A Barrel of Fun

What an absolutely exhausting week. I had two job interviews that went well. One of them told me to call and let them know when I can start. However I held out for the second job (much closer, better pay/benefits) and after that interview I was told I was "at the top of the list." Unfortunately they had two more days of interviews and I didn't get the job (yet?) If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.

Meanwhile my current place of employment has become a shitshow. We were operating as part of a franchise until January 1. Our owners decided to sever ties with the franchise and change the name of the company, which makes it really difficult to follow up on jobs that started before the name change. Also it's tough to keep track of which customers know us by which name, and some customers have to be asked to re-sign documents because the original copy had our company's old name on it. Fun times.

Anyway... here are some cards I bought at CardBarrel. I got a big order from BaseballCardStore too, but that deserves its own series of posts. I don't have the energy for that yet.

These Conlon Collection cards were a mixed bag. I already had the Rice. Cuyler has a small crease across the front. Wood is fine though. This is my first non-Red Sox card of Smoky Joe, who passed away in my hometown when I was four.

A pair of newer Brewer cards. I now have 117 different Robin Yount cards but not his 1975 Topps RC. I do have a Yelich RC incoming, as soon as Nick stops giving away cards :D

The rest of my Cardbarrel order featured set fillers, including two from 2013 Topps Update. I need just 16 cards to complete the 330-card set, and all but two or three of them are big names. The 2018 Chromes you see here leave me just 29 cards shy of a complete set, 25 of which are rookie cards.

2019 Topps Update got a big boost as well. Does anyone know why Mike Trout is wearing #45 here?

Every other card I ordered was a 2014 Topps common. I forgot to scan any of those before putting them away, so here's a Domonic Brown from my duplicate pile. Sorry folks, it's been quite a week.

I was hoping to visit my mother today, whom I haven't seen since before Thanksgiving. After I got Covid, my girls got Covid, and my mom got Covid I thought that there was no one left to get Covid and delay our visit. LOL. Her heart doctor got Covid, so she had to put off having a test done until... today. 😡

Perhaps I'll see her next weekend. This weekend I plan to put away the rest of my new card purchases (and Christmas gifts), update my wantlists, update my tradelists on TCDB, and visit your blogs while watching playoff football. Since my Packers have a bye I'm hoping for the Bengals to win and the Buccaneers to lose. I'd add Dallas to the 'lose' list but I've got no love for the Niners, either.


Enjoy the games, and have a great weekend!


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Out With The Old..

Happy New Year! Let's hope that 2022 is slightly less crappy than 2021. 

I've updated the wantlist tabs at the top of this blog. Also, I made a New Year's Resolution.

Here's the rest of the COMC order I received on day one of quarantine:

Some 2013 Topps Update set fillers here. I'm just 18 cards away from completing the 330-card set but at least half of those are significant names. On the other hand, 2013 flagship is complete:

The Trouts and Machado cost a total of $11.49. I also picked up some cheap RCs for my 2018 Topps set build. Doubt I'll ever finish that one but I'll keep chipping away at it, just in case.

Some All-Time Teams upgrades (and a Christian Yelich I liked that was 31 cents) I'm not sure what I'll do with this project in 2022. Perhaps I'll show off each card, or make a checklist of what cards I'd like to upgrade. I'll never finish the set unless cards of Noodles Hahn and George Davis suddenly surface.

Just three basketball cards in this order - a "second year" Clyde, and two set fillers.

Some random-ish football cards I picked up. The Fitz is from a Fanatics exclusive factory set, so it appears that Fanatics already has their fingerprints on the trading card market.

Go Pack Go! My first priority was picking up Prizm rookies of Jordan Love and the "quadfather" A.J. Dillon. At $10.65 the Love RC was the most expensive card in this order; I'd whiffed on cheaper copies.

Some cheap Lightning cards here, including a Game Dates Moments cup celebration. These are limited to 499 copies of each for 2021-22. I might have to place another COMC order to pick up some Alex Ovechkin singles.

ePack cheapies. The Devils and Dougie Hamilton (who is now a Devil) were all 30 cents or less. Turgeon's auto cost $2.19. I didn't buy any graded cards or relics this time, and this is the only autographed card I picked up.

More Upper Deck inserts devalued by ePack. There's really no more room in my hockey boxes. Barkov and Geekie were 40 cents each. The Columbus guys were 50 cents each. I wasn't expecting the Kivlenieks to be so thick.

I mentioned that I made an offer on a Cleveland Barons logo card but the seller declined. So I used that last $1.69 in my account to make an offer on these two:

If I wanted to steal Night Owl's Cardboard Appreciation topic I'd discuss this Bedard. The photo and perspective is just fantastic. As for the Lowe, I've haphazardly amassed a bunch of his 1980s cards. I'm not really trying to collect his career run but since I already have so many I might finish the job.


