Cards from A Cracked Bat and Some Other Stuff

If I am going to maintain my 2 posts per month pace this year, I need to get a second post published before March ends. I'll start off by offering my belated thanks to Julie from A Cracked Bat for sending me a large batch of cards featuring famous Astros, notably Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio.

There are a lot of cards in the pile, most from a time when I was either collecting basketball cards or not collecting cards at all. In addition to Bagwell and Biggio, other star Astros players made appearances.

Julie was quite persistent in tracking me down to mail these out after I won her Dupe, Dump, or Dwindle contest in October. I haven't been feeling all that sociable lately, but I do appreciate that she took the time to send these my way.

Although I haven't felt like blogging much over the last year or so, my collection keeps growing. I sometimes post my maildays on Twitter, and sometimes I just let cards pile up on my desk. I've got a sorting project that goes in fits and starts, and I am slowly getting the sorted cards entered into my Trading Card Database profile.

For the most part I am just trying to stay afloat. I am burnt out and tired most of the time. I've been trying to do a better job at work. I don't think I am in imminent danger of getting fired or disciplined or anything, but I know I could do better and I can feel that I've been pushed to the fringes of my work group.

On Friday I get to go to the doctor to see how much surgery a hernia that popped up recently will need. Or I will see the doctor, who will order some imaging, which will eventually lead to an analysis of how much surgery I need to get my insides back where they go. It hurts when I do things like move or stay still or cough. This is all complicated by the fact that I have a big trip scheduled this summer that will require some amount of exertion. I also need a clean bill of health to maintain my part-time job, because if I can hold on for three more years I will be able to retire and access a very good healthcare program.

School is going moderately well. I am pursuing my M.B.A. at a local university, and I am doing enough to stay in the program. My first couple of classes were pretty rough, but I have dropped down to taking one course at a time and it is at least manageable. I don't know what I will do with the degree, but I figure the time is going to pass whether I get more education or not and my job is paying for it, so I might as well get the fancy piece of paper.

All things considered, life is pretty good, even though I don't feel good. I try to maintain some kind of positivity, though, because I want to be a good example for my kids. Odds are that they will struggle with mental illness since it runs in both sides of our family, but I want them to see that you can still have an okay life even if you are miserable.

All of the cards after the pictures of Julie's cards are eBay pickups from the last couple of months. I especially like the Dikembe Mutombo shoe card, the Ember Moon autograph, the Jake Butt autograph, the Jeff Bagwell AuthenTix relic, and the dual bat relic of Jeff Kent and Roberto Alomar.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 20 - Chrome, a Familiar Signature, and Shiny Football Cards

I've seen quite a few memes mentioning that if you're still not back at work, you're at the point where you don't really know what day it is. I am kind of at that point. Due to our schedule at work, I was able to take three days of leave and end up with ten days off in a row. Pretty good stuff, but I don't know how I will be able to go back after all this time off.

Today's is the last day in the Cyber Week Breaks that features all UFC cards, in the form of 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome and another box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact. I added some football cards from a 2017 Donruss Optic Football group break to the end, so there's something for folks who aren't fight fans.

The last batch of Chrome packs dropped more serial-numbered goodness on me, along with my final autograph. The Karolina Kowalkiewicz is a Green Refractor, numbered # 72 / 99. The Luke Rockhold insert is the Refractor version of his Top of the Class card, numbered # 77 / 99. The Johny Hendricks Gold Refractor is numbered # 39 / 50. The Rashad Evans autograph is a base version, so it doesn't get a number.

Hey, it's another Al Iaquinta autograph! At this point, I'd be pretty happy with literally any other signature out of a High Impact box. The Carla Esparza Femme Fighters insert is a double for me, but that's okay. I like the Bruce Buffer cameo in the background.

I bought into a case break of 2017 Donruss Optic Football. The teams I wound up with are the Broncos, the Falcons, and the Cardinals. There were a bunch of base cards in the package, but I only took pictures of some of the Prizm parallels. There are a couple of base designs up there, as well as a Gridiron Kings card of Devonta Freeman and a 1981 Tribute card of Julio Jones.

I did all right as far as serial-numbered cards and hits go. The card on the left is a Black Prizm parallel of Carlos Henderson's Rated Rookie autograph, numbered # 01 / 25. The middle card is another Carlos Henderson card, this time his Rookie Patch Autograph card, numbered # 01 / 20. The last Broncos card is a Blue Prizm parallel of Von Miller's Gridiron Kings card, numbered # 072 / 149.

I got a couple more Blue Prizm parallels for the Cardinals and Falcons, a Chad Williams from the base set and a Matt Ryan from the 1981 Tribute set. I also got a Haason Reddick autograph and a Gold Prizm parallel of Carson Palmer, which is a pretty good card. I think I just now realized that it's a Carson Palmer card and not a Kurt Warner card.

