Not $400.

I am old enough to remember when boxes of Topps Finest Baseball cards were not $400.

Looks like I am also now old enough to remember when they were $400.

Greedflation at its finest.  

Luckily, for us collectors on a budget, there are people who buy $400 boxes and sell the single cards on Ebay. Finest comes with two autographs per $400 box, so I started out trying to find a nice pair of autographs for less than $400.  I ended up find 3 autographs rather than two. The total cost of the three cards was less than $20 after shipping. All three cards fit perfectly into my little collection of baseball cards.  

First, an autograph of Giants catcher Patrick Bailey. 

I have several other cards of Bailey in my collection from his time playing at NC State and USA Baseball, but this is my first autograph of him since he turned pro a few years back. Patrick has shortened his signature down considerable over the years.......

but I still love this Finest autograph. Beyond attending NC State, Patrick Bailey also was the Giants catcher for Blake Snell's no-hitter. I really need to post some more Patrick Bailey autographs. Maybe next Monday......

The Bailey autograph was the majority of the not-quite-$20 I spent on these three cards.  

Next up is a pair of Durham Bulls players, one current and one former.  

Curtis Mead is a consensus Top 100 prospect with Baseball Prospectus ranking him highest at 42. Mead actually spent several weeks up with the Rays, but struggled with his bat before being demoted back to Durham. I am a big fan of the Australian third baseman and think he has a bright future somewhere. 

Last card. 

Tristan Gray was on the Durham Bulls the past three seasons. He hit a ton of home runs for them, but never got much of a chance with the Rays. Gray is an older prospect at this point, late twenties, and was traded to the Marlins in the off-season.  I am kind of surprised that he is not on the Marlins on all of his 2024 cards, although I think it's a bit of a surprise that Topps included him in any of their products. 

Anywho, his cards are very inexpensive and I enjoyed watching him play for the Bulls. 

A Little March Madness

My Wolfpack are on quite a run at the moment. The team needed to win their conference tournament to reach the NCAA Tournament. Last week, they won 5 games in 5 days at the ACC Tournament, including wins over Louisville, Syracuse, Virginia, Duke, and North Carolina. It is the school's first ACC title since 1987.  

2024 ACC CHAMPIONS🏆 pic.twitter.com/f7Li2ZhPjA

— NC State Men's Basketball (@PackMensBball) March 17, 2024

Last night, NC State played their first game in the first round and defeated Texas Tech to advance to the second round.  They were led by lovable big man, D.J. Burns.  

 

The crowd loves DJ Burns Jr. 😤 @PackMensBball pic.twitter.com/ItFP3gg1la

— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 22, 2024

I would love to find some basketball cards of D.J. Burns, but Bowman has not included him in any of their Bowman U./NIL sets. However, the team's shooting guard, D.J. Horne, was included almost all of last year's Bowman U. products while he was playing at Arizona State. I know, two D.J.s on one basketball team. 

Horne is from Cary, North Carolina (outside of Raleigh) and transferred to NC State to be closer to home during his final season in college. 

For the city😤 pic.twitter.com/PfumhqJ67G

— NC State Men's Basketball (@PackMensBball) March 17, 2024

I bought these cards a few weeks ago, but thought the basketball season was going nowhere and was not even going to bother posting the card. However, the Wolfpack's run has me excited to share a few basketball cards this morning.  

I don't know know too much about the Bowman U. products, so I am mainly just posting pictures here.  

First up is a pink parallel.

I like the guy in the background wearing a rainbow on his head.  

I also like D.J. facial expression. He's one of those basketball players who looks like he has fun while he's playing and Bowman did a good job of capturing that vibe on his basketball card.  

Next. 

A little sad that the guy with the rainbow hat is faded out in the background here.  

The sticker is crooked, but at least I have a D.J. Horne autograph.  

This one is better.  

The sticker is straight.  

Hopefully this run through the ACC Tournament and into the NCAA Tournament can get NC State a few more basketball cards this year. Has the new Bowman U products released? Yes?  I would love to see a DJ Horne card with the Wolfpack, or one of the other contributing members of the team on a basketball card.  

It Was A Card Shop Kind of Day

I have tried to explain my teaching schedule before in previous posts, so I am not going to completely rehash the whole thing. I am currently in one of those windows where I do not teach for a few weeks. Most teachers have summer vacation. I have "track out" a few times a year. Earlier in the week, I did a bunch of stuff around the house, so I decided to treat my productivity with a trip to the card shop on Friday afternoon.  

Besides, I needed some supplies to help me put away some cards. I really need to make a sorting post one of these days. Maybe next week.  

