98

This is the 98th Blake Snell autograph in my collection and comes from the 2020 Topps Tribute set. I have several other Snell autographs out of this product from this same year, but not this one.  After putting together a large collection of Snell autographs, I am piecing together odds and ends in an effort to reach 100 autographs. 

Here is the front of the card.  

This is another shadowbox style card that did not come through very well in the scan. The picture in the center of the card is set back against the second picture on the right side of the card and the autograph.  I really enjoy the shadowbox style cards and I am happy to add another from a high-end Topps product. 

The serial number is in the lower left-hand corner. Surprisingly there are 99 copies of this card and I have missed out on it for the past four years.   

Here is the back of the card.   

You've got the standard "Congratulations" message, but also a nice little write-up on the bottom about Snell's first Cy Young Award winning season.  I like that the write-up digs a little into the Rays history.   

Overall, nice card that brings me closer to 100 Blake Snell Autographs.  

2022 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 5

Another Blake Snell autograph card that I did not buy when it was first released.

Today's card is from the 2020 Topps Tribute set and features one of those jersey swatches with a sticker. These are always intriguing and I love looking up the authentication sticker to see what happened during the game.  When I see authentication stickers, I always expect to type in the number and end up getting a game where the player is sitting on the bench.  

Congratulations! 

Blake Snell sat on the bench for a few hours while he was wearing this jersey!  

Here is the card....

The overall design of the card is fine. It's a decent effort by Topps. Kind of what you expect out of a card from this type of product. It's not like I avoided this card due to design back in 2020. I am certain that it was more a matter of price. However, I found this copy for less than $10. 

Now to the swatch.  

I typed in the authentication number and ended up with a jersey from the 2019 season worn during a Yankees and Rays game.  Snell actually started the game, pitched into the sixth inning, and struck out 12 Yankees batters.  I found a wire news service photo of Snell from the game.  

The Rays only scored 1 run, Snell allowed 2, and ended up taking the loss in the game.  The Yankees ended up scoring 7 runs, with 5 of the runs coming in the last two innings against Ryne Stanek and Austin Pruitt.  

Not Snell's fault that the Rays lost the game. 

Back of the game.  

The standard card back.  

Overall, quality card and I was pleasantly surprised by the results of the authentication sticker.  

2020 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 2

Going a little slower this year.  I ended the month of May in 2019 with a grand total of 5 Blake Snell autographs, and somehow made it all the way to 30 by the end of the year.  I assure you that I am going to end the month of May in 2020 with 2 Blake Snell autographs. There are no more autographs in the works.

My latest Snell autograph comes from the Topps Tribute set.

There is a lot of stuff going on here in terms of design, and I am not a friend of overly busy.  There are two faux wood beam things running down the card vertically, the gold lattice, and then the cloud with the autograph and the Topps Tribute logo at the bottom.

Say it with me: Simple is good.

This is not the most memorable Blake Snell autograph in my collection.  It's also not the worst.  Welcome to the autograph box friend.

Back of the card.

Here is my big disappointment with the card.  After looking at all the busy stuff on the front of the card, you flip it over and find out it's acetate.  Can you tell it's an acetate card?  No, you cannot.  Feels like a missed opportunity.  

I am setting my goal for 2020 at 5 Blake Snell autographs.  

A Post About Cats Part 2

I am not a really a cat person.  There are a few cats in my life, not many.  Here is my run down.  

Cats at work.  Love those food wrappers.  

Cats at the zoo.  

Cat Barber, who was the subject of the original post about cats.  

A song about cats

Grumpy cat

and The Big Cat 

I am not specifically trying to collect the long time Expos, Rockies, and Braves first baseman.  He did appear as a Cardinal for one season in 1992, which was not the best moment in his career.  I still enjoyed watching him play for the Rockies and Braves after he left St. Louis.  So, why collect him at this point?  

First, I actually picked up two of these cards....

This second card is the white parallel, with a print run of 199, and the top is blue with a print run of 150.  At this point, there are two other reasons for my small Big Cat collection that I have been assembling over the past year:  

First, I really enjoy the fact that Topps has put some of the 1980s and 1990s players in their products over the years.  Always fun to look back at players from your childhood and teen years.  

