Cards from Oren and a Final Contest Reminder!

 

Don't forget to fill out your bracket! And let's check out some terrific cards from Oren. 

 

We're less than 24 hours away from the start of the big NCAA men's basketball tournament, which means it's time to get those brackets filled out. We're still taking sign-ups down to the wire, so check it out if you haven't already!

After the jump, because there is a giant amount of images to load, let's check out some cards from a trade with reader Oren that was put together over the Christmas holidays.

Seasons Greetings from Oren

A timely big bundle of cards that is finally revealed a few months later. 

 

'Tis the season (*checks calendar*)... oops, it's March! Well, as the sun breaks are starting to increase and daylight savings is in full effect, let's check out a fantastic batch of stuff from super generous trader Oren.

For one reason or another, Dylan Carlson seems to have settled into a role as fourth outfielder after arriving in the dreaded 2020 season with much hype. Assuming some semblance of health, Gold Glove-winning infielder Tommy Edman is the anointed starting center fielder (?), but I felt like the outfield had the best overall balance with Carlson in center over the last couple of seasons. That's not to knock what Edman has done in the outfield, as I feel like he could probably capably hold down any position on the field. I'd just prefer Carlson in center for now, at least since Harrison Bader was sold off.

I had never seen one of these white bordered 2020 Topps Heritage cards. In fact, I had completely forgotten that they existed. I think my scanner gave the red printing more of a pinkish glow than it really has, but this is still pretty striking.

I'm a sucker for a black bordered refractor. I also really like the rare black bordered flagship cards a lot, especially during the days when they shared a bit of sparkly magic with the much more attainable gold parallels.

Matty Mo is looking pretty formidable on this busy Donruss Leather & Lumber design. I feel like this brand is one that Panini has unleashed rather sparingly since acquiring the DLP portfolio (though how they didn't retain the L part of that conglomerate is a story I've long forgotten about.)

Here's a young, beardless Jason Motte who was still trying to be a catcher, in a weird photo that makes it look like he was trying to look like he wasn't just caught doing something weird in the locker room. Is that even a locker room? What's going on in the background?

It felt like it took Rob Kaminsky forever to make it to the Cardinals major league team since he was drafted in 2013, and it really did. It was only in his second stint with the club in 2020 when they were keeping an active stable of, I don't know, like 45 pitchers because at any given time a third of them were getting sick. This was all in an attempt to salvage what ended up being a 60 game season. Let's just pretend none of this ever happened, at least in baseball.

I wish this was still a time when a Hall of Fame election meant a serious boost to card values, but if you take even a slight glance at any Scott Rolen cards on the market you'll see that is sadly not the case. Of course, that means all the more for me. People would still rather throw money at some young prospects who may or may not pay off big someday. (They won't.)

Next up is a pair of Cards cards from the much delayed 2021 Topps Chrome Platinum... something, something. I kind of nodded off before I could complete my thought here.

These cards look nice, but yet another variation on the first full scale Topps baseball card set was not perhaps the most original thing that they could have thought of. I do prefer these (and their parallels) to the 2022 set, which likewise happened to be released a year late. The 2022 set looks very off, like most of the photos were AI generated or enhanced.

It's not all just Cardinals here, although that would certainly be nice enough. Thanks to Oren, I was fortunate to add another numbered card to one of my very favorite player collections.

CJ Elleby was a solid Pac-12 (RIP) player, but it didn't seem like he was cut out for the NBA. He's still just 23, but it doesn't seem like he's up to much at the moment.

The Blazers have been a sad mess for the past few seasons. Elleby probably won't evoke many feelings of nostalgia for this specific era, unfortunately.

I will get nostalgic about the Jusuf Nurkic days, however. Like many a Blazers center before him, he eventually became a scapegoat for fans' negative feelings about the direction of the whole team, but this is a guy who went out and did his often thankless job night in and night out in an NBA era that isn't really built around big men like him anymore. He's doing fine in Phoenix.

Noah Vonleh was a lottery pick who played for a lot of NBA teams in his near-decade long career. He's with the Shanghai Sharks these days which is basically a meme, even though he's still just 28.

There were even football cards on offer. Today was apparently some sort of NFL free agency day as my phone kept blowing up with Eagles notifications. They were busy! 

This is just a good looking card. It's probably the green. Blount is an Eagle here but a Duck first, so he goes into the Ducks collection.

I wanted to like Nelson Agholor, especially after the Eagles wisely moved him to the slot and started taking advantage of his speed more than his pass catching ability, but... I don't know, never trust a guy from USC, I guess.

Well, we've reached the end of the scans, but there is so much more. What all can you spot in this photo? There is some amazing stuff!

More Jerseys and Autos from Oren

 

Reader Oren strikes again with an amazing collection of memorabilia cards and autographs. 

 

I'm not sure where he finds all of this great stuff, but I am always excited to put together a trade with Oren. This one even topped the last package! 

Andrew Knizner has had a really nice season as the #2 option at catcher with St. Louis, having found a bit of power that we hadn't really seen from him at the big league level.

For all of their shortcomings, Panini does put out some nice looking memorabilia cards from time to time. This dual relic from last year's Diamond Kings set is one of those, at least for me. It looks like last year might have been the last for the Diamond Kings set, as Panini really scaled back their baseball releases after losing their MLBPA license. Has anyone seen or heard of anything else coming out this year besides Donruss and Prizm? I think Diamond Kings would have been a much better fit for a bunch of retired players than Prizm was.

