2013 Bowman Blue Sapphire Chrome Series

All the Bowman products this year have featured an insert set called "Bowman Blue Sapphire Best Players of All Time". I'd picked up a few in random packs. Looking up the set list on baseballcardpedia.com, I saw that there were two Phillies in the Bowman Chrome series. I managed to find the whole 9-card set on eBay for only $0.50/card.

The cards feature whatever original number they had. You have to look pretty carefully to see the tiny "REPRINT" below the Topps logo at the bottom of the back. This is actually a reprint of a Bowman Draft Pick card from 2003.

It's probably pointless to try to figure out Topps player selection for these cards. I mean, I like Jimmy Rollins just fine, but is he really one of the Greatest Players of All Time? I suppose the same could be said of almost any of the players in this set. The original is from 1998 Bowman.

Two Phillies and a former Phillie. From the 1991 Bowman set.

From the first Topps Bowman set from 1989. These cards were about a quarter inch longer than standard. The size wasn't very popular with collectors and Topps went to standard size in 1990.

Another from the 1989 set and an important card. There were only two Griffey cards in regular, as apposed to update sets, in 1989. This and, and even more important card, 1989 Upper Deck.

The big man from the 2013 World Series in another 1998 reprint.

From the 2002 Bowman set.

OK, he lead the league in home runs in 2010 and 2011, but those years look pretty different than the rest of his career. In my opinion, the least likely of this group to make it to the Hall of Fame.

Banks is already in the Hall of Fame, hit over 500 home runs, and the only guy in this bunch who could be called one of the greatest players of all time.

Random Cards From My Collection #52

Card #7698
2007 Upper Deck # 747Abraham Nunez

Comments on the card: The last several years of Upper Deck were filled with dull designs like this.
When acquired: Summer 2012
How acquired: In trade during the Great 2012 Summer Clearance Trade
Player's season: The Phillies acquired Nunez as a free agent in November 2005. He was mainly used as a backup at third base alternating with David Bell. He got 369 ABs but only batted .211.

Card #23205
1995 Topps Cyberstats #290 John Hudek

Comments on the card: Remember, 1994 was shortened due to a strike. Topps produced at least 2 parallel sets (the other was Stadium Club) which extrapolated 1994 stats out to a whole year.
When acquired: Don't know
How acquired: Don't know
Player's season: After being an All-Star in his 1994 rookie year, Hudek only appeared in 19 games for the Astros in 1995, getting 7 saves.

Card #29268
2011 Topps Chrome #192 Josh Lueke

Comments on the card: I always liked the logo placement on 2011 Topps.
When acquired: September 2011
How acquired: Paid $0.62/card for a 32-card blaster
Player's season: Lueke came to the Mariners from the Rangers as part of a trade involving Cliff Lee. In 2011 he was 1-1 in a limited relief role (32.2 innings) with a 6.06 ERA.

Card #8088
1988 Score #472 Ellis Burks

Comments on the card: Score was the new-kid-on-the-block in in 1988 with a card back far surpassing anything from Topps, Donruss or Fleer
When acquired: Don't know
How acquired: Don't know
Player's season: This was Burks sophomore year with the Red Sox and it was a good on. He hit .294 with 18 home runs.

Card #33925
1994 Score #78 Pete Harnisch

Comments on the card: One of my least favorite sets of the 1990s. I think it was the dark blue borders.
When acquired: Summer 2012
How acquired: In trade during the Great 2012 Summer Clearance Trade
Player's season: Harnish was traded by the Astros to the Mets for two minor league players, then the Mets granted him free agency. Then the Mets signed him as a free agent in April 1995. Does that make sense? He was 2-8 in 18 starts with an ERA of 3.68.

Card #33451
1992 Stadium Club #151 Luis Quinones

Comments on the card: The second year for Stadium Club and still one of my favorite sets of the 1990s. Full bleed printing, what the hobby needs today.
When acquired:  June 2012
How acquired: I bought a box of Series 1 Stadium Club (540 cards) for $5 at a card show. What a deal!
Player's season: Quinones had been released by the Reds after the 1991 season but signed with the Twins. He spent most of the season with the Portland Beavers, getting only only 5 at bats (and one hit) for the Twins. Although he would continue in the minors until 1999, he would not get called up again.

Card #10420
2008 Upper Deck First Edition #114 Ichiro Suzuki

Comments on the card: I actually sort of liked 2008 Upper Deck. This was the non-glossy, non-silver foil parallel version.
When acquired:  April 2008
How acquired: Paid $0.18/card for 3 blaster boxes. Looking back I can't imagine why I bought so much of this product. Maybe because it was cheap.
Player's season: Ichiro led the American League in plate appearances (749), at bats (686) and hits (213) in 2008.

Card #25417
2011 Topps Heritage #330 Mike Napoli

Comments on the card: You either liked 1962 Topps or you didn't. I did.
When acquired:  March 2011
How acquired: Paid $0.28/card for 2 blaster boxes.
Player's season: The Rangers acquired Napoli in January 2011 from the Blue Jays for Frank Francisco. He hit .320 and 30 home runs. He had a pretty good post season as will, but the Rangers lost the World Series to the Cardinals. Got his revenge this year.

