Pay attention and stick to singles, stupid

For the most part, I don't pay much attention to a lot of the custom sets Topps sells exclusively online. These are mostly the Throwback Thursday or other curated sets, whether from athletes, artists, or influencers.

However, my interest was piqued when I saw that Derek Jeter was curating a 52-card set. I got the email, flipped through the checklist, and saw that there were two Tino Martinez cards. For a $19.99 price tag, I was in.

Or so I thought. I clearly just did not read the product description carefully. I thought my $19.99 purchase was giving me a 52-card boxed set.

It wasn't.

It was getting me one 10-card pack of the Topps x Derek Jeter set. ONE PACK!

By the time the realization was made, it was too late. I had clicked purchase. I should have known from the get-go. Outside of maybe a blaster or a hanger, when can you ever get anything like a full set from Topps for $20? I don't know, I just thought I was getting a small set from them. It was honestly a case of just believing what I wanted without clearly reading the description. A stupid mistake, and I was entirely at fault.

I'm not blaming Topps. I'm blaming me. Another sucker.

So I waited, but I wasn't very excited for it to arrive. My silver lining was that maybe I would get an autograph, which fell 1:12 packs. Not too outlandish. That would ease the sting. Or maybe I'd get a low numbered parallel or something. Maybe fate would give me a Tino 1/1 or something. There are cardboard gods, right?

Maybe this mistake would turn into a happy accident! 

It's didn't.

My pack arrived last week, and this was the fruit of my $20.

First, the box is nice. Props for that. I wish the cards looked like that, actually.

Here's how the pack was wrapped. It looked like a mini pop tart.

And here are ALL ten of my cards at two bucks a pop.

Yeah. 

The first card was a David Ortiz, so I was pretty doomed off the bat. No fancy parallel. No autograph. No Tino.

It's not entirely all bad. The two Jeters are cool. Mattingly is cool. Backwards hat Bernie is cool. Sweet Ichiro too. Even the Tim Raines is pretty cool warming up for a game.

But man, for $20? I could have bought something much better. As many around these parts say, stick to singles and buying exactly what you want.

I know better.

I've already picked up the Tino cards for about $2 a piece, and one has already come:

I should have done that from the start. Read carefully, everyone.

Pacific even had a strong checklist game

I've mentioned a bunch how much I love the Pacific brand of cards. More so the late '90s Pacific versus the early '90s stuff, bit it's all good stuff in my book.

Growing up, I sort of looked at them as a second-tier brand. Most probably did as well. Most still do. For me, that started to change with some of their incredible looking insert sets later in the decade.

One that was really hard for me to chase down for some reason was the 1998 Pacific Invincible Checklist. This was an insert card that featured five(!) players, with Tino front and center. He's joined on the front by Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams, although Tino is the focal point after coming off his 1997 AL MVP runner up campaign.

The back has shots of staff ace Andy Pettitte, as well as Mariano Rivera. I'm surprised Paul O'Neill or Hideki Irabu didn't make it on this card, but there's only so much space.

What's cool about this checklist is that it's a full team checklist, from base cards to insert cards. They pack a lot of punch onto one card between five players and the full team checklist. It's a pretty great idea, if you ask me. I've never been one to like checklists, so something like this appeals to me more than a standard card listing names with check boxes. 

I'm not sure why this card was hard to pick up. I think I actually have it somewhere but didn't have it marked as a "have", so I snagged it (again) when it popped up for a low price.

Waffle House does not have Pancakes

In 2017, I was on a short trip with my son, and he wanted pancakes for breakfast.

Right near our hotel was a Waffle House, so we went there. I figure they'd have pancakes. Guess what?

I was wrong.

I know, I know. That was stupid move by me. It's called WAFFLE House. I know that was an idiotic move by me. But I figured they must have pancakes too. After all, you can get waffles at IHOP. That was my rationale. It's a breakfast joint. Sure they specialize in waffles, but I fully expected regular old pancakes to be buried on the menu somewhere.

They weren't. Lesson learned.

He ended up eating a waffle with a heaping side of bacon. But I still felt dumb. I'm sure I could have found a diner or a Denny's or something. But I took my kid to get pancakes at a place known for waffles. I hope he grows up to be smarter than me.

I don't know why, but when my latest mail day from Wes aka the Pancake King came, I immediately thought of that story and laughed to myself.

Wes offered a mega trade-athon on Twitter where he offered up amazing card after amazing card. He truly did. I claimed five cards - the max - and they were quite a mixture. I still owe Wes a return package, which I'll get mailed out soon, buddy. I promise.

To me, two PINK cards were the crown jewel of my claim:

Look at those rookie studs! The Chase Young Leaf Draft autograph was claimed early on before anyone was paying attention, I think. It's numbered just 7/7 for the 2nd overall pick behind Joe Burrow in the 2020 NFL Draft.

The pink Zion is cool too, and definitely my best Zion RC. I know he's not the hottest card in town anymore, although I think he'll have a decent year 2 because I don't think anyone will be hot enough in the NBA's next rookie class, and that includes LaMelo Ball.

The next card I claimed was a Bernie Williams bat card from Panini. Nice relic of a great Yankee.

The last cards I claimed came after the fact, as I checked out what was left, and landed on these two:

A relic of The Mailman is a cool item to add to the collection. Bol Bol got hot for a while after a scrimmage(!) in Orlando, but I didn't get this card to iNvEsT. My buddy is an Oregon fan so I snagged this for him.

Wes, thanks buddy. The event was amazing, and another reminder of why you're one of the most generous out there.

Finally Bernie

If I ever scale down my collection, which I really hope to do, I want to make sure some of the cards left are guys that mean something to me. If I was left with one or two boxes of cards, I'd rather be left with a few nice autographs and vintage cards.

