Quick & Dirty Stadium Club Blaster

When Stadium Club hit the shelves a couple of weeks back I picked up my obligatory blaster at Target:

The cards are gorgeous, I know.  For some reason though I'm less enthused about this year's set.  Maybe it's because my blaster wasn't all that exciting.  Maybe it's because the cards are a bit expensive and I still haven't finished last year's set.  Thinking it's more the latter.

I was happy to pull the one base card I wanted most, Mike Trout and his life-sized bobble-head statue.  Reminds me a bit of the Dennis Eckersley in last year's release.

I don't care a whole lot for the inserts, but thankfully I received only two in this box.  For me, it's all about the base cards.  Unfortunately I got precious few retired stars like Harold Baines here, and many more players I'm only vaguely aware of or have actually never heard of at all (Michael Reed?  Peter O'Brien?).

So yeah, no more blasters of this stuff for me.  I had fun ripping this one, but I'm not in love with this set enough to justify paying 50 cents per double.

I'll certainly scoop these up out of dime boxes, or happily accept any in trade, but that's about it.

Of the few retired legends that I did pull, this Willie McCovey was by far my favorite. 

Surprisingly, the nicest photograph in my blaster was a current player:

I know I'm about the 100th blogger to say so, but that is a beautiful card right there!

As far as Red Sox cards go, I pulled just three.  Brock Holt...

...and Rusney Castillo from the base set.  Really nice Fenway Park backdrop on this one.

I also ended up with a Wade Boggs Gold Foil parallel.  My other two Gold Foil parallels, and both my inserts, are headed out in trade packages already so I'm not going to bother showing them here.

So there you go, a quick and dirty Stadium Club blaster...

Pirates, Clowns, and a Free Prize Inside!

Today's post comes courtesy of Joe Shlabotnik of The Shlabotnik Report.  As the post title indicates, Joe's latest PWE came with a free prize inside.  We'll get to that shortly though, first let's take a look at some excellent new Red Sox cards that were included in the envelope...

We'll start off with a couple of junk wax "how did I not have this already?" cards.  You have to love the awkward portrait shots with locker room backdrops that make up the '94 Studio set.

Was really surprised that I didn't already own a copy of this one.  Was also really surprised that this is the photograph of Mike Greenwell that Donruss decided to go with for this set.  This has to be up there among the ugliest cards released in 1992 by anyone, right?  Photo aside, it's not even cropped well.  Looks like I still need 2-3 Sox from this set, hope they're more visually appealing than this one.  As any team collector knows though, they can't all be gems.

Michael Chavis is currently ranked the 9th best prospect in Boston's organization.  He was drafted right out of high school in 2014, and is still just 20 years old, so time will tell I guess.  I believe this is a refractor, though it's not noted as such on the back (collecting pet peeve of mine, it shouldn't require a ton of detective work to determine what card you're holding in your hand).

Sweet, one card closer to a 2016 Archives team set!  Brian's got the stuff to pitch at the MLB level, at least it seems so, but struggles with anxiety.  He's battling his way back from this, and is currently working his way through the Boston farm system again.

I've mentioned this a few times now, but Classic cards are some of my absolute favorite oddball releases from the '80s/'90s.  Any trade package that introduces a new one to my collection is an automatic winner.

Nice shot of Wade Boggs here on one of those Glossy Send-in cards from the mid-'80s.  This pairs nicely with the Jim Rice I have from the same set, which I believe also came in trade (and possibly even from Joe).

I shouldn't have been surprised to find a 1976 SSPC card included, as Joe is basically single-handedly responsible for getting me most of the way to a team set now.  I will never get tired of receiving new SSPC cards, Red Sox or not.  For those who care, this is Doug Griffin.

Lastly, a new '70s Red Sox card from Canada!

Now, those eight cards alone would have made for a great PWE, but as I mentioned this one actually had a free prize inside.  Like myself and many other traders, Joe uses one row of a nine-pocket sheet when sending a PWE, and when I removed the sheet from the envelope this was staring back at me from the middle pocket:

I believe this is officially the first ever prize I've received in a PWE!  When I peeled back the cover I found my prize safely nestled inside a handful of '87 Topps Fred Lynn cards:

As you can see, Wade survived the journey up the East Coast just fine.  The Lynns were layered to just the right depth to protect Boggs on his travels.  If you're wondering how many Fred Lynns it takes to protect a Wade Boggs coin, the answer is four:

The best part of the whole prize, which I neglected to notice until cleaning up the mess, is that the cover cards on either side of the stack of Lynns were customized Shlabotnik style:

Thankfully I don't have a fear of clowns.  I know a co-worker who'd likely experience nightmares after getting a look at that Tom Magrann card.  By the way, something about '90 Donruss sort of works well with a clown card in some weird way.

