Hang 'Em High

Trying to find Heritage of any sort this year, at least in my neck of the woods, has seemed to be pretty much impossible. Sure, I found packs at the card shop earlier in the spring when the initial batch was released but Heritage High Number ... forget it! Nay a Walmart or a Target has had any sign of it so to say I was pleasantly surprised when I found a slew of hanger boxes at a Target I don't normally go to would be a bit of an understatement.

I had a bit of extra cash on me so I pulled it off the rack, along with a jumbo pack of 17-18 O-Pee-Chee, tossed them in the cart along with the stuff I actually went to Target for (household cleaners, Halloween candy, etc) and headed home.

Since the playoff have commenced and we're neck deep in Division Series action this week, I figured there's no better time than the present to show off some of the highlights.

Everyone knows what these look like, it's 1968 Topps. I picked these particular cards to show off, well, just because commons need some love too every now and then. Plus, you can learn something. For example, did you know that the well-travelled Mat Latos was with the Blue Jays this season? I didn't. Having only appeared in three games for them this season, it's quite possible that it was one of those "blink and you miss it" type of deals. The Rizzo/Bryant card is one of those combo cards that Heritage loves to put out. 

The two most notable rookie cards from the box. 

Two new Reds cards to add to the collection. Storen was a decent arm out of the bullpen this year but went down late in the year to an elbow injury. Mesoraco split the backup duties in 2017 with Stuart Turner and made it into 56 games, the most he's played since 2014. With the Reds signing Tucker Barnhart to a 4-year deal just prior to the end of the season, one has to wonder what Meso's future with the Reds might be.

Two guys from the good Ohio team. The Indians are my pick to win it all this year. I was pulling for them last year but it seemed that I was probably the only one. I think they've got much more power this year in the lineup with Bruce and Encarnacion, both former Reds I might add. 

Apparently the hanger boxes yield one SP per box. This was sandwiched between two insert cards. 

Only two proper insert cards in the box. I like the designs on these, especially the funky background on the Ryon Healy card.

To be honest, I could've just saved the the $9.95 this cost and put it toward something I really wanted but on the flip side it was Heritage and like I mentioned, it's hard to find in these parts. If I feel like getting anymore Heritage, I think it'll be cheap singles from card shows

Going Through the Archives

This past weekend was Father's Day weekend and, despite the underlying current of a rather expensive car repair and bad customer service at the dealership doing the repair, it was still a fun weekend. The threat of rain kept the family and I indoors for much of Father's Day proper but the day before my mom took us out to eat at Chili's. As a gift to myself, I was on the lookout for Archives. We stopped at Target before lunch but no luck as it looked like their shelf hadn't been updated in over a month. On the way home, we stopped at Walmart and behold ... there were only a few blasters left on the shelf. I nabbed two of them. 

Last year Archives really stepped up their game I thought and it was going to be hard to top it. Wouldn't you know it though, Topps nearly succeeded. I say nearly because the 1982 design was used just a few short years ago in the 2013 set. If they were going to use an early 80s design, how about 1981? Regardless, they are still fun cards. 

The other years that Archives celebrated are 1960 and 1992. The 1992 set I have fond memories of as it was one of the first Topps sets I remember collecting from my youth. Some of the pictures they chose are just great, especially the horizontal ones, such as the Astros cards above. Also, much like the 1960 set, every card in that design in a horizontal one as well.

I got one Bazooka insert in each blaster. They're neat little cards and I was pretty happy to get a Kris Bryant one. The Moncada "rookie star" card and the Verlander are ok. I was sort of hoping for something like last year's Topps Supers in the insert department but these are fine.

One of my favorite things about Archives is that you get cards of players on teams that they aren't normally associated with (the lone exception in this batch being Hank Aaron). The Ozzie Padres card is just absolute gold. Unfortunately, I didn't get a Reggie Jackson Orioles card in either blaster.

The one thing I could've done without is the Jeter reprints. These are the only thing out of the Archives box heading for the trade bin. If they were reprints of older Jeter cards, say from the 90s, then I probably would have kept them. As is, I honestly have no use for reprints of cards from just a few years ago.

Moving on from the negativity, this was the only parallel that came from either blaster, and it's of Juan Marichal. No complaints there. This is the second neat Marichal pull I've had recently as a few years ago, I bought some Heritage packs and pulled out a Juan Marichal jersey card numbered to 49. Maybe the hobby gods are trying to tell me something?