Second, I never really had a problem with the Expos even though they were in the Cardinals division for a long time during the 1980s and early 1990s.  Kind of harmless in many ways outside of a few years in the 1990s while the Cardinals were terrible.  At this point, since the franchise does not really exist, many of the cards of their former players have become fun to collect.  There just a few put out every year, but it's nice to see players like Tim Raines, Andre Dawson, and Andres Galarraga back on baseball cards.  

Project Durham Bulls #35 - David Justice

1986 Durham Bulls 

Background-

The Braves drafted Justice out of high school in the 4th round of the 1985 MLB Draft.  Justice played for the Bulls during his first full season in professional baseball.  Durham was one of two stops for the outfielder that summer, along with Sumter in the South Atlantic League.  Justice made the Majors at the end of the 1989 season, but maintained his rookie status heading into the 1990 season.  He ended up hitting .282/.373/.535 with 28 home runs, and 78 RBIs during that season.  The performance was good enough to win the Rookie of Year Award in the National League.  Justice would go on to spend 14 seasons in the Majors playing for the Braves, Indians, Yankees, and A's.  He ended his career with more than 1,500 hits, more than 300 home runs, and more than 1,000 RBIs.  Beyond his Rookie of The Year Award in 1990, Justice also took home the American League Championship Series MVP for his performance against the Mariners while playing for the Yankees.  He retired from baseball in 2002, but since he played with the A's that season, he managed to get into the movie Moneyball....

Well, not really David Justice.  Just some guy playing David Justice.  We're cool.  

Card- 
Justice has had a lot of different autographs over the years, several from his playing years, and several since he retired.  I actually have an autograph of him from the 2004 Topps base set, it's from the World Series insert set, so I wanted something a little bit different.  At the same time, I also really wanted an autograph of Justice on the Braves.  I know he was a good player in Cleveland, New York, and Oakland, but I best remember him in Atlanta.  Plus, the Braves were the parent club of the Durham Bulls at that point in history.  I was really happy to run across a Topps Tribute card of him on the cheap.  This set has been in my last three posts, all about Durham Bulls players, like I found a huge bundle of them on Ebay.  They did not sell for much.  He's got a great signature too.  Happy to add this to the stack of Durham Bulls cards.  

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.  

A Pair From The Best Columbian

There have been only twenty players from the South American county to have appeared in a Major League game.  Of the position players, there are only five with more than one thousand plate appearances.  If you ranked those five players by total plate appearances the third, fourth, and fifth ranked players would be Jackie Gutierrez, the Orioles and Red Sox infielder from the 1980s, Donovan Solano, and Jolbert Cabrera.  The other two are players have a little more name recognition and notoriety....

They actually played opposite of each other in the 2004 World Series.  The second greatest player from Columbia......

and the greatest......

which is not really a fair representation of Renteria's Postseason career.  He had several clutch moments including a series walk off hit in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series.....

as well as a Series clinching hit in Game 5 of the 2010 Series for the Giants.  Edgar appeared for the Cardinals in eight different Postseason playoff series, but he never managed to end up on the winning side of a World Series with the team.

Besides being one of the best Columbian baseball players, it's not a stretch to say that he's one of the better shortstops in the history of the Cardinals franchise.  He's not Ozzie Smith, not Marty Marion, but he's probably in the running for one the spots after those two players.

So, I was happy to see Edgar pop back up on Topps cards last summer.  I know that is not a completely unusual thing to have retired players on new card releases these days, I was a little surprised at Edgar's appearance.  He was really a pretty quiet person during his playing days, never really spoke out things, did not give a ton of interviews, and really seemed to keep to himself.  I am not going to complain though.  I recently had a chance to pick up two really nice autographs of the former Cardinals shortstop.

