Missing My Favorite Upton, Carl Too.

Not Kate, nor Justin.

I have reached my fall break and have all sorts of fun activities planned for myself.  I am three days into break, I don't have to teach students again until October, and I am feeling really productive. I have been doing carpool for my middle schooler everyday, gone shoe shopping for my first-grader, planned and cooked every meal this week, folded laundry, and replaced the rollers on the upper rack of my dishwasher. 

I could post pictures of my food, but I am more proud of fixing the dishwasher.  

I am going to do some caulking and yard work the second half of this week.  

I have also been working on filling some holes in my old Durham Bulls cards. 

It's amazing how much cheaper cards of prospects are when you revisit them after the player has retired and the card is more than 15 years old. I don't know where to find pricing data from 2007, but B.J. Upton was a pretty popular prospect back in the day. Doubtful that an Upper Deck autograph numbered to 50 would for less than $10, but today......

Too good to pass up.  

I missed this card back in the day. Not only are there several B.J. Upton cards in the UD Black set, but it was also had Justin Upton autographs, who had been the first overall selection in the 2005. Both Upton brothers in one set. Sorry, Kate was not included. Also not sure if B.J./Melvin and Justin had dual autographs, but it seems like something Upper Deck would pull off.  

I miss the backs of the Upper Deck cards. 

The autographs were always upside down in the packs and the first thing you saw was that Richard McWilliam signature and the "Congratulations" banner across the top of the card. You knew you had found something good.  

Slightly less expensive, I also found a really cool Carl Crawford autograph out of the 2005 Fleer Patchworks set. Carl was in Durham before I moved to North Carolina, but helped lead the team to their first International League Championship.  He was the first star player the Durham Bulls had as a Triple A team.  

I have always dabbled in Carl Crawford autographs, but never outright collected them. Might start dabbling with his Rays cards a little bit more here in the near future. Not sure I can touch his Red Sox or Dodgers cards, but his early cards seem like they are fun.  

More early 2000s Durham Bulls tomorrow.  

2015 Topps Jumbo Box

This feels like the official start of the 2015 card year.  I picked up a jumbo box of the new Topps base set after school one day this week at my favorite local card shop Big D's Sports Cards.  I had a great time opening the box and talking cards and baseball with the owner of the store Jimmy.  So here's a look at my box and my take, with a little bit more detail than the other day, on the 2015 Topps base set.

After spending two days looking at these cards I have decided that I am going to like the design of the 2015 Topps base set.  It is a little bit busy at the bottom of the card between the bottom and the patterns, but at least Topps has gotten away from the white bordered cards that they have put out the last six or seven years straight.  It had gotten a little bit monotonous and I am happy to see Topps roll the dice a little bit and try something different.  I think the design could have been improved a little bit if they had toned down the colors a little bit.  The parallels are monochromatic and look even better than the base cards.

I especially love the gold parallel cards.  These are really sharp, but then again any of the colored parallel cards look nice with the simplified color scheme.  This Hamilton looks cool.  Is that iced camouflage?  I'm not sure, but it's serial numbered to 99 and looks really nice.

Another oddity of the 2015 Topps cards is the combination of the Future Stars tag at the top of the card along with the Rookie Card.  Have these two Topps hallmark logos ever appeared on the same cards before this year?  I could not think of one, but then again I did not go research it either.  Why does Even Gattis have a Futures Stars logo anyway?  He has been in the league for a few years now.  On to some hit cards.....

My relic cards.  What do you want out of a relic card out of a Topps base set?  Carlos Gomez is fine for a hit out of this box.  I could have done better, but the relics out of the base set all end up selling for less than $5 at some point anyway right?  Gomez is a good player and I am not sure that I have a relic card of him.  Welcome to the relics box Carlos.  

Definitely not a keeper here, but still a really cool pull out of a box of base box of Topps.  I am not going to sell or trade this Baez card simply because he is a Cub, but because I am not sold on him being an impact player.  Something about him reminds me a little bit of Dan Uggla.  Plays second base, hits .190, strikes out two or three times a game....Moving on.....

This was my manu card out of my jumbo box.   These seem like they are pretty nice, but I am starting to wonder if the manu card is getting a little bit stale.  I saw a couple of manu cards on Ebay and on trade sites that had the Future Star logo on them that looked really nice.  Topps did a logo man manu card a few years ago.  These kind of seem like a rehash.  

My favorite insert set out of the set was the Gallery of Greats.  These are a knock off from the late 90s/early 2000s Topps Gallery product.  These looked nice back then and they still look good today.  I pulled this nice Kershaw and also landed a Hanley Ramirez.  I am going to have to pick up the rest of these at some point this spring.  By far the nicest looking insert.

I also liked these defense insert cards.  How many Colby Rasmus insert cards have been made?  I am not sure there have been many, but I really like defensive sets.  There are always some sort of insert like this in Gypsy Queen and am happy to see it in the base Topps set.   One more like.....

