Moving On

The labor situation in baseball has been depressing this week.  However, it is even more depressing locally when you consider that we are probably not going to get Minor League baseball this summer.  North Carolina does not have a Major League team, but we do have a whole bunch of Minor League teams, including several that are within an hour of my house. 

I am all about keeping people at home, and staying safe.  Still frustrating not to have baseball. 

This week was my first time off of work since January.  It was a weird school year working from home, but I have been on roughly the same year round school since 2006.  You really get used to the schedule.  Every year for the past fourteen years, I have worked the last week of January, all of February and March, and had a vacation sometime around the first week of April. 

I have been slowly recovering from the change in schedule.  I did not hand write any posts this week.  I turned my computer on, but I also managed to get outside and enjoy some fresh air.  I ended up putting in over 40 miles of walking around my little corner of central North Carolina. 

I also did a bunch of work with my cards this week.  I have really wanted to do a post about sorting cards and organizing for more than a month, and I am finally going to get to that this week.  Somewhere in there I also picked up a few new cards.  Seems to have slowed to a trickle in recent months.  I was excited to see someone on Twitter unloading a card of one of my favorite recent Durham Bulls players.  

I had to grab this one.  

This is from the Diamond Kings set in 2018.  That little logo in the top right corner did not immediately register with me when I first saw the card.  I guess Panini is trying to fancy things up. 

I went through an Anthony Banda phase two years ago.  The Rays got him in a trade for Steven Souza, and he spent part of 2018 pitching in Durham.  He did not pitch much last year, and ended up having Tommy John surgery.  Hard throwing left handed pitcher, misses a lot of bats.  Hopefully, whenever we get to watch live baseball again, I will get to see Banda pitching for the Rays. 

The serial number is hard to read, but it is 02/15.  Nice patch piece on the side too. 

Back of the card. 

Love the phrase "player-used material" in the small print underneath his height and weight.

The person who sold me the card also sent me some bonus cards of Banda and Paul Goldschmidt. 

It was nice to move on from the school year and spend a little more time with my baseball card this week.  The best part is that I have another month and a half off before I have to go back to work. 

I'm Just Happy To Be Here

Six years ago Merrill Kelly was a fringe prospect pitching for the Durham Bulls.  He played in college, so he was little older by the time he reached Triple A.  Merrill Kelly played for the Bulls during the 2013 and 2014 seasons, and was good enough to make the International League All-Star team his final year in Durham.  I liked watching Merrill Kelly for the two years he was in Durham, even if he never got a chance to play with the Rays.

I posted his team set card from 2014 a few years back.

Merrill Kelly would eventually end up in Korea, where he would pitch for the SK Wyverns.  They have baseball cards. I think this might one of the only Korean cards in my collection.

Merrill Kelly ended up back in the US this past season with the Diamondbacks.  He was mostly an average pitcher this year in Arizona, but still had some good moments during the season.   

I'm just happy that there are Merrill Kelly cards.  

Topps had the great idea to make a bunch of Merrill Kelly baseball cards.  He also signed a ton of autographs for them.  I waited awhile, but recently had the chance to buy a bunch of Merrill Kelly autographs.  All totaled, it cost right around $10 for three cards.  I also pulled one out of a pack of cards a student got my as a holiday gift.  

Here are my four Merrill Kelly autographs in countdown form:

4. Topps Chrome Update

Aren't all the Chrome autographs normally on card?  The sticker looks a little bit out of place on this card.  Get rid of the sticker, make it an on-card autograph and it might be at the top of the list.  It also looks like it was not Merrill's best day signing autographs.  Again, I really wish that this autograph was on-card, I would rate it much higher.  

3. Topps Tek 

I like Topps Tek.  It's affordable and the autographs are all on-card.  Topps has simplified the pattern aspects on these cards, so they all look the same.  I also like that Topps has a faded area around the bottom for the signer.  Always makes for a nice card.  Still, there are better cards of Merrill Kelly out there.  