The first card is from last year's Topps Archives Signature set.  Edgar also signed for the Topps Archives product last year, though he is pictured as a Marlin on that card.  I still picked one up shortly after the set was released.  Since Archives Signature is a buyback product, with all sorts of different older cards from throughout the different players' careers, I decided to be a little picky about the card I ended up with of Edgar.  His autographs in this set are really affordable, so I figure that I could sit back and be patient.  

I feel like I did well by waiting awhile.  This 2002 Topps Heritage card is a lot better addition than a League Leader card from a base Topps set, or a card from the second half of his career which was spent wondering the league with the Tigers, Braves, Reds, and others after he left the Cardinals.  

Last card this morning.  

The scan really does not do this card justice.  It's very modern in design, but has a little less luster posted here.  This is from the Tribute set, it's one of those products I do not actually open myself, but more than willing to trade or buy people's singles.  The card is on a thick card stock and the front of the card has a nice finish.  The line in the scan just above Renteria's signature appears to be random from this view, but actually offers a really great contrast, in person, between the half of the card with Edgar's picture and the signature area.  

A very nice card, easily the best Renteria card in my collection.  

Friday Five: My Five Favorite Autographed Longoria Cards

I was sort of expecting the Rays might trade away long-time third baseman Evan Longoria this offseason, but it was still rough actually seeing it happen last Wednesday.  I started following his career after he made an appearance with the Durham Bulls towards the end of the 2007 season.  Longoria is easily the best player to have ever donned the Rays uniform and provided some of the best moments in franchise history.  

He helped the Rays make their only World Series appearance in 2008 by hitting 6 home runs during the American League Division and Championship Series against the White Sox and Red Sox.  My personal favorite moment was his walk off home run on the last day of the 2011 season which put the Rays into the playoffs that year

I have had a good time collecting Longoria's baseball cards over years.  There are plenty of nice ones out there, so for this post I am going to stick with a few autographed cards which I have enjoyed having in my collection.  Maybe next week I can do another post with the great non-autographed Longoria cards in my collection.  

Honorable Mention:  2013 Topps Tier One Autograph/Patch

I have a few Tier One autographs from a few different years.  Longoria has appeared in the product in some way every year that Topps has put out the product since 2011.  Most years the autographs are on-card, which is one reason why I usually like to pick up an autograph or two out of that product every year.  I really like the design of the 2013 Tier One autograph below, but I cannot put it in my top 5 based on the fact that the card is a sticker autograph.  I love the patch piece, I love the picture, I love the design, but I am bothered by the sticker.  Small thing, but this was a tough list to get down to five.  If I made a list of my favorite sticker autographs of Longoria, this card would be first.  

5.  2014 Topps Tribute 

Tribute is another product that has been a mix of sticker and on-card autographs over the years, sometimes even within a year.  Most of the relic cards from this set that have autographs are stickers.  I have a few different autographs out of Tribute, but this simple autographed card is my favorite of the group.  I like the finishes and design of the card.  It has a nice glossy front and a little bit thicker card stock.  Tribute is also one of those products that has all sorts of different colored parallels, some of them can look a little goofy at times.  I like that this card is low key in background color.

4.  2016 Topps The Mint 

The Mint was one of those ridiculously priced products that was something along the lines of a four digit number for a box.  There were several autographs that I looked into picking up from The Mint, but I was happy that the cards ended up being reasonable in price after a few weeks of the cards sitting on Ebay.  I love the darker background and the on-card autograph.  I sort of wish that the autograph was signed in a different color ink, gold or silver would have been a good look, but the blue still is nice on this card. 

3.  2017 Topps Five Star Autograph/Patch 

This is a recent addition and there is a recent blog post about this card.  Bascially, I have really slowed down on the whole relic card scene.  I don't go after them, I don't trade for them, I don't spend money on them.  I even feel sort of in different when I land one in a pack of cards.  However, this card is something a little different.  I like the jumbo patch which is from the nameplate of Longoria's jersey.  Very nice card that filled a void in my collection of Longoria cards. 

