Retail Repack Adventures #7

Seven is usually a lucky number and also represents many, many things in society and in life ... there's 7-Eleven, the seven days of the week, James Bond is agent 007,  and there was a really awesome old PC game called The 7th Guest that was out when I was a kid. A lot of people consider 7 to be their lucky number, so since this is the seventh repack I've opened from the local Walgreens, let's hope this brings a bit of luck.

Our cover card, a card from the Jackie Robinson story retail insert set. I don't remember which store this was an exclusive to but I think it may have been Walmart as Target had a similar Babe Ruth set. It's entirely possible though that I could have that reversed. This particular card commemorates his Hall of Fame induction in 1962, thus becoming the first black player elected to the Hall of Fame. This wasn't the most enticing cover card and I probably should have seen this as an omen that it wouldn't be a great repack.

Upon first glance when I was sifting through the cards in box, I though this was just any old 2006 Topps base card of A-Rod. However, upon a closer examination, it turns out this was from National Baseball Card day in 2006. I was happy to participate in it this past summer and I hope Topps brings it back for another go around this summer. I like the fact this is just a simple posed shot at what looks like the Yankees spring training facility. It's definitely a card that you don't come across every day. 

It looks like 2016 cards are already showing up in these things. Houston had a down year this past season after their surprising playoff run in 2015. With the additions of Carlos Beltran, Josh Reddick, Norichika Aoki, Charlie Morton, and Brian McCann among others this offseason that were added to the young core that features Correa, George Springer, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman and the Astros appear to be a very interesting team on paper going into 2017.

No repack will be complete without scads of base cards from recent years. Every one of these that I've opened recently has produced at least a page and a half of 2014 Topps cards and another handful or at least a page full of 2012 Topps. My favorite card of this group has to be the Dan Straily card from the 2014 cards. Straily was pretty much the ace of the Reds rotation last year with 14-8 record and recording just shy of 200 innings. Pretty impressive for a guy that was a waiver claim days before the season started and began the year as the long man in the bullpen and has since been traded to Miami for three prospects.

On the surface, the top card may look like it has nothing in common with the bottom two cards. However, look a bit closer. The top card is from the 2000 Topps Opening Day set with the bottom two from the 2004 Upper Deck First Pitch set. Both sets celebrate Opening Day is appears so they do have something in common after all, aside from the obvious fact that they are all really cool horizontal cards.

I'll wrap up this rather uninspiring repack with some card from the 80s and the 2000s. The Sosa card is my second card of him as an Oriole as I picked up a relic card of his at the card shop last spring from the discount bin. Speaking of the Orioles, although I'm sure the Eddie Murray card is a duplicate, I really dig the way the orange uniform top meshes with the wood grain border of '87 Topps.

All in all, this was a pretty dull repack. Between this and the last Walgreens repack that I opened that was marred with duplicates and a severely damaged Dan Plesac card, I think I'm done with these for a while, at least the ones from Walgreens. Not to worry though, I've found more retail repacks to continue on with that I can hopefully hit the bullseye on (that's a hint as to where they're from). 

You've Got Mail #59: Ain't Nobody Got Time for Cardboard (aka Secret Santa 2016) - Part 2

While I'm sure everyone will be posting about the Hall of Fame inductees tonight, I'm continuing on with part 2 of my Secret Santa package. As I mentioned in the part one, Andy from Ain't Nobody Got Time for Cardboard won the draw to be my Secret Santa this past Christmas. Picking up from where I left off, here's the remainder of what Andy sent over.

No Christmas package would be complete without some of the snowflake cards from the Topps Walmart exclusive Holiday boxes. I opened one box of them myself and I though it was a pretty fun break, especially with the guaranteed relic card. I'll share my findings on that in a future post. The Cubs cards were a nice surprise that were thrown in. 

All of these were packaged together with a note that said they were part of a "parallel universe". I couldn't agree more. Of all of these through, I think the chrome Robert Stephenson card is my favorite.

While I didn't have this Barry Larkin card on my most wanted list, it was one I had my eye on here and there. I really enjoyed the 2015 Panini Contenders baseball set and was disappointed when I didn't see it make a return, although I guess it kind of did as inserts in the Elite Extra Edition set. Vintage cards like the Griffey card are always welcomed to my collection. I've got a special section in my vintage binder reserved for Reds cards just like this.

Finally, to close this out, there were some Bengals thrown in as well. While I've cut back on my Bengals collecting, I'll still welcome new cards for some of the top players. The bottom two cards are my first experience with the Gridiron Kings cards and I must say that I really enjoy them. While I'm not going to race out and buy any packs, if there are a few Bengals cards like this in bargain bins the next time I hit up a card show, I'll definitely consider picking them up.

This was an awesome secret Santa package and it went way above and beyond what I expected. Again, a big thanks to Matt at BWTP for organizing everything and thanks to Andy for the great cards.

You've Got Mail #58: Ain't Nobody Got Time for Cardboard (aka Secret Santa 2016) - Part 1

Where to start.

I suppose I could start by thanking Matt from Bob Walk the Plank for organizing and running the whole Secret Santa deal. I guess I could also thank my Secret Santa, that being Andy from Ain't Nobody Got Time for Cardboard. He dropped a package on me the likes of which I'm still in awe of. It had so much stuff, in fact, that I'm going to have to split it up into two posts. This particular post will feature the hits that were thrown in.

Here's the lone football relic card, a basic A.J. Green card. Nothing wrong with this at all, as a matter of fact I actually kind of like it. It's not a basic plain white swatch, no it's a basic black swatch. I think it fits in rather nicely though with the orange and black color scheme of the card. I'm hoping that Green has good comeback next year as he ended the season on injured reserve and this was the first year with less than 1000 receiving yards

Chris Gruler was, at one time, a promising pitching prospect for the Reds, even being rated #77 in pre-2003 rankings by Baseball America. However, injuries constantly derailed his career before it even began. He spent four seasons in the Reds minor league system, never advancing above low-A Dayton and only appearing in 25 games over the course of those seasons. I think a fun article one of these days would be to go through the cards of Reds prospects that never reached the majors and see just how far each of them got.

When the Reds were hot from 2010-2013, Chris Heisey was a formidable fourth outfielder with some good pop off the bench when needed. However, he got too expensive for a Reds team that fell from grace pretty fast after 2013. He was traded off to the Dodgers for Matt Magill, a trade that amounted to more than a salary dump than anything. This is a really nice looking card and anything Gypsy Queen I definitely enjoy.

These were probably my two favorite relic cards included in the package. I really like the look of the Kearns card, not to mention its got the pinstripe going down the left side and the blue on the sides gives it a pretty unique look. Speaking of unique looks, the Paul O'Neill card has a pretty unique way the jersey piece is put in the card. O'Neill's stint with the Reds seems to always get forgotten about so getting a card like this is nice in the grand scheme of things.

A couple cards with plain grey pieces, not that there's anything wrong with that. Scott Rolen has never officially retired, unless I missed something somewhere and felt like a steal when the Reds got him from Toronto in 2009.

To close out the hits, this orange parallel signature of Tony Cingrani, who has one of the most illegible autographs I've ever seen. Seriously, it looks like the number 3 and a squiggle afterwards. Oh well, it's still a really nice card.

That's just part one of the awesome cards Andy sent over, part two with all the parallels and other craziness will be coming up in a few days.