One guy that meant a lot to me growing up was Bernie Williams. Often overshadowed, he was never a main collecting focus. I liked getting Bernie cards, but I didn't go out of my way to get them.

The first jersey I ever got, in 6th grade, was a mesh Bernie batting practice jersey. The only reason I got it was because the Champs Sports I was in at the mall was out of Jeter and Tino.

However, in time I've really appreciated Bernie's career, and the fact that the Yankees don't win in '96, '98, '99, '00 without him. He was a steady force in the middle of the lineup and in CF.

I do have one alleged autograph of Bernie Williams. It was a TTM from about 2006 or 2007. He signed a lot at the time, although there were many rumors it might have been a ghost signer. So honestly, I'm not sure and have always looked at that autograph with a side eye.

With Bernie autographs popping up more and more with recent Topps releases, I decided to finally get one for about the price of a blaster box:

I like the '99 Topps design and seeing Bernie on a card design from when he played, despite the fact that this was a 2019 release. It felt right. Plus the autograph is on-card, which I like even more.

I hope to make more pickups like this over the next few years, and start to stash away my long-term keepers. This is definitely one of them.

Catching up with A Cracked Bat

I am close to finally cleaning out my scanned folder, and here's a post I've been meaning to get to. Over the summer, Julie from A Cracked Bat was kind enough to send me a great bubble mailer full of Yankees. Julie's packages are always great and are always full of cards I didn't have - new and old!

I was most surprised by the 1994 O-Pee-Chee cards in there. I honestly have never seen this set! I'm not surprised at all they exist, just for whatever reason I never came across them. Probably because Tino wasn't included in 1994 for some reason?

Gary Sanchez cards were plentiful too. I really like this Museum Collection card, as Julie is known to include cards from some of the higher end products. The Refractor looks great as well! For whatever reason, I feel like 2018 Refractors looked a lot better than years past.

Another card I really enjoyed was Yankees Old Timers Day insert. I mean, just look at Matsui's flow in the picture! It's amazing!

I think I've gotten some Tips Fire in about three or four of the last packages I've received. Since I found zero Fire this year, I'm very cool with this development.

Stadium Club was pretty nice this year, and these were two great Yankees to snag from the set.

Lastly, this was a fun card: a Jose Campos ONYX autograph. I actually couldn't tell if the silver was a real or pre-printed autograph, but I found a few copies of the card online and the signature differed in each one, so indeed, it'a an autograph! Neat looking card!

Julie, thanks for always keeping me on your list of trading partners!

Christmas in May and posting in June

I was also on the receiving end of Johnny's Trading Spot's generous Christmas in May offerings. With Johnny currently running a Big Fun Game, I felt like I should try and post from the great package he sent me before more cards from him show up on my doorstep.

I forgot to get a picture of it, but I enjoy how John wraps his card packages in newsprint.

I'll start with two Tino Martinez cards. I needed both of these. The Topps 2000 is an HTA version...Home Team Advantage, which I guess was exclusive to Hobby. The Upper Deck Amazing Greats is an awesome clearcut. I thought I had it, but I only had the more rare silver diecut version, so this was a very welcome surprise. Plus I love clearcuts.

And these two equal Tino cards #849 and 850! Nice, round number.

I don't even know where to start with the rest of the cards, so I'll show an adorable Pacific Card-supials Alfonso Soriano.

Zippy Zappy showed some of the minor leaguers John sent, so here's the lot included in my package.

Bernie Williams is pretty underrated in the hobby, but he had a LOT of cards in the late 90s and early 00s. John sent no shortage of Bernie cards, many of them very bright and shiny.

The Crown Royale proof card was interesting. It's paper thin!

I had never seen this card from Fleer - a Grassroots insert. The lemon-line green and yellow look awesome in person. Great color combo.

This card stuck out to me as interesting. First, I love that "Flash" Gordon was used. Then Topps photoshopped him into his new Phillies uniform, but then didn't change the team name from Yankees. Oops!

Here is a great minor league Righetti at its finest. Remarkable card!

And a few other fun cards.

John, thanks so very much!

Sometimes red ink is ok

I remember being a student and getting a paper or test returned. A lack of red ink usually meant I did pretty well. The more red ink, the worse it was going to be. I remember a biology test once where it looked like my teacher cleaned up a murder scene with my paper.

But there are times when red ink can be ok. In fact, it can signify an A+. In this instance, this is my first red ink autograph of anytime, and it comes to me courtesy of Collecting Cutch:

Look at that beaut! That is a card I've wanted for a long time. The red ink as part of a Team USA card makes it even cooler in my opinion.

Equally as cool for me is a card I never thought I'd find, let alone own. This is when relics were still pretty new, and having three star members of the Yankees on one? Good luck. It's still a hard card to locate, and I'm not sure how Mr. Cutch tracked one down and sent it my way.

Part of me thinks Brian (the mastermind behind Collecting Cutch) looks out for me because I'm a fellow player collector, but I know he's helped my collection far more than I've helped his.

He also sent me a few cool Yankee cards. This card stuck out to me. Is Clemens about to throw the bat at Piazza here, only to be blocked out by the Upper Deck Vintage logo???

Also, the back tells me Tino had three hits! Cool. I don't remember that.

A Stanton base card! This are still new and rare and exciting to me. It's my second after Heritage.

A few more from 2018, including a rookie of Miguel Andujar. He has 9 hits this year, and 6 have gone for extra bases. Once he settles in, he's going to be a good one.

Oh, and this guy is really good too. Just gets better by the game, it seems.

Brian, this was a beyond generous card package, with two big old whales I never thought I'd get. Thank you!