2.  2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Evan Longoria Autograph 

Not the flashiest card.  There is no foil or fancy card stock.  Allen & Ginter is one of my favorite products every year and I really like the framed autographed cards.  Longoria has other Allen & Ginter autograph that are fancy with jersey pieces.  He also has another framed Ginter autograph, but this is my favorite one in my collection.  

1.  2008 Topps Chrome Red Hot Rookies Autograph

I really love the 2008 Topps set.  The little circles at the top are a neat design element that make these cards unique and easy to recognize.   There are always autographed rookie cards in the Topps Chrome set, but the Red Hot Rookies set was actually a redemption in this product.  Not sure when Topps started these cards, or if/when they stopped.  I really hate redemption cards, so this was an early Longoria rookie that was a more recent addition to my collection.   Well worth the wait though, this is my favorite Evan Longoria card.  

Farewell Beltran

Carlos Beltran was a great player for many teams.  While he was not on the Cardinals, most of his career, he was a player who made me nervous as a fan.  While he was on the Cardinals, I knew that he was clutch and would come up with some sort of big play.  

Beltran at his scariest?  Non-Cardinal version has to be the 2004 playoffs.  

The Astros lost to the Cardinals in 7 games, but Beltran hit .417 with 4 home runs, 5 RBIs, and scored 12 runs.  After the 2006 National League Championship Series, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa described the pressure the Cardinals faced in trying to record the final out of that playoff series with Beltran up to bat with the bases loaded:

"Carlos Beltran has hit twenty home runs against us in his last ten at bats" 

It's an exaggeration, but as a Cardinals fan it always felt like he murdered our pitching staff on a regular basis.  I always felt fortunate that the Cardinals got past Beltran in both 2004 and 2006.  

Beltran at his scariest as a Cardinal has to be the 2013 playoffs.  In the first game of the National League Championship Series he threw a runner out at home in the tenth inning to keep the game tied....

  

and then walked off the Dodgers with a single in the thirteenth.  

On to baseball cards.  

I always felt like I missed out on a chunk of Beltran's baseball cards because he came up with the Royals.  He was in the 1995 Topps Traded set at a time when everyone loved them.  I am not sure how much his rookie card, or is that Juan LeBron.....  

actually cost at its height of 1990s popularity.  I didn't really care about this card until he ended up on the Cardinals in 2012.  It didn't cost me very much at that point.  Well, I got the Juan LeBron card, actually with Carlos Beltran, too....

The best card of Beltran that I actually pulled out of a pack was an autograph out of the 2005 Topps set.  There used to be a baseball card shop in Durham near my work when I first moved to North Carolina.  It was not a great card store in terms of sports cards.  Much more of a Magic and Pokemon place.  You ever seen Duke students playing card games?  Not pretty.  The shop folded and I bought the box on clearance.  

I sort of hate 2005 Topps, really busy design, but I love this card.   

I am probably lucky that I did not do online trading at that point in my life because I probably would have cashed this in for something really nice.  I am actually a little surprised that this didn't end up on Ebay.  Perhaps it was hiding somewhere, or I forgot about it.  The important thing is that it is still here in my house.  

Once Beltran ended up on the Cardinals, I tried my best to find some really nice Beltran cards.  The downside to Beltran's time with in St. Louis was that he never had an autographed card in a Cardinals uniform.  Nice cards meant settling for relics.  Not my favorite, but when your options are limited......

First up.  

I got this Topps Tribute card.  The jersey swatch is tall and slightly bigger than the average relic card.  I actually like the picture on the card, the high gloss finish, all limited to just 99 copies.  I actually would have been find if Topps had not placed a non-specific piece of jersey on this piece of cardboard.  

I also got this card.  

It's a jumbo piece of bat.  Jumbo.  The card is limited to 25 copies.  I am not sure the Beltran love is coming through on this card.  It's nice.  Just a little sad about not having a Beltran Cardinals autograph.  

I have moved on.   

After leaving the Cardinals I kept up with Beltran cards.  I have Yankees cards.  I have Rangers cards.  I have Astros cards.  A lot of my effort recently has been spent working on looping back to Beltran's Royals years to find some of his early gems.  There are some really good ones out there floating around.  This is my favorite post-Cardinals Beltran card that I have ended up with.....

