Got One Of Them Hot Boxes

I bought baseball cards at Target.  Not a real common occurrence, but I am usually at least willing to walk past the card aisle and see what is there.  I think about it for a few minutes. 

There is the "Remember you pulled an Al Kaline autograph out of a $20 box here once"

There is also the "Isn't this the store where some jerk slit the top of a pack of cards we bought?"

If I do decided to buy cards, I now make sure the packs are sealed, or the box is not wrapped in Glad Food Wrap or something.  

On with the story.  

Now, if you have never heard of a hot box, they are sort of a mythological creature in the world of baseball cards.  I liken the hot box to things like....

The chupacabra. 

The Loch Ness monster.  

Bigfoot.  

So, I start opening up my packs of Topps Heritage cards and I get a Chromium looking card of Aaron Judge.  I flip the card over, no serial number.  

Weird, but I am in the middle of opening up packs, so I just set it aside and open the pack.  I get another Chromium looking card of Jose Ramirez.  No serial number.  

At this point I am intrigued, but I am still not going to stop for two of these cards in two packs.  

Then the next pack started out with this card......

and ended with this card......

I knew something was up with the box of cards that I was opening.  I checked out a few different checklist type sites, you should read Cardboard Connections, and I found the answer was indeed something called a "Hot Box".  These aren't just Chromium cards, or Chrome, or whatever you want to call them.  They are some form of purple Chrome.  

I was stunned, so what did I end up?  This is great stuff for a retail box.  I mean, it's not Al Kaline, but for $20 at Target.....

All a very good haul, but I got one other card, which is going to go along way towards putting together this set.  

Hot Box!!!! 

Gallery Of Reasonable Baseball Cards

I really cannot stand Wal-Mart.  There is one a mile or so from my house.  I spent ten minutes trying to think of one item that I regularly buy from that store.  I have got nothing.  The last time I went there it was only because it opens at 6 in the morning and I needed to pick something up for the science club I run at my school.

Sure, part of the dislike has to do with the fact that the card aisle is garbage, but it also smells like cat food.  Needless to say that when a retail only product comes out I have zero chance of finding any packs of whatever it is anywhere near my Wal-Mart.  I guess I could do that whole thing where I drive from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart all over central North Carolina, but I value my time too much to go on such a venture.

I guess I "miss out" on all of the fun.

Annual Bowman craze over some prospect?  I got an Ohtani card last year.

In the past I have ended up with plenty of cards of Bryce Harper, Steven Strasburg, or whoever else has made people scour all of their local retail stores for packs of Bowman.  I will wait a few more weeks and buy a Bowman base set for a whole lot of not much compared to what they were selling for when the set first came out.  

Remember when they had the baseball cards in the Wal-Mart brand pizza?

Big shout out to the internet for a picture of a pizza box from Wal-Mart.  I question whether the food material inside of the box can even be called a pizza.  Ultimate meat pizza?  I have my doubts.  I missed the pizza card craze and I feel like I really did not miss anything.  I can buy the two Cardinals cards in the set off of COMC for less than $3.00.....

and I have never eaten a Wal-Mart brand pizza.  It's a win-win.  

Which brings me to last year's Wal-Mart exclusive......

the Topps Gallery set.  People want a little crazy about these boxes.  Two autographs for $70 at Wally World?  I decided to wait out for singles.  The former Durham Bulls players in the set were within a comfortable price range last fall.....

so I have picked up most of those cards.  Although the Rays ended up with Christian Arroyo in the Evan Longoria trade, so there is still one out there to find.  Not sure what is up with the drawing of Kiermaier's face on this card.  A little off.  

So, on to the Cardinals.  I found a copy of the Paul DeJong and Alex Reyes autographs about two months ago, which left me with two more autographs to find.  I could have bought the Luke Weaver last fall, not too bad on price for one of his cards.....

in the Gallery set.  I went ahead and picked up this card once I found the final Cardinals card that I needed to complete the team set.  I never quite understood, of all the players, why Cardinals fans went a little overboard on Magneuris Sierra.  He is a decent prospect, mainly he's just really fast....

I suspect that some of the love for Sierra came from the fact that he is something off a 1980s Cardinals team.  He's not Vince Coleman, or Willie McGee, but he might be the closest thing the Cardinals have had the last twenty-five years.  

Since he got traded to the Marlins this offseason, he will never have the chance to duplicate those players as a Cardinal.  The good news is that most of Sierra's cards have gone from outrageous to $5. Very reasonable for a player I suspect might turn into a Billy Hamilton clone, minus a step.  I was a little excited to cross off some cards that will close out some team sets.  The Gallery card was first up on my list. 

I feel like the sticker autograph is a little more noticeable on this card than on the Weaver and Kiermaier cards.  I also feel like the art work is also better.  This is my first decent Sierra autograph too.  About a year ago, I picked up a copy of a Panini autograph....

though as an unlicensed card, it is really unattractive.  Not even close to the Gallery card.  Maybe a few more Mags cards later on this summer.  

