0% Cardinals, 0% Braves

Last fall I decided to go out and get a nice looking Bowman Shelby Miller autograph.  It was a nice looking card and you are missing out if you have never seen Shelby Miller's autograph.  Very nice.  Here is the card....

Somewhere in between trading for this card and my mailbox the Cardinals traded Shelby Miller to the Braves for Jason Heyward.  I still followed Shelby Miller this past season.  There are a few Braves fans around in my circles and it was nice to see Shelby have a great season.  That being said I was hoping to add a nice copy of a Braves Shelby Miller card to my collection.

I found one, it came in the mail, and it sat in a pile of cards on the coffee table in my baseball card room.  There have been several of those stacks of cards floating around my house during the past few weeks....

There was this one.....

and this one........

and somewhere in one of those two pictures is this card of Shelby Miller......

I really liked the looks of this card.  I know that the Triple Threads cards are always different colors depending on the print run and other factors.  I really liked this bronze color that Topps used on the set this year.  Really great looking card with the usual Shelby Milller signature.

#MyCardMonday

So, did you watch any baseball this weekend?  I spent some time suffering through the Cardinals and Tigers series and checked in a little bit on my Durham Bulls, who had some problems with the Scranton Railriders.  Not the best, but there was one bright spot early Sunday afternoon by former Cardinals pitcher Shelby Miller.

If you have not seen Shelby pitch this year he has improved greatly from his time in St. Louis.  Lots of fastballs and first pitch strikes.  I think he's been one of the biggest surprises in the game so far this year.  Sunday's game finally got him some well deserved attention when he carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning and came within an out of the no-no.

He actually had something of a no hitter back in the day with the Cardinals when he gave up a lead off hit against the Rockies and then recorded 27 straight hitters for the complete game shutout.

Predictably the early success for Miller has agitated a few of the "Best Fans In Baseball" (As a Cardinals fan I hate that moniker) and allowed some internet trolling to take place especially with local St. Louis columnist Joe Strauss who works in St. Louis, but hates everything about the city....

At least most Cardinals fans could count the two hits collected by the Marlins, or at least read the box score.......

Anyway, I am happy to see Shelby find some success in Atlanta.  He got a raw deal at times in St. Louis at times, especially during some of the playoff runs when he was delegated to the bullpen and forgotten about as a long reliever.  Especially during the 2013 playoffs when he won 15 regular season games, but only appeared in one playoff game for one inning.  The Cardinals season ended in the World Series, but Miller never started a game.  

So, to celebrate a great outing and great start to the new season this week' #MyCardMonday goes to, not only one of the National League's best pitchers, but also one of it's best signers....Shelby Miller.  

This Morning 50% Cardinals, Now 0% Cardinals

Last weekend I picked up a pair of Cardinals autographs from one of the auction pages on Facebook. I got both cards for a pretty good price and was more than happy to add an an autograph of a current Cardinal (as of this weekend) and a former Cardinal (as of the trade deadline).  The former Cardinal first:

Joe Kelly has been gone since the trade deadline at the end of July.  I understand why the Cardinals decided to trade the goggle wearing right handed pitcher, but I still enjoy collecting his cards.  This was amongst his first autograph cards produced.  On card with the goggles.  Winner.  Second card.....

I was shocked to see Shelby Miller traded today.  I am not complaining, but just surprised that the Cardinals moved so fast.  I have really enjoyed collecting Miller cards for the past five or so years and will likely continue to check in on his cards from time to time.  He has a great signature and seems to sign a lot for Topps.  Anyway, I am off to find some Hayward cards and watch the end of the NC State game (and do a bunch of school work).

2014 Topps Stadium Club Box

Another trip into Big D's card shop and another great box.  Today I opened up a box of 2014 Stadium Club.  I'm not sure I can do this in three pictures and a video like I did the 2014 Bowman Chrome box the other day.  A few more pictures and I apologize is the video is too heavy on love for this set.  I love Stadium Club.  Great work by Topps on this product.

A Trip To Big D's Card Shop Part 1

My trips into my favorite local card shop tend to focus on adding some cool Cardinals or Rays cards to my collection.  Actually this trip was for a box of cards, but in the meantime, the owner of Big D's Jimmy had his eyes open looking for some cool cards for my collection.  We will get to the box in Part 2 of this post, but first let's look at some cool single cards.  Lot's of cool things here, the Rays are up first....


Both Rays items I picked up yesterday were signed items from players who had stopped in Durham on their way to the Majors.  Really cool items that Jimmy found from a great local autograph collector.

This is a Jeremy Hellickson autograph on a ticket stub from his first Major League victory.  Really cool and unique item of one of my favorite Durham Bulls.  I love collecting autographs and the vast majority of my autograph collection is in card form, but I love finding unique items like this.  Who has a ticket stub from Jeremy Hellickson's Major League Debut hanging out in their house?  I do not know, but I am really happy to own this piece.  Here's a look at Hellickson during the game.  John Jaso is catching....

