Airbrushed Fridays: 2012 Topps #421

On this date ten years ago, my favorite pitcher in baseball died suddenly and tragically. MLB Network is going to air a special about Darryl Kile at some point next month. If you don't know much about him, or even if you do, I highly recommend you check it out. I know that I'll be watching.

Who is this week's victim, and why do we care? Heath Bell is the current Miami Marlins closer. He struggled mightily at first, adapting to his new surroundings, but he has not allowed a run in his last 9 outings. Bell came into his own as a late innings reliever with the Padres and grabbed hold of the closer role when the great Trevor Hoffman moved on. Miami seemingly shelled out big bucks to anyone and everyone who would listen this offseason and Bell was one to sign on the dotted line.

Why does this card exist? I broke down and bought some new Series 2 packs when I realized that many of the cards are Photoshopped. In this case, it's more Topps Laziness on display here, as they used this same photo in the Opening Day set. Usually, you would expect more out of Series 2, which is where you're supposed to see your favorite players in their actual new uniforms. Maybe they don't allow photographers in that new eyesore of a stadium that they have going on in Florida.

Airbrushed Fridays is a regular, weekly feature as the name seems to imply. If you know of a card with an altered photograph that you'd like to see featured, please contact me. You probably won't win anything other than a hyperlink and a stack of 1990 Pro Set football cards, but you never know!

In Search Of: Gypsy Queen

 

One of my new goals with this blog is to be even more straight-forward about its purpose. And that purpose is to get me cards that I want and get rid of cards that I don't want. To that end, this post is all about letting the public know that I need some 2012 Gypsy Queen cards. I only lack Allen Craig and a David Freese variation card (the one where he's throwing) to have all of the full-sized Cardinals base cards. Unfortunately, I need a whole lot of minis and whatever inserts may exist. A complete (to the best of my knowledge) list can be found by clicking on the St. Louis Cardinals link on the sidebar.

I participated in a Gypsy Queen group break over at Cardboard Heaven recently, which is how I ended up with the majority of the base team set. I also picked up a discounted blaster ($15) just for kicks at a show recently, so I will have the results of that here soon. This will add to the growing trade bait pile, along with a couple of Frank Thomas Straight Cut minis that came along with my Cardinals lot. Any Big Hurt or White Sox fans out there? I actually have a ton of White Sox cards that would count as trade bait that I probably should do something with.

I'm sure everyone else is sick of seeing this, but I'll never get tired of it. Meanwhile, I'm ready for the Cardinals fortunes to turn around this season... anytime now, guys!

Minis are great. So is Yadi.

I also managed to pick up a few Cardinals extras in the package, including this golden Photoshopped Berkman. It would be nice to see Berkman back in uniform at some point this season, but you never know.

A Heritage Blister

I'm finally getting back in the swing of things, and that means I'm allowed the occasional card purchase at the big box retail store. I picked up a three-pack blister of 2012 Topps Heritage, which like last year contains a black retail exclusive quasi-parallel set. I never got close to finishing last year's, but I am still keeping the list around. And while I'd like to say I will buy more of these, with hobby boxes as cheap as they are right now, there's probably no point.

Black Pack:

HP77 - Mark Teixeira (As you can see, the white border is replaced by a black one. I liked last year's black-meets-wood panel look better, but I'm not sure what else they could have done here.)

HP93 - 2011 National League Home Run Leaders (So these, for some reason, don't have black borders? This makes no sense. Is there anything different about this other than the card number on the back?)

HP99 - Tom Milone / Addison Reed / Matt Moore / Dellin Betances 2012 Rookie Stars (Same thing here. I don't get it and I don't like it.)

Pack 1:

283 - Brad Lidge

407 - Matt Dominguez / Jeremy Moore / Devin Mesoraco / Michael Taylor 2012 Rookie Stars (More floating heads.)
191 - Liam Hendriks / Alex Liddi / Matt Moore / Chris Schwinden 2012 Rookie Stars (Man, there are a lot of these in this set.)
279 - Matt Kemp (Please stay off the DL for the rest of the year, Matt. My fantasy team needs you.)
373 - Michael Young
183 - Mark Teixeira (Him again.)

