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.

Going Through the Archives - 2018 Edition

Archives is out!!!!!!!!

Hallejuah!!!!

These were some elusive little creatures to find. I went to the Target by work on the release day, nothing there, then the next day I went to the Target by the house after my son's kindergarten screening, and nothing there. Finally, Friday night they showed up as in-stock at the awesome Target on the way home so I stopped there, at 10:45 at night mind you, and stocked up. I grabbed two blasters and three fat packs. I had two coupons from my Series 1 blaster I used plus just over $30 in gift cards that got me a good deal on them.

I started with the blasters first. As usual, the first card of the first pack I opened and it's Yasiel Puig.

Archives this year is based on the 1959, 1977, and 1981 designs. Sure, they're not exact replicas but they're close enough for me. I always love the inclusion of retired stars in Archives, especially those such as Bert Blyleven and Warren Spahn. Even better, Spahn is listed as a member of the Milwaukee Braves.

I got the two vaunted rookies every is probably after, Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. Is is just me or did the Ohtani-mania craze die down fairly quickly after he got hurt. There's also an Ohtani variation of him swinging a bat going around.

Two more 59s, and I'm curious as to why they chose the color pink for these two. I feel like Honus Wagner only pops up in Archives. As far as variations go, there are two different types ... one is a no autograph variation (which speaks for itself) and the other is in the backs. There are white back and grey backs called "Venezuelan backs".

Moving on to the 77s. One gripe I have about these is that, in the case of Bruce Sutter, the facsimile autograph is nearly obscured completely by the darkness of the background. This happened with a few other cards as well. 

The Jeter is another case where the autograph is pretty much unable to be read. However, I think these are probably my favorite design of the bunch. Variations on this theme include only a non-autograph variation.

One blaster yielded me this gray parallel of Travis D'Arnaud. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Now the 1981s. The 1981 set is something I feel that gets often overlooked or forgotten about. Personally, I think it's a pretty neat set and Archives did it well. Nice to see Edgar Martinez show up in newer cards. There's also a variation of the Ernie Banks card floating around.

I didn't get any of the variations of the 1981 (which include a different Clemente card and cards with the old style Topps logo) but I did get a nice batch of awesome players like Trout, Carew, and Clemente.

I got a good batch of Reds and Indians cards but my favorite of the Reds ones has to be the Barry Larkin card. 

Some Indians cards including catching prospect Francisco Meija and Jose Ramirez who is on an absolute tear right now.

Inserts I think is really where Archives struggled this year. I know the Hank Aaron "turn back the clock" card isn't really an insert, it sort of fell in there when I took the picture. I enjoy "The Sandlot" as much as the next person and having cards in there using the 1962 design is neat but they just don't do it for me. I've got two Sandlot cards, and they're already earmarked for my next package to Dimebox Nick.

My favorites of the inserts are the Future Stars cards. I could've done without a "Rookie History" insert reprint set though, considering just a year or two ago we got "Berger's Best" reprints in flagship which featured some of the same cards. 

Moving on to the fat packs now. One thing about these is that I really like the pack design. One thing I  didn't like is the fact I got a lot of duplicates. However, I did find a number of cool cards I didn't get in the blasters.

Getting cards of Ichiro is something that makes me really happy.

Three people here in Ozzie, Cozart, and Correa that I like to collect. My favorite though has to be the Early Wynn card. Have a look at that background will you!

Two more Reds, both new and old.

The Coming Attraction inserts are really the best insert set in Archives this year.

Finally, I'll close this with my two favorite cards I got from my haul. First, David Ortiz as a member of the Twins!

And this .... Ronald Acuna Jr. who has just absolutely terrorized the National League recently with his incredible hitting and the lead-off home run streak. 

So, that's it for Archives this year. Was it great this year? Not really. I liked 2016 and 2017 a lot better. I think I would've liked it better if they'd chosen something other than 1959 and maybe continued on with the 90s sets and used 1993 as the past few years where it was 1991, then 1992.