Who do You Think of First?

It's been a little while since I posted anything here. I've been mired in a deep depression for a long time, and the last few months it's about all I can do to get up in the morning and go to work, and when I get home I mostly just feel like going back to bed. I somehow managed to get through my first semester of graduate school. I finished with two B+ grades, but I probably did not deserve them. I guess if you manage to get the assignments turned in eventually, then they have to pass you to keep their numbers looking good. My next class just started, and hopefully things will be easier with just one course to keep up with. I am still doing hobby stuff, but most of my online posting has been on my Twitter account. It is easier to toss out a few Tweets than it is to compose an entire blog post.

I decided to try out the recent challenge that's been going around the blogs, naming the first player who comes to mind when a team is mentioned. In looking at my results, you can tell that I am relatively new to collecting baseball cards, as many of the players I listed are current or recently retired players. My basketball list would probably trend a bit older as far as names go. I can also see that players I've read about recently come to mind over players that I might be a fan of, like Manny Ramirez for the Red Sox. With the Hall of Fame voting going on, I've seen his name in print a lot lately.

Baltimore Orioles - Chris Davis hit a bunch of home runs for my fantasy teams, and then I drafted him a few more times to chase those numbers. He always wound up killing my teams' batting averages, though, more than he helped with the other stats.

Boston Red Sox - I don't have a lot to say about Manny Ramirez, but he was the first guy to come to my mind when I thought of the Red Sox.

Chicago White Sox - Jim Thome is the guy I thought of here.

Cleveland Indians - For some reason my brain completely shut down here. I couldn't think of a single Indians player, so after a minute I moved on. Later I came up with Francisco Lindor and Larry Doby in the same thought.

Detroit Tigers - Miguel Cabrera, although I had a hard time thinking of a Tiger, too. Maybe I was just in a funk for a couple of minutes.

Houston Astros - Jose Altuve is one of the best current players on my favorite team, so it makes sense that I would think of him here.

Kansas City Royals - I always liked Country Breakfast, so Billy Butler was a natural choice here. I feel like he got pushed out of the league a lot faster than maybe he deserved, but maybe he was done with it and decided not to keep pushing. I don't know. He is apparently a member of a rec league softball team in my state. That makes me want to go on a road trip, but actually following through might make me a little bit creepy.

Los Angeles Angels - Mike Trout pretty much is the Angels right now, although Shohei Ohtani is the hot hobby commodity of the moment.

Minnesota Twins - One of the baseball cards of my youth that is seared into my memory is Paul Molitor's 1990 Topps card, which pictures him as a Brewer. But that doesn't matter here, as his name came up in my mind for the Twins.

New York Yankees - I'm kind of surprised that Gleyber Torres or Aaron Judge didn't jump out at me first, but Gary Sanchez was the name that popped out of the randomizer here. I must have been sorting one of his cards or something recently.

Oakland Athletics - There's an anecdote floating around out there about someone overhearing Rickey Henderson giving himself a pep talk after striking out, saying something like, "It's okay, Rickey. You're still the best." I use that quote a lot when things aren't working out for me. I don't even care if it's true.

Seattle Mariners - Ichiro is one of the bigger names to play for the Mariners, and I associate him with the team more than most players, even Ken Griffey Jr.

Tampa Bay Rays - Chris Archer was the only guy I could think of right off. He finished 2018 with the Pirates, but spent a lot of time with the Rays.

Texas Rangers - Nolan Ryan played for a few teams, including my Astros, but I associate him most with the Rangers.

Toronto Blue Jays - It was a pretty big deal for Jose Bautista to really break out with the Blue Jays, and he had some big moments with the team.

Arizona Diamondbacks - Paul Goldschmidt would have been the other guy here, but I thought of Randy Johnson first.

Atlanta Braves - Chipper Jones was the guy here. He recently went into the Hall of Fame, and also was in the news for rescuing people in his 4x4 during a storm.

Chicago Cubs - There are plenty of famous Cubs, but I thought of Anthony Rizzo first.

Cincinnati Reds - I lived in Ohio during the peak of Eric Davis' career, so for me he has always been the guy for the Reds.

Colorado Rockies - Todd Helton won the brain game here, probably because of the Hall of Fame balloting talk, and whether he and Larry Walker will ever get in due to the Coors Field bias.

Los Angeles Dodgers - Yasiel Puig popped up here for me. His cards were big just as I was getting back into card collecting, and he often makes the news for silly reasons.

