2018 Topps Big League Box Break - Part 1

Before I dive into this, I want to take just a quick moment to thank everyone for congratulatory comments and kind words on the Year 3 post I put up over the weekend. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to read my ramblings on cards. Now, on with the show ....

Recently, my aunt was in town doing her yearly summer visit from Tulsa and as is tradition, I tend to get some cards as a late Father's Day present. I went for a box of the new Topps Big League and I also opted for a box of Series 2.

Since Big League is new, I opted to bust into it first. I had intended on doing six packs at a time but my five year old and I went a little crazy the other day and tore open 11 packs, which is more than I intended. So, I'll show off the highlights of those 11 packs here and the remainder here shortly.

Here's the first card from the first pack I opened. Remember back in the spring I said I was going to show the first card of a product I opened? Well, I'm continuing that trend here.

Here's a sampling of random base cards I liked. I really like the design on these. It's got a tiny bit of an old school feel with some really great photography and a big team logo at the bottom left. Also, I tried to not show cards of the major stars, I went for cards that I thought stood out to me in general. Probably my favorite of these is Clayton Richard with the 90s throwback Padres uniform on.

These black and white parallels are pretty cool and they're numbered out of 50. 

Legends cards are always fun. I really like the Hank Aaron card as the uniform looks like it's from the 70s.

Some Reds cards, including my favorite Reds player right now, Scooter Gennett!

Really cool horizontal cards but that Ichiro card ... just wow. That's gotta be in the running for my favorite cards of the year so far.

These may look like inserts but they're part of the base set actually. Can't say I'm a big fan of the caricature cards. The players weekend cards look like an insert set that could be in flagship or something, I really like them though. 

My favorite cards from the set by far are these ballpark landmark cards. These cards just scream fun and cool and unique. They're the Topps Big League version of the mascot cards in Opening Day.

In every pack you get a gold parallel card. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. I think it's good because you're guaranteed a unique card per pack. On the flip side, getting one in every pack comes across as too much of a good thing, maybe every other pack would be a happy medium? My favorite of these is the Zack Cozart card since it's my first card of him in an Angels uniform (I don't count the Cozart card from Donruss as he's in a Reds uniform but is listed as with the Angels).

Anyway, that's about half the box. So far, I've enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the box includes.

Blog Bat Around: All-Autograph Team

Well, yet another Blog Bat Around has commenced and it's another one I actually have time to participate in. It's a unique one at that, your "all autograph team". I wasn't too keen on the topic at first but after reading a few different entries in the series, I decided to take a stab. Seeing as I'm not really an autograph collector, I fished through my box that has my hits and otherwise good cards in it in the hopes that I might be able to put together a full nine, which I managed to do. Also, while doing so, I realized I really need to "thin the herd" so to speak in regards to some cards I have in there. 

Anyway, here's what I came up with, I've got a five-man starting rotation, a closer, and a full infield and outfield. I didn't bother with a DH for two reasons ... 1) I'm used to National League style ball where the pitcher hits for himself and 2) I honestly forgot to pick out a DH. That being said, here's what I came up with ...

Starting Rotation

Johnny Cueto

Dennis Martinez

Aaron Nola

Bob Tewksbury

Alex Meyer

I'll be honest, my "goodie box" consists of mostly Reds stuff along with some Bengals and hockey stuff, so trying to find some non-Reds autograph cards was a bit of a task but I found some. While this may not be the most impressive starting rotation ever, Cueto and Martinez are definitely a solid 1-2 punch. Nola is there because there should be a youngish veteran in the mix, Tewksbury provides the finesse, and Alex Meyer ... well, he's there because I honestly didn't have anyone better for the fifth slot.

Closer

John Franco

Of the options I found at closer, John Franco made the most logical sense he does rank 5th all-time on the career saves list, made four All-Star teams, had two seasons (1988, 1994) where he finished in the top 20 of MVP voting, and one season (1994) where he finished in the top ten of Cy Young voting. Plus, he owns a career 1.88 ERA in the postseason, so there's that too.

