A 1/1 For the Josh Reddick Collection

One player collection I don't add to often enough is my Josh Reddick PC. He hasn't been with an MLB team since 2021, and I reckon that means he's retired now. He spent most of his career in the AL West, with Oakland and Houston, although he started out in Boston and had a couple of brief stints in the NL West with the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. He didn't put up huge numbers for the most part, but seemed to be a locker room and fan favorite. His cards are one of the reasons I have considered leaving collecting, and also one of the reasons I am stubbornly clinging on to my collection.

This printing plate from 2015 Topps Finest recently popped up on eBay. Even at $20 it was probably overpriced, but how often does a 1/1 pop up for a guy you collect? I decided I needed to have it, and so I hit the Buy It Now after a few days of watching it. One eBay trick is to add something to your watch list, and often within a few days later you'll get an offer from the seller for a discount. The risk, especially with a 1/1 card, is that someone else will pay full asking price while you're waiting for a bargain. That's why I eventually jumped on this card.

 

Why have Josh Reddick's cards nearly pushed me out of the hobby? I happen to own the 2013 Topps Chrome Superfractor of Reddick's card, as part of my 2013 Topps Josh Reddick Super Rainbow. Topps used the same great image of Reddick across Topps and Topps Chrome that year, and I was able to collect nearly every variation of the card across three products. There is another collector out there who wants the Superfractor, and he hounds me on Twitter about it pretty frequently. I don't want to sell or trade the cornerstone of one of my crowning collection achievements, so I ignore the advances, but as a guy with social anxiety it stresses me out to hear from that guy.

I know it must be frustrating for him to know where that big card is and to be unable to get it, but I also want it for my collection and there's only one copy to go around. Anyway, any time I get a new rare Reddick card for my collection it stresses me out a bit because I know I'm going to hear from that guy, and the stress of it is almost enough to make me quit this hobby. The other part of me is stubborn enough that I want to gather all of the rare Josh Reddick cards I can out of spite, and that's not exactly healthy either. I guess I could block the guy, but that feels like confrontation and escalation. I don't really want to make enemies in this hobby. It's a lot nicer to make friends and enjoy sharing my little pieces of cardboard with like-minded individuals.

A Top Tier Reverse Group Break Spot

A few days ago I found myself idly browsing a group breaker's site and strongly considered buying the Astros spot in a Topps Tier One break. Luckily, someone bought the spot while I was contemplating whether or not to buy it. I watched the break in question and no Astros hits were pulled, so I'm glad I lost out on the spot. 

I still had the card itch, though, so I decided to see what I could get on eBay for less than the cost of the break spot. I decided to limit my search to cards from 2023 Topps Tier One, and wanted to focus mostly on Yordan Alvarez cards. I was able to locate the lowest-priced Yordan on eBay, and added it to my watch list. A little while later an offer came in from the seller for an even lower price, and I made the purchase.

I also found a Yordan bat relic card at a decent price and bought it via the Buy It Now feature. Theoretically I still have about $20 left vs. the break spot price, but I am going to leave it where it's at for now. Group breaks are fun, but they are a form of gambling and the house usually wins. I find that most of the time when I join a group break I wind up subsidizing someone else's hits and not having anything to show for it, and that makes me feel a little icky. If I'd bought that Astros spot I wouldn't have had anything in my mailbox, but instead I have a couple of nice Yordan cards.

A Numbered Card for the Moyer PC

I figure if I'm going to attract sports card blog readers to my blog again, I should post some stuff featuring more conventional stick-and-ball sports. I've been feeling a little rudderless when it comes to those sports, though, and haven't been buying much in the way of sportsball cards. My focus has been elsewhere, with a lot of wrestling and racing cards in the mix. A lot of my budget and focus has also gone toward hunting and camping gear, as I've been chasing elk and antelope with my coworkers, and in October my dad and I traveled to Kazakhstan to hunt Ibex together. But I still gather the occasional baseball or basketball card to add to my collection.

One player I started a collection for is retired pitcher Jamie Moyer, mostly through a large lot of cards bought on eBay in 2014. A week or so ago I got a wild hair and decided to see what Moyer had in the way of rarer stuff, like parallels and autographs. His career mostly straddled the junk wax era, so I wasn't sure if I'd find anything like that for him. There wasn't a lot available, but I did turn up this 2005 Donruss Elite Turn of the Century parallel, numbered # / 750.

