Topps Big League ... Target Acquired

So Topps Big League has been all the rage recently and I decided to bite and grab some from Target during a recent excursion. I could've honestly come up with a witty title for this as well but I think most of the good ones have been claimed already.

Last year's debut issue was nice but I thought some of the pictures were a little dark, as if they were taken on an overcast day or something. That's just me though. This year though, I really like the design. It kind of combines the 1965 Topps flag design with the 1987 Topps wood background. The team logos look tremendous on the flag, although if I had one nitpick, it'd be to use a different color flag on those logos with darker backgrounds (like the Braves logo).

Of course, the allure of Big League is a "bargain priced" set but that's not to say that you won't find some gems. The photos on these cards are worthy of Stadium Club in my opinion. Also, the yellow cards come one per pack, much as they did last year.

Here's some cool horizontal cards as well. I can't get enough of Justin Verlander Astros cards.

With Big League being an in-season issue, there will be cards of players in new uniforms. This one will fall into the "short term stops" category with Jay Bruce having recently been shipped to the Phillies.

Here's another short-term stop and the main card I wanted from this set, especially when I saw that Matt Kemp was jettisoned from the Reds after only 20 games in favor of Nick Senzel. With the Reds, he hit .200/.210/.283 with only one home run and 5 RBIs.

More Reds cards. Scott Schebler was sent down to Triple-A when the Reds called up Nick Senzel and released the aforementioned Matt Kemp. Votto is slowly starting to come around and Jesse Winker has been a great as the everyday left fielder this year. 

Here's a bunch of dudes in old school style uniforms, which is one of my mini-collections. I think my favorite of these is Yonder Alonso in the mid-80s White Sox uniform.

I also got a fair amount of inserts. These are the two insert sets I really like. I didn't care much for the inserts with the caricatures. I set those into the trade box. The "Wall Climbers" set is really cool.

Since I bought a blaster, I got a bonus four-card pack of blue parallels.

Also, I managed to get one of these shiny parallels from both the blaster and the fat pack. The scanner doesn't do justice as to how cool these cards are.

All in all, I really really like this year's Big League offering. Lots of fun inserts, cool photography on the base cards, dudes in new uniforms, dudes in throwback uniforms, short-term stops, and more. I'll definitely be buying more of that.

Small But Mighty

It's not everyday that I get cards via UPS but that's exactly what happened when I received some cards from Julie of A Cracked Bat. I'd gotten a email for a UPS delivery notification. "That's odd," I thought. "I don't remember ordering anything." Then I thought maybe it was something to do with my 401K until I received an email from Julie in the wee hours of the morning stating there was a package on the way via UPS. "Yay cards!"

I had called off work the day it arrived as my son's school was cancelled due to the freezer-like temperatures. I stepped out to get a quick drive-thru lunch for the family and when I got back, there was the UPS driver just leaving. I had lunch then I ... well ... cracked it open and found all kinds of super cool stuff!

I'll start with these super cool and super shiny Topps Archives Reserve cards. Topps seems to love reprints these days but if they're going to do reprints and re-issues, why not go all out like these? They took two cards from the 1954 set, chromed them up, and issued them as part of the Archives line. I'd totally be down if they did cards like this as inserts in either Chrome or Archives. Anyway, I really dig these cards.

The box had loads of Reds and Indians cards so I'll tackle them team by team. As usual, first the Reds. There were there nice Barry Larkin cards. I particularly like the Topps Tribute one as it shows Larkin in the forgotten red and black jersey and has the old school Reds logo instead of the current one.

Some cool and shiny Joey Votto cards. With the additions to the Reds lineup in the form of Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig this offseason, I'm hoping Votto can return to the form that he had in 2017 when he finished one vote shy of NL MVP.

Two Eugenio Suarez cards that look very similar but they're not. The one on the left is the base version while the one on the right is the "negative refractor". I had to look that up because I can't keep track of variation names. 

Some Topps Fire cards. The Reds dropped Billy Hamilton like a bad habit this offseason when they non-tendered him a contract. The Royals promptly scooped him up. Tucker Barnhart has been mentioned in trade rumors in exchange for J.T. Realmuto. I'm not sure why the Reds would trade Barnhart for a guy (Realmuto) who would be a free agent after the 2019 season when he (Barnhart) is under club control through 2021.

New cards weren't the only thing Julie included, there were these cards from the 90s.

And this random Ken Griffey Jr. card. Has it really been 10 years since Griffey was last a member of the Reds? Wow.

There were also cards from the early 2000s, which I really enjoy. I remember these Fleer Futures cards when they came out and I think I had a handful of them in my original collection. I remember having the Sean Casey card for sure. The weird thing about these cards is the white part feels kind of gritty but every else on the card is smooth.

Here's another Fleer product from the early 2000s, Authentix. I remember really liking these when they came out as they have the look and feel of a ticket stub, especially with the section, row, and seat numbers (which is the players uniform number). These are definitely cards I need to find more of.

I'll open the Indians section with these "slim" cards. I think the Lindor might be a duplicate, I'm not sure. I'd have to check my Indians binder.

Two cards I know that are not duplicates are these super cool mid-80s Joe Carter cards. 

Oh ... my ... gosh! These are awesome! I love cards with players wearing throwback jerseys but these just are above and beyond any of the other throwback jersey cards I have. The Tribe went all out with these, all red and the old school Indians script. These jerseys are just perfect.