Miami Marlins - Alex Rodriguez Derek Jeter is the ringmaster, and the Marlins are his circus. That franchise was already kind of a joke, but adding him to the mix didn't help things along. (Apparently I somehow got A-Rod and Jeter mixed up in my head. A-Rod is the clown, but the Marlins are Jeter's circus.). Whatever the reason, Alex Rodriguez was the name that popped into my head first when I thought of the Marlins.

Milwaukee Brewers - Robin Yount came up here, probably because he's had a number of pretty sweet baseball cards issued, like the Stadium Club one with the dirtbike on it.

New York Mets - Thor and his magnificent hair had to show up here. Noah Syndergaard has a cool name.

Philadelphia Phillies - I noticed that I missed a letter in Mike Schmidt's name on the list. I considered going back and fixing it, but I didn't want to go back and make edits on the original document. I was just telling my son with the behavioral problems that it's okay not to be perfect, so I am trying to practice what I preach.

Pittsburgh Pirates - Starling Marte steals a lot of bases when he is not suspended for PEDs, so he's been on a few of my fantasy teams. Also his first name is a bird.

San Diego Padres - I was trying to think of the catcher who hit a triple at the game I went to in San Diego last year, missing a grand slam by inches, but couldn't come up with Luis Torrens' name, so I defaulted to Tony Gwynn.

San Francisco Giants - I wanted to think of Madison Bumgarner first here, but I'd been sorting cards and Buster Posey was in all the sets I was sorting, so his name was stuck in my brain.

St. Loius Cardinals - Chris Carpenter? Okay, I guess his name made a lasting impression on me at some point in my life.

Washington Nationals - Future Yankee (or Phillie) Bryce Harper has been dominating the free agent talk lately, so he's the guy here.

That's all the teams. I was surprised by a few of the names on my list, but overall I don't think there is anything too crazy here. I am not sure why Chris Carpenter was my guy for the Cardinals, but that's probably about as odd as my list got. I am still kicking myself for the error in Mike Schmidt's name.

Here's a blank back card I picked up of Bartolo "Big Sexy" Colon from the Topps Vault eBay store a while ago. I hope he comes back next year, even for a few starts here and there. He's really close to 250 wins.

Like many of my other recent acquisitions, I showed this card off on Twitter, but here it is on Blogger. I don't know how often I'll knock out a post on here in the near future, but I will try not to let this blog die off completely.

The Fun Side of Topps Now

Well, the Astros laid an egg last night, dropping a game 8-1 to the Yankees in New York. The Yankee bats came alive, the Astros seemed to have some trouble fielding the ball cleanly, and the Houston pitchers couldn't close out innings with two outs and runners on base. To take my mind off of the loss as I wait for tonight's game 4, I decided to take a look at the fun side of Topps Now, with some of the more whimsical cards I've picked up this year.

I'm kicking things off with the Astros, who held a funeral in July for Carlos Beltran's glove, since he hadn't played the field much to that point in the season. Shortly after the funeral, though, Beltran got a start in the field, and presumably the glove rose from the dead to wander the stadium again.

This next one features an animal on cardboard, which always gets me on the wagon. In this case, the animal in question is a donkey that Joey Votto promised to Zack Cozart if Cozart made the All-Star roster. Cozart made the team, and Votto bought him the donkey. I have to admit that I voted for Cozart a few times because of Votto's promise, and apparently a lot of other people did, too.

The Cozart family donkey has a name and his name is...Donald!

Named after Donald Duck, Cooper's favorite cartoon character. pic.twitter.com/ECmqVay95p

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) July 22, 2017

Apparently the donkey's name is now Donald, after Cozart's son's favorite cartoon character, although if the fan voting really led to the name, I'd be willing to place a bet that most fans voted for that name with other reasons in mind. I'm also a little unsure as to why the donkey on the card looks different from the donkey in the Tweet. Maybe one of them was just a placeholder?

The final card in this post features Bartolo 'Big Sexy' Colon joining many others across the country in viewing the eclipse that happened in August. My state was in the path of totality, so it was a pretty big deal around here. We went and viewed it at my dad's farm, although we only got like 99.9% totality there. After it was over, my wife said that she really wished we had gone a little further north to see the 100% eclipse. Either way, we had a pretty good time with my dad and my sister, and I was happy to have a baseball card showing the event.

