Free Stuff Friday #10 - Loud Noises!

It's week #10 of free stuff Friday, so I thought I would try to kick it up a notch. Sorry, no extra Altuve or Trout rookies lying around from 2011. But feel free to claim one or claim them all with what I have here.

Inserts! Note that Max is an insert and a parellel - numbered to /50

Not sure quite this one got so Cardinals heavy, but sometimes these things happen! If the fine print is too fine, the Josh Hamilton is a factory set parallel.

Autographs!

Ya know what, how about a couple more.

Topps Heritage singles - I think I might actually try to build this base set, I'll save that post for another day...

Some hockey to dive into . . .

And some hockey inserts why not?

Mini Collection today is Topps' All-Star Rookie Cups. Sweet Lou is not a reprint, though he is off center.

Let me know your address if we haven't traded before (or in a long time).

I also want to hear your requests. Have I been neglecting your favorite team?

Willians Autographstudillo!

It's cold today, high didn't get above 20 degrees F. The "hot stove" is cooling off, too-- pitchers and catchers report next week. But card acquisitions can come any time of the year! Willians Astudillo was featured in almost every 2019 Topps product, reminiscent of a 2015 Kennys Vargas run of inserts and SSPs and photo variations and autographs.

The Topps Chrome auto came from eBay, and this Chrome refractor was purchased on Saturday at my local card shop (for maybe a little more than the national average price).

After seeing The Lost Collector reel in an awesome Luke Voit framed auto, I wondered if there were any Twins in that set . . . and of course Willians Astudillo was one of them!

Last but not least was this "sick hit" I found on eBay, and I actually paid less for this than the refractor auto. The card is numbered to just 35 copies! I don't know if Astudillo will even be on the opening day roster this year, but rest assured he will continue to have many fans in Twins Territory!

A Little Help from My Friends

I had a great surprise in my mailbox this week - Kevin of The Card Papoy is able to avoid shipping overseas by winning U.S. based eBay auctions and shipping direct to the lucky collector! Kenny Lofton is one of my favorite players of the 1990s and early 2000s. The Twins in the latter half of the 90s was in bad shape, so by the time the playoffs rolled around, I was looking for a different team to root for.

Lofton was seemingly in the playoffs every season. He only missed the playoffs twice between 1995 and 2007, playing in 20 different playoff series. He was in the World Series twice, in 97 with Cleveland and 2002 with the San Francisco Giants. Lofton had some impressive postseason series - in the 1995 ALCS, for instance, he hit .458 including 2 triples and 5 stolen bases. In the 1998 ALDS against Boston he hit 2 homers and swiped 2 bases; and in 2003 for the Cubs against the Marlins he hit .323 scoring 8 runs in the 7 game series. Overall he had 97 hits in 95 postseason games in his career, stealing 34 bases, only being caught stealing 6 times. So all those times the Twins suffered an early exit or no appearance at all, it wasn't hard to look to Kenny Lofton to find someone to cheer for.

Redemption Song

Hey, remember back in November when I posted about the blaster of Topps Chrome Update (aka Topps Baseball Holiday Target Mega Box) I purchased at Target? Here's a reminder of what I found in that blaster:

Well, I went online that day and requested the redemption right away- the card is finally here!

Bask in the gold glory! Not the most legible sig, but I expect that Benintendi is accustomed to trying to fit all the letters of his name onto a small sticker. 

Here's the card back, numbered to just 50. I don't collect Red Sox, but the thrill of getting a big hit is enough for me to want to hang onto this card for at least a little while longer. I have been nearly flat broke for the last few months and my card budget has gone to other things at home, so it was great to add a card this month with money I spent a long time ago. I think ultimately I will be including this card in a blog contest/giveaway, maybe to celebrate a milestone post or something else completely arbitrary.

Auld Lang "Sign"

Happy New Year everyone! 2017 is over and I am ready to get 2018 started off right.

I purchased a stack of Twins autographs from my Facebook contact and I think Trevor May could have gotten his arm injury from signing stickers non-stop for the last 5 years.

I haven't started to set any goals for 2018, but that will come in the next few days - probably will be very similar to last year, try to reduce the clutter and focus my collection more sharply on the cards I want to keep and less on buying blasters and packs.

