Top 10 Countdown - Cards I Won't Throw Out

I recently got a stuffed mailer from JP at Cards My Mom Didn't Throw Out.  If you have Diamondbacks cards to spare (especially Steve Finley, Paul Goldschmidt, and Luis Gonzalez) make sure you drop him a line and get a trade going! 

Anyway, 4 full team bags later, I pulled out some favorites to show off here (in descending order).

Honorable Mention:  The Absolute Memorabilia Sweeney shown above.  Any new Sweeney will make me a happy camper.  However, there were even BETTER Sweeneys in this very package, so keep your eyes peeled.

#10) I already have this Bo Jackson card, but it's the "Grand Slammers" version of 1990 Donruss, showing Bo ready to crush one. 

#9)  Just an unassuming Kevin Seitzer, right?  Non!  It is the O-Pee-Chee version. 

#8)  I sent CMMDTO a few Goldschmidt "Chipz", and he returned the favor with a Salvy chip I didn't have! 

#7)  Gil Meche -- the only guy who would retire and forego $11 million on the last year of his contract because he didn't feel like he had earned it.

#6)  I don't know if any non-Royals-fans remember Mark Teahen, but he was a bit of a fan favorite during the lean years.  Which "lean years" am I talking about (there were so many)?  He was worth 6.0 WAR between 2006 and 2007, but never had another good season in the majors after that, despite hanging around in MLB through 2011.  Here's a chrome Bowman of his.  Maybe he has some of these on display in the new wine bar that he owns in Arizona. 

#5) An auto of Royals farmhand Nolan Watson...originally was a high draft pick, but has not progressed much.  He's was recently promoted to High-A Ball at the end of June.

#4)  Just a cool-looking Mondesi here. 

#3)  I can't believe a Sweeney memorabilia card only made it to #3, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometime.  This "Leather and Lumber" Sweeney is numbered only to 100.  When I pulled it from the package I thought I already had it since it looked so familiar.  But upon checking, what I actually had was the base version with no jersey swatch. 

#2)  The penultimate card is a 2016 Chrome prism refractor of Lo Cain with a very prominent Russell Martin.  Wonder what makes this play special?  Oh, it was only Cain scoring from 1st on a single in the Playoffs.  The Royals coaches KNEW that Bautista would sometimes throw to 2nd on a play like this, so they were ready for it when it actually happened. 

#1)  And, the #1 card in this countdown is....

So graceful.  It's like a ballet..."Sweeney Lake," perhaps?  👦

And with that, I extend one final "Thank you" for all these cards.  Much appreciated!!!

Did any of you have a favorite out of these cards?  Did I get the order wrong?

Stadium Club - Luminous Triumvirate

I have two brothers-in-law who also collect cards.  I mentioned one in my last post about Black Friday.  The other one lives a little farther away, but he has a nice collection of graded Cal Ripken, Jr. cards and lower-grade tobacco cards (T206s, etc.).  About a month ago, his mother (my mother-in-law) asked me to help her pick out some small presents for him, so we went on COMC and found some newer serial-numbered Ripkens that I knew he didn't have.  Since she was placing an order anyway, the shipping would be free for me if I snuck a few cards onto her order.

The picture at the top is from 2016 Stadium Club - These are the Luminous Triumvirate cards.  Each of these is Die-Cut, but then when you put them together they become a larger picture.  These are all chromed-out and look great in-person. I've had my eyes on these ever since they came out and felt this was the right time to pull the trigger.  I spent WAY too much on the Salvy, but he's the middle-card in the triptych and was the last one available on COMC.  I don't regret it.  :-)  LoCain, Salvy, and K-Mo were all integral pieces in our 2015 World Series Championship.

The picture below shows the triumvirate from 2015 Stadium Club -- Salvy once again serves as the hub, Hosmer is on the left, and the right is covered by ??  Oh no!  I'm still missing one of these guys! 

The card in question is T-8C - Alex Gordon from 2015 Stadium Club.  It was not for-sale on COMC at the time of my order, but it looks like there is a listing for one now.  If any of you have one for trade, please let me know. 

They didn't make these in 2017, but I think these are a GREAT concept for Topps to continue implementing.  Die cuts are awesome, anyway, but then when you have 3 to chase, it adds that much more of a treasure-hunting aspect to it.  The task is hard, but not impossible.

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!  

Night Owl Confuses Me

Well, it's more like Topps confuses me.

All of these cards came from the one, the only, Mr. Night Owl in two packages -- one last summer, and one recent one.  He included the above monstrosity.  This flips the traditional traded-player display of "new logo/old uniform" on its head, by showing James Shields in his new uniform (KC), but with his old logo (TB).  Chalk this one up to a mistake -- whoever was maintaining the player database at Topps never updated it with the correct logo.

Night Owl sent a bunch of other good stuff, too.

And he finished it out with a #/99 double-jersey card of Raul (Adalberto) Mondesi.  This will definitely be Mondesi's year to show what he can do in the big leagues.  He's got to start hitting better if he is going to stick around.

Thank you, Night Owl -- all of these were needed and are very much appreciated!

-Josh D.

2015 Topps Royals Outfielders - Same Pose

2015 was a charmed season for the Royals.  Seven players on the All-Star team, the AL Central Division Championship, and, of course, WINNING THE WORLD SERIES.

A big part of that team was the dynamic defense, particularly in the outfield.  Apparently Topps predicted this at the beginning of the season, as they decided to portray each one of the best KC outfielders in a similar pose -- making a diving defensive gem.

LF - Alex Gordon :  Winner of four consecutive Gold Gloves in LF, he was the winner of both the Platinum Glove and Hutch Award in 2014.

CF - Jarrod Dyson : 1.1 Defensive WAR over only 560 innings in 2015.  He lead the league in Double-Plays turned as an OF.  People thought he was just a burner, but he has a fast, accurate arm, too.

RF - Lorenzo Cain :  2.3 Defensive WAR in 2015.  This was good for 4th in the AL across all positions, and was actually a decrease from 2013/2014 when he was 2nd in the league.  He was also chosen as the "Wilson Defensive Player of the Year" in CF.

The "Superman" poses from all of them make for a neat set when seen as a group.  Are there any other sets you know of that have teammates in a similar pose?

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.