What Was I Thinking?

The last day of school before the holiday break, the average elementary school classroom teacher is bombarded with cards and gifts. Many of them these days are simply gift cards. Living in a double teacher household, there is a drawer in a kitchen that has a huge stack of them. My wife organizes them with some going towards specific days or events and others are just free to use whenever.

Earlier this week, I decided to use a Target gift card to buy a box of cards. The card aisle was completely stocked. I took a few minutes to soak in all of my choices, but decided to roll the dice on a box of Panini Capstone. It looked different and after all, I was not really paying for these cards.  

Not my actual box, but it stood out from the others. 

During that time, I could have easily taken out my phone and researched the product, but the fact that it was not one of the same five or six Topps products that have been lingering on the shelves for the past few months played a large role in my decision.  

Here is the base card.  

The scan does not show the card stock, but it's nice. That is what Capstone has going for it.  Card stock. The pictures are boring and the design is really lackluster. Is that Arial font?  

This card back is nothing special, but it might be better than the front of the card.  

So, here is the good news. I pulled an autograph and the design of that card is far superior than the rest of the cards in this product. Feels like a little throwback to the Pacific baseball cards with the crown theme in the background.  

Plus, Hoy Park is having an interesting off-season. He was on the Pirates at the end of last season. At some point he was traded to the Red Sox, who traded him to the Braves, who released him. Where will Hoy Park play next year?  Thinking I might need to see someone make a Red Sox and Braves cards of him.  

These are the "base cards" that I pulled out of my blaster.  What is the best card here?  

Personally, I like the Vidal Brujan card, because he was on the Durham Bulls the last two years. The answer is actually probably Bobby Witt.  The rest of these cards are going to get taped to the door of my classroom at school. Not even kidding. Might keep that Shane McClanahan card too. 

Blue parallels.  

No serial numbers, but the little Capstone logo is in the corner is blue. I like the Arenado, but just because it's an Arenado card. Not many other reasons to like the card.  

These are two other rarer parallels.  

The Trea Turner card has a gold Capstone logo, but again no serial number.  The Josiah Gray card is some sort of textured parallel.  You can see the raised squares in the scan.  This is actually a really nice card, not even being sarcastic. Seriously.  

I also pulled three insert cards.  

These two were decent.  Nice Wander Franco card to add to the collection.  

The last insert card is bizarre.  Here is the front.  

Let's talk. Card companies need to stop putting young, twenty-somethings on cards with Hall of Famers. These types of cards just rarely age well.  So, the front of the card is not that bad, considering Panini put Rickey Henderson on the same card as some random White Sox player. Which bring me to the back, which is a slippery slope of terrible.  

So, Rickey Henderson stole bases, but Luis Robert steals runs as a defender?

Did I read that correctly?  

Seems like a huge stretch.  

This whole box of cards was a huge stretch. I don't know what I was thinking.  

Slightly Let Down.

I was really excited earlier this year when Topps announced that they were putting out a set that was created with the owner of the Super 70s Sports Twitter account.  The Twitter account is sort of a cross between sports and pop culture with a heavy 1970s lean.  Sure, there is a little bit of 1960s and 1980s cross over in there from time to time, but the account generally does a good job of staying in its lane.  

For example........

Brilliant.  

I was hoping the set would be the Topps equivalent of the 2001 Upper Deck 1970s set.  If you collected cards at the time that set was released, you know that's a high bar to meet.  There were some really strong inserts, great names from the decade, and a solid autograph checklist.  I thought Topps was up for the challenge of matching cards like this one from the Upper Deck set.....

 

It took awhile for the box to show up, but last week it appeared in my mailbox.  I was excited to open the pack of cards.  It's one of the few current 2020 products that I have opened this year.  

The packaging inside the box was pretty nice.   

Now that I mentioned the Twitter account and the packaging, I am roughly 50% of the way through the highlights for this product.  The set has one major flaw.  Maybe I am being picky, but I am going to go ahead and borrow a meme from Mad Man and one of my current favorite sayings at work.  

Works great in 2020, usually more than once in a week.  

So, here is the problem.  Ohtani has nothing to do with the 1970s.  He wasn't even born in the 1970s.  Sandy Koufax did not pitch in the 1970s.  In fact, he retired in the middle of the 1960s.  It's not even like he pitched in the late 1960s.  I am not scanning on my cards from the box, they are on my Twitter if you really need to see them, but there were a lot of other non-1970s players.  