2. Topps Gallery 

Topps Gallery is a sticker autograph, and I do not even care.  It's well blended, and the art on this card more than makes up for the sticker autograph.  Plus, it was a good signing day for Merrill Kelly when he was autographing these cards.  This is the lone autograph on this list that I did not buy off of Ebay.  My students at school all know that I enjoy a few baseball cards, sometimes they give me packs.  This came out of a Gallery blaster.  

1. 2019 Topps Update 1984 Topps Merrill Kelly 

I did not really do much with the 2019 Topps sets.  Any of them.  I did really enjoy these 1984 style inserts and autographs though.  It has long been   Last year, I spent time working on assembling a set of the 1983 cards, plus I found several of the autographs.  This year, I have completely skipped over most of the base set in favor of spending my time and money on the autographs.  It's the end of the year, this is likely the end of my 2019 Topps cards, so it's a nice way to end the year.  

A Few From 2019

The first series of 2019 Topps released this week, so I ventured out to Target on Wednesday to pick up a few packs.  Retail packs are not the best way to put together a set, but it's a good way to get a look at the new cards.  Since I am limiting the number new sets that assemble this year, and limiting the amount of time and money spent on them, these few packs were more fun than an actual attempt to make a set. 

My first card of 2019..... 

was Ronald Acuna of the Braves.  Conveniently, if I were trying to put together a set out of retail packs, Acuna is card number 1 in the set this year. 

I think it is a pretty solid design this year.  I like that Topps has gone back to using a border on their base set, ask me at the end of the year what I think about the design.  Last year, I felt I made fun of the cards at the beginning of the year for having that AquaFresh looking think on the front of the cards, but they grew on me as the year went along.  

My first Cardinals card was Paul DeJong.  

Nice action shot of the Cardinals shortstop.  There are several different Cardinals cards in Series 1.  Not sure which of the cards I like the best.  I feel like I am leaning towards the Molina card, which has a nice action shot of him throwing the ball.  

Nothing better than a card of a catcher wearing their gear.  

First former Durham Bulls card of the year belongs to Cubs utility player Ben Zobrist.  I bought several packs of cards and it took me several packs to finally run into one of their players.  Considering they are the Triple A team of the Rays, and most of their players went through there on the way to the Majors, I was a little surprised it took so long to find one....

While we are on Zobrist, I can point out one other design element that I like on this year's Topps cards.  Last year, maybe 2017 too, they had chopped down the stat line to a five or six year window.  It felt like the old Donruss cards.  It's fine on younger players, even if I am missing a year or two of stats when I flip over the card.  However, with older players like Zobrist.....

It's nice to be able to flip the card over and look at all the different years that he has played.  Look, he played with the Rays back when they were the Devil Rays.  Seems like a long time ago.  Probably because it was a long time ago.  

Favorite Durham Bulls card.  

That's a pretty run of the mill picture of Blake Snell, but I love seeing him on League Leaders cards.  He was such a great pitcher while he was in Durham, which does not always guarantee that the players are successful in the Majors, but he was in a different world at times.  So much better than that level of competition.   Just completely dominate.  Nice to see Snell pitch well enough to win the Cy Young last year. 

Final card. 

Just as I loved the 1983 styled insert cards last year, I also love this year's 1984s.  I have a soft spot for the card designs of my childhood.  I could tell you this is one of my favorites, but that's generally true of most of the card designs from the 1980s and early 1990s.  

They even duplicate the backs.....

Not sure if this is going to be something I pursue this year, or not.  Last year, I put together the first series of these cards, then stuck to the Durham Bulls and Cardinals players in the later releases.  Leaning towards just buying singles again this year. 

How many wins would Greinke have if he had not played on the Royals for seven years? 

A Lazy Morning

It was a really busy week.  No time for baseball cards.  I slept in the last two days, my wife made a good breakfast, and I spent time time with the littles this morning.  I am sitting in my office watching episodes of Tiny Desk Concerts and looking at some the new cards that showed up in my mail recently.  

If only there were more time for baseball cards.  

There is always time for cards on a lazy morning.  

First up, I picked up another Anthony Banda card about two weeks back.  Weird thing is that I got it off of Ebay, half asleep, I did not realize that I bought it from my local card shop.  Probably could have saved myself a little shipping and them an EBay fee.  Not my finest moment.  

