Something Different

Roughly 95% of the posts on this blog are about Durham Bulls or Cardinals players. That might actually be a touch low. 

Anyway, in an attempt to branch out, I have decided that there are other good players on other teams. Some of those good players have baseball cards and some of those cards might look nice in my collection.  

Enter Luis Arraez.

He is hitting .400. That's really all he is doing. Beyond the .400 average, Arraez has hit1 home run and stolen 1 base. So, not much power and not much speed, just hits.  

I recently bought one of his autographs, which came from last year's Gypsy Queen set.   

I have no idea what Topps has done with the design of this product in recent years. The important thing is that it's an on-card autograph.  

It would be cool to see someone hit .400 and Arraez seems to have a chance.  

Go team.  

2022 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 4

I found a Blake Snell autograph from 2022 Gypsy Queen. 

It's an on-card autograph. 

I was really excited that there was an inexpensive, current-year Blake Snell autograph available on Ebay.  

It has the dumbest design of any Blake Snell autograph that I have posted on here the past few years. Well, it is actually in the running for worst design I have ever seen on autograph card. I have wasted a portion of my baseball card budget buying a Blake Snell autograph. It's the first time, hopefully the last, that you will hear me say that phrase. 

This is the card. It is terrible.  

The picture is fine. I am not a fan of camo uniforms, but I can handle them. The border is fine too. Let's get to the "GQ Gems" wheel with the astrological signs and giant gem in the middle. This is the really terrible part. I am not into horoscopes, zodiac signs, gems or minerals. I could care less. 

Remember those Miss Cleo commercials during the 1990s?

Did she end up in prison for fraud?  

I actually knew that Blake Snell's birthday was in December and I see the centaur, but I am sad that Topps did not use the Country Music Centaur from Trolls World Tour. My knowledge of centaurs is limited.  

The gem is a blue Topaz or Turquoise.  

Back of the card.  

Thank goodness this card has a limited print run of 50 copies. I would hate for other Blake Snell collectors to make the same mistake that I made in purchasing this card. 

Last Year's Bulls

I did not get many cards of the Durham Bulls players last year.  I am not sure why exactly, there were plenty of older players on the team who had cards and certified autographs before joining the team.  I ended up with a few of them over the last two weeks since I have been at home.  Most of them are pretty inexpensive. 

All autographs.  

First up is former Phillies prospect Dylan Cozens.  He was only on the Bulls for two games, and I managed to be at one of those two appearances.  I had seen him before while he was playing for the Lehigh Valley, which is the Phillies Triple A team.  

This autograph is from last year's Gypsy Queen set.  It's an on card autograph, and a really inexpensive card.  Maybe waiting a year to collect these cards might be the way to go.  

Next.  

Jalen Beeks was another player who was barely in Durham.  A grand total of three games, but he pitched over 100 innings last year in Tampa.  Not the best player on the Rays, so I would not be surprised if he ends up back in Durham again at some point.  Beeks is another player I saw a few times playing for another team.  He was on Pawtucket for two seasons prior to joining the Rays last year.  

I like the Chrome autographs.  I think he actually has two of these, but one of them has a sticker autograph.  I like this card.  

Next.  

I saw Nick Solak while he was at Louisville.  He played half a year with the Bulls last season, and then got traded away to the Rangers.  They brought him up to the Majors at some point, and he ended up hitting.  I think Solak has a chance to be a decent player in the future.  I really like the 1985 Topps design on this card.  

Last one for tonight.  

I love when the Bulls have players like this on there roster.  Emilio Bonifacio has played 11 years in the Majors, and made more than enough money to retire.  Yet, he spent time as a 30 something year old playing baseball in Triple A.  I think you really have to like the game to stick around and ride the bus around in the Minors in that situation.  

This is an older autograph from the 2010 Upper Deck set.  Bonifacio actually has a bunch of autographs from earlier in his career.  Some are pretty nice.  

