At the Trade Deadline 35: A Packed Package from San Jose Fuji

Like many other bloggers, I recently received a package in the mail from San Jose Fuji. It was full of awesome cardboard, cloth, and ink that touched on many of my player collections. Also included was this highly-coveted San Jose Fuji autographed card, with all of his particulars on the back.

First up are two of my main player collections, R.A. Dickey and Josh Reddick. Dickey's presence comes in the form of a Tier One Relic from 2013 Topps Tier One. It's hard to believe Dickey's been with the Blue Jays for so long. It feels like just a few months ago that he was traded from the Mets, but it's been a bit longer than that. Reddick is represented by an autograph from 2007 Just Minors, an unlicensed set that I don't know a whole lot about. I've seen these cards on eBay quite a bit, but I've never actually grabbed one for my collection. Now I've got one, although Zistle tells me there are several parallels to chase.

Jose Baustista is a guy I kind of collect, but with his mammoth power and charisma I can't keep up with his card prices. One eBay seller I watch has been offloading a crazy Bautista collection recently. I really like the Blue Jays' color scheme. This Bautista is a Clubhouse Collection relic from 2014 Topps Heritage. Homer Bailey has tossed a couple of no-hitters in his career, but has struggled with injury over the last couple of seasons. His 2015 was cut short by Tommy John surgery, so we'll see how well he is able to come back from that. He wears my favorite jersey number (34) and also appeared on the very first printing plate I pulled from a pack, way back in 2013. The Bailey card is a Futures Game relic card from 2007 Bowman Draft, one of those 'other' Bowman sets.

I'm always a fan of a good Max Scherzer card, although again I am not able to full-on PC all of the guys I would like to. I do set his cards aside, though, as cards I would like to keep in my collection. This is a nice horizontal Clubhouse Collection relic from 2015 Topps Heritage Baseball. I didn't open hardly any Heritage this year (if I am recalling things correctly), so I didn't really get a look at all of the relics and inserts that were on offer. My blog posts tell me that I opened a blaster of it at some point, but it wasn't anything near the several hobby boxes I opened of 2014 Heritage. I held steady or probably purchased more single cards this year, but I opened a lot less wax than I did in 2013 and 2014. That is a trend that I see continuing in the foreseeable future, unfortunately.

This Mark Reynolds Young Star Signatures autograph hails from the 2008 Upper Deck SPx set. Reynolds is/was one of those low-average high-power guys who seems to hang around for a while just because they might just hit a bunch of home runs. In fantasy baseball they are kind of like Dwight Howard is in fantasy basketball. You hope that their good stats do enough to counteract their bad ones. I got bitten by the Mark Reynolds bug and probably drafted him in every league from 2009-2012. His average almost always dragged my team down more than his home runs helped me. The way it would work is that I would leave him in my lineup all the way through his cold streaks, then I would get frustrated and bench him the day before he had a 2-homer game. Then I would put him on my roster again and he would go cold just long enough for me to bench him for his next hot run. Every. Single. Time. Chris Davis has been the same way lately. He kind of picked up the mantle for my fantasy teams once I finally broke the Mark Reynolds habit. I PC the guy just because he has sunk so many of my fantasy seasons. I hope he signs somewhere this offseason so I can carry him on my roster for a couple of weeks next year.

This last card could be my favorite one of the package. It's an autograph by Jeff Lewis from Cryptozoic's The Guild Seasons 1-3 card set. In The Guild he plays Herman Holden, the Guild Leader who has a difficult time keeping The Knights of Good on task and running smoothly. His in-game character is named Vork. I've purchased a few boxes of these cards, but I haven't come very close to completing a master set. There are two autographs that present a major obstacle if I were to pursue the master set, Wil Wheaton and the other Felicia Day autograph of her as her in-game character Codex. I have Felicia Day's autograph of her as Cyd Sherman, but the Codex variation is more scarce and commands a higher price. What I'd really like to do is just buy a case of these cards and roll the dice that those tough autographs are in there. Felicia Day is super cool, but I think Herman / Vork is my favorite character in the series. Maybe I identify a little with him?