Hey look ... an oddball! This is part of a 12-card set issued by Sunoco and Coca-Cola in 2001 that featured legendary greats from each team. I'm not sure how one would've gotten the cards from this set though. If anyone knows, leave a comment below.

More cool 90s cards.

Some more super shiny cards as well. The "Bowman Birthdays" Francisco Lindor is really cool!

Seeing retired players on modern cards is always a treat. The top two card of Lou Boudreau and Satchel Paige are from Topps Fire. The Paige looks to be a refractor or parallel of some kind. The bottom three are from last years Archives. I know they're not dupes either because I would've remembered pulling them from packs.

Here we have two Corey Kluber cards and much like the Eugenio Suarez cards earlier, there is a base and a parallel. 

I'd ordered some Museum Collection singles in my last COMC order. While they were mostly of retired players, it's nice to add some active players in with those now. 

In addition to Reds and Indians cards, Julie knows I have a soft spot for horror-related items so she threw in these cards as a bonus. There was a nice batch (probably about 15 or so) of the Tales From the Crypt cards so I picked out a few of my favorites. I had no knowledge about the "Uninvited Guests" minis from A&G but they're great! I'm definitely going to work on getting some more of those in advance of Halloween (yes, I'm already planning for that).

Thanks to Julie for sending me this small but mighty box of cards. I've got some cards stashed away for you somewhere that I need to get out to you soon.

Retail Repack Adventures #5

I was at the local Walgreens a while back grabbing some odds and ends and decided to take a gander at the toy aisle. As usual, they had a few repacks hanging from the shelf. The temptation was too strong so I grabbed one and just had to bring it home. Since it's been a while since I've done one of these, spring to be exact, I figured with the Christmas season upon us, now would be a good time to see what the cardboard gods gift me in this retail repack.

Our cover card, a nice 2015 Topps Heritage Rookie Performers insert of Javier Baez. I'll gladly take that to start off with. Sorry Cubs fans, I'm keeping this one.

These repacks certainly do like 2012 Topps. Interestingly there were two Thomas Field cards (he's the Rockie card in the bottom right) in the middle of the package right on top of each other. 

Some 90s stars. 1995 Leaf is a pretty foil-y and unreadable set. Don't get me wrong, I like the design, especially the diamond in the upper left with a profile shot, but do we really need all that foil? It makes the names completely unreadable.

Hey, this is pretty cool. A 1991 Topps Rookies Larry Walker card. Even though my Expos collection is now primarily focused on pre-1987 cards, this will make for a nice addition. This was the last year that Topps produced the Rookies subset.

Here's a card that goes into a new collection, that being throwback uniforms. I've always like cards featuring players in old school uniforms, no matter the sport, so I'll be on the lookout for these when perusing dime and quarter boxes.

Hey look, a very green parallel card of Erasmo Ramirez, whose name is nearly erased from all the green in this card.

Repacks are all about randomness, so what could be more random than three mid-90s catching prospects, only one of which I've heard of. For some fun, let's review the careers (with the help of Baseball Reference) of the three catchers who share this card.

First up, Kevin Brown who played in a handful of games over the 1996 and 1997 seasons with the Rangers before being dealt to Toronto. With the Blue Jays in 1998, he saw action in 52 games and hit .264 with two homers and 15 RBIs. After that season, he never appeared in more that 17 games in any one season and bounced around from the Blue Jays to the Brewers and two final games with the Red Sox in 2002.

Next, there's Ben Davis who spent 7 years in the bigs, mostly with the Padres. His most prolific season was 2001 playing in 138 games with a .227 average, 11 HRs, and 57 RBIs. Most of his career though was spent as a serviceable back-up catcher with the Padres, White Sox, and finishing up with the Mariners in 2004.

Finally, the most notable of the batch and that's Bobby Estalella, who played 9 years in the majors most notably with the Phillies and the Giants, but also spent time with the Yankees, Rockies, Diamondbacks, and Blue Jays. Like his counterparts on this card, he was a mostly a backup catcher but landed a starting role with the Giants in 2000 hitting .234 with 14 home runs and 53 RBIs in 106 games.

I love the 80s ... especially 80s cardboard. Plus, who can go wrong with Thad Bosley in the White Sox softball uniforms, an early Donruss card of Larry Bowa, and an old-school Indians card. The rest of these are just icing on the cake.

Along with the 2012 Topps I mentioned earlier, there was a handful of 2014 Topps as well. These were the best of the batch. I always get 2013 and 2014 confused as the designs look nearly identical. Side note, I really dig the uniform on the Rafael Soriano card.

Lastly, there was a pack of Triple Play that was probably acquired for a song. I was tempted to not even open in and throw it in some random trade package but my curiosity got the best of me and I figured I could give the cards to my three year old son. Then I found this ...

I guess this would be classified as a hit? I'm not sure but I know I've never seen anyone pull a card like this from a Triple Play pack. Then again, not many people are opening packs of Triple Play these days. They're mostly thrown on the scrap heap with packs of 1990 Donruss and any other unwanted junk wax cards. I'll give this card to my son, I think he'll enjoy it.

This wasn't the best repack ever but it was still fun to open regardless. I've got the itch now so I might have to grab another one of these next time I make a run to Walgreens.