You've Got Mail #74: Sportscards From the Dollar Store

It's been a long time ... a very long time since I've had cards grace my mailbox so when a random package arrived from Douglas of Sportscards From the Dollar Store recently, I was giddy with excitement that someone actually sent me cards in the mail!

As always, a package from Douglas has a nice variety. As much as I like the Edd Roush card here, I think I have to talk a bit about the Royce Clayton card. Clayton was at the near the end of his career in 2006 when he was acquired by the Reds from the Nationals in a bonkers trade still questioned by some fans to this day. It was a weird trade where the Reds got Clayton, Bill Bray, Gary Majewski, and one other for Austin Kearns, Ryan Wagner, and another player. To this day, I don't think anyone is sure what the Reds were trying to accomplish with that trade. Clayton finished the year as the Reds shortstop then moved on to Toronto as a free agent after the season.

Getting new Blue Jackets cards is always a blast, especially since they may be the lone major league team in Columbus soon (another story for another day) and I'm hoping I can maybe find some decent priced ones at the card show next week. The top three are from last year's Upper Deck Champs set, which is basically their version of A&G. It was a pretty cool product and it's something I hope they bring back this year. Brandon Saad was shipped back to Chicago after two seasons but in return, the Jackets managed to steal Artemi Panarin in return in a shocker of a deal.

This card was definitely one of the best of the batch and is a fantastic addition to my Brodeur collection. It's a thick card, really shiny, and has an amazing picture on it getting Brodeur in mid-catch to save a goal. 

The other thing I can count on for Douglas to send is lots and lots of Bengals cards, and there were a lot. So I'll go through them quickly. First, there were these neat cards of past Bengals QBs, although many try to forget the Jeff Blake era.

Joe Mixon was the Bengals top pick in the draft this past summer and has seen a lot of action recently, especially since the Bengals dropped Ken Zampese as their offensive coordinator and replaced him with Bill Lazor. The offense that had been sleepy in the first two games, woke up once Lazer was installed, and Mixon seemed to get more carries.

There was also this nice batch of Andy Dalton cards. My collection of his is slowly growing with some quality additions like this.

Same can be said for A.J. Green, one of my favorite players to watch on the Bengals. I'm starting to get a decent collection of cards of his as well.

There were also a nice batch of parallels included in the package as well, these were the best of the batch.

Thanks to Douglas for sending all these great cards over, I greatly appreciate it. I'll try to find some stuff to send back to you at some point.

You've Got Mail #58: Ain't Nobody Got Time for Cardboard (aka Secret Santa 2016) - Part 1

Where to start.

I suppose I could start by thanking Matt from Bob Walk the Plank for organizing and running the whole Secret Santa deal. I guess I could also thank my Secret Santa, that being Andy from Ain't Nobody Got Time for Cardboard. He dropped a package on me the likes of which I'm still in awe of. It had so much stuff, in fact, that I'm going to have to split it up into two posts. This particular post will feature the hits that were thrown in.

Here's the lone football relic card, a basic A.J. Green card. Nothing wrong with this at all, as a matter of fact I actually kind of like it. It's not a basic plain white swatch, no it's a basic black swatch. I think it fits in rather nicely though with the orange and black color scheme of the card. I'm hoping that Green has good comeback next year as he ended the season on injured reserve and this was the first year with less than 1000 receiving yards

Chris Gruler was, at one time, a promising pitching prospect for the Reds, even being rated #77 in pre-2003 rankings by Baseball America. However, injuries constantly derailed his career before it even began. He spent four seasons in the Reds minor league system, never advancing above low-A Dayton and only appearing in 25 games over the course of those seasons. I think a fun article one of these days would be to go through the cards of Reds prospects that never reached the majors and see just how far each of them got.

When the Reds were hot from 2010-2013, Chris Heisey was a formidable fourth outfielder with some good pop off the bench when needed. However, he got too expensive for a Reds team that fell from grace pretty fast after 2013. He was traded off to the Dodgers for Matt Magill, a trade that amounted to more than a salary dump than anything. This is a really nice looking card and anything Gypsy Queen I definitely enjoy.

These were probably my two favorite relic cards included in the package. I really like the look of the Kearns card, not to mention its got the pinstripe going down the left side and the blue on the sides gives it a pretty unique look. Speaking of unique looks, the Paul O'Neill card has a pretty unique way the jersey piece is put in the card. O'Neill's stint with the Reds seems to always get forgotten about so getting a card like this is nice in the grand scheme of things.