Those are a few of the fun cards that Topps printed for the Topps Now program this year. The print run on the Astro card was 357 copies, there were 691 donkey cards ordered, and the eclipse card generated 450 orders. I think those numbers are higher than an average order, so there is definitely demand out there for some fun and silly cards during the season. I hope the Astros can find a spark tonight as Lance McCullers Jr. and Sonny Gray duke it out in ALCS Game 4.

Contested Shots 19: A Last-Minute Entry for P-Town Tom's Favorite Card of 2016 Contest

I kind of disappeared for the weekend. It wasn't intentional, but I had reasons. Thursday the snow was still pretty bad, so I called in to work again. I knew I would have to go in on Friday, though, as it was my National Guard weekend and we don't really get days off for that. In the morning a neighbor's moving company cancelled on them, so I went and helped them load up their truck (after helping to dig their truck out of the road). Then I spent several hours shoveling our cars out of the snow enough to back them out of the ditch and give us a better chance of at least making it onto the road. Then I did walkways and whatnot, as well as cleaning up the edge of the roof and pulling the gutters off the house. The gutters had needed attention for some time, and they were causing problems.

My wife was able to get out of the neighborhood in the afternoon. Her vehicle has a higher clearance than mine, and she got enough groceries and household stuff to get through a few days. I tried twice to get out of the neighborhood, but both times I was blocked by stuck vehicles, including a garbage truck that was being pulled out by another garbage truck, and had to turn around. I decided that instead of commuting back and forth during the weekend, I would just pack a bag for the full three days and keep trying to get out of the neighborhood until I was successful.

I made it out late Thursday night and slept in my office until work started on Friday. That was pretty uncomfortable, so I booked a room in the barracks for the next two nights. My job on the National Guard side involves talking to a lot of people (I talked to over 400 soldiers this weekend about their pay accounts), and my introverted self was too burnt out by the end of the day to blog or do much of anything but sleep until the next day. More snow fell over the weekend, and it turned to freezing rain and regular rain today. My drive home after work was pretty eventful, as I slid around on the interstate more than I would have liked. I kept the rubber side down, though, and got home without a wreck. Then I shoveled some more snow to keep my car from getting stuck again, as the snow in my parking space was up as high as my bumper. After that I was really exhausted and I sat down to work on a blog post and catch up on reading blogs that I missed over the weekend.

Just about the time I sat down, my wife told me that a friend's house was leaking and they needed some help, so I grumbled for a second and then changed my clothes to go see what I could do. My wife went, too, so that she could help out with watching their kids. I helped shovel their roof around the leaky spot and the driveway around their cars, and once they were taken care of we headed home. It's nice to help out, but I am dragging after the last few days. And that's why I am posting about my favorite card of 2016 just before the January 9th deadline.

This Bartolo Colon card from 2016 Topps NOW is probably my actual favorite card of 2016, but it's shown up on a lot of blog posts in this contest and I don't want to be that guy. It isn't a particularly historical moment, but it did set a minor record (oldest player to hit their first MLB home run) and it was one of the more fun moments in the MLB season. I talked plenty about this card back in June and a little in October, so I won't say much more about it here. It is probably my actual favorite card of 2016.

This is not my favorite card of 2016. I don't even know who this dude is, to be honest. I pulled this autograph card of Andrade "Cien" Almas from a box of 2016 Topps WWE NXT just a little while ago. I was kind of disappointed by this pull, but it turns out it wasn't that bad. I sold it for more than I paid for the box, and I used that money plus a handful of eBay Bucks to land my actual favorite card of 2016 (outside of Bartolo Colon's Topps NOW home run card).

I picked up this on-card NXT Autograph of the WWE's Bayley from 2016 WWE Undisputed. I have been wanting a Bayley autograph for a long time, and I finally was able to get one at the right price. I wanted an on-card autograph because Bayley has a big signature and her sticker signatures look squished. This is the base version, numbered # 152 / 299. I admittedly don't watch a lot of the WWE's offerings, but Bayley's enthusiasm, brightly-colored clothes, her penchant for hugging, and her persona's overall positive vibe have made me a fan.

You can't feel bad after watching that entrance, can you? One of my hobby goals for 2017 was to finally obtain a Bayley autograph, and I got a pretty good one practically before the year even got started. I probably picked up higher-valued cards in 2016 or cards that were more rare, but I think one valid measure of a card is whether you feel happy when you see it in your collection, and in that test this Bayley card is currently near the top of the list. That's why I chose it as my favorite card of 2016.