Beyond the supplies, I also went home with a few new baseball cards. I hope you're in the mood to look at pictures of cards, because I am not in the mood to do a ton of typing today.  

Did I mention there are basketball cards too.  

I will start out with the basketball cards. I found these McDonald's All-American cards in a quarter bin. I found two cards of Zoe Brooks, who goes to NC State, and a Hannah Hidalgo, who goes to Notre Dame.  I saw Zoe Brooks record a triple-double earlier in the season. 

Big showing for the 𝙍𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠 - Zoe Brooks, @PackWomensBball ‼️

🏀 Recorded 14 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in the win over Liberty, earning the first triple-double by an ACC player this season

📰 https://t.co/81akC4qRWi pic.twitter.com/YcLOmQFYMs

— ACC Women's Basketball (@accwbb) December 11, 2023

It's March. Go Pack!!! 

Both Hidalgo and Brooks are freshman, so they are going to be around for awhile.  

Onto baseball. There were no new Blake Snell cards at the shop, but I did find two new cards of former Durham Bulls star, Jake Cronenworth. It's been a minute since I added a new Cronenworth card, but these two looked pretty sweet. They were also just fifty cents. Pretty good deal.  

I also found a pair of Pujols and Goldschmidt cards.  

 

An Adley Rutschman rookie card.  Big fan, you should be too.  

A cheap copy of the 1987 Topps Barry Bonds rookie card.  I can't believe these are a few dollars.  

Which brings us to the vintage portion of the post.  All of these are former Cardinals, former Durham Bulls, or in the case of Vada Pinson and Robin Roberts, older players I like.  

One final card for the post.  

I also picked up a Bowman Platinum autograph of Orioles pitcher Grayson Rodriguez.  

I have been really impressed with him in the Minors and his work in the Majors at the end of last season. I think he is going to have a really good season and his autographs are really inexpensive given his talent. I do not often advocate for people to spend money on autographs of prospects, but this is one of those moments.  

Baby T

College basketball season is upon us. 

It is the happiest time of the year in North Carolina. 

Since all the team's are dependent upon transfers, I am not sure who is going to be good or not. There are current NC State players who appeared in Bowman U. last year with other teams. I had thought about adding a few of those cards, but I find it hard to collect players I have not watched in-person. Maybe later this year I will get to a few games and feel inclined to buy a few cards. 

In the meantime, Panini is catching up with the players who were in college last year, as they have included cards of former NC State player Terquavion Smith in their Prism product. Terquavion, or Baby T, is part of a decade long tradition at NC State of having one player score a bazillion points per game while the remaining players are all role players. Not quite true of last year's roster, but also not far from the truth.  

Baby T is now a shooting guard on the Sixers, but in Panini Prism he is still a member of the Wolfpack.  

Terquavion has a decent autograph. I had seen it several places prior to picking up this card, so I knew he was going to shorten his name when he finally got a basketball card. The design of the card itself seems rather textbook for Panini. Their designs all seem to run together and look very similar.  

Here is a second Baby T autograph I picked up. Both cards cost me less than $5.  

I like the picture on this second card a little better, but the design comments ring true for this card too. 

We shall see what Terquavion does in the NBA. He's an exciting player.  

A Busy Week of Football

We are in the middle of the baseball playoffs, but that has not stopped me from spending a little quality time with football this week. It all started last Saturday when I attended the Duke-NC State game. This game was in Durham at Duke. Their stadium is small, but I really like attending games there. The majority of the seats have actual seats and not metal bleachers. The crowd is also typically calm compared to other college football venues. 

Dare I say far more sober than NC State, or at least the State Fairgrounds during an NC State game. 

This is a look at Wallace Wade Stadium from behind the student section.  

Wallace Wade is the only stadium to host a Rose Bowl game besides the Rose Bowl, which happened during World War II. 

As for the game, my Wolfpack played horrible on offense and lost 24-3 to the Blue Devils.  

I was disappointed for a day, but I actually had a group of NC State Football players show up at my school and read and talk about college life with my students on Monday morning, which more than made up for the loss. The students were excited to meet the players........

We got to spend the day with our friends at Brier Creek Elementary for Sports Day! #1Pack1Goal | #GoPack pic.twitter.com/TLiNJ2wAO0

— NC State Football (@PackFootball) October 17, 2023

While we are here, let's talk about baseball and baseball cards for two seconds. 

I had a pair of concerned well-wishers on social media ask about the Yankees pennant in the video. The players visited three different classrooms. I do not have a Yankees pennant, but my bulletin and board borders are all baseball cards.  I am also into science and math charts and diagrams and they are all over this video.  

