A Holiday Gift

 

Baseball and football cards -- just the way you like them!

Christmas in sports cards form came late, but that's because I was out of town. I usually end up with a pile of packages and trades around the holidays, mostly because I figure that people are in a giving mood and also maybe have a little extra time off to do the card thing. I'm also out of town for a bit around these holiday maybe every two out of three years, so I was greeted with an avalanche of envelopes of all shapes and sizes once mail delivery resumed after the first of the year. At the top of the pile was a generous holiday package from Dennis of Too Many Verlanders, which is always a welcome sight.

Let's look at the football guys first. This is one of the blue mirror parallels from 2018 Panini Certified and is numbered to just 50 copies. I know some people dropped a lot of money on cards of the Heisman Trophy winner Mariota early in his career, and I've benefitted lately on picking up a few of his nicer cards now that the shine has long worn off.

Here's another Ducks QB in his pro uniform. I think Justin Herbert is going to have to shed the stigma of being a Chargers player entirely if he is going to elevate his status in the NFL, but certainly having Jim Harbaugh around could eventually change things a bit. We'll see.

Of course, this is another card for my Oregon collection, but it reminds me of how strange it feels that I actually rooted for the Chiefs at one point. Like... this decade. Kind of.

It's kind of incredible that I now own two distinct versions of this fairly obscure auto/manupatch card of late oughts Ducks running back Jeremiah Johnson. You can see the other one here. (Same card, different patch!)

For every Jalen Hurts, Donovan McNabb or Randall Cunningham in my time following the Eagles, there's been a couple of Kevin Kolbs and a couple of Detmers. Well, maybe just one Kolb. Anyway, it was a great year for the Eagles and you'd think I'd have more to say about it, but the Super Bowl was kind of surreal... in a fun way!

I'm not a full fledged Eagles team collector in the same way that I am with Cardinals (baseball) cards, but I do have a couple of boxes set aside for them. I did add a bunch of base Duce Staley cards to my want list on TCDB since he was a favorite from the past, and serendipitously ended up receiving this numbered "Premiere Date" parallel from Dennis around the same time. It's great!

Jevon Holland is a really good player, and a free agent. I could certainly think of another bird team whose uniform he'd look pretty good in if you ask me.

Here's another Duck! Ed Dickson is showing off the underrated late '00s Ducks look here.

Of course, the package wasn't all pigskin pushers. (That's a thing, right?) Dennis sent over a nice little stack of baseball parallels and inserts from sets I dabble in from time to time. These two Bowman Heritage cards are both chunky one-per-pack parallels with facsimile signatures. This era used to have a lot of thick cards that would theoretically throw off someone trying to search for similarly thick coveted memorabilia cards.

This trio of lesser known baseball players are featured on mini parallels from the 2005 Bowman Heritage set. Chris Volstad is the only name I remember here. It's possible that the other two never made it to the bigs.

Last up from the set stuff is a 2005 Turkey Red red parallel for the meta collectors out there, and a '74 Highlights card from the 2023 Topps Heritage set. They don't really fit together at all, but what the hell, I was saving some space.

The last card featured here is a Cards card (hey, that's the blog!) Kolten Wong had a decent run with the team and will always been linked with the Mike Matheny era, for better and for worse. I think most of us would welcome something on the level of the Matheny days right now, considering the current state of the team (ahem: mediocrity.)

Nothing but Treasure

 

Cardinals cards from @batcavelv include a surprising relic. 

 

We're rapidly approaching the end of the year, and it feels like everyone is in Greatest Hits mode. Everyone is sharing their yearly recaps and "best of" lists. For me, there isn't a better time to catch up on piles of cards that I still haven't shared. This latest group of cards came from Rockies fan Tracy.

I wish Topps would bring back Topps Total in the way that the set was originally intended, but I'll settle for these glossy online exclusives any day. I would just love to actually open a big box of these, much more than most Topps products at least. I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, though.

The photos on these cards are not like what they put into current sets. They're not heavily processed or so closely cropped that there's no background to look at. Maybe I should just go find an old Topps Total box from the 2000's to open.

The whole envelope was full of oddities (I mean, just check the Yadi coin at the top) including a numbered parallel from the 2020 Topps UK set. When everyone was stuck at home in 2020, I remember this set briefly being a big deal. Apparently they also released a UK set in 2021 as well as a Topps Japan set at some point. I would have loved to have gotten into box breaks for those sets, but they flew completely under my radar.

