Birthday cards, Part 1 of 2: A brief vacation from misery

It's been 10 days since my birthday, so this is a very belated post. Better late than never, right? Can't let my three readers down.

My day was going along like any of the other 364 days in any given year, which is to say poorly. I was already depressed, like I am every birthday, thanks to reflecting on what a waste the last year has been and what a failure I am, when I got an email that took me from depressed to pissed. Somebody was planning a meet-up at a Padres home game, so he sent an email to a handful of people to figure out when the best date would be. I was one of the ones it was sent to, which I found incredibly thoughtless since I live in West Virginia and there's no flipping way I could make it. Basically what I read was "Hey, all of these people you'd like to see are going to be at a place you'd like to be. Suck it, Joe." Now, I know it wasn't meant as a jerk move to rub it in that I'm stuck in Garbageland and will always be on the outskirts of everything, unable to do anything I want to do ever, but it still irritated me to no end that he didn't take two seconds to think about the fact that maybe inviting someone to something they have no way of attending is essentially taunting them. It'd be bad enough any other day, but on my day it felt like even more of a slap in the face. So now you know the mindset I was in before the cards showed up.

I wasn't expecting anything for my birthday, because I never expect anything for my birthday. I don't have a family, and over the last couple years I've inadvertently distanced myself from what friends I had and basically became a hermit. If that sounds awful, it's because it is. There is one person left in my life, and that's who showed up with some shoes and a repack box to take my mind off all that other stupid nonsense for a little while. Kicks and cards are great, but mostly it was just nice to be thought of.

My expectations for the box were low, because my experience with repack boxes has been that they have a few somewhat appealing packs visible, concealing a bunch of 2005 Topps five-packs or something similarly crummy and of no interest to me. This one was a pleasant surprise. Not only were there recent A&G and Gypsy Queen packs as the bait, there were also some buried in the middle. Even better is that one of them was a hanger pack containing four packs, but they counted it as one pack.

Out of the 11 or 14 packs, however you choose to look at it, I pulled eight Padres. That was the second pleasant surprise, since I rarely ever pull Padres from packs.

So what if I already had all of them except for the Tatooine Topps card of fellow perpetual disappointment Everth Cabrera; it's still nice to pull a card from your favorite team. I thought of doing a Cardboard Corner post about these cards over at Gaslamp Ball, but on second thought I don't see that happening. One, it has taken me 10 days to get around to this, and two, it just doesn't seem to be a good fit. The audience there isn't a card crowd, so when I do a card post, it's generally of one interesting card, and even then they usually get next to no interest. So there you go.

As you can see, there was some filler in the form of 2008 Upper Deck, but even that turned out well since it's a nice enough set and the two packs of it I got were a hanger and a jumbo, yielding 54 cards. I'll get back to those, though; I'm going to try to chronicle the box in the order I opened the packs. First up was two six-packs of 2013 Allen and Ginter's. As I'll do with the others, I'm just going to show a few highlights from each pack.

I hate the Dodgers and refuse to allow their logo to sully my blog but, man, Koufax was good. Somebody is bound to want this and I'll gladly pass it along; just let me know. That goes for any and all of these cards. A lot of them are cool and I had a grand ol' time ripping into them, but none of them fit into any of my collections. That Robin Yount A&G mini is a short print, which cropped up in 1 out of every 13 packs; the Martial Mastery cards were inserted 1 per 8 packs. Not a bad start.

The Curious Cases cards were also 1 per 8 packs, while the Josh Reddick mini is a 1 per 5 packs A&G back variation. Dime Box Nick probably already has it in his Reddicollection, but just in case, I tossed it in the box I keep putting off sending him. That would not be the last card of this box to meet that fate.

Having done well with my two packs of 2013 A&G, I moved on to the hanger pack of 2013 Gypsy Queen, which contained three packs of six cards each and a "bonus" pack of three framed cards. It irks me when companies label stuff like that "bonus" content. It's part of the full package and calculated into the price, and pretending it's just some treat is condescending. I hate pretty much everything, but being talked down to is very close to the top of the list. That said, the repackers counted it as one pack, so kudos to them for not ripping the hanger-pack-overwrap and counting each pack inside as one pack. Honestly, I'm amazed. The cynical side of me thinks their laziness trumped their greed. Anyway, here's a sampling of what it/they/whatever had in store.

Ken Griffey, Jr. is one of those players I've always liked and respected but don't collect. It's a great shot of that beautiful swing, plus he's wearing that sweet alternate jersey. Now, THAT'S a bonus. Adam Jones also falls into that category, albeit to a lesser extent as far as the liking and respecting goes. His 2013 A&G Across the Years card is down here with the Gypsy Queens for one reason, but it's a good reason: I screwed up. He's a San Diego native, which I'll also chalk up as a bonus.