Banda has been my Durham Bulls player of choice this season.  He was not on the team long before the Rays called him up to the Majors, but tore up his elbow and ended up missing the rest of the season.  Last season, Anthony Banda pitched for the Diamondbacks and was traded to the Rays for Steven Souza.  A huge chunk of his Topps cards have still had him a Diamondbacks uni.  Better than some bad airbrushing.  

The coloring of the card feels really off.....

It's in the colorized movie neighborhood.  

I also added a few more Kellogg's cards from 1983 to help out with my set.  I will have more of these later in the week......

These were three that I needed for my set.  Love the Greg Minton card with the orange Giants jersey and cool mustache.  Moves me a little closer to finishing off my set.  No time for checklists this morning, but I am in good shape with finishing this off soon.  

I also got a big envelope of random cards.  A thank you for helping out another collector with some cards for a set.  It's hard to post all the cards from a big random envelope, but two stood out to me.  With the 1983 Kellogg's set being close to completion, both are candidates to be projects over the last two months of the year.  

There were actually four of these in the package, but I have enjoyed the 1983 Kellogg's set, so the 1982 version would probably be fun too.  I am actually a lot further along, starting point wise, then I would have imagined before I went to look.  The time spent looking is also part of the reason you're only getting two cards out of a big envelope.   Roughly 50% is already here.  

I don't love this scan, but these cards are hard.  

The last few Denny's sets were actually pretty nice.  This is from the 1997 set, which has a SportsFlix kind of design.  Not a very big set, not hard to find the cards, and most are inexpensive.  Again, this is a set that own a good chunk of already, might be fun to finish off.  

Clearly Nice Cards

I love the acetate parallels in the Topps base set.  For the past two years Topps has put out the Clearly Authentic product, which are similar in appearance to the acetate parallels, it's just that they are in a one touch case.  Last year I picked up two cards from the set.  Both were Cardinals.  One was pitcher Luke Weaver, the other was former shortstop Aledmys Diaz.  In retrospect, it feels like a struck out with those two cards. 

Clearly Authentic is a one card per pack/box for roughly $50, so I naturally did not touch a single pack.  I also decided to go away from the Cardinals this year......

First up is another Anthony Banda autograph.  He's become my go to Durham Bulls player to collect this year.  Banda is also the only player on the team who really seems to have a steady stream of cards that have been produced this year. 

I am not sure if this is pink or red, but I like the card.  The case is a little scratched up looking on the scan, but I feel like my scanner picked up a lot that is not all that visible from just holding the card.  Maybe I need to clean my scanner.  

The serial number is in the lower right hand corner, a little hard to see.  

Flip the card over.....

I always like the reverse black and white image on the back of the acetate cards.  Also kind of nice to be able to see the autograph through the back of the card. 

Last one for tonight....

I have not posted many Charlie Blackmon cards over the years, but I have always had some interest in his career.  I saw Blackmon a few times while he was at Georgia Tech, someone I glance at when I read through the box scores.  

I don't like this card as much as the Banda.  There is not much contrast here between the picture of Banda and the background, which is one of the things that makes the acetate cards stand out.  There is a lot of gray and black on Blackmon's uniform and the background is generally the same color scheme outside of the bunting above his bat.  Even the purple numbers and letters on the Rockies jersey feel muted.  

The lack of contrast really shows on the back.  It's a black and white photo, but there is little difference from the front of the card outside of the purple numbers on his jersey being a dark gray.  I actually think the best part of the back of this Blackmon card is the autograph showing through clearly.  

I Just Want To Give It My Best Shot

A quick post about player collecting.  I have given up on it over the past year in the traditional sense over the past year.  Not sure I ever put that in a post.  There was one in the works at one point about it, sure it's my my drafts somewhere.  Sort of felt like revisiting the whole thing after the Canseco super collector retired and started selling off all thousandsomething of his cards.  

I need to revisit that draft badly. 

There are so many different card products these days, with all sort of parallels, and variations.  It's not really possible to go out and track down a large percentage of a player's card checklist the way you could in the 1990s when I first started a few player collections, mainly focused on Ray Lankford.    

