Happy Birthday To Me.

      So Friday was my 47th birthday, a most nondescript age to turn to say the least.  I took the day off to have myself a nice four-day weekend. Of course, as much as having 96 hours to do nothing would be ideal, one has to use at least some downtime for the errands one must attend to.  Being a grown up is lame. But I decided while I was going to be out and about to at least also attend to some of my childish amusement which means baseball cards, of course. 

Having recently finished my 1975 Topps set, I've taken on the challenge of the 1972 set next.  I know this one will take years (it took me years to build it the first time). I've gathered all the stars I have and bought myself a nice starter set at a decent price. But while I now have a good 80% of the first 653 cards, after that - the dreaded high numbers - I only had 4 of them. So I know it is a long term task ahead of me. 

 

 

Ah, but this is where some serendipity comes in, even more than my '75 set had.  I was around a comic store I know has card supplies and some boxes of random sports card stuff. I have spoken of this place before. It is always a fun visit to a joint that has been good to me before but I doubt it will ever be better than this. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to start my '72 set officially two weeks ago and aside from my initial gathering hadn't done anything more. Heck, I haven't even put together a want list yet. (UPDATE: Yes, I have, in my brands and sets wantlist tab) But as I dove into the dark vintage old school cardboard section of that quarter box, it was like some kind of wild daydream. It was loaded with 1972 Topps. And not just any kind of 1972 Topps, I immediately recognized these cards as high numbers. And there was not just three or four of them, there was dozens of them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obviously, it is clear that a comic shop might not be well versed in what they had in this vein of cards and I didn't feel it was my place to tell them. I mean, it's not like there was the Nolan Ryan or Frank Robinson traded card in here. But the Rick Wise traded card was in there. And about 60 other high numbers. I asked and made sure the unsleeved vintage was a quarter and I was told yes so I just went with it. All in all, I nabbed 90 or so total that I needed for my new set. And I got those high numbers for a quarter a piece; I couldn't have done that the first time I built this set in the late 90s. I should feel guilty but I don't. I also got a huge lot of series 5 original Star Wars cards too at the same price, but that is a different post (and they should have known better about those). There was also a bunch of other vintage stuff in there, some 1968 commons that I couldn't resist and some '70s team cards. Along with a shiny new binder and a big monster box, it was quite the trip and turned out to be a glorious, unexpected birthday present for me. I'll have a new list up soon for the '72 set soon and I even have a few high number doubles to trade. Try not to take horrible advantage of me.

Well D.A.M.

    Looking at today's date, I knew it would be pretty easy to do a post today.  And sure, anyone could throw up a Brandon Puffer or Jung Bong (or Tobi Stoner or Josh Smoker) and call it a day, but I decided to go in a direction few would expect from me, I am going to praise a Yankees player as today is the 59th birthday of Donald Arthur Mattingly.

Mattingly takes up five pages in my retired player books, which is pretty much the most of anyone I can think of who doesn't have a dedicated player collection.  I think I might also have five pages of Mark McGwire and Nomar Garciaparra but I'd have to check on that.

I respected the hell out of Mattingly as a player when I was a kid, his prime years were right in the middle of my childhood obsession with all things baseball plus I was living in New Jersey surrounded by Yankees fans so it was impossible not to know all about him. From everything I could see, he was a good dude with a sweet swing who made the most of his chance with the team since he was one of the few young players the Yankees didn't trade away in the early 80s for washed up veterans.  So seeing his cards is like a time capsule of all those great designs and oddball issues; he was one of the big hits you got when opening a pack.  Plus Donnie "looked" like a ballplayer.  I mean, you don't get a name like Donnie Baseball for nothing.  The mustache, the flowing hair, the pinstripes, it all adds up to a perfect mystique.

I always refer to Mattingly as The Reverse Koufax in that he had five or six amazing seasons followed by five or six mediocre seasons punctuated by a career shortening injury.  Koufax was exactly the opposite.  His first seven years were mediocre at best and then he had five or six of the most amazing seasons you ever saw and sadly had to retire due to injury.  Koufax's career numbers aren't that much different than say Johan Santana or Ron Guidry's and yet the only way they will ever get to Cooperstown is by buying a ticket.  If Koufax hadn't built his legend and left us wanting more, he would never have had the unbelievable awe around his name.  Mattingly's numbers are similar to another player, Kirby Puckett, who also left early due to injury.  Puckett is in the Hall of Fame, first ballot no less, and Mattingly isn't.  It is one of the rare times a Yankees player has gotten shafted by the system and by our memories.  If you reverse his career trajectory and have him build that amazing resume peaking at his 1985 or 1986 season and then leave at 34 with a back injury, he's in the hall no doubt.  This isn't me arguing that he should be in Cooperstown, mind you, but it is a major part of his legacy that isn't always talked about. It is one of the more undeniable examples that perception is reality.

