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.