My all-time Top 100 cheap azz keepers collection

Maybe a home brewed card project like this was a long time coming, but basically not something I've thought much about - as I've picked up all sorts of cards through the past five years, I was inspired by posts on Twitter / X and through other card blogs to finally put together a Top 100 that ends up a teasing a collection of cult favorite cards, some cult favorite subjects and unique mini-collection cards.

I wanted cards that fell reflected sentimental favorites [cards and players] and personal touches - but also cards that was sheer randomness.

Following a curated set blueprint of sorts, there will be cards within my all-time and future versions of my Top 100 cheap-azz keepers - that are a reflection of what I like and have tried to collect.

As far as rules go, I think I'll end up spelling them out as I go along - but want to get things started, where I have these posts made up as part of a routine.

100. 2010 Topps Update More Tales of the Game Joel Youngblood #MTOG-1 - it’s not the greatest feat in baseball history, but the logistics of Youngblood playing for two MLB teams in one day fascinates me.

99. 2022 Topps X Lauren Taylor Wave 2 Lauren Taylor Aaron Judge #33 - I was not familiar with the card at first, but with the number 99 prominent, I thought it would be cutesy to have it as my 99th card within this Top 100.

98. 1963 Topps Jim O’Toole #70 - I learned about the art on the back of this card, where it looks like the player depicted has something going on as he kissing his wife.

Vintage cards [pre-1973] might be teased in future Top 100s, but since collecting them has never been a big emphasis - it's harder to round up any number of cards to start choosing from, other than the occasional wrinkle.

97. 1986 Donruss Scott Bradley #396 - this card is literally worth a penny, where it's not even in 'minty' condition, but I like the picture where the player poses with multiple gloves to say he can player several positions.

96. 2022 Topps Stadium Club Nolan Ryan #23 - a nice shot Ryan in cowboy attire posing with his dog, this seemed like a familiar image as maybe seen on the next card.

95. 1992 Donruss Coca Cola Nolan Ryan Career Series Nolan Ryan #26 of 26 - presumably moments within the same shoot as the previous card, so I decided to pair them up.

As far as player duplication goes, there might be subjects with three or four cards within my Top 100, though I've tried to keep it between one or two - sometimes it's nice to pair up cards, but at other times, I'm good with spreading them out.

94. 1994 Score Kevin Brown #99 - Brown never seemed to be a warm and fuzzy guy as a player, but he is having fun wearing a faux throwback uniform and goes all out with 'painted' facial hair.

93. 1991 Classic Update Blue Travel Edition Todd Van Poppel #177 - I was thumbing through some miscellaneous pick ups and figured I'll add this card to my all-time Top 100 as a nod to the junk wax era.

Headlined by Van Poppel, I could imagine Classic thinking they were doing a thing here putting four pitching prospects / draft picks on one card - where you might have the rotation for a World Series contender for the mid 1990s or even through the early 2000s.

Doing some quick research, it looks like it was Baseball America who first printed the picture and started the hype - this story on The Athletic goes all out, looking back at that infamous pitching foursome that never really made it happen.

93. 1991 Classic Update Blue Travel Edition Kirk Dressendorfer #177

93. 1991 Classic Update Blue Travel Edition Don Peters #177

93. 1991 Classic Update Blue Travel Edition Dave Zancanaro #177

92. 1992 Upper Deck Mark Gubicza #459 - added this one [also signed TTM] because the subject of Gubicza's hockey hair [think Jaromir Jagr] might be occasionally brought up on Angels broadcasts and this is the card referenced.

91. 1996 Upper Deck Collector’s Choice Silver Signature Dante Bichette #135 - I like this because it's such an in your face, punny card.

When it comes to Reggie Jackson cards

This might be the odd $0.50-$1.00 retro card from 20 years ago, but the ones showing him with his powerful righthanded swing are the best if not the rarest - so I figured it was worth taking a flyer on, maybe to squirrel away on a Jackson page somewhere or as part of a future Top 100 collection of cheap zz keepers.

Credit where credit is due - Hideo Nomo

I am thinking what little blurb I could whip up for this pick up and how did I even come up to thinking about looking for such a card - maybe it was about 'out odding the odd,' where I want to see if I can top what I might have seen posted on a blog or social media.