Alas, the one place Don has not acquitted himself is as a manager.  The Yankees passed over him for Joe Girardi so he went to Los Angeles and there, he made less out of more for five seasons and after they got tired of him, he's gone to Miami where most old people go to rot and done less with less.  The less said about all this, the better.   

If you care to notice, this page is nothing but fielding photos of Donnie Baseball.

The other important thing about Don Mattingly that always gets talked about was his defense.  He won nine gold gloves and I can recall more than a few big arguments, both in my childhood years and adulthood, about who was better, Keith Hernandez or Don Mattingly.  There is no denying that Mattingly could pick it at first base about as good as anyone and I am not going to disparage his play.  But Keith redefined defensive play at first and Mattingly then fit into that definition. There is something to be said about setting defensive standards; it is why Ozzie Smith is in the Hall (and Bill Mazeroski for that matter).  Mattingly played like Keith and in most ways as well as Keith at first base but Keith was the first and best one to play the way he did at first.  That is why I always say Keith Hernandez deserves to be in the Hall even more so than Mattingly despite his offensive numbers being lesser.  There is something to being the first one to do something.

***

Some further reading on the subject here.

Leap of Faith.

       Eight years ago, I decided to start a card blog, this card blog in fact.  And for a few years there, I was pretty good at it.  I had a clear directive, I made some fun posts, got at least a dozen readers or so that seemed to enjoy the writing, and I even had an enjoyable time doing it.  Alas, lately that has not remotely been the case.

After posting regularly and then semi-regularly and then erratically, things pretty much dried up the last few years. I didn't post at all in the last year, not even my usual silly Christmas Eve post or anything.  A lot of things conspired to do this: life in general, my health specifically, photobucket pretty much ruining 90% of my work in the first five years of this blog, and then the anxiety and inertia of the more you don't do something, the more you don't do it even if you want to.  It's a vicious circle.

I still collect with a passion and I still read a lot of your blogs and honestly, I do miss it. I miss the trades and the silly inside jokes and all that nonsense. Even though blogging is so passe in the year 2020 and this certainly wouldn't be the first time I have promised to come back and do more posts, I am going to try again.  I have a lot of fun pages I have made - like this one of dudes born on February 29th.  I have so many opinions to share with you that I know you are on the edge of your seat to read (how about those Houston Astros, huh?).  And finally, the reasons I started this blog are still true: I love this stupid hobby and I want to share that with people who also stupidly love it enough to share it.  So *fingers crossed* hopefully this is the start of a whole new round of blogging and I look forward to hearing from you and bringing it to you. 

p.s. I do not miss scanning stuff. Ugh.

Beirut.

       Today is Babe Ruth's 123rd birthday which had he lived past 1948 would make him the oldest person to ever live. This makes a bit of poetic sense because Ruth set records that don't make much sense even today.

I make fun of the Yankees at any opportunity but let's face facts, Babe Ruth is the greatest there ever was and the best there ever will be.  In fact, his numbers are so screwy people often just forget about him when arguing who the best player of all time is because he is such a conversation killer.  It's as if there is Babe Ruth and then everyone else. 

I remember in college, and this is 25 years ago before there was internet based smartphones to answer every argument immediately, one of my roommates was kind of ignorant of Ruth's overwhelming numbers.  When I said he once hit .390 and was in the top ten in career batting average, he laughed and said "there's no way that fat tub hit .390!" and right then and there we had to march to the library where I pulled out the Baseball Encyclopedia and gave him a humbling education.  And while there are some hitters who have approached his greatness, there is one thing that is one of the all time trump cards in history.