I liked both of these cards and I am pretty sure that I have copies of both of hanging out in a box somewhere.  Old cards are always cool, and while I like for Topps to go out on a limb sometimes, they are a tradition rich company.  It's nice to see some of these classic cards, and cool names, reappear in modern products.  

Last insert set for the moment.  There was a ton of hype around these First Pitch cards.  I honestly do not get it.  What am I missing here?  Sure there is 50 Cent, but I am not sure I really care about half the people in this set.  There is this soccer guy?  There is Macklamore, some gymnast, and maybe Eddie Vedder?  I am just not excited about these.  Sorry.  

Unique Upton

I have so many directions that I could go on cards this morning.  It's my second day off after a long school year and I am going to need a good week to get caught up on all the cards that are sitting on my desk ready to be typed up, scanned, and shared.  This morning I am going with an old favorite player.

I know BJ is an outfielder with the Braves, but my best memories of him will always be as an infielder with the Durham Bulls.  My best memory of Upton will always be him hitting a walk off grand slam to lead the Bulls to a win on Opening Day in 2006, but I cannot find a video of the hit anywhere online.  BJ only lasted part of that summer in Durham posting a .269/.374/.394 line with 8 home runs and 18 doubles in 106 games before he was called up to Tampa.  That's right, BJ Upton could take a pitch or two in Triple A, just not the Majors.

I still check in on BJ, but I know enough Braves fans who are pained by his presence on the teams roster, that if I do not check I still kind of know that he's not doing well.  And besides, Rays fans all know that when players come up for free agency there is a really good chance that they are going to walk.  It was good to see BJ get his pay day.  It was cool that he landed in the same outfield as his brother.  Not cool that he's hitting .200 with almost 100 strikeouts already.

I like to remember BJ like this:

Everyone see John Jaso in that video?  Sweet.  

Anyway, I also still check in on some BJ Upton cards.  Honestly, I have a bunch and will look on occasion.  There are still some people who believe that BJ has some star power and price his accordingly, but there are also some really cool pieces that come up and every once in awhile I snap into action.  One came up last week.

I have done a few things on the Topps Unique set on my blog since I have started writing here, but should probably do a little bit more.  Like patch cards?  This is the set.  It does have some nice autographs, but there are some incredible relics in this set.  This BJ Upton card is serial numbered to just 15 copies and features the top of the R from the RAYS script on the front of the Tampa jerseys.  A really cool piece for $20 considering that the only other copy on the internet is currently listed for the ridiculous price of $320.  

A Trip to Big D's Card Shop

My computer is throwing a temper tantrum over the new OS Mavericks update so for tonight, or until I get all the kinks ironed out, I have pictures more than scans.  I stopped in at my favorite local card, Big D's, in Raleigh for a little down time on Sunday afternoon.  I had completed a trade with Jimmy, the shop's owner, earlier in the week and wanted to take him in his half of the trade as well as collect my half of the trade too.  You know you cannot just go into the shop and just finish a trade.  I bought a few other things while I was there too.  So, here's the run down.

I actually picked up a few vintage cards.  Vintage like 70s.  A nice Templeton, Hernandez, two early Bob Forsch cards and also a few old Hostess cards from the early 1980s.  

Garry Templeton is looking snarky in that card.  It's clearly a Spring Training card, but he looks mad enough to double bird a Mother's Day crowd at Busch Stadium.  The best vintage card I landed yesterday though was a sweet 1972 Topps Tony LaRussa card with the Hall of Fame manager pictured as a utility infielder for the Braves.  

Pretty sweet.  I also picked up my usual assortment of more recent cards, such as....

A B.J. Upton jersey card from the 2009 Upper Deck set.  Always really liked the card design on this set.  Really cool.  I miss you Upper Deck.  

A Wil Myers green parallel from the 2014 Bowman set.  Former Durham Bull, current Ray, always the 2013 American League Rookie of the Year.  

A Marcus Stroman mini.  No serial numbered, but still a cool looking card of the former Duke star, turned Blue Jays prospect.  

Randal Grichuk autograph from the 2011 ITG set.  Really cool set with some good autographs.  Good inexpensive set to track down if you are looking for some good prospect autographs.  

This beautiful Stanton jumbo jersey numbered out of 25.  Jimmy has had this in the shop for awhile and it has been calling my name..(buy me) it whispered.  For something different.......

An autographed mini helmet of 2002 ACC Rookie of the Year TA McLendon.  He's a bit of a legend around here and had a great year for the 2002 NC State team which was one of their better football teams.  So, what constitutes a good football team at NC State?  They had Phillip Rivers.  They beat the doors off of Notre Dame in a bowl game.  

Finally the card I traded for.....

Longoria rookie, autographed, numbered out of 50.  Not too shabby.  Overall, another great trip into my favorite local card store.