Featuring Alan Foster

 

Another nice set of Cardinals, tobacco-style minis, and other ephemera.

If I was smart enough to have tagged everyone in every trade post over the years, I could tell you exactly how many times Night Owl Cards has sent me, well, cards. As it is, I am positive that total is as close to "many" as you can get. This latest batch comes from early February, when we were still looking forward to the days where masses of pollen would be flying around the neighborhoods freely for some reason.

Panini has really scaled back their baseball releases since losing the MLBPA license, which makes sense on some level. The sets that still remain have definitely taken a dip in quality, especially the already iffy Donruss product. There were significantly fewer parallels to chase last year, especially unnumbered ones, but that's not something I'm complaining about. What I really don't like is the design, and you can't pin that on baseball because they carry it through all of their sports including the ones they have full licenses on. Anyway, here's a holo laser style Bob Gibson parallel. I'm not sure I pulled any of these in the 2024 Donruss stuff I did open.

Speaking of too many parallels, Topps has taken up that mantle quite easily in the Fanatics era. The inessential Holiday set certainly hasn't escaped this phenomenon, as it leapt from one silly parallel to a whole bunch this past season. It's still far too early to evaluate the Cardinals decision not to bring back Paul Goldschmidt, but for the moment it feels like something that benefitted both parties. Goldy takes up another premier spot in a dangerous offensive lineup, and the Cardinals free up a position to allow both catchers who were sitting behind Willson Contreras last season to thrive. Also, money was saved, if you care about that.

Everyone loves food issues, don't they? I don't have a ton of Hostess cards and am always happy to take them in just about any condition. I really like the shirt that George is wearing here. 

This is, of course, a 1975 Topps buyback from last year's Topps Heritage set. This is actually the second time I've featured Alan Foster on this blog according to my records (i.e. the tags.) The last time was an Airbrushed Fridays (remember that?)

Here's a quad pack of those Fleer/Laughlin World Series cards from the '70s. No one talks about pitchers throwing lightning anymore, these days. It's always heaters and fire and such. Lightning seems cooler to me.

Here's some more stuff from the 2024 Heritage line. These are a couple of inserts from the original (low) series. I have had a hard time finding High Number stuff at a retail level that suits me, but I'm hoping that changes after today's official 2025 Topps Heritage release. I think it's probably due to the abundance of big name rookies in High Numbers, which is kind of silly no one collects Heritage for the rookies. (And, likewise, no one that collects rookies treats Heritage as a big deal.)

Big Cat! I don't mind animals on cards, but this always felt like a half-baked trivia game. The "answer", on the back, is Andres Galarraga.

Night Owl has sent me a ton of Allen & Ginter minis in recent years, and this latest package proved to be no exception. Which one is your favorite? I am going to guess that McCutchen would get the most votes.

Ian Kinsler was the lone horizontal representative in the stash o' minis, and he gets his own spot here. Insurance ads, partially displayed or otherwise, have no place in this product.