The back of this card discusses Moyer's chase for 200 wins. He would eventually end his career with 269 wins, good for 35th all-time. There aren't a lot of active pitchers on pace to reach that mark, with the closest being Justin Verlander at 257. Gerrit Cole could get there with just over 8 more 15-win seasons. Most other guys are too old or don't have enough wins to get there.

 

Here's a picture of me and my dad in Kazakhstan with our hunting guides. It was a pretty wild trip to a remote area of the world. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go.

Chasing 'Rowdy' Ronda Rousey

I wish I could come up with a clever title for this blog post, but I'm drawing a blank. A few months ago I decided it was time to add a Ronda Rousey autograph to my collection. My initial plan was to go for a Topps Chrome autograph, but the ones I saw were all sticker autographs that lacked eye appeal.

I eventually settles on this 2016 Topps UFC Top of the Class autograph, numbered # 15 / 25. It's a sticker autograph, but the design of the card hides the sticker pretty well, and her signature is all on the sticker. I was pretty happy with that, and I was glad to finally add the autograph of one of the biggest names in MMA to my card boxes.

A little more recently, a Rousey collector listed a bunch of their collection on eBay, with some fairly reasonable prices. I added several to my watch list, but didn't really want to commit to buying another Rousey autograph. The seller reduced their prices at the same time an eBay Bucks promotion was going on, though, and I caved and bought an on-card Ronda Rousey signature. This one comes from 2013 Topps UFC Knockout, and is numbered # 78 / 99.

Later I got to thinking that it would be nice to have a Ronda Rousey WWE autograph card in my collection. There are rumors that she might not be with WWE for all that long, and I didn't really want to miss my chance to get one. She's got a few sticker autographs out there, but I noticed that I could get an on-card signature in the recently-released 2019 Topps WWE Transcendent Collection. I won this auction for about the cost of a group break spot, which I think is a pretty good deal for one of the bigger names in the product. This is the Purple parallel of her autograph, numbered # 09 / 10. 

The card does have a scratch on the surface on the left side, but I can live with that. It is funny to me how I am looking for things to complain about on an autograph card of one of the bigger names from one of the highest-end products, when as a teenager in collecting I would have gone absolutely nuts if I'd pulled a relic or autograph card of even a semi-star. Things have changed a lot over the last 20 years.

I may be done with Ronda Rousey autographs now, but we'll see what the future brings. I am pretty happy to have a couple of nice examples from her UFC career, as well as a pretty big card from her time in the WWE.

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.

2018 Topps WWE Undisputed

Undisputed is the high-end wrestling offering from Topps. It comes on thick card stock and features 10 hits per 10-pack box, with 8 of those hits guaranteed to be autographs. I didn't buy a whole box, but I did snag some 2018 Topps Undisputed.

I found an online shop that was offering Undisputed by the pack at a reasonable price, so I ordered two packs. As I said before, each pack promises a hit among the five cards inside. Based on what I've seen, parallels are a little harder to come by this year, probably due to the fact that there aren't any parallels in the product that aren't serially-numbered.

Here are the pack odds. It's too late to send in a NPN request, as that expired at the end of September. I've been sitting on these photographs for quite a while apparently.

Most packs give you two or three base cards and one or two inserts. I like Sheamus, so that is a decent base card pull for me. I don't like Roman Reigns as much, but he seems to be pretty popular among wrestling fans. It is pretty nice to get an Andre the Giant appearance in this pack. He was one big dude.

Brock Lesnar irritates me, but I guess if a heel can get under your skin, that means they're doing their job well. The inserts I've seen all focus on 30 Years of Survivor Series and 30 Years of Royal Rumble. There may be other insert sets, but I doubt it. There's just not enough room in the checklist for much more.

The hit from this first pack is an Orange autograph of Jinder Mahal. He's not one of my favorite wrestlers, but he's a pretty big player on the current roster and I am happy to add his signature to my collection. I don't think I had previously acquired any of his signed cards.

I do kind of like his gimmick with the Singh Brothers. It's very much a video game set-up where the Singh Brothers are mini-bosses who pester you while you try to defeat the main boss, Jinder Mahal. They all play their roles very well. 

