The Night Owl Mixtape

Better late than never??  Let's hope so.

The one-and-only Night Owl recently sent me a bubble-mailer (thank you!).  Does October count as "recently?"  I'm going to say yes and show you the goodies in it regardless of my belated response.

This was during the Playoffs, so Free Agency hadn't even begun, but Night Owl kicked off the package with this note:

Lorenzo Cain was expected to be on his way out the door.  Same with Moustakas, Vargas, Minor, Escobar, and Hosmer.  The Royals went hard after Hosmer, but the Padres went harder.  Somehow, we re-signed Moustakas!  Escobar too (for some reason?).  But of course, that note reminded me of this song:

So I figured, let's make this whole post a music post!  Every card I'm showing will get a music video.

I am still slowly working on this subset from 2013 Ginter.  The addition of Mercury is like the addition of Freddie Mercury!

 X-fractor-y David DeJesus just collided with...somebody. Was it Howie Day?

 A "sepia parallel" is just another name for Brown.  Like Zac Brown.

 

Night Owl threw in a good little stack of 1973 Topps Royals, including Mr. "Monty" Montgomery.  That's his real name.  Perhaps he should have been named "John Michael Montgomery" instead?  

Steve Busby threw not just one but two no-hitters for the Royals between 1973-1974.  That's why he was immortalized in lyrics by Wham!

"Wake me up before you go-go,

Busby just threw another no-no." 

Really.  Those are the lyrics. Trust me.

This card of Sluggerr features him wearing the Johnny Cueto dreadlocks from 2015.  Speaking of unexpected dreadlocks, here's P.O.D.!

This is a mini "black" parallel of Alex Gordon from Ginter, but these black parallels have so much white in them, I can't tell if they are black or white.

  What can I say about Salvy?  This Salvy is BLUE.

There we go - a song for every card.  Which card/song is your favorite?  Which songs would you have used for any of these cards?

This Post Is Immaculate

 

The best-looking product this year that I have seen was Panini Immaculate.  It came out in the summer and people immediately started pulling out some amazing cards from it (that Brett went for $460).  There were quite a few case breaks happening for it, but the prices for a slot were going for more than I wanted to pay, and I just kept getting outbid on them.  Instead, I decided to take the money that would have gone for a slot in the case break and just pick up a few singles on Ebay...creating my own cheaper break.  I watched several breaks that I had bid on (and lost), and there were no Royals cards in there that were better than these (and about half of them were shutouts for the Royals), so I don't feel like I missed out on them. 

The card at the top was a great value -- Raul Mondesi /99 - Immaculate Materials - 5 swatches.  The fabric is blurry in the scan since it is so thick.  The Royals have rushed Mondesi before...hopefully they are patient with him and he will develop into a solid player.

The second card I picked up was Alex Gordon /99 - Immaculate Duals.   It shows the Alex Gordon low follow-through...best exemplified here. 

 

While I was on the site, I looked for any other cool, cheap Royals cards I could snag.  The first card I picked up was this "Zebra" from 2016 Donruss.  I believe they called these "Holoflow" parallels.  They are numbered /199 and are very shiny/refractory (you can pick that up in the bottom of the scan).  LoCain is showing a little of his "lean-back" follow-through on this beauty.  

 

Another quick pick-up was this Danny Duffy 2017 Chrome in the 1987 Topps style.  It was free shipping and the seller likely had a negative profit on this one.   It's a beautiful glossy card and I'm glad to have it.

All in all, these cards cost me WAY less than a case-break slot would have, and I am pleased with what I got. 

If you are looking for what's still available from that set, you can check COMC or the 'Bay.

What is your favorite Panini Immaculate card that you have seen?

Bountiful Bonus Booty Bestowed by Benevolent Blogger

Who is the Benevolent Blogger?  Why, Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits, of course!