This was a great package to open up and sort through. I've still got a handful of cards that I promised to send out to complete a prior mailing, but I haven't got them in the mail yet. They are packed up and set aside, though, so it's not a matter of if, but when. Thank you for the cards, Fuji!

Pack of the Day 91: 2014 Topps Heritage High Numbers Box Set

The 2015 sets are rolling out now, but my mind has been on the past. Thinking about completing upcoming sets serves to remind me that each passing year adds a number of partially-completed sets to my card collection. One of the worst examples from 2014 was the Topps Heritage set, with cruddy collation and those damnable short-printed cards (SPs). I determined that since I am not extremely fond of this year's Heritage design, I would instead focus on finishing off my 2014 set. I ordered a bunch of the SPs I was missing from sellers on Check Out My Cards, but none of those appear in this post.

I had thus far avoided the Heritage High Numbers box set as an extraneous and irritating addition to an already frustrating set, but I kind of like some of the players included in the checklist. The set was packed out as a 101-card box set, with the 100 cards from 501-600 in the checklist and one autograph card. I shopped around and tried to decide whether I should order a sealed set or an opened set that had the autograph already removed. Eventually I decided to place a Best Offer with Dave & Adam's eBay store for a sealed set. It wasn't that much more than a set missing an autograph, and there was a chance I could pull something good.

As far as I know, you get the same 100 cards in every set. I don't think there are photo variations or anything tricky in the Heritage High Numbers set. I heard rumors of sets showing up with a lot of damage after the release last year, but mine arrived in great shape. I pulled a few cards and scanned them for this post. Tanaka was one of the Big 2 rookies last year, pitching extremely well prior to his arm injury. Dee Gordon had a good year for his fantasy baseball managers, stealing approximately ten thousand bases. Collin McHugh had a pretty good year for the Astros last year. Hopefully he can keep it up this year. Oscar Taveras had a promising career (and life) cut short by making a poor decision about alcohol and driving, and unfortunately also wound up killing his young girlfriend in the wreck, too. It's to bad, but it's hard to feel overly sorry for a guy who gets himself into that situation.

Doolittle had a pretty solid season in 2014, making the All-Star team, but he is injured and will miss some amount of time. The closer role is one that can be hard to reclaim if your injury replacement is lighting it up, so we'll see what role he gets this year. Billy Hamilton is the super-speedy prospect who is projected to steal approximately 5000 bases per year, but last year he got caught stealing a whole lot and had a hard time getting on base so that he could actually run wild on the basepaths. Neshek is a very good reliever who signed with the Astros and might even get a chance to close for them this year. He also is a card collector and a friend to hobbyists. Mike Morse just gets included because of his card photo, in which he is channeling the spirit of a sleepy Keanu Reeves.

George Springer is one of the Astros other hot young players, and hopefully this year the team will take some steps forward. Betances had ridiculous numbers last year, and will hopefully be able to keep it up this season. I think he is going to get a shot at the closer role with the Yankees now that Robertson has moved on. That should be a pretty good gig. Samardzija got into some sets as an Athletic after his mid-season move from the Cubs, but now he's with the White Sox. Hopefully he does well with his new team. Jose Abreu should provide plenty of run support for Samardzija's starts as he was last year's big story, mashing the ball all over the place on his way to an All-Star berth, a Rookie of the Year award, a Silver Slugger award, and a 4th-place finish in the MVP race. That's all the base cards I scanned, which leaves me with just the autograph. Unfortunately my autograph was a redemption card...

...but it was a pretty good one. I got a Real One Autograph of Jose Abreu. It's the base version rather than the photo variation or the short-printed Red Ink version, but this is one of the best cards I could have pulled from this set. It looks like there are some of these live at the moment, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting the card from Topps. I am pretty happy that my gamble to go with the sealed set paid off. I am not sure whether I will sell the card when it gets here. It might be kind of cool to keep it. I don't have an Abreu auto, and the Heritage autographs tend to look pretty nice.

That's it for my Heritage High numbers box set. I imagine I will do a post on the Abreu card whenever it arrives in the mail. Once my COMC order comes in I should be pretty close to finishing my 2014 Topps Heritage set, with just a couple more cards to locate.