Just Stick To The Plan

Way back in January I wrote a bunch of goals about what I wanted to do with my collection this year.    It was so long ago, and it is so easy to lose track of those sorts of goals.  I am not sure how many different baseball card products have been released this year, I am thinking five to six, but I have only put together two different sets so far.  I have a Heritage set, and a base set of Topps. 

I have picked up a few packs of Donruss, not cool, but otherwise I have stuck to the plan.  

During this past week, Topps released their Gypsy Queen product.  I have been a fan in the past, and kind of dig the look of the base cards this year along with a few of the inserts.  I can tell you that I have been in Target and Wal-Mart during the past week.  I bought no Gypsy Queen cards.  None.  

However, I did pick up a pair of Gypsy Queen cards.  Sticking to the plan, only Cardinals and former Durham Bulls.  I am kind of excited about the Cardinals card. 

There are other Jose Martinez cards that have come out of the last year or two, but the guy has had zero certified autographs.  I have seen a few locally in person autographs, since he spent five years in the Carolina League, but nothing that I really wanted to add to my collection. 

I was hoping the day would come when Jose would sign something for some card company.  Here we are. 

Next, the Durham Bulls portion of the post. 

Adames has been in Durham the last few years, but seems to finally have found a spot on the Rays roster.  His autographs seemed to have cooled off a bit over the last two years, which has helped me add a few more of his cards to the collection.  I like that he's an actual Ray on these cards now, not just a random photo from Spring Training.  

Bullish On Arroyo

I am not a huge fan of the Evan Longoria trade.  I know that he is getting up there in age, I know that he has declined the last few years, but still there is value in having a face to your franchise.  There has never been a player who has done as much for the Rays.  He got them to their first, and only, World Series appearance.  Many of the franchises best moments in the brief history of the Rays happened with Longoria on the field.

There is no turning back though.  As a baseball card collector, I will still collect Longoria cards.  He is still one of my favorite Rays/Durham Bulls players.  His trade has also provided the opportunity to add a few other promising players to my list of cards that I need to find.  The easiest of the Minor Leaguers in the trade to find is infielder Christian Arroyo.  

Arroyo is ranked in several of those Top 100 prospect lists.  

He also had a stint with the Giants last season.  Arroyo basically skipped Triple A.  Considering his level of performance in the Majors, I am guessing the Rays will probably leave him in Durham for a good chunk of time this year.  Plus, he is still only 23.  

I'm going to stay positive and be bullish on Arroyo's future with the Rays.  

I have even started a small Arroyo collection.  Very small.  It's two autographed cards at this point.  

First up is a very busy Gypsy Queen autograph.  There is so much stuff on the front of these cards.  Still amazed at how they squeezed it all on there.  Arroyo has a really simple autograph.  Not sure I am really digging the C and an A with a some sort of line as his last name.  Maybe too simplistic, but at least it's not a scribble.  

Last one.  This is from Topps Tribute.  Nice product, I am sure that some case breaker or someone who spent a few hundred dollars on this box was probably pissed to see a Christian Arroyo card.  The signature on both cards is pretty consistent.  Not sure I love the blue trim on a Giants card.  

Maybe a few more Arroyo cards later this summer.  

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.  

Phamtastic

At the beginning of this year I had pledged to put together less sets in order to focus on current single cards of players and teams that I collect, or filling holes in sets from previous years.  There have been a few different sets put out so far this year, so here's how I have done....

I have a Topps Series 1 set put together mostly because one of the parents at the school I teach at bought me a bunch of packs.  It wasn't hard to put together, didn't really cost me much, and it did not take up a lot time.  I also got a good current year project off of this project......

with the 1983 Topps insert set.  I have a whole bunch of these cards and I am getting close to finishing off this set.  It's not been very expensive, but it has taken some time to track down the cards.  There are a lot of these 1983 rehashes that are being sold and traded in lots, they make for quite a few duplicates, but I am done to just a few cards.

The others.....

Donruss?  Absolutely not happening.  

Heritage?

 

Just a Jack Flaherty autograph.  Pretty nice card.

