Cyber Week Breaks: Day 21 - Baseball Fighting and a Good Deal on a Danica Autograph

I skipped a day of posting yesterday. I'm sure I had a good reason for it. Like the title says, today's post features baseball fighting, and the least expensive Danica Patrick autograph in my collection. Also some UFC cards. The breaks for today are 3 packs of 2012 Topps Baseball Series 2, a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact, and a pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout.

First up is the 2012 Topps Baseball. I got the last hit of the box in this batch of packs, a Golden Moments Gold parallel relic card of Jonathan Papelbon, numbered # 54 / 99. I promised baseball fighting in this post, and here it is:

He famously went after Bryce Harper in 2015 after they exchanged words about Harper not running a ball out. More exciting to me from this batch of packs was the Coco Crisp Black parallel card, which is a nice addition to my rather dormant Crisp player collection.

The Crisp card is numbered # 25 / 61. Pretty good stuff. He didn't sign anywhere after the 2016 season and took a job as a high school baseball coach, so I think he's probably done with pro ball.

The High Impact box finally dropped something other than an Al Iaquinta autograph, which I was pretty happy to see. Even better was that the autograph is from a decent name in the UFC, Amanda Nunes, who is the current Women's Bantamweight champion. My Femme Fighters insert was Tecia Torres, which is a duplicate for me. Still, the Nunes autograph makes this box a winner.

The Knockout pack was pretty good as well. First up is this Tier One Autograph card of Joanna Jędrzejczyk, who only recently lost the Women's Strawweight title to Rose Namajunas after successfully defending it 5 times. This is the base version, numbered # 018 / 199.

The second hit in the pack was this Fight Mat Relic Card of Lyoto Machida. This is the base version, numbered # 69 / 99. I still think it's funny that Topps puts 'FIGHTER-WORN MEMORABILIA' on the front of these mat relic cards. The mat is an important part of the action, but it's not really worn by the fighters. You wouldn't sell a piece of basketball court as player-worn.

A while back I saw that Danica Patrick had a new book, Pretty Intense, coming out, and there were autographed copies available for pre-order through Barnes & Noble. I missed out on it because it was one of those things I just kept putting off for a while.

Then on release day I went back to the Barnes & Noble site and saw that signed copies were available again, so I ordered one. It was like $24 including shipping. I thought it was pretty cool, and they sold out again pretty fast, so I'm glad I checked when I did. It's too bad it wasn't an in-person signing like the one I went to in September for Charlotte Flair, but Boise isn't exactly a hot spot for celebrity appearances. I think Danica did a signing in New York City, which is a little bigger than Boise. Actually, New York City probably has more people than the whole state of Idaho, and maybe a couple of our surrounding states as well.

I flipped through the book a little bit. It looks like a decent look into Danica's personal workout, nutrition, and mental health regimen / philosophy. I may eventually pick up an unsigned copy to actually read through.

That does it for today, and I guess for this year.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 14 - Baseball Hits, a Green Cyborg, and a Wrestling Mail Day

Today's breaks went pretty well, as I opened 3 packs from my 2012 Topps Series 2 jumbo box and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. I also got a couple of autographed pictures in the mail from a wrestler, so I'll show those off at the end of the post.

I got two of the three hits from the jumbo box in this batch of packs. First up is this Golden Moments autograph of Jarrod Parker. He had a couple of good years for the Athletics in 2012 and 2013, but then injuries and surgeries kind of knocked him out of the loop. It looks like he pitched a bit in the minors in 2015, but that's about it. I don't know what he's up to now.

The second hit of this batch was a manufactured Team Rings relic card featuring Pirates great Roberto Clemente. Manufactured relics aren't really my thing, but this is a nice-enough card as far as looks go. It is thick and heavy enough that you could probably carry is as a self-defense bludgeon.

The UFC Chrome packs I opened were pretty good to me, dropping several serially-numbered cards on me. The first is this Green Mirko Cro Cop Refractor, numbered # 94 / 99. Colorful Refractors are still fun, even after many years of Topps using the same formula for Chrome parallels.