A couple cards with plain grey pieces, not that there's anything wrong with that. Scott Rolen has never officially retired, unless I missed something somewhere and felt like a steal when the Reds got him from Toronto in 2009.

To close out the hits, this orange parallel signature of Tony Cingrani, who has one of the most illegible autographs I've ever seen. Seriously, it looks like the number 3 and a squiggle afterwards. Oh well, it's still a really nice card.

That's just part one of the awesome cards Andy sent over, part two with all the parallels and other craziness will be coming up in a few days.

You've Got Mail #53: Three Surprise PWEs

I'll admit, I'm way behind on these. Three different people have sent me PWEs over the past month or so (in some cases longer) so in the interest of time and space, I'm covering all three of these in one giant post.

First up, an envelope from Greg over at Night Owl Cards. I'd commented about the Kayla Harrison card back when he tore into some Olympic and Paralympic cards so he was gracious enough to include it. It doesn't hurt either that she's a local athlete, literally from the next town over. While I think the picture could have been a little better, it's still a nice card that will reside in my miscellaneous cards section.

Greg was also nice enough to throw in some Reds cards. Not pictured are the Topps Bunt cards of which I already had thanks to a previous package. However, everything else was new to the collection. I am all for anything Hal Morris since he was one of my favorite players growing up. Heck, anything from the mid-to-late 90s Reds is good! Case in point, the 1997 Stadium Club card of John Smiley. 

Rounding out the PWE from Greg were some newer cards of Reds prospects Jesse Winker and Robert Stephenson. Both of them should be competing for a roster spot come spring training. Of the two, I think that Stephenson has the best shot at making the club as he could round out the fifth spot in the rotation. Winker might need a bit more seasoning at Triple-A Louisville before coming up to the big club, especially with the outfield spots pretty well sorted right now.

For Exhibit B, we have a pretty football-centric PWE from Trevor at Bump and Run Cards, who sent me these cards along with his updated address. The Bengals have been nothing short of disappointing and awful this year, which means I've watched hardly any football. However, getting new Bengals cards in the mail makes up for the slog it's been watching them stumble and bumble this year.

Panini Prestige always has a pretty cool design. I bought a few retail fat packs last year but barely got anyone I liked so most of them ended up getting traded away. Since then, I've sworn off buying football packs. Anyway, the middle row is made up of cards from the 2013 Prestige issue and features BenJarvus Green-Ellis, who was comedically nicknamed "The Law Firm" when he played here. Everything else was a nice mishmash of recent cards of Gio Bernard and Vontaze Burfict and a card of Rudi Johnson from 2007 Score. 

Trevor also threw in two Reds cards to fill out the envelope. Joe Oliver was the primary catcher for the 1990 World Series squad and hung around until after the 1994 season when he was released after only appearing in six games. He came back for the 1996 and 1997 seasons after which he bounced around for a few more years. LaValley seems like he's been in the farm system forever, but he's only been playing since 2014 and projects to either High-A Daytona or Double-A Pensacola next season.

Continuing on with the Bengals theme and wrapping up this post is an envelope I received from AJ at the Lost Collector blog with players made up of a few players I've heard of and others I've mostly forgotten. Most of these cards were numbered in some form or fashion as well, including the Jon Kitna card which is out of 3216 (side note, that's a random number, must be his passing yards or something). The only thing I remember Kitna for is backing up Carson Palmer is the ill-fated playoff game years ago against the Steelers after Palmer got his knee torn to shreds.

Speaking of quarterbacks, my absolute favorite card from the envelope is the Andy Dalton Topps Valor card. Valor was one of those sets that Topps issued rather hurriedly at the end of last season before their football license ran out. I really, really like the design on it with the big logo in the background and the artsy look of it. I don't go after many football cards these days but I might have to track down some of the legends cards from the set. 

That puts the bow on these fun PWEs. I got a good amount of cards to add to my Bengals binder, one for the miscellaneous collection, and a few more Reds cards. I'm nearly caught up on all the trade packages, only a few more to go. 

You've Got Mail #16: Wes (jaybarkerfan)

My mailbox took quite the beating last week for its official indoctrination as part of the #SuperTraders group. First up, was this package from Wes. Being the maniacal mind that he is, it was stuffed full of all kinds of goodies. 

A quick side note, I was trying a new setting on my scanner that didn't quite work out so if these scans look a little fuzzy, blame the scanner. Let's start with this, a Pedro Villarreal autograph. While he wasn't the best pitcher in the Reds bullpen last year, he was respectable and figures to at least be in the equation for a bullpen gig this year, perhaps as a 7th inning guy.