Thanks for the great PWE Joe, and for the excellent prize!  I'll have something headed back in your direction by the weekend...

One Card Post - Bubbles Bogaerts

What:  2014 Bowman Chrome Bubbles Refractor #1 - Xander Bogaerts RC (#'d /99)
Where:  COMC
How Much?:  $5.05

Why?:  One of my better COMC bargains over the past couple of years for sure.  Picked this one up back in November of 2014, and after the past couple of seasons this really looks like quite a bargain on a solid Xander Bogaerts RC.  Pairs quite nicely with the Bryce Harper Bubbles Refractor I recently showed off, too!

Buyback Franken-set - Nolan Ryan Deja Vu & an AL MVP

Time to look at another ten nominees for my buyback franken-set, which is really starting to pick up some steam.  For the second franken-set post in a row we start with a '90 Topps Nolan Ryan!

#4 - 1990 Nolan Ryan

The first five cards on the 1990 Topps checklist are actually all Nolan Ryan, as the set leads off with his base card and then a four card tribute subset commemorating Ryan reaching 5,000 career strikeouts.  There's one card in the subset for each of the four franchises that he pitched for.  As you can see, the top right corner is a bit dinged up on this one, but that was in no way a deterrent to me.  To the contrary, I was happy to add another Nolan Ryan buyback to the binder, again for around $6.  I'd love nothing more than to start off my franken-set with the entire five card run, but I think the odds of me running across the other three (especially at a price I'm willing to pay) are slim.

Now for a few less exciting buybacks that came via a massive lot that got me a nice jump start on the set...

#197 - 1973 Ed Goodson

Your classic Spring Training portrait shot on Ed Goodson's 1973 release.  Don't have a whole lot to say about this one, but for now it makes the cut as the only #197 buyback I have to date...

#222 - 1969 Duane Josephson

Slot #222 is for now home to this great 1969 Topps Duane Josephson.  This is a nice looking catcher card for sure, with its sunny ballpark backdrop.  Duane actually played with the Red Sox for a couple of seasons at the tail end of his career, before a heart condition forced him from the game at age 30.

#223 - 1974 Jeff Burroughs

Do you know off the top of your head who won the AL MVP in 1974?  That's right, it was Jeff Burroughs of the Texas Rangers!  It's awesome to have an AL MVP included in my franken-set, and even cooler to have the buyback from the exact year that he was named MVP.  I honestly had no idea that Burroughs had ever won an MVP until typing up this post (to be fair I was born in 1982).  I have a feeling this one is here to stay, I really don't foresee another buyback at #223 that's strong enough to unseat a league MVP from his place in the set.

#36 - Joe Lovitto

In slot #36 we have Jeff's Rangers teammate, Joe Lovitto.  I like how it appears as though Joe is taking a cut at the baseball design element in the lower right corner.

#81 - 1978 Pete Redfern

Pete Redfern was a first round draft pick of the Twins, and they were the only team he played for in his seven season MLB career.  Side note, it is impossible for me to read his name without thinking of the book "Where the Red Fern Grows".

#218 - 1968 Ken Suarez

Our first franken-set conflict finally occurs about 50 cards in, as I'd already previously selected a card for slot 218.  So, who is it that hat-less catcher Ken Suarez gets to square off against for slot 218 in the binder?

Hat-less catcher John Roseboro!  Admittedly not the most exciting match-up here, but a choice must be made.  I'm not normally a big fan of hat-less players on vintage cardboard, but since that can't be the deciding factor here I'm going to allow the sets themselves to help make the decision.  Prior to the Ken Suarez card above, I don't have a single '68 Topps card in the set so far.  So...

...sorry John, but you're out.

137 - 1979 Larry Wolfe

Larry Wolfe's '79 Topps card depicts him with the Twins, but in actuality he'd been traded to the Red Sox before the 1979 season even began.  He'd play just 65 total games with Boston between 1979 and 1980, which wound up being the final stretch of his career.

509 - 1973 Jim Nash

Jim Nash came out spitting fire during his rookie campaign in 1966, to the tune of a 12-1 record.  He looked like he was destined for a great career, and in fact even made the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1967.  Unfortunately for Jim he crashed back down to Earth and would never pitch in an MLB game again after 1972.  This card represents the 9 total games Jim played with the Phillies to finish his career.

195 - 1979 Bill Madlock

We'll close it out here with a star, this time a 2014 buyback.  Side note, am I the only one confused by the fact that the 2014 buybacks are stamped "Topps 75th", yet the 2016 buybacks are stamped "Topps 65th Anniversary"?  Whatever the reason, Bill Madlock is a fine player to have included in this set!