Another Robin Yount! Not just another Robin Yount card, but another Robin Yount mini. Madness. That Homer Bailey No-Hitters insert is fairly snazzy; those were placed 1 per every 4 packs. One of these packs also contained the Andrew McCutchen Sliding Stars (1 per 6 packs) shown at the top of this post. You know that thing I said about Griffey and Jones? Yeah, McCutchen, too.

This is the best of the "bonus" framed cards. It's the best in my eyes because of the throwback uniform, not because I care one bit about Mariano Rivera. The whole Yankee farewell tour garbage moved the needle on my Riverameter from dead center at 'Apathy' a little to the right to 'Mild Annoyance'. And since that's where my Jetermeter already was before this season, you can only imagine how glad I'll be when everyone stops fawning over every single thing that guy who is being outperformed by Alexi Amarista does. You know the worship has gone too far when people are having to change their pants after a friggin' Gatorade ad. Meanwhile, Paul Konerko's last season has barely received a whisper. Wrong set of pinstripes, I guess.

Sheesh, I got a little sidetracked there. I'd say I'll be back tomorrow with Part 2 of this, but it might be longer. Yeah, knowing me, it probably will be. At least I scanned all the cards for it before my scanner decided not to work, instead telling me "DOOR OPEN" constantly, even after much shutting of the top, progressively more forcefully, accompanied by various combinations of words that somehow sound even more vulgar when you mash them up together.

Such is life.

Building The '93 Upper Deck Set

I decided a couple (few?) months ago to build the 1993 Upper Deck set from scratch. It really was from scratch because outside of the Padres in the set, I only had a dozen or so others and some of those are part of player collections (Joey Cora, John Kruk, Scott Radinsky, and Tom Henke come to mind) so I'd need to get duplicates of those too.

I have actually never built a set before so this is a new experience for me. As soon as I decided to do this one I started snagging up '93 UD loosies and lots on Listia. The Rickey above was paired up with his '94 Collector's Choice card, which features a near-mirror image of him sliding headfirst on a horizontal card.

Another Listia pickup was an unopened Marlins team set. I promptly freed the cards from their home for the last 20 years and something immediately caught my eye as I began leafing through them.

They're all stamped with a gold "First Season Marlins" gold leaf insignia. I guess they're technically parallels and probably shouldn't be used as legitimate set pieces but I put them in the mix nonetheless. Well, except for one. I had to set this one aside:

That card alone made the purchase worthwhile. The fact that I also got to knock out about 1/28 of the set at the same time was just icing.

Accidentally stumbling unto a Trevor Hoffman rookie-year card was just the beginning of my '93 UD related luck.  Around a month or so ago I commented on a post by Dime Box Nick that featured some '93 UDs. He mentioned how great they are and remarked that somebody should have a blog dedicated to the set. I said something about working on putting the set together and thought nothing more about it. Then a day or so later I got a Facebook message from a reader of his who had some to send my way. I gathered up every Yankees card and all of the Rickey Henderson cards I had and sent them his direction. What I got back far outweighed what I sent.

I didn't know what to expect but I definitely didn't picture what I ended up getting. He sent a huge box and knocked a few hundred cards off my wantlist in one fell swoop. He also included a couple hundred Padres cards, a great deal of which I didn't already have.

Last weekend I finally got around to putting them all in order and weeding out the doubles. I also made a needs list for the set, so if you have any of those I'd be glad to trade for them. I believe I have the majority of Series 2 but am rather lacking as far as Series 1 goes.

I thought about making a set blog but I barely post here so that probably wouldn't have taken off. I'm sure a lot of my posts on here in the future will be set-related, though.

Tonys and Trevors and Bips, Oh My!

Not gonna lie, sometimes it's hard to make myself write about getting cards of players I collect. I mean, after the first couple hundred Tony Gwynn cards, it gets repetitive. The two above are cards that I had back in the day and just got new copies of. Gee, never written that before.

 "I already have a copy of this one but it was part of a lot so I'll put it in the doubles stack and somebody will want it" or something to that effect comes up a lot too.

Hey, a break from the same old, same old. Shame kiddo had to follow in his Uncle Chris's footsteps and be a Dodger. I'm nerdy when it comes to numbers so I think it's cool that Li'l Tony played 19 games for the AAA Albuquerque Isotopes last year and hit exactly .338. Double-daddish!

Trevor cards fall into the same rut as Tony's. These two fall into the same category as the first two Gwynns in this post.

Cue up that line about the doubles stack.

Krukky! This is the part where I allude to him being from West Virginia or something.

That SportFlics is pretty rad, though. I tried to capture each of the three angles but his face was hard to catch.

Oh, and for added predictability, here are some Bips. Pretty sure it's a card-blog rule to show some Bips any time you have an excuse to, even if you already had copies of all of them.

