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.

Pack of the Day 147: 2015 Bowman Hanger Box

I found myself at Wal-Mart the other day, doing some shopping for something. Digging into the recesses of my memory, I think I was picking up candy to hand out to Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween. So I guess it was a couple of weeks ago, not the other day. Anyway, I discovered that this Wal-Mart had a card aisle again, after some period of time where the card aisle had been removed (or moved to a location which I never discovered).

None of the offerings really appealed to me all that much, but I figured I couldn't go too wrong with a discounted hanger box of 2015 Bowman. All of the Bowman sets kind of run together in my mind, so I don't really know how much 2015 Bowman I have in my collection. It could be a little, or it could be enough to wallpaper a small room. Those are questions that my big sorting question will hopefully answer. What do I have in my collection, and how much of it do I have?

These were the six most interesting (to me) cards out of the thirteen veteran cards in the set. I read an article today saying that the Dodgers would like to move Puig, but are afraid that he might return to superstar status and make them look bad.

There were nine regular prospect cards in the box. Addison Russell played in some meaningful games for the Cubs this postseason.

Six Chrome prospect cards came in the box. This would turn out to be a Josh Bell hot box. Mark Appel got traded from the Astros to the Phillies in the Ken Giles trade. Giles' performance left a little to be desired in 2016. Hopefully Houston can shore up their pitching for 2017.

A good number of the guys I pulled Chrome cards for showed up in the Yellow parallels, including Appel and Bell. Josh Bell was also the subject of the Bowman Scouts' Top 100 insert I got. I like these Top 100 insert sets, but I have never made a real attempt to complete one of them. They cost too much, especially the top few guys each year. I like pulling them, though. They are probably my favorite Bowman insert.

The big pull of the box was a Prospects autograph of Zack Jones. He hasn't done much to make a name for himself yet, but it's still an autograph from a discount retail buy. According to the odds, these autographs only fall 1 per 16 hanger boxes.

That was an okay break for a few bucks. I like the variety that comes out of a Bowman break, even though I don't know most of the prospects by name. It seems like I often pull something interesting out of a Bowman break, like a colorful parallel, a Top 100 insert, or some sort of autograph. They usually aren't all that valuable, but I get excited about them anyway.

Crisp and Reddick in Red

After I showed off the oversized Jon Singleton 5x7 Topps Red card I picked up from an eBay seller I went back and noticed that the guy had a bunch more cards listed from the set he was breaking. I put in a couple of minimum bids on some Oakland players I like, Coco Crisp and Josh Reddick. There weren't any competing bids on the cards, so I won them both. It looks like most of that seller's auctions have ended now, but there is another seller offering up team sets for $200-800 apiece, depending on the team. Both of these cards are numbered # 04 / 10. When they arrived the top loader had a ding in the top of it, and the cards were nicked up in that spot as well. You can see the divot in the Reddick card on the left side of the top edge there. That was a little irritating, but I guess I'll live with it. That's about all I've got for tonight. The Holiday Blahs seem to be settling in on me a little early this year. I need to find a way to combat the Grinchiness that pops up in my personality during the months of November and December.

2013 SEGA Card-Gen Extravaganza 11: Oakland Athletics

It's been 7 months since I last featured a team in the 2013 SEGA Card-Gen set. A 2014 set never materialized, and I believe that there was an official announcement recently that the card game will be no more. These are some of the more fun cards on the market, and it is sad that there won't be any more of them to look forward to. The next team in the set is the Oakland Athletics, who are arguably my second-favorite baseball team behind the Astros (my Top 4 are the Astros at the top with the Athletics, Blue Jays, and Royals grouped under them). That means there are a couple of PC guys in this bunch, although overall there isn't a lot of star power in the group. The A's get 11 cards in the set, or two under the average per team of 13.

Starting things out, as usual, is the catcher spot. The Athletics get two catchers in this set, with the first being George Kottaras, who played in 27 games for the A's in 2012. By 2013 he was with the Royals, playing in 46 games for them during that season. He played in a total of 18 games across three teams in 2014, and this year he is playing AAA ball for the White Sox organization.

John Jaso spent 2013 and 2014 with the Athletics, putting up decent numbers as he has throughout his career. He is currently with the Rays, but was injured on a slide during the season's first game and has been on the DL since. He might get back on the field after the All-Star break. It is interesting that both of the A's catchers get the same descriptor on this set, 'Good pitcher-handling catcher,' which is probably short-hand for, 'Not known for his offensive skills.'

Filling in at first is Chris Carter, who is now a key part of the Astros. After going 0 for 5 in a 2-1 extra innings loss against the Angels today he is hitting under .200 on the year, with decent home run and RBI numbers. He led the league in strikeouts in 2013 and leads the league again this year. That's good if you're a pitcher; not so great when you're a hitter.

Jemile Weeks played a few games for Oakland in 2013, spending the rest of the season on their AAA roster. He spent most of 2014 on Baltimore's AAA club, and he has spent nearly all of 2015 on Boston's AAA roster. I can recall having him as a backup source of steals on fantasy baseball teams in 2011 and 2012, but his other stats were never really good enough to make the speed worthwhile.

Coco Crisp is one of my secondary player collections. I don't really seek out his cards that much, but I notice them when I get them. He has put up some good numbers over the years, but if he's on your fantasy roster you need a backup plan because injuries are going to take some time from him. This year he has only played in 13 games because of a neck injury. At 35 years old, I wonder how many more years he has left in the game.

Josh Reddick is one of the main players I collect, and I have even chased a Super Rainbow of one of his cards. He puts up good numbers when he's on the field and seems to have a good time while he plays.

