Shlabotnik Catches Me Up

Trying desperately to get caught up on inbound trade packages by the end of the year.  The clock's ticking, so let's get to the next one in queue, a fantastic bubble mailer of Red Sox cards that I received from my longtime hobby friend Joe Shlabotnik a couple of months ago now.

Inside were a whole slew of modern Red Sox cards to plug holes in various team collections from the past couple of years.  Let's see the goods!

We'll start off with what was certainly the most unique card of the package, this awesome Mookie Betts Scratch-Off from 2019 Topps Heritage.  I didn't even know these inserts existed, but this is really cool.  Flip it over to the back...

...and you get the scoreboard, plus instructions on how to play.  Then when you open the card...

...you get the scratch-off game card.  I could probably convince my wife to give this a go with me, but I think I'll leave it unscratched and protected for now.  What a cool addition to my modest collection of Mookie Betts!

I just mentioned in a recent post how I love landing cards of obscure bullpen arms.  Well as far as that goes it's hard to beat this card of Kyle Martin.  Don't recognize the name?  Well, don't be too hard on yourself, as his entire MLB career consists of 2.1 innings pitched in two appearances for Boston in 2017.  For that reason this card is another highlight of the package for me.

Next up, Joe did some damage to my 2018 Topps Heritage team set, starting off with a couple of league leader subset cards.  This one is either 1/4 a Red Sox card or 1/6th a Red Sox card, depending on if you're dividing by number of players or surface area.

This one is solidly 1/3 a Red Sox card, no matter how you slice it.

Really happy to receive this Hector Velazquez, as he's seen regular work both out of the bullpen and in spot starts for the club over the past three seasons running.  This is my very first card of Hector's.

Rounding out the 2018 Heritage portion of the mailer is Mitch Moreland.

Next up, some 2019 Stadium Club.  I picked up a few hanger packs of this stuff before it disappeared off store shelves in my neck of the woods.  It's pretty much the only modern set that I enjoy enough to pick up some unopened product of year in and year out.  I wasn't lucky enough to pull this great Yaz in my samplings though...

...or this amazing Chris Sale, with an absolutely perfect Fenway Park backdrop.  Is this a quality trade package, or what?

Great Red Foil parallel of Wade Boggs interacting with the Fenway faithful here.  These parallels are particularly attractive for a Red Sox fan.

There were a lot of firsts for my collection within this bubble mailer, like this Chris Sale, my first of those 1984 Topps inserts from this past year's flagship Topps release.

Topps Gallery Pedro insert!

It's very rare to be able to add any new Dom DiMaggio card to my Red Sox collection, and Joe provided one here courtesy of 2018 Panini Diamond Kings.

Great colorized photograph on this 150 Years Ted Williams insert.  Thank God for The Trading Card Database to help me figure out which cards are which, because Topps made seemingly endless very similar versions of this insert set.

I happen to be one of those collectors who enjoys caricature-type cards, so I really like this Topps Big League insert.  This is the only Red Sox card in this particular insert set too, so instant team set!

I got a trio of new Big League base cards as well, including this 2018 AL Batting Average leaders card which is dominated by Red Sox.

Chris Sale's base card...

...and an appearance on the 2018 AL Strikeout Leaders card as well.

Even got a parallel from Big League, with this Gold Mookie Betts Award Winners.  At least if he gets traded I've built up a nice collection of his cards before he leaves, as this package resulted in me crossing the 100-card threshold in my Mookie collection!

Not to be left out, Topps Opening Day.

It really is amazing just how many modern sets I received cards from in this one package.  Great stuff.

The second illustrated Andrew Benintendi card in this post, and certainly more true-to-life than the first one.

How about a couple of forgettable Topps flagship inserts next.  Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to receive these for my team collection but...

...they seem a little uninspired to me as far as design goes.

One more base 2018 flagship card that must have slipped out of order as I was scanning.  Will Dustin ever take another big league at-bat?  I certainly hope so.

Believe it or not, this is my very first card from 2019 Topps Archives.

And now, let's take a brief intermission from the Red Sox content Joe sent along to play everyone's favorite game... "Who's that Bruin?", sponsored by 1982-83 Topps Stickers...

Up first is a player I think most fans will recognize.  After being acquired via trade from the Rangers, this right wing went on to score at better than point-per-game pace over 12 seasons with the Bruins.  He remains a fan favorite to this day.

Who's that Bruin?

The great Rick Middleton, of course!

Next one will be quite a bit tougher I'd imagine.  This center began his career with Boston, but is probably better remembered for a long stretch with the Maple Leafs later in the '80s/'90s.

Who's that Bruin?

Tom Fergus!  I'll confess, I didn't know this one myself.

Finally, a very skilled player who was basically slaying it for his first three full seasons at the NHL level before injuries dampened his career.  These days, he's a color analyst for the Bruins on NESN.

Pardon the terrible photo selection, but who's that Bruin?

Pat yourself on the back if you guessed Barry Pederson!

That concludes this episode of "Who's that Bruin?".  We now return to our regularly scheduled Red Sox content...

Sticking with stickers (heh) for the time being, here are a few from the 2019 Topps baseball release.  This Andrew Benintendi...

...and this Mookie Betts represent some of the designs for the single-player vertical stickers in the set.

There are also dual-sticker horizontal cards as well, like this JD Martinez/Whit Merrifield.

The backs of the stickers feature different players than the fronts, and Joe included two where I was primarily interested in the back in David Price...

...and Jackie Bradley Jr.

Finally, there were a handful of cards from this year's Topps Update set to be found.  A nice Gold parallel of Nathan Eovaldi, serial-numbered to /2019 of course.

This shiny JD Martinez is from some sort of "Silver Pack", whatever that means?  The pattern reminds me a bit of the "Traxx" hockey cards from Upper Deck's O-Pee-Chee Platinum hockey releases.  A fantastic shiny card for sure.

Lastly, I received a pair of the 1984 inserts from the Update set to match the Chris Sale from the base set.  Any package that nets me a new Xander Bogaerts card is a success based on that one criteria alone.

That being said, in this case I think I like this Ted Williams even more than the Xander.  Just a fantastic batting cage photograph on this one.  Wow.

So, that's a wrap on the latest trade package from Joe Shlabotnik.  Thank you so much Joe for this great batch of perfectly spot-on cardboard!  You're officially on my short list to try to hit back with cards sometime around the new year here.

To everyone else, thanks as always for stopping by, and happy Sunday!