LIVING to the Max

The Topps Living Set continues to grow, but the number of deserving subjects remaining, it can be a long wait between representatives from your favorite team. The Minnesota Twins now have seven cards in the set, two coming in the last two months.

Rod Carew is the first retired Twin to be featured. 1967 A.L. Rookie of the Year, a seven-time batting champ, 1977 A.L. MVP, eighteen-time All-Star, Hall of Fame Inductee, and the only member of the 3,000 hit club from Panama. Carew was in the Twin Cities earlier this season to attend the retirement of Joe Mauer's jersey number, and he continues to be an ambassador for the game. He also hosts an annual golf tournament in California to benefit Pediatric Cancer Research, which was held last weekend at the Pelican Hill Golf Club. He also partners with the American Heart Association to raise awareness about heart health.

This season Max Kepler has taken a big step forward. His 35 home runs are a career high, and he's slugging 100 points higher than his previous career best mark. He signed a 5 year contract extension with the Twins during Spring Training.

This dugout quiz artwork is a red herring - the flag says "Highest Batting Average" but the question is about Runs Batted In! Also, you'll notice that there's an asterisk on both cards for the lifetime totals. On Carew's card it is explained that his career totals are complete "as of 6/24/2019," but Kepler's card does not have a similar caveat. I think Rod's totals are probably not going to change much the rest of the season, but Max is likely to add on even more (he led off Saturday's game with a home run, the 91st of his career)!

NOW with Bonus Cards On Demand

I purchased a Topps Now "Road to Opening Day" set, and because of the Twins' successes on the field, it has yielded several bonus cards, including this one that just arrived in honor of Max Kepler's most recent 3 HR outburst.

There was more to celebrate in the month of July, including another bonus card for the team's 1st place 1st half.

Kepler earned a couple cards on his own, one for owning Trevor Bauer, one for a walk-off winner against Oakland. The Twins turned a pair of Triple plays in July, still waiting on the 2nd card to arrive.

The team was also featured on other On Demand Sets, including a new wave of Topps Total. Last wave was a trio of sluggers, and this time we have three pitchers. Mike Pineda might be team's most consistent starter in the second half, and Taylor Rogers has been the team's ONLY consistent reliever. Kyle Gibson is known as the unofficial "Team Dad," helping the team to stay in line on the road, staying on time for appearances in the community, and generally mentoring the team's younger players with anything they might need to navigate the big league life.

Jorge Polanco gets his 2nd #TBT card of 2019, in honor of his 1st All-Star appearance. His last card was a 1972 design, and this one of course uses the 1979 design.

The other On Demand set, celebrating 150 years of professional baseball, finally included a Twin, and they picked a good one. Artist Graig Kreindler has been providing several portraits of all-time greats for this set, with a sun-soaked Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, MN serving as the Killer backdrop.

The backs of these look a bit like 1971 Topps, but are more or less generic. They have a little blurb about the player, so slightly more effort than the #TBT issues.

Is your team getting a fair number of these on demand sets? What do you think of the designs?

The Dust Has Settled on the Trade Deadline

The Trade Deadline resulted in a mini fire sale by the Twins, but I was looking for different sales on my own. I've had my eye on this 1972 Topps hi number card of Joe Morgan, his first in a Reds uniform.

It's good to know that the unbridled optimism of Topps cards is sometimes completely accurate. Joe Morgan was good before he came to Cincinnati, but his brand of speed and power transformed the Reds' lineup into a Big Red Machine.

I was thinking about the National show, which is happening this week (going on right now in Cleveland), so I entered "National" into the search engine on COMC to see what exclusives might crop up. This Dave Winfield was new to me, though it turns out the O-Pee-Chee was not. Who needs a copy of it? Lemme know and I'll send it over with some cardboard friends in a blind trade.

The Twins' GM Thad Levine was quoted at the deadline that the front office still believes the Twins' core includes Buxton, Kepler, Rosario, Sano, and Jose Berrios. My reaction was "Well, you traded everyone else, so what's left to be the core?" Buxton had a recurrence of wrist issues and has landed once again on the AAA Disabled List, possibly for the rest of 2018. Quite a precipitous fall from 2017 when he was a Gold (and Platinum) Glove winner.

