Heritage 2019: Blasting Into the Past

Finally, the baseball card gods graced at least one of my local Targets with some Heritage. I told myself I wasn't going to go crazy so I grabbed a blaster and a few loose packs. Also, I didn't want to go crazy because I wasn't sure if I would like the cards as 1970, while not a bad design, isn't exactly an awesome design either. Anyway, I was excited to open this so let's see what the highlights are.

On to the cards ...

As per tradition here, the first card from the first pack, and it's ex-Red Mike Leake. He performed amicably last season, his first full campaign with Seattle going an even 10-10 over 31 starts with a 4.36 ERA in just over 185 innings. He'll be joined in Seattle this year with some other ex-Reds in Jay Bruce and Edwin Encarnacion.

Some more base cards. Not only is the photography good on these but each of these also has a uniform patch of some sort. In regards to the cards themselves, I think Topps did a good job on them. I wasn't expecting much but to say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. The fronts are nice, the backs (which you'll see shortly) are well done, and the photography, while mostly posed shots, is very clear.

Not all the cards are posed shots. At first, I thought these may have been "action variations" but they weren't. Just in-game photos of these guys in their new(er) threads.

Nice to see the return of the All-Star set actually being called the "Sporting News" all-stars. 

Obligatory Reds cards. Jose Peraza will be the starting second baseman for the next 2-3 months as Scooter Gennett recovers from a groin injury. Tyler Mahle made the team as the fifth starter while Alex Wood works out his back issues. 

These are not just any base cards ... they're the dreaded short prints. Matt Kemp is now a Red (side note: can't wait to get my first Reds cards of the offseason acquisitions). Dee Gordon is not only a short print but a variation.

Here's the back of the card. Notice anything? That's right! It's a French variation. I haven't seen too many of these shared on the blogs so these might be tough to pull. Regardless, I think it's pretty neat and a nice tribute to O-Pee-Chee cards.

Here's something I didn't expect, a Chrome parallel. They're very shiny and the stock feels a touch thicker. On this one, I like how it looks like J.D. Martinez kind of pops out of the background. These are also numbered to /999.

Moving on to inserts, I like the groovy 70s feel of these. 

These too. Not sure why Thurman Munson is called the "un-rookie". 

Sure, "Then and Now", "Flashbacks", and "New Age Performers" are standard when it comes to Heritage, but there were also some unique inserts that came as well. First, there this 1970 candy lid style card of Mike Trout. I'm not sure how to store this, especially with the tab on the bottom. Penny sleeve maybe for now? These are found only at Target.

My favorite insert of the bunch, this Clayton Kershaw Scratch-Off. Inside is a scratch off board where you could play a game of "scratch off baseball" against another person and on the back you keep score. I bet it'd be pretty fun actually.

As for the rest, the packs and blaster netted me a nice fat stack of cards that will be filed away shortly.  I'll be getting more of these, maybe some loose packs at Target or dime singles from the upcoming card show.

Rediscovering My Heritage

I just noticed I haven't posted anything for nearly a week. There's a perfectly reasonable excuse for that however. Last weekend from Saturday through Tuesday, the family and I were on vacation in North Carolina visiting the in-laws (my wife's mom, dad, brothers, and sister). We left our house early on Saturday morning about 2:30 and made it there about noon, only stopping for gas and restroom breaks.

The first night we were there, we headed to Walmart to get some supplies for making a massive bolognese style lasagna the next day and a few other things. While we were there, I had a feeling it would be my only opportunity on the trip to get cards. I took a gander at the card aisle for Heritage and found there was only one hanger box and one jumbo pack left on the shelf. Naturally, I had to get them. 

A few days later, Tuesday to be exact, we left early in the morning again about 4:30 and headed home, just clipping the edge of the winter mega-storm that reeked havoc in the Northeast as we drove through the Virginia foothills and the West Virginia mountains. We got home about 3:00. The next day, I couldn't resist and cracked into them. I started with the hanger box.

First though, I want to talk about the design of each package. The hanger box has some really fun artwork on it with the green and the brown background and the design really grabs you. However, the the jumbo pack seems kind of bland with the generic pitcher and just the word "baseball" really big on it. So, definitely points go to the hanger box with the design element. Anyway, let's crack this open.

The first card of Heritage this year is Anthony Rendon of the Washington Nationals. My first impression is that these are really nice. Yes, as is standard with Heritage, there are lot of posed shots but I'm ok with that. The other thing is that these are based on the 1968 design, which I like a lot.

Look at that! I got a Dansby Swanson rookie card! Mind you, it's just the base card, not the variation but still, it's Dansby Swanson.

A couple other nice horizontal cards. I was really pulling for Cleveland last year but I happy for the Cubs. Maybe this year the Tribe can get back to the Series and win it all. Anyway, the World Series card is really cool because it's black and white and definitely has an old school, 60s feel to it. 

The thing I like about Heritage is that it provides lots of things to look for besides just hits and inserts. Case in point, this Jameson Taillon card. While it may look like just any unassuming card from the front, on the back it's a high numbered short print. It was the only short print or variation type card I received in either the hanger box or jumbo pack.

Here's the lone insert that came in the hanger box, a Kris Bryant New Age Performers insert. I like the orange, kind of funky background on it.

That's the highlights of the hanger box, time to move on to the jumbo pack.

This is a 1968 game style insert with Almedys Diaz. The one issue I have with these is that it's hard to read the players name with just the autograph on it. Other that that, it was nice surprise to pull this out.

