I Don't Care That These Are For Kids.......

The 2023 baseball cards feel a little slow. It's the middle of April and all we've got so far is Topps Series  1 and Bowman Heritage from 2 years ago. Maybe some delayed 2022 products too. Where is Topps Heritage and Bowman?  

Anyway, strep has been making its way through my house this week. I have avoided it so far, but I spent my Friday hanging out with my middle schooler who felt miserable. Lots of rest, fluids, and some amoxicillin and we are feeling better today. Still, I needed a little entertainment to keep myself going yesterday, so I picked up a few packs of Topps Big League.  

I don't care that Topps Big League is made for kids, it provided a little bit of entertainment on a long day at home with a sick kid. 

Here's what I pulled out of the packs.  

The base cards are missable, but I picked out my favorite three........  

This Molina card is actually a foil parallel, hard to tell from the scan, but it has a silver finish. I did not pull a Pujols base card, which was a little disappointing, but it's a 300 card set and I opened a Blaster box with roughly 100 cards.  

My two other favorites were former Durham Bull Blake Snell and current Durham Bull Jonathan Aranda.  

I am honestly surprised that Aranda has appeared in both 2023 Topps products. I think he's a Major League player, but he's not high up on the Rays prospect list and he is buried in Triple A at the moment.  

Can I bring up the most annoying base card?  

Topps airbrushed a bunch of the players who were traded or switched teams with free agency this offseason.  Several are really bad, but Andrew McCutchen is easily the worst. It's really obvious that the photo on this card was airbrushed.  

Remember when Andrew McCutchen was on the Pirates for 9 years at the beginning of his career? You're telling me that Topps could not have used one of those photos?  I would rather see a dated photo than one where he in on the Brewers and Topps airbrushed him into a Pirates uniform.  

The insert cards are much more kid-friendly.

We've got graffiti name tag.  

Babe Ruth and graffiti. Peanut butter and jelly.  

I did pull an Albert Pujols card. Nice looking insert.    

Yes, it's a video game reference, which seems kid-friendly, but most current kids also think 8-bit games are really lame. My fifth graders talk about NBA 2K. I talk about NBA 96. They don't care about Reggie Miller or Charles Barkley. Not truly kid-friendly. Really, this card appeals to the average Topps customer. Middle-aged, white guy who collects cards and owned a Nintendo, Sega, or PlayStation at some point between elementary school and college.  

I am more of a 16-bit guy.  

These are "Fun Box" inserts.  

These two cards made me think that this insert set was somehow an ode to ballpark food or Lunchables, Ballpark food is okay, Lunchables are gross. I ended up with a few other Fun Box cards that had different backgrounds without the food.  

These feel like leftover Topps Project 2020 or Project 70 leftover cards. The Alonso card with the cartoon is goofy, but I like the Willie Mays with the swirled colors. Might be amongst my favorite cards out of these Big League packs. I guess someone at Topps was not able to quite pull this insert set together, but something decent came out of the effort.  

There are also City Slickers inserts, which are just advertisements for the Nike City Connect jerseys, which are available now at your team's store or at Nike dot com. There are a lot of base cards with City Connect jerseys as well including several Rockies players, which is why I included C.J. Cron in the scan.  

Although, those Rockies jerseys feel like an advertisement for the Colorado DMV.  

Don't forget to renew your license plates.  

Last two cards are the best two cards.  

I love the mascot cards.  

These are just incredible cards. I don't think I have a Rally Monkey card in my collection and that Fredbird card is one of the better ones out there.  There is no Opening Day set this year, so these are going to have to tide everyone over on mascot cards for the year.  

The Never-Ending School Year and Retail Baseball Cards

My last school year ended midday on a Thursday afternoon last month. It was my last day at the school I have worked at for the past ten years. It was time for something different and new challenges. More importantly, something a little closer to my house. 

After moving a minivan load of books over to my new school, I went home to start my summer vacation. I was really tired at the end of the day, so I think I ended up going to bed around 9. A few hours later my alarm went off. I woke up, took a shower and got dressed, and drove into work. 

It was Friday. The first day of my new school year and my new school.  

My summer vacation was measured in hours this year rather than days or weeks. My last actual vacation day was on April 14th, which is a long time ago for someone who has worked the same schedule for the past 15 years. I teach for roughly nine weeks starting at the end of July and take three weeks off at the end. Multiply the schedule times four and you've got a complete school year.  