312 - Tampa Bay Rays (One of my favorite things about Heritage cards.)
228 - Nick Hagadone / Josh Satin / Jared Hughes / Joe Benson 2012 Rookie Stars
260 - Anthony Rizzo

Pack 2:
53 - Freddie Freeman (Did we ever find out if he's going blind or not?)
374 - Tim Milone (One of the floating heads gets his own card.)

93 - Johan Santana (Normally, I would have started rooting for Santana to finish out his no-hitter once he reached the 9th inning even though it was against my own team. However, after seeing replay after replay of the botched call where Carlos Beltran had a sure-thing double taken away made me root for the Cards even more. It's nice to see Santana back to being productive, I guess.)
419 - Casey Janssen
92 - Austin Romine
116 - Vance Worley

485 - Mike Napoli (Short printed card of the slugging catcher/first baseman.)

97 - Kyle Lohse (First regular Cardinal card of the blister pack.)
25 - Delmon Young

Pack 3:
147 - "Deep" Freese Makes Texas Toast World Series (I get it!)
180 - Mitch Moreland
362 - Matt Dominguez / Chris Schwinden / Joe Savery / Brad Peacock 2012 Rookie Stars
14 - Justin Masterson
21 - Drew Stubbs (The Reds finally lost, no thanks to Drew Stubbs who is currently on the DL.)

430 - Ben Zobrist (Here's another SP. Not bad for three packs, though this means no inserts for me.)
367 - Trayvon Robinson
289 - Mariano Rivera
66 - Sergio Santos

Want list coming shortly... which is to say, I need all of the cards.

Group Break Results In Four Cards

Cardboard Collections holds a lot of group breaks, and some of them are rather affordable. Those are the kind that I prefer. One such break was held back in April where I had the opportunity to snag some 1996 Finest cards, some 2004 Fleer Platinum, and some Pacific Invincible cards. There were also some junk wax era cards to round out the lot. In addition to the Cardinals, I also had Padres cards which I will be sending along to another blogger. Here's a few of the Cardinals cards.

I wish retro uniforms were utilized a little more often by the Cardinals. I know they are pretty traditional as a franchise with keeping things clean and simple, but I like a lot of their older unis, aside from those polyester road greys from the late '80s/early '90s that bridged the gap between the powder blues and what you see on the field today.

Someday I may have to go back and collect all of the Fleer All-Star Team sets. I remember these being (or at least seeming) really difficult to pull when I first started collecting as a kid in 1986. I would love to open a box of Fleer '86, come to think of it. I wonder how affordable that would be, now that the luster of grand fortunes made off of Jose Canseco/Eric Plunk rookie cards is long gone.

All I can think of is the Pat Benetar "Invincible" song now. Great. Now it's stuck in my head.

Airbrushed Fridays: 1974 Topps Traded #270T

Here it is: the triumphant return of Airbrushed Fridays after a bit of a layoff. The layoff itself wasn't intentional, but the regular Friday posts were the first thing I consciously let go of when I realized this whole blog thing needed a reboot. I haven't quite hit the reset button yet, but some more subtle changes are in the offing that hopefully will lead to me getting back to what I always wanted to do here: get rid of cards while I acquire things I enjoy.

Who is this week's victim, and why do we care? Ron Santo was a nine-time All-Star catcher third baseman and Cubs lifer. That's about to be slightly disproven by the existence of this card, however. Santo was revered as a longtime team broadcaster as well, and he will be inducted into the Hall this year.

Why does this card exist? Ron Santo was traded in a deal that saw current White Sox broadcaster (and former longtime Cubs broadcaster) Steve Stone head across town in the opposite direction. Santo would struggle through his worst season as a pro before calling it quits. It's also easy to forget that the White Sox had orange hats at one point. I wonder if they'll make a return someday during a retro game?

Airbrushed Fridays is a regular, weekly feature as the name seems to imply. If you know of a card with an altered photograph that you'd like to see featured, please contact me. You probably won't win anything other than a hyperlink and a stack of David Wright "Topps of the Class" filler cards, but you never know!