Not to keep harkening back the Upper Deck 1970s set either, but that product only had players from the 1970s, which is what made it a really great product.  I'd like to think there is still a market for that type of product 20 years later.  Has Topps looked around at who collects baseball cards nowadays?  There are a lot of people who would eat up a set filled with players from the 1970s.  

Here is the sad part.  

The 1970s cards that are in the set are really well done.  It's not like I am expecting a set of Hall of Famers.  J.R. Richard and Dave Kingman are definitely more in line with what I thought would be in pack of cards.  These are great cards.  The 1970s themed insert cards are even better.  I pulled three insert cards, one of which was an autograph, out of my box of 1970s Topps.

This card is a gem with Rich "Goose" Gossage wearing shorts for the White Sox.  

Lou Brock wearing sunglasses.  Yes, absolutely great 1970s card. 

This Gorman Thomas card is also awesome.  The mustache is magnificent, as is the long hair cover up his ears and the long side burns.  

I understand that I am being a little hard here.  There are truly some really great 1970s cards in this product.  If had to go back and keep my $20 and not order this box, I probably would have still picked up a few singles on Ebay or COMC at some point.  It's not a total disappointment, I just feel slightly let down.  

Gallery Of Reasonable Baseball Cards

I really cannot stand Wal-Mart.  There is one a mile or so from my house.  I spent ten minutes trying to think of one item that I regularly buy from that store.  I have got nothing.  The last time I went there it was only because it opens at 6 in the morning and I needed to pick something up for the science club I run at my school.

Sure, part of the dislike has to do with the fact that the card aisle is garbage, but it also smells like cat food.  Needless to say that when a retail only product comes out I have zero chance of finding any packs of whatever it is anywhere near my Wal-Mart.  I guess I could do that whole thing where I drive from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart all over central North Carolina, but I value my time too much to go on such a venture.

I guess I "miss out" on all of the fun.

Annual Bowman craze over some prospect?  I got an Ohtani card last year.

In the past I have ended up with plenty of cards of Bryce Harper, Steven Strasburg, or whoever else has made people scour all of their local retail stores for packs of Bowman.  I will wait a few more weeks and buy a Bowman base set for a whole lot of not much compared to what they were selling for when the set first came out.  

Remember when they had the baseball cards in the Wal-Mart brand pizza?

Big shout out to the internet for a picture of a pizza box from Wal-Mart.  I question whether the food material inside of the box can even be called a pizza.  Ultimate meat pizza?  I have my doubts.  I missed the pizza card craze and I feel like I really did not miss anything.  I can buy the two Cardinals cards in the set off of COMC for less than $3.00.....

and I have never eaten a Wal-Mart brand pizza.  It's a win-win.  

Which brings me to last year's Wal-Mart exclusive......

the Topps Gallery set.  People want a little crazy about these boxes.  Two autographs for $70 at Wally World?  I decided to wait out for singles.  The former Durham Bulls players in the set were within a comfortable price range last fall.....

so I have picked up most of those cards.  Although the Rays ended up with Christian Arroyo in the Evan Longoria trade, so there is still one out there to find.  Not sure what is up with the drawing of Kiermaier's face on this card.  A little off.  

So, on to the Cardinals.  I found a copy of the Paul DeJong and Alex Reyes autographs about two months ago, which left me with two more autographs to find.  I could have bought the Luke Weaver last fall, not too bad on price for one of his cards.....

in the Gallery set.  I went ahead and picked up this card once I found the final Cardinals card that I needed to complete the team set.  I never quite understood, of all the players, why Cardinals fans went a little overboard on Magneuris Sierra.  He is a decent prospect, mainly he's just really fast....

I suspect that some of the love for Sierra came from the fact that he is something off a 1980s Cardinals team.  He's not Vince Coleman, or Willie McGee, but he might be the closest thing the Cardinals have had the last twenty-five years.  

Since he got traded to the Marlins this offseason, he will never have the chance to duplicate those players as a Cardinal.  The good news is that most of Sierra's cards have gone from outrageous to $5. Very reasonable for a player I suspect might turn into a Billy Hamilton clone, minus a step.  I was a little excited to cross off some cards that will close out some team sets.  The Gallery card was first up on my list. 

I feel like the sticker autograph is a little more noticeable on this card than on the Weaver and Kiermaier cards.  I also feel like the art work is also better.  This is my first decent Sierra autograph too.  About a year ago, I picked up a copy of a Panini autograph....

though as an unlicensed card, it is really unattractive.  Not even close to the Gallery card.  Maybe a few more Mags cards later on this summer.