Large Mac and Other Stars

The latest and greatest group break Cardinals.

 

One of the packages I've yet to sort from this year was a rare all-Cardinals selection. These cards were from group breaks hosted by Nachos Grande, mainly featuring products released late last year on into the early parts of this year. A lot of these cards are from sets that have been shown off to death in various corners of the internet, so I'm going skim and try to just show some of the best of the best.

I really had no interest in the first two Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary sets, although the Cardinals cards will always have places in my binders. The first set just seemed like the millionth excuse to pay tribute to the iconic 1952 design, which was a bit boring to me. The second set? Well, it truly looks like it's powered by AI. Fortunately, the most recent edition (2023, but released this year) seems to have done away with the uncanny valley filter most of these '22s had on them, but I still haven't picked up any for myself. Goldie checks in here on a "rose gold" numbered parallel.

Ooh, here are some Tiny Little Diamonds (or whatever Topps calls them.) I was initially excited to finally get my hands on a Cardinals Packy Naughton card as he was featured prominently in the bullpen for a bit, but he hasn't been heard from at the big league level since an injury derailed his 2023 campaign.

There must have been some earlier Donruss Optic sets included, because I landed some interesting colored parallels. This Yadi card from 2021 is numbered to 199.

Dakota Hudson spent his whole career with St. Louis until he switched teams this past offseason, where he's learning the true horrors of being a Colorado Rockies starter. This is some sort of "purple stars" parallel. It's very dreamy.

There were a ton of 2023 Stadium Club parallels, but as I was saying, you've all seen these photos quite a few times by now.

I was very excited about these 2023 Topps Archives inserts featuring some Cardinals legends in their final seasons.

Apparently these are based on the 1954 Tarzan 3-D design. I wouldn't mind a whole set of these, even though they are just printed on regular Heritage-style card stock. It looks like they did attempt a 3D effect at least on this card, as the background shows all the expected signs of double-layering.

What I did not expect out of a 2023 Panini product was a Mark McGwire autograph! Sure, Large Mac only signed a sticker, and these stickers have probably been sitting around the Panini vaults for some time, but I certainly can't say I have a ton of his autographs in my collection.

Last, but certainly not least, came this Fan Favorites autograph of good ol' Simba. I feel very fortunate to have seen Ted Simmons along with a number of other Cardinals legends at a game I attended in person. With the passing of what feels like an entire generation of great players over the past five years or so (R.I.P. Willie Mays), I feel that much more fortunate for the ones that we still have around.

Pitchers and Catchers are Standing By

More cards from @marcbrubaker to help get through this stupidly long offseason. 

 

The Super Bowl is over. We should be talking about Spring Training right now. I read somewhere that pitchers and catchers were supposed to report today. It's too painful to read about baseball right now, but we have cards to fill in the spaces. (At least until that big market crash comes...)

Late in the fall, I received another nice bunch of cards from Marc Brubaker (aka Remember the Astrodome.) Let's check 'em out.

After a stellar, but brief (as all things were) 2020 season, it looked like the KK deal was a huge one for the Cardinals. For whatever reason, he fell out of the starting rotation in 2021 and was reportedly unhappy about it. I had thought they had signed him to a three year deal, but it looks like they made him a free agent back in November, leaving him free to sign with another team or return to the KBO.

Bru sent me two KK cards shot from the same angle but in different lighting. It looks like Panini didn't quite remove all of the logo from his cap on this one.

One of the things I've learned about collecting baseball cards over time is a player's popularity does not necessarily correlate to his collectability, nor his accomplishments or perceived status in the game. People are still crazy about Mark McGwire cards, a player who even without the steroid stink on him would have a tough time meeting certain Hall of Fame credentials. Meanwhile, legendary pitchers continue to get no love. (There has to be some big pitcher collectors out there, just for sheer affordability, right?)

I always love a good framed Allen & Ginter card. This one comes with a piece of McGwire's road gray jersey. We assume it's a Cardinals jersey, but there's no way of knowing. (Hey, with Fanatics owning Topps now, they don't even have to go to a third party to buy replica jerseys to put into cards anymore.)

Bowman Platinum always seems to be the product for out-of-left field card designs. This one is an insert (Precious Elements), but the whole product is always kind of weird looking.

I put the 2020 Turkey Red inserts to bed awhile back, but I still need a number of these Chrome variants for my team collection.

Speaking of variants (and variants of variants), here are a couple of Artist's Proof parallels that will fit in my binders quite nicely. In some years these are called "Artist Proof" and in others they are "Artists Proof". You never know what you're going to get.

Bru also included a solid stack of 2020 Allen & Ginter cards. I chose a few of these famous (?) monuments to capitalism to represent the bunch. They're all conveniently pictured in front of a blue sky background with some nice fluffy clouds. I wonder how Topps pulled that off?