I am about to enter my fifth straight month of teaching with no significant break, which is a lot in my world. Even if you are on a traditional calendar, it's only four months between the beginning of the first day and Thanksgiving break.  

It has been a long time.    

There are a lot of little things I have been doing to cope with the extended workload. I have been trying to get more sleep, packing some good lunches, and getting extra fresh air. In addition, I have also been trying to be intentional about setting aside time to work on my baseball cards. Some of that time has been spent sorting out cards......

I am mostly trying to organize my single cards that are not attached to a set, or find the last few cards needed to complete some of the more recent near-sets that I have assembled. I have also been working on building a few new sets, and also opening up some retail packs. My most recent goal has been to complete the Topps Series 2 set.  It feels like a throwback to childhood when I bought a few packs of cards and spent a chunk of the spring and summer trying to assemble a complete set of Topps cards. 

I have been helped out along the way by a few Target gift cards which I received at the end of last year. It also doesn't hurt that my new school is located in the middle of a large retail area. Think of a large box store and there is probably one within five to ten minutes of my classroom.  

Here are two of the retail blaster boxes that I have picked up over the past few months.  

 

I thought I would share out a few of my favorite cards I picked up along the way.  

I had originally set out to collect Topps Series 2 with retail packs slowly over the first quarter of the year. I reached the goal in half a quarter, but was greatly aided by having two students at my previous school gift me retail blasters on the way out the door.  I used my gift certificates to buy two more Series 2 retail boxes. I have purchased one Topps Series 2 Blaster with my own money.  

Five boxes of Topps Series 2, one small COMC order, and I am done.  

My favorite card out of the base set is the Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina combo card. 

They have only been playing together since 2006. Not sure why it took this long for Wainwright and Molina to appear on a baseball card together before this year. I know I am really bias, but I hate that there is a checklist on the back. 

Yes, Blake Snell is card 414, but give me some information about Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright. If nothing else, just give me a photo of the Carlos Beltran strikeout at the end of the 2006 National League Championship Series.  

Moving on.

The Topps Series 2 boxes all come with a batting helmet card. They look a lot like the 2007 Sweet Spot autograph cards, but the helmet is made out of metal rather than plastic.  I pulled two different Cubs batting helmets.  

These are actually really nice for manufactured relics. There is a Goldschmidt and Arenado card in this set, so I am going to go ahead and add those to my Ebay watch list. They will be sitting there until I can find them for a few dollars.  

I also pulled a Joey Votto Home Field Advantage card.  

I love the plate of chili in the bottom corner. I don't eat chili, but it's the sort of local food reference that Topps should have put onto the Yadier Molina card. I needed some toasted raviolis or cans of mass-produced beer.  

More cards, but only the highlights.    

I bought a few packs of Donruss. Please, do not repeat my mistake. They are terrible, but I did get a Matt Manning autograph. If Matt Manning's arm does not fall off, I think he will be a good pitcher. Unfortunately, Matt Manning's arm is half-way off already.  

That's quite the signature.  

I also bought a few packs of Topps Gallery.  

This set is not nearly as good as it was in the 1990s, but I did land an autograph of Giants catching prospect Joey Bart. Pretty good pull for a retail pack of cards.  

Next up, a box of USA Baseball cards. I do not love the regular MLB cards of Panini, but ruining the USA Baseball card set is too far.  

Athlete Development Program?

National Team Development Program?  

What happened to the College National Team?  

According to the internet, the guy on the left is a freshman in high school. Not college, high school. Pretty wild having baseball cards, but not being able to drive.  The guy on the right is a senior in high school and committed to play college baseball at Alabama. At least he can drive himself to school.  

My two relic cards.

Yes, they are both in high school as well. 

The player on the left is a sophomore in high school.  

The player on the right is a junior in high school and committed to play at UCLA in college.  

Still wild to think that Panini is making baseball cards of high school kids.  

In ten years, one of these guys is going to be working an office job and give out his Panini baseball cards rather than a business card. 

Did I mention that my new classroom has a view of a Walgreens?

It came in handy the one day. Horrible headache. I just walked across the street and picked up some Advil and a few packs of Gypsy Queen. Felt much better afterwards.  