The Williams card is numbered # 082 / 149, and the Matt Ryan is numbered # 140 / 149. You can see the card backs here, although I didn't take a picture of the back of a Gridiron Kings card. The Reddick autograph isn't numbered. The Carson Palmer Gold Prizm is numbered # 07 / 10. 

I got some pretty decent cards in this break. I don't follow the NFL this year as closely as I have in other years. There has been a lot of drama in the league and the Broncos fell behind pretty early in the year, so I didn't have a lot of incentive to keep up. I don't even know if I watched a single game this season. I guess there is still time, but I have other things to do.

Contested Shots 30: A Thanksgiving Playoff Prize from Panini

Every few months, typically around a holiday, there is a scavenger hunt contest on the Panini America blog. They will link to several photo galleries of Panini products, where there are logos hidden in a certain number of pictures. To enter the contest, you have to find the logos and comment with the locations of the hidden images. There are usually 150-200 entries, and 10-20 prizes, so the odds of winning something are pretty good. I recently participated in the Thanksgiving contest, where the prizes included boxes of 2017 Illusions Football, 2017-18 Ascension Basketball, 2017 Chronicles Baseball, and 2017 Playoff Football. I won one of the prizes, which happened to be a box of 2017 Playoff Football. I've won twice previously, getting a box of 2015-16 Panini Preferred Basketball at the end of August 2016 and an Odell Beckham Jr. National Treasures relic card in the 2016 Easter contest. I think there were about 160 entries in this latest contest, so an entry had about a 1 in 8 chance of winning a box of cards. I think it took me about 30 minutes to find all of the logos. Sometimes it takes me a little longer.

A few days after I responded to the e-mail notifying me of my prize, it arrived on my doorstep. This particular product has 12 packs per box, 8 cards per pack, and tells me that I should find an autograph and a relic card inside.

The pack design mimics the box design. Marcus Mariota seems like kind of an odd choice for a cover athlete given that he's barely inside the top 25 fantasy quarterbacks this year, but he had a pretty good season last year and he's the leader of a probable playoff team this year.

Based on what I pulled from this box, a typical pack will hold 5 base cards, 1 rookie, and 2 inserts/parallels.

I think this is a good-looking set. The base checklist includes 200 players, with a mix of active and retired players. It seemed like there were a lot of retired guys in the set, but maybe collation is playing tricks on me. I had to photograph the Broncos from the box, Bo Jackson, Neon Deion, a couple of quarterbacks, and a neat kicker card.

I got a total of 58 base cards in the box, with no doubles.

In addition to the 200-card base set, the checklist includes 100 rookies. They are short-printed, falling about half as often as you'd expect based on the size of the checklist. I got 13 rookie cards in the box, or about 1 per pack. These four were the highlights, the top two because they made an impact and the bottom two because they were rookies for my son's favorite team (Bengals) and my favorite team (Broncos). Also, Jake Butt's last name is Butt. In retrospect, I probably should have ignored Mixon's card because of his legal history, but I forgot about that until I looked him up just now.

There are plenty of inserts in this product. I kind of like most of them. They take me back to the 90's, which were kind of the heyday of inserts. The folks over on Cardboard Connection seem to dislike them, saying they are cheap-looking and pointless. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Boss Hoggs is the running backs insert, highlighting various ball carriers. When I see Derrick Henry, my mind immediately thinks 'Eddie George.' I guess Eddie George will always be Tennessee's running back in my world.

The Flea Flicker insert shows three playmakers from each team, a rusher, a receiver, and a quarterback. This might be my least favorite insert of the group, probably because the three player photos don't leave much room for anything else on the cards.

Gridiron Force is devoted to players on the defensive side of the ball. I was happy to get a Von Miller card, but disappointed to pull two Ravens. I might dislike the Ravens more than I dislike even the Broncos' division rivals. Michael Strahan was a nice pull, though.

These Playoff Momentum inserts are pretty flashy. I think this might be the insert devoted to wide receivers. If not, my collation made it seem that way. I like the design of this insert, with the lines and positioning making the players look fast. The Jordy Nelson is a 1st Down parallel, and is serially-numbered # 96 / 99. All of the parallels in this set have football-themed names, like 1st Down, Kickoff, Hail Mary, Red Zone, Touchdown, and so on.

Star Gazing appears to be a catch-all insert featuring star players. I pulled a receiver, a tight end, and two quarterbacks. There are some pretty decent cards here, although I think Rob Gronkowski's party boy gimmick is tiresome. It works for him, though, and you can't deny his talent on the field.

Thunder & Lighting is the quarterback/receiver insert. I got two of them, with another couple of cards featuring Packers and Patriots. I guess there are worse teams to pull.

