Two Packs of 1990 Upper Deck

Included with the most recent repacks I opened were these two packs of 1990 Upper Deck. Typically in repacks is stuff like Donruss from 1988-1991, so these are a bit of a neat surprise. I'm not expecting anything ground breaking from these so let's see what these packs contain.

Pack #1

No real notable names here aside from Omar Vizquel. I always did like the artwork on the checklists Upper Deck put in. I think that's Von Hayes on the Phillies card. I always liked the design on these cards as well, it's clean with the team logo on the bottom and the name right below that. The photography as usual on Upper Deck cards is great.

The sticker is hard to be seen but it's a Mariners sticker. Some decent players here in Lenny Harris, Gary Redus, and Bob Melvin. Pretty neat to get a card of the current A's manager. 

Last batch from the first pack. I have to say, that's a great photo on the Bill Doran card. The only other name I recognize from this batch is Bret Saberhagen. Also, don't know why, but the Bill Schroeder card kind of reminds me of Tom Berenger as the catcher in Major League.

Pack #2

A Hall of Famer in Alan Trammell is a nice way to start the second pack. Also, there's a card of Jose Bautista .... no, not that Jose Bautista. This Jose Bautista only won one game for the Orioles in 22 relief appearance in 1990.

There were actually two stickers included with the second pack but with it but when I did the photos for this piece, they looked awful. So, I left them out. This is probably the best batch of all with Fred Lynn, Jim Abbott, Doug Jones, and Doug Drabek.

And the final five. The last three cards of Joe Girardi, Benito Santiago, and Willie Wilson are a great way to close out these packs. Girardi was actually in line to be the Reds manager before he withdrew and they went with David Bell instead. 

Again, these packs weren't anything special but they scratched the pack ripping itch so there's that.

You've Got Mail #66: 2x3 Heroes

This will be a just a quick post today as I'm doing some spring yard cleanup (including the digging up of what I'm expecting to be two small but pretty stubborn shrubs). While I'm taking a quick break from that, and preparing myself for a fight with said shrubberies, I figured I'd throw together this post of what I received in the mail recently.

Way back over the holidays (gosh, doesn't that seem like forever ago?), everyone's favorite ChiSox fanatic JediJeff was holding his yearly "Tis the Season" giveaway. I laid claim to a lot of 2016 Gypsy Queen and after a delay of many months, it arrived about a week or so ago. By the time you read this, 2017 Gypsy Queen will also be out in stores and shops and everyone (well, most everyone) will be going crazy for it. I still haven't picked any up as my card budget has yet to recover from my recent splurges at the card show and card shops. So, while everyone is fawning over this years GQ, here's a quick look back at last year's offering.

The lot was mostly base cards. Here are six nice ones and three Reds cards I picked out of the lot. I really like the Endier Inciarte card with the red Braves uniform the the patriotic lettering. With the tan frame of last year's cards, anything red seems to just pop.

Jeff was nice enough to throw in some insert cards as well. I had zero of the insert cards until now. Look at the extension of Pillar on the card on the far left. Votto's card looks like it's from a gloomy day at Wrigley. One thing I've noticed about Joey Votto cards is that he's rarely pictured in the home uniform. Not sure why that is. 

More insert cards, this time of the "Walk Off Winners" variety, including an Omar Vizquel Indians card. 

This was the lone Power Alley insert included and even though I'm not a big Yankees fan, I definitely appreciate seeing legends like Lou Gehrig on modern cards. 

Just like I said, a quick post. Thanks to Jeff for offering these up during the giveaway last year. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have two very uncooperative shrubs to dig up.

Card Shop Goodies

I'll take a break today from catching up on trade packages to show off a few spoils from a recent trip to the card shop. I needed a few supplies a while back and happened to be in the area of Hooterville Sports Cards one Saturday, so I stopped in to grab what I needed. However, I can't go into a card shop and not buy cards.

I noticed there was a box full of memorabilia cards that were marked down to $2.50 each. There's no way I'm not going to dig through something like that. There were mostly baseball and basketball and some decent selections as well. I nabbed the Sosa and the Vizquel from the box. Further down the counter, next to the hockey packs, I saw a smaller box of cards that had discounted hockey cards. From that, I grabbed the Doug Weight card, mainly because he's listed as member of the Blues but it has a Hurricanes piece on it.

I also wanted to grab some packs to rip. While I scoured over the hockey and the baseball packs, nothing was really jumping out at me. I noticed that Heritage High Number and I felt that I should give Heritage another try, as I wasn't too impressed with the initial four packs I purchased back in the spring. So, I picked up four packs of the high number and I'll save what I got for another day.

You've Got Mail #40: All Trade Bait, All the Time

There was a contest held a while back over at All Trade Bait All The Time (ATBATT for short) and even though I didn't win, I still got a consolation prize. Sort of like being on Wheel of Fortune and being one of the runners-up. Anyway, in order to get said prize, I had to answer an APB for my address. I responded and a nice bubble mailer arrived from sunny California not long there after.

The envelope was stuffed full of cards from three of the primary baseball teams I collect: Reds, Indians, and Expos. I'll show a few from each team, starting with, of course, the Reds.

I rediscovered 1992 pinnacle last fall when I bought a bunch of cards from the thrift store on a whim. I'd forgotten how simple and nice they were with the black background and such, probably my favorite of the early Pinnacle releases. I'm not too familiar with the Ted Williams cards in the middle but they were unique enough to be included in the scan. I also felt like showing off a new Joe Morgan card.

Some cool Indians cards that help fill in the holes there. There is a gaping hole in my collection with cards from around 1994 up through 2012 and that really needs to be filled up, especially in my Indians binder. Something I find interesting is the difference in uniforms between the Omar Vizquel card and the Sandy Alomar card. I'd forgotten the Indians had their old school uniforms until the mid-90s but ones I fondly remember is the one sported by Vizquel. Regardless of uniforms, the Tribe had one heck of a run during that time period.

The Expos cards ran the gamut from old as you can see with the Valentine and Wallach cards to 90s with Moises Alou to my favorite card of the whole pack, this 2001 Fleer E-X Jose Vidro card. I remember seeing a bunch of these cards when I worked for a card shop and assisted with card shows during my high school years. Back then, they went for a bit of a premium but today, they're all but forgotten about.

Finally, this Jose Theodore card was thrown in because I had mentioned in a comment on the ATBATT blog that I thought it was a cool card. Well, now it's even cooler since it's now a part of my hockey collection. 

Pretty cool to get these as a consolation prize. If consolation prizes are like this, I'll gladly enter contests all the time.