Airbrushed Fridays: 2014 Topps #428

I have yet to find a single Photoshopped card from 2014 Topps Update, so here's something from Series 2.

Who is he? Once a Cardinals organizational soldier, Skip Schumaker has become something of a journeyman in his post-Rally Squirrel days. Unfortunately, the most notoriety the outfielder (and one time second baseman) seems to get these days is when he takes the mound in the late innings of a blowout.

How did he get here? After departing St. Louis, Skip spent a single season with the Dodgers, accumulating a -1.4 WAR in his time there according to whichever WAR metric that Topps uses. Former Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty likes to acquire any and every ex-Cardinal he can find so he can put them back in Red and dream of the good times, which must be how Schumaker ended up in Cincinnati as a free agent.

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: None, but here's the source image.

Airbrushed Score: 7

Comments: Okay, without cheating, can anyone name the ballpark Skip is playing at?

Phungo Pack Break 2013

The (not-so) new year's first pack break.

I haven't been bustin' packs and crackin' wax so much lately, so it was nice to see a well-constructed pack arrived to me by snail mail. Phungo packs always seem to be suspiciously tailored towards my collecting habits, but I'm not one to complain. That company called Topps likes to stack my packs full of guys like Alex Rodriguez and Rickie Weeks, so I was bound to catch a break. The new design for 2014 is already out, by the way.

3 - Jaime Garcia (2012 Topps Gold Sparkle) - I unfortunately scanned this one too close to the pack wrapper, so it came out all blurry because lasers or something.

150 - Ryan Ludwick (2010 Topps 206 Piedmont Mini) - I wonder if there will be a new retro set this year from Topps. They did 206 for 2 years, National Chicle for 1 and Gypsy Queen has had a 3 year run. I'm not huge fans of any of those, but I'd have to say that the 2010 Topps 206 set had the cleanest design.

US93 - Adam Wainwright (2013 Topps Update) - I'm still mad about this game. The NL team played like absolute garbage as the offense was virtually shut down. The game was boring. And Wainwright didn't even pitch, because he had started just a couple of days before the game. A certain team I like could have used the home field advantage.

510 - Ryan Ludwick (2009 Topps Gold 0043/2009) - Lots of gold in this pack!

536 - Khalil Greene (2009 Topps Gold 1646/2009) - I wasn't able to find out much about whatever became of Khalil Greene, who reportedly struggled with Social Anxiety Disorder. I saw him play with the Portland Beavers and was excited when the Cardinals brought him aboard, but it wasn't meant to be.

429 - Skip Schumaker (2011 Topps Gold 1586/2011) - Cardinals legend Mike Shannon recently re-upped to continue on as the radio voice of the Cards. I miss him talking about the "Schu Man", even though Schumaker's performance on the field is fairly replaceable.

212 - Jim Edmonds (2006 Topps Allen & Ginter's) - Yeah! Great player in the modern debut of a great set.

19 - Carlos Beltran - Here we get into the meat of the Phungo cards.

41 - Scott Rolen - I don't think Rolen has retired yet, but it seems like the announcement is looming.

62 - Jose Molina - Ahh! I feel like I narrowly missed out on a Molina brother that I collect.

Halladay vs. Holliday - Here's one of those special black framed inserts that the kids are always talking about. I wonder if Phungo got any shots of Roy in what proved to be the final season of his career. I guess I'll have to wait until I get to open a 2014 Phungo pack.

43 - Adam Wainwright (2013 Topps Chrome Orange Refractor) - Well, this is glorious.

477 - Yadier Molina (2013 Topps Heritage Black Retail) - Let's just pretend that's not a piece of hair that got stuck to the scanner tray.

54 - Jaime Garcia (2013 Topps Target Red) - I'm crossing my fingers that Jaime will be able to bounce back this season from some more bad luck with injuries.
 

21 - Yadier Molina - I didn't miss out on Yadi after all!

Pujols and Holliday, Back to Back

Some critique: that appears to be a very fake 2008 Topps card that Skip is holding. I'm guessing they decided to mock up something that would be extremely recognizable as Pujols for people with smaller TVs. But what about the rest of the cards? Clearly at least some of them are 2009 Topps cards, as the backs are very recognizable. I think there might be a few regular (or fake?) 2008 cards near the end of the stack as well.

Also, this goes without saying, but... Go Cardinals!

The Hobby Store

Today was my first journey to a hobby store in nearly a year. The last time I went to one, I was with my girlfriend in Austin and she got barked at by the owner. There were a few tense moments there for sure. One of the things I like the least about those places is that the stores are generally very small and you can almost feel their beady little eyes peering into your soul, hoping to extract some blood, er, cash from your person. I should know - I used to work at one of these places. Well, to be honest, I was only in high school and got to spend a lot of my time sorting instead of dealing with customers.


There don't seem to be any hobby shops that deal primarily in sports cards in Portland any longer, so I had to venture out into the suburbs to go a shop I never particularly liked all that much. I always thought it was way too expensive. This time, I noticed that they had relocated into a smaller space in the same strip mall, and it was definitely a lot brighter and friendlier than in the past. I picked up 7 cards from the dollar bin (6 for $5, but I got carried away and bought too many), some supplies and a few random packs. I will post one of the packs on A Pack A Day soon (hint: it's EXTREME) as my initial post there. The Skip Schumaker Chrome card is the first card I ran across that was a keeper, and I'm pretty happy about it as I didn't have any of his cards yet. Skip is having a pretty solid season in his first full season of regular MLB action, but he's been absolutely atrocious against lefties (.158/.238/.179 versus a .351/.412/.504 line against righties.) Edmonds is one of the two players I collect, redundant as it may be considering that I collect all Cardinals in general. I've gotten several of the Ultra Diamond Producers cards lately, but none of Jimmy Cub (eww.)


Ozzie is the first player I ever started collecting. I grabbed three of his cards.


This is from some sort of fake rookie promotion that Topps did as the card is in the style of his official 1979 Topps rookie card, but the photo is different. I'd tried unsuccessfully a couple of times to get one of these off of eBay for cheap, so it was nice to see it in the dollar box. Every card shop needs a dollar box. For that matter, I wish more places had quarter boxes.


Here's one from a Fan Favorites set. I don't really know what those are all about, but they basically seem to be reprinted cards with a gold logo, slightly weirder card stock than the originals, and occasionally suspect player selection. (I got a hilarious "player" from this set in a trade with Ben from the Baseball Card Blog awhile back that I'll have to image and post sometime.)

This card is shiny. I don't know what else to say about it, except that I miss Rolen's glove, but not his dilapidated shoulder.


The future is soon for Wainwright. That is, he should be coming off the DL in the relatively near future. I really hope that the idea of making him the closer again was just a terrible idea spawned from Cardinals broadcast Al Hrabosky rather than something the team is really entertaining.

Side note: Check out Indians Baseball Cards. Always. for an awesome tournament that David is holding involving 1993 Triple Play scratch cards. I actually have some unblemished scratch cards in my collection including one of Oz.