Catcher

Joe Oliver

I picked Joe Oliver for catcher as he was the first Reds catcher I remember and it was always fun to watch him play. Sure, he never mad any All-Star teams or anything of the like but he played the game hard and won a World Series in 1990 with the Reds. As a catcher, he owns a career .989 fielding percentage and could also fill in as a defensive replacement at first base (or DH) if necessary.

First Base

Kennys Vargas

Speaking of first base, Kennys Vargas will manning first for my team. While I'm not too familiar with his exploits, going by the stats on Baseball Reference, it looks like he's been a part-time player with the Twins for the last few years. I found it a little bizarre as well during Spring Training that the Reds claimed him off waivers from the Twins only for the Twins to turn around and re-claim him on waivers two days later. Currently, he's the DH for the AAA Rochester Red Wings and not on the Twins 40-man roster.

Second Base

Jose Vidro

The speedy second baseman for my squad will be Jose Vidro, who made three All-Star squads as a member of the Expos/Nationals franchise. He would be my lead-off hitter as well. 

Shortstop

Francisco Lindor

I had many options for shortstop but I decided to go with one of my favorite players in the game today, that being Francisco Lindor. Also, this particular card is from a National Baseball Card Day pack that I got from one of my favorite card shops a few years back. The Indians have another good looking squad this year I wouldn't be surprised to see them have a decent run in the postseason again this fall.

Third Base

Zack Cozart

I have exactly zero autograph cards of third baseman so I had to improvise a bit here. I went with Zack Cozart, mainly because he was one of my favorite Reds players over the past few years and the best defensive shortstop we had in a long time. This past offseason though, he left the Reds (as expected) and signed up to play third base for the Angels.

Outfield

Jorge Soler

Rusney Castillo

Mickey Rivers

I went for a nice selection with my outfield. Soler, Castillo, and Rivers should provide a decent amount of both potential power and speed and Rivers could team with Vidro at the top of the line-up to provide some base stealing threats. Soler could hopefully be middle-to-bottom of the order threat for power. As far as who plays where, Rivers with his speed would be in center, Castillo in left, and Soler in right.

Well, there's my team. It may not be the best team ever, but it's what I could come up with on the fly.

Variations on a Theme (aka Five Packs of 2018 Donruss)

Despite the fact that Panini doesn't have an MLB license, Donruss is one of my favorite releases of the year, mainly because every time you open a pack, there's usually something neat included (parallels, numbered cards, etc.). I had to stop by the card shop for a friend to see if they had any more bowling coupons as she was taking her son and a bunch of his friends bowling for his birthday. The coupons were all gone but I just had to make a purchase. There were two different pack prices on the box, $3.49 and $3.99. I asked the shopkeeper about it and he said "well, I'll just let you have as many as you want at $3.49". Fine by me. I grabbed five packs plus two Pokemon packs for my son to put in his Easter basket and headed home.

The first card of the first pack and it's Nolan Ryan. Pretty cool! Two other things that make this a really neat card, at least to me. First, it's a throwback 1984 design and the other is it's Nolan Ryan pitching as a Met against the Reds at Riverfront Stadium. How can I tell it's Riverfront Stadium? Check out the color of the seats in the background. Riverfront was the only stadium I knew that had blue outfield seats above the right field wall. I managed more of these 84-style cards but thought this was the best one by far.

A handful of base cards. Donruss is finally getting to the point where I can actually differentiate the respective sets. The first few issues looked pretty much identical but last year with the 1990-ish design, Panini finally got out of the basic designs and put a little more effort into it. This year, it's a completely crazy and wild design. I dig all of these cards, especially the Cozart card and it lists him with his new team and the old school uniform on Odubel Herrera.

The lone Reds card, if you could call it that, from the packs. With the background and no official logos, it looks more like Tony Perez and Davey Concepcion at an old-timers softball game.

Can't say I'm a big fan of the Diamond Kings design this year. I much preferred the old school style of Diamond Kings in previous releases.

The thing with Donruss is the variations and the parallels and, oh boy, do we have those this year. First there's the "nickname" variations. The only one of these I've ever heard of is "Iron Man" on the Cal Ripken card. I honestly think the other two are made up.

Here we have a parallel of the same and a parallel of the Kirby Puckett variation as well. We now have parallels of the variations, are you keeping track yet?

