numbers. These just look tossed off and don't really stand out at all.

Something for Everybody

But mostly some things for me. 

Brian of the Twins-centric Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary was kind enough to hit me up with a package (we'll call them Red Dilly) recently, and it was sure enough not to disappoint. (I can't say that I've ever been disappointed by cards people have sent me through this blog, except when the mailman decided to play hacky sack with the goods, but that's another story altogether.) This was another great one that ticked a lot of boxes in all corners of my collections.

Something for the fan of pink cards! I think this qualifies as pink? These are numbered to 250, so as so as I track down the other 249, I will have them all.

Something for fans of The Finest. Yes, I capitalized "The". It's that precious.

Something for the team collector who can't get enough journeymen relievers.

Something for the "Ooh, that's shiny!" crowd.

Something for the near-sighted. Or maybe he was far sighted. Or maybe he was way, way ahead of his time and wore non-prescription glasses to look cool.

And something for the set collectors. I am down to just around a dozen or so of these base cards left in my set quest, but I'll never be done with those dastardly short prints. Thanks again to Brian for helping me out with this set and other Cardinals needs!