I Wasn't Prepared For This

I'm not sure how long 2012 Bowman has been out, and I guess I don't really care. I picked up a pack on a whim, even though it cost me $2.99, because I hadn't made any retail purchases in quite a long time and a little curiosity bug bit me. What I didn't expect is to see what is, quite possibly, my favorite Bowman design of the modern era - or at least for as long as I care to remember. I'm not saying that I'm going to go full blown nuts and try to collect this beast, but I am liking what I have seen so far.

Here's the pack in full:

149 - Evan Longoria (Longoria is still looking to rebound from his worst season in MLB and an injury that cost him some time.)

182 - Prince Fielder (This is the first Tigers Prince Fielder card as far as I'm concerned. I'm actually starting to detest Photoshopped cards more than anything else right now.)

BCP12 - Rafael Ortega Chrome Prospects (Ortega was a free agent signee out of Venezuela. So... when is this international draft we've all been hearing about supposed to happen?)

BCP11 - Philip Wunderlich Chrome Prospects (Any relation to that quiz they give new pro football players?)

155 - Ben Zobrist Gold (These are skinny this year. Sometimes they are thick.)

45 - Adam Jones International (That's what these are, right? International?)

BP108 - Luis Angel Sanz Prospects (Another free agent signee from Venezuela.)

BP96 - Greg Billo Prospects (Ladies and gentlemen, the 835th pick of the 2008 MLB Draft!)

111 - Ricky Romero

193 - Yoenis Cespedes (When Cespedes was signed for 36 million dollars by Billy Beane's A's, I think some heads exploded. Are his cards collectible? If so, can I interest you in some other Oakland cards I've been unintentionally hoarding? Pretty please?)

Mucking Around

I'm trying to avoid the cliched pitfalls here by not apologizing for the lack of recent posts and not offering up excuses like "life got in the way" when I don't try to explain why it's been so long since I delivered images of baseball cards and related musings about each to the internet. I'm not going to do it. I will say that this space is due for a bit of an overhaul, cosmetically speaking, much as how my collecting interests are about to get a lot more focused. Let's just say that my original intent for starting this blog will become crystal clear in the near future.

This post features images of cards received from a JABOs group break back in April (or was it late March?) I ended up with a discarded wrapper from the 1978 O-Pee-Chee set, which I was happy to see. I have never opened a baseball pack older than 1981, though that could conceivably change sometime this year. I ended up with a couple of "pack fresh" OPC cards from both 1977 and 1978. I may trade them off if I manage to find actual card collecting fans of the Giants and/or White Sox.

I've probably stared at this card at least a dozen times. I've probably posted an image of it three times over. It just fascinates me that Topps was able to nail the horizontally-oriented photo that was deemed Stadium Club worthy, yet the snapshot shows Lankford was horribly fooled on the pitch he's swinging at or he beat the ball straight into the ground. Either way, it's a little embarrassing.

I can remember the exact place, time and circumstance where I witnessed Rick Ankiel's very public pitching meltdown. It still strikes me as tremendously sad, which is pretty silly considering the billions of young men who never get a chance to throw baseballs as hard and/or crazy as they can for millions of dollars.

I guess I chose to scan this because Ben Johnson once played for the Portland Beavers. I had no idea at the time that he had gone through the Cardinals system.

This R-Class (whatever that means) set design seems like it probably came from the Upper Deck reject pile. Do card companies ever hold contests asking loyal fans to design their next set(s)? I imagine that this would be a pretty popular thing.

I've probably posted an image of this card on this blog in the past, too, but it's Ozzie and I ended up with four copies of this... so what the hell. This should serve as a reminder to everyone reading this that I have many thousands of Cardinals dupes that could surely use a good home.

Ah, 1989 Bowman. On the surface, it seemed like a tribute to one of the original oddball sized sets in cheap junk wax form, but this is also the starting point for Bowman becoming "Home of the Rookie Card". This also means the first appearances on cardboard of completely insignificant players you're not likely to ever hear from again, like poor Don Heinkel. Sorry about that, Don.