It's nice to get a Bayley card in the second pack, with a cameo appearance by Nia Jax. It is also fun to get a John Cena card in this pack. His new longer haircut kind of throws me for a loop, but that's just because it's different from what I'm used to seeing. Apparently I'm not the only person who was surprised to see it.

This pack also had a Royal Rumble card inside, with Lex Luger as the co-winner of the 1994 Royal Rumble.

I was pretty happy with the hit in this pack, a Green autograph of Charlotte Flair. This one is numbered # 02 / 50. The color splash on these parallels does some weird things to the wrestler photos sometimes, because it overlays the photos and changes their skin and clothing to that color.

This Nia Jax Blue parallel autograph was an eBay purchase. It is numbered # 22 / 25. I was also watching a Green autograph at the same time, but the Blue only went for a little more than the Green, despite having half the print run. It is a little bothersome that the blue ink of the marker blends in with the blue of the color splash, but I don't think it looks as bad on the actual card.

This last pack came from a group break I joined. It was a random pack box break, so there were 10 slots, and the packs from a box were randomly attached to a slot. I got some pretty decent base cards, with Alexa Bliss, Ruby Riott, and John Cena.

The hit of the pack would have been an awesome pull if it pictured a different wrestler. This is a Purple autograph of Dash Wilder, numbered # 4 / 5. I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I've had much worse results out of group breaks before.

Undisputed is a fun product, with a lot of on-card autographs and parallels to chase. I usually try to get a little of it each year, especially if my favorite wrestlers appear on the checklist.

"You're tearing me apart, Lisa!"

It seems like every year, there are a few subjects in the Topps Allen & Ginter checklist whose autographs and/or relics I just have to have. This year was no different, with Biz Markie, Champ Pederson, Christopher McDonald, Jon Lovitz, and Tommy Wiseau all appearing in the product. I've already tracked down a Biz Markie redemption and a Champ Pederson signature, but I haven't yet nabbed Christopher McDonald or Jon Lovitz.

I did finally manage to get autograph and relic cards featuring actor/director Tommy Wiseau, whose film 'The Room' is famous for being incredibly bad. The film is such a wreck and the filming went so poorly that it was the subject of a book that became a movie called 'The Disaster Artist.' Cult classics and pop culture are right in my wheelhouse, so I had to get these into my collection. The relic card is your standard Ginter fare, and the autograph is actually one of the Black-framed parallels, numbered # 23 / 25. I got it for just a hair more than the regular unnumbered autographs were selling for, so I figured that was pretty good.

Here are the backs, for the sake of completeness. I don't know if I would recommend watching Wiseau's movie, but it might be entertaining to read up on it a little if you've got some time to kill. If nothing else, it's got a lot of one-liners in it that make for good inside jokes among friends.

Danica Patrick Rookie Tape Autograph

I have to work the weekend and it's already getting late, so this is going to be a quick post. Probably. Sometimes I get long-winded on quick posts.

I have pretty much given up on being a completist collector when it comes to my player collections. There are so many products and parallels and hits out there that it's pretty much impossible to get everything made for an individual. That goes double when you're trying to collect cardboard featuring a star whose cards drive whole product lines. Although I do try to get as many cards for my collections as possible, I don't chase everything with equal zeal. But every so often I find something unique or different that I have to have.

That was the case with this 2011 Press Pass Eclipse Signature Series Rookie Tape autograph card of Danica Patrick. For people who aren't sure what Rookie Tape is, it's a yellow tape stripe that is put on the back of a car to let other drivers know that a racer hasn't raced that track before. There are different conventions and rules about it, but it is basically a bright marker on a car to let people know you're new. So this card contains a strip of tape, probably from Danica Patrick's Nationwide Series car, as she hadn't raced at the top level of NASCAR yet when this card was produced. The card is numbered # 09 / 11, so this isn't an easy one to find.

I happened to stumble across this listing very soon after it was posted to eBay. The price was too good and the relic was too unique for me to pass it up. I hit the Buy It Now pretty quickly and soon it was in my hands.

This isn't a very good picture of it, but the relic window is pretty deep, so the authentication sticker had to make a pretty big dip to get from the card surface down to the signature on the tape. Usually autographs are on the surface of the card (or on a sticker on the card), so you don't get a stepped authentication sticker like this.