I also will probably cut down on Autographs - to be honest I am more interested in cards like Rod Carew's below than I am in cards like Tyler Duffey's above.

A Quick Update

I went into Target this morning after VOTING (if you live in the United States, there's probably an election in your area today, so think about VOTING), and as is my way, I was drawn to the card aisle.

One Blaster of Topps Chrome Update was casually strewn atop the now dusty boxes of Topps Series 1 and 2 and the other sports like Racing, Football, and Basketball.

I was not a big fan of Topps Update this year, but who doesn't love Chrome! And I am a sucker for Topps Rookie All-Star inserts. Hey look, Yoan Moncada as a Red Sox infielder.

Both Rookie of the Year winners are represented, along with plenty more rookies from 2016 and 2017.

Ngeope had the best photo on the cards I pulled, and there was a decent percentage of cards I will actually keep.

Finally, this card means I will not buy another pack in 2017, because my luck has already hit its peak-

Neat! I will hold onto this one for a while.

Fernandomania in Minnesota?

The Twins called up Felix Jorge from AA Chattanooga to get a spot start against Kansas City this weekend. He's pitched well for the Lookouts, with an ERA of 3.26 and a decent walk rate of just 2.3 walks per 9 innings.


But the guy I want to talk about is Fernando Romero - I just received the card above from an eBay auction, and I'm trying to stay ahead of the game on his cards, I think he's going to be great.

Romero was promoted to AA to start this season, and in his last 6 starts he's 5-0, pitching into the 6th inning in each start. He's struck out 39 batters in that stretch against just 12 walks. In his last start he struck 6 in 7 shutout innings against the Pennsacola Blue Wahoos, which is Cincinnati's AA affiliate.

Romero is on the 40 Man, and should be in line for either a September call-up or a 2018 mid season audition similar to Jorge's shot this weekend.

A Family That Plays Together, Stays Together

Felipe

Matty (sorry, this card is still stuck in its original Topps holder)

Jesus

Moises

Now the family is all together!

Day Five - 2014 Topps Finest Kennys Vargas #RR3

Day 5: A Certified Autograph Card of One of Your Favorite Players

Taking the lead from Tony at Off-Hiatus Baseball Cards this will be the fifth of 30 posts, using the prompts provided. I won't necessarily post one every day, but I will do one for each card, toss in a few "insights" (as insightful as I can be, anyway), and usually include an honorable mention or two, just because I'm like that.

Here's my pick - I was so proud of being non-partisan in the first few posts - I didn't plan on making this a 30 Days of Twins baseball cards... Puckett was a no-brainer for me, though, and so is this card. It was only a matter of time before Kennys Vargas would show up. I picked up this card on eBay recently, I wasn't sure that I would ever get the chance. This is a redemption card numbered to 100 from 2014. Not a lot of 2014 cards of Kennys Vargas. He's in Bowman Sterling, Topps Heritage High Numbers, and as the Rookie Redemption #3 in Topps Finest - that's pretty much it! There may or may not be a couple minor league issue cards out there, but those are the only three from the big guys. This one had to be the pick because it's my favorite *current Twin; it is a rare card in the wild; and it's a little bit off the beaten path, which is always a plus for me.

*currently in AAA, but he's on the 40-Man!

Since these are basically one card posts, why not show the backs, too? I haven't shared this card on the blog previously, but I was really pumped when it came in the mail. I'm hoping that Vargas and/or Park gets called up soon, hopefully to jump start the stagnant Twins offense. The three man bench lacks offense right now. 

The seller even threw in the original redemption card, sweet!

Here are some honorable mentions:

Aparicio is not necessarily one of my favorite players, but he is a Hall of Famer and this is one of my favorite cards. Dawson has one of the more interesting looking signatures in baseball, even though this example is not his finest penmanship. Teke is one of my favorites, and Topps was smart to include him as a fan favorite. Of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to show another Hrbek on the horn card. His auto is a little sloppy this time around, he was probably eating a footlong meatball sandwich in his other hand... J/K Hrbie, you're the best!

