Multiple Package Recap, All from William!

Hey guys, Drew back here for the summer! First of all, how is everyone doing? I'll have you know I'm doing better than ever, and it feels awfully darn good to be back here with you all. I've got a heck of a lot of stuff to show off that I got since my departure from the site, a lot of it coming from my great friend William, from foul bunt! Since the last time I posted about cards from him, he's sent me not one, not two, but three packages that kept me updated with all the new products coming out, as well as some other assorted Yankees from over the years! Check out this pretty solid portion of what he's sent over the past month or so:

We'll start with some of these mixed Yankees, including an awesome Bowman rookie card of Yankee prospect Adam Warren, who's one of the more underrated guys in the system, as well as a rookie of now Mariner Hector Noesi. Noesi was pretty good for us last year, but was dealt in the Jesus Montero-Michael Pineda deal earlier this year. Also I really like the Jorge Posada vs. Pedro Martinez "Grudge Match" insert. I miss when the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry was intense and really fun to watch. 

It really is getting more and more difficult to fill holes in my Yankees wantlist, however William knows best, with all of these cards being new additions to the Yankee box! The Pettitte Turkey Red refractor numbered to 999 is now one of my favorite Pettitte's I own; the shine really pops in person. Also, that Munson Diamond Kings insert is pretty as well.

One of the packages contained quite a few 2002 and 2005 Topps cards, which was cool also. While I do own the 2005 Topps set, I have hardly any of the 2002 set, so most of these were also needed! 

Getting a little more modern, here are a few more recent cards (besides the Abbott and O'Neill's in the top left)! I love the way the Topps parallels shine from the past couple years, so it's definitely awesome to be able to add the Bartolo Colon card! Also, I don't think enough people give Bowman Platinum the props they deserve, because the Cano base card is one of the nicest base designs I've seen in a while. 

Like I said, if it wasn't for William, I would have close to 0 2012 cards. He's been basically my provider of all 2012 cards necessary, not because I tell him to, but because he wants to, which is really too cool. Here are 7 Heritage cards, one being one of those little sticker things of Mark Teixeira. I'm surprised on how nice Heritage actually looks this year; I honestly thought it would be a really lame set. 

Another set that surprised me this year was Bowman, which sports a really clean, sharp look this go around! Normally Bowman has a very generic, bland feel, especially in the regular base set, but this year there's something refreshing, although I can't quite put my finger on what it is. I'm excited to add my first card of Jose Campos, the "PTBNL" in the Pineda/Montero trade. Apparently he's supposed to have pretty good stuff as well, and is ranked in the lower half of most Yankees top 10 prospects lists.

No set in 2012 has been nicer than Gypsy Queen though. Topps definitely nailed the hammer on the head with this set! It is so elegant and pays a lot of respect towards the art of the game, which is something that needs to be remembered more often. Baseball is the classiest sport around, at least in my opinion, and some of these photos just show the elegance of the game better than just about anything I've seen in cards the past 5 years or so. Well done Topps.

The final current set William hooked me up with is the most recent (besides Tier One) release, Series 2! He sent me a ton of Yankees base from the set, which again was really awesome of him. I'm still not really sure where I stand with this year's set, because I feel like the swoosh thing in the corner kind of gets in the way of the photo a bit too much. However, Topps' design team has really stepped their game up this year and proved why they received the license from the MLB rather than Upper Deck. I do miss the rivalry though, a lot. 

I hate to be a downer, but while the base designs have been pretty nice all around in 2012, the inserts in the flagship sets have been a bit disappointing. We've seen pretty much the same inserts the past 3 or 4 years now, and even though they have different designs, the concept has been exactly the same. I say every year keep 2 or 3 solid inserts, like the parallels for example, and do away with the rest. Believe it or not, in the long run inserts of young players like the Betances card above can kill a lot of value for player's rookie cards. I recently read an article in Beckett Magazine about how Mariano Rivera's Bowman rookie card is so valuable because it's his only rookie, meanwhile Bryce Harper rookies will be pretty affordable one day because he has so many. While I don't always agree with Beckett, they are 100% right in this case. 

For the final two cards, we switch gears a little bit (emphasize the little)! This John Lennon Topps card came out of their 2011 American Pie product, which was really cool! William told me the card was from his wife Mal, so again I want to thank her for this awesome one! I've always loved the Beatles, and have a tremendous amount of respect for John Lennon. 