I just got $500 cash for 'Christmas' and I'm setting aside $100 each for my daughters and my mom. Some portion of the remaining $200 might be spent on finishing sets or a vintage card, but I've got nothing in mind at the moment. We'll see what 2022 brings.

Thanks for reading!

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Christmas Sox

Thank you all for the well wishes, I'm feeling much better today.


I didn't get any new cards this Christmas (possibly because I was unable to visit my in-laws) but I did get some sports-related gifts: a Red Sox 2022 calendar, a Packers hat, and a Red Sox 2018 World Series champions hat from my wife - and a P.K. Subban Funko from my sister in law. It would have been nice to have a blaster or two to crack open while I was quarantined but it's okay. I honestly didn't like any of the low-end retail options anyhow (except Archives*).

The Mrs. and I gifted our girls a trip to Boston this spring. We probably won't get to see a Red Sox game even if the lockout ends in time, but I'm looking forward to it. Can't wait to tell my bosses I'll need another week off lol.

Though there were no blasters or fat packs under our tree that's not to say I didn't get any cards. Dennis delivered in the clutch with a bubble mailer full of Red Sox* (and a couple non-Sox) that arrived just as I was planning my previous post.



*this Big Papi Archives card was the only Sox single in my recent COMC order. I actually purchased more Yanks (2) than Red Sox!

Most of the cards from Dennis were mid-1990s issues - which means lots of Mo Vaughn:

Big Mo was a big reason the Red Sox reached the playoffs in 1995. He just beat out Albert Belle for AL MVP honors - but Belle's team swept Boston in the ALDS.

Mid '90s Finest! The '94 Refractor is fantastic. I have the complete set of 1999 and 2000 Finest, maybe I'll put together a career run of Mo Vaughn Finest cards? Mike Greenwell finished second to Jose Canseco in AL MVP voting in 1988. There's more cards of all three players in this stack.

There's Jose, along with some other 1996 Finest cards. I couldn't afford too many packs of those at the time but it was a thrill to pull a Silver or Gold SP. The Embossed parallels were neat, too. Donruss Press Proofs weren't quite as fun, and the die-cuts are a little odd. The Gold Press Proof has that dufex effect that Pinnacle used for the Museum Collection parallels, so I'm partial to that one.

Starting Lineup singles always bring back great memories. I loved that Talking Baseball game as a kid.

Some early career Nomar here, along with more Mike Greenwell and a Rusney Castillo relic.

One more Mo in this batch of 1996 Score brings my total to 135 total (129 different) which vaults him ahead of Roger Clemens and Robin Yount for fifth in my collection. I do have 139 total Clemens cards but only 126 unique singles.


Nearly every care package I receive from Dennis includes some Topps Pristine singles, and the tradition continues with this trio:

Hines Ward and Willis McGahee are from the 2003 Pristine set; Robinson is a numbered SP from the 2004 edition. Those low numbered rookie variations are preventing me from completing the 2003-04 Topps Pristine hockey set:

I was tempted to pick up some serial numbered short-prints during COMC's sale but in the end I settled on this 'base' Matthew Stajan RC, numbered to 1199. If I plan to complete the 'common' rookies portion of the set I'll only need two more: Dominic Moore (no problem) and Patrice Bergeron (gulp).

Dennis, thanks for the great Red Sox (and Pristine) cards!


I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and thanks for reading!




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Covid and Cards

My daughter tested positive for Covid over the weekend. I started showing symptoms on Monday, the same day that my COMC order arrived. I'm going to get tested tomorrow, and I'm certain it will confirm that I have Covid as well.

I've been trying to summon enough energy to discuss some of the 57 cards I received from COMC - and just as I started writing this post I received an email from Dennis informing me that I had a package. If I'm feeling better this weekend I'll try to scan up those cards. For now, here's a few I picked out in November.

This 1971 Topps Nate Colbert is in nice enough shape that I picked it up for my All-Time Teams collection even though I have a 1970 Colbert in the binder. Even if it's not an 'upgrade' I couldn't pass it up for 57 cents.

There aren't a lot of action photos on Cleveland Barons cards, so I didn't mind spending 78 cents on this Ralph Klassen single from 1977-78 O-Pee-Chee. I made an offer on a logo card but the seller wouldn't budge.

A lot of the cards in this order were newer and shinier than Colbert and Klassen, including this pair of Rams from 2015 Panini Prizm. Eric Dickerson set me back $1.60 while Jared Cook was just $0.34.

COMC's turnaround time has greatly improved; this order arrived in less than a month. Around the same time I placed an order at the Baseball Card Store. That one hasn't shipped yet and I'm not sure if it's because I didn't pay for shipping or if they've got a backlog of orders. I'll check in with Steven once I'm feeling 100% again.

