2017 Bowman Platinum fat pack breaks

I hadn't seen these Walmart exclusive cards all year long and I assumed the display box put out in the card section with a set number of fat packs, value boxes and collector's boxes - were either wiped out as soon as they were stocked on the shelvesor just never made it to the few Walmarts I kept hitting up.

People who looked to resell on eBay saw Bowman Platinum as the equivalent of 2017 Bowman Mega Boxes available at Target - especially when the Mega Boxes were pulled due to some undisclosed 'snafu' and were hard to find.

Bowman Platinum are nice looking cards because they are shiny and modern but not quite the definitive product collectors chase year after year - however the Aaron Judge / Cody Bellinger rookie hype drove current year products to new heights as far as demand.

On a random Walmart stop, I finally saw a couple of loose packs - people may have moved on already, but I still hadn't seen this year's cards up close, so I had to get the two lousy packs in my grubby hands.

Pack one
#49 Giancarlo Stanton
#41 Andrew McCutchen
#66 Craig Kimbrel
#40 Jon Lester
#72 Alex Reyes
#62 Reynaldo Lopez

#RR-AJ Aaron Judge - Rookie Radar insert

#TP-BR Blake Rutherford - Exclusive Prospect card
#TP-ZC Zack Collins
#TP-AK Alex Krilloff
#TP-VR Victor Robles

#TP-JJO Jahmai Jones

Pack two
#51 Matt Strahm
#24 Trevor Story
#10 Aledmys Diaz
#48 Freddie Freeman
#15 Gregory Polanco
#53 Nolan Arenado
#RR-JC Jharel Cotton - Rookie Radar insert
#TP-JJ Joe Jimenez - Exclusive Prospect card
#TP-RR Raudy Read
#TP-FW Forrest Whitley
#TP-KT Kyle Tucker
#TP-MKO Michael Kopech

TTM autographs received: Mike Krukow

The longtime broadcaster for the San Francisco Giants signed my cards in several months - Krukow's career in the booth with partner Duane Kuiper and dealing with a condition called IBM is detailed in-depth in this ESPN story I stumbled upon through Krukow's page on Wikipedia.

TTM autographs received: David West

The former big league lefty signed my cards in several months - he had his best run in parts of 4 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, where he appeared in 122 games and struck out 217 batters in 251.2 innings.

I guess I knew of him as a rank-and-file guy who pitched through the junk wax era - so he was someone whose cards seemed to always kind of 'just there' through the masses of random baseball cards produced from 1986-1992.

TTM autographs received: Greg Harris

The former MLB pitcher signed my cards in a couple of weeks - besides having a 15 year career, Harris' most notable big league quirk was being able to pitch with both arms.

TTM autographs received: Xavier Hernandez

The former big league reliever signed my cards in about 10 days - rather than just being some sort of chicken scratch scrawl, I like how his autograph is a little more distinctive.

TTM autographs received: Byung-Ho Park

The Korean slugger signed my three cards in black Sharpie in about a couple of weeks - I'd seen successes with him through the past year and wanted to send my cards off before the minor league season ended.

Despite considerable success back in Korea, Park has languished in the United States, posting underwhelming numbers - if the Minnesota Twins cut ties with Park, who knows if he ever gets another opportunity to play for a big league team.

Justin Upton and Brandon Phillips

After sweeping the Oakland Athletics to salvage a homestand that had them fall short against the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros - the Angels picked up couple of veterans for the team's September push to get into the Wild Card game.

While Angels lost speedy outfielder Cameron Maybin to the Astros - picking up Upton gives the Angels the middle of the order bat to complement Mike Trout.

Phillips should give the Angels a boost at second base for the last month of the season - he's simply an immediate upgrade over the likes of Kaleb Cowart and Cliff Pennington, still putting up the solid, dependable batting numbers with some athleticism left after playing in 16 seasons in the big leagues.