The Oh So Rare Trip to a Card Shop

Over a recent weekend I had an opportunity to visit a card shop while out of town. With none located within a few hundred miles of my house, I had to take advantage. It's been probably 10 years since I've visited a card shop in person. With a max of about 20 minutes to spare, I quickly dove into several boxes of random baseball singles and looked for Braves. I enlisted the help of my wife who graciously pulled a stack of Braves aside for me from a different section of the box.

At the end of the 20 minutes I came away with a stack of about thirty Braves from the mid-90s to today. I'd forgotten how fun it is to sort through a box of previously unseen cards.

All these cards are new to me, and I almost didn't pick up the first Smoltz from 'Future Stars' because, well, it's Smoltz in a set called 'Future Stars'. But it reminded me of some Upper Deck sets from the 90s so I added it to my stack. The Fond Farewells card makes me sad that Smoltz didn't finish his career as a Brave, but it's a sharp insert. The Maddux I can appreciate because it's shiny on the back as well as the front, and it's a Maddux.

A trio of Braves from 2009. Can never have enough cards of Bobby Cox. The Braves traded Kelly Johnson to the Mets for the second year in a row and was leading off against the Braves just recently. Glad he may get another playoff run, just not happy about it being with the Mets. I like these Red uniforms.

A few cards of one of my favorite Braves, Tim Hudson, all from sets that I like. Would have preferred an action shot on the O-Pee-Chee, though. The Green is nice on the 2013 Archives.

Couldn't pick up a stack of Braves without a handful of Chipper cards. Nice expression on the 2007 Upper Deck. The design is terrible, but I like the photo.

Next up a pair of guys that I remember watching in person at AAA Richmond. What a solid career for Martin Prado. Gregor Blanco has put together a nice string of solid seasons for the Giants. The Braves traded him to the Royals in 2010 for part of a season of Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth.

One of my favorite all-time Braves, with an insert from 2008. There are a couple other Braves in this set, Chipper Jones and a current Brave, Nick Markakis.

A couple Jason Heyward cards. Any Heritage card is a good Heritage card. This O-Pee-Chee might be one of my favorite Chipper cards.

Three Frenchies. It's been nice to see Francoeur back in a Braves uniform this year. He's been much better against left-handed pitching, hitting a respectable .288 as of earlier in the week. Seems the Braves might be looking to deal Francoeur if the right deal comes along. 

And three current Braves up-and-comers. Folty in general has been solid. He'll have a string of good quality starts and then a poor start. Hoping to see more of Mallex Smith later this year. Based on latest reports it's looking like September. Wisler has been struggling recently and was just sent down to AAA, but looks to still be a key piece for the future. With the lack of starting options for the Braves and having recently traded away starter Lucas Harrell, these young pitchers, Aaron Blair and Matt Wisler for instance, have been thrust into starting in bad situations. The offense isn't giving any support which puts so much pressure on these young guys to try to carry the load. This is my first Wisler card, though. I'll expect to add many more over the years.

Can't go wrong with a Freeman rookie card. Even Freeman is having a down year by his standards. It's been a tough year for everyone in Atlanta offensively. 

Great card of Markakis beating a throw, sliding into a base. It's been fun watching Markakis in Atlanta this year, and while his power hasn't really returned, he did recently have a streak where he didn't have a swinging strike for 32 plate appearances. Markakis just doesn't strike out that often.

Well that is certainly a record for me as far as number of cards scanned for one post. Those of you who have a card shop within easy driving distance, I envy you. 

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.

Teheran Stack

The Braves likely lone All-Star for 2016 should be Julio Teheran. While there have been bright spots and the team is playing better recently, Julio has been pitching so well that of course his name has been in the trade rumors. Unless the Braves get an offer that no one would refuse, I hope he remains with the Braves as part of the long-term core. He's been excellent to watch this season.

I've picked up the base Topps series 1 card along with the Gold and Rainbow Parallels. The Rainbow looks much better in person but you can kind of see colors on the top half of the card in the scan. 

While others seem to be ho-hum on Gypsy Queen, the base design is one of my favorites each year. Really like this Teheran which scanned very well. Some of the other Braves in this set are particularly sharp and there are some inserts of 90s greats as well which I will come back to in a later post.

On our way back from visiting my parents over the weekend I had an opportunity to stop by a local card shop that I've been to a handful of times over the years. They had some boxes with a variety of base and inserts. I found this new to me Teheran from 2014 Topps. Honestly anything 2014 and prior is probably new to me from before I got back into collecting so most of the time if I look through a random box of cards, I'm going to need some Braves. Teheran's first full MLB season with the Braves was a success in 2013 with a 3.20 era going 14-8 with a 3.2 WAR. Pretty strong debut.

Lastly, Teheran pitched a one hit shutout on June 19, Father's day, against the Mets. As soon as it happened I knew it would be a Topps Now card. When I saw it online in the special uniforms I decided to go ahead and get it, somewhat because I knew it would have a lower print run being Teheran. So here it is.

One Homer is Good, Three is Bett(s)er

It has been fun following the young career of Red Sox right-fielder Mookie Betts. Hitting leadoff, Mookie is having his best season yet, and should easily surpass his 2015 totals for HRs and RBIs, and he's also leading baseball in runs scored to this point. 

