Shiny Sox from Mark Kaz

A week or two ago I found a surprise PWE from my good buddy Mark Kaz waiting in my mailbox for me after work.  I'm grateful that, despite the fact that Mark is no longer blogging, we can continue our back and forth mailings of Red Sox and Mets.  Let's check out the grouping of 9 new Boston cards that Mark sent my way...

Shiny seemed to be the theme with this particular envelope, starting with this Diamond Anniversary parallel from 2011 Lineage.  Fine by me!  I'll always remember this particular release as being totally botched by Topps.  There was a lot of hype prior to the set coming out but man, those card backs were just atrocious.

Here's an awesome one from 15 years prior to that, a nice Upper Deck SPx Mo Vaughn.  Holograms were huge in the '90s, and I'm positive that had I owned a copy of this one as a kid it would have gotten the top-loader treatment!

Brandon Jacobs was once ranked within the top 50 prospects in all of baseball, but as is so often the case he never made the big show.  A nice, bright Purple Refractor regardless!

Mark indicated that he had grabbed most of these from the latest card show he'd attended.  One of the vendors there must have had a good selection of 2016 Donruss, because I received the only Red Sox card from The Rookies insert set...

...and the only Red Sox card from The Prospects insert set as well.  The lack of logos do bring these down a notch, but I really like what Panini has done with the Donruss brand the past few years.  The 2017 release in particular looks awesome, if they were officially licensed I probably would have grabbed a box or two already.

Here's an awesome card if you're a fan of obscure players like I am.  Juan Pena's entire MLB career consists of two starts that he made for Boston during the 1999 season.  Despite going 2-0 with a minuscule 0.69 ERA, he would never pitch in the Majors again.  Seems unfair to say the least.  This might be my favorite card in this PWE based on the obscurity factor alone.

Then again, this one is right up there as well.  I really liked Boomer during his short stint with the Red Sox, and this refractor from 2005 Topps Chrome is now my best card of his from his time in Boston.  Awesome stuff Mark!

Here's an odd insert from one of the many yearly Bowman sets that links Jacoby Ellsbury (23rd overall pick in the 2005 draft) with James Ramsey (23rd overall pick in the 2012 draft).  With five years now passed since this insert was issued I think we can say who the better pick was with certainty!

Final card for today features Andy Abad and his 'professor specs', courtesy of 1999 Bowman.  I believe this is an International parallel, though I'm not really sure what significance that has other than the card having a lot more foil than its base counterpart.  Either way, nice goggles.

Thanks as always for the great assortment of cards Mark, I'll be sure to get some Mets routed your way by the end of the week!