So this just happened....

 There was the monthly local trade night at the local shop this past Thursday evening. Frivolities were had, poor life choices were made, the usual.

Follow.

I'm standing on one side of the shop with a couple of friends, while a group of people are opening boxes twenty feet away. When they erupt with cheers, and then as one, get quiet, and all turn and look at me.

Not anything to be worried about, right? Ha! They were like zombies yearning for brains. The salivating was palpable.

Turns out, this was pulled. And apparently even people I don't know, know that I'm the Andruw Jones guy.

So yeah. One of my Andruw binders now hosts a Superfractor.

Does this mean I'm now one of the cool kids???

The best kind of cards I'll see this month...

 This is a post of many thanks. You won't see the newest, shiniest hit product here today. Only a few cards sent to me by some old friends.

Or as I like to call it, the best kind of cards ever.

First up, some Allen & Ginter needs from Chris at Nachos Grande. Chris sent over a few from last year's offering.

The Murph!

My current fave, Freddie

The Greatest, Hank

Mr. One and Done.

Sharon's favourite...

Touki.

I have to admit, I like those better than some of the previous year's efforts.....

and now a couple from gcrl and his current blog, cards as i see them.

two of these were from my dirty dozen want list over there on the right side. the question i have is where the hell are the 37 copies of this card that i know i have somewhere?

but jim was nice enough to send me another just so i could cross it off of my list.

and look! actual cardboard. future hall of famer brian asselstine.

as well as a 2012 chippah! no. wait. a 2020 chippah!

Thanks boys! Much appreciated.

He shoots! He Scores!

A quickie post this evening. I wasn't able to find too many needs for my Score Braves team sets.
But I did come away with two.
Both from the 1990 Score Update set.

Franky Cabrera.
You've heard me freak about When Sid Slid a lot on this blog.... Well Franky here is the one who was called on to pinch hit and drove the grounder to right that allowed Sid to slide.
That makes him an All Time Brave.
Come at me.

Ernie Whitt??? A Brave? Blink and you'll miss it. Ernie played 15 seasons in baseball. 14 in the American League, and 1 with ATL. He didn't do so well in the N.L. One last hurrah for Baltimore in '91 and he hung up his mask for good.

Now we'll see who's been paying attention.
This post featured 1990 Score Update. My last post was about 1990 Fleer Update. Both sets had two Braves catchers in them. But they were different catchers. How many did the Braves use that year??

Seven. Not shown are Kelly Mann, Tyler Houston Jody Davis.

Kelly, along with Tyler Houston and Jody Davis were the catchers in the Score regular set.
Kelly and Jody Davis made the cut for Fleer.

It was Jody's last season in baseball. Kelly played 18 games as a rookie, and then never played again. Tyler didn't make The Show until '96. Played a handful of games for the Braves and was shipped to the Cubs.

As much as I love Fleer and Donruss.... I think Score may be my favourite. The '91 set is one of my faves of all time. (In spite of all the black and white photos of shirtless dudes.)

Any of you have favourite Score cards?


Oh, by the way, Nacho is having a Ginter contest. It's rather complicated, but hey, what else have you got to do? Go and enter. Tell him I sent you. You'll get a discount.  Nacho Grande

Fe-Fi-Fo-Fleer

Let's talk about Fleer baby, let's talk about you and me...… Hopefully you  now have that song in your head for the rest f the day.

In my never ending quests to finish up these Braves team sets, today we tackle early 90's Fleer. Fleer update specifically.

First, 1990.

Nick Esasky, who looks like an undercover police officer.

Jim Kremers! Now I am a HUGE Braves fan. But wo the hell is Jim Kremers? And what does he want?
A quick google search shows that he's actually known as Jimmy. And that his career lasted 29 games in 1990. He batted a whopping .110 with a homer and two RBI's.
Atlanta then shipped him to Montreal for Otis Nixon.

Greg Olson. Not the pitcher, the catcher. Unlike Jimmy, Greg lasted a bit more in the Bigs.

Jim Presley! HEY! My name's Jim Presley and I'm the new third baseman for the freaking Atlanta Braves!!!! Wait. Who's that rookie shortstop over there practicing at third??? He has a funny name too. Chipper??? Who calls their kid Chipper?

Then 1991. For those who thought the 1990 set was too bland, Fleer listened and gave you this for 1991. Hey, it is substantially better than 1991 Donruss. The worst set ever made.

Kent Mercker! One of my faves. Great career.

And Otis!!! We now know how Otis got here. See? You learn something new every day.

Terry Pendleton. Great at the beginning, but cost the Braves so many games near the end. Bobby Cox was loyal to his players though and kept putting him out there. Almost caused me to throw my TV through the window many times watching him "pinch hit"
More like "pinch strike out" Am I right?!!

Raffy!!!

I don't remember Juan too much. Although he pitched fairly well in the season and a half he was with Atlanta.

SID!!!!!!! YOU BIG BEAUTIFUL BASTARD!!!!!
Oh...… when Sid slid. It was magical.