Alright, I seriously need to get out of this rut. No more cataloging what I got just because I feel like I have to. Maybe get back to my card-blogging roots and mix it up a bit. Something, because this stuff I've been churning out the past few months is garbage.

33 Card Pickup: A Little Bit Of Everything

I got the cards in this post about a week and a half ago but never got around to writing them up until now. I got that awesome trade package the next day and that took precedent. You don't care about all of that; you just want to see the cards. Fair enough.

Ben Davis isn't a guy I go out of my way to collect but I've wound up with quite a few of his cards. This one had the right combination of cool elements to merit getting it on purpose.

Trevor, on the other hand, is a guy I go out of my way to collect.

This is the second copy of that Gwynn/ Ripken UD Masterpiece I've gotten. I believe I sent the last one I had to Backstop Marcus.

Somehow I didn't have Craig Shipley's '94 Fleer. Gotta love a good horizontally oriented card.

Here's Tony, always the positive role model, demonstrating to the kids to always use two hands. Well, maybe not always a great influence, as evidenced by a glance at his bottom lip, but still...

I'm not a big Steve Garvey fan so my favorite part of this card is the cameo by John Kruk. Speaking of whom...

Kruk is one of the few guys whose non-Padres cards I collect. Well, just him and Joey Cora, I guess, although I'd hang on to cards of Hoffy as a Red, Marlin or Brewer; I just haven't sought them out. I'm pretty sure I already had the first two of these but you never can be too sure or have too many, for that matter.

'94 Fleer Ultra was actually fairly, dare I say, classy. I had pretty much forgotten about it until I happened upon a big patch of them in the middle of a dime box.

'91 Studio: The concept was great but the execution would be much better in years to come.

Stadium Club Member's Choice seems vaguely familiar to me but not that interesting of a topic to bother looking up. I do know that they aren't just a parallel because his regular SC card that year looked different.

I added a couple of cards from 1983. My Gene Richards collection was lacking this one and I got the Show just in case I didn't already have it. I'm getting close to having the full '83 Topps team set; I know I'm at least one notable card away.

Billy Hall never made it to the Padres but he had quite a career- one that deserves a post of its own, so look for that some time in 2014. I'm a procrastinator, I admit it. Of course, as would be expected, it took me way longer than it should have to get around to accepting it.

*crickets*

Anyway, Julio Bruno. He also never made it to the Padres or the majors at all. I think cards like these are the ones I get the most stoked about. "Whoa, I've never heard of that guy!" Okay, maybe second-most stoked about. You already know what's number one and probably also suspect that there's at least one at the end of this post.

There's something to be said about predictability. Exactly what that is, I'm not sure.

I showed Bob Scanlan the picture above and had the following conversation with him on Twitter last night:
Scan: "Wow! Those Scanlan cards must have set you back at least $0.12 each!!!!! Nice find!"
Me: "They were worth every cent. But you, Scott Radinsky, and Joey Cora are going to dime me to death."
Him: "I tried to corner the market and raise my value by hoarding all my cards...but you can see it didn't work."

Very cool of the Scan-Man but not out of character at all. He's one of the friendliest and most accessible guys in broadcasting and baseball in general. He has even been known to FanPost and comment over at Gaslamp Ball from time to time.

That's my first card of Randy Jones as a Met and it will never look right.

I don't think I've ever shown any cards on this blog not related to the Padres in some way or another. I'm going to stray from that on this instance just because these ones are part of the total "haul" and they deserve their share of attention too.

Scott Radinsky is the most amazing man alive. Here's a brief overview of why, If you don't know. I already had the '93 Topps but, like Kruk and to a much greater extent, Cora, it never hurts to have some extras. I really like his '93 Upper Deck. I had to do a double-take to see what was happening. It seemed that an industrious fan lowered a ball to him in a plastic cup at the end of a string. Nice work by both the fan and the photographer.

More Scott Rad raditude. That Score Gold Rush was one of a bunch grouped together; I found one of a certain one of his teammates that will appear, yes, at the end of this post.

Along with Radinsky, Jay Buhner is among the select handful of players I actively collect who has never been affiliated with the Padres. Tom Henke is another and Craig Biggio- well, we'll get to him.

I became a fan of Buhner when Joey Cora went to Seattle and I started paying attention to the Mariners. From the ages of around 9 through 13 I shaved my head every morning before school (don't worry, I wasn't some sort of racist skinhead; I just liked the way it looked) and thought it was cool that he had the same, uh, "hairstyle" as me. The Griffey cameo is just bonus.

See, I told you I'd get to Craig Biggio. I'd say something about these two cards but, nah, I'm too excited to get to the next one. After all, I've alluded to it about three times already.

