It Was A Card Shop Kind of Day

I have tried to explain my teaching schedule before in previous posts, so I am not going to completely rehash the whole thing. I am currently in one of those windows where I do not teach for a few weeks. Most teachers have summer vacation. I have "track out" a few times a year. Earlier in the week, I did a bunch of stuff around the house, so I decided to treat my productivity with a trip to the card shop on Friday afternoon.  

Besides, I needed some supplies to help me put away some cards. I really need to make a sorting post one of these days. Maybe next week.  

Beyond the supplies, I also went home with a few new baseball cards. I hope you're in the mood to look at pictures of cards, because I am not in the mood to do a ton of typing today.  

Did I mention there are basketball cards too.  

I will start out with the basketball cards. I found these McDonald's All-American cards in a quarter bin. I found two cards of Zoe Brooks, who goes to NC State, and a Hannah Hidalgo, who goes to Notre Dame.  I saw Zoe Brooks record a triple-double earlier in the season. 

Big showing for the 𝙍𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠 - Zoe Brooks, @PackWomensBball ‼️

🏀 Recorded 14 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in the win over Liberty, earning the first triple-double by an ACC player this season

📰 https://t.co/81akC4qRWi pic.twitter.com/YcLOmQFYMs

— ACC Women's Basketball (@accwbb) December 11, 2023

It's March. Go Pack!!! 

Both Hidalgo and Brooks are freshman, so they are going to be around for awhile.  

Onto baseball. There were no new Blake Snell cards at the shop, but I did find two new cards of former Durham Bulls star, Jake Cronenworth. It's been a minute since I added a new Cronenworth card, but these two looked pretty sweet. They were also just fifty cents. Pretty good deal.  

I also found a pair of Pujols and Goldschmidt cards.  

 

An Adley Rutschman rookie card.  Big fan, you should be too.  

A cheap copy of the 1987 Topps Barry Bonds rookie card.  I can't believe these are a few dollars.  

Which brings us to the vintage portion of the post.  All of these are former Cardinals, former Durham Bulls, or in the case of Vada Pinson and Robin Roberts, older players I like.  

One final card for the post.  

I also picked up a Bowman Platinum autograph of Orioles pitcher Grayson Rodriguez.  

I have been really impressed with him in the Minors and his work in the Majors at the end of last season. I think he is going to have a really good season and his autographs are really inexpensive given his talent. I do not often advocate for people to spend money on autographs of prospects, but this is one of those moments.  

I Needed Some Boxes, Maybe A Few Cards Too

I have been doing a lot of sorting the past few weeks, which probably deserves a post, but not today. Instead, I wanted to post a few cards I picked up while I was purchasing a few boxes from my local card shop this past weekend. It's a newer card shop that I wrote up a few weeks back, but I am impressed every time I stop there. Lately, it's been for boxes. 

Figured I needed to check out some cards. 

Here is a quick rundown.  

First up, is an Adley Rutshman rookie card from Bowman Chrome. I am not an Orioles fan, but I do like a lot of their young players. I saw Adley a few year back in Durham, figured I would add a few of his cards when I get a chance. This was a good starting point......

Also fairly inexpensive.  

Next, an unexpected Cardinals find. This is a 2001 Bowman Chrome Stan Musial rookie reprint. Not sure the scan does this card justice, but I really like the sepia background with the greyscale photo, all with the trappings of a Chrome card. Nice to see a good blend of some vintage and modern design elements on the same card.  

Here is the back, which includes the serial number out of 299. Not the rarest Musial card by any means, but I was not expecting to find a serial numbered of The Man when I walked in the door of the card shop.  

I also found a few Snell commons.......

My effort to collect some non-autographed Blake Snell cards also should probably be there own post, but I will wait until I have time to write about some more exciting cards. There are in the fifty-cent bin at the shop.

Next up......

A few vintage cards. The Curt Flood is probably my favorite card out of the group.  All the players have a connection to the Cardinals or Durham Bulls with the exception of Norm Cash who once tried to take an at-bat against Nolan Ryan with a table leg.  

I demad a game-used table leg card, but nobody has come through for me.  

Stadium. Stadium Club.

Stadium. 

I spent my Saturday afternoon watching the Durham Bulls and Norfolk Tides.  It had been a few weeks since I last attended a baseball game in-person.  The Bulls are in first place at the moment and had a chance to clinch their division this weekend, which is still possible.  The weather was a little warm, but still a nice day to take in a baseball game.  

I also got to check out Orioles catching prospect Adley Rutschman, who is the top overall prospect in all of baseball.  I saw him a few years back while he was playing at Oregon State and appeared for the USA Baseball team during the summer.  

A few pictures of Adley warming up before the game.  

Adley spent most of the time working with some Orioles coach who is wearing the black and orange wind breaker in this picture.  He needs a little bit of work on defense.  

He didn't get a hit during the game.  

The Bulls ended up losing the game 3-1.  Their lone run came on a home run by Alika Williams who was called up to the team from A Ball before the game.   Pretty good shot.  

2020 @RaysBaseball CBA pick Alika Williams clears the Blue Monster in his Triple-A debut for the @DurhamBulls. pic.twitter.com/IhmuXAN0YK

— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) September 12, 2021

Stadium Club. 

Beyond going to the game, I also picked up three Stadium Club autographs earlier in the week.  They have been sitting on my desk for the past few days.  Really not that bad considering there a couple that have been there for multiple weeks.  These were easy to scan and post, so that's what won out today.  

First up is Ryan Jeffers.  

I saw Jeffers earlier this summer at a Tigers game.  He's from Raleigh and went to UNC-Wilmington for college.  I never saw him play in college, nor in the Minors.  I just know several local people who follow his career, seems like he might be a solid player.  The card was also really inexpensive.  

Next.  

I try to avoid Brewers cards, but Devin Williams is pretty awesome.  He's also from St. Louis.  It would be more fun to watch him if he was on the Cardinals, but they probably would have found a way to mess him up.  

Last card, which has a scratched up top-loader.  

Easily my favorite card out of the group.  I just wish it was a Cardinals card.  Topps has made a bunch of different Scott Rolen cards this year, but it feels like almost all of them are Phillies cards.