Which brings me to this week.  There are two different Topps products that have come out this week, with Gypsy Queen coming out at the beginning, and Tribute coming out today.  I have scoped out a few single cards from each of the products, but I am not touching the base cards from these two sets.  One of the first cards that I scoped out showed up in the mail earlier this afternoon.

I was happy that Topps got a Cardinals player outside of Luke Weaver, Matt Carpenter, and the other usual suspects to sign something....

that they put into packs of cards.

I have other Pham autographs, but he just has not been used in dozens of card products.  At least not yet.  The best part of getting a Pham autograph at this moment is that he's probably the best player on the Cardinals at the moment.....

Phamtastic.  

I might have another Cardinals card or two that I might track down from this set, and there are definitely a few Durham Bulls related cards on their way already.  

There's No Crying In Baseball

I am a big fan of players showing emotion while they are playing the game.  Some of the "unwritten" rules of baseball stuff, put your head down and run, drive me crazy at times.  Don't get me wrong, if Scott Rolen types want to run around the bases as quickly as possible I am not going to complain for a second.  However, at the same time, if a guy like Bryce Harper hits a 500 foot home run I don't see a problem with him checking it out on his way to first.

Emotion is a two way street.

Baseball always seems to be the last sport to adapt to everything, not only are celebratory displays of emotion much more acceptable in other sports, but so are some of the emotions for losing a hard fought game.

Basketball has crying.

Football has crying.

Hockey.  Crying.

Even Pep Band members at sporting events cry....

but baseball has generally been devoid of crying.  If you scour the internet long enough you can find a few examples of players crying on the field, but most of them are pictures of players dealing with something tragic from off the field.  Pictures of Craig Biggio and Larry Walker can be found crying after the death of Darryl Kile, Marlins players after the death of Jose Fernandez, and Yankees players after the death of Cory Lidle.

Baseball players really don't cry on the field outside of that Flores kid on the Mets.  At the time this incident happened, I really did not think much of it.  Guy crying because he is going to get traded?  Sounds a little sad, but I am not sure that it's worth this sort of display....



I recently ran into a pair of Wilmer Flores cards.  They were pretty nice cards, and while they are not something I would go out of my way to find, both cards fit into sets that I have enjoyed collecting.  First up...

I did a little bit of work collecting these a few years back.  There were always some nice players in these Bowman's Best insert sets.  I especially enjoyed the die-cut versions of a few of the Cardinals and Rays prospects.  I do not have the complete set, but Wilmer is one of the cards that I was missing out of this set.

Last one is a Gypsy Queen autograph from the 2014 set.  I have always liked the GQ sets and really enjoy the on-card signatures in the product.  Wilmer does not have the best signature or anything, but adding cards like these to the old collection isn't going to cause any hurt feelings or tears.

Things I Am Sorting....Part 1

Again, I have been back a week and in case you have not been following along, I am spending more time working on the cards that are already here in my collection.  In my quest to reorganize my cards from team boxes into sets, I figured it might be cool to share some of the cards that I am sorting out.  Always fun to look back at what you picked up out of a wax box, or from your local card shop, long ago.

While I said there was less focus on new things not coming in immediately, I am going to set that aside for tonight's post.  Today, I am going share a few things that have recently been added to my collection, but they are still here inside of my house taking up space and time.

So, let's start with the easy stuff.  I have spent some time this week straighten out my autographs.  I added a few new autographs from some of the early Topps releases and never filed them away into my boxes.  Some of them I pulled myself out of boxes, but I have been trying to fill in holes by trading and buying too.  I have actually only worked on Topps Series 1, Heritage, and Gypsy Queen.  Still, there have been other products released by Topps and Panini recently.  Not bothering with packs.  Here are two Cardinal additions:

The Carpenter card is from Topps Museum Collection.  Museum has been around for a few years and is always loaded with sticker autographs.  There are some Cardinals and Rays in this product, but stickers...... I found this Matt Carpenter autograph on Twitter on a picture posted by Brent and Becca.  They are case breakers in Arkansas, fun to follow when new cards come out, and sometimes you pick off cards before they list them on Ebay.  That's how Matt Carpenter ended up in my collection.

