The Last Trade Stack of 2017

Happy new year? 

We've already seen some more sets released in 2018, so it's high time I get caught up with trades and other things from the previous year. Here's a leftover bundle I received in person from Gavin before I escaped Portland for the holidays, the highlight of which was this awesome low numbered copper parallel of ex-Blazer Allen Crabbe. It's a Panini card, of course, but it still looks awfully similar to Topps's X-Fractor (or is that xfractor?) design.

Panini isn't throwing fake snowflakes on cards... yet, anyway. I am still missing a lot of these Topps Holiday cards from the past two years, but they are a Walmart concoction so it makes sense.

One of the nice stories of Spring Training 2018 has been the return of Jason Motte in a Cardinals uniform. He's in camp on a minor league deal, but is gunning for a major league spot. That would be a cool story, indeed. I never get tired of seeing him celebrate with Yadi and the rest of the 2011 team.

Michael Wacha seems to be in line for a rotation spot, despite some outside speculation that he could be better utilized in a bullpen role.

There's a new Donruss set on the shelves, or so I hear. Following in line with the previous two sets paying tribute to 1982 and 1983 designs, this year has a pretty decent looking 1984 homage. This, of course, is the Yadi '82 tribute card. There's now a copy for Erin and a copy for me, which is nice.

Spring Cleaning is Coming

I need to get rid of cards. Plus, a trade post. Why not?

I'm a team collector who has made the unfortunate dabble into collecting sets on occasion. Because of this, I have a lot of doubles and triples that I have absolutely no use for. While my want lists are pretty easy to find, even longtime followers of the blog might not know that I also list my unwanted cards below each want list. My plan is to flush all of these extras completely out of my possession, and I'm going to do it "group break" style.

Before I start burning things down, anyone who tries to collect these types of sets much like I do should go to the lists and check the things out. Since my sidebar links don't seem to be available in the mobile phone view of this blog, I'm going to put some links here:

• Topps Heritage
• Bowman Heritage
• Allen & Ginter

The links within the links correspond to a particular year where you can view what cards I need from a particular set and, more relevant to this particular blog post, what cards I absolutely do not need. If you find something you'd like, let me know and we'll work something out. By about next week at this time I'm going to start removing those lists of extras and sorting them by team to mail around the country.

But what would be a desperate midweek blog post without showing off a few cards from a trade. Phillies Phan Dawgbones sent me this really nice on-card auto/"event worn" jersey swatch of Allen "King" Crabbe from his rookie year. Crabbe has been a spot starter this season praised primarily for his defensive chops, though the former Pac-12 Player of the Year is a legitimate scorer when given the opportunity.

Dawgbones also sent over a few Topps Opening Day Stars inserts (so fun!) including Big Prince and the dastardly Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod is back, baby! Can't you just wait for spring to end? Uh... can you?