The final card (for now) was one he bought specifically for me, from 1961 Post of Yankee great Elston Howard! William, you are too much my friend! I'm going to have a field day trying to find a way to get you back for all of this awesomeness! 

Everyone PLEASE go follow foul bunt and check out that site, because man is William an awesome guy. I'm so glad to call him my friend. Thank you man. 

See Ya!

Mail from the Pirates Treasure Room!

Hey guys, Drew back here. Man, do I have a lot of stuff to post. This is about as good of a time to be a baseball card blogger right now, when you literally can hardly see your desk because it's so cluttered with stuff! One of such endless stacks of cardboard happened to come from a blog that is filled with Pittsburgh Pirates treasure! My good buddy Brian from "Pirates Treasure Room" and I hooked up for a pretty solid trade all around! Take a look at some of what I got in my side of the deal:

He kicked off the trade with some really awesome 2012 Topps cards! I haven't bought one single pack of the new Topps. Yeah, I feel like I'm breaking one of the card collecting commandments with that. But I'll get my hands on some eventually. I'll probably have most of the Yankees inserts by then, thanks to all the awesome bloggers sending me them, but that'll be perfectly fine with me! I have to say I love the Walk-offs Concept but the design sucks; I like the Gold Standards for the most part; and the Golden Greats are alright I guess. 

The inserts that shouldn't have ever happened were definitely the Golden Moments cards. For relics, I can see it. But for plain old boring inserts? Nah. Nonetheless I needed a good majority of the 2012 Topps cards he sent over so that was certainly appreciated an awful lot. 

Brian also recognized my Jets collection, and sent over quite a few of them to me! As of what I've seen, 2011 was the year of Bilal Powell overload in football cards. While I like him, I can't see many others liking him all that much. After all, he is a 4th round pick, so it isn't all that intriguing to pull his autograph in practically every other pack. On a second note, I always love some Curtis Martin and Wayne Chrebet stuff, because they were two of the guys that got me into football in the first place!

I absolutely love the heck out of this card! I mean, the diamond/gold subject does tend to get a little old after a while, but nonetheless I still find this to be an awesome looking card of an awesome up and comer in Betances! He showed a few signs at the end of last year when he was called up, so hopefully he has the potential to make the Yankees rotation one day. 

I've been wanting to get a hold of one of these Topps Lineage relics for a while now, and when I saw his Prince Fielder relic in his for trade bin, I had to ask. I'm definitely a big fan of Prince, and although I prefer him in that Brewers uniform, I'll continue to like him even if he steals all Teixeira's All Star votes! These are really cool looking cards though without a doubt. Certainly something new and inventive, which is nice to see in the hobby. 

My favorite card of the trade, however, was this 2009 Panini Certified Darrelle Revis relic numbered out of 99. For a while I thought the future face of the Jets franchise would definitely be Mark Sanchez, but it seems like I guessed wrong! Considering there have been rumors flowing around about whether the Jets should go after Peyton Manning clearly shows the Jets don't believe all that much in the "Sanchise" either. Revis is one of the most talented athletes in the sport without question, and he sure is a talent to watch. Well, you don't see him often because he's never thrown towards by any quarterbacks. I don't blame them, because their completion percentage almost always only goes down when he's on the job. Anyways, the card is numbered out of 99 and I absolutely love the Jet-green relic. That color right there has always been my favorite color.

So, this was certainly an awesome trade. Thanks so much Brian for the all of the great stuff! Everyone please go give his blog a look, he's got some great stuff to show off!

See Ya!

Even More Mail from William!

Hey guys, Drew back here! It's been a very long week consisting of illness, stress, and school work. As most of you know, those three don't mix well, at all. However, I've been still active in the hobby, sending a few TTM's and making trades, more than I've done in certainly a while. I have a lot of stuff to share with you all, and I doubt you are any bit surprised that the first order of business is that of a package from my great friend William. William cracked open three jumbo boxes of the new 2012 Topps product, and was awesome enough to send over the Yankees cards he pulled to me! Take a look at those, as well as soon other cards he was nice enough to throw in:

I really like the looks of the new Topps series from the small taste of it I've gotten here and there in the past two weeks. The design; while some people may disagree, looks very clean, simple, and does what most companies should try to do most- make the picture stand out. I feel like this is probably the most important part of building a strong overall design for a card: to focus more on the photograph than anything else. Some of the photograph selections in the past few years have been excellent, and a prime example of this is the honorary Mariano Rivera all time save leader card. It's a classy tribute to a classy player, without a doubt.