Gypsy Queen was decent. Similar to Gallery, this product has seen better days. I pulled a Jose Devers autograph out of a pack. Any retail autograph is a win.  

That brings me to my last retail product, which is easily the best.  

This is from the 2021 Topps Chrome Anniversary set. Which was it released in the middle of 2022?  I don't know. Do we need another set that borrows the design from the 1952 Topps set? Yes, we do if this is what the cards are going to look like.  

Here are my shiny, wavy, and colored cards I pulled out of my box.  

This is where my post veers from a bunch of cards that I pulled out of retail packs and into a future project.  

I really like this set and had contemplated printing off a checklist and tracking down all the cards. However, it has 700 cards and feels like it would take a ton of time and money to assemble. Instead, I am going to track down some of the Cardinals and Durham Bulls players in the set.  

My first former Bulls player arrived in the mail a few days back...... 

The autographs are not exactly cheap, but there are only three Cardinals and three Rays autographs. Well, I am now down to two Rays autographs. I think that Dylan Carlson and Scott Rolen are the two most difficult and expensive.  

Anyway, that was a fun post on retail baseball cards. I still have a few more weeks until I get a few weeks off. Maybe there will be another retail baseball card post or two along the way.  

Where Is The Toasted Ravioli?

It's a busy day, so I am going to keep this short, simple, and sweet. I have people to see and places to go. 

My son, fifth grader, took one of his End-Of-Grade tests on Friday. He worked really hard, which is all I really care about on standardized tests. According to his teacher, he gave it.  

He choose a trip to the baseball card store and an Oreo Cookie Blizzard from Dairy Queen as his reward. There was a card show at the State Fairgrounds this weekend, but the little man does not always dig being in big crowds, so we went to our local card shop in Apex, North Carolina, Cardiacs.   

Sorry, no photos of the Oreo Cookie Blizzard. 

They're not exactly dollar boxes or quarter boxes, but they have a section of shoe boxes that has a lot of cards that are anywhere from a quarter to a few bucks. He loves them and will dig through them trying to find cards of players he has seen in games or has read about.  

This is half the wall. There are more boxes on the other side of the television. 

It was not my best photography day.  

Beyond getting a few single cards, we also picked up a few packs of Topps Series 2 cards. The little man pulled a few decent cards. Although, he also pulled a Javy Baez and Corey Dickerson, which were gifted to me because he does not like them.  

I did very well for myself, pulling a Home Field Advantage card of Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina. 

I had to pinch myself.  

I know the odds for these are pretty steep. I just wish the background included things that locals would recognize and appreciate and not just all the tourist attractions. I would throw a toasted ravioli on there, the Dirt Cheap Chicken, and one of those orange St. Louis City service trucks.  

I don't make custom cards, but here is my five minute effort to make this card feel more like St. Louis.   

That's all I got.  

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there.  

Bowman. Peanut Butter Patties. Shortbread.

During Girl Scout Cookie season, all of your family and work friends with girls in the scouts spend weeks pushing overpriced, five dollars boxes of cookies in your face telling you their daughter needs a badge. When you go to the grocery store on Saturday afternoon, because your wife forgot buy Italian parsley when she was at the store earlier in the week, you will get hounded again with $5 boxes of cookies. 

No matter how many different types of cookies are on the order sheet, or how many boxes are stacked up on the table, we all know that there are only a few Girl Scout Cookies that are worthy of the $5 sticker price. Will I pay $5 for a box of Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Patties, or Caramel deLites? 

All day, every day. 

Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Peanut Butter Patties.  

All-time greats. 

We all know that there are some lesser Girl Scout cookie flavors. For starters, the Shortbread and Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies are dry, bland, and utterly unfit of their brand name. Why am I going to pay $5 for a peanut butter cookie that has the texture of a Triscuit cracker when I can spend the same amount of money to buy Nutter Butters, which taste better and are shaped like a peanut.  

Nobody is going to mistake Nutter Butters for Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax, but they are solid long-term player in the cookie world. Adam Wainwright, David Price, Don Newcombe, Nutter Butters. 

Bowman baseball cards are very much like Girl Scout Cookies.  