I also landed a nice ball from pitcher Matt Moore.  Moore spent a good deal of time in Durham before landed a job in the starting rotation of the Rays.  The ball is from the Southern League and features a nice signature of Moore on the sweet spot of the ball.  

Two really nice Rays autographs and both are on unique pieces.  On to the Cardinals half of the post. All my Cardinals additions are in baseball card form.  First up are a few Yadis.

Starting simple, this is a Molina short print from this year's Topps Heritage set.  Not many cards show off Yadi's cool neck tattoos.  One more Yadi short print.....

I posted one or two of these variations before with my box breaks.  This is the Stats variation which features the Sabermetric stats on the back of the card instead of the traditional stats that Topps has put on their cards for years and years.  Topps has already added the WAR stat to the back of the regular cards, but think a few of these stats could find their way onto the regular issue of Topps cards.  I'd love to see the OPS+ stat there.  

Still staying pretty simple, this is a pair of rookie cards from new Cardinals pitcher Sam Tuivailala.  I have a good feeling about Tuivailala and could see him moving into a prominent role in the Cardinals bullpen in the near future.  I had posted a pair of his autographs a few weeks back.  Nice player, give him a look.

On to things that are a little bit harder to find...This is a nice copy of a 2013 Bowman Platinum Blue parallel.  The card is numbered to 40/199.  Taveras cards still seem to be selling low even though he has started to pick it up at the plate in recent weeks.  Hoping that Matheny can find him some at-bats on a regular basis next season.  Next Taveras card.......

I have always love the Bowman Inception cards.  Last year the set was my favorite product of the year.  It was a nice product again this year, and I have added a few autographs from the set, but not quite as gaga over this year's issue.  Still I love this Taveras.  He's got a great signature and the card has a nice on-card autograph.  This is the green version of the card and is serial numbered to just 75 copies.  

Jimmy picked this card up for me this past week.  I pulled a copy of the Hank Aaron card like this and was more than happy to pick up a Wacha card numbered to just 25 copies.  Have you looked at the Wacha card from Allen & Ginter and compared it to the Trevor Rosenthal?  They could be brothers.  

On to my favorite.  I LOVE THESE.....

Topps puts out all kinds of parallels.  Pink, camo, etc, etc, etc.  The best of them all have been the Acetate parallels numbered to just 10 copies.  I have picked up a few Cardinals cards.  Love this card and the set.

Overall, the single cards and items I picked up from Big D's today were all really awesome adds.  I am not sure how I would ever find half of the cards I pick up for my collection if it were not for the owner, Jimmy, keeping his eyes open for all of these cool cards.  If you live around Raleigh-Durham, or are visiting, a trip to Big D's is well worth your time.  If you can't make it into the store, you can also check out the shop on Facebook and Twitter.  

Amazing Day of Gypsy Queens

I stopped by my favorite local card shop in Raleigh, Big D's Sports Cards, to open up some Gypsy Queen boxes.  Topps released Gypsy Queen this past Wednesday, but with family in town, it took me a few days to make it into the card shop to check out the newest version of this annual popular Topps release.  Jimmy at Big D's picked up a pair of cases of Gypsy Queen.  My two boxes were pretty amazing.  Small details first:

The base set is the typical Gypsy Queen product that Topps has issued over the past several of years with this product.  The base set is 350 with about 50 short printed cards which are generally the high numbered cards and a few singles scattered throughout the set.  The shortest of short prints appears to be the Tanaka card.  I did not pull a copy of the Tanaka rookie card, and out of the boxes that had been opened in the card store, only one copy had been pulled.  The Gypsy Queen set also features it's usual run of minis.  I pulled six black minis and a sepia mini in my two boxes. 

All of the Black Minis are numbered to 199 and the Sepia mini is numbered to 50.  Jimmy also traded a few minis with me and I also picked up a nice copy of the black Stan Musial and the Adam Wainwright.  I will probably try to pick up a few more of the black framed minis of the Cardinals and maybe a few of the Rays. 

On to the good hits.  Each box of Gypsy Queen should have four hits: two autographs and two relics.  I definitely beat the odds with my box.  Here are my autographs from my first box:

Nothing too great there.  KIckham and Hefner might both potentially be Major Leaguers at some point, but they are not probably going to be anything too great.  Kickham did go to Missouri State.  Connection, kind of...  I also was happy to pull a copy of a Bourjos jersey card with a picture of the Cardinals new center fielder in his new jersey. 

