Six Pack of Stadium Club Part 2

I am doing Stadium Club cards from the base set all week.  If you missed Part 1 I would encourage you to go back and check out six cool base cards from this year's Stadium Club release.  In the meantime, here's a look at six more cards that I enjoyed......

#143 Mickey Tettleton - Tigers

One of my frustrations with Topps, at times, can be their player choice.  They tend to use the same players over and over and over.  It's nice to see some cool names, especially when they are cool players from a past era.  Tettleton is not a Hall of Famer, not even close, but he did have a nice career.  He spent a lot of time with the Tigers, but also appeared for the A's, Orioles, and Rangers.  This card would be a little bit cooler if they included a picture of Tettleton in his batting stance, but he just someone different to look at, which is a good thing.  Here's a peak at his batting stance.  

Overall, Tettleton hit almost 250 home runs and collected over 1,100 hits in 14 seasons.  His career WAR is just about the same as Javy Lopez and he ranks just outside of the top 10, 11th overall, for home runs hit as a catcher.  Here's the stance in action....

#123 Lenny Harris - Reds 

Another cool player from back in the day who does not get much hobby love.  Harris played 18 years for the Reds, Dodgers, Mets, Marlins, and a few others for parts of season.  He never really played full time, but was one of the best bats off the bench for almost two decades.  Harris has entered the coach realm since retiring from baseball and is currently working for the Marlins as their third base coach.  

#164 Carlton Fisk - White Sox 

Tom Seaver and Carlton Fisk both on the same card is pretty cool, but the card is improved by the fact that they are both wearing those 1980s White Sox softball uniforms.  When I first started collecting cards this is how I remember the White Sox unis.  I know the Sox wear these as alternate uni now, but it's nice to see the originals with players who were around when I first started collecting.  

#185 Willie Stargell - Pirates

It would be cool to see this card in color.  I really liked the colors and stylings of the 1970s Pirates uniforms.  This card still stood out to me though as I flipped through the Stadium Club set.  My enjoyment of baseball and Stargell's career just missed each other, but I am very familiar with the Pirates slugger.  I am not sure if it's just I how I see him, but he always appeared to be one of those players who played the game with a smile.  Kind of a Ken Griffey Jr. smile.  Happy to be playing baseball and I imagine that this card is from a good year for the Pirates.  Is the guy in the background running on the field?  Perhaps a World Series winner.  

#168 Carlos Baerga - Indians 

This is a card that kind of grew on me.  At first glance I just noticed Carlos Baerga hanging out parallel to the ground.  I flipped past through this card a few times before coming back.  I did not really pay attention to the fact that the Indians are playing the Braves in the picture.  Check out the patch on Baerga's right sleeve and the patch on Klesko's left sleeve.  The Baerga patch is the 1995 World Series patch and the Braves patch is one they wore for the 1995 season celebrating their 30th year in Atlanta.  Klesko had a rough series, but did reach base on a hit in Cleveland and also reached twice on walks in the clinching Game 6 for the Braves.  Since the Braves are the home team, this is obviously the final game of the Series.  That picture is really cool by the way.  

#112 Paul Konerko - White Sox 

I do some farewell posts sometimes.  I did one for Lance Berkman and Juan Pierre.  Gave serious consideration to giving Paul Konerko a little love, but I passed.  If I had to do it all over I probably would have written one.  First base is a tough position and I do not think that Konerko has enough to be a Hall of Famer, but he was still a really good player for a long time.  He helped the White Sox end their World Series drought in 2005 and ranks high in several important offensive categories in the team's franchise history.  He won the MVP Award in the 2005 American League Championship Series.  White Sox fans gave Konerko a good send off, but it seemed to get completely overshadowed by all of the Jeter stuff last year.  Really cool to see a long time fan favorite get a good send off.  Really cool to see it captured a piece of cardboard.  

The Box I Got vs The Box I Want Part 3

During the first two posts in my set about my Ginter box break I have shared my box topper, followed by a trade, and my relics cards, also followed by a trade.  There was also that Rollins autograph.  For the third installment of posts on my Ginter box I will focus on the base set.  This year's set is 350 cards deep and features 300 regular cards and 50 short prints.  The final 50 cards in this year's set are the short prints.  

Unfortunately it is mathematically impossible to complete a set by ripping a single box of a product and often when it is possible, collation usually prevents it from happening.  Ginter boxes are actually quite well collated with few dupes, but collectors attempting to put together a complete set are left with something of a challenge.  I assembled my complete set, including the short prints, in just over a week through a few trades and by purchasing up a few lots of cards on Ebay. 

Here's my quick take on the base set:

2013 Topps Allen & Ginter Evan Longoria 

Allen & Ginter has become an annual release from Topps and I would venture to say that it is probably one of the more anticipated products every year.  While I do not have the sales numbers to prove the products popularity, it is often hard to find boxes of this product on Internet Card Stores, such as Atlanta Sports Cards, after the first few days.  There are still boxes floating around on Ebay, but they dry up within a few weeks too.  The base cards of the Ginter set are always on a white background and feature some sort of border inspired by some of the original Ginter cards.  

I always think of the base set in three parts: current baseball players, vintage baseball players, and pop culture cards.  The Longoria pictured above is one of my favorite current players in this years set.  I like the horizontal card design, most are vertical, on this card and like the picture of Longoria's follow through.  I would say that sixty percent of the set is made up of current baseball players.  

2013 Topps Allen & Ginter Willie Stargell

The other forty percent of the set is composed equally of the pop culture cards and vintage baseball players cards.  The vintage players are pretty cool, but Topps can be a little bit repetitive with the older players they include in some of their sets.  Why is there always a Wally Joyner (Wally Joyner 117 OPS+, Ray Lankford OPS+ 123.  More Lankford)?  I like looking at the pictures on the vintage cards and often like looking at the different unis on the vintage player's cards.  This year I really like this Willie Stargell card with the yellow Pirates helmet and the black pinstriped polyester uniform.  The are plenty of other good ones in this year's set. 

2013 Topps Allen & Ginter Nik Wallenda

The final segment of the set is the pop culture segment.  The original Allen & Ginter cards were actually filled with all sorts of cards like these.  The pop culture segment can also include, besides people, places, events, and objects.  I always thought of the original Ginter cards as being really informational.  This year's set is mainly filled with people, but also has a fair number of places mixed into the set too.  I am going to post a little more about the non-sport cards in the Ginter sets this weekend.  

Target Mojo

The Target store in Apex, North Carolina has packs of cards right next to the Express Lane checkout.  I trade and buy enough cards that I usually stroll past the display, check out, and head home.  This Saturday, I was in buying a few things when a box blaster of Topps Archives caught my eye.  I decided to try it out and was really happy to dig out this card:

2012 Topps Archives Willie Stargell Jersey Card  

This card is definitely one of the better cards on the checklist of jerseys and I have never pulled a Stargell jersey, bat, or any other sort of relic.  I ended up going back out a little later in the afternoon and picked up a second blaster and pulled this card:  

2012 Topps Archives Jason Motte Jersey Card

Not as cool as, but a great pull nonetheless.