Extra Big Mac

More group break stuff from @Nachos_Grande includes a healthy dose of the former single season home run record holder. 

 

Group breaks have taken up a much larger share of the content here at Cards on Cards, but my means to acquire new cards have pretty much been forced down that path. They can still be fun, though. One of the most cost effective ways is to join up with a smaller breaker who can give you a break on shipping fees instead of any of the numerous for-profit breakers that are starting to dominated the trading card landscape at the moment. Of course, longtime community blogger Nachos Grande is one of those smaller breakers who runs a Facebook group where you can sign up for as many breaks as you want and just have things shipped when you feel like it. This latest bunch of cards is the last batch before his first "breaker's club" breaks of the year. (If that sounds at all intriguing to you, you should check out his group.)

One of the nice things about buying into late '90s breaks as a Cardinals fan is that you're going to get a disproportionate amount of Mark McGwire cards. There was a lot of cardboard space (cardspace?) dedicated to Big Mac in 1999. It looks like he left a little bit of room for Fernando Tatis (Sr.) to sneak in there, though.

This one is also from the 1999 SPx set, but it's a fancy numbered parallel. McGwire may be a tarnished baseball hero, but he still has a significant following amongst collectors. A copy of one of his cards that's limited to 100 is nothing to sneeze at.

From the always strange Bowman Platinum line comes this Yadier Molina parallel. Walmart exclusive sets usually aren't among my favorites, although the base design for this 2020 set was at least somewhat memorable.
 

A lot of the box breaks at Nachos Grande are of older sets, which is usually pretty intriguing to me. At some point Fleer tried to revive the SkyBox brand name and produced this apparently all-die cut set. I do love the throwback uniform here.

This card is significantly less visually appealing, but it seems to be some sort of silver parallel as it's numbered to just 299.

I'm always up for a Pacific box break. I feel like I've been searching eBay auctions for decades for something fun to open from Pacific but have never quite pulled the trigger.

Two of the breaks were from then-current year sets (Heritage, Allen & Ginter) where I actually was able to add some stuff to my set builds. Those are a bit boring to talk about, but I did like this Andre Dawson insert even if his photo is reduced to such a small portion of the card. I do like the design, but wish they could have left more room for the actual subject of the card.

Pros Debuting and Other New Stuff

Casually blowing bubbles while the next #CrackinWaxMailDay from @CrackinWax hits the mailbox. 

I have to be honest with you all. I am on the verge of stopping buying cards altogether. This post over at the Dime Boxes confirmed a lot of the dread I've been feeling. It's not fun anymore and it's probably time to get out. That being said, I finally found a blaster (Big League) to buy on Sunday and bought into a small break today. At the very least, there's at least a chance I'm going to start winding down here soon if something doesn't seriously change. If it wasn't for a lot of the great bundles of mail I've received from a lot of the people that read this thing and trade with me over the past few months, I really wouldn't have many positive things to say right now.

Moving on. Let's take a look at 2020 Pro Debut, one of the breaks from late June that I bought into over at Crackin' Wax. (Yes, I'm a bit behind, but the mail has suddenly gotten really off track lately as well.)

At some point, Topps decided that cloning the flagship MLB design wasn't simply good enough for its hobby only MiLB product, so these cards are a bit of a step up. The players are outlined in slightly raised gloss while the background is matte, giving it a light 3D look. Montero kind of looks like he's leaping out of his own baseball card here.

There are a number of inserts in this set, and a couple of Cardinals prospects show up in this Tape Measure Power set.

Big League has been widely covered by all of the blogs and sites already, so I'll keep my thoughts brief. First off, it's nice to see a Cardinal on one of these League Leaders cards. It was something that was easy to take for granted, but I feel like it's been a little bit. Jack Flaherty gets some well-earned props here.

The design is different. Different is nice, especially for Topps. I'm glad they haven't exactly settled in to a standard template for Big League, at least yet.

On the other hand, I don't know what to say about the Star Caricatures. I already exceeded my negativity quotient in the first paragraph of this post, so... moving on!

Fierce Kolten Wong! Yes!

I also snagged a bunch of brand new Prizm base cards and this silver Jack Flaherty. Apparently the silver Prizms are more of a scarcity now after appearing in nearly every pack that didn't have a different colored parallel in the past. It seems like Panini might be trying to capitalize on the popularity of its silver parallels in their basketball products, but the baseball cards are always going to look like generic off brand beverages in comparison.

It's time for the extra shiny stuff. There was a slot for a low budget 2015 Donruss that I super didn't want to buy, but did anyway. I ended up with a /99 Big Mac card for my troubles. I can't complain about that.