Really happy to pull the Bourjos card.  I had seen a few of these floating around this week and was really eager to add one of these to my collection.  Always nice when you can just pull one out of a box.  Now, for my good hits from the first box which more than make up for the fact that I did not get a second relic card. 

This is the first of my two good hits from my first box.  The plate is the mini Cyan of Dodgers right handed pitcher Zach Greinke.  Pretty nice looking card, but I actually landed a nicer card than this one in my box. 

This Shleby Miller Texas flag patch was my favorite card I pulled out of this box.  The card is serial numbered out of 5 and features a cool flag patch of Miller's home state.  Gypsy Queen has done a few insert sets with flags before in the past, but never with patches and never limited to just 5 copies.  Throw in the fact that the card features a Cardinals player and I am extremely happy with this pull.

Now, I did get a second box of cards, and while the first box was really good, the second box was really cool too.  In fact, the Miller card was the highest serial number (out of 5) of any of the extra hits I landed in my two boxes of Gypsy Queen.  So, my first move in opening my second box was to bust open the small box of minis on top of the box.  My second box was a little short on mini because this card was in the box...

 

I have never pulled a button card, so landing this Greinke was really sweet.  The card is limited to just 3 copies.  Just really really cool.  After landing the Greinke I went through the box and pulled my two autographs and my two relic cards.  My autographs were Steve Delbar and Adam Eaton. 

 

Ironically I returned home sorted out my base set cards and minis and witnessed Eaton hitting a home run yesterday against the Indians.  Eaton is now on the White Sox.  My two relics....

 

After pulling the two relics I was really happy with my second box and would have been more than satisfied with two autographs, two relics, and a button card limited to just 3 copies.  However, I managed to pull one more cool hit out of my box...

I am not a huge plate person and I rarely seem to pull them, but two in a day is a personal record for me.  Plus I managed to land two pretty good players with Greinke and Utley.  Overall, my two boxes of Gypsy Queen were pretty incredible.  Four autographs, three relics, a button card, and two printing plates is a pretty good day at the office.  In fact, Big D's had a great weekend with this product.  In addition to my good pulls customers in the store also pulled.  Here are four other customer's hits that Jimmy posted on his Facebook page including a Yogi Berra 1/1, Reggie Jackson 1/1, Puig Printing Plate, Dual autograph of Julio Tehran and Mike Minor, a Minor printing plate, and a jumbo Stanton.   I actually picked up the Porcello patch from Jimmy in the third picture down.  I will post it at some point. 

Mail Day! Part 1

The amount of times I have used Mail Day during the past year is ridiculously low.  Plus, my alternative title for this post was "Smorgasbord of Cardboard".  Hands off that title by the way.  I will still use it at some point.  Anyway, I received a package of cards yesterday that was stuff full of five pretty nice cards.  Four autographs cards I targeted from a seller on Ebay and won.  Then there was another card that was just sitting there, so I bought it.  Cannot pass up certain cards which only cost $0.99.  So, here's my run down on my winnings.  Or Mail Day Part 1:

This was the original card that brought my attention to the seller I picked these cards off of on Ebay.  I have not added many Shelby Miller cards to the collection recently and have really been looking long and hard at some of his autographs from different Topps products last year.  I feel like I missed a bunch of them.  Anyway, I know that the green Finest cards are not necessarily the lowest print run in the set, but I really like the looks of the cards.  Further, the green copies of the Miller autograph consistently sell for more than $25 dollars.  There are several Buy It Now copies of this card still up on Ebay and they are all over $30.  I picked up my copy for a little bit less than $20.  Pretty hard to beat that price.  However, while I was picking up this card I managed to snag a few other autographs that were also missing from my collection.  Here's three more autographs:

If you are a regular reader you know that Archer is a personal favorite from the Durham Bulls and also a local talent from Clayton, North Carolina just outside of Raleigh.  Not his best autograph and there is a slight smudge on the A in Archer, but still a nice add to the collection for less than $5.  I will have to pick up a nicer copy of this card at some point, but happy to have this one for the price. 

Kyle Gibson is a former Mizzou standout and starred last season for the Rochester Red Wings in the International League.  While his Major League ERA was up over 6, his ERA in the minors was right around 3 with 7 wins.  Hopefully this year will be a little bit better for the former Tigers pitcher. 

I might be the only person without an autograph of Didi Gregorius.  He signs for everything and always seems to be the most frequent signer in every Topps product.  Not saying I love this card, but it's hard to say no to an autograph on this nice looking of a card limited to 125 copies.  $2 is a small price to pay for this card.  Although it was one dollar more than my cheapy throw-in card....

I am not sure the ARod card market has hit rock bottom, but it cannot be too far away when his relic cards have skated down to the equivalent of a dollar bin pickup.  I mean a Yankees relic with a pinstripe is always worth something?  Right?  Maybe Arod is going to prove me wrong.