I've made a pact with myself to always look for at least one 1959 Topps card each time I fill up my COMC cart now, and I found this later series common for under a dollar.

Affordable relics come into play as well, and I found this Mauer mini (complete with a throwback Saint Paul Saints uniform) for a steal.

Staying on the topic of Twins' first basemen, I found a rookie relic for Justin Morneau, as well as this fun quad relic with 1.75 Hall of Famers on it. Raffy would have been a lock if it weren't for PED controversy, and Olerud probably needed a few more peak seasons and a little more power to be in the conversation. Still a very cool card that would have been very spendy in 2002, but was a much nicer price in 2018.

NOW, More Than Ever

What a moment! I am unabashedly a Twins fan, and part of me was disappointed that Cleveland won this game, but there's no denying the excitement that Lindor brought to the crowd in San Juan, Puerto Rico last month. Topps Now of course was there to capitalize.

But Topps decided to do something special for this card, donating a portion of the proceeds to Puerto Rico hurricane relief efforts. Normally I would have skipped this card, but it tangentially involved the Twins, and directly benefited people in need. Topps would also add donations to two Stephen Piscotty cards, who lost his mother to ALS in May.

Topps found that there are still more ways to get me to shell out some cash with a new Topps Now feature called "Moment of the Week."

Ohtani has been every bit as good as advertised, and I couldn't pass up a chance to get in on the fun. I was unaware of the voting period this first time around, so I missed out on the gold parallel of this card, given out to collectors that voted for Ohtani to be the first moment of the week.

Last but not least, I still collect the Twins when they manage to make it on Topps Now cards. I was fortunate enough to be in attendance for this game, in which the Twins nearly gave away a 10 run lead to the defending champs. Kepler's homer was an absolute laser beam out to right field, and the whole ballpark knew it was gone the moment he connected with it.

I was able to see this game in person as well, as Mauer collected both hit # 1,999 and hit # 2,000 on the same night. The 2 run single for 2,000 was vintage Joe Mauer, a screaming grounder up the middle past the pitcher and into center field. His first hit of that night was greeted with a big roar from the crowd and the team played Prince's "1999" over the PA. It was good timing by Mauer, as the rest of the Chicago series was postponed due to snow and rain, meaning it would be some time before he would play in front of his home fans again. He's up to 2,025 hits now, though he just landed on the DL with a neck injury.

Bringing it full circle - the night after Lindor's homer, it was the Puerto Rican Twins players that put on a show. Jose Berrios pitched 7 shutout innings, and the winning run was scored by Eddie Rosario. This is the first appearance for Ryan LaMarre on a Twins card. He was a journeyman AAA outfielder and tore up spring training. Given the opportunity to start in the big leagues, LaMarre played very well for the Twins in April.

It seemed to me to be the very best outcome for the fans in P.R., with the heroes each night being from Puerto Rico.

Saturday is Card Show Day (Twins Wins)

I haven't been to a card show in months, so I wanted to make up for lost time. I've put together three posts from the show today covering Twins, vintage, and an in person trade with Jim (aka GCRL) from cards as i see them! Miguel Sano suffered a stress reaction in his shin that sent him to the DL to finish out the season.

Eddie Rosario hit a screaming line drive over the fence in the first inning of the AL Wild Card Game, though in the end it wasn't enough to lead the Twins to a victory in their first postseason appearance in seven years. Just a few seasons ago, Eddie was making his way to the bigs from Beloit.

Max Kepler drew a walk and hit a double in four plate appearances in his first playoff experience. He was signed out of Germany at the age of 16 and attended high school in Florida while working through the Twins' minor league system.

Vargas made the postseason roster, and was available to pinch hit if they were close late, but it was not meant to be.

His future in MN is uncertain, as he ran out of minor league options at the end of the 2017 season.

Vargas was interviewed following the Wild Card game, and he was aware of the situation he finds himself in. He stated he would be interested in opportunities in Japan or South Korea if available - two years ago, he rebuffed offers from clubs overseas in hopes of making his mark with the Twins. I hope he can stay in the majors, but it seems possible that he will once again find himself on the outside of the 25 man roster.

NOW With Clever Nicknames

Players Weekend was quite some time ago now - it feels even longer given the exciting finish to the 2017 season. The Twins were north of the border in Toronto, and they were struggling to keep pace with the Blue Jays bats. They did manage to have some impressive highlights.