Franken-set Progress:  52/792 (7%)

PWE Variety Pack!

I've been trading with my good buddy Mark Kaz of This Way to the Clubhouse for a few years now, and I can honestly say that his latest PWE packed about as much variety as one could possibly hope for.  Oddballs, die-cuts, refractors, parallels, short prints and even buybacks, all in the same envelope and all shipped for a single postage stamp.  Let's dig in!

We'll start things off with the oddball, a tribute to '71 Topps courtesy of Sports Collector's Digest Baseball Monthly.  This was plucked from a 1991 issue of the publication, and whomever cut it from the magazine did so with some good precision.  I didn't scan the back so you'll just have to trust me that it's a very good representation of a '71 Topps back.

Next up, a die-cut from the 2002 Donruss Fan Club set.  Prior to receiving this PWE I had never even heard of this particular release from the folks at Donruss.  As with many of the die-cut cards released in the '90s and 2000s, there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to the way the card was cut.

Mark is aware that I'm a huge fan of Atomic Refractors so he was kind enough to throw this Donnie Sadler in the envelope.  I honestly had no clue there were Atomic Refractors in 1997 Bowman's Best.  This one didn't scan quite as well as the Atomic Refractors from the Topps Chrome releases that I'm more familiar with, but in hand it's a beautiful card.

From there it just kept getting better, as we have a serial-numbered gold parallel of Victor Martinez from 2009 Topps Updates & Highlights.  Victor was very solid at the plate during his quick tenure with Boston, and when healthy has enjoyed continued success in the years since.  Nice to receive this one from Mark in trade, as I know he himself is a big fan of the Topps gold cards.

Here's another 2009 Topps parallel, this time of the Wal-Mart black border variety.  I lost track of George Kottaras after he left Boston, but it looks like he certainly bounced around a bit.  He would see action with the Brewers, Athletics, Royals, Indians, Cardinals and even a few games with the Blue Jays all between 2010 and 2014.

This Luis Tiant is a double whammy for my collection.  Not only is it a brand new Red Sox card, but it's one of the remaining short prints that I was still missing from 2012 Archives.  Trying to collect this set was a lesson that collecting sets with short-prints isn't really for me, but I'm far enough along with it that I still seek out the ones I'm missing from time to time, and hope to finish it off someday.

Here's a Single-A All-Stars insert from 2011 Topps Pro Debut.  To this day I'm still astounded that Will Middlebrooks turned out to be a bust.  Will the 6 games he appeared in with San Diego earlier this year end up being the final half dozen games of his MLB career?  Certainly seems so at this point in time.

Speaking of busts, here's a nice green refractor of bullpen arm Daniel Bard.  Daniel quite literally lost complete command of his pitches and was almost unable to throw a strike at times.  Though he hasn't appeared in the Majors since 2013 he did sign a contract with the Cardinals back in May.  With the way it seems to go with pitching out in St. Louis, he'll probably turn into the game's top closer within a year or so here.

Final Red Sox card, from 2011 Topps Update.  This is a set you don't ever see cheap wax from, thanks to Mike Trout's rookie card being on the checklist, so I'm grateful for this Target Red parallel of Bobby Jenks.

So, that concludes what would normally be our standard 9-card back and forth exchange.  But wait, this time Mark snuck three bonus cards into the envelope...

Buybacks!  Mark read that I'm working on a giant buyback franken-set so he decided to toss some that he had laying around into this latest package to help me out.  What a guy!  Mis-cut and airbrushed Dave Rader here makes the cut for the set too, as the only card I have so far in the #427 slot.  As an added bonus, if he ever gets cut from the set I know a buyback and mis-cut fan who would be the perfect person to forward this card onto.

Gene Clines is card #171 in the '79 Topps set, and as such he makes the cut for my franken-set as well.  I don't know much about Clines, who wrapped up his MLB career before I was even born, but he did stay involved with the Cubs in a coaching capacity when his playing days had wrapped up.  Gotta love that shoulder patch!

Last one here, card #434 from the 1976 Topps set, Morris Nettles.  As it turns out, Morris was already finished with his career by the time this card came out.  He makes the cut as well though as the only #434 I've got so far.  So, Mark went 3-for-3 on the buybacks, what a nice boost to my slowly growing set.

Franken-set Progress:  43/792 (5%)

Mark, this PWE really went above and beyond.  I truly appreciate it, and plan to show my appreciation with a return PWE headed your way later this week!

Sunday Night Hockey

It's mid-July and here in New England we're in the middle of a pretty good heat wave, with temps in the '90s or above just about every day lately.  What better time to look at some hockey cards, right?  Well, not really, but I have a bunch of saved scans of hockey cards in my drafts folder, so I threw 20 of them together and that's the best I've got for a post tonight.  Consider this some hockey filler while I work on a couple of trade posts and a few other things I have going.