A special feature of the 2012 Topps set is that, along with the 2011 League Leaders subset, there is also the "Active League Leaders" subset, consisting of AL/NL players with the highest career batting averages; home runs; RBI's; Wins; ERA; and Strikeouts. I was kind of surprised to see that Jason Giambi has the 3rd Most RBI in the American League of any active players, with players such as David Ortiz and Paul Konerko still active. Then again, Giambi has seemed to be around forever, so I guess it's not that much of a surprise. I think the design on these cards could be improved, but they look better this year than they have in the past.

I didn't get a chance to share my opinions on the A.J. Burnett move, so I guess I'll take a little time out to do so. Well, the Yankees didn't certainly get a whole lot out of the deal, they DID get cap room, which they needed more than anything, to sign a left handed bat, which turned out to be Raul Ibanez. I'm glad to see him get an opportunity in a smaller city, because he certainly didn't shine under the New York City limelight. The Burnett signing just went to show that you have to be extremely careful before signing pitchers to big contracts. I watched the movie "Moneyball" today for the second time and without a doubt I can say that it's easy to find a pitcher to do just the job for much less money.

I really like the look of the golden parallels this year, although I do find it as a bit of a coincidence that Topps did away with the gold parallel cards the same year as the Golden theme occurred. I'm not upset or complaining though, because they were kind of just there most of the time.

This set needs to be put to rest as soon as possible. Since 2010 from what I can remember, Topps has issued a set having to do with comparing two players. The idea died after the first year it was done in my opinion. There is no need to have a card comparing Maris and Granderson. However, with the shortage of Maris cards in the market, I still like to add his cards here and there.

The last 2012 card William sent me between his two latest packages was this 1987 style mini of Robinson Cano, which will be added into my Robinson Cano collection! I kind of like this set, especially compared to the other inserts from this year's product. Cano is certainly going to be expected to have a big year, and I have no doubt in my mind that he will come through yet again. He is the best talent I've gotten the opportunity to watch on a day in-day out basis in my years watching baseball, without question.

Speaking of Cano, William also sent a few other of his cards to fill holes in my collection, both of which from 2008 Topps Finest. I don't know if I'm the only person that feels this way, but doesn't seem like Topps Finest is always just there every year? It never necessarily seems to stand out, but it's never really completely forgotten. Anyway, I needed I believe both of these cards, so thanks for the help, man.

Finally, a few of the heroes from the junk wax era, such as Dave Winfield and David Cone. It's not common for someone to send me cards of great Yankee players on other teams, so I typically need them whenever they come my way. Or I have them somewhere deep within stacks of random binders, which really is a pain to go through. And of course, the legendary Ron Davis; also known as the guy whose autograph took forever to identify on my signed Mantle photo. Can't go wrong with that!

William, you are one heck of a guy, and I really do appreciate all that you do for me! I'm going to get you back one day, without a doubt! Thanks again!

See Ya!

2012 Topps eBay Additions!

Hey guys, Drew back here! About two weeks ago, I had to check out some 2012 Topps cards, but I wasn't interested in dropping a ton of money for a box, or even packs. Instead, I took the eBay route, and picked up a few relics from the set. Take a look:

First, I managed to add the Robinson Cano bat relic to my Cano PC, for about $6! The relic design is just ok to me for this set, because I think there's just a bit too much space not used. However, I like that it's a clean design with not a whole lot going on, putting more emphasis on the relic piece. The inserts using this design without the relic look pretty bad though, not going to lie.

The second, and final (for now) relic I picked up was this one above of Giants freak closer Brian Wilson, who certainly has one of the more different personalities in the game today. Some people hate him, some people love him. Personally, I think he's awesome, because 1) his beard is amazing, and 2) he adds something to baseball that not many other players can do. He's helped transform his Giants team into a fun to watch, contending team with many characters that make it easy to root for them. This is my first semi-decent addition  to my collection of Wilson, and hopefully there will be a few more to come in the future.

See Ya!