Diving Catch Tops This Stadium Club Stack

While I'm still missing a few Braves from 2016 Stadium Club, I'm off to a good start.

Love these Braves uniforms. This is the second card of Ender with the stars on the Braves script on the front of the jersey. The other is 2016 Gypsy Queen. Anyone seen any other cards with this uniform?

Speaking of Ender Inciarte, I hope he's in the team's long-term plans. He's been fun to watch in center field this season. I know the Braves suddenly have too many outfielders with Mallex Smith in the mix next year and the newly acquired Kemp. I also know the Braves are trying to extract as much value from every player, but please hold on to Ender!

Speaking of getting value, the Braves were able to unload Aybar on the Tigers, essentially in return for a catching prospect. This is fine with me as we get a first look at Dansby Swanson in Atlanta.

Nice angle on this card of the Mad Dog. 

Julio returned from the disabled list the other night for a tough assignment against the Nationals. He has a potentially better match-up against the Diamondbacks this week to get back on track.

Unique shot of Freeman here going after a foul ball. 

And the best of the bunch of course is not a Brave. It seems more and more likely that Mookie will get good consideration for the AL MVP. He and Altuve seem to be the front-runners.

The two best photos here are the horizontal shots. This tends to be the case for these sets in general, from what I've seen.

What is your favorite card from 2016 Stadium Club?

Talked About So Much, but Still Underrated

Stadium Club photography is talked about all over the blogosphere and it's now the identifying feature of a modern Stadium Club set. While it's widely discussed, the photography is far and away better than any other set that I still think it's underrated.

I just picked up my first cards from 2016 Stadium Club the other day, but I realized I hadn't even posted about a stack of 2015 Stadium Club I picked up last year! 

Will the Braves rotation ever get back to where it was in the mid-90s? Seems unlikely, but they are trying with all the young pitchers the team is accumulating.

For the second year in a row, Adam Jones has a memorable card in Stadium Club. In 2014 it was flags with Jones running onto the field.

The All-Star, MVP candidate, and first-round pick and 'captain' of my fantasy baseball team this year.

I love a good sliding shot. First one I can remember featuring Freeman, although it's possible there's another out there.

 Another young pitcher having a solid year for a first place team. Notice the tongue.

My second-round pick for my fantasy baseball team, and my favorite player in the game today. These horizontal shots are great.

Definitely missing this guy this season. Erick Aybar has been pretty painful to watch.

Another of the more memorable cards from this Stadium Club release, I'm sure. Best pitcher in the game.

He may not be an 'ace' on every team, but he's our ace and all-star. He's also one of only three starters listed on the active roster as of Friday when this post was written. Sad times for the Atlanta rotation.

Wish I had thought of this card for a July 4th post. Perfect way to end things in this one. 

Old Friends and New Friends

I appreciate a set where I can collect both current and retired players from my want list.  2014 Gypsy Queen is one of those sets.

Here we've got the new.  One of the guys helping to carry what little offense the Braves are mustering these days.  Freeman is leading the Braves in batting average, on-base percentage and hits.  If he can add 2 more home runs to his total he will have hit at least 20 home runs in each of his full seasons in the majors.  I tried to see who else may have accomplished this but apparently my googling skills aren't good enough.  

Machado is out for the rest of this year, a seemingly large blow to the Orioles' chances at making a deep playoff run.  However the Orioles seem relatively unaffected by this loss.  They keep rolling along towards the playoffs with a big lead in the division.  Surely his loss will be felt in the playoffs, though.  Looking at this particular card, it is by far my favorite base card that I have in my collection thus far.  Part of it is I really enjoy the away gray jersey, but also the background colors look great in this one.

And my baseball heroes from the 90s.  The back of the Maddux notes that he has the 2nd (1.56) and 3rd (1.63) best live ball single season ERA, behind Bob Gibson (1.12).  If Clayton Kershaw keeps pitching the way he is, he might have a shot at that 1.63 mark.  But what incredible numbers.