This Bryce Harper is numbered 01/25 ... you'll just have to believe me as I tried to take a picture of the serial number as proof but it was pretty much impossible. This must be one of the Mother's Day Ribbon cards.

I though this Jose Abreu was weird because it's in black and white, it turns out it's just a variation of the base card. My head is now officially spinning because of all these.

So, thoughts on this year's Donruss ... it's, well, different. I don't mind the base cards and the 1984 style cards but the crazy parallels, variations, and parallels of variations I could do without. Normally, Donruss is one of my favorite issues of the year (I really enjoyed last year's cards) but I think I might have to stray away from most of these this year, unless we're talking the 1984 style cards.

You've Got Mail #12: Wes (jaybarkerfan)

Well, this happened. My mailbox was unsuspectingly attacked once again by the legendary JBF (well, legendary amongst us card bloggers) during his most recent bombing campaign. As it stands, I'm at least the 850th person this week to write about what I received but, undaunted, I shall carry on and show off some of the goodies I got.

This Zack Cozart was actually on my COMC watch list and I was just waiting for the price to drop on it to pull the trigger. Receiving this in the package was really, really nice. Here's hoping that Cozart can have a nice bounce back year after the devastating knee injury he suffered last summer.

The other autograph thrown in the package was that of Heath Murray. Who's Heath Murray you ask? Good question because I don't know either! According to Baseball Reference, he pitched four years in the bigs (97, 99, 01-02) for the Padres, Tigers, and Indians. He had a career 2-15 record with a 6.41 ERA in 88 games. Not exactly the kind of career line that will get you into Cooperstown. He was with the Reds in spring training of 2000 but never appeared in an official game for them. Therefore, that makes this a zero-year autograph card!

Reds cards made up the majority of this package, including both the 2014 Topps Billy Hamilton and its brother, a blue Wal-Mart only parallel.

There were also some Johnny Bench cards and these were the best of the lot. I really like the Cooperstown field generals card and Gypsy Queen is really staring to grow on me, especially the 2015 version.

Of course, it can't be a JBF bombing without some oddballs! These are from the Reds team set issued by Kahn's hot dogs in the late 80s. As a side project some day, I might try to track down as many of these I can find as I was never lucky enough to be at the stadium on team set giveaway day.

Here's another good variety mix of Reds. I'm really considering adding Aaron Boone to the list of guys I collect. He was a really solid player for the Reds while he was here and has made a really nice second career of calling baseball games for ESPN. I'm really happy that he was recently named one of the analysts for Sunday Night Baseball this year, which is just about the only thing I watch on ESPN anymore.

Again, a nice mixed batch here. I've mentioned before that I love getting old timey players on modern products and Heinie Groh is really someone who hardly ever gets any cardboard love. The Arroyo card just below in really pops with the Red background. Not exactly sure what that would be called but it's really cool.

There was also a heaping helping of 84 Topps to add to my ever growing set build. I really need to get my checklist for that updated, set aside any duplicates, and get what I've got into a binder.

This was all just fantastic stuff ... now I just have to get it organized.

The Reds Binder: Page 2

I was doing some organizing the other day and while trying to maximize space, I realized a few things had to go ... unfortunately the very unfinished Reds frankenset was one of them.

Fear not, though, fair readers! Instead of a Reds frankenset, now you will get a glimpse into my completely stuffed full Reds binder! My only rule for this was no more than one card of any player or any specific product on one page. Other than that, it's anything goes!

The one completed page I had of the frankenset I left in tact and put that as the first page of the binder. I've already shown it here.

Here's page 2:

First, the fronts

And the backs:

Lots of fun stuff here, two minor league cards (Sean Casey and Joey Votto), a Hal Morris card from the 1994 Kahn's team issue, and one of my favorite cards, the Jay Bruce Classic Walk-Offs insert card from 2012 Topps. That card captures one of the most amazing moments in Reds history perfectly, the walk-off home run that won them the 2010 NL Central title, and always brings a huge smile to my face whenever I see it.

On a completely unrelated note, I've got a pretty cool research article that I've been writing and working on here and there since the spring based on a strange autograph book I found at the card shop a few years ago. I'm hoping to have it finished before the end of the year but I have a bit more work to do before I take it to the final draft. More to come on that down the line.