Here's another Topps online exclusive. According to the back, this is from the 2020 Topps x Derek Jeter set. When did everyone start using X to indicate some sort of collaboration?

There are a ton of different Score parallels based on the 1997 set. I won't get into all of the different versions and varieties here, because it's kind of a headache. These are the things you learn from using TCDB a lot over the last several years. What I do know is that, while none of these cards individually are particularly rare, it can be a huge slog to get ahold of all of the ones you need to satisfy your team collection. I'm always grateful to add these to my collection (there were a bunch in the package.)

Here's a card that I really didn't know that I needed, but I'm glad to have. Of course, this would show up on team checklists as a Braves card, but I collect anything bearing a Cardinals uniform or logo. Plus, it's Bruce Sutter! On a food issue card!

What else can I say about Adam Wainwright that I haven't already said here? I am looking forward to the 2023 Waino Farewell Tour, but I also hope that it lasts forever.

As we all know, the annual Topps gold parallel that is numbered to whatever year it is has devolved from a shiny golden thing to more of a copper-brown bore. Here's another example. Sure, I do collect these when it suits me, but I wish they'd bring back gold parallels that actually look, you know, gold. The hobby exclusive gold/rainbow foil parallels are doing a better job.

Lastly, we have a shoe relic! Yes, it's a piece of Jimmy Baseball's shoe. What piece it is, we'll never know. The days of anything and everything being shoved into a small section of a baseball card are long past, but that doesn't mean we can't still celebrate this kind of glory on a regular basis.

Crackin' More Heritage

A recent #CrackinWaxMailDay from @CrackinWax with another look at Topps Heritage. 

 

While I'm not thrilled about this year's Heritage set, especially when compared to previous years, I'm still going to end up collecting as much of it as time (and money) allows. I also have a team set to put together, and I made a serious dent in that effort with some Crackin' Wax breaks. Along with a pile of Cardinals came a road uniform swatch from former Cardinal Kolten Wong. Wong was with the team for seven seasons, starting most of the games at second base. Rarely has their ever been such stability at the keystone position in the team's franchise history. As luck would have it, Wong was there to lead off against the Cards for the home opener at Busch and understandably got a huge ovation. (Well, that's to say as huge of an ovation as a crowd of 10,000 or so can provide.)

As always, there's a ton of short prints in the set. I did land this short printed card of Harrison Bader, who began the season on the injured list. Unlike previous years, I feel that a good chunk of the 100 card short printed portion of the set is dedicated to regular everyday guys like Bader instead of stars and rookies. That's often been a complaint in the past. There's also been grumblings about certain starts being held out of the checklist this time, most likely for inclusion in the High Numbers set. At least from Topps' perspective, that strategy makes sense. The High Numbers checklist is usually full of relievers, players who changed teams in the offseason and were DFA'd by May, and maybe one or two top rookies.

Speaking of top rookies, I ended up with a pair of Dylan Carlson cards. The prices for his cards have been kind of all over the place, with collectors investors not entirely sure whether to give him the star rookie treatment or not.

Dylan Carlson played a lot last year even though he still enjoys his rookie status. That means his "In Action" card is pretty legit.

One of the boxes must have been a hot one, as I also ended up with this purple Chrome Jack Flaherty card.

Kodi Whitley was on the taxi squad last year and it looks like that will be his role this year, at least until minor league action is underway. People close to the ballclub seem to be excited about him. Roel Ramirez, on the other hand, is more of a "minor league depth" guy who was entirely out of his element last season when the Cards were down a ton of players due to a certain coronavirus as he made one appearance, allowing 6 runs while recording only 2 outs. Rough stuff.

If this is Yadi's last season, he seems determined to go out on top. He's been one of the team's best hitters coming out of the gate.

We'll end with a quad pack of Cards cards from photo day at Roger Dean Stadium.

Should we do some spring cleaning soon? Does anyone still like cards?

The Finest

A #CrackinWaxMailDay from @CrackinWax flashes back to The Finest and more. 

Before I get into things, I want to throw out a disclaimer for the days going forward. I'm going to try and not talk about the 2020 MLB season like it's a season any longer, for reasons that are beyond obvious. If it was up to me, all sports would have been cancelled through the rest of 2020 for everyone's safety. But baseball tried to start things up anyway and toyed with my emotions, and is now on the brink of collapse again. (Also, the rule changes suck and suck some more, but that's not really my point here.) Obviously, the Cardinals are now center stage in what seems headed to an awkward shut down any day now (I've felt this coming since last Monday, of course.) I am still doing the card thing, though, but I'll try to talk about the past when I talk about the players.