I do not own a bunch of Ray Lankford printing plates, and there are several low print run cards that I do not own, but I usually crossed off the overwhelming majority of his cards every calendar year.  

That feels nearly impossible nowadays.  Money being one factor, but also the fact that I do not want to take the time to track down all of the cards.  So, instead I have borrowed one of the cliches from Bull Durham to describe my modified approach to find cards of favorite players.

Of course they're boring, that's the point.  

I like Anthony Banda at the moment.  True, he's on the disabled list and is not coming back until next year.  It's also true that he pitched well for the Durham Bulls and Rays while he was healthy.  Banda has many cards for sale on Ebay.  I have been picking out a nice card here, nice card there.  Really, not bad prices for a decent prospect with some upside.  

So, two new cards to start the weekend.  

This is from Museum Collection.  Love how many different uniforms the Diamondbacks wear.  Earlier in the week I posted an Inception card with a picture of Anthony Banda wearing a purple and green throwback Diamondbacks jersey.  The patch swatch on the card was the dark grey road jersey.  

This card has the purple and green jersey swatches that match the Inception card.  Seems like there could have been some better planning here.  

Always amazed at products that cost more than $200 a box, but the autographs are on a sticker.  That's why I do not buy $200 boxes of cards, just buying your $5 cards of Minor Leaguers.  Just gave it my best shot and I won an Ebay auction for this card.  

This Banda Inception autographed card was a little bit harder to find at a good price.  All I wanted was to own a nice card of a player I enjoy watching.  I just wanted to give it my best shot.  I can't blame collectors for listing cards like this for $30 and $40 considering the cost of the Inception boxes.  I set out to find one copy of this card, the color of the parallel and serial numbering did not really matter.  Just wanted to own a nice card of a player I enjoy watching. 

Even though this copy if numbered to 150 copies, kind of a high number for Inception, it's a great looking card with a nice piece of patch.  Second Banda card in the past two weeks with a huge chunk of jersey patch, those are still sort of cool. 

Pink Cards Are Underrated

There are not many pink baseball cards in my collection, but I feel like anytime I run across one I am never disappointed.

Vintage pink baseball cards are nice.

Modern pink baseball cards are nice too.

There are not many pink cards out there floating around, but one recently caught my eye.  There are pink parallels in this year's Inception set.  There were in the past too, the Taveras card is from the same product, different year.  I have a few favorite players in that set this year, so I had been on the lookout for their cards on Ebay and trade groups.  With one player I specifically set out to find the pink card.  

It caught my eye the first time I saw a copy of it.  

There are many other versions of this Anthony Banda Inception card with lower serial numbers.  They are also different colors.  Some are some are gray, some are red, and some are gold.  None of them look quite as nice as the pink variation in my opinion.  Yes, this card does have a decent patch piece included below the autograph, but I actually think that the picture of Banda in the old purple and green Diamondbacks jersey is the next best thing about this card.  

Another nice thing about this card is the fact that Topps did not airbrush Anthony Banda into a Rays uniform.  He was traded this off-season to Tampa, spent part of the season with the Durham Bulls, before he was called up to the Majors, which is why his cards keep popping up on my blog.  Topps has made a Rays card of Banda, it is just really terrible....

No thank you, I will stick to my pink Diamondbacks card.  A happy addition to the collection.  

Finest? Not This Year.

I am usually a big fan of the Finest product.  If you are willing to give the title of "classic" to a modern card product, this would be a long running brand that would be worthy of that honor in the opinion of many collectors.

In recent years, I feel like the brand has done a good job of returning to its roots.  It had sort of drifted off into the wilderness at some point in the mid 2000s, but Topps did a sort of reboot with the brand in 2013 for it's 20 anniversary/birthday.  The reboot included an insert set with 2013 players on the 1993 designed cards.

Some of the others years since have also been strong.  I have not done much with the base sets, but I have still tried to find the Cardinals and Durham Bulls autographs.  Always some nice cards to add to the collection.  I think my favorite of these autographs has to be a Carlos Martinez I picked up out of the 2016 Finest set.....