Another great thing about Archives is you get cards of players from way back in the day. I've found that Honus Wagner cards are usually found in the higher end products, at least from Topps, so getting his card from the very first pack was really neat. I also like that they kept them to the old 1960 design instead of trying to put them on a newer design.

Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby? I'm good with that.

And a two more cards that I found to be pretty neat. I can't say I've seen too many cards recently of Blyleven in a Tribe uniform, especially the old late 70s/early 80s design. Also, Eddie Murray has a striking resemblance to Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. I'll have a royale with cheese, please.

Finally, there are two of these coins in every blaster. In case you can't see by the scan, I got David Dahl, Giancarlo Stanton, Mookie Betts, and Anthony Rizzo. I'm not sure how exactly these will fit in pages so for now I put them in the box that has just miscellaneous stuff in it.

Overall, I definitely dig Archives this year and these definitely made up for the stress and otherwise awfulness I had to deal with from the car repair shop. 

2016 Donruss Optic Box Break

I got this from my aunt as a birthday present back in December. While the card shop was pretty depleted on their baseball wax at the time, they still had this in stock. I really liked the standard 2016 Donruss issue so I opted for it's Chrome brother, Donruss Optic.

Here's what the open box looks like. Much like Chrome there are only four cards per pack. Each box has 20 packs and promises two autographs on average. To be honest, I'm not much of an autograph person when it comes to getting hits from a box as I much prefer relic cards. Like I said, this was the best the card shop had to offer so lets see what I got.

Here's some of the base cards. They're exactly like the standard Donruss cards but only chromed. I like how the players sort of stand out from the background on these.

One thing I really liked about these were the Diamond King cards, which chrome up pretty cool. These weren't in every pack but possibly every other pack. I wasn't really keeping track. I did get a few duplicates which was a little disappointing.

Another Donruss staple are the Rated Rookie cards. I was pretty pleased to get all three of these out of the box, especially the Peraza and Schwarber. Say what you will about Panini and their lack of licensing but at least with the Diamond Kings and Rated Rookie cards, I feel like I get a lot more bang for my buck when getting packs or boxes.

As is the case with Panini products, there are a lot of parallels. I decided to show one of each color parallel I got out of the box. The Jose Fernandez is numbered 1/50 but I really dig the Lucroy, Rizzo, and Soler cards.

I was a little saddened by the lack of insert cards but with only four cards per pack, what can you expect. The Illusion card is an Optic only insert and came at one per box. That's the second Schwarber card I pulled out of the box and couple that with the Andrew Benintendi card, I'm pretty happy.

Here's the first of the two guaranteed autographs and to be honest I had to consult Baseball Reference to see exactly who Alex Dickerson is. Turns out he played in 84 games for San Diego last year hitting  .257 with 10 HRs and 37 RBI (sorry, I don't do sabermetrics, I'm old school when it comes to my stats). Judging by the info I found on the Padres site, it looks like he might be their everyday left fielder going into 2017.

Here's my other guaranteed auto and my THIRD Kyle Schwarber card of the box. I was pretty thrilled to pull this as my luck is never that good when it comes to pulls and hit. I don't really mind the fact that it's on a sticker either, I'm just happy to have a Schwarber autograph in my collection.

Despite the fact I got a Kyle Schwarber autograph and some really cool parallels, I don't feel that it was worth the $80 price tag. Ripping the box too went by really fast with only four cards per pack, even though I took my time. For 2017, I'll dive into some regular Donruss but will probably avoid Optic unless I find some neat singles at a card show or I get some in a trade.

Card Show Report Pt. 2: Miscellaneous Baseball

Along with the 2016 cards I detailed in part 1 of this report, I grabbed a bunch of recent stuff of all from the bargain bins. There was more I wanted to get but I didn't want to get cards just for the sake of getting cards. All of these cost less than a dollar each.

A couple framed Gypsy Queen parallels of Frank Robinson and Steve Carlton from years past. I always like it when I can find cool stuff of Hall of Famers in the bargain bin and these definitely fit the mold. The Robinson card is a real beauty.

I generally don't buy Babe Ruth cards. Nothing against the guy but most of his cards really don't fit my collection. However, this particular card has him as a member of the Boston Braves and that's something that seems to be not necessarily an easy find. One of my side collections is cards of players with teams you don't normally associate them with. Speaking of which, the Griffey card has him in a Mariners uniform but listed as a member of the White Sox so that's a bit strange.

A few random cards from the early to mid 1980s. Getting the Hrbek RC for about 75 cents was a pretty fun find. The Seaver card scanned like crap but it's a Sportflics card so it's about what I expected. 