The box promises two hits, on average, and both of mine were parallels. The relic card was a Kickoff parallel of Jordan Howard's Headliners insert. This card is numbered # 31 / 49. Howard has been a top ten running back this year, so this is a decent card.

My autograph is another Kickoff parallel, this time of Josh Jones' Rookie Signatures card. It is numbered # 11 / 99. He plays Safety for the Packers, and is currently 4th on the team in tackles. He's also got two sacks. I don't mind pulling a defensive player autograph, especially from a free box of cards. 

I pulled two base parallels from the box. This might be one of the cooler cards from the box, a Kickoff parallel of Jim Brown. Look at that old-school uniform! This is just a cool card. I don't know football cards well enough to say if this photo has been used before, but I thought it was neat. This one is # 075 / 299. 

The other parallel was in the last pack I opened, and it was quite a shock. This is Jordan Mathews' Touchdown parallel, numbered 1 of 1. Mathews struggled with injuries this year, but he's not a scrub. I can't recall ever pulling a non-printing plate 1 / 1 before, so this was a pretty awesome card to find in a pack.

I like this product. If I were more into football cards, I might chase more of this stuff. The base set looks good, I like the inserts, and the hits are about what you expect. The only thing I don't really like is the short-printed rookie cards. You'd have to open 9 boxes with perfect collation to complete the base set including the rookies, and that is just too many. I know a lot of products use short-prints to keep people buying them, but I hate that tactic. Other than that, though, I enjoyed opening this box. It was exciting to win the contest, and I got some very nice cards out of it. Thanks to Panini for the box, and for running the scavenger hunt contests. Even when I don't win, I enjoy spending a little time looking for the hidden pictures and hoping that my name comes up in the list of winning entries.

Pack of the Day 174: Value Pack of 2017 Panini Donruss Football

Since today was football day, I guess I'll do up a post on some NFL cards. My fantasy football team had a pretty rough go of it this week, but I'll bounce back. It's an office league, so I'll probably have to endure a little trash talk tomorrow, but at least the Broncos won in a convincing fashion against the Cowboys. That takes some of the sting off.

I grabbed this very wrinkled rack pack of 2017 Panini Donruss cards at Walmart a little while ago. There were 30 cards in the pack, but I didn't scan all of them. There are a lot of inserts and parallels and parallels of inserts in this product, but there are never any odds on Panini's packs, so I didn't bother to scan the back.

Here is the front and back of Von Miller's base card for an overview of the design. I like this design pretty well, although it suffers from the usual Panini problem of featuring minimal stats on the back. I know that all the stats in the world can be found online, but I would like to see a player's career in year-by-year lines with totals at the bottom on the back of a trading card.

These are the base cards I decided to scan. The set has retired guys mixed into the checklist. I read somewhere that each team has one retired guy in the set. I didn't bother to look over the checklist and confirm that. One theme in this pack was guys pictured in Bills uniforms with logos and colors from their new teams. I did like pulling an Adam Vinatieri card. I want to see kickers and punters and linemen in my sets.

The four cards across the top of this scan are the Blue Press Proofs promised on the front of the pack. Along the bottom are the non-standard cards from the pack. That Chris Godwin The Elite Series card is pretty wild with all the patterning. I also got a couple of Rated Rookies and one rookie card of Zach Cunningham. I'm guessing that rookie cards are short printed in this set, which is a pain in the butt for set collectors.

That's it for this one. I like the look of the product, but football cards just don't grab me the way that cards from other sports do. I will probably continue to grab a pack or two of football cards each year, but I can't see myself collecting sets or anything.

We'll Always Have 50

I think I bought these cards way back when the NFL season was still going, after they had already fallen out of the playoff race and the chance to play for a second consecutive Super Bowl victory.

This was the main card I was after, as it contains a unique relic swatch and commemorates the Broncos' Super Bowl 50 win. There were a few different pylon cards available from the 2016 Panini Black Friday set, but I eventually decided to go for this one that features the Super Bowl 50 MVP, Von Miller. The pylon piece has a little more color in real life, but my scanner sucked most of it out. Also, given Panini's recent problems with relic and autograph authenticity, who knows if this really came from a pylon used in Super Bowl 50? 

The two cards in this post were offered as a lot, and this card from 2016 Panini Playoff Football was included alongside the pylon card. I wasn't necessarily seeking this card out, but why not get this one, too? The Von Miller card is the only one in the NFL Men's Lifestyle insert set checklist. It's another interesting relic swatch for my collection, so I won't complain.

I don't have many Von Miller cards, so it was nice to get both of these in one go. The defense was able to make up for the lack of offense for one year after Peyton Manning's arm fully turned into a noodle, but I have to wonder if they will be able to make it back to the top of the AFC West with such strong competition in Oakland Las Vegas and Kansas City. I guess the San Diego Los Angeles Chargers are in the division, too, but they haven't been able to do much for a while now.