Some Recent R.A. Dickey Pickups

I haven't posted for a little more than a week now, so I am trying to get things started back up by featuring a couple of R.A. Dickey cards I've picked up over the last couple of months. Dickey pitched today, throwing 7.0 innings and giving up 4 runs to the Braves on 4 hits and 4 walks while striking out 6 on the way to a no-decision in a game the Blue Jays eventually won in the 10th inning on a Josh Donaldson home run. I didn't watch that game, but I did get to watch the last half of the Mets-Marlins game, where the Mets bullpen nearly gave up a 5-0 lead in the 8th and 9th innings, barely holding on to take the game at 5-4.

This first card is an auto-relic from 2014 Topps Triple Threads, numbered # 02 / 25. I thought the black relic swatch was pretty cool. It's not something you see too often on baseball cards.

Prices on Dickey's cards have come down a lot in the last couple of years. That would be a good thing, but in spite of the favorable market for buyers I haven't really taken advantage of it. I've been a little distracted from the hobby lately, I guess, and I pass over a lot of stuff because of parallel fatigue. But that hasn't stopped me completely from picking up parallels...

...like this black-bordered card from 2015 Topps Series 1. It looks a lot like the base version of the card, except without all the colors on the edges. I probably picked it up because it had a cheap shipping cost or something. One thing that has been preventing me from bidding on a lot of cards lately is what seems like a universal $3.00 shipping fee in addition to whatever the auction price is. The $0.99 starting bid makes a $4.00 base price for just about any card you look at, and that is just too much.

This card is # 42 / 64, making it just one number away from being a jersey number eBay 1 / 1. Hopefully the Blue Jays can make a decent run this year and at least get into the postseason. But right now I hope even more that the Houston Rockets can hold on for one more quarter and beat the Dallas Mavericks in their first-round NBA Playoffs match-up.