Anyway, back to football. This post is not really about baseball cards.  

My week of football was topped off this afternoon by an exciting football card arriving at my house. That's not a typo and it has been several years since I have posted a football card. Got to be something special for me to buy it and post it. 

Front of the card........

This is a 1992 Pro Line Football Brian Jordan autograph. 

Where is the autograph asks the baseball collectors?  

Hold on a minute.  

One of my favorite Brian Jordan card is his 1998 Topps card, which shows him wearing his Cardinals uniform hitting a football. Here is the card:

This Pro Line card proceeds the Topps card by six years and I think it was likely the influence for baseball card with Jordan wearing his Atlanta Falcons uniform holding a baseball bat. I am a little curious about when the photo was taken. Jordan is clearly standing in the left-field corner of Shea Stadium, but during his 3 year NFL career never played a game against the Jets and Giants.  

Jordan only played 55 games for the Cardinals in 1992, but did play 3 in Shea against the Mets. Perhaps the photos were taken during baseball season. Also interesting that Jordan has cards in a 1992 football card product, considering the Cardinals ended up paying Jordan a few million dollars in the middle of the baseball season to give up football. 

Brian Jordan did not play a single down of football for Falcons that year, or ever again. 

Back of the card.  

The Pro Line cards had players sign the back of the cards. I own several Brian Jordan autographs and this is a little scrunched up for space. It's also hard to see on the scan, but there is some yellowing around the autograph, 

No bueno, but I also got this card for less than $10.  

I do really like the embossed Pro Line emblem on the bottom right corner of the card. I guess the basic design of the Pro Line Autographs is the same as the Pro Line base set, minus that embossed stamp. Nice touch in my opinion, especially for the early 1990s. I also really like the write-up with Jordan being mentioned in the same space as Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson.  

That rarely happens, but it should.  

The Peak of Good Pitching

Remember that time NC State got eliminated from the College World Series in the middle of the night two years ago?

Yes, it was because of COVID.  

No, don't leave a comment about COVID below.  

Anyway, my Wolfpack reached the College World Series and was in a position to win the National Championship thanks to the efforts of pitcher, Sam Highfill who pitched a shut out against Vanderbilt opposite Rangers first-round pick, Jack Leiter.  

Highfill is from Apex, North Carolina, is best known for its abundance of trains and its cheesy water tower. It's also the town where I happen to live, just a few blocks from both the train tracks and the water tower.  Both are walkable from my house.  

The water tower has some art work on it and is stamped with the words, "The Peak of Good Living" and is located smack dab in the middle of the town. Nobody who lives in Apex is actually from Apex, but local legend has it that the water tower was built first and the town filled in around it.  

Seems plausible. 

Back to baseball. I am not going to rehash the whole reason as to why NC State was sent home from the College World Series at 2 in the morning, but the community rallied around Highfill and the mayor of the town started lighting up the water tower red at night.

Here is the famous/infamous water tower. Note the railroad crossing sign in the foreground.  

While half of that College World Series team is now playing in the Minors, since Highfill was only a freshman, he is still in college at NC State. He missed most of this past season, but did manage did manage to appear last summer in a few games for the USA Baseball National College team.  

The inclusion of Sam Highfill cards is part of the reason I have been opening packs of the USA Baseball cards. Unfortunately, there have been no sightings of good Sam Highfill cards. A few base cards, but nothing too exciting. 

The town of Apex gets a nod at the bottom of the back of the card on the right side.  I like the green frame around the edge of the card and the green box used on the back as well.  More on the use of the color green later in the post.  

I just bought a pair of his autographs from Ebay from less than $10. Highfill is a well-thought of college pitcher, but I am not sure he's high on the board for the MLB Draft. Not quite the same energy level as when Carlos Rodon was at NC State.  

First up, the base autograph. Yes, it's a sticker autograph, which is a bit of a bummer. It is also the autograph of a college kid that cost less than $5. Panini has started using on-card autographs for the college players in Donruss Elite, so I thought they might change the USA Baseball cards too. Guess not.  Do you think that USA Baseball has to pay the college kids for autographs now that they have NIL rights?

Just curious. 

Hopefully Sam got paid some money for signing these cards.  

Notice that Panini went away from the green for this card with only the green bar at the bottom for the team name and another at the top as part of the design around the card brand logo.  

Next up, is a relic/autograph card.  

I like this card much better than the first one. The USA Baseball set has a lot of green included on the packaging this year, as the primary color of both the packs and boxes. Plus, green also shows up on the border and backs of the base cards. Feels like a good move, especially considering that their facility is very green with all of the trees around the field. Green is a prominent color.  