I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. Merry Christmas everyone!


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Updates and Other Stuff

So I was way off on my Hall of Fame predictions. I expected Buck O'Neil, Bill Dahlen, and Dick Allen to be elected by the Eras Committee last Sunday and I was 1 for 3. O'Neil was the one every fan seemed to be happy about; I saw a lot of support for Gil Hodges and Minnie Minoso as well. My late father in law used to ask me "why isn't Gil Hodges in the Hall of Fame?" quite often. I'm thrilled he finally made it.

Bummer about Dahlen and Allen though. They're going to have to wait a long time for their next chance. "Today's Game" is up next December, and that era covers 1988 to now. Just so happens that's exactly how long I've been following baseball.

Here's a way-too-early prediction of what the ballot might look like:

• Kevin Brown
• Will Clark
• David Cone
• Carlos Delgado
• Jim Edmonds
• Juan Gonzalez
• Jim Leyland
• Kenny Lofton
• Fred McGriff
• Lou Piniella

For reference, I'm assuming Dwight Evans, Lou Whitaker, and Keith Hernandez will be on the Modern Baseball ballot (1970-87) along with names like Luis Tiant, Thurman Munson, Dave Parker, and so forth. That era seems to have a lot more underrated stars than the present day.

In other news, here's something I found interesting...

Barry Bonds signed a record-breaking free agent contract with the San Francisco Giants 29 years ago.

At the time, it was the largest free agent contract in both average annual value and total value. The six year contract paid Bonds $43.75 million from 1993 to 1998.

Just before the 2021 lockout began, Max Scherzer signed a three-year contract with the New York Mets worth a total of $130 million. "Mad Max" will make $43.333 million dollars in 2022 alone.

For San Fran's $43+ million investment Barry Bonds compiled 49.6 WAR. 235 of his 762 home runs were hit during this six-year stretch, in which he also stole 194 bases, led the league in walks four consecutive seasons, and won his third NL MVP award (in 1993.)

Max Scherzer can't possibly produce 49.6 WAR in 2022. He can't possibly produce that much value over the life of his three-year deal, and it's highly unlikely he'll be able to compile that total from now until the day he retires.

Yes, there was far less revenue in baseball when Bonds joined the Giants. It's not meant to be an apples-to-apples comparison. There's also a little thing called inflation. However, $43.75 million in 1993 dollars is equivalent to... $78.4 million as of 2020. Still a far cry from $130 mil.

I like Scherzer. I wanted the Red Sox to sign him. I was actually hoping Chaim Bloom would throw him an offer of 3 years at $100 million with a 4th year option for $30 mil or so. And if he had, Mad Max (and/or Scott Boras) probably would have laughed at him. 

That being said, it's good to see the other New York team reel in a top free agent. And good on Dennis's Tigers for signing  Javier Baez and Eduardo Rodriguez to (comparatively) reasonable contracts. E-Rod will make $14 million for Detroit in 2022. Boston's boy genius replaced him with these three aces: James Paxton ($10 mil), Michael Wacha ($7 mil), and the legendary Dick Mountain for $5 mil. Yikes.

Maybe this time Topps will give him a Red Sox card

You know what the Red Sox really need? A shortstop. Preferably one that's been playing in a hitter-friendly park.

Enough off-season talk, it's depressing me. Here are some cards I recently acquired via TCDB:

I added this card to my wantlist and acquired it immediately for one reason: Jon Bois. His brilliant 17776 and 20020 series was supposed to conclude(?) with 20021 this spring. But it looks like we'll have to wait a while longer for the rest of the story. If you're wondering what any of this has to do with a Topps Heritage News Flashbacks insert card... Pioneer 9 and Pioneer 10 are two of the main characters in the trilogy - along with mah boi Juice, the commissioner of football in the future:

It occurred to me recently that the last time I bought packs of current year cards was two years ago, when I purchased a couple hanger boxes of 2019 Topps Update at the local Target. Since I've completed 2019 flagship (and I already have a third of the update set) I decided to build the Update set as well.

This Bryan Reynolds RC arrived today in a PWE trade with TCDB user Gasypo30. It's my 351st completed trade on the site. Did you guys know that Reynolds is really good? I sure didn't.

Here's the rest of the trade. I'm anxiously awaiting my orders to arrive from COMC and Baseball Card Store. Steven at BBCS hooked me up with a fantastic deal that will add more than half of the 2019 Topps Update set to my collection. Blogger gifts have boosted my 2013 Topps Update set, and with one very crucial card on the way I will need less than 20 cards to complete that Update set.

I'll have a more Update-focused post once those shipments arrive. Also, I'm planning a Simpsons-themed post at The 1993 this weekend and possibly a hockey post here while I wait for my cards. 

Thanks for reading!

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