Another 2014 Ripken to add to the collection.  The back of this one notes that Ripken is the Orioles all-time leader in home runs by 88 and RBIs by 388.

This is the first card of 2014 of Smoltz I've picked up.  He also has an A&G short print and Pastimes Pastime insert card.  Although the insert set isn't my favorite, both of these cards are on my 2014 want list.

In the past I've cracked some packs of Gypsy Queen and although I do enjoy these cards, I think I'll be content to stick with these from my favorite players, and maybe pick up some additional Braves and Orioles from this set.

Braves in Stained Glass

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've been on the lookout for some unique inserts of the players I collect to add to my collection.  In that post I noted that the Stained Glass Stars insert set from 1996 Studio had caught my eye.  Fortunately some Braves are found on the checklist.  I was able to snag a few of these for a fair price off ebay recently.  

These cards are razor thin and extremely delicate.  They were so thin that it was difficult for me to get them out of the scanner after getting them uploaded.  As you can see these cards aren't in perfect condition, but all of these that I saw on ebay had some kind of flaw.  The small marks you see on these are about what you can expect if you look to acquire them.  Outside of these, the background of these cards are beautiful, and luckily the bright scans bring out the best in them.  You can definitely see through these cards, and what's hard to see in the scan is the stained glass portion of the cards have a texture that mimics the texture of actual stained glass.

I would guess that for 1996, this was a pretty innovative design, part of what makes this set attractive to me 18 years later.  I'll look to pick up more unique insert designs of my favorite players.

What are some of your favorite insert sets over the years?

Well Designed Inserts- What Have I Missed?

Part of not being engaged in the baseball card part of the hobby for so long is that I don't know where to start.  One of my favorite parts of collecting is finding unique looking inserts that I know I'll enjoy coming back to look at again and again.

That is why I am asking for your help.  What insert sets from the 90s that might include players from my wantlist have I missed, or even ones that don't, particularly from the mid-late 90s?

I am more likely to put together an insert set than a full base set.  The last baseball insert I worked on was 2006 Bazooka Stamps, which obviously isn't from the 90s, but I associate the coolest insert sets with the mid-late 90s.  I have 24 out of 30 cards from this set.  I collected postage stamps when I was younger and so to me this was a unique, interesting insert set to put together.

Here we have some Braves.  The Braves starting pitching for the most part has been solid, but with several guys out for the year (Beachy, Medlen) and another struggling (Minor), how nice it would be to have Hudson back in the rotation.

Looking back on it now I find these cards less appealing than I did at the time.  The backs are essentially blank and the cards have no color.  I would appreciate these more if they had a variety of colors, even if keeping the same design on each card.  Even so, this is a pretty unique idea for an insert set.  Plus since there's nothing of significance on the back, I can put these into pages on the front and back sides.

An example of a set I am likely to acquire a few cards from is 1996 Studio Stained Glass Stars.  The cards up on ebay look awesome and I imagine there aren't any other insert sets that try to mimic the look of stained glass on a card.

This post wouldn't be complete without me showing some of my favorite inserts from my Orioles and Braves collections.

I've always viewed Flair Hot Numbers as an iconic insert set from the 90s, a set that all other insert sets are measured against.  Maybe there's another that fits that category for you?  

This Rawhide insert from Fleer Ultra is my favorite Ripken in my collection.  The texture on the card which is hard to see in the scan is made to look like the surface of a glove.

Send me all your transparent inserts!  I think the Stadium Club Chrome set deserved more years in production and the inserts from SCC are great.  

Shiny inserts from late 90s/early 00s Topps!  Can't get enough of them.  

While I may not be looking to complete all of these types of sets, I do enjoy picking up cards of my favorite players and teams that fall into these sets.  Maybe I'll go back and try to complete the Bazooka Stamps set, especially since I am 5/6 of the way there.