In return, Tony did his best to put a hurting on my Jays want list. What I noticed quickly were the parallels Tony sent my way. Some of the larger lists of cards on the Blue Jay want lists are the multitude of colored parallels that Topps is responsible for.
Yes, I know that Opening Day is a set unto itself. For the past few years I've known it as the poor mans cousin to the flagship. In 2008, Topps put a little color into the border, which is something that is fantastic to me. I love the red border, and would be OK if Topps incorporated something similar to that in a future release.
4 cards, 4 colors. I really don't see a whole lot of the yellow parallels from the '14 set out there, and the Janssen is just the 2nd one that I own (DeRosa is the other). The blue opening day parallels from the past couple of years are some of my favorite parallels, and the EE knocks that list down to just 2 to complete the blue parallel set.
I have mixed feelings about how the chrome parallels turned out in the 2008 Heritage set. I don't think that the chrome did anything to help the pink cards, such as the Alex Rios. The emerald green from the '13 Topps set on the other hand is something that I really liked. What I didn't like is Melky heading to the south side of Chicago, but I can't blame him for the $$ they offered. Both of these parallel sets still have quite a large want list remaining, even with these two now removed.
I guess I don't get the attraction of Topps Tek. Multiple photos on the same design, serial numbered to 2000. I do like how the cards look, it reminds me of the Upper Deck Ice hockey cards from back in the day. Wanna have some fun? When I typed John Sneed into the baseball reference website, I pulled up this player.
Hey Tony, did you know that there was a Milwaukee Brewers baseball team in the late 1800's? They finished 21-15 in the American Association in 1891. I could get lost for hours looking at those old standings....
Needless to say the highlight were the gold parallels. All the gold parallels over the past half dozen years have a larger space on my Jays want list, which is a little lighter thanks to these 5.
Maybe the flyer that the Dodgers took on Sergio Santos might pay off for them in the short term, with Kenley Jansen sidelined for 8-12 weeks. The Dodgers will want the 2013 version, pictured above, rather than what the Jays suffered with last year.
There were dozens of other cards in the package, including some Turkey Reds that I hadn't seen in the past.
Yes, I know that they aren't parallels, but I thought they were great enough to show off here.
Tony, thank you for the great cards, they really are appreciated!! Congrats on the Bip Award for blog ROY, it was well deserved!
thanks for reading, Robert
Very nice cards.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed the cards, Robert!
ReplyDeleteOn your question about 1891, I think I was generally aware that Milwaukee had teams in a lot of those leagues around that time.
The real fun trivia point for me is that the current iteration of the Milwaukee Brewers is the second one to play in major league baseball. The first iteration played just one season -- 1901 -- in the American League. The team did not do well financially and moved after that year to become the St. Louis Browns and, eventually, the Baltimore Orioles.