I also picked up an Ozzie Smith autograph from Legacies.  Nice card, nice signature.  It's Ozzie.  There are other autographs too, but I am not posting all of them.  Check out my Instagram for more of these types of cards and a picture of a street named Cypress Hill that I drove down last week.  Sorry, no B Real or Sen Dog.

On to the real challenge.  I have been spending a lot of time the past few weeks working on some early and mid 1980s sets.  Next week I am hoping to spend time working on some 1986 and 1987 sets, but this week I am skipping the eighties to work on this year's Gypsy Queen cards.  They came out a few weeks ago......

The design is alright this year.  Not sure about the red letters on the bottom of the card.  I am saying that and I love the color red.  The trim is kind of an orange color, which looks nice with the tanish/brownish card color, but then the red is just too much.  I am in really good shape with the base set and have a good start on the minis.  The other cool thing that I found while sorting out my Gypsy Queen cards was a variation of Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant.

Pretty cool pull.  I am not sure what the odds are exactly on pulling the full sized variation card, but I am pretty happy to land the card.  Enough with new cards, next week I am going to post some nice 1980s cards.

Archers!!

It's always nice to have a few friends who are looking out for your collecting needs.  I use my Facebook page to pick up cards in different groups, but there are so many different pages and posts that it can be difficult to keep track of all of the cards floating around out there.  Last weekend I got a Twitter message from one of my best Twitter follows who gave me the heads up on a lot of Archer cards that were up for sale on one of the Facebook pages.  The post slipped right past me.

After a couple of messages I was the proud owner of four new Chris Archer cards.  Pretty sweet lot, here's a look at the new cards......

At some point I had this card and I flipped it around to a fellow Rays fan to fill in a hole in a trade.  Not a difficult find, nor an expensive card, but I still love looking at it.  We've got an on card autograph and a cool picture showing some good grit from Archer making a pitch.  Again, sharp card, and if there was one downside to this lot, it's that this card is the only on card signature in the group.  

Archer autographs from Topps Supreme?  I have a few, but they are all from the 2013 release which was actually only released in Asian markets.  Why haven't I picked up any from the 2014 release?  It was actually released in the US which made the challenge of finding and buying the cards a lot easier, but for some reason it did not happen.  Looking back over my posts on this product, it seems like I spent a lot of time and money focusing on the Cardinals.  Sorry Archer collection, I hope this is the first of many cool Supreme autographs I pick up from last year.......

Here is a card that I already own.  If you cheat, scroll down, the next card is very similar too.  So what's the deal with wanting more copies of this card?  It's nice to own Archer autographs, but I swear that Topps did not make one of these cards with an identical patch.  It's like there was a giant pile of mismatched Archer patches sitting somewhere at Topps production facility and they used every last inch.  There are a few hundred copies of these cards and I have not found two patch pieces that are the same.  

It's true that duplicate cards kind of stink to own, but not when they have al sorts of cool and interesting patches.  Really happy with this new lot of Archer cards.   

Reddit Trade

I have traded for cards on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Email, the comment section of blogger.....Whatever and whenever something catches my interest.  The last month, or so, I have been doing a little bit of posting in the Baseball Card area of Reddit.  It's a pretty diverse group.  Anything from the "I found 10,000 cards from 1990 in my attic, am I rich?" to "Check out these cool cards I found" and everything in between.  

After making my post about my Archives hits a few weeks back one of the frequent posters/commenters FFFHFT approached me about trading a pair of the Mets cards I pulled, the Franco autograph and the Wright silver, for a similar pair of Cardinals cards.  

Here's what I landed:

A copy of the Kolten Wong Gypsy Queen autograph.  I pulled a Matt Adams autograph out of my box, and have picked up a few other Cardinals along the way, but still have not picked up a copy of this card yet.  Wong is having a great year and I am not doing anything with his cards....I will work on it.  This is a really nice on-card autograph of the Cardinals second baseman.  Really happy to add this card to my collection.  

