Happy 4th of July, and a Mookie Monstah Stack

Excited to watch the Fort Bragg game between the Marlins and Braves from last night, as a permanent field and temporary bleachers for 12.500 were constructed for military and their families to enjoy the first regular season MLB game in the state of North Carolina. Pretty cool!

Wishing you all a great 4th of July with your families!

And with that said, I want to share some recent pickups of one of my favorite active players, Mookie Betts.

Heading into the last few days of all-star voting, Mookie was third among AL outfielders. Seems likely he will be on the AL squad when the rosters are released on Tuesday night. Since seeing him in single-A Greenville back in 2013 it's been fun to watch his ascent to being one of the premier players in baseball. It was an easy decision to collect his cards. While I haven't picked up many of his tougher to find parallels or autographs, I have added a good number of base and inserts to my collection.  Here are some of my recent pickups for the Mookie Monstah.

The 2015 Topps Chrome base didn't scan well, but the refractor, and what I think is the prism refractor version, scanned much better. My understanding is these are the two easiest versions to find. Do X-fractors no longer exist?

The first card in this row is from 2015 Topps Series 2. I just found out there is a photo variation where he is sliding into a base that I am missing. It's a pretty cool shot. Now that I'm doing a little searching, there's also a variation for 2016 Topps Series 1. The Topps Archives might be my favorite in this blog post. The Blue and Red text look nice together on a Red Sox card. And this Topps Heritage '51 Collection card is probably in my top 5 Mookie cards. This one rightly points out that Mookie is already being called one of the most exciting players in baseball.

Probably the least exciting card in this group, the 2015 Bowman card points out Betts is a fan of Florida State football. That's one thing I can disagree with Mookie on. The Series Next die cut insert scanned well.

While this 2015 Bowman's Best card did not. It looks much nicer in person. 

The Red Sox are really struggling right now, particularly with pitching. A 21-2 loss stings no matter which way you look at it, but Betts continues to produce while the Red Sox slump.