Tommy Milone had a couple of pretty good seasons with Oakland, then got traded to the Twins for Sam Fuld in 2014. He finished out that season on a pretty bad run for them, but seems to have put things back together this year, He doesn't strike out enough guys to be relevant in fantasy leagues, but he's got a 4-1 record in 8 starts for the Twins, with a 4-0 stint in AAA for the month of May.

Jarrod Parker had a pretty good rookie season in 2012, an okay 2013, and injuries and surgeries have taken away his 2014 and 2015 seasons.

Jerry Blevins is a relief pitcher who seems to stick around pretty well, which I guess is how you gauge relief pitchers. He was traded to the Nationals for 2014 and then to the Mets for 2015. Early in the 2015 season he got hit by a batted ball and broke his forearm.

Ryan Cook was an All-Star reliever in 2012 and pitched pretty well in 2013 and 2014 before control issues led to him starting 2015 in AAA. He got called back up for a few appearances in 2015 where he put up ugly numbers and got himself sent back down after 4 appearances. He might not be back up with Oakland anytime soon.

Balfour went back and forth with Ryan Cook for the closer role in 2012, was an All-Star closer for the A's in 2013, signed with the Rays in 2014, lost the closer role early in the 2014 season, and early in 2015 he was released by the Rays and then signed to play for their AAA team. For what it's worth he has been pitching pretty well in AAA, but that has to be hard for a guy who was an MLB reliever most of the time from 2003-2014.

And that does it for the Oakland Athletics in 2013 SEGA Card-Gen. They are the 11th team featured in the set, which means I've just got 19 more to go.

2013 SEGA Card-Gen Directory

Baltimore Orioles

Boston Red Sox

Cleveland Indians

Chicago White Sox

Detroit Tigers

Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Minnesota Twins
New York Yankees

Oakland Athletics
Seattle Mariners
Tampa Bay Rays

Texas Rangers
Toronto Blue Jays
Arizona Diamondbacks
Atlanta Braves

Pack of the Day 85: 2015 Topps Series 1 Hobby Box: Base Cards and Parallels

I am ending my streak of non-sports posts, mostly because I ran out of stuff to post. I've also got a huge backlog of sports stuff in my post queue and my scan folder, even stuff going back to November. Just about anyone who blogs about baseball cards knows that 2015 Topps Series 1 came out last week. I bought a base set and the First Pitch insert from an eBay seller, and so I don't really 'need' anything else from Series 1. I considered going out and buying some retail packs from Target, but I got to thinking that by the time I buy three blasters at retail I might as well buy a Hobby box. So that's what I did. After work on Thursday I went over to the local card shop and grabbed a Hobby box. I considered a Jumbo box, but I couldn't justify the extra $30 it would have cost me just to get a manu-relic and an extra autograph or relic card. Most of the relics and autos I've seen coming out of this stuff aren't worth $15 apiece.

This post takes a look at some of the base cards and parallels I pulled from this box. In all I pulled 305 base cards, with 9 of those being doubles. So I got 296 different base cards, or 84.6% of the set.

I like the card design well enough. My main complaint is that the photographs chosen are largely generic torso shots, and even a lot of the action shots are zoomed-in too close. I feel like the 2014 set was a little more open to using dugout shots, silly shots, celebration photos, and things of that nature. I chose some of my PC players and a few cards featuring better photos to show here. I omitted some of the cards that I know everyone has already seen, like the Jeter card that leads the set off.

The group features a few beards, PC guy Josh Reddick, a couple of camo uniforms, and a couple of decent fielding shots (I'd like that Pearce card 5x more if it showed his feet).

I've seen a couple of mentions already of the Navarro card, which might achieve cult favorite status like Coco Crisp's afro card last year. It just looks like something bad is about to happen. Also the guy in the background might be scratching his junk. R.A. Dickey gets the nod because he's a PC guy. Arias gets into this post because he's got a case of extreme Ugly Pitching Face (UPF) going on. I think he might have learned that trick from Madison Bumgarner.

A couple of horizontal A's cards made the cut, although I'd like both of those cards better if I could just see the players' feet. Ethier and Kipnis have better cards because they are mostly all within the frame (Ethier is missing part of his hand). I especially like how the ball is hanging out in the background of Ethier's card.

Here are a few more horizontal cards that stood out to me while sorting through the stacks. I guess I don't have anything more to say about these. They're nice photos, but I wish Topps had included the whole picture.

I got four Gold parallels and four Rainbow Foil parallels. Both of these are seeded 1:10 packs, which I believe is more rare than last year's equivalent Gold and Red Hot Foil cards. People on the forums are saying that means there is a much bigger print run of 2015 Topps than there was in 2013 and 2014. I guess I can believe that. Arias and his UPF make another appearance. The Baez card would have got a spot in the base card group if he didn't appear here. On the parallels Topps should have used blue for the Dodgers logo, as on Puig's Gold card here you can't even see the logo in the corner. I imagine the Yankees and Padres might have the same problem.

In addition to the more common parallels I pulled an elusive Pink parallel of Dilson Herrera, numbered # 30 / 50. These cards fall only 1:527 Hobby packs, if the odds on the pack are to be believed. Again, it seems like these colored parallels are extremely rare this year, pointing to a much larger print run this year than in years past. I actually just went back and checked the odds for 2014's set, and Pink parallels numbered out of # / 50 fell at a 1:501 rate, which means they were more common, but not by a gigantic margin. I guess if you're opening 25 cases or something it would matter to you, but when you're just opening a box or so it doesn't change your odds of pulling one by that much.

And that's it for the base cards and parallels I pulled from my Hobby box of 2015 Topps Series 1. I'll post about the inserts soon.