Next up is the Refractor version of Tyron Woodley's Tier One insert. This shiny card is numbered # 91 / 99. I think the inserts in this product are pretty nice for the most part, and the Refractors are even better.

Slotting in between the Refractor inserts and the Superfractors are the Pulsar Refractors, like this Arianny Celeste Top of the Class card. This is a nice, shiny card, and features one of the more popular subjects featured on UFC cardboard. This one is numbered # 04 / 50.

Closing things out with another Green parallel, here's a Green Refractor autograph of Cris 'Cyborg' Justino. She is an absolute juggernaut, and she'll be fighting Holly Holm pretty soon. I was pretty happy to pull this card, as Cyborg hasn't been in the UFC all that long and her cards are riding high on the wave of novelty. It is cool that the UFC is opening up more weight divisions for women, so that more fighters have the opportunity to fight at reasonable weights.

I got a couple of autographed photos in the mail today from Jazzy 'Alpha Female' Gabert, who is a wrestler/MMA fighter out of Germany. I've written before about collecting some of her Japanese trading cards from her tours with the Stardom wrestling promotion, but lamented that the product didn't feature her autographs. I reached out on Facebook and purchased a couple of her photos directly. She signed them, along with some motivational inscriptions. The one on the left says, "Believe in yourself and in your dreams," and the one on the right reads, "Today you are a FIGHTER, tomorrow you are a WINNER! #BeAlpha" Pretty cool stuff. She was pretty popular during the WWE's Mae West Classic tournament, and there seems to be a decent number of people clamoring for her to get a contract with NXT or WWE. I don't know if that will happen, but it would be cool if it did. I wouldn't mind getting a few Topps cards with her on them.

That's all for today. We finally got our tree set up and our gifts wrapped under it, so I guess we're ready for Christmas now. The kids are pretty excited, which is fun to see.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 9 - Knockout Saves the Day, Plus LEGO

Today was going to be kind of a boring break, in my opinion, but the two boxes of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout I ordered from the Topps website arrived and I added a mini-box from the product to today's offerings. Each box of Knockout includes four mini-boxes, and promises 2 autographed relic cards, 2 autographed cards, and 4 relic cards overall. That works out to a relic and some kind of autograph per mini-box, along with a couple of parallels and six base cards. I didn't photograph the base cards, but they look like the parallels with less color. The other stuff I busted today was a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact and 3 jumbo packs of 2012 Topps Series 2 Baseball.

The first parallel from the Knockout mini-box was this Blue Tecia Torres, numbered # 42 / 99. I am a little bit of a Torres fan, because an Invicta fighter (Sharon Jacobson) I know trains with her. Torres' only loss is to current champion Rose Namajunas, and she's won three fights in a row since that loss.

I also got a Green parallel of Khabib Nurmagomedov, numbered # 037 / 215. My hits from this box were pretty darn good, with a Nate Diaz Tier One relic card numbered # 107 / 125 being the promised relic in the box. This is the base version of the card, which is seeded at a rate of 1:6 packs. The big hit of the box is a Miesha Tate Tier One Autograph Silver Ink parallel, numbered # 08 / 10. These are a tough pull, at 1:61 packs, or about every 8 boxes. It's a nice-looking card, too, with an on-card signature and a dark background to help the ink really pop.

Moving on to the scheduled breaks, here are my pulls from the box of High Impact. Tony Ferguson is the autograph from the box, and I think he is another fighter whose signature is new to my collection. The Femme Fighters insert is Cat Zingano, whose card I already had. I only need a couple more cards from the Femme Fighters insert, so I'm expecting a lot of doubles from here on out.

The three packs of 2012 Topps Series 2 Baseball didn't have much that was very interesting, so I took pictures of the 1987 Topps Mini inserts and a Nolan Ryan Mound Dominance insert.