This last page here is one of my favorite pages in my collection.  For all his mythical qualities, the one thing that always slips through the cracks is that Ruth was well on his way to being a hall of fame pitcher when he decided that he was better at that hitting thing.  By the age of 24 his career marks were 89-46 with a 2.19 ERA. Even at the end of the deadball era, those are Walter Johnson/Christy Mathewson type numbers over 6ish years.  One can only wonder what the end result would have been if he had pitched in the majors for 22+ years instead.  If anyone ever points out the exploits of Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, or Barry Bonds and tries to make them out to somehow be better than Ruth, just ask them if they ever won 94 games as a pitcher as well.  It is a joy to watch the life in their eyes die because there's just no counter move to that argument.

“How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball... The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.”

We were all lucky to get 53 years of Babe Ruth since he lived as hard as he played.  I think one can easily say he lived 123+ years in that time.   Happy Birthday ya big lug.

Three Bad Nicknames For The Hall.

       One of the problems with restarting the blog at the beginning of January is there's just not a lot going on, both in the hobby and life in general.  Luckily, along comes the Hall of Fame to give me something to write and rant about.  Four years after not bothering to elect anyone, the writers continued their unparalleled generosity by humbly decided to allow three men into their sacred realm. 

Jeff Bagwell.

Bagwell was named on 381 of 442 ballots (86.2%) in his 7th year of eligibility. 


I am a little biased when it comes to Bagwell as he is one of my birthday boys, born on the same day as me and the exact same day as Frank Thomas - May 27, 1968.  I am pretty sure this is the first time Hall of Famers have been born on the exact same day, and though my internet research didn't prove this for certain, I am going to make this bold proclamation.  I easily have as many Bagwell cards as I do Frank Thomas cards and it is a secret part of my collection that has somehow not seen much exposure here.  Expect a similar post like the Big Hurt's there with his cards before July.


Bags (or Baggy or Bag Pipes) had his election delayed as so many have due to unfounded rumors of PED use.  Given his amazing and amazingly consistent numbers, his inclusion in Cooperstown is long overdue.  And given his quirky batting stance and fantastic facial hair, he deserved a better nickname than a simple twist of his name. 

Ivan Rodriguez.

Pudge was elected with 336 votes out of 442 for a narrow 76% of the vote in his first time on the ballot.  He somehow overcame the incessant PED rumors (and out right admissions) and got in without years of nonsense.  I hope this is a sign of things to come. 

Rodriguez was a teenage marvel and a 40-year old wonder and pretty damn good in between.  He set the record for the most game caught, threw out runners from his knees, stole an MVP award from Pedro Martinez, led teams with fiery gusto and ended a playoff series about as awesomely as possible.  The man was unique and deserved his own fitting nickname rather than a recycled one, though he did do Carlton Fisk proud in its appropriation.

Tim Raines.

Raines was checked off on 380 of 442 ballots (86.0%) in his 10th year on the ballot.  Given the new rules, I am pretty sure this would have been his last year on the ballot before being turned over to the veterans committee.

Why it took 10 years is pretty mystifying but given the writers usual biases, Raines found himself in a perfect storm of "why players don't make the Hall of Fame when it is obvious they should."  Raines began his career in obscurity in Montreal, hardly a media hot bed.  He was great at one thing and really good at a lot of things, but he was not the greatest at that one thing so the other things got lost.  The things he was best at are kind of obscure and not very glamorous.  Plus rather than stay on one team for his whole career, he bounced around at the end and settled for being a role player on winning Yankees teams rather than compile sexy numbers like 3000 hits or 1000 stolen bases.  The strongest argument as to why Raines should be in Cooperstown is the simple, yet overlooked, figure of times on base: he is right *ahead* of Tony Gwynn, a sure-fire first ballot guy, on that list in practically the same number of plate appearances.  But they don't give fancy awards for on base percentage and they do for batting titles.   He also was the second guy to ever play on a team with his son, and you can ask Larry Doby what the Hall thinks of dudes who do things second.  He even got sick at the end of his career but it was this time, it was lupus, a disease that can kill you but also brings out the jokes rather than the telethons.  And finally, it all comes back around to the nickname Rock, which while it innocently brings an image of a strong, sturdy guy (which Raines most certainly was) that nickname probably did not have such simple origins.  I seriously doubt you will see it on his plaque.

