Weekend Roundup

I've obtained a grand total of two new cards so far in 2021. I still have piles of 2020 cards everywhere, but at this point I'm taking on a bit of a LIFO inventory model just to stay somewhat relevant. No new trips to Target because they're not offering cards as part of their pickup option, no orders from Dave & Adam's, no assorted packs. I've mainly just been watching the hobby get crazier and crazier, with NFTs and seven-figure rookie cards and Topps making a pretty insensitive blunder.

Topps Bunt has been taking up a lot of my time and attention, though. 

I do a lot of my writing when I can watch sports in the background, but even those opportunities have been few and far between. Spring Training isn't really capturing my attention, I didn't bother filling out an NCAA bracket for March Madness and didn't even know that my alma mater was participating until about three hours ago, and the other things like golf and such just haven't spoken to me. Yes, the NBA and NHL seasons are continuing, but it's quite difficult to legally watch my local teams due to the ongoing impasse between the RSN and the cable provider, which has lasted nearly two years and shows no signs of improving.

In short, sports has drifted pretty far down my list of interests, and likewise, so has collecting. In fact, my first purchase of 2021 has nothing to do with sports.

2020-21 Topps Now Election #21 Bernie Sanders Attends 59th Presidential Inauguration Ceremony /91,169

We're now two months into the Biden Presidency, and vaccine rates have improved dramatically. As of yesterday, I'm now considered eligible, and am keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to find an appointment soon. But we had to formally begin this Presidency with an Inauguration, and along with Amanda Gorman's wonderful poem, one of the highlights of that event was this now-famous photo of Senator Bernie Sanders ready for a New England winter.

Some people knitted his mittens. Some people crocheted a little figure of Sanders himself. Some people pointed out that a person only needs one good coat, after noticing that he's wearing the same coat from his "I am once again asking" meme. A friend of mine bought a coffee mug with this image and "The Man, The Myth, The Mittens" next to it.

I bought the Topps Now card. A lot of people did, as it smashed the record for a Topps Now print run, coming in at 91,169. That far outpaced Dr. Fauci's first pitch card at a mere 51,512.

I quite enjoyed reading the photographer's take on it, too. You can never plan something like this. You just have to be ready.

In addition to the occupant of the White House, a lot more has changed in the past year. But one thing that hasn't is that my mom still checks my Eight Men Out list for birthday gift ideas. 

2015 Topps Mini #62 Nolan Arenado

Unfortunately, Nolan Arenado is no longer a Colorado Rockie. But he was back in 2015, and he'll forever be pictured as a Rockie in '15 Topps. This Arenado is the penultimate one I need to finish the team set from 2015 Topps Mini, with only a three-player League Leader card remaining. Julie from A Cracked Bat sent almost the entire team set a little over four years ago, and because the League Leader card doesn't have the same border, I've now added the maximum possible amount of purple to that binder page. 

It's strange to think this set came out six years ago, and this photo of a youthful-looking Nolan is from all the way back in 2014. It's a solid Coors Field card showing him following through on a swing, even though he's better known for his fantastic defense. None of us should have been surprised at his eight consecutive Gold Gloves. 

That said, I certainly didn't think Arenado would be playing for the Cardinals by the time this Eight Men Out need came in, but the world is an unpredictable place. This is why no one has ever done a perfect bracket, for example. But even in an unpredictable world, come what may, things will always feel at least a little bit normal if I keep getting baseball cards for my birthday.

How Many Dingers Are There, Anyway?

I was in Sacramento, California at the beginning of August. The girlfriend had flown out there a few days prior for the International Food Blogger Conference in downtown Sacramento, and after a few busy days at work, I boarded my first Southwest flight to meet her there and spend a couple more days.

We had lots of good food and saw some interesting sights, and while she was wrapping up some conference notes, I caught a Minor League game at Raley Field, home of the Sacramento River Cats.

Ever since the Rockies began play in 1993, I had only seen Major League games. Before that, I did see the Denver Zephyrs a couple times in the cavernous Mile High Stadium, gigantic by Minor League standards. In fact, that could be where my first-ever baseball cards came from, now that I think about it.

