30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 7

Day 7: A card you bought in person and the story behind it.

In an earlier post I said there were hardly any baseball cards I'd spend more than $10 for. Here's another.

2005 Topps Touch Em All Base Relics

I paid $20 for this at a card show in Houston in 2013. It's got a lot going for it. It's a Phillies card, it's Jim Thome, one of my favorite players, even before he was a Phillies, it's a base relic card, it's from the 2004 All-Star Game which was held in Houston, it's limited (one of 50), Jim Thome was in the game, and even better, I was at the game. BTW, Thome wasn't a starter but got two at bats, unfortunately, going o for 2.

I guy I knew had season tickets for the Astros and had gotten 2 All-Star Game tickets and invited me along. 

2017 Donruss - First Look

Every year I buy a little Donruss, just to have some. This year I bought just one blaster. Here's what I got in the first pack out of the box.

The design is based on 1990 Donruss, without the red borders. I actually like this design. My problem with the new Donruss has not been so much with design. Besides the lack of logos and team names, my biggest beef has always been the choice of photos. Each card is either a guy batting or a guy pitching. Rarely is there a fielding photo, and never a posed photo. This year they also redesigned the backs to get away from the late 1980s backs. Much nicer.

There are 195 cards in the base set. The box I bought had 8 cards per pack, with about 5 base cards in each pack. Trying to complete the set by buying blasters would be difficult. And at 38 cents/card, expensive.

There are a few parallel sets (of course) but not as many as is usual for a Panini product. I got one (a career stat line, numbered to 500) in the box.

Well, the 4th card into the first pack and I've pulled a relic card. The box does say "Find 1 Autograph or Memorabilia Card Per Box On Average!". This used to be common in blasters and I'd like to see that come back. I don't know much about Tapia other than he was a September call up last year and hit .268 for the month. The swatch is actually purple, not black. This is the first blaster of new Donruss I've purchased, so maybe including a relic has been their practice. The last two years a just bought a pack. In 2014 I actually bought a hobby box.

As has been a practice in new Donruss, this is a 50-card insert set featuring an early 1980s design, this time 1983 Donruss. Called Retro Variation 1983, it's not really a variation since it has a different photo. Does it seem weird to you to have a year indicator of '17 on a card?

And rounding out the pack.

Another of these.

And finally.

Even with a relic in the pack, the pack still had 8 cards. 

Plus for this set and blaster: 1) design; 2) relic or auto in every box; 3) no duplicates; 4) good ratio of base cards to inserts.

Minus for this set and blaster: 1) no team logos; 2) boring photography; 3) price point, 38 cents/per card seems a bit high to me. The past two years the price was 18 cents/card. Maybe Panini justifies the price hike by putting a relic or auto in each blaster.

2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Discounted Blaster

While out looking for 2017 Topps I came across a discounted blaster of 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen. I'm not in love with this set and only bought a few packs last year but the blaster was only $11.98 and promised "1 Exclusive Short-Printed Mini Base Card Parallel Inside!"

It turns out that I'd pulled one of purple minis these from one of the 3 packs I bought last summer but this still goes in the reference books since it's the retired players subset.

I also pulled this from the box, a foil-backed mini I didn't know existed. Apparently these are only available in blasters. It's a 50-card set, numbered 301-350. As usual with this kind of card, I'm happy I have it but who was asking for foil-backed Gypsy Queen minis?

I'm always happy to pull a relic card from a blaster.

And another card for the reference book is this insert I didn't have.

Many baseball cards have a few sentences on the back highlighting something about the player. I guess these little paragraphs are probably difficult to write, not because it's hard to think of something to say about a player but because there is so much that could be said. Sometimes these read like they were plucked from a bucket of random stats for each player but a few of these Gypsy Queen backs stood out for me.

So Familia was pitching a save while his wife was giving birth. His bad luck, I guess, that he couldn't be there with her. But what is that opening line "His wife Bianca didn't need labor induced" supposed to mean? His Wikipedia page wasn't much help beyond saying she was his fiancée at the time and that he was arrested last October on domestic violence charges. 

Here's another one.

Why exactly is it strange that Turner hit .323, .322 and .322 in his first three professional seasons? And where is the twist? There were no clues on his Wikipedia page.

Ivan Rodriguez - 2017 Hall of Fame Class

I have 218 Ivan Rodriguez cards in my collection. Here's a selection of his cards that I own, one for each year of his career.

1991 Upper Deck Final Edition #55

1992 Topps #78

1993 Score Gold Dream Team #6

1994 Fleer All-Stars #22

1995 Leaf Great Gloves #16

1996 Ultra Prime Leather Gold #5

1997 Stadium Club #200

1998 Leaf State Representatives #21

1999 Crown Royal #140

2000 Upper Deck HoloGrFx #9

2001 Upper Deck UD’s Most Wanted #3

2002 Fleer Tradition This Day In History #30

2003 Topps 205 #10

2004 Upper Deck Power Up #39

2005 Topps Cracker Jack Take Me Out To The Ball Game

2006 Upper Deck 2006 World Baseball Classic #44

2007 Upper Deck Goudey Memorabilia #7

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter #78

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions #80

Probably the first time in history that 2 players associated with the Astros were elected to the Hall of Fame at the same time.

2010 Topps Cards Your Mom Threw Out #48

2011 Topps Heritage #262