Which brings me back to this year's Finest set.  I feel like we are somehow back in the wilderness again with this year's design.  The difference between the Martinez autograph and the cards below are pretty stark.  The Martinez card has a simple colored bar on the right side with a team logo.  Add in a splash of color on my copy.  Simple designs are really easy to like.

Then we have this.....

What in the world is behind the players on this card?  It looks busy and complicated.  Apart of me thinks it looks like some random piece of graffiti which could be spray painted an overpass or sound wall.  You get the point.  

I ended up with five different autographs from this year's Finest set.  I used it as a chance to pick up a pair of autographs from players who are not in my collection and two players who are a focus of mine this year.  One is here just because....  Alcantara is the first, above.  He is no longer a Cardinal, traded for Marcell Ozuna, but Topps did not airbrush him into a Marlins uniform.  Gave me sort of a mulligan to find one of his cards.  

This Shaw card was for sale with the Alcantara card.  Saved a little on shipping, neither cost me much at all.  He is not an All-Star by any means, but a solid player with the Brewers after washing out with the Red Sox.  Saw him play for Pawtucket a few times a few years back too.  Always like getting cards of players I see in Triple A.  

Last three picked up in a trade off of a Facebook group.  

I like Matt Olson and I know that I have picked a few autographs of his last year when he caught fire with the A's.  He's likely to hit 30 home runs again this year, likely to strikeout more than 150 times.  I think he's the sort of player that the "modern baseball is horrible" crowd really hates.  He hits home runs.  This is also some sort of insert card, but it cannot be that hard to find based on the trade package I gave up for this card and the two below it.  

These are the two cards that I was really interested in when I started in on the Finest cards this year.  I have become a pretty big fan of Jack Flaherty this year.  Still not an ace by any means, but he's really young and I would at least go as far as saying he's one of the top two or three pitchers on the team at the moment.  Player collecting kind of stinks nowadays, but I am interested in getting my hands on some of his autographs this year.  

Last one.  I have been working on Banda cards this year too.  He was on the Durham Bulls for awhile this year, spent a bit of time with the Rays too, but was shut down with an elbow injury a few months back.  Banda ended up having Tommy John and is out for the remainder of this year, but I am still out trying to find some more of his cards.  A few more really good ones are coming soon.  

Finally Something From The Jeremy Hellickson Trade....

I started writing in this space at some point during the Spring of 2012. One of the better young players I collected at that time was Rays pitcher Jeremy Hellickson. He had been through Durham just a few years earlier and had also won the American League Rookie of The Year in 2011.  It was a good time to collect his cards, he was in everything.  No shortage of Hellickson cards to chase down and post.

I should do a "Where Are They" post about players I wrote about five years ago.  I am going to file that idea away for later.  Back to Hellickson.  I collected his stuff.

This is a ticket from his first win.  

At some point Hellickson's shoulder fell off, he ended up back in Durham for awhile on injury rehab, and eventually the Rays traded him to the Diamondbacks for a couple of young players.  When the trade first happened, I ventured out and found a token autograph of outfielder Justin Williams, one of the players the Rays got back in the trade. 

Pretty nice autograph from Bowman Sterling.  There are some horrendous sticker autographs in this set, but this Williams autograph has a nice on card signature.  Very nice card, but that was three and half years ago.  What has happened since then?  Jeremy Hellickson has been on the Diamondbacks, Phillies, Orioles, and Nationals, while Justin Williams has gone from A Ball all the way up to Triple A.  I have not really written anything about him, nor have I done much with his cards.  

I had the chance to get a good look at Williams a few weeks ago.  Pretty impressive outfielder.  

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He's still only 22, and this is his first experience in Triple A, so I would guess he's with the Bulls the entire 2018 season.  Given how the Rays run things, I would guess he's in Durham for some time in 2019 too.  Which gives me a little bit of time to work on some Justin Williams baseball cards.  

Surprisingly, he does not have a lot of cards.  Topps made a few of him when he was first drafted by the Diamondbacks in 2013 and 2014, and his first full season with the Rays in 2015.  After a two year lull, Topps did put him in 2018 Bowman, but I am a sane person and have not touched that craziness.  