We were planning on going to see the new Star Wars movie today, but it didn't work out that way. Instead I built some LEGO kits I had kicking around under my desk. First up was kit # 70902, the Catwoman Cycle Chase. The kit has 139 pieces that go together to make a jewelry shop, Catwoman's motorcycle, Catwoman, Batgirl, and Robin. This is a smaller kit, but it was a pretty fun build. The motorcycle looks like a proper custom chopper, and the jewelry shop has enough detail to fit into any retail shopping scene, if you are a person who is building a custom LEGO city.

I am adding a picture of the interior of the jewelry shop to go along with the conversation in the comments. There's not a whole lot to it.

I also built kit # 75168, Yoda's Jedi Starfighter. This one has 262 pieces, and is made up of the ship, Yoda, and R2-D2. This isn't the first time this kit has appeared on a trading card blog, as San Jose Fuji built it last March.

2012 Topps Factory Set Orange Josh Reddick

My Josh Reddick collection has kind of fallen by the wayside lately. I just can't keep up with everything that I like collecting, so I've let a lot of it slide. I haven't even picked up any meaningful amounts of Heritage, Stadium Club, or Archives this year. I've barely touched my R.A. Dickey collection. I've made a couple of notable additions to my Jon Singleton and Josh Reddick player collections, but certainly not at the pace of previous years. 

Some of the money that would normally go to those collections has merely been diverted to other things. I got into UFC cards a little bit. My wrestling collections (WWE and Japanese promotions) have taken a chunk. I've picked up a lot of sketch cards this year. I think I've also reduced my expenditures a little bit this year, too. Our debt elimination project continues to chip away at the balances we built up in our 20's, and hopefully in another couple of years we'll be all the way there. We are so close to finally paying off one card that's been with us for about 10 years. I hate that card and the bank that issued it for many reasons, and it will be really nice in September to finally be done with them forever.

The card for today is this Factory Set Orange parallel from 2012 Topps. These cards are much harder to find than their print runs would have you believe, as I think most of them stay locked away in their sealed boxes. I have a 2016 Topps Factory Set arriving in the mail today, and I am excited to see which parallels I find within. I won't be keeping it sealed. If I find a popular-enough player, my Factory Set might pay for itself! This Reddick card is # 171 / 190 and shows him engaged in a celebration with his Red Sox teammates.

This year Reddick got traded from the A's to the Dodgers partway through the season, and he hasn't had much going right for him in L.A. I think he's played 19 games for them so far and still doesn't have an RBI to show for it. In addition to some pretty poor numbers, he also was recently injured at the team hotel when he caught his finger in the door to his room after ordering room service. I think that counts as a hurt hand and a bruised ego. I hope things pick up for him soon. Even though I don't pursue his cards as much as I have in the past, he still has some pretty good cardboard out there and I root for him as a player.

Another R.A. Dickey Factory Set Orange Parallel

Back in August I showed off an Orange Factory Set parallel of R.A. Dickey from the 2013 Topps Baseball set. I picked up a card from the 2012 set to go along with it. This is the Orange parallel of Dickey's All-Star card from Update Series. I was a bit stumped for a second as to how an Update Series Orange parallel got into the factory set. A little bit of research unearthed the answer for me. The regular Hobby Edition boxed set contained a pack with 5 Orange parallels from the base set, while the Holiday Edition boxed set contained a pack with 5 parallels from the Update set.

This thing has got a serial number on it, but I can't read the thing on the scan. I'm sure the card is kicking around here somewhere, but I'm not going to go and find it right now. Cards go from the Awaiting-Scanning pile to the Scanned pile to the Piles-I've-Piled-Together-and-Moved-to-Make-Room-for-Other-Piles piles and eventually those all find themselves in a 5000-count box to await the largely speculative Great Sorting Out that allow me to know what I have and what I still need.

I believe these 2012 factory set parallel cards are numbered out of # / 210. They're a little more rare in the field than other cards with similar print runs just because fewer factory sets get broken open than cards distributed in other formats.