Featured card: 2010 Topps Heritage Dan Haren Clubhouse Collection jersey

I received this jersey card of the Angels No. 2 starting pitcher from Greg at Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle - in exchange for the Panini Matt Kemp 'promo card' I pulled from this pack break.

When Greg expressed interest in the Kemp card - I think the Haren was the first card that caught my eye off his trade bait page that I thought might not be too hard to trade for.

Even though the card still pictures Haren in an Arizona Diamondbacks uniform - it is a nice looking card, even if Haren sort of looks unkempt rockin' the facial hair.

Featured autograph - Rick Stelmaszek

Minnesota Twins bullpen coach Rick Stelmaszek played for the Angels for part of a season in 1973 - he is among the obscure MLB players to pass through and play for the franchise, collecting 4 hits in 26 at-bats in 22 games as a catcher.

While I didn't have an actual card of his to sign, when the Twins played the Angels last week, I got him to sign a 2010 Topps Heritage Minnesota Twins team card - so I can add him to my Angels autograph collection.

Featured autograph - Josh Fellhauer

Bakersfield Blaze outfielder Josh Fellhauer doesn't actually appear on this 2010 Topps Heritage Cincinnati Reds team card - but he does currently play for the California League affiliate of the Reds, so I got him to sign the card earlier in the year.

As much as I'd like to have actual player cards for guys I'm getting autographs of - sometimes stocking up on team cards or something fairly generic [but not something 'blank' because professional baseball players don't like to sign those] is something I need to do, so I can something signed when I couldn't find and/or pick up a card of a particular player in time.

32 card rookie lot purchase recap - some highlights

2011 Topps Mark Trumbo #57

2011 Topps Platinum Diamond parallel Mark Trumbo #57

2011 Topps Hank Conger #285

2011 Topps Kyle Drabek #70

2011 Topps Platinum Diamond parallel Kyle Drabek #70

I picked up a 32 card lot of 2011 Topps / 2011 Topps Heritage rookies [$4 shipped] - I didn't know what I was getting, but it wasn't a bad lot with five Angels cards and several other 'rookie stars' included.

2011 Topps Platinum Diamond parallel Brian Bogusevic #88
2011 Topps Greg Halman #83
2011 Topps Brian Bogusevic #87 x2
2011 Topps Lucas May #91
2011 Topps Ben Revere #99
2011 Topps Aroldis Chapman #110
2011 Topps Brett Sinkbeil #117
2011 Topps Lucas Duda #129
2011 Topps Jeremy Jeffress #143
2011 Topps Freddie Freeman #145
2011 Topps Jeremy Hellickson #165
2011 Topps Jose Ceda #196
2011 Topps Brandon Snyder #213
2011 Topps Lars Anderson #254
2011 Topps Jake McGee #268
2011 Topps Scott Cousins #287
2011 Topps Darren Ford #292
2011 Topps Brent Morel #322
2011 Topps Heritage Corey Luebke #69
2011 Topps Heritage Sinkbeil #131
2011 Topps Heritage Jordan Walden #194
2011 Topps Heritage Bogusevic #204
2011 Topps Heritage Ceda #266
2011 Topps Heritage Eric Sogard #348
2011 Topps Heritage Trumbo #404
2011 Topps Heritage Jarrod Dyson #414

2010 Topps Heritage review

2010 Topps Heritage Jhoulys Chacin #292

I've only really picked up four retail rack packs of Topps Heritage and this featured card, though looking through the cards I pulled - I'm ambivalent over this year's base cards. 

The images on the base cards seems washed out to the point of being ideal for a blue Sharpie autograph - but simply being too boring and gloomy [unlike 2009 Topps Heritage, where I thought the images were brighter and the card graphics popped out].

For some reason, I like the card backs featuring a greyback card stock with a dark two-tone green/black colors - it makes me wonder if this was how the original cards were, when they first came out of packs back in 1961.

Perhaps not, but there is still a novelty I associate with perusing the backs because there seems to be a lot of things to digest - the text / statistics are simply hard to read, but it fascinates me how Topps manages to lay out the back with so many different things including the card number, the player's name, team, position, bio, a blurb, stats and a cartoon as well.