You've Got Mail #83: A Cracked Bat

A while back on Twitter (a month nearly by the time this posts), I mentioned that everything that could possibly go wrong in one day did. My five year old had a 102 degree fever and couldn't keep any food down, I had a $1200 car repair bill in my future, and a host of other minor issues. Not long after that, a padded mailer arrived from Julie at A Cracked Bat with a nice little note of encouragement. It had been a while since I received anything from Julie so this was a nice, welcome surprise.

2018 Topps Heritage was the last thing I expected to see included. I'm guessing this has to be near the entire Indians team set, or darn close to it. 

My three favorite Indians cards of the batch, Encarnacion, Lindor, and would you look at that ... another Jay Bruce Indians card! I think I like that one more that the Series 1 card. Yes, I know I showed the Encarnacion card in my Heritage post.

Some Reds Heritage cards were thrown in too. Too bad star pitching prospect Tyler Mahle has to share a rookie card with middle reliever Jackson Stephens, who didn't exactly set the world on fire last year with a 4.68 ERA in 7 whole games last season. Again, I know some of these cards were previously featured in my Heritage post, the pictures were already in the can and the cards have already been filed.

Heritage wasn't the only thing that was included. These green crystal 2013 Panini Cooperstown parallels are pretty sweet. I'm pretty sure I've got the base cards of each so the parallels will go perfect with them. Also, when was the last time you saw Edd Roush on modern cards?

Some miscellaneous Indians cards, including a framed Earl Averill parallel from last years Diamond Kings set. The most curious thing there is the card of Ron Wollenhaupt, the trainer of the Waterloo Indians. I had no idea TCMA was making cards of single-A Midwest League teams in 1982, let alone for a team in the middle of Iowa. If your curious, the 1982 Waterloo Indians, finished second in the south division in 1982, 4 games behind the Quad Cities Cubs.

Here's some of last year's Topps Chrome set which I can proudly say I didn't buy a single pack of. It was nice to see the Reds lock up Eugenio Suarez with a nice long contract, I wish they'd do the same for Adam Duvall. 

Much like this envelope was a surprise from Julie, getting an autograph card included was another surprise. I don't have too much in the way of auto's and relics from the Indians. Also, it's a 1987 style card, I can't really complain too much.

Thanks for the cards Julie! These definitely made a pair of bad situations much better. As for the problems I mentioned earlier, it turns out that my five year old had an adverse reaction to his booster shots but he slept it off and was better the next day. My car finally got fixed too and now I have AC in it again for the first time in two years! It's the little things.

My First Taste of 2017 Topps

I'm woefully behind on the new releases. Topps Heritage and Donruss have released and I'm just now talking about 2017 flagship. Oh well, someday I'll be caught up with the newest trends. Anyway, I bought 10 packs of Series 1 when I visited Magic City Sports Cards during a family trip to Akron in mid-February. I could have spent the same $20 on a blaster at Target but to me it's more fun buying hobby packs as each pack is a mystery. Let's see what I pulled

The honor of first new card of the year goes to Matt Strahm, who isn't exactly a household name in my neck of the woods. However, looking up his stats, he's pretty impressive. Last year he was 2-2 with a 1.23 ERA in 21 appearances. He's also the #1 rated prospect for the Royals. Not bad for a guy who until I pulled this card, I had no knowledge of at all.

Everyone and their brother by now has shown what the cards look like so I'll just give my general thoughts. My first impression is that these are much cleaner looking and nicer than the 2016 release. The pictures on these are bright, there are no smoke effects, and it just doesn't have a general feeling of darkness and doom. 

The backs are also bright and cheery. The colors match up with the team colors and all the basic stuff you'd find on the back of a Topps card is there. This is definitely a win.

The horizontal cards are even nicer this year. Although the graphic seems like its a little stretched out, these have a Stadium Club-ish feel to them. My absolute favorites of this batch are the Jesse Hahn and the Tyler Naquin.

Obligatory Reds cards. Brandon Finnegan proved himself to be more than serviceable last year and was one of the bright spots in an otherwise dismal rotation at points. Bailey was bitten by the injury bug (again!) right before camp opened as he had bone spurs removed from his elbow and will start the season on the 60-day DL more than likely.

I'm really digging these 1987 style insert cards, complete with the rainbow "Future Stars" logo. They also have vintage stock which gives them a bonus point.

These are the "Topps Salutes" inserts. I really like the design of these first off but I'm not sure what the point of them is. I guess it's to salute special holidays, legends, and rookies. Regardless, I'm not disappointed at all. Overall these, plus the 1987 style cards, are leaps and bounds better than last years Perspectives (which I honestly didn't get at all) and Berger's Best reprints.

Buybacks are back and while they're not from the 70s, these will help boost the buyback mini-collection. I know there are different levels of these things and I think the silver one (Palmerio) is better that the bronze (Scurry) but I'm not too sure.

The remainder of the inserts and parallels I pulled. I love me some First Pitch cards but there's only a handful of them that I'm actually interested in this year (Goodman, Shatner, and Joan Jett) but I'll take one of Victoria Justice, even though I'm not exactly sure who she is. The pull of my 10-pack batch though was the black Yoan Moncada #'d to 66. I had to look up exactly what it was called but I'll take it nonetheless. 

Overall, I'm definitely a fan of Topps flagship this year, the inserts are range from decent (Salute cards) to really cool (87 Topps style). I'm definitely going to be buying more of this when I hit up the card shop.