Monday, June 15, 2020

Cards on Cards for Canuck

Awhile back Kerry from Cards on Cards did a wee breakoff 2019 Topps of the Class.  And he opened it up to anyone to claim a team, for free, because he's like that. Of course, even though I saw his post 0.04056 nanoseconds after he posted it, the Braves were already claimed. It is that way in any and EVERY break online whether it be a generous free break, or a paid one.
This is my life.
So I took the local team. Local if someone in Phoenix considers the Yankees local. I figured the Blue Jays needed to come back to Canada.
I was lucky enough to get a couple of cards too! 
I ended up with two of Lourdes Gurriel Jr. I like watching him play. He's fun. I don't think he's in the Jays long term plans.... but for now he makes the games interesting. And baseball needs more of that. If there's ever baseball again, that is.


 I also received a Marcus Stroman. Marcus is now a Met. Poor Marcus. We should all feel sorry for Marcus.


But here's the best part. Even more than getting into a break for free.
Kerry sent over a few Braves in his PWE!

That's actually a cool pic. I normally don't like those shots where you can't tell who the subject is, but until we start to get team cards again (i.e. NEVER) This isn't bad.

Looks like someone dropped a paint can full of Swansons onto a canvas and ended up with this. It has a nineties vibe to it. I like it. Although it may not age well...
 Great googly moogly! A SMOLTZ! and I don't already have it!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the cards Kerry! One of these days I'll try and return the favour.

Saturday, June 6, 2020

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


Friday, June 5, 2020

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?

Thursday, June 4, 2020

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?


Monday, June 1, 2020

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?