Matt ran a contest last summer to see who could identify a player that he had selected, based on a series of clues that were increasingly specific.  When all was said and done, I narrowed down the answer to just a few players, then finally down to one - Wilson Ramos!  That qualified me for a prize, and when the randomizer was done spinning, I came out of it with a whole lot of 2017 Ginter cards!  Knowing his affinity for Ginter cards, I figured it would be something good.  It was.  :-)

Here you can see the box that hit my mailbox.

 

To be specific, that box had a full base set of 2017 Ginter (Cards 1-300), and then half of the short-prints (301-350).  1987 Topps (favorite set!) were used as filler.  No respect for the classics!  :-)

Here's the full team set of 2017 Royals (non-SP). 

 

He also included one SP (LoCain), and a mini of Hosmer and black mini of LoCain.  

It didn't seem like the Ginter base set had as many interesting non-baseball cards in it as it has in past years, but there were still a few good ones.  All of the cards in the next two pictures are other cards from the base set that I wanted to keep. 4 Ex-Royals (Kendrys, Manaea, Zobrist, Cueto), guys from my earlier days (Canseco, Smith, Banks, Johnson, Dawson), Random current guys I like (Ichiro, Werth, Wilson Ramos(!), then the miscellaneous ones.  Vashti Cunningham and Laurie Hernandez were Olympians.  I watched a Crossfit documentary on Netflix and Ben Smith was the winner of that (Spoiler!).  There was no "Revolving Door" or "X-Ray" card in this set, so a Panda and a Waterfall will have to fill that gap. 

As I mentioned, there were also half of the Short-Prints from this set.  Those are shown below and are all available (except for Lorenzo) since they don't fit my PC.  If anyone still is working on this set and needs one of these, let me know and I can get that to you.  I have a lot of base to trade/give, too.

I really only need one more full-size base card from this set -
Base SP #313 - Matt Strahm. 

Do any of you have that one for me?

Thanks so much, Matt!  You might be wondering why it took me 3 months to post this.  Well....this package hit my mailbox the same week my wife gave birth to our daughter.  Between her and my two older boys, I've had limited card-blogging time since then.  But these were all much appreciated and will be given a good home!  

Who is a Winner???? THIS GUY.

This guy....meaning me.

Part of what I love about blogging is everyone who gives away cards.  Did you hear me?  PEOPLE JUST GIVE AWAY CARDS. I don't see any of the personal finance bloggers giving me cash or any of the political bloggers giving me extra votes.  To get more than one vote you have to live in Chicago.

I recently won contests on two blogs, JABO and $30 A Week Habit.

JABO sent me this guy:

2008 Allen and Ginter N43 Ryan Braun

 And Robert sent me these two (among others):

2011 Bowman Chrome Mike Montgomery & 2011 Topps 60 Danny Duffy Auto

Thanks so much, guys!  I'm looking forward to winning and running many more contests in the future.

30 Royals a Week Habit

(I wish I could get 30 new Royals every week!!)

A couple weeks ago I sent some cards over to Robert at $30 a Week Habit.  It was some 2009 O-Pee-Chee for the set he is putting together, one serial-numbered card for the Insanity, and a bunch of random Jays.  I've enjoyed his blog over the past few months, and he is always friendly and usually responds to any comments I've posted there.

He was kind enough to send me a great package in return.  Lots of Royals, especially some from recent sets/seasons, which is great because I don't have a ton of recent stuff in my collection.  I don't buy much retail these days, so it was great to get them.

Here's some of the highlights:

Some of the 2011 Heritage:

2011 Heritage Lorenzo Cain #341 and Billy Butler #275

A Couple Topps 60 from this year:

2011 Topps 60 Billy Butler #T60-28 and Danny Duffy #T60-141

Some coolness:

2001 Fleer Futures Mike Sweeney #175 and 2009 O-Pee-Chee (Black) Jose Guillen #303

And my favorites from this pack...a sweet 2-Pack of Hosmers:

2011 Topps Update Eric Hosmer #US188 and #US155

Thanks so much, Robert.  Everything was cool and packaged really nicely.  I hope we can come up with another good trade in the future.