To lead things off I've got a couple of Upper Deck Canvas inserts.  The great goal-cam shot of Brad Marchand above is from the first year that Upper Deck began doing the Canvas inserts.  Brad and the B's are currently engaged in negotiations to extend his contract, if you can believe what you hear on sports talk radio in these parts that is.

From a later Canvas release, here's Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf celebrating with his teammates.  I look forward to these inserts year in and year out, in fact I really need to get off my butt and finish off the 2015-16 set while they're still going for insanely cheap prices over on COMC.

I didn't get a whole lot of exposure to the most recent O-Pee-Chee set, mostly due to the fact that I don't buy all that much current wax any more.  I was able to pick up a nice trio of these retro inserts from a seller on Sportlots though.  A couple of Bruins in young forward David Pastrnak...

...and center David Krejci.  The B's are completely stacked down the middle heading into 2015-16 as free agent signing David Backes now joins Krejci and Patrice Bergeron at the position.  We'll see how that signing pans out, but in the meantime I sure hope the front office has something in mind for solidifying the defensive corps.

Of course I had to grab what I believe is the only Hartford Whaler on the checklist, goaltender Mike Liut.  Love those pads!

Champ's hockey was just recently released as a set for the first time since this 2009-10 issue.  I haven't gotten my mitts on any of the new stuff yet, but I'm always on the lookout for a cheap one-per-box yellow parallel from the original release.

Let's keep moving along with some O-Pee-Chee Platinum parallels.  While I don't really seek these out all that actively, I'm game for any parallels of players that interest me.  This Bergeron is a Red Prism, serial-numbered to /135.

The Traxx parallels aren't serial-numbered, but they look incredible and in fact may be my favorite of the various flavors available in this set.  Couldn't resist the opportunity to add this shiny card of one of the best pure goal scorers in the history of the league.

Next we've got a couple of the high number cards from 2013-14 Score, a set I've been very slowly chipping away at for more than a couple of years now.  Still looks odd seeing Alfredsson in anything but an Ottawa sweater.

The other Score high number from this lot is Bruins forward Loui Eriksson.  Loui's time in Boston is already over, as he signed a long-term deal with the Canucks just a couple of weeks ago.  With that, the last remnant of the trade that sent this guy to Dallas is now gone:

Yeah, that trade is not looking so good at this point.  With Taylor Hall now in New Jersey, it's interesting that neither Seguin or Hall are still with the team that drafted them at this point.  These Prizm Cracked Ice parallels are really stunning.  This is just my third one to date, but I'll be keeping an eye out for others in the future.

After the impressive season that he just turned in at his age, it's been fun adding some new Jagr cards to my collection.

While these aren't necessarily anything special, I didn't have a ton of cardboard representing his time in New Jersey.  Of course it helps that each was available for the minimum 18 cents on Sportlots.

Same here, nice to finally cross his 2015-16 Upper Deck flagship card off of my want list.

A nice Gold parallel rounds out the Jagr portion of this post.

Here's a pretty sweet piece of cardboard for a Whalers fan like myself!  These 1990-91 Upper Deck buybacks were a pretty tough pull, with each being hand numbered to /25.  One of my biggest hobby misses over the years was being out-sniped on a Ron Francis for around $10.  Ugh!  I'll probably never even see one of those again.  Oh well, Todd Krygier is a nice enough consolation prize, as these are rare enough that really any of them are a decent win for a team collector.

Ah, the Upper Deck "Electric" parallels of the mid-'90s.  As junk wax era hockey cards go, it doesn't get much better than a Wayne Gretzky parallel.

One more Canvas card snuck in here.  Like pretty much every Canvas card I pick up, the outstanding photograph is what sold me here.  You don't see a whole lot of pre-game warm-up shots, and I really like the angle on this one.

Casual sports fans who don't catch a lot of NHL hockey probably have not heard of Craig Smith of the Predators.  A fourth round draft pick back in 2009, he has quietly put together three consecutive 20-goal seasons for Nashville.  He's got enough upside that I felt like 75 cents was a solid deal for his short-printed Young Guns rookie.

I'll end it here for tonight with another name that may not be recognizable to folks not following the league closely, young center Vincent Trocheck.  Vincent played what was really his first full NHL season last year at age 22 and definitely impressed.  He lit the lamp 25 times, and had even more assists than that.  Not bad for someone who can barely drink legally and was logging second line minutes most of the time.

So yeah, 20 new hockey cards.  Now it's back to Red Sox/Yankees baseball...