The Summer of PWEs

Holy moly. This summer is going fast.

For being stuck at home, the summer is sure finding a way to move quickly, as most summers do. I expected this one to drag, but here were are, mid-August.

Since it's really been the summer of PWEs, I thought I'd show off a few that have tricked in over the last few weeks.

Coach Tom sent a good one with a few different fun cards. The highlight for me was this Aaron Judge Syracuse Orange parallel from Big League.

A few other Big Leaguers. I love getting Gerrit Cole Yankee cards!

A couple Tinos! The diecut Retrospectives is a sweet design. I love the colors, too.

And as he tends to do, Tom sent me a few HOFers for my sons binder!

Thanks, Coach!

Kerry from Cards on Cards hit me up with a good PWE as well. I always like his, as they tend to be a mixture of Yankees and Knicks.

I wish the Knicks were in the Bubble since Kevin Knox cards would be worth like $50 a pop if he had a good game.

I like this CC from Big League, as well. Why didn't Topps give him a tribute card in flagship? That seems like an odd omission when a future HOFer hangs 'em up, right?

And finally a quick swap from Bru! I like the Defensive Wizards insert set as well. Players in outer space always goes over well with me.

I hope a lot of stuff from Covid time goes away, but I hope the PWE momentum continues to stay.

A little Big League

On Friday night, I was fortunate enough to join a 2-box break of 2020 Topps Big League hosted by Colbey at Cardboard Connections. Today, I was able to open my own blaster.

I've been ordering blasters on Amazon with regular success. I usually have to pay $3-4 more than the suggested $19.99 price tag, but it beats schlepping 15 minutes to Target only to find zero cards. I'd rather just spend the extra few bucks and let it come to my doorstep. Plus, coronavirus could be at Target.

After enjoying Colbey's break, I decided I'm ready to like 2020 Big League. Not much else needs to be said about the design. Simple and classic. 2009 Upper Deck OPC has definitely been thrown out, and I agree with that. This year's is so much better than last year's mess! Leaps and bounds. Not close. I know many liked it, and that's fine. You do you, people. I was not one of them. I thought it was putrid and a big step backward from 2018.

Trash design.

But that's every set and part of the fun of collecting. One year the design can stink. The next, it can be really good. Or somewhere in between. And even when it stinks as bad as 2019, plenty of people still like it. Different tastes. I liked 2016 and 2017 Bunt, you didn't! It's ok to not all like the same thing, you know?

I thought the inserts and parallels were both done better this year, as well. Colbey called the one-per-pack orange parallels "safety orange." And I think that's a good assessment. As a Syracuse grad, give me more orange. I'll never say no to orange. I love the brightness, especially.

The one-per-blaster blue pack didn't yield much, but give me a little more Syracuse orange and blue when I put them next to each other.

As for the inserts, well done, Topps.

The Caricatures look a lot better in 2020, I think. A little less weird, and the cards are a bit fuller.

Here was 2019. Not totally different, but a little less weird. I think the team logos in the back help.

Roll Call is a good-looking set as well with a big old last name taking up most of the card. It reminds of these old Pacific cards, although in design alone with the giant name behind the player. Even though I like this set, it shouldn't be put anywhere near my Pacific pedestal. Enough of that nonsense. My fault.

Flipping Out is really fun, memorializing all of those disgusting bat flips today's players tend to do. We might even see more of them with twice the amount of DHs now. The horror. I was lucky enough to pull Aaron Judge from my packs. Colbey pulled Aaron Hicks for me too. I am happy about his inclusion because he has some great bat flips. Actually, they are more like bat drops. But they have a lot of swagger. He drops the bat like Bonds did.

Defensive Wizards are a lot more cartoony than I realized, although I don't have a problem with that. They are very neat cards. I didn't look at the checklist to see if they actually kept it to really well-regarded defensive players, but Gio Urshela is in the set, so it's good in my book. They would have looked great with some '90s foil!

Going back to the base for a second, I wasn't prepared for the backs all having a different color, which is a nice touch. For all you card-graders, be careful. The backs are very chip-prone.

My one real complaint about the set is how many tri-cards there are. Holy hell are, every other card felt like it was a league leader of some sorts. Doubles, Walks, IP, and on and on. That part of the set feels a little tedious. They aren't bad looking. They are just plentiful.

One thing Colbey's hobby boxes didn't have is the cutout card on the side of the box. I guess a downside to Amazon is that I couldn't choose who I got. Annoyingly, I got Miguel Cabrera, but will send it over to Scribbled Ink.

Solid effort by Topps Big League, and a breath of fresh air from an uninspiring flagship and the craziness of Bowman.

Contest winnings from Padrographs

I've been a bit slow to post about some great card packages that came this spring, and my sincerest apologies to those who sent, namely Rod and Kerry!

The first I'll get to is Rod's from Padrographs, so Kerry's cards will have to wait for another day, although they are finally scanned. Rod held a contest, which ended up being a card draft of sorts. Here's the card I chose from the list:

There was no huge reason I chose this card. I picked towards the end of the list, and out of what was available, a numbered card of a team's Top 30 prospect seemed the way to go. According to MLB.com pipeline, Pavin Smith is Arizona's 15th best prospect, and is currently in AA ball.

Rod, being the generous dude he is, also sent some awesome Yankees.

This is the first 2019 Topps Total card I've received. This is a red parallel (I assume!), numbered to just 10. Luckily this card didn't have surface peeling like a lot of the ones I've seen.

Probably the coolest card - if you can call it that - is this card/coin combo of Aaron Judge from Baseball Treasure. It's cool, and puts those old Pinnacle Coin cards to shame. The Judge replica is pretty good, as well. What a unique card!

Speaking of Judge, here are a couple others that were new to me, both from last year's Big League.

While I've made it known I'm not the biggest Big League fan, I am happy to have these two Gleyber Torres cards anyways, especially with the 2018 being his rookie. He gets overshadowed a lot, but he's a special player and I'll take any of his RCs.

And another RC:

I liked this Grapefruit League insert as well. I thought the 2019 Series One Spring Training inserts were some of the better inserts this year, you know, for a 2019 set since none of them have good inserts anymore. I thought the designs were nice, but I wish they were less flat and could have used some shiny or sparkles or foil. But the concept was decent and the cards looked pretty great compared to the other inserts.

I think, although am not certain, that this is my first Paxton card as a Yankee. He's been pretty "meh" this season, but better as of late. The potential is there, but his control hasn't been good. He has a bad knee and that could be affecting him. Still, I like that he has the ability to shut down a lineup on any given night, I just hope we see it more!

Lastly, this is one of my very favorite Yankee cards, and I always smile when I get one.

Rod also included a 1986 Fleer pack. In addition to having the wrapper, which I still use for my various arts and crafts, here was the best card:

Thanks for the awesome package, Rod!

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!