They came out recently and my social media feeds are now loaded with collectors pushing cards of 18 year-olds few have seen in person, but they swear on their best-friend's, brother's, college roommate's, nephew's, mother-in-law's grave that they found a card of a guy who is going to be a Hall of Famer within the next two decades. 

"Buy this card of the Angels A-Ball catcher! He's 18, but I know he's going to be a star! Just $200 shipped!" 

It's essentially the same sales pitch as the really mediocre Girl Scout Cookie flavors.  

As sure as there are Peanut Butter Patties, I am sure that some current Minor League baseball player will eventually go on to be a Hall of Famer. I am also certain, as a person who ate one of those Lemon Girl Scout Cookies last year because my daughter (not a girl scout) wanted to try them, that many current Minor Leaguers will amount to little as a professional baseball player.  

I recently ran into a box of Bowman baseball cards. The $30 blaster boxes at Wal-Mart, not the $400 jumbo boxes at baseball card shops. Nobody needs to read a "What I Learned Sleeping In The Wooded Lot Behind My House" post on this blog.  

I thought it would be fun to look at some of the cards I pulled. I am not making any predictions outside of saying that I typically put together a Bowman set every year.  Afterwards, I put it in a box. I put the box in a closet. I ignore the box for five or six years.    

Let me start by saying, as a person who watches and follows Minor League baseball, I am slightly disappointed that Curtis Mead is not flying under the radar this year. After quietly following him from a far last year, I think he's for sure a Peanut Butter Patty, Caramel deLite, or Thin Mint. Curtis has more pop than Wander, naturally more strikeouts, but he hits for a high average and is on-base all the time. I hate how much his cards cost and I don't want to be your friend if you have bought one of these cards off of Ebay for more than $300.  

Go away.  

Back to baseball cards. 

Cookies too.  

Bowman is geared for young players, but I am still going to mention some old guys. 

Albert and Yadi are definitely Peanut Butter Patty kind of players.  

I love that Bowman has a set of 100 veteran players taking up space in their packs. Who buys Bowman cards for the veterans? Even if they are high-end Girl Scout Cookie worthy, they are just pack filler.  

Next up, not a peanut butter patty player. If you are reading this blog and it's after 2037, feel free to make fun of me or giving me a high-five for calling any of these prospect cards correctly.  

Last year's first overall draft selection, Henry Davis. He's been very good playing down the road in Greensboro. It's not the Majors, but it is one of the best low-Minor League parks around. Henry is going to be a solid Major League player. I am going to guess he's a Caramel DeLight.  

I also pulled a rookie card of former Durham Bulls shortstop, Wander Franco.  

A lot of people think Wander is a Peanut Butter Patty kind of player.  I hope they're right. Personally, I agree with the take, but I will add that I think he's a Thin Mint or Caramel deLight at worst.  

Wander is a high basement, high ceiling player.  

Here is the back of the card.  

There is no mention of the Durham Bulls, but Wander does love Instagram.  

Although, Wander does not drive a sports car. He has a Mercedes SUV. It's in every picture on his account that features a car. He parked it in the wrong parking spot last year and the Rays players moved it onto one of the practice fields at Spring Training.  

Hazing people at work is such a Shortbread cookie sort of move.  

Next up, Juan Yepez.  

I am excited to see Juan get a new baseball card. It's been a few years since he got a Braves prospect card, so a Cardinals rookie card is a welcome site. For the love of the Cardinals offense, I hope he's at least a Thin Mint. The team's offense is on a bigger struggle bus than a table full of Boy Scout Popcorn.  

Gross.  

Spencer Torkelson.  Definitely a thin mint, maybe even a Caramel deLite.  

Former NC State catcher, Luca Tresh. He's off to a surprising start in the Minors. I would love to say that Luca Tresh would be some prime grade Girl Scout Cookie, but I am not sure. Seems like the type of player who might be destined for a role as a utility player. Maybe one of those Keebler knock-offs.  I will go with Coconut Dreams.  

Next up, Vidal Brujan.  

What is the flashiest Girl Scout Cookie that may or may not disappoint?  

Maybe one of those gluten Girl School Cookies?  

Those are hip and trendy. Some gluten-free food is good, some gluten-free food is bad. 

Is Vidal Brujan a good player? 

Maybe.  

Are the Toffee-Tastic cookies good cookies?  

Maybe.