Nick's Knick Knacks

I'm not sure what this 1970 Topps Mike Hershberger card did to warrant getting written on. Nor, am I sure who "Rick" is or what that phone number is for. What I am sure about is that this came in an envelope from Nick at Dime Boxes, who loaded me up with a bunch of cards. 

This all came about when he was looking for a home for the Aristides Aquino card below he'd pulled from Stadium Club.

He mentioned there was a little peeling at the bottom, which didn't really bother me at all. I just think this is a really cool card of one of the Reds young stars. Despite a really down season in 2020, he raked in 2019 when he was called up and hit 19 homers over the last 56 games of the season.

Did I mention it was also numbered 16/25? That's pretty cool! Hopefully Aquino can find his form again this upcoming season but we'll see.

Aquino wasn't the only autographed card that Nick included. Here's another one from Stadium Club of utility player Josh VanMeter, who was shipped to Arizona in a deadline deal last year for reliever extraordinare Archie Bradley, who only appeared in six games for the Reds and was then non-tendered this offseason.

Nick also threw in a pair of Expos cards. I love getting Expos cards from pretty much any era. 

Now for the meat of the envelope, lots of cards to fill out my Indians and Reds team binders. These were some 2020 issues I didn't know I needed until I saw them, although by the time the Clevinger card came out he was with the Padres.

A couple horizontal goodies. Bowman was never my thing as I'm not a prospector but I just love this shiny Bowman Chrome Tyler Freeman card (you'll see another card from this shortly.)

A few more cool cards. I'm writing this just days after the blockbuster deal that sent Francisco Lindor to the Mets. I'm sad to see Lindor leave Cleveland and I know the trade was purely for economic reasons but he was by far my favorite Indians player.

This may look like a 1975 Topps card but it's not!! It's actually a 1975 Topps mini (I think that's the right terminology)? It looks like a 75, smells like a 75 (no I didn't actually smell it), but is a touch smaller.

Anyway, Jim Perry was at the tail end of his career here and was only with the Indians for about a month or so before he was traded to the A's where he finished out his sunset season. The previous season, 1974, he paired up with his brother Gaylord to form a decent 1-2 punch in the Cleveland rotation for a club that finished 77-85. Fun fact, did you know that the Perry brothers accounted for 38 of the 77 wins for Cleveland that season? 

This was probably my favorite card of the package that Nick sent. I'm definitely gaining an appreciation for 1959 Topps and might consider picking up more players like Herb Score here. Upon looking up his info for this piece, I had no idea he was the 1955 Rookie of the Year and was a two-time All-Star. I think the coolest thing about this card though is the photo. It just has that 1950s "feel" to it and I can totally dig it.

Reds were also included starting with this trifecta of Nick Senzel cards. 

There were also a few vintage Reds with this 1961 Jim Brosnan, who pitched will enough in 1961 for the NL Champion "Ragamuffin Reds" to earn some MVP votes.

This is probably my second favorite card in the batch, a 1976 Hostess Tony Perez.

Can't go wrong with cards from Johnny Bench either. I think the Starting Lineup card might be a duplicate but I'll have to check my binder.

These 2020 cards filled in a bunch of holes as well and highlights the Reds significant additions from last offseason in Shogo Akiyama, Nicholas Castellanos, and Mike Moustakas. If you look at the Moustakas Archives card, I find it curious that Topps squeezed "Second Base/Third Base" as the position when they could've just as easily put "Infield". Also, there were come cool Bowman Chrome cards (see I told you those would come back).

This was another great package from Nick and I appreciate him sending all this my way. 

Diamond Kings of Swing

Leading up to Memorial Day weekend and through part of the weekend, I was down and out with a horrible stomach virus. I was sick from the Wednesday before Memorial Day all the way through the majority of that Saturday before the holiday. I wasn't able to eat real food and I pretty much survived on oyster crackers, Gatorade, and water. 