These were from the Museum Collection box break he did to kick things off. The Votto card really stands out with the red uniform against the muted background. Getting newer cards of Big Red Machine players is always great. Could Joe Morgan be a new PC guy? Time will tell. Fun fact about Joe Morgan: he owns a Honda dealership about 20 minutes from my house.

Ok, I have to come clean here. I love 1993 Donruss. It's a clean, simple design, the nameplate and team logo on the bottom have the feeling of a TV graphic, and the photography is great. When I was a kid, I got a box of it as a "get well" present from my mom after a really bad illness where I was hospitalized for a few days.

As always with a package from Wes, there's a mix of new and old. Juan Francisco is a guy who just never really panned out with the Reds. He holds the record for the second longest home run ever hit at Great American Ballpark (502 feet) but was traded to the Braves shortly after since there was really no room for him for the Reds current closer by default, J.J. Hoover.

Old guys on old cards. Notice the position on the Bench card ... third base!

And of course, old guys on new cards! It's nice to see Jose Rijo finally getting some love on some newer products. The Bench card is great because it's simple.

Along with baseball, Wes threw in some Bengals cards as well. Let's start with this Andy Dalton die-cut.

More Dalton and some A.J. Green. I'm guessing "Rookies and Stars" is some sort of Panini brand? It's gotta be as I don't remember Topps football cards looking this good.

Speaking of Topps football, here's a pink parallel of the aforementioned A.J. Green and a green parallel of Jeremy Hill. I see a camo design in them too. I wonder if they are parallels of the parallels? If so, I think I'm living in a parallel universe.

A few others to close out the batch. The Tyler Kroft card is another pink version/variant/parallel/what-have-you. It doesn't have the camo design either. Not a big fan of Finest but the A.J. Green card will fit nicely in my Bengals binder.

Big thanks to Wes for including me in this group and and sending these cards. I'm in the midst of compiling and sorting stuff for all Super Traders (and a few outside the group as well) and will hopefully have the first wave of stuff going out in mid-to-late March.

You've Got Mail #9: Brad's Blog

As many other bloggers have mentioned, Brad from the aptly named Brad's Blog recently asked for some help in getting rid of excess cards in advance of his impending move. I threw my name in the hat and about a week or so later, got a nice package on the doorstep filled with all kinds of tremendous football and hockey cards!

Let's start with the hockey cards. I was surprised to see a very large assortment of Mighty Ducks cards in the package and even though I recognized a few of the names, it wasn't until I was scanning these in that I figured out that Brad had sent along a bunch of cards of former members of the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, an extinct minor league affiliate of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and the Detroit Red Wings.

Here's a few nice die-cuts of Jean-Sebastien Giguere, probably one of the most notable players that came from the Cincy Ducks.

Another Giguere and a card of Niklas Havelid, who I unfortunately have never heard of.

A few more nice die-cuts. All of these went straight into top loaders so they won't get nicked or dinged.

Last batch of the Cincy Ducks alumni. I really like that Alexei Smirnov card and I'm guessing it might be a parallel of some sort, but not really sure. 

That wasn't all the hockey that Brad included. He also threw in a whole batch of awesomeness ...

A really nice Adam Oates card and a very cool die-cut of Paul Kariya.

Goalies!! Not only that but O-Pee-Chee! The Backstrom is nice but I about flipped when I saw the Brodeur card. Suffice to say, that's the first Brodeur card I've ever gotten through the mail.

Some more O-Pee-Chee, including a really nice insert of Mark Messier. I like these base cards so much, I'm tempted to track down more of them.

There was also some nice Upper Deck from a few years back. Can't say this was a bad haul at all on the hockey side of things

To cap off the hockey section, there are these jersey cards of Dany Heatley and Miikka Kiprusoff. Weird that Heatley would have a red patch when he's pictured as a member of the Sharks.

Moving on to the football portion, the Bengals were well represented.

First, we've got these really nice Crown Royale cards.

Followed by this batch of really nice 2011 Topps Chrome cards, including Andy Dalton and A.J. Green rookie cards! 

There were even some older Bengals. These six are probably the most memorable players from the pre-Marvin Lewis years. You can tell these are from the 90s as the Bengals are still shown playing in Riverfront Stadium before they moved next door to Paul Brown Stadium in 2000.

These cards were great and much thanks to Brad for sending them over.