The Pro Debut break also yielded this chunky medallion card of one of the Giants top prospects, as the Bay Area team was one of my randomly assigned bonus teams. The card is up for grabs as you might expect.

Breakin' Series 2: Electric Boogaloo

This #CrackinWaxMailday is rated G for Gold. 

Topps has been doing this phased rollout of its flagship set for quite a few years now, but the second series always seems to fall short of the initial excitement of the first. We already know the design, and we already know what most of the inserts are going to look like. Still, we need the rest of the set, don't we? Or, in my case, we need the rest of the team set, which is why I've been signing up for pick-your-team group breaks of late. Here are some of the highlights of my stash of Series 2 Cardinals, which came from another Crackin' Wax case break.

Dexter Fowler's photo is heavily zoomed in and laser focused on the player, which has been one of my chief complaints of recent years. I tend to like a variety of photos, okay? Fowler's arm seems to be in a weird position here.

Did I mention I snagged a small handful of gold parallels? John Gant has been one of the Cards most valuable pitchers since he was called up last season, and his success has translated well to the bullpen for this year (just don't look at last night's box score, please.)

Marcell Ozuna is putting up MVP type offensive numbers right now after an injury-weakened debut season in St. Louis. Maybe it's actually because he ditched this horrible neon compression sleeve.

Yairo Munoz has been a replacement level utility guy since he joined the big league club last year. I think that's about where you need a utility guy to be, to be fair. You get the feeling that he might string together a solid stretch of games if he just got consistent playing time, but nah, it's not gonna happen.

Speaking of not happening... RIP Jordan Hicks's maximum pitch speed. He was diagnosed with a torn UCL today, which means he's headed towards the dreaded Tommy John surgery that is so popular with the kids these days. While most pitchers seem to regain their original velocity after this surgery, it seems super doubtful that anyone will tell Hicks that it makes sense to try to throw 105 with some random replacement tendon in his elbow. Also, RIP my fantasy team. The Cardinals bullpen will probably be okay, though, with Gant in there along with Carlos Martinez and John Brebbia. (And sort of Andrew Miller.) It's the rotation that I'm worried about.

Anyway, this is a cool black parallel of an insert that is numbered to 299. Of course, I still need the base insert and probably a whole host of other color versions.

Like the Hicks card above, I missed noticing that this Big Mac 150 G-g-g-greaaaatest Moments is a black parallel numbered to 299 until I had taken at least a couple of passes through the stack of cards. Once again, I need the normal version of this and many other inserts from Series 1 and 2.

Crackin' Wax is super cool about including the extra hobby bonus packs in their breaks, which meant that I was able to add a couple more "silver pack" Chrome 1984 style cards to my collection. Daniel Ponce de Leon may actually be one of the answers to the rotation problem, but it seems like the team doesn't want to ruffle the feathers of the broken Wacha (or the ghost of Wainwright, or whatever's gotten into Mikolas...) and actually do something about it.

A Golden Deal

Glittery gold goodies from the @acrackedbat world. 

Back in May, which may as well be forever ago, Tigers fan Julie of A Cracked Bat sent me some cards of my own team, the one that sat in the opposing dugout in the 2006 World Series. While there weren't many Cardinals cards from that particular team in the package (they've probably all been destroyed by now), there were plenty of oldies and new guys (newies?) to be had.

There were a lot of great cards in the package, and I'm probably not doing it great justice by only showing off as many as would fit in my scanner in one pass. This Allen Craig mini from 2013 is numbered to 99.

Jim Edmonds looks like he's waiting for something to land here. He's been part of the rotation of analysts calling games for the Cardinals regional sports network once again this season, and there was a discussion about all of the various nicknames people have given him over the years. It sounds like he's not super comfortable with any of them... even Jimmy!

I am a little bit more comfortable that John Gast is out of baseball now, as there's absolutely no way I wouldn't constantly get him confused with John Gant. Gant (not Gast, and certainly not Ron) occupies a rotation slot on this year's version of the Cardinals, you see.

John Goodman, striking a pose. This is so good. It's not Jon Hamm, but it'll do.

Next time, Panini needs to snap some photos of various Hall of Famers going through the drive-thru line on their way to the annual induction event.

Topps Tribute is always so delectable, so excessive... if Hedonismbot from Futurama collected baseball cards, this is what he'd be into for sure.

This is more of my jam. A "retail relic" card that most assuredly came as a "bonus" in a blaster somewhere. Wait, does that say pants?

Finally, here's Xavier Scruggs, who played a little bit in 2015 after a September call-up the season before. If you suit up at the right time, Topps might end up including you in their products for a full calendar year, and Scruggs is proof of that. This is actually a parallel from the online-only Topps Mini set. I'd never seen the even-lower numbered black parallels before, only the golds (which I think are number to 50?)