The truth is that I saw this card on someone else's post on Twitter / X and went on eBay to see if there was a copy I could snag - there are screenshots on my camera roll of the collector's post on Twitter, where he received this a copy card as part of a mail day, so there you go I guess.

I associate Nomo's big league career with the Los Angeles Dodgers through the late 1990s and the Boston Red Sox and then back to the Dodgers through the early 2000s, before he really was kind of done - there are parts of Nomo's pro career in America, where he was lost in the wilderness.

From looking at his Baseball Reference register, this card was apparently from when Nomo pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers AAA team back in 1999 - it's real odd seeing Nomo immortalized in a stint for a minor league team.

Random card buys - Ivan Rodriguez

I claimed these Pudge Rodriguez cards from an online seller for $0.50 each because they tease some play at the plate action - these cards might end up as star power for my tools of ignorance collection or possibly highlights on a binder page I may make for the HOF catcher.

As is, only when I gave these cards a second look, did I realize the images might be taken from the same play - where a baserunner slides into home plate in the 2000 Fleer Ultra card, while Rodriguez gestures to the umpire he made the tag on the 2000 Topps Stadium Club card.

I really want to know who the Oakland baserunner is on the card - presuming the image used was from the year before the cards were made, my best guess would be Tony Phillips, who came back to play for the A's in his final MLB season in 1999.

A new reality realized - collecting Shohei Ohtani

It is a thing where I try not to pick up any old team cards of notable players who end up on new teams for at least a year, until new, updated cards show up - I like to occasionally hoard binder material cards of decade stars guys, but it makes it easier if I can hold off in the meantime for guys who sign or are traded from one team to another.

In Shohei Ohtani's case, it becomes more of a sensitive point, where I do not want to be reminded by his defection to the Dodgers - I would probably prefer to keep him out of sight, out of mind, where I barely acknowledge what he does going forward with his new ride or die team.

I understand Ohtani has always been a special case and will to continue making his random cards [like a no MLB logo 2022 Panini Capstone Velo insert] keepers out in the wild more often than not - I can appreciate the player for what he is, but it's just different when he is now a Dodger and not an Angel anymore.

TTM autographs received: Justin Turner

It happens once in a blue moon, but it is nice to find a straggler TTM request back in the mail box when I least expect it - the free agent infielder / DH signed returned my cards earlier this month after sending out a request c/o Boston Red Sox in May 2023.

I stopped sending out TTM requests last year and just found missing some of the TTM fuel I wanted to send out back then - it might be a thing to see whether I can restart things, just so I have some cheap thrills to look forward to.

Fleshing out some card projects with my loose card finds

I've got piles of cards from purchases I've sat on after giving them a quick look and/or trying to list them out somewhere so at least there is a record I can look at - one of the things I'm trying to do at the moment is sort my decade stars / binder material cards.

I have a cheat sheet [a quick reference guide] leaderboard collection to tally up the most cards I have for players through a single decade - rather than just trying to sort out loose cards 'as is,' by decade and by player, it's a game to see which guys I've ended up overcollecting or undercollecting.

It's hard to keep track of exact cards from my random purchases - but I've been weeding out my decade stars / binder material from the 1980s / 1990s debut guys like from this pile of card show finds [25 dollar cards I was charged $15 for].

For the 1980s debut players whose cards I've shown, it looks like I have the following totals tallied up before further updates - Tony Gwynn - 44 cards, Barry Bonds - 38 cards, Wade Boggs - 21 cards and Sammy Sosa - eight cards.

When think about it, the totals for each player end up changing as I constantly find more scattered cards - at the moment, the leader for my 1980s leaderboards ends up being Will Clark at 68 cards and counting, while Ken Griffey Jr. clocks in at second place with 59 cards and counting.

These are pick ups for 1990s debut guys and before any further updates, it looks like I have the following totals tallied up - Vladimir Guerrero Sr. - 69 cards [current leader for the '90s], Derek Jeter - 45 cards, Manny Ramirez - 29 cards, Ivan Rodriguez - 16 cards and Trevor Hoffman - 11 cards.

At the moment Carlos Beltran is the only player whose card is pictured as one of my finds, but isn't currently on my leaderboards collection - a case where I don't have enough cards piled up to make a page.