Low quantity of cards, so I started all the way back with his first Bowman card from 2013.....  

his Bowman Draft Chrome autograph.  Yes, I have been really hard on the Bowman Draft sets in the past, especially the 2013 set.  I believe that I did a post, it's somewhere around here, about how this is one of the worst airbrushed sets ever.  The airbrushing on this Williams card is not great by any means, the D-Backs script on his jersey is pretty suspect.  So small and really straight.  The batting helmet is the same style worn by the high school kids in the Perfect Game All-American program and the stripe on his pants clearly does not match with the Diamondbacks uniform.  

So, now that all of that is out of the way, I really think this is likely the toughest autograph of Williams to find, and I love that it has an on-card signature.  Interestingly, the Sterling and Draft cards were put out roughly within the same time period, late 2013, and Williams signature seems to have changed during that time.  Not markedly different, but outside of the letter "J" there are a lot of little changes.  

Back of the card. 

Always some interesting facts on the backs of the Bowman Draft cards.  Some are standard fare, like his choice of college if he had gone that route, while others are always a little bit more interesting.  Really thought it was cool that he used a wood bat during his senior year of school.  

I'm Just Happy To Be Here, Hope I Can Help The Ball Club

I knew from the first time that I saw Steven Souza play for the Syracuse Chiefs, the Washington Nationals Triple A team, that I needed to go out and find a few of his cards.  He was an older prospect, but absolutely one of those players who is fun to watch.  So, I went out and I found a few of his cards with the Nats.....

Next thing you know, he gets traded to the Rays, and they send him to Durham.  I got to watch a few games with Souza on the Bulls, I also had to go out and find a few cards of him in a Rays uniform.  His first two seasons in Tampa were a little rough, which made finding his cards a little easier, and a little bit easier on the old wallet.....

Then last year, Souza turned into a pretty good player for the Rays.....

which means he got traded this offseason.  It did seem like the Rays traded half of their team from last year away.  The Souza trade was pretty surprising though.  Not sure I focused on who the Rays got back from the Diamondbacks, as much as I tried to figure out who was going to be on the Rays this year.  Also, whether or not the Durham Bulls would finish higher in the American League East than the Rays.  

The Minor League baseball season has started and I got to watch pitcher Anthony Banda throw against the Gwinnett Stripers a few weeks back.   I also got to check out the Bulls new third uniforms.  

Banda is a hard throwing lefty.  Very impressed with him.  A quick look at the new Rays prospect facing Ronald Acuna.  

I have started working on a few Banda cards since seeing him make this start against Gwinnett.  He actually started his career with the Brewers, but was traded to the Diamondbacks in the Gerardo Parra deal.  He has a few Brewers cards, but they are all Panini draft type products.  Hard to really tell that they are Brewers cards.  He has had several Diamondbacks cards over the last few years, including in several of this year's Topps products.  

So far, I have added three different Anthony Banda cards.  First up.....  

The only non-2018 Banda card in this post.  The Bowman's Best cards are always a really nice looking brand.  Last year's product was no different.  On top of a nice design, I also like that this brand uses on-card autographs.  Banda always signs his first name and last name in this same top and bottom style, rather than side to side.  I have seen a few Diamondbacks and Rays collectors complain about this autograph, I do not mind it.

Next up.....

is an autograph from this year's Gypsy Queen set.  This card is really busy.  Not sure that Topps could get much more on the margins of this card.  Team name, player name, playing position, a Topps Certified autograph stamp, an MLB rookie card stamp, and some sort of Gypsy Queen logo.  And you thought people liked cards because they have pictures of baseball players.  That's sort of an after thought on this one.  Still, it has a Banda autograph.  

The goggles and tattoos appear on this card too.  Fairly certain that Topps airbrushed the tattoos off of his right arm on the Bowman's Best card.  

Last.  

A "high end" card of Banda.  This is why I don't spend money to open packs of high end products.  I like Anthony Banda, like his baseball cards, but I cannot imagine spending $300 on a box of cards and landing this autograph.  Thanks to whoever opened this card out of a pack.  This card was printed on nice stock, fairly thick card, and has a nice glossy finish.  

More Banda cards later.