She-Hulk by Rodrigo Martins

Another day, another She-Hulk sketch card. The last She-Hulk card I showed off came from the Rittenhouse Marvel Dangerous Divas Series 2. This one comes from the first Dangerous Divas set, released in 2011.

The artist is Rodrigo Martins, who also goes by lengthened (Rodrigo Martins dos Santos) and shortened (Rod San) versions of his name. I haven't found an online store for him, but he does have active Instagram, Facebook, and DeviantArt profiles. I like his version of She-Hulk on this card. She looks sufficiently strong for a Hulk, and I enjoy the way he made her interact with the card border. I'd like to track down more of his artwork in the future.

She-Hulk by Federico Blee

I've got a pretty big backlog of sketch cards and other artwork to post about. I don't know if I'll ever get around to posting it all, but I'm going to try. Things have been kind of busy for me lately. I guess things are always busy for everyone, but I feel like I'm juggling a fair amount of stuff at the moment. We're in our big summer push at work. My Army physical fitness test is coming up. I have Cub Scout stuff I have to take care of. I wasn't planning on going back to school, but I got an e-mail about a tuition assistance program for my job series that will basically cover an MBA for free, so I am in the process of applying for an MBA program. I'm looking forward to this weekend. My wife and I are driving up to Spokane for a Weird Al Yankovic concert. It'll be a lot of driving over two days, but every review I've read from his tour has been great.

Today's sketch card comes from the 2014 Rittenhouse Marvel Dangerous Divas Series 2 set. It features one of my favorite Marvel characters, She-Hulk. The artist is Federico Blee, who is best known for his work as a colorist in comics. He doesn't seem to have a huge online presence, but he does have some art on his Facebook page. He also has a DeviantArt profile. He did some work on the She-Hulk comic book series, so it's nice to have a sketch card of the character from him. I picked it up on eBay last year.

Olajuwon Sole of the Game

One piece of memorabilia I've been wanting for a long time is a trading card featuring an embedded piece of shoe in it. There have been a number of products produced with chunks of game-worn shoe relics, but I haven't ever been able to find the right one at the right price.

I finally tracked one down late last month. I actually didn't win the auction for this one, but the seller sent me a Second-Chance Offer because the high bidder had won another card from him and couldn't afford to pay for both. It's a Sole of the Game insert featuring Hakeem Olajuwon from 2014-15 Panini Immaculate Collection Basketball. This is the base version of his card, and it's numbered # 07 / 30. The card was shipped from Australia, and I thought it might be lost for good in the mail. The tracking number showed it leaving a processing center in California on April 29th, and there were no updated in the status until it arrived in Boise yesterday. About a week ago I submitted a search request on USPS.com to see if they could find it, but I never heard anything from them. I don't know how it spent nearly three weeks getting from there to here, but I am glad it made it safely. The card is extremely thick, probably because it has a piece of Olajuwon's sole in it.

The Rockets managed to tie their Conference Finals series with Golden State at 1-1 the other day, and I'm hoping they can advance to the NBA Finals. I think whichever team comes out of the West will have a pretty good shot at winning the title over the Celtics or the Cavaliers.

Hulk Sketch by Daniel Logan

Although I generally limit my sketch art collecting to a couple of characters, I will sometimes pick up something different if the price is right. That was the case with this sketch card from Upper Deck's Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 set.

This sketch features Hulk, Marvel's angry green behemoth. Hulk is one of my favorite characters, and I even named my second son after Hulk's alter ego. The artist is Daniel Logan, who I don't know a lot about. He has a Facebook page and a DeviantArt profile, but neither one is updated vary frequently. I like all of the green and yellow on this card. The colors really make it pop.

Card Gen Foil Matt Holliday

I've got another short post today. Most of the day was taken up by my nephew's birthday party at a local park. All four of my sisters were there, along with me, so we had five of the six siblings and their kids all together. We let the kids run around for a few hours, because it's not often that all the cousins get together.

I don't add a lot of SEGA Card-Gen cards to my collection these days, but every now and then I find one I don't have at a decent price. That was the case with this Matt Holliday card from the foil Rare subset of the 2012 SEGA Card-Gen set. In addition to having a different picture than his base card and a foil background, the Rare cards also gave a slight stat boost to the player in the associated arcade game. Card-Gen cards are some of my favorite bits of cardboard, and I am always happy to snag another one.