At some point, the plan at some point is to take action and put the cards into plastic pages - even when there are more cards out there in the wild.

As it goes, my trigger number for a players' cards to be added for my leaderboards is about seven cards - where I can make a page of nine using the loose cards I've gathered and probably a few more miscellaneous cards stored double sided in a plastic sheet.

I don't know if it is going to take a few more days, a week or even a couple before I move off sorting cards for the 1980s/1990s - I have a leaderboard collection for the 2000s debuts guys and it's going to be more of the same, where there is a race to figure the most or the least cards I might have for certain players.

My last tally was listed as April 2022 and before any further updates, it looks like I have the following totals tallied up - Ichiro [Suzuki] - 23 cards, Albert Pujols - 22 cards and Joe Mauer - 13 cards.

I picked up rookie cards of Kazuhiro Sasaki and Mark Buehrle - Sasaki isn't a decade stars guy for me, so the card might in my nations collection or random team box collection.

Buehrle might be a decade stars guy in my book - but I don't think I've gone out of my way to make his cards keepers.

I'll tease the project here and there, but something I want to do through this year is compile an all-time Top 100 cheap-zz keepers collection - inspired by other collectors who have showcased similar projects, my current collection consists of certain quirky, funny, ironic or personal cards, but I might be on the hunt for unique cards worthy of consideration.

An off-shoot idea would be to have a regional / Angels collection of an all-time Top 100 cheap-zz keepers collection - where I might be looking out of random cards that flesh out this collection; maybe the Pujols refractor doesn't quite make the cut, but I might be able to use a 1993 Topps Gold Jim Edmonds rookie year card.

Through 2023, maybe there has been a nudge towards picking up random cards of more miscellaneous, notable subjects as I come across their cards - despite wanting it where it's mostly baseball cards I'm curating for a collection, maybe the plan is to fill out my Top 100 collection with a select number of non-baseball guys, just to mix things up and add some odd depth to a compilation of cards.

Scattered 2023 thoughts in collecting

I hope to squeeze something in that kind of vents about the past year - before that time to do a recap has really sailed.

It was a long year when I think about it and what animates me at the start of one year ends up being neglected - different things take shape in what I do, where I dwell on other interests and other things get in the way.

I was rounding up goal items for 2022 at some point, but maybe I ended up dropping that, when there were too many items to consider - I don't know how complete my achievements goes and maybe it doesn't matter as long as I have a tease.

After a certain point of the past year, I haven't kept up listing achievements for 2023 when I've been perpetually backed up - trying to catch up with inventory recaps from all purchases I’ve made, where I am obligated to list out every card I got.

Off at least one or two 'card guys' on Twitter, I feel like I was really into the chaos pages idea but couldn't get around to putting things together - I was sorting loose cards at the start of last year, but after a certain time, I just left the loose piles of cards I intended to sort further on the floor in little 'play room,' where I would not even go back in there until the new year.

Tried to get my TCDB account going, where I was trying to create personal galleries for my stadium project, adding some trade bait and listing some wantlist items - despite being a thing for bloggers to trade on there, I couldn't remember what my user name was, didn't want to reach out and have not done a single transaction.

I stopped TTM when I couldn’t find a particular card to send to Steve Garvey - that crashed my operation for the year, along with not getting a response from hit or miss Rick Reuschel or getting an RTS from hit or miss Bob Boone.

I think my last success was from Scott Hemond and to be honest - maybe some of the successes that have come in from mailings end up being clutter of sorts.

I think the card show dates once or twice a month added up - I don't know if I ever have anything to show for it, but I would be bringing back bricks of cards I'd let sit and pile up without getting to doing inventory recaps.

Besides my card show bricks and piles, maybe the biggest thing that affected what I was doing collecting wise was buying into Twitter / X stack sales where since last April, it has been a thing - maybe I never really did Twitter except lurk and see what other 'card guys' did.

The idea of claiming cards on the social media site intrigued me, where to me it was like a free-for-all party - where it was a way for me to get engaged, even if that meant claiming cards I may or may not really need from all these random sellers peddling their miscellaneous inventory, which swung towards the bulk material to some odd singles.

With all the cards coming in, it's been a struggle to keep up with trying to list them all - there are scattered purchases that have not been listed anywhere, though I might have tried to do a better job of catching up with the bigger purchases that need my attention in case there are some mess-ups I need to be aware of.