Black November, Epilogue - 2016 Topps Update Series Hobby Box

After rolling the dice on a few products from the Blowout Cards Black November sale, I also picked up a box of a current product, 2016 Topps Baseball Update Series. With the smaller checklist this year, I felt that my odds of completing a set from one box were pretty good. If I hadn't felt that way, I would have just bought a set and skipped the box.

David Ortiz is the cover star of the product. Each Hobby box promises one Autograph or Relic card, so we'll see what comes out of this one.

The pack design replicates the art on the box. Each box has 36 packs, with 10 cards per pack (packs containing a special card may have fewer than 10 cards).

Here are the pack odds and the NPN information. As usual, there are plenty of parallels and inserts to chase.

I was able to put together a complete 300-card base set from this box, as well as pulling 22 doubles. So the collation was pretty good. I selected a few of my favorite photos to scan for this post. Common themes for my favorites were All-Star uniforms, UPF (Ugly Pitching Face), glorious manes of hair, and fielding photos with interesting background scenery like advertising signs or greenery.

Panoramic ballpark shots also made my favorites list a couple of times, along with hat tips. As with any baseball set, there were a lot of standard throwing/hitting torso photos, but there are some gem in here. I do kind of wish for a set with regular rectangular borders, but that's not the direction these things are trending in right now.

I got three coupon cards. The front highlights the existence of the Topps website and their social media pages, while the back offers 50 cents off on various Topps retail products. I just counted up the cards from the box, and apparently these don't count as part of the 360 cards in the box. They are extras, so they don't replace a base card or insert from the pack you find them in.

There were six Gold parallels in the box, all numbered out of # / 2016. I guess for me, the Edwin Encarnacion All-Star and the Tim Lincecum are the highlights here.

The box contained three Rainbow Foil parallels. Bartolo Colon's Home Run Heard 'Round the World is probably the highlight of this bunch. The Mark Trumbo card is nice, too.

I also got a pair of relatively scarce parallels. The first is a Rookie SP photo variation of Mallex Smith. I believe the pack odds are reversed on the SP cards, as the Rookies appear to be much easier pulls than the All-Star SPs. The second is a Negative parallel of Kirby Yates, a pitcher for the Yankees.

I pulled 5 cards from the Ichiro Chasing 3k insert set, which highlight Ichiro's hits on his quest to reach 3000 MLB hits, a feat he accomplished on August 7th.

I pulled six inserts from the 3000 Hits Club insert, which has a checklist full of players who reached the 3000-hit mark during their MLB careers.

I like the Topps Fire insert set, which is modeled on the design of the 2015 Topps Fire Football product. It is a pretty busy design, but it actually feels like a legitimate insert set. I pulled some good names, too, in Carlos Correa, Clayton Kershaw, Kris Bryant, and Josh Donaldson.

I got six of the First Pitch insert cards in the box. I had already purchased a full set of these cards online, so these are all doubles for me. I'll probably have more to say about them when I post about the set as a whole.

I got five of the Team Franklin inserts in the set, which feature players who use Franklin-branded batting gloves. Topps could have done a lot more with this concept, most significantly by including a parallel version with glove relic swatches embedded.

Finally, here is the hit of the box, a Scouting Report autograph of Tigers pitcher Michael Fulmer. This was a decent pull for a box of a basic Topps product, as Fulmer had a very good season. It is unfortunate that this card came out of the pack with fair-sized ding in the corner. You can kind of see it in the card-back scan as a touch of white in the upper right.

That's it for this box and for this order from Blowout Cards. I got about what I expected from this box of cards. I am glad that I was able to complete the Update Series checklist from one Hobby box. The 4-product break overall had some highs and lows, with the Cal Ripken Jr. # 1 / 1 from 2016 Topps Archives Signature Series really moving this break from not-good to pretty-good.

Topps NOW - Year of the Colon

Apparently 2016 was The Year of the Colon for me, as I picked up several of Bartolo Colon's Topps NOW cards throughout the 2016 season. There are actually even a few I am missing, which seems crazy for a guy who isn't exactly a superstar.