These Gypsy Queen base cards came from the same guy that I picked up the majority of my 2016 singles from that I detailed in part 1. Can't beat 10 cents a piece for some hall of famers!

Now we come to the two really awesome finds from the bargain bins. First was this Anthony Rizzo sepia parallel from last year's Topps Chrome. This came from a box where a guy said all cards in the box were 50 cents each. This is the first one of these sepia toned parallels I have in my collection and, honestly, their pretty cool. Am I going to actively go out of my way to collect them? No. Will I jump on one of a star player found in a bargain bin? Absolutely!

This card is by far the gem of my bargain bin searching. It came out of the same bin from the same seller that had the Rizzo card above. High end stuff like Museum Collection, Triple Threats, etc is way out of my price range but should the odd card find it's way into a 50 cent bin, I'm all over it, plus its Willie Mays so it makes it that much better. I love how the background is all black and while but Mays is completely in color, makes it really stand out. 

This wasn't a bad haul of cards at all but wait ... there's more. Part 3 coming up soon featuring nothing but vintage!

You've Got Mail #14: 2x3 Heroes

The 2016 baseball card season may be upon us but 2015 still lingers, especially with the contest winnings I got from proprietor of the 2x3 Heroes blog and noted White Sox enthusiast, Jeff. I entered and much to my surprise won a nice bubble mailer full of 2015 Topps.

Since Jeff is such a fan of the White Sox, let's start there. The Konerko card is a great send-off card and I really like Abreu in the throwback Sox jersey.

The north siders are primed for a huge 2016 after making it all the way to the NLCS this year and Rizzo is one of the guys I'm looking forward to seeing on a regular basis, since the Reds and Cubs are in the same division. It was awesome to see the Correa rookie in the batch! Even though I'm not much of a rookie collector/prospector, it was a card I was secretly hoping I would pull. 

Here are a few more main set highlights. That catch that Moustakas is making looks painful. Russell is another of the great batch of youngsters that the Cubs have.

These were the only inserts in the batch. The more I see of them, the more I like the tape measure blast cards. Can't say I've come across the rarities insert in the packs of 2015 flagship I opened but its a pretty cool card.

Finally, as is no secret, I'm putting together the set of all the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby cards. Besides the ones shown above, there were probably 5-7 others that I didn't scan in. 

Big thanks to Jeff for the great envelope of 2015 Topps. I haven't opened any 2016 Topps yet but I will eventually, although I'm sort of leaning towards Heritage being the first 2016 packs I buy. It's going to be hard to beat 2015 though, especially since there is so much cool stuff from then yet to discover.

A Blaster Box of 2015 Allen & Ginter

I'm getting to the end of the Christmas goodies finally and I decided to polish everything off this weekend. First thing I tore into was this blaster of Allen & Ginter. I got some free Ginter cards from the card shop back in the fall and enjoyed those, but I've never actually ripped into any.

First things first, the minis. I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of the minis, mainly because I have no good way to store them. However, there are a few cool ones out there. This blaster had one mini per pack and I ended up with three different kinds as shown above. The standard one is on the left (Johnny Cueto), the one in the middle is some sort of parallel, and the Micah Johnson is call the "Ginter back" since it doesn't have the stats on it. And yes, I actually had to research all of this because Ginter likes to be difficult.

I like the Appomattox Court House card mainly due to the historical significance, and the fact that I majored in history in college. The California Island card is neat mainly because I learned that when the original maps were drawn that everyone thought there was a strait running through there. I can definitely say I learned something new when opening this blaster.

As far as inserts go, I'd say my favorite of the A&G insert sets is the Staring Points, mainly because it features players from their original team and half the time, it's teams I'd forgotten they had played for. A prime example here is Anthony Rizzo. I'd forgotten all about his stint in San Diego. The Kluber card next to it will be going toward my new Indians collection when I finally decide to get that organized.

As for actual base cards, here are the highlights. Among the things that drives me nuts about Ginter is some non-baseball people they include. Mike Mills I'll accept as I enjoy some of R.E.M.'s music and I don't mind some of the actors and baseball related people they include but some of the other people like surfers, activists, comedians, and sportswriters seems like nothing but filler.

Here's a few more of the base cards I pulled. Pulling two nice rookies like Pederson and Soler is always good. Most of these base cards will be going in my 2015 binder.

So, will I buy another blaster of A&G? Probably not unless Target has them on a super discount, but I will pick up any singles I'm interested in.