Try a pack #1: 2016 Donruss Football

Decided to try something new on the blog.  I see a lot of stuff in the Target card aisle that I normally turn my nose up at.  That's right, look at it and kind of go "ugh" and turn away. 

I've dabbled with football in the past, and had to stop collecting it because my primary hobby loves of hockey and baseball really took up most of my budget.  But there are others out there whose envelopes I might help fill with a football card here and there.

So when at Target on the weekend, I looked at all the packs that they had and grabbed 3 different products that I normally would never buy, just to try my luck.  Every now and then I'll do the same as new releases come out.  Who knows, I just may pull something that somebody really wants! 

The first of the packs I'm going to feature is a pack of 2016 Donruss football, which I bought kind of by accident because I thought it was 2017.  This new series has already taught me to look a little closer at the writing on the front of the pack.

After opening the pack, I recognized the cards as I've seen them on someone's blog in the past.

I like that Donruss used the team colors in the border, makes it a lot nicer for team collectors in my opinion.  I pulled a couple of legends cards; I like the photo of Joe Namath even though I can't quite tell who he's playing against (if someone recognizes the player/team, please let me know in the comments). 

This was a rack pack of 20 cards, so to me it made sense that a good portion of the base was devoted to the skill positions.  Imagine if the Case Keenum card had a yellow border, it might just burn out your retinas.  Didn't pull any star RBs in the pack, but got some names that I knew. 

3 of the 4 defensive base cards featured players I knew, including the only Steelers player in the pack, Cameron Heyward.  I'm hoping Craig "Ironhead" Heyward's son comes back from off-season surgery and bolsters that defensive line in 2017. 

Pulled 3 blue press proof cards in the pack, I understand that there is more than one color of the press proof parallels (which doesn't make sense to me).  If I remember correctly, Max from the Starting Nine blog collects Saints, so maybe he'll be interested in the two of these.  Will Fuller of the Texans on the right had a decent rookie season, totaling 635 yards in catches over 14 games. 

The Noah Spence card on the left made me remember that I'd seen this set before, as it looks very similar to the 1990 Donruss baseball set.   I have to start watching more west coast games this season, as I didn't remember Hunter Henry on the right.  Hunter seemed to have a decent first season as a TE for the Chargers, with 36 catches for 476 yards and 8 TDs!  Not shabby.  Donruss could have been smarter and made the border for the Rated Rookie cards the same as the team's colors.  Would have made sense to me, as it would have just followed the rest of the set.

For me, the cards don't look bad at all.  I don't know if this would be the first choice if I ever started collecting football again, but the pack wasn't that bad to be honest.  Maybe there's someone out there that may need a home for these, just let me know.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Inbound and down #15: Jason's Card Blog

I received an email not too long ago from Jason at the newly created Jason's Card Blog.  Jason had a few Jays cards for me, and wondered if we might be able to strike up a trade.  So I sent a few cards that Jason was in need of his way, and the other day I received an envelope of Blue Jays goodness in my mailbox.

Yes, I know that's how it usually works...

Early 90's Jays.  Knocking 3 more cards off of the want list.  I was always a fan of both of these sets, especially the Flair.

Both of these cards completed their respective team sets.  I looked and looked at the Juan Guzman card and was surprised that I didn't have it.   Same with the Ware.  I guess that's what happens when you have Jays cards all over the place, you just lose track of what you have.  Hopefully by the end of the year I'll have an idea of what I have and just where in the hell in the house it is...

Jason Knocked a bunch of 1999 Metal Universe cards off of that want list.  Just one to go to finish that set, the Shawn Green.  Jason collects Shawn Green, so I can totally understand why he'd keep that one for his collection.

 
We go from a pair of '96 Pacific cards of Al Leiter and Alex Gonzalez in this scan, and then skip right over the '00s decade and into the 2010's.  Dioner Navarro managed to get a Jays card in the 2017 set even though he was just a August acquisition in 2016.  Still looking for a lot of gold Jays parallels from 2011 on, seeing the Josh Johnson was a welcome sight.  Also still need a handful of '11 Heritage Jays SPs, Jason knocked the Kevin Gregg off the list. 

Many thanks Jason for this great envelope, it is much appreciated!!  Looking forward to trading with you again in the future.

thanks for reading, Robert

Sur-prize

Johnny from the Johnny's Trading Spot blog recently ran the "big fun game" similar to what Wes does at the Willinghammer rising blog. 

I took the #1, and wound up with a page worth of 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes cards/inserts.

I never did buy any packs of these a few years ago, but the look of the cards is sharp.  I can see now why the Night Owl is trying to complete the set.

But that wasn't all that was in the envelope, Johnny added a few extras for me.  Blue Jays of course!!

Now Tu-lo is a current Blue Jay (and popular at that), but unfortunately this Sportdiscs card features him as a Rockie.  I'll have to see if Johnny from Cards from the Quarry might want to add this to his Rockies collection.