Another Joey Cora card! Not only that but it's one I didn't already have.

That's one of the biggest beauties of collecting to me: That some basically monetarily worthless card like this that 999 out of 1000 people would pass right over can make somebody's day more than a relic or signature of some superstar would.

Or maybe I'm just weird. Probably a combination of the two.

Part II: Return Of The Nick

Picking up where I left off with Part I, here are the other twenty-some cards sent by Nick from Dime Boxes. Of the ones above I'm especially fond of, uh, well, they're all pretty cool in their own right. Ruben Rivera cards always make me smile because I think of "the worst baserunning in the history of the game". Seriously, stop reading this and take 1:15 to watch that.
...
Okay, you're back. That Perry card is pretty great, too. It's the only Ted Williams Card Co. card I have now; I had a bunch back when they came out but you know how that goes. Another company whose cards I was always a fan of is Pacific. This design is a pretty good representation of the sort of thing they brought to the table every year back then. I have the Joey and a couple of others from this set but that great sliding shot makes this one bonus-nice. I probably should have taken a better picture of that Interleague Showdown card but if making you squint is the worst thing I do today I'm going to call it a success. Sorry I'm lazy.

Ed Whitson and Bruce Hurst are two guys I don't go out of my way to collect but manage to have about a trillion cards apiece anyway. I actually didn't have either of these though so... nice! As for the Ausmus, that is some quality photography. Timing. It's everything. Also, it's weird seeing Joey Hamilton naked-faced. I always remember him with a big, round, David Wells-ish goatee on his big, round, David Wells-ish face.

In addition to the eight '84s I showed in Part I, Nick also sent along ten '83s. I'm pretty sure these are my first cards of Juan Bonilla and John "The Count" Montefusco. The Bonilla is my favorite of the batch because, well, you know how I feel about unsung second basemen.

Here are the other four of the aforementioned ten. I got really excited when I saw the Swisher. I have a card of him as a Cub but this is my first of him as a Friar. Not only is he Nick's dad, he is one of only four (hopefully soon to be five) West Virginia-born Padres. Can anybody name the other three? One's pretty obvious.

As luck would have it, very few of the cards he sent were ones I already had. In addition to one of the two Montefuscos above, only six cards are going on my ever-expanding doubles stack. I need to do an updated doubles post; it seems like the easiest way for Backstop and Underdog to let me know which ones I need to send their way. In addition to that OPC of Adrian Gonzalez, I have a bunch of non-double cards of him that I want rid of just because I don't collect people who say they "bleed Dodger blue".

These are the other three that will bring joy to another collector as I already have copies of them. And, yes, I still collect Mat Latos even though I assume he bleeds Reds red.

Wow, that was a lot of incredible cards! A huge thanks once again to Nick; I'm definitely going to have to package up my "Nick stack" and head to the post office in the very near future.

More From The Mailbox

As I mentioned the other day, I still have a backlog of pictures of cards from Listia that I never got around to posting so here's another couple dozen or so. 

I know people have mixed feelings about it but I love the design of the '72 set, as pictured above. Those uniforms are understated classics as well.

Aki! All four of these were new to me but that Otsuka is my favorite of the bunch; probably because I only had one other card of him before this one. Shame on me. Also, every time I see or hear his name, I think of this.

Here's another '72 and a '74 of the Padres' first real star, Nate Colbert. Atop my list of dream cards is the "Washington, Nat'l" version of that '74.

The 1973 design is such a 180 from the '72s. So... restrained. I can't say I'm a fan of the yellow jersey over yellow pants look but thankfully that didn't last long. Also, note the terrible airbrush job on Dave Marshall; they didn't even bother getting rid of the blue pinstripes.

No, Randy Hundley isn't related to Nick Hundley... but he is Todd Hundley's dad. Something about that last name just makes people want to wear a chest protector for some reason.

Numbered cards have never really been my thing but a good deal is a good deal and you can never have enough Trevors. Or at least I can't.

The future and the past. I just hope Cory Luebke doesn't scurry off to New York first chance he gets.

I finally got a '69 Topps of a Padre! It seems like I already should have but I never stumbled across any or actively sought them out until I found this one. Selma started and won the Padres' first game in franchise history- do with that bit of knowledge whatever you will. Jose Arcia didn't do much beside looking totally serious business. Never let 'em see you smile.

Lastly for purposes of this post, here are two of my favorites. RJ and '75 Topps are both awesome so it only makes sense that this card would be double awesome. That 1980 Topps team checklist was my first card of Jerry Coleman.

That puts a ribbon on today's edition. I still have probably another post's worth of Listia picks before I can declare myself caught up in that regard. I also have pictures of what I picked up on my last trip to a card store which was about a month and a half ago so that says... something... about me. I'll try to get to those soon; enjoy your Tuesday!