But the appeal of Player's Weekend was the customization and flair that the players were allowed for once. Too bad the photo of Rosario crops out his socks, they were something else.

That certainly stands out! 

Joe Mauer disappointed by opting for the nickname "Mauer," so I won't bother showing the back of that one. Next year, maybe Joe could consider "Well Played" for his jersey. "Baudido" roughly translates to Bandit. The curious can read about the rest of the Twins nicknames here. My favorite was Miguel Sano's "Boqueton" which means Big Mouth. Bartolo Colon opted for a tribute to his late mother instead of "Big Sexy," I think he made the right choice.

The Players' Weekend (ok, I think I've covered all the possible iteration Players, Player's, and Players') was also a big series for Byron Buxton, who's absolutely crushed Blue Jay pitching in his young career. The ball was jumping off his bat on the Saturday game, when he hit 3 homers.

Around the same time as these cards, another Topps NOW gem arrived. Byron's been busy! I can't tell you how long it would take me to circle the bases, but I can pretty much promise you that 14 seconds would not be enough. Buxton absolutely burns up the basepaths, I don't think I've ever seen a baseball player run so fast before.

If At First You Don't Succeed . . .

. . . buy it online. So I dragged myself to two Walmarts this week, hoping to score some Bowman Platinum. Both places were sold out, but I had a back up plan already in place. My good friend, the Internet! I have been buying small lots of Twins from a seller on Facebook, and he let me know that he had a bunch of Bowman looking for a home.

Here's what the back of base cards look like, for those curious, nothing groundbreaking here. Similar to Finest.

Twins! Everybody wants the hits, but the base cards are all I was really looking to get.

Fernando! He's going to be called up soon to get his shot, I can feel it!

In addition to Bowman Platinum, there were some Twins-centric goods available. Max Kepler isn't a superstar, but he's speedy. He's a plus defender and has a sweet line drive swing that is still developing.

Miguel has continued to hit the ball hard after finishing second in the Home Run Derby, smashing two homers against the Yankees in the three game series at Target Field.

A Starter turned reliever, Tyler Duffey has been solid, eating up lots of needed innings for the Twins when their regular starters falter (which has been often this season).

And one more Romero for the road! This last one was found on eBay, it's serial numbered to 99 on the back.

Now Look What You've Done

Remember those Topps Now tears I talked about? Let's get those out of the way, shall we? Big Bart was the first time I went after a Topps Now Card. I ordered it direct from Topps, and I think a lot of people stopped there as it was by far the biggest seller of the year.  

But not me! I decided that I was going all in on Topps Now - which for me meant going after all the cards I personally wanted the most - I ordered Ichiro direct from Topps as well, the others I had to find on eBay. I couldn't let a sweet bat flip pass me by!

Here's the back of the Ichiro card, one of the few times the cards had something other than text on the back.

I am sucker. Plain and simple - but you know what? I don't regret any of these. Now that I figured out that I could get these cheaper if I ordered on eBay the same day they were released, I felt like I could justify the expense. At least a little bit. These are all great photos! I bet that at least two of these end up on regular issue cards in 2017, which makes me think I might regret paying for these in 2016...

This one was stupid. I got it because it was stupid, like why would they make this into a card? Sorry to those bloggers out there that hate this card.

And of course I had to chase the hometown Twins.

Max Kepler had several highlights in his rookie season, Sano had a bunch too. It was a lucky guess by Topps to release a card after Sano's 4th game in a row hitting a home run, and then not having the Gary Sanchez effect, in which the streak kept going and the cards kept coming - probably a bittersweet victory for Yankees collectors.

Mauer actually had two walk off wins in 2016, but apparently Topps didn't think a Walk Off Walk was exciting enough for its own card...

Dozier might not be in a Twins uniform by Opening Day 2017, but he sure made a ton of great memories in 2016. Buxton is just getting started - and this wasn't even his best catch of 2016!

I am about 99% sure I won't chase these cards as hard in 2017, it just adds up to a lot of money, even if you're getting the bulk price on eBay. I still think it's a fun idea, and I still think Topps missed out on a few moments, and had some boring photo selections at times.