While these are three very deserving men to be inducted, as usual, there are a few elephants in the room.  One is the awful fact that Bud Selig was elected a few months ago by the Today's Game committee, which was inevitable given the penchant for long time commissioners to be elected no matter what the circumstance.  Some of the writers saw through this slight hypocrisy and the votes for many of the PED poster boys went up.  I really wanted Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens to go in with Selig to add to his embarrassment but alas, they will have to wait.  My other issue is with how Edgar Martinez has been treated by the writers.  Follow me here, Trevor Hoffman has been on the ballot for two years and came very close to getting in this year and will probably get over the hump next year.  Closers have been all over the map on the writers' radar - some have to wait, some skate in - but all in all, they have been pretty generous to them.  The writers have accepted that closers are part of the game.  But what did poor Edgar Martinez do?  It's not his fault the American League instituted the DH rule in 1973 and never rescinded it.  And it is certainly not his fault the Mariners were too stupid to give him a starting job before he was 27 years old.  He just played by the rules of the game.  The designated hitter is part of the game and has been for more than 40 years.  They are real baseball players.  Seriously, you can look it up.  Would Edgar Martinez be that much better a candidate if he had played a mediocre third or first base for most of his career like Harmon Killebrew did?  It comes down to a simple question, if you were going to start a team and have a player for 15 years, would you rather have Trevor Hoffman or Edgar Martinez?  Exactly.

You can observe a lot by watching.

So I'm ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face.

Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded.

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.

90 percent of this game is half mental.



The future ain't what it used to be.

You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours.

We made too many wrong mistakes.

When you come to a fork in the road…take it.



Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.

It's deja vu all over again.

I just want to thank everyone who made this day necessary.

It ain't over 'til it's over.

Happy 90th Birthday to the greatest philosopher of our times.

I never said most of the things I said.

Generations.

       Forty-five years ago today, Ken Griffey, Jr. was born in Donora PA. 


As most folks my age are wont to do, I got suckered in to loving Junior early and that adoration never really went away.  All through the early and mid 90's, my Mets really sucked and didn't have many players worth rooting for, so Griffey was an out-of-town escape from my hometown doldrums.



I always liked the way Griffey looked in a Reds uniform; oh how I wish things worked out better for him there.



Griffey has some of the most iconic cards of all-time but one that slips through the cracks is that bubble gum 1995 Pinnacle shot.  Maybe because it isn't the best bubble card of all time?  I think it deserves more love, the look on his face is priceless.



I have a bunch of Griffey inserts as well, but you will just have to be satisfied with the six(!) pages I have of him.  This was whittled down from many more years ago when I decided to not collect every single player I liked in mass quantities.  Of all the player collections I pared down, Junior's was probably the hardest one to do.  Six pages is the most I have of any player in either the retired or hall of fame binders. 



And of course, here is the obligatory page with his dad, Ken Griffey, Sr.  Did you know at one point Ken Griffey, Jr. Lee May, Jr. and Pete Rose, Jr. (and Eduardo Perez, who is a combo-breaker) all played on the same traveling team?  That seems, um, unfair.



       Ninety-four years ago today, Stan Musial was born in Donora PA. 


Opinions obviously vary wildly about who the most basebally baseball player who ever baseballed is, but gun to my head, I'd have to go with Stan.  He looked the part, he acted the part, and he was, well, The Man.


With apologies to Tom McCraw, Freddie Lindstrom, Dick Schofield, Bill Almon, Hank Blalock, Mark Eichhorn, and Tripp Cromer (amongst others) who never ever get mentioned as having a birthday today because they had the karmic misfortune to be born on the same day as two of the greatest baseball players of all time. 

Sixty-six years ago today, my mother was born in beautiful downtown Jersey City.  As far as I know, she has never been to Donora PA. 

My mom has spent the last month or so in New Orleans, going to games and following the players around.  She is sort of a stalker who doesn't "stalk" or perhaps a groupie who doesn't actually sleep with the players - she is old enough to be the grandmother of some of them, after all.   But in between drinking and eating, she loves to go see the players in public (see above) and she does make the rounds, believe me.

Since I can't be there to do it in person, here is Akiem Hicks to give you a great big hug.  Happy Birthday Mom!

Just Check Out My (Not So) Common Birthday Present To Myself.

       Tuesday was my birthday; I hit the immortal Jack Benny number.  Much as 29 sounded much older to me than 30, 39 seems to be bumming me out much more than I imagine 40 will.  My mood increased tremendously, though, when I went to the mailbox and found not one but two fat jiffy packs waiting for me - one from COMC.com and one from Just Commons.  Granted, I didn't actually plan for them to arrive on my birthday but I'll take a thin slice of serendipity any time. 

