Everything But The Verlanders.

This month, I settle all draft folder business.  This week in particular, I am clearing out all the trade posts that I began but for whatever reason, did not finish. 

This one is not so much a trade post as it is a contest winning post, but hey, stuff came in the mail from someone else, so it counts.  This pile of goodness came in June of 2014 from Dennis of Too Many Verlanders (née Too Many Grandersons, who currently patrols right field for my Mets).  Thanks to the magic of randomization, I came in 6th in his spring cleaning sweepstakes and got to choose from an array of prizes.  He was also just flat out giving away stuff and I chose a couple of lots from that booty as well. 

Given that the best cards were gone, I decided to try my luck: behold a 100 card Super Value (re)Pack.  The lots I got were one of Mark McGwire (because why not) and the creative batch of "what's news" football cards: New York, New England, and New Orleans. 

Here are what I thought were the best cards from the first pocket of the repack:

Most of these speak for themselves.  There is a Met, a trade line, a nifty photo, some vague 80s Fleer, The Penguin, a 1970's Expo, and a couple of Tigers, the last no doubt chosen because of the originator of the pack. 

I remember opening this repack vividly because of the second pocket of cards:

Yup, someone down in repack central thought this collation was a good idea.  Dinged corners aside, this means some Big Topps oddballs are coming!

This repack was obviously meant for a Tigers fan because of the mass quantity of bengals there in.  There is also a nice Daniel Murphy in there too. 

 Before there was such a glut of faux-vintage nostalgia cards everywhere, there was Big Topps.  They made the cards in the slightly larger size of 1950s cards and included funny little cartoons on the back.  They were so ahead of their time.  They produced these for three years to a very bemused and uncaring public.  They should bring these back.  Oh wait, they've done Heritage for 15 years now, never mind.

The McGwire lot included some wonderful shiny stuff.

I think we all have a soft spot in our hearts for Big Mac.  I know I do.  I liked those late 80s A's teams against my better judgment and very few will say they hated the 1998 season at the time.  Unless you always hated Mark McGwire, I see very little reason hating him now.  The difference between McGwire and Barry Bonds is I always hated Barry Bonds from moment one; PEDs don't even come into either discussion.

There were some big cards in the package as well, bigger than even the Big Topps.  Dennis took special care to make sure I didn't think that sandwich of cardboard had cards in it and was not a spacer.  How nice. 

Oh yeah, and that 1978 Expo was not just an old card, it was an O-Pee-Chee.  I cannot recall ever getting vintage Canadian goodness in a repack.  Just a great package all around.

Dennis also included a nice little note congratulating me on my win:

Thank you, Dennis!  Your obsessive player collecting is an inspiration to us all.

Complete Set Sunday: 1990 Starline - Long John Silver's.

       In my last post, I went on and on about my birthday presents to myself, one of them being a repack.  In that rather disappointing pile of cards was four cards that immediately sparked my memory and yet, at the same time, made me say "hey, I don't remember these at all."  The cards belonged to the 1990 Starline set.  Now, I remember these posters being everywhere when I was a kid.  It was a very clean design and if you went to toy stores or shoe stores or sporting goods stores, they were everywhere.  I cannot, though, for the life of me, recall them releasing a card set of them.  On one hand, this makes perfect sense - I have never eaten at a Long John Silver's joint ever.  I don't even know if they have them in Jersey, to be honest.  On the other hand, I pride myself in owning oddball food issues, so I am truly surprised this set got by me.  I went to ebay and picked up the set of 40 cards for $3- shipped.  Plus it was sent from a town in New Jersey, so I got it the next day; practically instant gratification. 

The set came still sealed in the original packs that came from the restaurant.  I assume you got one with each purchase, meaning you'd have to choke down 8 different meals of fried mystery fish to finish this set.  Yuck. 

I was kind of torn how to handle this set.  As you may well know from reading this blog, I am kind of obsessed with having everything neatly fitting in to 9-pages (thus the name).  If fact, I have covered this particular predilection before.  A 40-card set does not fit neatly.  Even with the 8(!) header cards, this would be 48 cards, also not neatly divisible by nine (checks 3rd grade math flash cards, hey! I'm right).  So I looked at the way the cards were packaged and realized that these are eight pretty big stars.  Plus I had the leftover cards from the repacks to fill in the one blank, so voila:

They all work very well aesthetically and the loose Chris Sabo breaks up the color scheme.  I love it when a plan comes together.  

Let's look at the back:

Wow. That is pretty ugly.  You do get to see one card back, and it is not Chris Sabo but Glenn Davis (I like to keep people guessing).  I checked my set books before I decided to keep them wrapped to see if there was a set with a 4 or 3 card gap and there was not, so for now, I am satisfied to keep the set this way.  Maybe one day in the future I will get the urge to spring them from their decades-long plastic cocoons.

      Click here to see the checklist, if only for posterity and understanding.  And if you would like to actually see all the cards in the set, check out this post from Fuji, who covered them better than I ever could.  For now, this thick awkward page will sit in my set binders as a monument to the fact that as a teenager, I liked to get fat on burgers and doughnuts and not fried fish.