This time, Dylan Carlson shares the spotlight on a Panini jersey card with Alex Kirilloff. Time will tell whether either of these guys will ever fully live up to their earlier prospect hype.

This is probably my favorite of the whole lot. Whitey still has a nice signature for someone who turned 91 last year when the 2022 Topps Archives set was released.

Framed mini cards are best known as being an Allen & Ginter thing, but it's easy to forget that Topps was doing this before 2006 when the first modern A&G set came to be.

Speaking of Allen & Ginter, this card is very... white! I do prefer the mini memorabilia cards to these.

Yadi jersey cards are a bit tougher to come by than your average Cardinal, so I was pretty excited when this card popped out. They even did the rare thing where the jersey color matches the photo on the card.

This one doesn't have a memorabilia swatch or signature on it, but it's still a nice numbered Molina card.

There were also a few non-baseball cards included, like this dual jersey card of former Eagles starting RB Miles Sanders.

Zach Collins rocking a Panini headband?! I didn't know that I needed this, but I'm glad to have it!

The late Caleb Swanigan was part of the same draft as Zach Collins. Hoops autographs usually are on stickers, but they typically have a nice design and this is no exception.

Bird-Themed Teams

Bird cards from @forgotaboutblay because apparently that's all I collect. 

 

A comment someone Erin* made to me the other day made me start thinking about sports teams and their mascots. A lot of sports teams have animal mascots and nicknames. A lot of NFL teams do not. For whatever reason, I've ended up mostly gravitating towards bird teams (Cardinals, Eagles, Ducks -- not pictured). Dennis from Too Many Verlanders sent me another stellar batch of cards back in June that happened to feature those bird teams.

It's always exciting to add another Jim Edmonds card to my collection. I'm guessing somewhere out there is a version of this where all three players have their own memorabilia piece. Maybe there's one that just has Edmonds? Or just Rolen?

Rick Ankiel gets two memorabilia chunks of his own, both a bat and a snippet of his clothing. The default background for these cards show a row of batting helmets. I wonder if there are any embedded helmet piece cards.

Here's another card with multiple opportunities for jersey chunks, but only the white portion is real. Were these card companies toying with us?

This might be my favorite card of the lot. It's an on-card autograph from Topps Total on a design I'd never seen before. The "Signatures" script has a very '80s cafe look to it.

The NFL portion of the package contained this card of Michigan alum Jason Avant. Dennis probably has a few extra cards of Michigan players in the same way that I often end up with more dupes of the teams that I collect than anything else.

Finally, here's an interesting design concept. This "Freeze Frame" insert card contains something that looks like a slide in the middle. I would love to see more of these cards.

*A certain someone called me out for referring to her as "someone", so I have adjusted the post accordingly.

Yadi is Back!

Celebrating the return of a franchise icon with some excellent baseball cards.

Reader Oren got in touch with me last spring about a potential card swap. Oren has an expansive list of player collections, and I was happy to go digging through boxes to try to find stuff to send out. In exchange, I was rewarded with a heaping helping of cards.

The most significant chunk of Cardinals cards in the package featured #4. Yadi is finally back and catching Adam Wainwright every fifth day in pursuit of their quest to log the most games as a battery in league history. This jumbo-sized card is a box topper from the most recent Topps Heritage set. (Incidentally, I just saw that Topps Heritage High Numbers was pushed back until well into the fall this year. I guess that gives me extra time to work on the regular set.)

The blue parallel version of Yadi's "silver pack" card from last year looks a little strange. I'm not sure that it does the '86 design many favors. There are only 150 copies of this out there, though.

This is, of course, an example of this year's "silver pack" set on the all too familiar 1987 design.

It wasn't all Molinas, however. Oren sent some truly interesting non-Yadi Cardinals cards as well. This is one of those manufactured "patch" cards inserted into the 2017 Topps set. I can't quite place the cap design that Matt Carpenter is wearing, but it's familiar for some reason.

No guesswork is needed on this 2011 Topps Update gold parallel. Matt Holliday is at the 2011 Home Run Derby, which was hosted by Arizona.

This one is another All-Star Game (2015) card, and it even features a jersey swatch. Well, it's a workout jersey, apparently. This one was hosted by Cincinnati.

Oren tossed in some football cards as well, including this 2012 Topps insert of an Oregon Ducks all-time great.

That an Eagle shows up on one of these Color Rush cards is kind of silly, because I feel like the Eagles tend to wear the least amount of "color" in the game. I'm really glad I haven't seen them roll out chartreuse jerseys or anything like that.

I also received a huge stack of Allen & Ginter minis for my A&G binders. I had to include this tape measure for scale, although I'm not entirely sure why there's a tape measure on my desk right now.

This is a Chrome X-Fractor encased rookie card of the one and only John Santor. He was a 35th round pick of the Cardinals in 2000 and unfortunately didn't make it above A-ball. Give him a break, though! They don't even have 35 rounds of the draft these days.

This is probably my favorite card of the whole bunch, however. I'm not the biggest autograph hound out there, but signatures on Allen & Ginter cards always look good to me. There's just so much canvas to deal with, especially on the older designs. I love it.