#walletcard in enemy territory! Raley Field, home of the #Sacramento River Cats, Triple-A affiliate of the #Giants. Tower #Bridge in background. #minorleaguebaseball

A photo posted by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Aug 1, 2016 at 6:46pm PDT

I made sure to snap a #walletcard shot while enjoying some snacks before the game. Ballpark food in Sacramento wasn't markedly different from any other stadium I've been to, but the slider trio with a side of potato chips and a cold beer really hit the spot on a hot August day.

The River Cats, Triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, squared off against the Salt Lake Bees, part of the Angels farm system (the Salt Lake Bees of Utah?), the same team that Jon Gray faced before his Major League debut.

2015 Sacramento River Cats Team Set #03 Clayton Blackburn

Clayton Blackburn didn't have quite as many strikeouts as Jon Gray, but he still cruised to a 7-0 win on 7 innings pitched. His fastball hit the low 90s, which is not bad for just returning from the DL. Blackburn has yet to make his Major League debut, but if he keeps that up, he shouldn't be far away.

I did purchase this River Cats team set at the souvenir store, and it was half-price since it's the 2015 set. Progress doesn't always happen that quickly in the Minors, so a lot of the same players could be found, including Blackburn.

2015 Sacramento River Cats Team Set #23 Jarrett Parker

Right fielder Jarrett Parker also had a good game, going 1-for-3 with a walk and a run scored. Unlike Blackburn, Parker has spent some time in the Majors, about 70 games since last season. A lot of the players at the Triple-A level are either top prospects, or have spent some time in the Majors, as we'll see.

2015 Sacramento River Cats Team Set #04 Brett Bochy

That includes Brett Bochy, who is no longer active in professional baseball, but in 2014 became the first player to play for his father. Bruce Bochy has managed the Giants to three World Series championships, and also took the Padres to the 1998 World Series, where they got swept by the Yankees. Ken Griffey, Sr. and Jr. were the first father/son duo to play together, but having your dad as a manager must be a whole different ballgame. Brett only pitched in seven Major League games, and underwent Tommy John surgery as a college junior.

At least he had it out of the way if his Major League career took off.

2015 Sacramento River Cats Team Set #11 Kevin Correia

Kevin Correia was at the tail end of his professional career in 2015, having pitched with several Major League teams since 2003, including the Giants. He was a National League All-Star in 2011 as a reserve.

The quality control of these cards is not quite up to Topps' level. The stats all seem correct, but the write up shifted dates by about a decade, saying he was picked in the 2012 Amateur Draft, and made his MLB debut in July 2013.

For a moment, I thought this might be an entirely different Kevin Correia, but it all makes a lot more sense when you just subtract ten years from those dates.

2011 Topps #276 Miguel Olivo

A couple other former Major Leaguers, though not found in the 2015 team set, still played well in that August 1st night game. Miguel Olivo, a catcher who spent a year as a Rockie, is presumably in sort of a Crash Davis role, the veteran catcher helping groom the next generation of baseball stars. Olivo was 2-for-4 with two runs scored, and made a few excellent defensive plays behind the plate.

Play-by-play stats are rather hard to come by on minor league games, but fortunately the River Cats provided me with a handy scorecard inside the booklet they handed out at the gate. My trusty ballpoint pen recorded the River Cats' side of things, but I didn't track any of the Bees' stats other than their pitchers. It left some time for social media, beer and snack runs, and photos. They also had a fun interactive promo called Baseball Bingo Mondays. Like keeping score, it requires you to pay attention.

At the gate, they handed out bingo cards, and the numbers you can punch out depend on what happens during the game. For example, a home run by the first baseman is G 60. I was not a winner, but it was a fun thing to do on top of keeping score. I imagine that a Minor League crowd would be a bit more into something like that, as I wouldn't expect more casual fans to spend the time showing up to a Triple-A game.