Beltran seems like the player who might stick around and stay relevant in the baseball card world, especially if he gains traction towards being in the Hall of Fame.  He belongs.  I will miss seeing Beltran play baseball, but I still am going to find some more of his cards along the way.  Maybe there will be a Cardinals autograph at some point.  

Expos Sweetness

There is something I really miss about having the Expos around baseball.  The Nationals are not really the same thing.  For most of my childhood, the Expos were in the same division as my Cardinals, and while they had some really great players, they were never dreaded or hated the same way as the Mets and Cubs.

The Expos were the lovable team in the National League.  If you team didn't win, but the Expos won it was really hard to be upset.  As a Cardinals fan, they didn't beat the Redbirds in the standings often, but when they did there was really nothing to be upset about.  Add in the fact that the Expos had really awesome uniforms and some really great players and you've got some great cards to chase down as a collector.

I specifically look out for a few players who appeared for both the Expos and Cardinals, as well as a few former Montreal players who were just fun to watch.  One of my favorites was a fairly memorable Expo who had a forgettable year as a Cardinal.  I am talking about the Big Cat....

Andres Galarraga has a bunch of Cardinals base cards from his time on the Cardinals and nothing else since that time.  Cannot say that I blame the different card companies for skipping him with the birds on the bat.  His 1992 season, spent with the Cardinals, was easily one of his worst year's of his professional career.  Luckily, card companies have celebrated his time with the Expos.  

My latest Galarraga comes out of this year's Topps Tribute set.  This is a great looking baseball card....

As usual, the Big Cat has a great signature.  The card stock and finish on these cards is really nice this year too.  I like the Expos pictures too with both a still shot and action shot in the background make the card pop.  The other feature I kind of like on the card is the years of his career in the lower right hand corner.  Pretty cool feature to help out younger collectors who may not necessarily remember Galarraga as a player, or weren't around for his time as a player.  

Another sweet Expos card makes me a very happy collector.  

A Short Little Post of Appreciation For A Short Little Player

There are a few modern players whom I have missed out on over the years.  There are very few players that I will actively skip over.  Does Josh Lueke have an autograph?  No, we are good.  Most of those good players that have been skipped over, or do not appear regularly in this space, are absent for many reasons.  None of them involve a lack of effort, nor active avoidance.  Save for Josh Lueke.

One of the players I have missed out on over the years has been Astros second baseman Jose Altuve.  The infielder is noted for his ability to hit for a high average and his short stature.  Most recently there was this picture of him standing next to Yankees slugger Aaron Judge.  Judge is quiet tall.  

One of my favorite Altuve height related things on the internet is the Twitter account for How Many Altuves.  It takes measurements of home runs, all sorts of other things too, and converts them into the measure known as Altuves.  Each Altuve is approximately 5 and a half feet tall.  

Which leads me to this: I have never ever put a Jose Altuve card on my site.  Like nothing, ever.  So, I was recently trading a few cards, looking through a photo gallery that a trading partner had posted, when I saw an Altuve card.  Normally I would have kept scanning the cards and passed it by, but the price listed on the card seemed a little too good.  It actually was perfectly in-line with what his cards sell for on Ebay.  

The point is, the Altuve card was cheaper than what I had honestly expected the card to fetch.  I took the dive and put the card into the trade.  Now, it is in my collection....

This is actually a lot nicer card than I thought it was going to be when I saw it online.  Tribute is always a nice product, but this year's cards have a nice smooth finish and seem to have a thicker card stock too.  Seeing this Altuve card, holding it my hand, may have led me to find a few other autographs from this set.  Maybe.  

We've Come For Your Boxes

I went out Saturday afternoon in search of a few boxes for some of my larger 1980s baseball card sets which I have been working on for the past few weeks.  There is a large bundle of baseball card boxes in my house, but most of the modern sets are smaller than the old 792 standard Topps set of my childhood.  For this reason, most of the boxes in the closet are less than 550.  What to do?

Off to the local card shop.

