Back in the Saddle

Took the weekend off from blogging and spent it outside enjoying everything that is great about New England in the summer time, like this view from the hike I took on Saturday morning in NH.  It was every bit as serene as it looks.

It was a nice break both from work and from my hobbies, but it's Monday now so let's get back in the proverbial saddle here.  To get the blogging juices flowing I just grabbed ten cards that were sitting around in my home office/hobby room waiting to be processed and added to my collection, and did exactly that with them.  Let's check 'em out...

The latest '72-73 OPC high-number WHA card to enter my collection is this JC Tremblay.  I always love landing a unique new Nordiques card, but I especially like landing a new Nordiques card from before they joined the NHL!  Jean-Claude was no slouch either, widely regarded as one of the best defensemen in the NHL for a long time with Montreal before jumping ship to the WHA.  Awesome stuff.

This one was sitting around in my "to be processed" box for what seems like forever before I finally yanked it today just so that I don't have to flip past it anymore.  Seriously, it's been years.  Like, long enough that Will Middlebrooks was not only still playing professional baseball, but was still a promising young star when I grabbed it from a dollar box.  Doesn't do much for me today if I'm being honest, but it's a new Sox card in any event.

I've honestly considered taking a big batch of memorabilia, serial-numbered and autograph cards like this and seeing if I can list them on eBay as a bundle to flip into a single card or two I'd appreciate more.  So far though I haven't gotten around to that, so Middlebrooks has a place in the collection for at least a bit here.

Ditto for this one.  Margot was a notable prospect when I plucked this orange (#'d /250) parallel of his Bowman Prospects card from a discount box at a hobby shop I used to frequent.  Just like the Middlebrooks before it, this isn't a fit for my collection other than being a Red Sox card.

Here's one that I actually do enjoy for reasons other than (or in addition to) the fact that it's a Boston card.  This was printed up for the National Convention back in 2015, and is a relatively rare rookie card (#'d /25) of the young Red Sox southpaw.  I was drawn to it because it uses Panini's "Cracked Ice" technology, which is akin to the Atomic Refractors from Topps.  This is one bright and shiny rookie.  It may not have logos, but it certainly has some bling to it when you hold it in natural light.

How about a trio from Pro Set's second hockey release, the French version no less!  I always liked the small subset of hockey history cards in this release that used sepia-toned photographs.  This one is a tribute to the Toronto Maple Leafs' "Kid Line" of the 1930s.

Next up, the title "Before the Zamboni" says it all for this card.  Actually, some things never change, as if you've attended any NHL games even in the past few years then you know there are shovel crews that come out and clean off excess ice shavings during most commercial breaks to this day.  Just a really unique and cool hockey card.  Pro Set did a lot of things right during their first two hockey sets in particular.

Here's one subtitled "Arena Design".  My French is pretty poor at best, so I can't give you much of a breakdown of what this card is showing here.  Something related to the way the benches are setup I suppose.  Anyway, some cool uniforms here, both from the professional world and the world of sports.

After those three cool photographs from Pro Set, let's transition to a couple of modern hockey cards.  From the '94-95 Upper Deck set we have two of the greatest goalies of their era in Eddie the Eagle Belfour...

...and the Dominator, Dominik Hasek!  Hasek was my favorite of these two, just because of his amazing, unconventional style.  If it's possible to be under-rated as a member of the Hall of Fame I'd say Hasek might be.  Also, I love that he's got the same style face mask at the NHL level that I was rocking in Bantam League hockey around this era!

Last up for today, a '98 Stadium Club Mark McGwire.  I ran across a pack or two's worth of cards from this set when I was purging recently.  I got rid of all of them except for this Big Mac, just because it's from the famed 1998 season.  I actually have the McGwire/Sosa documentary and the Griffey Jr. one that debuted on the MLB Network last night both on my DVR.  Can't wait to dive into those two soon to ease a little of the pain from the lack of live sports.

Well, that's all I've got time for today.  Hope you enjoyed these random ten cards, and I'll be back soon with something that's got a bit more structure to it.  Until then, thanks as always for stopping by!