I wish Panini had used the green background on the base autograph as well.  The green on this card also has a star pattern, which actually lightens up the background quite a bit in places. They should have gone simple here and just used the dark color.  No matter, it's still a much better looking card than the first Highfill autograph, but both are welcome additions to the collection.  

The Old Mall Card Shop

I am approaching ten years now in this space. During that time, I have made several vague references to a "mall card shop" near my house that I never really visited. I am not going to name names for this post.  Maybe in a future post. Mall card shops are not really ideal, I do not want to spend a lot of time rehashing all the various reasons. 

The mall with the card shop was in the process of closing prior to the pandemic.  The anchor stores were closed and the mall was filled with all sorts of odd shops.  One of the local high schools had even landed a space in the mall for their robotics teams.  I am not sure exactly when the mall officially closed, but the most recent pictures I can find show it completely shuttered. 

 

I had actually been to the mall card shop several times while the remaining stores were in the process of holding clearance and closeout sales, but it was primarily for a few large card boxes. I discovered a sweet table of old wax boxes on the last trip. I ended up buying a box of 1995 Emotion cards, which was a fun product back in the day.  

At some point in the last year, the mall card shop reappeared within a five minute drive of my house in a new development.  I was curious about the store, but did not make a visit. I figured it was likely going to be similar to its identity as a mall card shop and it's in a little bit of an odd place. The only thing I knew that was on that same street was a trailer park.  

Well, I needed some card boxes a few weeks back, so I loaded the little man in the car and made a visit to the card store.  Not my picture, but it looks nice from the exterior.  Yes, the trailer park is still there, just to the left in this picture. 

I dare say, I was impressed with the store. They had a decent selection of single baseball cards and a lot of wax. The little man spent a good thirty minutes looking through the boxes trying to find some Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt cards. He ended up with a nice stack of cards. I also ended up buying a few inexpensive Jake Cronenworth cards, but I was just more impressed that the store had card supplies.

Enter this week. We have been in the process of replacing the floors in our house. Our furniture has been moved around. On Wednesday, the little man could not hang out in his room, because our contractor was working on our staircase. 

 

What to do?  

We made another trip to the former mall card shop. Again, I was impressed by the store. The little man was able to track down a few single cards from the Cardinals, Tigers, and Rays players he collects. Those are his three favorite teams. I also ended up with a bunch of single cards that I am posting now, but also ended up picking up some Topps Heritage Minors. That's for a different post.

Here was my haul. All of these cards averaged out to roughly a dollar per card minus the last card. 

I have not really done much with collecting Paul Goldschmidt cards since the Cardinals traded for him in 2019. He was a nice player on the Diamondbacks, but I was not a huge fan. I feel like I have come around a bit after this past year.  Good player, borderline Hall of Famer.  I will try harder on Goldschmidt in the coming year. 

Next up is a MacKenzie Gore. He's from North Carolina and I have a connection to him through work. Not the best year in 2021, but I still think he has a bright future. 

The late 90s Gold Label sets were much better, but still not bad cards.  Picked up a Pujols and Goldschmidt. Not sure if the Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3 cards are the same as the original sets.  Pujols is a Class 3 card, which is why I asked. I believe those were short-printed back in the day.

Next three are all of the newest Cardinal, Steven Matz. Just a bunch of Topps Chrome singles, nothing too fancy. 

 

 

The bottom 1984 style card from the 2019 Topps set is my favorite Matz card out of this group.  I need to go through my Mets and Blue Jays singles from the last few years and see what other Matz cards I have hanging around.   

The next three are cards are all NC State players.  First up is Russell Wilson and Trea Turner.

 

 

Nice to see Russell Wilson shown as a position player with a bat in his hands. There are several Panini cards floating around where he is shown as a pitcher.  Russ was actually a second baseman. Heard he also played for the football team.   

Two T.J. Warren cards.....

I am a team behind on T.J.. The last time I posted one of his cards he was still on the Phoenix Suns. That was two years ago. He's played well on the Pacers so far, although T.J. has still had problems staying on the court due to injuries. Last year, T.J only played four games. This season, he has already missed a game or two with a foot injury. Still my favorite former NC State basketball player.  

Last card for this post.  

An old Durham Bulls favorite, Anthony Banda.  

He was really good for the Bulls a few years back, but has had a few arm injuries and bounced around to the Giants, Mets, and Pirates.  The Pirates used him as a reliever during the second half of 2021 and he seemed to find his stuff again. 

I picked up two boxes of Topps Heritage Minors while I was there. Not very mall-like prices on the boxes, plus I love Minor League baseball cards. That post is for another day.