Speaking of good seasons, I also added a copy of a Jhonny Peralta silver bordered Archives card.  These are numbered out of /199 and run at a rate of about two per box.  Here's a look at the back of the card.....

Two really nice cards and a great new place to trade some cards.  

  

Two New Cardinals Pick-Ups

I added two new Gypsy Queen Cardinals cards yesterday afternoon from another local collector.  I had not really gone out and tried to pick up any of the Cardinals relics/serial numbered parallels from this set, so I might have to take these two new cards as a good starting point to add a few more of these.

First up is this Wacha relic.  No serial numbers or anything here.  Just a nice looking relic card.  I do like the framed relic pieces better than the non-framed.  The frames on the cards seem a little bit tighter this year.  In past year's the cards would slide and move around inside the frame.  This year's seem to do less so.  Maybe it's just this card....

and finally a brand new Lackey card.  This is the one per box framed card that is numbered out of /499.  A nice looking card.  I have not really done much with Lackey since he was traded to the Cardinals last season.  He has pitched well and has a lot of cards.  Maybe a project for my upcoming summer break.

and finally.....here's Gypsy Queen (part 2)

If you missed the first half of this post, you can find my autographs and relics here.  Again, I am a little bit behind with some of my posts, so thank you for bearing with me on these posts this weekend.  Today I am going to look at the base set and parallels in this year's Gypsy Queen.

Base Set

The base set is the usual:

• 300 cards with 50 short prints for a total of 350 cards
• There is one mini per pack which follow the same pattern as the base set. 
• Each box of cards has a pack of minis.  They contain the variations of the minis
• Base set has photo variations- We are dealing with Topps 

Overall I am not a huge fan of this design.  I usually like the dark colored cards, a little bit more condition sensitive since chipping shows easily, but these do not do it for me.  It's an odd and unattractive color of brown.  The shape of the window around the card is also odd.  What in the world is that shape?  What's that thing in between the Gypsy Queen label and player name at the top of the card?  

It kind of looks like the Ashoka Chakra on the Indian flag......

 Anyway, I am not a huge fan of the design.  Topps has now made the Gypsy Queen for the last five years and has kept the design close to the initial release in 2011.  Perhaps next year they will come up with something different without losing the feel of the set.  I understand, it's a fine line to walk.  

Parallels

The big parallel set in Gypsy Queen is still the framed cards that are numbered out of 500.  These have always been popular cards with collectors.  I like the looks of these and will probably try to find a few of these with Cardinals and Rays players.  Nice cards.....

The minis also have parallels.  The most common are the silvers which are numbered out of 199.  I pulled a total of five, but they generally run about three per box.  I almost like the coloring on these minis better than the base set.  I did not pull a black parallel out of my box, but they are numbered to just 5 this year, instead of 25, and feature red letting.  Sharp looking cards.  

This red mini of former Cardinals/Angels shortstop David Eckstein was my best parallel pulled.  It's a red mini numbered out of 25.  Again, the coloring on this card is better than the coloring on the base set cards.  I really like the looks of this card, and while it shows Eckstein on the Angels, it's still a keeper.  

Inserts

Which brings us to the inserts.  There are a few different in the set, but I am going to focus on my favorite two insert cards from this set: Glove Stories and Walk Off Winners.  

The Glove Stories inserts feature players who made great defensive plays last year.  There are some different names in the set and you don't see too many too often in inserts.  Yes, there is Trout in there, but there are also cards of Dustin Ackley, Steven Souza, and Peter Bourjos.  I did not get a Souza, but one is on it's way.  I do like the Ackley, even though he was a Tar Heel, making this cool catch.  

The Walk-Off Winners set is similar to the Glove Stories.  Sure there are a few more big names thrown in there, but lots of cool cards.  There are three Cardinals for me to chase down, but I did land this sweet Longoria which shows his walk off from the last day of the 2011 season.....