Just the Commons, Ma'am 6: Jon Singleton and the Case of the Folded Refractors

I made an order from Just Commons in order to grab a couple trade cards I needed, and I filled it out past the Free Shipping threshold by grabbing a bunch of Jon Singleton cards for my Singleton player collection. There's a variety of stuff in this lot, included a timeline of minor league Topps cards from his time down on the farm. Here we've got his 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 Topps Pro Debut cards.

I don't have a lot of experience with these minor league cards, but I think they're pretty cool. It's crazy that these guys are under such a huge microscope at a young age. 

And here is a similar timeline for Topps Heritage Minors 2012-2014 and also his big league 2014 Heritage High Numbers card. The 2013 Heritage card shares a picture with the 2013 Pro Debut card, although I guess at least Topps took the time to crop it differently. That still doesn't make it a different picture.

The card backs on this group is definitely more interesting, with cartoon pictures, stats, and plenty of informative text.

At the time this package arrived I had all of my card boxes out on a table in the living room. I was trying to get everything in my collection sorted out and arranged before school started up again. I didn't quite get the project finished, so I had to pack it all back downstairs partially sorted. I set these cards on the table at some point, and when I got back I noticed that a few of them were scattered around on the floor. A couple of the ones from the floor had been picked up and folded neatly into quarters. No one admitted to having anything to do with it, but I am guessing that when my dog jumped up to bark out the window at someone passing by he knocked the cards off the table with his tail. Then one of my kids found the cards and folded a couple of them in half, then in half again.

So I hope no one out there wanted Singleton's 2014 Bowman Chrome Refractor # 418 / 500, because it's been folded a couple of times and scraped up a bit.

This Bowman Platinum card was also lost in the incident. This is becoming more bloody than one of Zippy Zappy's Clone Breaks. Some of the less shiny cards were knocked down and scattered about, but they weren't scraped up or folded.

I thought this was kind of a cool-looking insert, all die-cut and trophy-looking. I'm told that it's a 2011 Bowman Chrome Futures Refractor. It's got a bit of the Chrome-y curl to it, but that doesn't matter too much.

In addition to all the Singleton cards and tradebait, I also picked up this Members Only card of Christian Yelich from the 2014 Stadium Club set.

Just Commons is a nice cheap way to get cards for sets or player collections. My only real complaint is that sometimes cards show up a little more damaged than I'd like and often some of the cards I order are out of stock. This particular batch of cards was in pretty good shape (until my dog and kids caught up with them), but there was one card I ordered for a trade package that was out of stock. The refund for the card was issued quickly, but when ordering from Just Commons don't update your want list until the cards actually arrive.

Just the Commons, Ma'am 3: Mistaken Identities, Nostalgia, and a Big Head

I ordered some stuff from JustCommons recently, mostly in an effort to fill out my 2014 Topps Opening Day blue parallel set. But I picked up a few other things as well. One of the neat things that JustCommons has is a $2.00 relic and autograph section. I picked up a couple of things from that list in this order. Why did I get a Russ Ohlendorf autograph, you might ask? Maybe because when I read the name Ohlendorf, I heard the name Oberholtzer in my head. So I kind of thought I had ordered an autograph of a current Astros pitcher. Oh well. I guess I should pay attention to what I'm doing from time to time.

I always liked Todd Van Poppel's name. Maybe it's because it reminds me of this part of my childhood:

Yes, the toy that was kind of like a Care Bear, but with a folding pouch on its butt that could be flipped around the front of the stuffed animal, turning it into a kind of ball. There was a cartoon that went along with them, of course.

I also grabbed a handful of short-printed cards from 2014 Topps Heritage.

I was trying to make it to the $50 threshold so that I could use the 10% off coupon that JustCommons offers on orders of that size, so I added SPs from my want list until I had enough to make the discount.

In contrast to the pitchers in the first row with their 'act serious and look off to the left' poses, Sandoval and Segura actually look like they are enjoying themselves. This picture makes Sandoval's head look massive. I'd imagine that part of it has to do with the fact that he has a large head, but some of it might just be the picture.