I'm glad that's off my chest now! Let's say hello to some brand new cards acquired through some breaks at Crackin' Wax. First up is a new Topps product that pays tribute to the original Topps Finest design from 1993. I couldn't afford Topps Finest then and I can't really afford it now, but one of the things I appreciate about Crackin' Wax is how this stuff wasn't marked up a whole lot just because the prices shot up a whole lot after he bought the boxes.

You probably know the design, and it looks nice here.

I ended up with 3 out of the 7 cards from the base set, so I'll probably start hunting down the rest unless there's another secret stash of reasonable priced boxes of this stuff still to be opened (ha!)

More brand new stuff! This is my first look at Panini's 2020 Donruss Optic. It looks like what you would expect it to look like as it's basically Donruss Chrome.

I was able to pull (by proxy) a numbered parallel of the Cardinals only significant offseason signing in KK.

This one is a silver/holo/Prizm parallel of good ol' Matt Carpenter. It looks like a miniature red baseball is about to hit him in the gut.

I signed up for some older stuff, too. I'm almost always in right now whenever it's a 2018 or 2014 product, for a chance to pick up a Jack Flaherty rookie year or first pro year card. I was fortunate enough to land one I didn't have here with this red and yellow parallel.

And throwing things back to 2014, I picked up an Allen Craig refractor. Craig was excellent during the Matheny years, but he fizzled out even before his manager did.

To top things off, I also picked up a light blue refractor of Kolten Wong's rookie card, numbered to 199. I like it!

Stickers and Stuff from Scott

Cardinals-themed stickers and more from @INeedNewHobbies -- unpeeled, of course.

Before I get into the goodies, I want to do a plug for fantasy baseball. Scott from I Need New Hobbies (and other cool internet things) is looking for some fake baseball managers presently. I joined his league a couple of years ago and have managed to be not extremely terrible, so there's that. You'd be competing against me and a guy you've probably traded cards with at some point and some other cool folks. It could be fun!

Now, let's check out some of the stuff Scott sent me around the end of 2019. (We will be mentioning that year less and less around here as time marches on.) This bubble mailer was heavy on baseball album stickers, which my collection is pretty lacking in. The 1986 Topps sticker album is near and dear to me, but I'm not sure if it's still in my possession at this point and I never actually completed it. Now that I'm full on collector scum, I need copies of all of the Cardinals in each of these sticker albums, unstuck and tucked away in plastic cases. Something like that, anyway.

1986 was the first year I bought cards, and so the stickers eventually found their way into my hands when I realized they could be bought at the grocery store instead of the neighborhood makeshift card shop. My scanner cut off the white border on the left of this sticker of Ozzie making folks about to go crazy, but you get the gist of it.

John Tudor pops up again on another playoff themed sticker, this time from the 1988 set.

One of the stickers in the package was some sort of test issue that I'd never seen in person. These are on thicker stock, similar to the revival of the Topps stickers from the 2010s (before they went back to the full on Panini look.)

Unless you've held one of these in your hands, it's going to look the same aside from the much darkly colored backs.

Speaking of that Topps sticker revival, here's Waino from the 2013 edition. Last year Topps pivoted from the thin Panini-style stickers to a full sized sticker-plus-card sandwich, which I thought I'd end up liking a lot more than I actually did (or... didn't, rather.) I'm not sure what they've got planned for 2020, if anything.

It wasn't all about stickers (or sticker-card hybrids), however, as Scott included a bunch of non-sticker Cardinals. Check out this trio of green parallel Gypsy Queen Cards.

I love that Kolten Wong is an officially recognized Gold Glover, even as some are starting to diminish the importance of infield defense (or defense in general) with the way baseball is moving towards fewer defensive chances in general. I don't care, though... he's fun to watch play these days.

Perhaps my favorite things from the package were a couple of checklists, featuring the heads of Hall of Fame Cardinals. It's tough to find old checklists that aren't marked up and/or doodled on, and this one has a bit of that. There was really a guy named Bill McCool?

There's no marks on this one, featuring Orlando Cepeda and the 1968 set. Best name on this one? It's gotta be Zoilo Versalles.