I can't imagine being a rookie but there were times where I had rookie moments buying cards on social media - because I was impatient with a pending purchase from a seller I'd bought from the first time, I sent funds to a wrong PayPal address that had a similar handle.

I never got a response or that money back from the other PayPal account - I ended up sending funds to the correct PayPal account, but felt really dumb paying twice as much for some odds and ends type claims.

There are the occasional hiccups about missing cards or totals not matching up for whatever reason - I also got held up a bit by a dumb seller [who took a while to ship my first order, shorted me some cards and then ghosted me for at least a few months, before issuing a refund minus the PayPal fees I was charged].

A random card buy - Maria Sharapova

There are probably worse cards to claim in a running sale on social media - but for a dollar or so, I took a flier on this card, where it is a little different than the baseball cards I may try to pick up.

Sharapova will always be one of those personal eye-candy crushes and with the former tennis star showing on random trading cards, it rekindles some nostalgia I can objectify - even when the last time she was really in the news, was when she failed a drug test, so that is that I guess.

Featured autograph - Michael Stefanic

I picked up this pack pulled autograph card to add to my all-time Angels collection - it ends being a pretty looking parallel that pops.

Stefanic has played in parts of two seasons with the Angels and while he might be a fringe big leaguer at 28 - he can handle the bat with a .326 lifetime average in the minors along with an on-base average of .412.

A random card buy - Kyren Williams

I saw this 2022 Score Rookies #332 card earlier in the year and squirreled an image of it away - that protective head gear made me do a double take.

It may not be such a big deal, but for a moment I thought it was the goofiest card - I wanted a copy for an oddities collection I have or maybe even for a collection of all-time Top 100 cheap 'zz' keepers project that never quite got off the ground.

I think I saw an expired auction listing from a seller on social media who runs these low end card auctions - I asked about the card since no one bid on it, but I don't think the seller understood or cared I wanted the card outright.

I started claiming 'quarters' off another social media seller just because he teased this card in a sales post - I probably would not have bought the 200 odds and ends if not for the copy of the card.

Go figure it wasn't actually tallied up in the final order and while I wasn't charged - I had to make it a micro mini mission to secure a copy, where it was still on my mind.

I went looking for the card on eBay and while it's probably a dollar card shipped on eBay all day long - I bought it off a listing for about twice as much but the card is now secured in-hand.

FWIW I did not know who the player on the card was and for all I cared, he might have been a practice squad guy - however, it looks like the second year NFL pro has had a breakout season as a running back, rushing for over 1,000 yards.

More small things at the card show

I was digging through some '6 for $5' boxes from a random seller table and these were my keepers - added another 18 cards from the seller's '5 for $1' box and maybe it was kind of odd thing I couldn't push the total to 20 outright.

Maybe my favorite card is the 1986 Donruss Rookies Jose Canseco #22 - it was a card I remember a childhood friend possessing and seeing regularly [along with an autographed 1989 Upper Deck Dante Bichette rookie] whenever I would visit his house.

I really wanted to take a better picture of this 2000 Topps Finest Moments 3000 Hits Tony Gwynn #FM3, where it's hard to see on the first image - but it's usually hard to take photo ops of shinier, chromium cards, so what you see is what you get.

Thank you Shohei Ohtani and good luck

I did not want to get caught up in the news cycle of Shohei Ohtani signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers on social media - because in my own little way, I tend to want to share my two cents, interjecting my thoughts, where it ends up like trying to cope after he's left my home team.

It was a business decision on his end and strangely, I'm kind of glad he is still in So. Cal, where I wonder if the fandom for Ohtani supersedes the idea he is a Dodger - ideally, maybe it was better to see him in some far away place like Toronto, where he maybe he gets to be out of sight, out of mind.

I could understand where it was just about inevitable and logical - where it was always going to be the Dodgers or bust.

I’m probably not collecting his old team cards for one year where they are now dated, while my existing PC ends up being off cards from his old team - I can see where my interest in collecting Ohtani ends up being muted, until things settle down where softly remains one of those universally popular, easy guys to collect.