The stuff I ordered from COMC was pure frivolity.  Like many of you I'm sure, I have plucked away at their Challenge to help reassemble their database.  Over the last few weeks, I've used my insomnia time to squirrel away $42 worth of found money for cardboard.  The next couple of scans show the bounty of my superfluous harvest:

Shiny Mets.  Shiny Mets everywhere.  Normally, these Fan Favorites refractors are overpriced but with a fistful of loose dollars, I made offers on as many as I could.  I got the four you see for between 2 and 3 bucks each.  Speaking of shiny, those Tribute cards finish off a set I started making 11 years ago.  Well, I started making it a couple months ago with some cards I found in a long forgotten box from 11 years ago.  Funny how that works.  Nolan and Roberto there weren't cheap but in my world, they were free.  Those bottom three Finest cards are pre-production models that finish off a page that has had six of them for as long as I have been making pages of sets.  Of course, now I have to figure out what to do with the 3 1994 Bowman promos that have been occupying that page for a while.

Following that trend, I finished off a few other pages that have long eluded completion.  This buying spree was like finding two $20 bills in a winter coat:

Those 1996 Playoff Pennant football cards are not just die cut triangles, they are made of felt, so they are all fuzzy and touchable.  I have had seven of them laying around forever.  Now they have the required nine.  The Donruss Champions sent from 2005 was not a favorite, but I liked the award winners subset and now there is a page of that too.  I had Legends pages of 2002 and 2003 Diamond Kings, so for completistism's sake, I now have 2004.  Half of them are in color and half are in black and white.  I am not certain if that is part of the design or if they are variations or something but I like the B&W ones better.  Lastly, I bought one each of the Heritage buybacks I didn't have so they can hang out on my Topps pages.  I picked those up for $2 pretend dollars each. 

My other spree from mid-May was on Just Commons.  Once again, I blame my current bought of insomnia.  Over three or four nights, I filled up my shopping cart with about 100 cards and $20 worth of stuff.  Sadly, these cost me a real Andrew Jackson.  Happily, Just Commons is a wonderful site to pick up random cards you never thought you'd find and/or refuse to buy for $3 each on ebay.  Aside from the first card on the first scan, nothing was more than 37 cents.

I discovered that Brooks Robinson and David Wright card while I was obsession of one of the same players of a slightly different caliber.  While going through my HOF binder, I noticed I didn't have a Lou Brock card of him on the Cubs, so I rectified that issue.  I recently decided to make a Gregg Jefferies page of cards of him not on the Mets, since that was when he was most successful.  My last package of JC cards had boatloads of Rookie Cup needs, this time, it only has three but it does complete the 1997 team.  The bottom three are some Sandy Koufax cards for his page and a Jim Bunning card to start his page.  I wrote about this year's Gypsy Queen on A Pack to be Named Later; I might have been too kind.

I finished off a lot of player pages, here they are in condensed pile form:

Jimmie Foxx, Joe Torre, Starlin Castro, Luis Tiant, and Bobby Murcer are now all completed (I underestimated my needs and still need one Walt Alston).  I was born a bit too young to have seen Luis Tiant pitch but from everything I have seen about him, I am absolutely convinced he would have been my favorite pitcher.  He's like the best parts of Hideo Nomo, Fernando Valenzuela, and Pedro Martinez all thrown together.  I think we all should worship at the alter of El Tiante.  Right in the middle there is Matt Harvey, I mean, how could go on a spree and not buy some Harvey cards?  The last two piles are of cards with a particular number (527) and of players named Max.  I couldn't think of anything more appropriate to get on my birthday. 

Dollar Hot Dog Night: The Return.

       As I pointed out in this very popular post from last month, I got my brother the same thing this year for his birthday as I did last year.  Oh, I usually get him tickets to a baseball game but this year I got him tickets to the same stadium with the same teams and the exact same promotion.  And oh what a promotion it is: dollar hot dog night!  But mother nature did her best to keep us from enjoying this glorious evening...

It rained on and off all day.  When we drove to the stadium, it started to pour.  As you can see, when we got there, the tarp was on the field.  There was hope though because there was a "window" - a small break where there was about two and a half hours of lighter rain and since it was supposed to pour all day Wednesday, it seems they were going to get this game in come hell or, um, high water.

At 8pm, around an hour after the game was supposed to start, they stated to take the tarp off the field.  This was by far the loudest cheer of the evening from the home crowd. 

