Hitting the Gaps Part 1

Part of being a player and team collector is that as hard as you try to keep up with the latest releases, you fall behind, and in most cases WAY behind. I'm starting a series here called 'Hitting the Gaps', where I will share a collection of cards that fills in some gaps in a player or team collection of cards. The first covers a handful of Freddie Freeman cards from 2015 and 2016 that I'd missed to this point.

Sometimes the Topps base set cards are the ones that get overlooked. I didn't have a copy of 2015 Topps Freeman from Series 1 so I picked it up. Next to it is a Topps Chrome refractor version. I already had the base chrome version so all three of these are now sitting in a row in my player collection binder. The last card here is an insert from 2015 Allen & Ginter. The back of this one documents Freeman's MLB debut on September 1st, 2010.

What's interesting about this card is it not only hits on Freeman's debut but other notable MLB firsts on that day.

The 2016 Bowman's Best refractor scanned really well. Beautiful card. The plain Chrome versions of cards never scan very well, but at least Freeman shows up well here. I had the Bowman base version from the 2015 set, but now the Chrome version is sitting next to it in the binder. Topps Bunt was a product I was excited about but never saw any packs in stores. They might seem plain to some but I am a fan of these navy uniforms.

I had Opening Day, base Topps, and Topps Gold. Now I've got over half a page of this design with the Chrome base card and the Topps mini version to add to them. Still room for more parallels!

Great design on this 2015 Topps insert. Freddie is finally getting some help in the Braves lineup which started producing pretty well towards the end of last season. Freeman is still the heart of the order, though.

This Inspired Play insert pairs two of my all-time favorite first basemen on the same card. Add Klesko and we'd have the top three.

2017 Topps doesn't qualify as a gap yet, but it's just as satisfying to add it to the binder. My favorite insert set from 2017 Topps by far, and really the only one I was excited to see show up in my blaster box. 

I pretty much stick to base cards, inserts and affordable parallels as far as cards I go after for player collections, and while there's still plenty left to pick up from the last few years, this stack makes a good dent.