There's Tulowitzki featured as a Jay!  Love the '79 design so this card is an instant winner for me.  The pennant was an instant hit when I pulled it out of the envelope, I think I'm going to affix it to my monster box of Jays cards so I can tell it apart from the other monster boxes that I have in the closet. 

I had never participated in one of these games, so it was fun watching others pick and steal cards from other people.  To be honest, I didn't have the heart to steal anything from anybody, so I decided just to pick the number 1 and see how lucky I got.

Thank you for running the game Johnny and including me!  It was fun and I'll be up for it again sometime.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Serial Saturday #16: Hitting the 400 mark

OK, here we go, 2 more pages to show off for the SNI set.  These 2 take the total over 400 shown so far in page format.  Card #400 was the actual start/inspiration for the set oh so many years ago. 

Card 388:  Carlos Beltran, 2009 Topps Triple Threads #388/525.  New York Mets card #8
Card 389:  Hideo Nomo, 2008 Topps Triple Threads #389/525.  Kansas City card #15
Card 390:  Troy Tulowitzki, 2011 Topps Triple Threads #390/1500.  Colorado card #14

Card 391:  Ozzie Martinez, 2011 Bowman green #391/450.  Miami card #15
Card 392:  Russell Martin, 2011 Topps gold #392/2011.  New York Yankees card #13
Card 393:  Pablo Sandoval, 2011 Topps Chrome heritage refractor #393/562.  San Francisco card #9

Card 394:  Miguel Cabrera, 2005 Bowmans Best #394/899.  Miami card #16
Card 395:  Casey Kotchman, 2012 Bowman blue #395/500.  Cleveland card #18
Card 396:  Adam Lind, 2011 Bowman blue #396/500.  Toronto card #20

Weird:  I started typing Los Angeles Dodgers when I was listing Hideo Nomo's card.  It is hard for me to think of him anywhere else but Dodger blue. 
Toronto becomes the first team to reach the 20 card mark.  Bowman parallels are going to start drying up as they generally don't go past 500 copies (blue). 

Card 397:  John Lannan, 2010 Topps Finest #397/599.  Washington card #18
Card 398:  Micah Owings, 2011 Topps gold #398/2011.  Arizona card #12
Card 399:  Alfonso Soriano, 2008 Topps Heritage #399/1959.  Chicago Cubs card #12

Card 400:  Kevin Millar, 2009 Topps gold #400/2009.  Toronto card #21
Card 401:  Carlos Beltran, 2011 Topps Chrome purple refractor #401/499.  New York Mets card #9
Card 402:  Eric Young JR., 2011 Topps gold #402/2011.  Colorado card #15

Card 403:  Ben Davis, 2002 Topps gold #403/2002.  Seattle card #7
Card 404:  Jacoby Ellsbury, 2011 Topps Finest #404/549.  Boston card #12
Card 405:  Joe Mauer, 2011 Topps Opening Day blue #405/2011.  Minnesota card #13

Heartbreaking:  Ben Davis' card on the lower left corner has a ding.  Never noticed till now.
Kevin Pillar's card #400 was the inspiration for this set.  I looked at the card when it first came to me and I thought of how I could create something a little different. 
Carlos Beltran appears on two straight Mets cards.  His purple refractor from Topps Chrome scanned quite well in the center of this page. 

There's 11 pages left until the first of 3 binders is finished.  I have a few weeks left until the end of my blogging year (I started blogging in mid July) so I'll have to shoot for finishing them off before then.

Thanks for reading, Robert

The Great Reorg #200: Celebrating #100

Normally, I would (and will) put the name of the player and the year/set in the post title for these reorganization posts.  But this post is taking care of two things tonight.  First, it's letting everyone out there know (if you don't know yet, which you probably do) that Julie over at the A Cracked Bat blog is celebrating her 100th post with a giveaway. 

If you haven't entered yet, head on over there before midnight tonight and put your entry in.

Congratulations Julie!!

Now, on to the 200th card in the big Jays project I've got going on.  Hitting 200 cards has shown me that this is going to take a while to finish.  I'm sure that if I give myself a goal for this project, I'll wait as long as possible before getting it done.  That being said, I'm going to try and have this done by the end of 2017.  With approx. 7000 more cards to go, this might be a lofty goal. 

In the meantime, let's take a look at card #200:

A very baby faced Duane Ward, featured on his 1987 Donruss card, #45.  The Jays picked up Ward from the Atlanta Braves in 1986, trading Doyle Alexander down south.  Duane only pitched 11.2 innings for Toronto in '87, posting a 6+ ERA.  In 1988, he would become the #2 man out of the pen, still behind closer Tom Henke.  By the time 1990 rolled around, Duane would become a rubber armed reliever for the Jays, appearing in 70+ games for the next 4 seasons, including a career high 81 games in '92.  His final full season in Toronto was in '93, saving 45 games and helping the Jays to their 2nd straight World Series title.  That would be pretty much the end for Ward, as he missed the entire '94 season with biceps tendinitis, and after 4 appearances in '95 that would be all for Duane.

See you at 300....

thanks for reading, Robert