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!

Thursday Night Football Celebration and a Random Baseball Card

I was pretty happy to see the Denver Broncos pull out a win over the hated Kansas City Chiefs this evening. I almost turned off the game when they were down 14 - 0 in the first half, but they roared back in the 2nd quarter to tie the game and hung with the Chiefs until the final minutes of the game. At the very end of the game the Broncos were down by 7 again and drove back to tie it, then in the final seconds Kansas City running back Jamaal Charles fumbled the ball and the Denver defense ran it back for the touchdown that would give them the final lead. I unfortunately don't have any new Broncos cards to show off, so I will have to change gears entirely for the card portion of the post.

This is one of the more subtle parallels in recent history. It's a gum-stain parallel from 2015 Topps Heritage. This card features R.A. Dickey and is distinguished from the base card by some vague pink splotches on the back of the card, calling to mind the stains left on the last card in the pack by real gum in the card sets of yesteryear. Some people even claim that these cards smell like chewing gum, but I never was able to confirm that. I picked this one up on eBay.

Pack of the Day 93: One Target Blaster Box of 2015 Heritage

I needed some razor cartridges and shampoo, so I went to Target specifically to get those things, and while I was there I just happened to wander by the card aisle. I knew that for this product I would just be buying a set from an online seller, but I had to get some of the new 2015 Topps Heritage in my hands to see what it looks like. I decided to grab an 8-pack blaster, although the store I went to also had a gravity-feed box and hanger packs. It looked like the local pack searcher had already gone through the loose packs, so I figured my best shot at unmolested cards was something that came in a sealed box. 

 I am not extremely familiar with most vintage Topps designs (my parents were 4 years old in 1966), but I like this design well enough. I really like that cap George Springer is wearing in this photo. I have an Astros cap that I wear sometimes, but it features the 2000-2012 logo that I don't really like all that much.

I was happy to pull a few Astros in this box, although Dexter Fowler was traded to the Cubs in January after playing one year for Houston. Nice to see Pat Neshek in his Houston garb, as he is a card collector himself and thus a bit of a hobbyist fan favorite.

Three short-prints came out of the box, including one Astro in the form of Jose Altuve. Miguel Cabrera and Josh Hamilton are my other SPs. I think I am still missing Cabrera's SP card from my 2014 set. I'll get it eventually. I didn't get any of the parallel inserts like Chrome or Refractors, and I also did not pull any of the rare action photo variations, trade variations, gum-stained back variations, or stuff like that. The odds on most of that stuff are pretty astronomical.

I guess the Target-exclusive cards for this year are a Nolan Ryan retrospective set of 15 cards. I got one of them. The New Age Performers set returns this year, with Chris Sale being the representative from these packs. It's an okay design, I suppose.

Then & Now also continues the theme of Old Guy / New Guy, with the familiar pairing of Sandy Koufax and Clayton Kershaw that has been featured on 95,000 OG/NG cards over the last couple of years. News Flashbacks was the last insert set that showed up in my 8 packs, with this card highlighting female pilot Sheila Scott, who broke a bunch of records for flying and became the first British woman to fly around the globe.

And that's about it as far as the highlights go. Heritage is a pretty formulaic product and this year's offering doesn't stray from what's gone before. I guess the gum-stained variation is a new thing, but with those only falling a few per case it's not something that most of us are going to run across all that often.