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.

2015 Topps Archives Kole Calhoun #158

In addition to a 2012 Topps Update Gold parallel [#US157] I already had, this was the second card of Calhoun I was able to add to my frankenset - he's not quite a star, but as an overachieving ginger, Calhoun is a fan favorite among the non-Mike Trout category of current Angels players.

Though Calhoun plays in a different era and for a different organization - he's kind of like Rusty Greer lite.

2015 Topps Archives blaster recap

I impulsively picked up a couple of blaster boxes [the other was 2015 Topps Gypsy Queen] even though I'd already put them back on the shelves once as I went to the check out counter - I had figured with other things going on, none of the cards I might pull would fit anything I'm trying to do and would only add to the card clutter I've hoarded and otherwise mismanaged.

As is, I should have gone with my better judgement and left the blasters where I found them in the card section - the cutesy Archives inserts are missing from years past and I'm also vaguely aware that the short prints are harder to pull.

Pulling mostly base cards, I didn't care how thin the card stock was and the cards look fine - maybe I can't be making snap judgements busting only one retail box, but I felt like these should probably be $10 blasters i.e. like 2015 Topps Opening Day.

Pack one
#248 Catfish Hunter
#66 Dalton Pompey
#192 Matt Barnes
#WF-2 Will Ferrell - Seattle Mariners
#175 Masahiro Tanaka
#211 Kenley Jansen
#33 Oswaldo Arcia
#134 Duke Snider
#213 Brooks Robinson
#35 Eddie Murray

Pack two
#261 Gary Brown

#82 Buster Posey - I just like this card, so I posted a picture of it.
#155 Brian Dozier

#109 Steven Moya - Silver parallel serial #'d 198/199
#173 Ryan Zimmerman
#267 Nick Castellanos
#61 Tanner Roark
#197 Bob Lemon
#214 Orlando Cepeda
#43 Alcides Escobar

Pack three
#232 Carlos Gomez
#74 Devin Mesoraco
#129 Drew Smiley
#188 Yoenis Cespedes
#298 Trevor Rosenthal
#25 Yasiel Puig
#195 Adrian Beltre
#272 Adrian Gonzalez
#89 C.J. Wilson
#116 Carlos Carrasco

Pack four
#277 Edwin Encarnacion
#67 Jose Altuve
#142 Khris Davis
#274 Jose Reyes
#187 Matt Harvey
#292 David Ortiz
#8 Jayson Werth
#210 Carlos Santana
#28 Elvis Andrus
#120 Felix Hernandez

Pack five
#86 Mookie Betts
#118 Ryan Braun
#270 Nelson Cruz

#PC-GF Gerald Ford - Presidential Chronicles insert
#199 Joey Votto
#290 Jason Kipnis
#73 Ian Desmond
#245 Garrett Richards
#44 Jonathan Lucroy
#102 Ken Giles

Pack six
#59 Yadier Molina
#176 Zack Wheeler
#203 Yu Darvish
#164 Aroldis Chapman
#260 Andrelton Simmons
#15 Jason Rogers
#190 Daniel Norris
#291 Jose Bautista
#27 Lorenzo Cain
#183 Matt Shoemaker

Pack seven
#64 Shin-Soo Choo
#174 Trevor Bauer
#265 Starlin Castro
#21 Billy Hamilton
#208 Cory Spangenberg
#58 Bruce Sutter
#124 Phil Rizzuto
#242 Manny Machado
#95 Pablo Sandoval
#113 Salvador Perez

Pack eight
#140 Austin Jackson
#257 Andrew McCutchen
#68 Aaron Sanchez
#207 Fergie Jenkins
#69 Nomar Garciaparra
#179 Frank Robinson
#243 Phil Hughes
#46 Tyson Ross
#194 Yusmeiro Petit
#216 Wil Myers

2015 Topps Archives Will Ferrell #WF-3

I picked up the Angels themed insert card of a comedian who can probably buy an island or two because he makes a living acting like an imbecil plenty of times over - I'm not completely oblivious about his career as an entertainer, but maybe Ferrell is just one of those 'fan favorites' whose fandom may seem inexplicable at times.

2015 Topps Archives pack

I grabbed only one pack at my LCS because it was a little bit more [@$4.50 each] than I would like to pay for a midlevel baseball pack - with the issue of the card stock thinness, it would be nice if Topps printed these cards on the drab, gray card stock used up through 1992.

Besides Topps Heritage, I can't recall if Topps ever has printed a retro style product on old school card stock - for Topps Archives, a thicker card stock would add weight to the cards and also give it a more authentic feel.

#241 Mike Napoli
#48 Victor Martinez
#90 ASI Maikel Franco - 1990 All-Star Rookies insert
#208 Cory Spangenberg
#58 Bruce Sutter
#149 Hunter Pence
#123 Anibal Sanchez
#206 Alex Gordon