Now, I was supposed to be looking for boxes and I had my six year old chaperone along to watch over my purchases.  My wife talked him up before the trip out about keeping me to only boxes.  However, I looked around a bit and found two inexpensive cards that seemed like a good fit for the old baseball card collection.

First card.

Luke Weaver had a pretty good debut last year, but is back in Memphis with the Cardinals Triple A team to start the season.  He's signed a lot of stuff this year and his cards are really affordable.  I am not a huge fan of this year's Tribute set, more in a minute, but I don't have much in the way of Major League issue Weaver cards.  

A quick run down on Tribute:  There is a pattern in the bottom lower left corner, another sort of pattern around the Tribute logo in the top left corner, and something else on the name bar.  Many design patterns, one card, my ADHD is killing me.  

Fidget spinners don't really help.  Don't buy one for you or your children.  

Second card.  

Souza is a Ray, most of the Rays players that I like were on the Durham Bulls.  Souza played for the Bulls on a rehab assignment, but never appeared for the Bulls on a Minor League assignment.  Regardless of his lack of time in Durham, I still really like him as a player based on his time with the Syracuse Chiefs.  He was by far one of the more impressive Minor League players that I have ever run across.  Obviously he is not quite as impactful at the Major League level, but the guy is still putting together a pretty good year...

The card is from last year's Triple Threads.  Not one of those cool cards that spells something out like Souz Not Suzie, but nonetheless a very nice looking card.  I like the dark backgrounds with the gold trim.

As an added post bonus I bring you this incredible video of Souza recently diving for a ball....

and yes I got boxes, but no I did not put a picture of them in this post.  Sorry to crush your spirits.  

Lost In The Closet

I go through sorting lulls at times where I just end up stacking cards on the shelves of my baseball card closet.  Giving my work schedule I know that I am never far away from a two to three week down period away from it all.  Generally I work nine weeks and then have three weeks off.  A few more during the summer and around December and January.  In my mind it can be a great excuse to procrastinate on certain chores and activities around the house.  Card sorting is not immune.

I have actually improved a lot over the last year or two.  There used to be a table in my card room that was buried with all sorts of commons, doubles, and the whatnot.....

While the situation has improved, I am a little ashamed at the state of my card closet at the moment, so I will say that it looks better than the picture above.  At the same time it's not like every card is in a box, not really even close.

A few days back I decided to tackle a stack or two of the cards in the closet that were not sorted into boxes.  Loads of commons, doubles, a few odds and ends.  Welp, I also found a few really nice cards hanging out in there too.  Most notably were two Carlos Martinez cards that I got from?  Your guess is as good as mine.

One of the cards was a C-Mart autograph from last year's Topps Museum Collection.

Martinez's autograph always seems to change every year for the good.  This is an on-card autograph too.  I like the black and grey design on this card with the red highlights.  Seems to fit well on a Cardinals card.  Nice picture of C-Mart pitching too.  

The other Martinez autograph was a jersey relic from last year's Tribute set.....

Same picture as the Museum autograph above, but there are some things that I like about this card.  First, I have been really down on materials cards the last few years.  I went through some of my posts from the last year a few weeks ago and there are almost zero, not quite, posts that deal with just relic cards.  It still is a larger swatch and it has one of those cool stickers on it.  That always means that I get to take a field trip over to the MLB Authentics website and figure out whether I should be excited or disappointed....

The jersey is from a Cardinals vs Royals game in July of 2015.  The question is always whether or not the game involved the player.  The answer is........

what does Carlos do when he sits on the bench?  He builds cup pyramids and throws water on players when they hit home runs.  Carlos was doing something with cups the day he wore the jersey on the front of this card.  Randal Grichuk and Matt Carpenter also hit home runs that game so maybe a little bit of this too...

Anyway, the prospects of finding two really nice Carlos Martinez cards in the random stacks of the card closet has made me feel a slight push to sort through some more of the cards just sitting around.  Maybe there is something else really nice in there, maybe it's just a bunch of 1991 Fleer cards.  Either way, I am excited to find out.