I abruptly cut the cord on the company that broadcasted Angel games late in 2022, where just before one of Ohtani's pitching starts, I found out there was no Angel channel to watch games anymore - the current streaming TV package that replaced the old cable TV one has the company that broadcasted Dodgers games locally, even though I barely ever tuned in through 2023.

Going forward, I’ll probably be glued into more Dodgers games due to Ohtani alone - even though the Angels are my team.

1.) Maybe said I would cease to be an Angels fan if and when Ohtani leaves - that probably won’t be the case, but losing this larger than life megastar it’s a whole new deal to process.

The Angels have been a bad organization for the past decade where as a fan, I can be a free agent too - but maybe I need to chill with my one lousy team and hope Ohtani defecting to the Dodgers ends up forcing the Angels to be more creative, where they need to do something radical.

2.) $700 million for a DH in the foreseesable season is ridiculous, but while I've always believed in the talent to come back - it softens the blow where Ohtani is only going to be doing one thing [and not two things at once].

3.) There is no reason to think that Ohtani will not have at least multiple seasons where he is pitching and hitting to his full capabilities - but maybe there is a part of me that wants to believe his first MLB team got his best three seasons ever.

Working on the small things at the card show

In a more quaint card show setting, I actually spied a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 in one particular showcase and did a little window shopping for all sorts of high end prospect cards teasing a top rookie like Corbin Carroll or a top prospect like Jackson Holliday - still I wasn't quite at a big time show in this particular location I was at, where it was teeming with the sellers that had the odds and ends I may indulge in.

These cards were from the value bins of a grandfather and grandson duo I've bought from at other show dates, but have only really seen set up two other times - their 'binned singles' with prices on the back are all jumbled up by sport, so it's kind of a mess to spend time at.

Their lesser [maybe $5 and under] material are sorted by sport, so ideally it's easier to try and go through the monster boxes of toploaded cards row by row - I did as much deep cut picking as I could to flag potential keepers, but wasn't as emotionally invested, where I wanted to spend only so much to get my cheap thrills.

1995 Pinnacle Museum Collection Tim Salmon #391 - who would have thought that out of sheer randomness, I can find a card that just hits the spot, as a cheap but unique parallel of a local team star I've collected for just over 30 years.

1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Silver Signature Barry Bonds #610 and 1995 Pinnacle Trevor Hoffman Museum Collection #85 - I profess to collect Bonds, where I think he should be in the Hall of Fame already, but the iffy factor maybe too much where he is not particularly well liked.

While Hoffman is a Hall of Fame closer, he's not a guy whose cards I'd look for, so maybe I can appreciate a parallel - where it's a little different from much of the basic cards that represent Hoffman in my binder / decade stars collection.

1985 Topps Pete Rose #106 - though it was not a vintage card, maybe the first card I actually set aside, because it presumably shows an image from Rose's collision with Ray Fosse [R.I.P.] in the 1970 All-Star game.

The back of the Rose card partially pictures his 1970 Topps Super card - the card I picked up is part of a subset that makes up a puzzle in the Pete Rose set.

Maybe at some point, these shiny inserts were fillers to skip over when looking for bigger hits - but these types of cards end up being ideal binder material, where they don't cost much and at times really pop.

I liked Mike Piazza as one of the biggest superstars of his era, but what does it do to pick up cards of his in 2023 [?] - I almost skipped past this 2006 Topps Hit Parade #HR9, but for the countless cards a notable player may have printed, the ones showing them in unfamiliar uniforms might be the ones worth taking a flyer on.

Nearly a glitch in the Matrix - feat. Kirby Puckett

I made this 2006 Fleer Greats Decade Greats Puckett a keeper out of a 25 card dollar dig at a card show where I was charged $20 - I have Puckett rubber stamped as a Hall of Fame legend to collect from the junk wax era and this retro card from the 2000s ends up a little more unique, where it goes into my stadium project.

Like my last post, I thought the same image on one card was used for another card and sure enough Puckett's 1988 Fleer card used nearly the same image - maybe it makes a little more sense where Fleer [or Upper Deck, which had bought out Fleer in 2005] would be able to dig around and look for an archive of images to use.

On first glance, the pictures on the cards are virtually the same where they could have been taken seconds from each other - the only wrinkle that makes the images slightly different are Puckett's eyes, where the retro Fleer card has him looking towards the side, while the 1988 Fleer card has his eyeballs sort of looking downward.