By that Sunday, I was finally feeling better and able to get out of bed (and actually able to eat food) so the family and I decided to run some errands. As a treat to myself for surviving said affliction, I brought some extra cash and picked up some cards at Target. Topps Big League was out, so that's mainly what I was looking for. I grabbed some but also picked up a couple jumbo packs of Panini Diamond Kings, just for something different.

As is the case with Diamond Kings, there is a healthy mix of legends, current stars, and future stars. Here's some of the legends cards. I've always like the artwork on the cards and the feel of them. They have a "high end" feel for a lower price, plus you get neat cards of old school players.

More legends cards. I think I might have to add Walter Alston to my list of collections. He's from Darrtown, Ohio which is just a hop, skip, and jump away from where I live.

Yes, I know Panini doesn't have an MLB license. As long as the cards are of somewhat decent quality (like Donruss was this year), I'll buy a pack or two. Also, we've got dudes in new uniforms as in Machado with the Padres and Goldy with St. Louis.

There's always a healthy dose of rookies as well in Diamond Kings. I honestly didn't know any of the players on the rookie cards I pulled. These are the four I liked the best.

Obligatory Reds content. That Johnny Bench card is a thing of beauty.

Each jumbo contained a healthy dose of inserts as well as a framed parallel each. 

These are really some cool inserts and they kind of throwback to the old Donruss sets. The Honus Wagner card especially as it's a callback to the 1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes design.

Here's a few other inserts that I got as well. I'm kinda meh on the Masters of the Game cards but I like the Brendan Rogers "squires" insert if I really had to pick one of these.

So that's two jumbo packs of Diamond Kings. Is it a great product to break? I liked the base set cards and the Hall of Fame Heroes Wagner the best. There is something to be had about opening packs and getting legends that you don't see in Topps cards. I'm not going to go buying any more packs of this though, I'll rummage through bargain bins the next time I go to a card show for more.

2019 Donruss Blaster

I've had this blaster of 2019 Donruss sitting around for a while now. I actually bought it a week or so before Opening Day but due to other things, I haven't had the chance to open it until now. 

If you remember last year, I bought three packs of Donruss from the card shop and thought they were horrible. The pictures, the design, everything except the 1984 style cards was bad. Let's see if Donruss redeemed themselves this year.

Here are the base cards. As is the case with Donruss, there are no logos or nicknames. Not that I mind that too much when photos like this do their best to hide that that. The Rhys Hoskins card is a throwback uniform variation that I noticed after sorting these to be scanned. As far as the design this year goes, I don't really mind it. It's pretty simple and doesn't try to be something it's not (and doesn't have wavy lines all over the place either like last year).

Of course, there are nickname variations. These are painless enough.

The two Reds cards I got in my box. Scooter Gennett is inching closer to coming back and re-joining the team after injuring his quad right at the end of spring camp. It makes me wonder though, who will be the odd man out in the infield since Jose Iglesias has been a heck of a fill-in with both his glove and his bat, and Derek Dietrich I think may have usurped Jose Peraza as the everyday second baseman.

Here are a few of the Rated Rookies. I think there was one of these in every pack. These were literally chosen at random. Garrett Hampson is currently hitting .194/.224/.269 with Colorado and was actually optioned back to Triple-A as I write this. Kopech was 1-1 in only four games with the White Sox and will miss the entire 2019 season due to Tommy John surgery.

I think even the most ardent Donruss/Panini hater can probably find some good in the Diamond Kings cards.

Every year since Panini brought Donruss back, they've had the back end of the base set devoted to old designs. This year it's 1985, which I sort of enjoy. As a matter of fact, my favorite Donruss designs are probably from the years 1982-1987. I wonder what they'll do when they reach 1990 as they've already used it for a base set design in 2017.

As it is with Donruss, there's a boatload of parallels and the the like. The Rizzo is numbered to 484 and the design on the Ryan O'Hearn card is called "Independence Day". The back also feels like it's a vintage stock card or something.

Purple parallels! Very cool and very shiny.

Speaking of shiny, there's a four card "bonus" pack with the blasters and inside contained these super shiny cards. I think my favorite of these is the Jose Altuve "Action All-Stars" card. One thing I didn't notice until scanning these is that the Franchise Features cards have a different player on the reverse side.