2015 Topps #364A Travis Ishikawa

A few of those bingo squares were punched out by the biggest contributor to the River Cats' win, Travis Ishikawa, a name that is definitely familiar to Giants fans. He easily got the most applause from the roughly 6,000 fans in attendance, and for good reason. Ishikawa sent the Giants to the 2014 World Series with a walkoff home run against the Cardinals.

Leave it to Joe Buck to take all the emotion out of "The Giants win the Pennant!" That's not your line, Joe!

Anyway, the long ball was working for Ishikawa that night in Sacramento as he hit two out for five RBIs. Olivo and Parker were both on base for his second shot in the bottom of the 8th, and the fans loved it, especially the ones catching the game from the grassy area beyond right field. A fan chased down one of those home run balls as fast as a professional outfielder.

2015 Sacramento River Cats Team Set #34 Brad Lawson

The Minor leagues aren't really all that different from the Majors, at least at the Triple-A level. Just scaled down a bit. The fastballs are a little slower, the stadiums a bit smaller, the crowds more intimate, the tickets significantly less expensive, at least for an equivalent seat. My 16th-row seat at the edge of the screen was a mere $25.

But they're still professional athletes, and trainers and coaches are still needed to keep them in top physical condition. A Minor League team set is just the sort of place for a card of the team Strength and Conditioning Coach. It is a bit underexposed, and they misspelled "New Brunswick" on the back (dropping the c), but I've sure never seen a card of a Major League trainer before.

2015 Sacramento River Cats Team Set #37 Dinger

The final card in the set is of their lovable mascot, Dinger. Like Topps Opening Day, this minor league set recognizes the existence of these furry critters. Curiously, the River Cats and the Rockies picked the same name for their mascot. Dinger the Rockie is a purple triceratops, and Dinger the River Cat is, well, a predatory cat that looks a bit like a bear.

The back of this card has quite the genesis story, mentioning "strange sounds...echoing through the air at the Raley Field construction site" on a "cold blustery night". Dinger the mascot was discovered on the river bank under the Tower Bridge (that yellow bridge you see in my Wallet Card shot). It turns out that Dinger's "energy and fun personality were a perfect fit for the official mascot of the Sacramento River Cats."

If Topps put out team sets like this for sale at the ballpark instead of just some rehashed cards from Flagship, I'd snap one up in a heartbeat. The kids would probably enjoy it too, because who doesn't love a mascot?

I still say the Rockies have dibs on the Dinger name. But either way, a mascot named Dinger has been leading the fans at nearly every single game I've ever been to. Even in Sacramento.

New Cards Have Come to Light!

This week's release of 2015 Topps has been quite well-received by the blog community. I must admit, I've been looking forward to it myself for a long while, so after a business dinner on Thursday, I stopped at my local Target and picked up a 36-card value pack.

Throughout my whole collecting career, I've never purchased new product so close to its release date. Usually I am content to see what ends up in the discount boxes or to wait for the price to come down, as I did with 2014 Stadium Club. I did buy last year's factory set on release day (which was the day after the All-Star Game), but the base cards had been out for months by then, so that doesn't really count.

So what newly-released goodness did $5 purchase?

2015 Topps #45 Carlos Beltran

Carlos Beltran in those iconic Yankee pinstripes was the first card out of the pack. And this set is a beauty, front and back.

Based on the pre-release images I'd seen, I thought this set was at least partially white-bordered. I expected to see the team colors on the bottom of the card, then a gradual gradient shift to pure white on the top. Turns out, that's not the case. The upper borders have a faint gray color that looks a bit like ice or frost. It's pretty faint, and it gets blown out a little in scans.

There is that ripple surrounding the team logo in the lower right, which is leading many collectors to refer to this as "the fingerprint set". There are a few other assorted curved lines and three rows of dots on the bottom that rather looks like something you'd find on a printed circuit board. Those concentric lines and various curves remind me a bit of 2014 Finest.

Overall, I really like this design, and I think it's been Topps' strongest effort in at least a decade. And there is that conspicuous and welcome lack of foil, aside from the Topps logo. That does make me wonder just how different Opening Day will look this year. It might take a sharp eye to tell the two apart.