A glitch in the Matrix - feat. Wade Boggs

I don't know if I liked the image on the 2023 Donruss Wade Boggs - I imagine Boggs following through hitting a ball during an at-bat, but kind of hard to tell, where it's almost an awkward shot.

As I'm scrolling through some f/s posts on social media, I saw a Boggs lot with a 1992 Upper Deck Boggs that kind of looked familiar - it looks like Panini found and used the same image that Upper Deck did all the way back in 1992.

Maybe better eyes will spot the minute differences between the two images but I have to go look for the 1992 Upper Deck Boggs - as both a stadium project card and to put together as a pair with the newer Panini Donruss card.

Thankful for some old-school / vintage pickups

Maybe at every corner of a card show I attended, would be a table where people were clustered at - it was hard to squeeze in and in a case or two, I might move off a table for a moment and already have someone jumping into my spot.

I found myself at a table where a bunch of old heads [at least older than I] were going through vintage or old school material - the cheap cards in bins were ‘2 for $1,’ and cards in binders were a dollar each.

Maybe I had to bug off for a little bit before circling back to see - if I can find an opportunity to get back to the table and start picking around somewhere.

Maybe things started off awkwardly where another guy rummaging through the '2 for $1' bins thought I smelled of cigarettes - I found it silly where I don't smoke at all and was saying as much, while rolling my eyes.

This guy was wearing a mask where it looked like he might have trouble breathing in a confined area - I was not about to say anything to disrespect the guy, but just try to get out of his way, while doing my thing.

I think I found some old school / vintage beaters - the Brooks Robinson that ended up being autographed from my last post was part of the cards that were '2f for $1.'

I've never really been well versed in old-school / vintage cards, where I'm going to be digging through 'old cards' with a serious focus like set building - but maybe it's a reward to idly dig and find cards of Hall of Famers, even if they are beaters.

I am pretty sure these are stadium project cards, so it's nice to find a pair of old school keepers that really go back - besides most of what I've accumulated from the 1980s through present. I had a chance to go through the vintage dollar binders - maybe I was dealing with the leftovers towards the latter part of the show and I decided to make these four random keepers out of more beaters.

Like the Brooks Robinson, the Whitey Ford has a scribble on the front - it's not an autograph on the card, but someone wrote 'Yankees' in black ballpoint pen.

If I had paid attention, I would have put the card back - but maybe part of the charm of going through vintage cards [for cheap] is seeing cards that end up being defaced in some way.

I grabbed a 1963 Topps Roger Maris #120 [$25] off the table - I asked the seller if I could take a look at it because it was kind of behind the cheap-o bins I was going through and though there might be an invisible barrier that kept me from reaching around the loosely displayed cards on the table.

The seller said I can actually go ahead and have a look at the card since the cards came originally from their bins for their single cards - but there was just not room to put them somewhere else.

Earlier in the year, I had an eye on another copy of the Maris card at the card shop I go to - but it disappeared off their display cases before I decided I might actually want the card.

Maris ends up a famous non-HoFer in MLB history for his historic 1961 season where he blasted 61 home runs - the main image gives off that late ‘61 vibe, where Maris looks a little morose with sad eyes.

From the bins, I found a 1966 Topps 1966 Rookie Stars Bill Singer / Don Sutton RC #288 [$10] and a 1967 Topps Tony Perez #476 [unmarked top loaded cards were $3] - it is unexpectedly cool to actually pick up a vintage HOFer rookie, even though Sutton shares it with a guy who had a racial incident 20 years ago with former Miami Marlins GM Kim Ng, who was then working for the Dodgers.

At another card show, another copy of the Perez ended up one of my last cuts - maybe I should have made it a keeper three weeks ago, but got another chance to make things right and this copy might end up having a little more eye appeal.

When I finally presented my miscellaneous stack to the seller, I don't think I got much [or any] discount off the total - but the cards I ended up with might just have a bit more historicity, compared to busting a retail value box or a mega box 'thingy' that might be $50 these days.

Featured autograph - Brooks Robinson

I was thumbing through '2 for $1' old school / vintage bins of a seller I stumbled upon at a card show - I thought this might be just another card, but took a closer look and it looked like it was faintly scribbled on.

