Just Kidding On That Not Wanting Anymore Bowman Chrome Thing I Said

“It seems my hypocrisy knows no bounds.”  Doc Holliday-  Well, not really Doc Holliday, but Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone.  I don’t know if the real Doc Holliday ever actually said this, but the quote is apropos to my post.

I think I may have recently implied that 2012 Bowman Chrome was a rip off.  At least the blaster I got kind of was, even though it had an autograph and the base cards in each pack were 100% refractors.  Even with that, it was still a measly 24 cards for $20 and I wasn’t thrilled with it.

I vowed to not buy anymore.  However, later that night I watched Chris Olds open some rack packs online that contained the green retail parallels and thought, “you know, those green refractors are pretty cool.”

You know what?  The green parallels are pretty cool, and I have some to prove it as I completely flip flopped and bought a couple of rack packs:

I also got an auto:

Again, someone I am completely unfamiliar with, but I’ll take it.

In my defense, I won a $50 gift card at work last week and used that to pay for the cards.  AND I might add I gave the remainder of the card to the lovely wife.   When I gave it to her,  I was hoping she would say something like “No, my sweet handsome husband.  You keep it.  I want you to have it.  You can go back to Walmart and spend the rest right after our steak dinner with mushrooms and roasted asparagus and fresh chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  I’ll put the kids down by myself while you shop for cards, and when you get back we can watch the MLB network and then I’ll show you what I bought at Victoria’s Secret today.”

But that didn’t happen and she still has the gift card.

2011 Topps Finest

I certainly can't afford to open boxes of Topps Finest, but I still like the product.  Recently singles from the set became available on sportlots.com, and I picked up a few to see if I wanted to build a base set.  There are a a good amount of the base cards for $.18 each on sportlots.com if you are interested.  Here was my first sampling of Finest 2011:

 Stantons and Strasburgs at $.18 each are hard to pass up.. of course I needed 3 of each.

No, my two year old daughter didn't set these up on the scanner for me.  These things were hard to line up.  Not only are they slick, these cards curl, and pretty aggressively too.  Right up there with 2010 Topps Chrome as a frame of reference, which is a little disappointing for a premium set.  I don't think I like them as much as 2010 Finest, but they are pretty nice looking.  I'll likely pass on building the set, but if I see a good, cheap starter lot on eBay I may change my mind.

Big Fun Game Pick #2

With the second pick, Matt declines to steal and chooses door #3:

2010 Bowman Stephen Strasburg

Cardanathema is next and can steal either of the two prizes that have been claimed or can choose from the remaining doors 1,2,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,12

Wax Wednesday... late again

Yet another business trip interferes with my favorite thing to do in life: opening baseball cards….. I MEAN HANGING OUT WITH MY FAMILY!   Even a short overnight trip leaves me homesick for the Mrs. and the babies.   I think I’m done with travel for a short while now thankfully.     

Recently, before my stupid decision to give up buying cards for Lent, I opened two rack packs of 2011 Heritage, and 1 of the $10 special boxes of Topps 2011 from Wal-Mart.  I don’t know what they are called, but they have 72 cards and a special “Blue Sapphire” insert.  Here are the highlights:

No hits on the Heritage, but I’m happy with the Strasburg, Hellickson, Posey and Pujols.  I’m leaning toward not building this set and using these as trade bait.    Of course, by now I have about 1/3 of the set, so maybe I’ll trudge through it.  I’m sure everyone is dying to know what I’ll do.

Nice box on the 2011 Topps:   Matt Holiday bat card, Heyward Sapphire insert and Pujols, Stanton and Chapman base cards.    Plus a card of Cliff Lee (Razorbacks) in Rangers uniform.