On May 31st Mookie homered in the first and second innings against Kevin Gausman and again in the seventh against Dylan Bundy. As I was watching this game of course I knew there would be a Topps Now card for Mookie, and I knew that I would finally bite on the Topps Now series. 

Betts followed up the three homer game with a two homer game on June 1st, both of those home runs off of Mike Wright. He had his second Topps Now card released the following day. I went for the first but couldn't justify buying them in back to back days. Maybe I will find a good deal on ebay or elsewhere.

Nice card. Could I have found it cheaper down the road? Maybe, but glad it's in my collection.

Turn that Braves frown around, collect 2016 Bowman!

The Braves are performing better as of late, but overall the team's major league season has not gone well. Freeman has been cold, then hot, and now cold again, with the cold stretches being longer. Teheran pitched a gem the other day, but it hasn't been enough as the young pitching is not there yet and the bullpen has been poor.

Here's Freddie and Julio from the veteran portion of the set. I also picked up a Mookie for that player collection. 

Luckily Bowman 2016 is loaded with Braves minor leaguers to give Braves fans some hope for future seasons. 

Dansby was promoted to AA at the end of April. For the combined season between A-Advanced and AA he is hitting .270. The plan is for he and Ozzie Albies to make up the future middle infield for the Braves. Albies is just 19 and already playing for AAA Gwinnett and has hit well as of late. Tyrell Jenkins was recently called up to the big league squad and will work out of the bullpen, hopefully giving that unit a boost. He's had good success in AAA this year.

The Braves have a bunch of other prospects in this set but these were the three that stuck out to me to pick up.

I also grabbed a card of Red Sox prospect Mauricio Dubon. He was my favorite player on the 2015 Greenville Drive and was recently named an all-star in the A-Advanced Carolina League. Excited to see how his career progresses. Will be interesting to see if he is dealt as the middle of the infield for the Red Sox seems pretty set going forward, particularly at short with Bogaerts.  

Archives Braves, including a new Klesko!

After reading about the new Archives set all over the sports card blog world, I decided to pick up the Braves from the set for myself. It's rare that I just grab all the Braves at once, for a couple reasons. First, I enjoy the chase, even on a smaller scale of putting a team set together. Second, sometimes there are guys that I don't particularly need to have in my collection. In this case it's Hector Olivera, who I am thinking the Braves would cut ties with if they could get anything for him. But for the sake of getting them all, I did end up with the Olivera as you'll see below. 

Here we've got two pitching greats. The Niekro looks better here with this design, in my opinion. Can't go wrong with a new Smoltz, though.

These might be my favorites. Hammerin Hank and a new Klesko in the Topps 79 design. Did you know that Klesko was first scouted as a pitcher?

Here's the Olivera, who is showing up in just about every 2016 set along with Freddie Freeman. It's pretty rare to see current Braves outside of these two show up in sets this year. Would have loved to see Markakis or Julio Teheran in this set.

These are pretty sharp. I was three or so years away from my collecting start in 1991.  I will likely go and pick up some of the originals after seeing this Archives release up close. Chipper was my first baseball player collection. It's ended up being outclassed by Klesko and others, but it'll always be the original. And on Spahn, being a lefty myself, can't help but admire the man who has an award for the best left-handed pitcher in baseball named after him.

Couldn't help but pick up the lone Brave in this insert set, and I have to say, I wish there were more. Great card, and well done Topps on this Archives set! And if you could, stop including Olivera? He's a rookie, but he's not playing.

Opening Day Stack

Last month I posted a pack of Opening Day I opened that served as the start of the blogging year for me. After getting a taste of 2016 cards I had to add more from this set to cover my player and team collections.

These three fit into individual player collections. Machado has developed into a true star. I worry he will leave Baltimore and go another team. Seeing him in pinstripes for the Yankees would be a nightmare. Mookie continues to lead off the Red Sox lineup where I expect him to stay for years to come. Sano's bat is slowly coming around after a cold start. His average is up to .250.

Teheran is pitching well below the level from his 2014 All-Star season. Through four starts his ERA is 5.64. Not what you want from your number one starter. It is April and surely he will pitch better than he has thus far. The Braves could certainly use the help as they wait on the returns from recent trades. Freeman appears to be rounding the bases in this one. Neat card.

The blue parallels might be my favorite part of 2016 Opening Day. Was pleased to find the Mookie in particular. Also on this row is the first of the inserts. Alternate reality is not necessarily a better reality in the case of this insert set. To me none of the inserts are particularly exciting. But they are cheap cards of my favorite players, and I'm glad to add them to my collection.

Three more Alternate Reality inserts. Same guys as above. The Mookie is my favorite of this row. I guess the uniform colors mesh better with the colors on the rest of the card.

Here's the last of the inserts. Miguel Sano's power is coming back. He's hit two home runs in his last three games after hitting one in his first 15 games of 2016. The insert design is even worse than the ones above. Reminds me of a mid-2000s Upper Deck insert of some sort. 

The blue parallels are definitely the highlight of this release and I plan to pick up the remainder of the blue parallels that fit into my collection.