It looks like an autograph of Robinson, who passed away on Sept. 26 - maybe it's a testament of how generous he was about signing, where I might find an autograph card of his in a relatively unlikely place.

Some stadium project collection adds

I probably had 45 minutes during another pit stop at a card show - I ended up hanging around the hosting card shop's bulk bins and eventually started to find some probable keepers, where I was able to build a take home stack.

By the time I was seriously collecting in the early 1990s, I was probably aware of the Classic game cards - though probably not the early sets from 1987 or 1988.

I don't think I've ever seen these particular cards before - so they end up nice finds, even if their only value is esoteric.

No one is coveting a common of Mark McLemore in 2023 - but I had to make room for a 1996 Upper Deck Collector's choice in my pile since it is a nice horizontal shot of McLemore, presumably taking a hack at an Angel game.

I wouldn't remember McLemore actually playing with the Angels through the first part of his MLB career - though I kind of remember he was at a career crossroads back in the early 1990s, before re-inventing himself as a valuable jack-of-all trades utilty guy that allowed him to stick aroud.

Now it's like a reward finding a parallel for my stadium project - I don't think I'd ever buy any Panini baseball product outright, but the occasional parallels maybe worth a second look.

Topps Pro Debut Minor League Legends

I have not paid attention to Topps Pro Debut for a good minute, but these retro themed inserts have caught my eye over the past few years - I found a few of last year's inserts in the quarter bins of a card shop and may have ordered one or two others from COMC.

I decided to pick up the entire 2023 set, rather than hoping random stragglers spill out somewhere - the checklist teases some usual names like Albert Pujols, Cal Ripken Jr. and Alex Rodriguez, but Tony La Russa as card #1 takes the cake.

I like the inclusion of vintage Hall of Fame legends, where unlike the countless retro MLB cards of the same subjects - it's fun seeing the different uniforms and hats on these cards, presumably showing all-time players in their formative years in pro baseball.

There are non-HOF fan favorite types that add some deeper cut names to a 19-card checklist - I'm not sure if I can appreciate them as much the fans of teams they played for through the 1970s and 1980s, but guys like Bill Madlock and John Mayberry get a second look as minor leaguers in this set.

Some odds and ends from the card show

This was from the same show, I ended up buying these cards from - after going around the room at least once, I stopped at this one table again to rummage through the person's bins.

I grabbed this 2023 Topps All Aces Shohei Ohtani #AA-11 because it seemed like a harder to find single or a random card that I might be paying a little more than I would like [at least for the time being] - I bit on this copy of the card just to be able to put it away in-hand without worrying about needing it.

I might be prepared for the idea Ohtani will be making the free-agent circuit this upcoming off-season - maybe the fact that he won't be doing his two way thing in 2024 softens the blow of him going somewhere else, but damn if he actually leaves the Angels.

I found a pair of unique Ken Griffey Jr. cards - maybe the Panini card on the left ends up being a no brainer, because it's just so shiny.

As much as I'd gush over finding the Panini Griffey Jr. card that jumps out at you above - I'm not sure whether the two Mark McGwire cards and the Vladimir Guerrero Jr. card pictured are just as cool or just end up being weird looking misfit cardboard that challenges my good taste in aesthetics.

I ended up grabbing these Mickey Mantle cards - I don't know if I really paid attention if there were any left in the box, but I wasn't looking to take them all.

I have to look the cards up, but I think they were from a Mickey Mantle X set Topps put out a couple of years ago - Mantle has been in countless card sets long after he played and long after he passed in 1995, where they are fairly common and not as sought after like a living 'here and now player.'

I like to tell myself to make some of The Mick's miscellaneous retro cards keepers - where it is fascinating he was this larger than life baseball player to a generation [before my time and place].

Maybe I'm a little more tuned in to making cards from oddball issues keepers - though I'm not sure whether this 2021 Topps x Derek Jeter Captain's Crew #41 has the charm of an oddball or is just another card from another mainstream set.

I thought the sleeved but unmarked cards from my stack were dollar each, so my total came out to $23, but when I presented the cards to the seller, I was charged $15 - maybe the sleeved cards were actually $0.50 and after my total came out to $19, the seller took a little something off my stack.