KK Off the List

I feel like I have crossed a pretty big item off of my Most Wanted List.  Yes, I know I need to throw a few more cards up on the list and plan to do so at some point this week.  More importantly, I feel like I have done a really good job in recent months of moving some of the cards off of my list.  After not publishing a Want List for a long time, I have seen the addition of my list help in two way as a collector:

• I am focused on specific cards that fit into my collection
• Other collectors seeking to make trades have a great starting point

Which brings me to my list card which I picked up in a Facebook group page.  There are so many cards posted in some of the pages it is hard to sift through them all some days, but a copy of a Kevin Kiermaier autograph caught my eye last week.  I had to ask and a few minutes later I was the proud owner of this card:  

I gave up a sharp looking Yoenis Cepedes autograph in exchange for this card, but in my opinion it was well worth it.  Kiermaier, currently the Rays center fielder, spent parts of three seasons as a Durham Bull.  While those three appearances only totaled up to 77 games, it's was a long enough time to make a lasting impression on baseball fans in North Carolina.  Kiermaier hustled, played great defense, and sparked the Bulls offense.  All the same things he is now doing at The Trop.  

I have had my eye on a Kiermaier autograph for awhile now, and while they are not too difficult to find, I could never settle on a copy and find it at a price I was willing to pay.  All of his certified autographs are Panini, which means no logos, but they sell for more than you would think.  When his signature first started to appear in Panini products many of his cards would end between $25-$30 at auction.  Cards with nicer patch pieces would push closer to $50.  I would have loved to have owned some of those, but not at that price.  

The last month, or maybe two, I have seen a few pop up on both Ebay and COMC, but they were rather ordinary.  Given the amount of cards I have seen with big pieces of patch I decided to wait it out.  I think I finally landed a winner with this National Treasures card featuring an on-card signature with a nice big blue patch piece.  All number out of just 10 copies.  

2014 International League Top Prospects

I went to a Durham Bulls game last week and was happy to see that the team was selling off some of their old baseball cards cheap.  I could not pass that buy, so I loaded up on a few things from their team store.  Really, I love looking at minor league sets and probably need to post a few of these sets on here.  There is always some star power in these sets, but there are some fun players too.  Here's a look at last season's International League Top Prospects set.....

First couple of cards and there are a few favorites in here:

 Jesus Aguilar because he was in the Triple A All-Star game last year and seemed pretty impressive.  He also recently pulled off the hidden ball trick against the Indianapolis Indians.

Christian Bethancourt because nobody should run on him, ever.  

Hak Ju Lee because if he ever learned to hit consistently he would be awesome.  Until then his slugging percentage is .250.  (Sigh)

Kevin Kiermaier because this is fun to watch.  The Cardinals win this game?  

Steven Souza because the guy can hit......

Marcus Stroman because he is one my favorite ACC baseball players I have seen in person

Allen Webster and Mike Wright?  I have got nothing here.  I listened to this great Pixies show while I was typing this post.  Give it a listen. 

Collecting the Durham Bulls: Kevin Kiermaier

A few injury issues for the Rays have forced my hand on this post.  Kiermaier was high up on my list of players for this line of posts, but we will go ahead and cross him off the list since he was called up by the Rays Thursday afternoon.  I really like Kiermaier and would love to see him back in Durham, but at the same time, if he just stayed in Tampa the rest of the season I would not complain.  That being said, it was a great day for a Bulls game on Thursday, and I missed seeing Kiermaier in the lineup. 

Back Kiermaier.  The Rays drafted the speedy outfielder from Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois during the 31st Round of the 2010 MLB Draft.  He was actually called up to the Rays at the very end of last season and was actually on the team's initial playoff roster appearing in the American League Wildcard Game as a defensive sub.  Kevin Kiermaier does not appear on the Top 20 Prospects list for the Rays, but I would imagine their is a spot for him somewhere on the roster as a good glove, speedy and smart base runner, and an underrated bat.  He's actually shown a little bit of pop at the beginning of this season which carried over from last season's International League playoffs.

Card wise Kiermaier has a few options out on the market for collectors.  He has not appeared in a Bowman set yet, but has two Topps issued cards both from 2011.  The first is a Topps Pro Debut which uses the base 2011 Topps design, but pictures the players in their minor league uniform.  

 

In this case Kiermaier is a Princeton Ray.  He also has a card in the 2011 Topps Heritage Minor League set and is wearing a Bowling Green Hot Rods jersey on the card.  Kiermaier also has all of the usual team issued cards from the different minor league stops before Durham including Montgomery and Princeton.  

What about something higher end?  Another collector asked me a few days ago when I started this thread about finding nicer cards for some of these players.  The answer is two fold.  First, if they are on the Durham Bulls they have made it to AAA and there is a pretty good chance they will get some big league playing time.  That will result in more cards, more cards, and probably better cards.  Second, is to chase the extremely limited print runs and printing plates of the cards that are available.  For example, Kiermaier's Topps Pro Debut Printing Plate sold last month on Ebay. 

 

I know printing plates can be tricky to find, but if you are patient and are willing to spend roughly $20 it's not totally impossible.  More on this when we get to Vince Belnome.