Card #40688
2013 Topps Red Target #417 Logan Forsythe

Comments on the card: The best Topps set in years made better by red borders.
When acquired:  June 2013
How acquired: Paid $0.16/card for a 36-card rack pack of Series 2
Player's season: Forsythe was a Padres 1st round draft pick in 2008. In his third season, he's yet to click, appearing in 75 games and hitting only .214.

Card #38286
2008 Topps Heritage #720 Ivan Ochoa

Comments on the card: That Rookie Card logo ruins any card it's on.
When acquired:  March 2008
How acquired: Paid $0.33/card for 2 blaster boxes
Player's season: Although he spent 11 years in the minors (2000-2011) his major league career was limited to 128 at bats in 2008, hitting .200.

Movie Review - Thor: The Dark World

This may be a bit of a spoiler, but the first thing Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) does when she sees Thor, is to slap him in the face. Then for good measure, she slaps the other cheek.

Except for the fact that the movie makes not a lick of sense, it was pretty entertaining.

Apparently, before the universe was born, there were elves.  And not cuddly elves like Legolas in LOTR, but mean looking elves with hideous scars. And they wanted to destroy the universe. But, the Asgaardians were on the case and a mob of bearded men in armor with swords (led by Odin's daddy) were somehow able to defeat the space ships and phaser rifles of the elves and take away their ultimate weapon, the aether (a swirling red blob of evil, but not the red blob of stuff from the Star Trek reboot). They took it away and hide it and forgot where they put it.

Later, much later, Jane Foster is wondering around in London with her assistant, holding what looks like a giant smart phone with the world's worst map app and falls through an invisible hole into somewhere, and finds the aether.  And it crawls into her eyes or something.  Then everything gets confused.  Eventually, Thor shows up, and she slaps him.

What follows is lots of hard to follow dialog between weird creatures, monsters with glowing red eyes, Thor's hammer flying around, treachery, redemption, trickery (Loki, of course), seeming rapprochement (Thor and Loki), death (real and not real), explosions, space ships, half of London destroyed, and kisses (Darcy and the intern "My name is Ian"). The usual.

Anybody who goes to a movie like this and expects anything more broad that good triumphing over evil and anything more subtle and the crashing of a giant hammer, deserves to be disappointed. If you're looking for entertaining spectacle, you'll like it.

You already know that you have to stay through the credits to get the Easter egg at the end. Be forewarned that this movie has 2. After watching a list of credits like this I always wonder, how many people did it take to make a movie like this? I estimate at least a thousand names in the closing credits.

One final thought. Among the many things in this movie that didn't make sense was what the evil elf guy was going to get out of destroying the universe. I guess he had another universe tucked away to escape too, or was he just in a suicidal mood and decided to take everybody and everything with him.  He sure was a hateful, pointed ear guy.

2013 Hometown Heroes First Look

This set came out last month but today was the first time I saw any. I picked up 3 8-card packs at Target for $2.99 each. I like the cards enough that I'm considering buying a hobby box.

In the brief bio on the back of the cards, a mention is made of the player's claim to fame in his home town, thus the name Hometown Heroes. It's a 300-card set printed on a nice white card stock. Nothing fancy about them except for the bold graphics. The cards feature current and retired players and rookies. About half of the 22 base cards I got are retired players.  Some of them are players I've never seen on a post-career card, like Garry Templeton and Pat Tabler. 

We'll start with a World Series winner. The backs are pretty much all the same. Notice the prominent Player's Association logo. The small print disavows any association with Major League Baseball.

Only my second Puig card. Here's a few more...

As you can see from these examples, Panini is sticking to it's plan of just photoshopping out logos.

I always like to get post-career Bo cards. I didn't get the Mike Schmidt card but I've got one coming from eBay.

There are two complete parallel sets, "Hometown Heroes States" and Hometown Heroes Zip Codes"

Here's where some of the sense of this set starts to break down for me. You might think that this card would feature Dusty Baker's Riverside CA hometown's zip code. There'd you be wrong. 90012 is a Los Angeles zip code, so I'm guessing it's the zip code of Dodger Stadium.

There are a bunch of 10-20 card insert sets. I got 2 of them. With the Zip Code card, I got one insert per pack.

Not a particular novel idea, Nicknames is a 20-card set. You might expect that the card would explain how the player got his nickname but no. Each insert set comes in two parallels, black and gold. Some, like this set, also have autographed parallels, also with black and gold (which are serial numbered) parallels. The black autographed parallels are 1 of 1. No relic cards with the set. This card was a double hit for me. I collect Sandberg cards and he was just named the new manager of the Phillies.

This is the 18-card Home Grown Heroes set. I'm guessing that this is the black parallel. This sounds like a interesting idea, a set with players who grew up and played for their home town team. No, wait, Kaline was born in Baltimore. As with the Zip Code parallel and the Nicknames set, it looks like Panini had some good ideas but didn't know what to do with them.