You will notice in the upper left hand corner that they were showing the Flyers/Rangers game on the big screen.  This was the other highlight of the evening for the Philly fans as the Flyers would win the game (but alas, not the series).  Since I hate both of these teams, I was rooting for the meteor all series - but not this night since the Flyers play right next to Citizens Bank Park. 

How alike are my brother and I?  It took this deluge of rain for us to notice that we independently own matching raincoats.  Kinda sad but not the least bit surprising.  We also once bought the exact same pair of prescription sunglasses.  You'd think we came from the same gene pool or something and grew up in the same house.

An hour and an half rain delay meant that there were plenty of good seats available at game time.  The announced crowd was 28,000.  My guess is that maybe 5,000 were there at first pitch.  And I hold no grudge against any of them.  Anyone willing to sit out in this kind of rain and the 45 degree weather (oh, did I mention it was 45 fucking degrees out too? At the end of April?!?) is a hardcore baseball fan.  This made our seatmates, even though they were all Phillies fans, quite enjoyable.  No smack talk or jackasses at this game.  We were all in this together.

As for the game itself, Jonathon Niese obviously likes it cold and rainy because he pitched a wonderful game.  Seven innings of three hit ball, his only mistake a fastball to Marlon Byrd that was bone straight that went about 10 rows back in left field.

Niese's mound opponent did not take to the cold and wet as well.  Cole Hamels is a California boy and he looked it all night.  He was very uncomfortable and couldn't get a grip on the ball.  He walked the 8th and 9th hitters at one point to force in a run and I realized "hey, maybe this game could work out well for us..."

And in the end, it did.   By the seventh inning, we were the very last people in the third deck of the stadium (they had closed the upper deck early in the game) and the ushers asked us ever so politely to go to the field level so they could go home.  My brother and I obliged them and from there we watched the end of the game.   It was a real slog through the last few innings as the Mets bullpen decided to go 3-2 on what seemed like every batter.  Somehow, though, they did not give up anymore runs and the Mets won the game 6-1.  This was the first game my brother and I could recall in a very long time that the Mets won while we were in attendance.  My best guess at the last time they won one?  This game in Camden Yards in 2010.  By the end of the game, there were about 500 fans left in the stadium, half of them Mets fans.  Heck, there was more security people than fans by the end.  It was a nice, quick, happy ride home in the driving rain.  This might also be the first baseball game I have ever attended when I drank more hot cocoa than beer.

Oh, and what about the most important score of the night...who had more hot dogs?  Well...

This one was kind of over before it started.  My brother decided to go on Weight Watchers right after we decided to go to this game back in February, thus he only had three.  I, on the other hand, had seven just to break my mark of six from last year.  So yeah, I beat my brother handily in this department.  But I am also quite proud of his will power and of the 30 pound he has lost in that time.  Of course, when he complained about how cold it was at one point, I told him he would be a lot warmer with 30 more pounds of blubber on him.  Sometimes you can't win, huh?

I Continue To Treat My Birthday Like I Am 8 Years Old.

       My birthday was Memorial Day.  Please, please, no need to regale me with good wishes (though I will always accept cake). This year I didn't do much of anything on my birthday as most people were having barbecues and such in reverence for war dead and I just felt like sitting around drinking and eating baked goods. So that I did.  I also watched my Mets beat the Yankees; it was a good day. 

So a few days later, I found myself in Target looking for some new shorts because it is suddenly July hot.  As I was walking towards the men's department, I saw the little card nook.  I thought to myself "hey, it was just my birthday, I deserve a little treat," so treat myself I did.  I saw rack packs of Triple Play, and I liked those a lot last year, so I grabbed one of those.  I also saw some of the new shiny Panini Prizm, so I procured some of that as well.  And while I was standing there, my 8-year old impulses kicked in.  I saw a box of discounted non-sports cards for .99 cents a pop and I went a little hog wild.  I also snagged a couple packs of Topps Opening Day and a repack, because, hey, birthday!

There is the little pile I gathered on that Wednesday and I got home a tore them open and ate my lunch and had a ball.  Let's take a look at what I got:

The caricatures were cool last year and they look even better this year.  I also like the clean design to allow the art to pop.   As a way to get around not having an official license, this is by far my favorite.   I don't even mind that Matt Harvey looks like the kid from Napoleon Dynamite.

