Miss you, Dellin

One of the many. many things missing this baseball season for me is Dellin Betances in a Yankees uniform.

Dellin was a homegrown player who took quite a while to develop, but eventually became a 4x All-Star reliever. His career was a bit up and down, and the injury bug found him a few times as well. But when Dellin was going right - as John Sterling often reminds us - he was one of the best in the game.

Betances is a now a Met. which makes it even worse. He's also been injured, but he's pitched a few times against the Yankees. It was odd to see.

I didn't realize how much I missed him until this card showed up from Oscar aka Stealing Home over at All Trade Bait All The Time.

I have never counted my Dellin autos, but I must be in the teens somewhere (thanks to ZZ). It's a nice card, and a nice reminder of a guy who was a great Yankee for a while and didn't really get a proper goodbye or welcome back.

Oscar also threw in a nice assortment of Yanks, including something you don't see every day in card packages: Topps Embossed!

I also really liked this Score Summit Andy Pettitte. The gold team label always stood out to me.

Here's a few of the other goodies:

Thanks, Oscar!

Delayed zapping

Back around the holidays, Zippy Zappy zapped the sh*t out of me. I've been meaning to post about it, but just haven't gotten around to it, but it has finally been scanned and organized a bit on my end.

He sent a massive flat-rate box, not only of Yankee cards, but other odds and ends, liked signed baseballs, a bobble head, game programs, a foam finger, and some Stranger Things cards. It truly was an awesome gesture, and the entertainment value of going through all of this was just as high in value as some of the cards and items that were sent.

In a way, the package was also a bit sad, as much of it represented to me what Zippy used to be all about, or signified the end of various Yankee eras. One of those eras was the end of Dellin Betances' time as a Yankee. Zippy collected him fairly hard for a while, although even before signing elsewhere, he had started to disperse of his Dellin collection, sending me a few autographs over the years. 

In this instance, ZZ provided me with a bobble head, signed ball, and what I assume is the last remaining bit of his card collection.

I don't have many signed balls, but this will certainly go amongst the ones I do have.

Also guys like Austin Romine and Frankie Cervelli showed up, catchers who have now moved on to (sometimes) greener pastures.

I mentioned Stranger Things. I'm a big fan of the show, although never purchased any of the cards. Well, I know have the set. I'm not sure what to do with it yet. I sort of think I want to mount it to big wooden board of some kind versus bindering it up.

I also appreciated all of the minor league sets that were sent. I don't get much access to these, so I really enjoy getting them.

Plus, how cool are these?

As usual, ZZ just doesn't send cards in team bags. That would be boring. He makes custom repacks!

These can include awesome hits, like these:

Vintage like these:

Or non-sports cards like these:

(Hockey joke, sorry). I feel like the Zuccarello was sent because I went to Zac's return game at MSG?

But mostly the packs are just full of fun cards like these.

ZZ, as always, thank you for being so generous all the time.

The Torrens Fan Club strikes again

Out of nowhere, the Luis Torrens Fan Club struck me with a PWE, mere days after previously sending one. I wasn't prepared.

Zippy Zappy has been Zion AD hunting, and looks like he had a few leftover 2019-20 NBA cards he sent my way. Hmmm. He shoved a very lot of them into a single PWE:

A mixture of Hoops and Donruss. Some good names too! My favorite card is probably the Malcolm Brogdon, because it reminds me of the time Malachi Richardson made him look foolish in the Elite 8.

Oh yeah, this was shoved in there too. Just an autograph of an All-Star. Dellin makes me sad in 2020.

Thanks for the PWE, ZZ. I sent one earlier in the week to him, which probably means I have about 20 more coming my way.

Player collectors looking out for one another

There are a few player collectors on the blogs who are dominant in their respective field. P Town Tom with Vogelmonster. Zippy with Torrens. Junior Junkie with Griffey. Collecting Cutch with McCutchen. There are countless others I'm not mentioning, but we all know the plight to try and track down all cards of one's chosen player.

My favorite player retired 14 years ago, and it's still incredibly hard to track down his cards. However, often it's my fellow player collectors who help me out the most.

Recently, Brian of Collecting Cutch sent me a few cards out of the blue. Included in the package were these:

True, I did have the '89 Redemption, but I did redeem it to receive a second Tino buyback auto (still no update there). But the 2016 Panini Prime Cuts auto, numbered to just 10? One I needed and really appreciate!

Brian is always looking out for me, and he mentioned to me that when he buys a few Cutch cards from a seller, he'll often take a peek at what else the seller has, and usually searched for Tino as one of the guys he looks for.

I found that to be a very touching gesture, and really appreciate that Brian goes out of his way to do that. He's sent me far more Tino cards than I have sent him of Cutch, and I hope one day to pull or stumble across a very rare McCutchen so that I can properly thank him.

Brian also sent me a few Cutch cards (always appreciated), and a cool Giancarlo Stanton custom from the World Baseball Classic. The design looks like it's from the Rookies App.

Last but not least, a sweet RC Red Refractor of Dellin Betances. The card is amazing looking in person, as the scan didn't do it justice.

Player collecting is a bond of sorts, and guys like Brian really help make the battle worth it!

Cards on Cards saves me a lot of time

First off, before getting into the post below, I have seen a few bloggers do this so I'll join the party. I've admittedly been less than stellar over the past year about sending out cards and return packages. My collection is a little unorganized, and instead of diving in, some nights I just ignore it. It feels daunting to go and pull cards for people from the heaping piles of cards I need to find a place for.

So if I owe you cards, or feel you haven't gotten a return package from me, please feel free to shoot me an email or Twitter DM. I try to keep up and make mental notes, but I'm sure I've missed a few. This would never be intentional, so if you're waiting on something or just feel like I should reciprocate a package or two, please drop me a line!

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Someone who I always feel like I owe cards to is Kerry from Cards on Cards. He always sends me a ton of Yankees and Knicks, and I can never keep up. I do have a large stack of Blazers and Cardinals set aside for him, but I have to get my act together and send before the holidays.

A few weeks back, I got an unexpected mailer from Kerry. I didn't buy many new cards over the summer, as the releases were happening faster than I could keep up. Plus, my Target never restocked cards.

So out of nowhere, this package showed up with a ton of Yankees needs from 2018 sets I didn't buy. It saved me a ton of time (and $) not having to hunt down many of these cards and sets. Where to begin?

I'll start with a <fire emoji> set: Topps Fire. These cards are cool, but I've never seen them at Target. Happy to have a few!

Next I'll go with Big League. I'm still torn on this set. Overall, I liked it, but would have rather had year 3 of Bunt. The Severino is a numbered parallel to just 100.

I got some Topps Chrome Update last week, but didn't get any regular ol' Chrome. The Judge pink (or purple?) is so cool. And I can't say enough about how much I love the 1983 Chrome Refractors. Holy crap are these nice. Nicest cards of 2018. Don't @ me.

There was a healthy stack of Heritage as well. The Stanton/Judge card is a 2018 favorite of mine.

I love this card, as I have fond memories of collecting the '93 set. I do wish they made actual gold name versions of these (as far as I know they didn't).

Here are a few more cards that stuck out to me. The Dellin diecut is too cool.

There was plenty more, but as you can see, Kerry really helped me check off a ton of 2018 Yanks I didn't have. Thanks, Kerry!