Recent Arrivals, Part II (The Finale)

If you missed Part I, there's not too much to explain; these are a bunch of cards I've gotten recently that I'm getting around to organizing. Solid premise, huh?

The card above is autographed by the original Adam Eaton, not to be confused with Arizona outfield prospect Adam Eaton. I read some thing last year that said the younger one frequently gets sent the older one's cards to sign. This one, however, was sent to the right Adam Eaton.

These Tony Gwynns were paired together; the first one is gonna bring it on down to doublesville and the second one seems familiar too. I think I had it at one point but I put a bid in for them since I didn't see it when I made a quick check. If it turns out I already have one in some completely random spot it doesn't belong, as tends to happen from time to time, that won't be the end of the world.

Here's Tony with his brother Chris, back when Chris was playing for a team not to be mentioned. I didn't really want the Ripken brothers card but they came together and I imagine someone might want it.

I had a copy of this but it was kind of ragged. This one was on Listia for next to nothing so I upgraded.

Reggie Sanders and Greg Maddux were teammates with the Braves for a bit after the former's season in San Diego. Unrelated, I'm fortunate to be able to say I saw Greg Maddux pitch in person. And with the Padres, no less.

One of Maddux's rotation-mates during his time with the Padres was Chris Young, who everyone is obligated to point out played basketball for Princeton. Now fighting for a job as a non-roster invitee at Nationals camp, Young was an All-Star in 2007. He was one of the "final vote" candidates and I voted for him literally thousands of times.

I remember having all three of these Collector's Choice cards when I was a kid but they're new again to me now. That checklist of "The" trade has always been a favorite and I'm now a bigger fan of Luis Lopez than I was a week ago. I guess he's also a Joey Cora fan because he retweeted something I said on Twitter about Joey. That was pretty neat to me.

Fleer showed up to 1996 with the complete opposite of their 1995 set. These are the antithesis of busy and feature crisp, defined photography. The Klesko is some sort of insert in a set of 20 and is glossy with silver foil as opposed to matte with gold like the base Bergman. Also, it has to be pointed out that Sean Bergman is exhibiting some terrible bunting form.

I fortified my Scott Radinsky collection with these two, obtained separately. His Upper Deck rookie card is especially fascinating because of the text on the back.

I don't know of any other Scott Rad cards that allude to his other job. In fact, the only other baseball card I can think of that mentions any punk rock band is Jim Walewander's 1988 Score which name-checks The Dead Milkmen. Around the time this Radinsky card came out, Scared Straight changed their name to Ten Foot Pole. He was pushed out of the band a few years later because the rest of the band got sick of not being able to tour at least seven months out of every year. That's the point when he formed Pulley and they've been together, in some form or another, for nearly twenty years.

Radinsky's 1992 Pinnacle was one of a 12-card lot. I didn't want any of the other cards but I got them all for what I would have paid for just the one, so all is well.

I end up doing a lot of that on Listia. I'll want one card that's part of a group and end up with a bunch to cram in an apathy box.

This doesn't just apply to cards, I guess. I now have some old Jays, Orioles, and Twins stickers thanks to wanting a lone outdated Padres sticker. "Play Downtown" was their slogan during Petco Park's inaugural season of 2004 and thankfully they don't still use that shampoo bottle logo.

I recently started trying to build the 1993 Upper Deck set pretty much from scratch. I had only a few other than the Padres I had but I've started chipping away, very little by very little. These three were packaged together and I have to say I would have bid on this lot even if I didn't need them for a set. I probably would have ended up sending all three to Dime Box Nick eventually because they're all up his alley. He's a fan of batting cage shots, as shown on the DiSarcina and the one with Hard Hittin' Mark Whiten rocking his batting helmet backward is just classic. John Burkett's is even better because it's a twofer- Burkett is signing an autograph while wearing a 1939 throwback uniform. Ehh, I figure he has 'em already anyway. If not, I'll probably get doubles of some of them because that's how set-building goes.

Anyway, as great as the fronts of those cards are, the back of Gary DiSarcina's is even better.

I believe I'll just let that speak for itself.

Last of all, just to bring us full circle, here's the other autographed Fleer Tradition card I've gotten in the past couple weeks, this one of former infielder Damian Jackson. I must say, he looks like somebody just said the dumbest thing ever to him.

Well, that's all for now. I'd like to say I won't let a backlog like that build up again but it seems fairly probable. For now I'll work on trying to produce shorter, more frequent posts. See you tomorrow?