And would you look at who's on the back of the Kris Bryant, that being Reds top prospect Nick Senzel, who is doing quite well for himself both at the plate and in the field. After seeing him play, I can see why the Reds released Matt Kemp.

So that's a blaster of 2019 Donruss. It's a definite improvement from last year. I like the inserts and parallels, and especially the "Action All-Stars" set.

You've Got Mail #84: Sportscards From the Dollar Store

Lately, I've been the recipient of a flurry of packages. So much so that our mail carrier, as unfriendly as he is, is probably thinking "what the heck are these people ordering all the time?" With all the other stuff I've been writing about lately, I'm behind on trade posts thanks to it. I received this package from Douglas of SCFDS (Sports Cards from the Dollar Store for short) quite unexpectedly as my USPS tracking doesn't include international packages. It was quite welcome nonetheless as packages from Douglas always include a nice variety.

I love me some 2017 Topps Heritage, minors or otherwise. I've written before about my aggravation in finding Heritage in friendly big-box retail establishments so I'll gladly take what I can get. I was super excited to see the Dayton Dragons cards as well, mainly because it seems that Topps has an on again, off again approach to the Dragons and doesn't always include them in minor league sets (at least from what I've seen).

Some Reds cards from the 2000s. I think the Casey might be a dupe but I'm not sure. I know for a fact the Adam Dunn Starquest card isn't.

At first, I thought these were just regular 1973 Topps cards but upon closer inspection, they are 1973 O-Pee-Chee! Wow! The fact that these were included was just tremendous. 

Here's the backs to prove it. They seem a bit brighter than the their American brethren and I love how English and French is just crammed on the back of the card.

It's been a while since I've added any new Bengals cards to my collection. I don't keep up enough with Panini's football cards to know if Prizm is still a thing, it is? Or has it been replaced by Optic?

As usual, any package from Douglas is rife with hockey and this was no exception. There were a great many Martin Brodeur cards to add to my collection, these are my three favorites. Side note, it's nice to see the Devils back in the playoffs this year, I just hope they don't get bounced in the first round by Tampa.

More cards to add to my ever growing Blue Jackets collection. 

And probably my favorite Blue Jackets cards of the bunch. I've always been a sucker for these Panini Contenders cards from both hockey and baseball. These particular ones are just super cool to look at with the black and white close up and then the ticket mock-up on the left. I've got to track me down some more of these.

Thanks for the awesome cards Douglas! You certainly outdid yourself this time. I've got a PWE packed up and ready to go for you, I just need to find time to get to the post office.

You've Got Mail #78: Bump and Run Cards

It's always nice to come home to cards in the mail and that's exactly what happened while back when there was a surprise PWE on the kitchen counter from Trevor over at Bump and Run Cards. It was nice to see something from Trevor as it's been a while since he and I have exchanged cards.

A few Gypsy Queen cards from last year, including one of those green retail parallels of Carlos Santana, who sadly departed Cleveland for Philadelphia this off season. The Dan Straily card is one of the few cards I have of him with the Reds. They definitely bought low and sold high on him when they traded him to Miami before the 2017 season and got back three good prospects in return. Suarez has some competition coming to him for third as Nick Senzel is quickly climbing the ranks.

And here's a random batch that just happens to include my first Nick Senzel card. Anthony DeSclafani (or, as I call him "Tony Disco") missed all of last year. Starting pitching has really been a sore spot for the Reds the past few years. Here's hoping that most of the starters can stay healthy for a while.

A few cards of Hal Morris manning first base. One of my goals in 2018 is to find non-Reds cards of him to add some variety to my PC of his.

But here's the real star of the envelope .... buybacks!! The note that was included stated that he'd been sitting on these since last March! Buybacks have become my new favorite thing to collect and give otherwise forgotten commons from the 80s and 90s a new lease on life. Apparently at some point I staked a claim on the Charlie Hayes card but I'd long since forgotten about it. Kudos to you, Trevor, for remembering it. Also, thanks for the surprise envelope! There will be some Packers cards headed your way soon.