Here are some more of them, along with the nick-knacks:

I got both the card and the sticker of Starlin Castro, pity I am not a Cubs fan.  I also got some Derek Jeter stickers.  Meh.  Those all-star cards, though, are wonderful, I may have to make a second page of this stuff just to highlight those.  Those Dodgers on the bottom have a destination, but if there is anything you really really have to have, drop me a line and I am sure we can trade - and that goes for any of the stuff we will look at here...

The Opening Day...

...was exactly what I anticipated it would be.  Getting both a Bryce Harper and Steven Strasburg makes me wish these packs had gone to a Nats fan, but oh well.  The picture on the Miguel Cabrera is magnificent.  And as much as I would like to keep that Manny Machado card, I know someone else who wants it more.

Now for some heartbreak...

I had such high hopes for Panini Prizm, but man, do these work better in theory than in practice.  I know Panini is trying to make the best of not having a MLB license. I mean, look, the players association logo is right on the front, so they are kinda official, right? (I have never seen that before) It just seems that the airbrushing and logo obscuring poses just don't work on a chrome-like set.  No matter how nice they try to make these look, they still look cheap.  And it's a shame, because it's not a terrible design and lord knows I love me some shiny.

I bought 4 packs of this stuff and it just doesn't work and didn't grow on me and now looking at it a week later, I really feel the weight of that disappointment.

They have old time players involved in here too, and they have the airbrush/obscuring thing going on as well.  That is fine for 1989 Cap'n Crunch cards but not for modern $3 a pack cards.  I see Panini is putting Extra Edition cards in here too.  Does that mean they won't do a separate set of these like they have in the past?  So many questions. This set is a noble effort but a tremendous failure.  I don't think I will even make a page of these.

Let's cleans the palette by taking a look at some highlights of the repack:

There was the usual odd mix of cards, some new stuff, a chunk of 80's junk, some 90's junk, and some real surprises.  I had forgotten all about the 1990 Starline set.  I remember the posters were quite popular in the late 80's, but I never saw they did a card set until well after the fact and I don't own any of them.  I got 4 cards from the 40 card set in here, including a Met, Frank Viola.  Overall, though, this repack seemed like a real dud until I got to the second to last card, that's where I found that Frank Thomas Supermarket Rookies card.  Thomas is one of the players who shares my birthday; I also did not own this card.  Sounds like fate to me.

I decided also upon a couple packs of last year's Star Wars Galactic Files set:

This was described on it as "the definitive set" full of the original trilogy, the prequels and some canon stuff.  I got a real interesting mix of all three.

There were a couple names I didn't recognize, so I googled them, this may have been an error in judgment when it comes to one of them...all I can say is the internet has far too much time on it's hands when it comes to female characters in sci-fi. SMH.  Anyway, the center card is a Memorable Quotes insert with the best two words in all of the Star Wars universe.  This is the page I made out of these cards. 

And then there were the .99 packs.  First off are some Mario Cart cards.  I had no idea such a thing existed.  So much of my time in the last 20 years had been elegantly wasted playing Mario Cart. Now I have some in card form:

I bought two packs so I would have 10 cards to make a page from. 

These are some leftovers...I have no idea why I stuck them here.  Moving on.


Next to the Mario Cart packs were Super Mario Wii packs.  I bought my brother that game for Christmas a couple years ago and we spent a good amount of time playing it proving that we do not work well together.  We also had a ball...

...once again...

I bought two packs so I would be sure to be able to make a whole page out of them.

A few years ago, a Super Bowl commercial introduced me to the most overplayed song of the decade and Yo Gabba Gabba. Not having any children, I was unaware at the time I was being introduced to Yo Gabba Gabba, I just thought the toys in the ad were the work of some trippy marketeer.  I was wrong. 

I actually kind of enjoy the completely drugged out nature of this show.  I will never have kids, but if I did, I would totally let them watch this.  I felt I should own a page worth of their cards.  Plus, there were 10 in a pack, so I only had to buy one. This made my inner 8-year old very happy.  I even continued the childish non-sports bonanza buy picking up a pack of Bill Nye the Science Guy cards on Listia.  You can see how that turned out here.

The other highlight of the afternoon...

White Castle! I rarely make it down far enough on Route 17 to indulge in these treasures.  But on this day, since I had designated it Birthday present time, I decided to go hog wild.  Luckily, the shorts I bought at Target have an elastic waist band.