2015 Topps #311 Jhonny Peralta

The one gripe I have about the design is that position circle next to the team logo. On most cards it blends in quite well, but for a few teams, it sticks out like a sore thumb. A black circle with yellow text would work better here.

2015 Topps #125 Troy Tulowitzki

Fortunately, that gripe doesn't extend to the Rockies' design. With any set color-coded by team, you're bound to have a few teams that work better than others. I didn't find any Oakland cards in this pack, but I'd be really interested to see that vivid shade of green in this design.

I just noticed that all three of those players above are wearing some pretty serious-looking elbow armor. I can't blame them, frankly. I was hit in the elbow by a pitch in little league, and let me assure you, it isn't an experience I'd like to relive.

2015 Topps #139 Gary Brown (RC)

I can't tell whether Giants prospect Gary Brown has elbow armor on, but I doubt it. The guy was called up in September last year following the annual late-season roster expansion, but the reason I doubt his use of elbow armor is that he's going old-school and forgoing the use of batting gloves! There are still a few players around the league that prefer that, like 2013 AL Rookie of the Year Wil Myers, but the last one I distinctly remember was ex-Cub Mark Grace, who retired not long after he finally won his World Series ring with the 2001 Diamondbacks.

There were quite a few team cards in this pack, which make up the bulk of the series' expansion from 330 cards to 350. Speaking of the Cubs, one of those team cards was a bit more special than the rest.

2015 Topps Snow Camo #196 Chicago Cubs /99

This is an example of the Snow Camo parallel, which are serial numbered to only 99. It's an appropriate theme for Topps to pick, based on my interpretation of what the top borders look like on the base cards.

Topps may be finally taking a hint from their fans and cutting back at least a little bit on the colored parallels. There are still lots of them, but like last year, there aren't different border varieties depending on whether a pack came from Target, Wal-Mart, or Toys "R" Us. Those were purely an annoyance and I never saw any value in those.

2015 Topps Snow Camo #196 Chicago Cubs /99 (Reverse)

Here's a look at the back of 2015 Topps. Here, they point out that the Cubs had a successful end to the 2014 season thanks to a slew of promising rookies. Design-wise, I particularly like the "Series One" text above the card number. I think that would be a great addition to the insert cards as well, though I am thankful that the insert card numbers are a bit less like alphabet soup this year.

On the topic of insert cards, this pack didn't disappoint in that area.

2015 Topps Highlight of the Year #H-29 Justin Verlander

This isn't my favorite of the 2015 crop of insert sets, but this card has a bit of personal significance. I traded for Verlander in fantasy baseball in 2007, so the Lucky Numbers were the beneficiary of this stellar pitching performance. I'm in a points league, and if memory serves, Verlander earned 126 points that day.

I was lucky enough to pull an insert of a Rockie as well.

2015 Topps First Home Run #FHR-38 Troy Tulowitzki

This photo is from Tulo's first week as a Major Leaguer, and it's really strange to see him wearing #14. Rockies fans from the Blake Street Bombers days will recall that Andres Galarraga wore that number, as did Josh Rutledge in recent years. Rutledge was traded to the Angels this off-season, so #14 now sits idle in the hopper of Rockies uniform numbers. In case you were curious, Tulowitzki now wears #2, just like his now-retired idol Derek Jeter.

The last card I'll scan shouldn't be too hard to guess, based on the title of this post.

2015 Topps First Pitch #FP-01 Jeff Bridges

The First Pitch insert set seems to be the fan favorite this year, as I've seen almost all the cards from this 15-card set across various blogs by now. I expect we'll see some more of this set in Series Two and Update. Bill Murray would be a great candidate for a card, as would army veteran Brian Keaton.

After watching that Bill Murray video, I think Topps missed an opportunity to engage internet users. How great would it be for this card to have a URL for the actual first pitch video, especially if Topps embedded it on their own site?

Anyway, to recap my first pack of 2015 Topps, I didn't pull any photo variations (I think), but a couple Tulowitzki cards, pretty good inserts, a fairly rare serial numbered parallel, and some wonderfully-designed base cards point to a bright collecting year ahead.