2016 Topps NOW # 315 - Print Run: 741

He appeared on 6 total cards in the regular season set (46, 57, 270, 315, 360, and 396) and one Postseason card (NYM-11), for a total of 7 Topps NOW cards. Most players didn't even get one card, let alone seven, but most players aren't rotund hurlers with legendarily zany plate appearances, either. His everyman appearance and his highlight/lowlight reel make him a fan favorite of sorts, and probably perfect for multiple cards in this print-on-demand set. I've discussed before my wishy-washy internal conflict about collecting the cards of a guy who has been suspended for PED usage and sued for allegedly failing to pay child support for his mistress' children, but in the end I've allowed myself to look past that stuff and enjoy his on-field exploits. I am not too worried one way or the other about the PED case, but I do hope that he is doing right by all of his kids. The facts surrounding the child support case aren't public as far as I know, so I can't fairly judge him one way or the other. Ideally, every child would be raised in a good environment by loving parents, but most families have some kind of complications.

Although Colon is a pitcher by trade, several of his NOW cards have focused on his batting. The big one was his first home run, which really put Topps NOW on the map and sold a whopping 8,826 copies. a number that was only surpassed by the card printed for Ichiro's 3,000th hit a couple of months later. His HR card's print run is still almost 3,600 more than the 3rd place card, which features Yankees rookies Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge after hitting back-to-back home runs in their first major-league at-bats. He also got a card for drawing the first walk of his career in the same season as he hit his first home run, after a record 282 plate appearances without drawing a free pass. This one was a lot less popular than the HR card, though with only 1,120 copies printed.

2016 Topps NOW # 396 - Print Run: 492

This card is a little bit hokey, but by the time card #396 came around Topps knew that Bartolo Colon NOW cards were like free money for the taking. Colon had his first multi-hit game since 2002, and Topps went ahead and commemorated the event with a card. This one was a little less popular with collectors and only pulled in 492 ordered copies.

2016 Topps NOW # 57 - Print Run: 8,826

There are three Bartolo Colon Topps NOW cards that I do not have in my collection. The first one, 2016 Topps NOW #46, is the most rare of the bunch. It came before the popular home run card and has a print run of just 298. It is currently the most expensive of Colon's NOW cards on eBay. As far as subject matter, it highlight's Colon's 220th win, surpassing Pedro Martinez on the all-time wins list.

His other regular season card that I don't own is card #270, which shows different retro uniforms that MLB teams wore. Colon isn't the only player on the card, but he is one of the six players who have pictures on the card. He certainly didn't get onto that card for his performance, as he gave up 6 earned runs on 8 hits in 4.1 innings in a 2-6 loss to the Cubs.

He also has a postseason card, #NYM-11, which is part of the Mets' postseason team set. That was only available as part of the team set, but some internet sellers have parted out the sets into singles. The set had a print run of 392.

I don't know if I will chase down those last three cards. Card #47 is a little expensive for what it is, and the other two don't really move the needle for me as far as subject matter.

A Dilemma of Colonic Proportions

When Bartolo Colon hit his home run last month I got caught up in the hype and anticipated the release of his Topps NOW card the next day. I didn't actually purchase the card from Topps at full price, but once the print run was announced at 8,826 copies I was able to snag one from the many resellers on eBay at a discounted price. Colon's exploits with a bat and on the basepaths have become baseball legend in a blooper-reel kind of way, and that makes his record-setting (oldest pitcher to homer, oldest player to hit their first home run) knock interesting enough to garner a whole load of attention.

I generally have a low-to-no-tolerance policy for players who get popped for PED use. I hesitated to even order this card, because Bartolo Colon is one of the guys who's been suspended for PED violations. I don't really give Ryan Braun a pass (just as an example) and I probably won't give Dee Gordon a pass, either, but Colon's zaniness as a batter and his portly build pushed me to kind of look past his cheating. It's a double standard and I recognize that it is, but I can't explain fully why I let some guys off the hook and others I condemn for basically the rest of their careers. Maybe it is just a personality thing.

So of course as soon as I worked all that out in my mind and ordered the card, the news came out that Colon was being sued for being a deadbeat dad to a couple of kids. Well, heck. I could go either way on PED use, but I am a firm believer that you've got to take care of your kids. The lawsuit just alleges that he hasn't taken care of his kids, though, so I can't assume that he really hasn't taken care of those children, but it certainly raises a red flag. I imagine that the courts will keep whatever happens sealed and we won't know how this gets settled unless one party or the other wants us to know. In the end I guess it's none of my business, but until I hear otherwise my fandom of Bartolo Colon will be followed by an asterisk.