More Fun From the Card Shop

So this past weekend I found a new(-ish, to me.) Card Shop, where I picked up a couple packs of Update and a random mix of other things:

I have to monitor my tone of voice when I say "Show me All your Kennys Vargas!" so I don't sound like a crazy person / stick up artist. This was the only one they had that I didn't.

The shop had a table full of random sets from the 80s and early 90s - if you want that hard to forget 1991 Donruss set or a 1988 Topps, they've got you covered. I was drawn to the oddball sets, and Revco was exactly what the doctor ordered.

There were some monster boxes (5 column long box style) of Twins and Twins related players, this was the one card that caught my eye.

I am really skeptical of the autographs I found in this box, these two seemed close enough to legit, and I have no plans to re-sell them. There was a Steve Garvey that I picked up as well, it doesn't look remotely right to me at all, but I will probably ask for GCRL's expert opinion on it at some point.

Back to some oddballs - The Twins teamed up with local law enforcement to release this set several years in a row (maybe they still do?). I found it, uh, interesting that each player has a different crime prevention tip, and for Delmon Young they just were like... "You know what? Better just put the T.V. schedule on that card"

Best of all, they had some oddball supplies as well! Finally I can put these minis in a binder! I will definitely be making a return trip to the shop, there was a big display case of vintage cards that I completely avoided this time around.

Coffee is for Closers

One more thing to share from the weekend, the card shop had a tall stack of these, I decided to roll the dice with one as they were on sale, and the checklist didn't have many duds in it, I was hoping to get a fan favorite of some kind...

Well, not a Hall of Famer, but still a very good player! Franco was just in the news yesterday when Francisco Rodriguez passed him on the All-Time Saves list. Franco now sits 4th All-Time, with 424 Career Saves. He pitched in the 2000 World Series with the Mets.  This buyback is from his first All-Star season in 1986.

Something I Alou-ded to Earlier . . .

 Well, it's late in the day and I haven't posted yet, trying to keep coming up with things to post about, there will be another Twins Frankenset post on Monday and the next season of Topps Rookie All-Star will happen some time next week.

With my upcoming move, I've not been buying very many cards. I haven't been doing a lot of trading, either, but I did send out a couple packages today.

So, here's one thing I will be working on in the next few months - Certified autos of the Alou family!

Matt from Bob Walk the Plank alerted me to existence of this Moises Alou auto, and I found a copy on eBay for just 8 bucks. 

This is a terrible image, but I got this Felipe Alou auto at the National. I've got most of my cards in boxes inside of other boxes right now, so this a cropped version of a photo from awhile back.

So, just looking for certified autos of Matty and Jesus at this point, and maybe getting a different Felipe to match up with the other brothers.

At the National Day One . . .

"overwhelming" in an understatement to describe what entering the room for the first day of the National Sports Collectibles Convention was like. There are so many tables!! I had no idea where to start, but my quest to find '65 OPC, '64 Venezuelan Topps, and the 2015 Topps Clear Kennys Vargas were my main points of focus on day one...

 A little strange to me that the grader spelled Buck's last name incorrectly, but I have to believe there aren't too many certified Autographs from the Kansas City Monarchs' great first baseman and coach. Had to go for this one!

 Finished the mini-collection of 1960 Topps Managers!

 Some fun vintage Bowman - one card closer to finishing the 1948 set and now I've started on 1949 with "Bow Wow" Arft and "Happy Rabbit" Rojek...

 ELMER! I finished the Valo Topps run about a week ago, now I'm working on the remaining Bowman cards.

 From the same table as Buck O'Neil, these three were $10 each. Love Andre Dawson's signature, and you can't go wrong with Moose or Alou.

 Choo Choo Coleman rookie, A Then and Now with Zoilo (Zorro) Versalles, and the famous batboy card from 1969 all to the tune of .50 apiece.

The Vintage Guy from MN that I buy a ton from is at the Show - booth #526. He always has tremendous deals on vintage and he's very very easy to work with. He has quarter boxes of vintage! and 50 cent boxes, and some great prices on the bigger names as well. If you are heading to the National Today of Tomorrow, he's worth your time!

I did end up finding some Venezuelan Topps, but I'll save that for another post.

Can't wait for day two (I already know it was a good one!)