This must be Freddie's older brother.

Gotta say, I have a soft spot in my heart for Fleer.

Do any of you have any Fleer fvourites?

2020 Insanity! (Also known as Bowman baseball)

We still don't have a season. Judging by the behavior and greed of MLB and the MLBPA, we may not get one.

But, we still have baseball cards. 2020 Bowman came out recently here. There was a wee delay in getting it across the border. But it's here.

Or at least it is in some shops. The complete insanity over it has caused many shops to sell their allocations to dealers in the U.S. at absurd prices.

My local shop kept theirs. I did not buy a box. $750 for a jumbo box and $385 for a hobby box is out of my league. Those prices did not stop anyone else as they sold out of their cases of jumbos within a couple of hours....

I did manage to scrounge up a few Braves from the scrap pile as wrappers and boxes flew everywhere.

Here is my first, and quite possibly last, taste of 2020 Bowman.

Acuna Jr. is from the veterans part of the set.

 Young Jasseel here made it as high as 'AA' Mississippi last season. He started 16 games, going 4-7 with a 3.83 ERA.

My man Drew made it to 'AAA' Gwinnett last year, getting into 26 games. Smacking 2 homers with 11 RBI's and hitting .271
He also managed to hit .167 in 15 games during Spring Training before the world ended.

This is the Chrome version of the previously shown paper Jasseel. But this is NOT Bowman Chrome. Or Bowman Draft, or Bowman Draft Chrome. It's just chrome in Bowman. Not Bowman Chrome.

Here we have another chrome in Bowman that isn't Bowman Chrome. This one featuring Shea Langeliers. This Baylor grad made his debut in 'A' ball last season for Rome.
During Spring Training, he got into 8 games, batting .429 with a homer and 5 RBI's.

So there it is. I'm not seeing the fuss. But I like pulling cards out of packs of players that I know and can see on TV. The youngin's aren't really my thing until they've made it.

Did any of you jump on Bowman?

Remember Upper Deck Baseball?

Back in the day, before the Player's Associations, Lawyers, Agents, and all of the other slimy people who don't collect sports cards decided they should be in charge of sports cards, Upper Deck made baseball cards.

They started out amazing. But from that peak, they went into a decline until the license was pulled out from under them like a cheap area rug.

The late nineties was a shrine to gold and bronze foil. Upper Deck must have bought in bulk. They used it excessively. 

In my recent return to paying attention to want lists long ignored, I purchased around forty of these. Here are a few faves.

Probably my favourite all time pitcher.

John Smoltz. I really like the pose on this one. Not a common photo choice. Not too sure about shrinking it out of ratio in black and white right beside the colour version though.

Mad Dog. Greg Maddux. Trapped in green foil hell.

Andruw Freaking Jones. The best center fielder of my generation. The man won 73 consecutive Gold Gloves. 73!!! Go ahead. Look it up. I'll wait.

Crime Dog! For some reason out of the over forty UD cards I bought, only three were duplicates that I already had. All three were of Fred McGriff from different years.
Odd.

Javy Lopez! Again, more hideous brassy gold foil. Yuck. Love the action shot of him pulling off that mask and fielding that bunt? Getting ready for the throw home?

One of my favourite Bravos of all time. The Lemmer. This time with brassy gold foil woodgrain! Way to mix it up Upper Deck!

My list has dwindled, but is still in need..... Upper Deck Baseball Want List

Do you miss Upper Deck baseball cards? What was your favourite set from them?

Ginter madness!!!

Ah, Allen & Ginter. Every year it causes baseball card collectors to froth from the mouth. Or at least it used to. I've been away for awhile. Does it still have that effect?

Anyway. I recently have started to go back through my binders and update my want lists. Seriously, it's been years since I've done so. Neglect, malaise, and of course, laziness have all contributed. So I started with Ginter. I figured that would be a nice easy transition than Topps' base stes with their bajillion inserts, parallels and variations. And short print variations with coloured borders and different backs. With serial numbers.

Ugh.

I purchased a few new cards online to fill in some holes in my binder. Still a ways to go. I thought I'd share a few here.

2006 Mike Kelly. Looking at my lists all these years, I thought it was this Mike Kelly. Imagine my surprise.

 2017 - Mr. Aaron. An outstanding looking card.

 2012 - Mr. Aaron again. You may be asking why, if I'm only showing a few cards, would I show Hank Aaron twice? Because he's the Hammer. Silly question.

 2017 Bartolo Colon. Great googily moogily. Look at the gloriousness of that card! Who doesn't want to see that bust in Cooperstown? (Yeah, I know, busts are in Canton for the NFL. But Bartolo here gets special dispensation.)

 2014 Crimedog!!!! One of my all time underrated players. The man needs some respect.

 2007 Big Bad Bob Wickman.

When he was acquired by the Braves in the late summer of '06, Bobby Cox nearly pitched his arm off. (Wickman was 37 at the time) Bobby went to him and apologized and told Wickman he could have the day off. Wickman told Bobby, I'm 37 years old and don't have a lot of time left. I'll rest when I'm dead.
That's my kind of ball player.

