4,000 Red Sox and Counting!

I hinted earlier this week that I had another amazing package of Red Sox to feature from my hobby friend John Miller.  Well, I've gotten them all scanned and added to my collection proper on The Trading Card Database, and I was pleased to find out that this particular delivery brought me to over 4,000 Red Sox cards and counting on the site!  That puts me within the top 40 largest collections of the team on the site, though I still have quite a ways to go to get the remainder of my Red Sox entered in.

As usual, John was all over the map with the contents of the package, including some under-sized Topps stickers.

One thing nearly every card had in common though was that it was new to me!

Clay Buchholz rounds out the sticker portion of the package, then we head into...

...these odd "Limited Edition" parallels of the 2000 Topps set.  Anyone know the story behind these?  They look exactly like the standard Topps cards from this year, but have a small foil-print Limited Edition stamp at the very bottom of the photo above the player's name.

I'm wondering if they were maybe some type of special cards that were only available as a complete factory set?  I want to say Topps does something along those lines now, but I'm not familiar enough with the latest trends in the hobby to be sure.

In any event, I got a nice grouping of these, including some examples like Jose Offerman here that remind me how nice a set 2000 Topps could be.

In the interest of preventing this post from getting any longer than it already is...

...I'm going to cut it here on these parallels.  There were at least a dozen of them in the envelope though!

Why am I showing 1992 Topps cards here, when I picked up a factory set for cheap coin many years back?

Because these are 1992 Topps Traded cards!

I'm guessing John may have busted a Traded set open, sorted by team and mailed them out.

I say that because the four that I received in this package constitute a complete Red Sox team set!  How cool is that?

As if that weren't enough, I got a good chunk of the 1994 Topps Traded team set as well.

1994 was right smack in the middle of my childhood collecting period, and I was pretty rabid about baseball at the time.  I never had access to these Traded sets though, so it's somewhat jarring to see cards like this that I'm completely unfamiliar with despite them being designs that I'm very familiar with.

An awesome injection of '90s right there.  That grouping makes me want to get my act together and figure out exactly what Red Sox I'm missing from every one of the Topps Traded sets of the day.  A project for my upcoming vacation perhaps.

Let's jump forward a decade or so with a pair of mid-2000s Sox.  Despite not being a very well-known player, Mark Bellhorn was so clutch at times for Boston around this time period.  I seem to remember him flipping back and forth between being a fan favorite, to frustrating the hell out of the fan base, somewhat regularly.

Next is Pokey Reese who, like Bellhorn, was an integral part of the 2004 curse-breaking team.  Reese was known much more for his glove than for his bat, and actually never played another Major League game after that '04 World Series win.  Not a bad way to go out I suppose.

Even more flagship needs with Troy O'Leary...

...another Jose Offerman...

...and a name I'd almost totally forgotten, Matt Clement.  At the rate John has been sending me stuff I'm going to have all of my flagship Topps team sets from over the years knocked out before long!

It wasn't all Topps in the package though.  I received nearly an entire team set of these SP Authentic Sox also.

I say nearly, because this is one of those odd sets that has serial-numbered cards at the end of the base set.

Every card after #100 on the checklist is serial-numbered, actually.

I did get all five of the Sox from the non-numbered portion of the checklist.

In my book, that's a complete team set!

There were quite a few newer releases to pair with all those throwbacks, like this nice Gypsy Queen card of Cy Young winner Rick Porcello.

Or this Heritage Chris Sale, depicted in front of that same fence and hedge row that so many of the Red Sox were in this release.

One of the coolest "cards" in the package though has to be this 1984 Topps Rub Downs.  These contained a bunch of mini temporary tattoos.  I'm psyched to have the one featuring the long-time color commentator for the team, Jerry Remy.  After combining this with some John had sent me previously I think I'm just one away from a complete team set of these maybe.

I know they're gimmicky, but I thought it was fun when Topps dedicated an Opening Day insert to ballpark food a couple of years back.  I'd never managed to get my hands on the Fenway Park Italian Sausage card though, until now!  I've certainly eaten more than my fair share of these at this point, I guess I might as well have it represented in my collection.

I also landed a pair of 2016 First Pitch inserts, the first of which features Jake Gyllenhaal and Jeff Bauman.  If you don't recognize Jeff, he turned the horrific injuries he suffered in the Boston Marathon bombing into a motivating factor and has gone on to author a memoir about his life.  That book became a film as well, in which he was portrayed by Gyllenhaal, so that's the tie-in there.

If you haven't heard the story of Brady Kahle, it will certainly make you smile.  He became famous for selling his cherished baseball card collection to help raise money for a couple of friends with cancer.  That spun into a Cards for a Cause campaign at local card shows that eventually raised tens of thousands of dollars.  Just awesome, and I can't think of anyone more deserving of having their very own Topps card.

I've got a nice little collection of Wally the Green Monster cards, mostly built from the Mascots insert in the Topps Opening Day set over the years.  Now I can add the 2018 version to it!

There were a small grouping of needed 2007 Topps cards included as well.  Remember when Topps did team cards like this?

World Series MVP Mike Lowell!

Fan favorite knuckle-baller, and current occasional commentator for the team's pre and post-game TV broadcasts, Tim Wakefield.

I even got a trio from the 2018 Topps set, for which my team set is still woefully incomplete.

I'm especially happy to have this one, as Vazquez doesn't have nearly the amount of cardboard out there that many of his teammates do.  He's been straight up tearing the cover off the ball this year, too.  One of the bright spots on the 2019 roster for sure, and a great photograph here.

To close it out, some 2019 Donruss.  I have exactly one card from this release, and it was sent to me in a previous trade package.

I feel the same way about this set that just about everyone seems to, Panini does what they can but the lack of logos is tough to say the least.

Nonetheless, I'll happily vacuum up any Red Sox that come my way.

Wait a second!  Two different Chris Sale cards?  Yup, one's a variation.  There's a ton of this in Donruss.  If you think Topps is bad with variation cards, go look at a Donruss checklist.

See what I mean, here's another.  This is different than the JD Martinez card (with the same number, from the same set) that I showed a couple of cards back.  What's your opinion on these?  Mine is that when Topps does the photo variations, they somehow feel special or significant.  They're fairly rare pulls, and they usually feature a very unique or odd photograph that differs greatly from the base version.  With Donruss though I don't really get that feeling.

One player I certainly don't mind getting two versions of however, is Rafael Devers!

Dude has been obliterating opposing pitching just about all year, and is still just 22 years old.  If he can keep up his current progression, or even just maintain his current level without a significant drop-off, for years going forward he could end up having an amazing career.  The ceiling is high for sure, and I'm really going to enjoy watching his career play out.  This pair puts me at 26 cards featuring Rafael, though I expect that number to climb in the near future.

So there's the package that pushed me over the 4,000 Red Sox cards mark.  I've said it before, but I have no idea what I did to deserve so much awesome cardboard.  Thank you John!!!  I am seriously indebted to you on the cardboard front at this point.  These additions to my collection were fantastic and much-appreciated!