I had a bit more luck pulling Reds out of the jumbo pack than I did the hanger box. Even though all the experts are picking the Reds to be dead last this year, I'm trying to stay positive and hope they won't be all that bad, especially with young stars like Jose Peraza ready to play every day and breathe new life to the team. The pitching will still be a bit suspect I think, but the bullpen definitely has improved. 

A few more cards, including another Indians card (if you include the World Series card) and another All-Star card.

Overall, I'm very pleased with Heritage this year and I'm planning on picking up on some more packs at the card shop eventually, perhaps even this weekend as I'll be going there after the big Nutter Center card show. I'm trying to lay off buying retail packs but this was an exception since I couldn't make it to the local shop in North Carolina and was a nice sampling of a fun product.

You've Got Mail #63: Wrigley Roster Jenga

Out of the blue a while back, Tony from Wrigley Roster Jenga surprised me with a PWE stuffed full of all kinds of craziness.

I'll start with these reprints. Trying to pinpoint the year these reprints are from is a little crazy but I think they're part of the 1978 Dover reprints, although I could be completely wrong. Regardless, reprints like this are the only way I can get old school cards of old school dudes such as Nap Lajoie and Cy Young. 

Speaking of cards that are hard to pinpoint, I've always had a quandary as to if I should file TCMA cards with my vintage cards or put them with my misc cards. The more I think about it, perhaps they should go with my misc cards as they don't really fit inside any other part of my collection. These are 1979 TCMA 50s of Rocky Colavito on the left and Don Mossi, he of floppy ears fame, on the right.

As usual, some Reds cards were thrown in, both new and somewhat old. These are all from last year, with the exception of Denny Neagle chilling on a stool. Jose Peraza is now the second baseman since Brandon Phillips was shipped off to Atlanta for what amounts to pocket change. I'm excited to see what he can do playing a regular position everyday and potentially batting second with Billy Hamilton at leadoff. The Bench card is one of those "Berger's Best" inserts from last year, just another one of those inserts that Topps did last year with the flagship set that no one really liked.

Not only were there Reds cards but the envelope was predominantly full of Indians cards. I'm getting so many Indians cards now that I'm to the point where I'm going to have to start a binder for them. That might be a project for later this summer. First though, I need to finish organizing everything else.

These cards are part of baseball related games. I can't say I've played either of these games, or any card game for that matter (except for poker or rummy) but I might have to learn one of these days. 

Here's one of the co-stars of the package, this well worn, well traveled, and somewhat defaced Mel McGaha card. McGaha was the Indians manager in 1962 and managed the Kansas City A's in 1964 and briefly in 1965. His lifetime record was 123-173. During his playing days, he was a career minor leaguer, mostly at the AA level, including a five season stint with Shreveport in the Texas League.

Here's the other co-star of the envelope, my first NASCAR card in who knows how many years. While I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, I know the majority of the drivers and I'll watch a race or two when I can't find anything else on. One thing I've been considering doing this year is adding a racing card to my collection here and there and possibly buying a few packs of the Donruss Racing as it looks like something fun and different to rip into. As for this card, looking at it on the front, I thought it was just a standard Press Pass insert but then I turned it over ...

... and it's a promo card from the 1996 National Sports Collectors Convention. This is the gold foil version, which is apparently rare according to the chart on the back. There's also red foil and green foil versions. It says the gold foil is "rare" which leads me to believe that it's just the standard variety. This makes a good springboard to buying some NASCAR cards and I'm happy to add it to the collection.

Thanks again Tony for the great cards! I've got some stuff I think you'll enjoy that I'll be sending out in a few weeks.

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.

You've Got Mail #50: Cards on Cards

Kerry over at Cards on Cards is one of the good guys around the hobby, despite him being a Cardinals fan. Recently, he dropped some unexpected mail on me loaded with good stuff. 

One of my favorite sets of the 80s is 1986 Topps, mainly because of the design. The Tony Perez card in the middle is a card I didn't think I needed until I actually got it. Now that I have it, I don't need it anymore. It's a nice sunset card and I like the image of Perez high-fiving Eric Davis. It's sort of symbolic of the old celebrating with the new as Davis would be an anchor of the Reds outfield until he was traded to the Dodgers following the 1991 season.

These three guys are poised to be part of the future for a Reds team that was pretty bad this past season. Peraza came over as part of the Todd Frazier deal last offseason and after getting some seasoning at Triple A early in the year, made his mark by being able to play a handful of different positions. Garrett should be with the team either in 2017 or 2018 at the latest and Stephenson is probably the top catching prospect the Reds have.

Reds cards weren't the only thing included in the package though as there was a plethora of St. Louis Browns cards. The Browns were one of the worst teams in the American League, consistently finishing at the bottom of the standings and making one World Series appearance in their history. After the 1953 season, the Browns were sold and moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles. Since then, the Orioles have pretty much distanced themselves from their past at the Browns. Even though the Browns were pretty miserable for most of their existence, they still had some pretty notable players, including Hall of Famer George Sisler, who isn't exactly a household name, except to historians of the game, and Rick Ferrell who started his career with the Browns in 1929. 

Not only are these Browns cards, but they are Conlon cards as well which makes them doubly appreciated. Of this batch, I think the only one of these people I've ever heard of before is Jimmy Austin.

These cards are curious. They are definitely Conlon photos but I've never seen this particular set before. According to the Trading Card Database, these are part of the Conlon World Wide Sport series. I like the fact they are full bleed photos but there is no name on the front of the card, plus it seems like there is a brown hue over them when compared to the black bordered Conlon set.

Reds and Browns ... I'd say this was quite the colorful package.