Should any of you have any Ginter lying around that I might need, throw me a line. I probably won't have much to swap back... but you never know.

Allen & Ginter want lists

Who's in for Ginter this year???????????? July is coming fast!

Card Show Pick Ups....

One of the advantages to not having blogged in a significant amount of time, is that I do have fodder to share. Provided I can find it again....

I present to you a find at the last card show in these parts before the world ended.

Behold!

Whoa. My scanner dislikes cards in holders. Steve looks a wee blurry.
Anyway, Mr. Avery was sitting there, looking all lonely amongst a plethora of modern hockey singles. Our eyes met, we shared a moment, and he came home with me.
All for $5.
Kinda like Tinder.

For those of you younger than the t-shirt I'm currently wearing, Steve was the number four starter for the Braves for many years.
Behind Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine. So yeah, he never really got much of an opportunity.
He was an All Star in '93, winning 18 games.

But I'll always remember him for his post season heroics. Especially in the 1991 NLCS against Pittsburgh. He held the first place Pirates scoreless over 16 1/3 innings. One of the best "where the hell did that guy come from?" moments that everyone loves.

Your Topps 2020 Braves! Uh.... 2021? 2020 1/2?

Awhile back, when there was still optimism in the world and the only threat was that winter would never end, Topps put out their latest "effort" in 2020 Series 1. As per usual, the card design and quality is crap. But that's for another discussion.

Also, as per usual, I tried to grab as many of the Bravos as I could. (there's no way I'm wasting money on the rest of this set) Let's see who I've managed to acquire...

Shane Greene. Pitcher. May be our closer. He's no Kimbrel, but I do like the high socks.

Dansby Swanson. Shortstop. Put together a nice year last season. I like him.

Was the photographer trying to do one of these and just got his angles wrong?
(Photo of 1991 Topps Weiss ganked from the interwebs as I have no idea where my set is to scan it)

Charlie Culberson. 2B? LF? PH? Just one of those guys that plays anywhere when needed.
Got him from the Dodgers in the Kemp deal. Free agent as of last December. Shouldn't have a card.

Tyler Flowers. Catcher. Re-signed as a free agent to back up Brian McCann. No. Travis D'Arnoud?

Ron Acuna. CF. The Headcase himself. Let's hope he pulls it together and stops getting benched for swollen empty head syndrome.

Nick Markakis. RF. This guy's still alive? Wasn't his rookie card in '84 Donruss? No. Wait. That was Nick Esasky. I've been away from this too long.....

Julio Teheran. SP. Julio!!! Going to love watching Julio tutor the young starters like Soroka this year. A great pitcher.
What? They didn't sign him? He's in the Inferior League now with Anaheim? uh... California... uh... Los Angeles?
Crap.

Luke Jackson. RP.  According to the back of Luke's Topps card, Luke is the Braves closer. Someone might want to pass that along to Shane Greene, Mark Melancon and Will Smith. Maybe Brian Snitker while they're at it.

The Braves. Featuring Johan Camargo. Not sure if I'm comfy with him at third this season.

Austin Riley. LF. 3B. Oh Austin.... you came out swinging. Find that again, won't you?

Billy Hamilton. OF. He garnered a grand total of 26 appearances before being jettisoned off to the Giants. And yet here he is. Should not have a card.

Mike Soroka. SP. Let the pigeons loose! Hark! The Angels sing! (Not a Teheran pun, promise) The Man Himself. Lives just down the street from me. Calgary's own! Thank you Chris Reitsma.

So those are the base cards. Let's see what inserts I'm missing....

SP Variations
47 Chipper Jones
150 Ronald Acuna Jr.
SSP Variations
150 Ronald Acuna Jr.

156 Hank Aaron

Meh... Not too worried about those. Although maybe the Chippah...

1985 Topps Baseball
85-7 Chipper Jones
85-8 Dale Murphy
85-9 Hank Aaron
85-10 Mike Soroka
85-11 Ozzie Albies

85-12 Ronald Acuña Jr.

Alright, those could be cool....

Decade’s Best
DB-4 Hank Aaron – Milwaukee Braves
DB-5 Warren Spahn – Milwaukee Braves
DB-12 Eddie Mathews – Milwaukee Braves
DB-20 Hank Aaron – Milwaukee Braves
DB-40 Phil Niekro
DB-47 Dale Murphy
DB-59 Chipper Jones
DB-67 Chipper Jones
DB-77 Tom Glavine

DB-78 John Smoltz

Again, interested... I already have one of the Chippers

Decade’s Next
DN-2 Austin Riley
DN-5 Ronald Acuña Jr.
DN-16 Ozzie Albies
DN-30 Mike Soroka
Home Run Challenge
HRC-2 Ronald Acuña Jr.

HRC-4 Freddie Freeman

starting to get a wee ridiculous now.... How many damn inserts does one set need?

Whatever. If I find them, I find them. I'm not going fanatical about them.

How about you? Did you track down all of the possible cards for your team?