2013 Topps Jumbo Pack #2

The 2014 card releases are in full swing, but I've got to get through my 2013s first. Let's see how the set building quest is going.

2013 Topps
#54 Jaime Garcia
#68 Colby Rasmus
#266 Albert Pujols

There were 3 base Cardinals this time, and two were duplicates from Pack #1. That's not a great start, as much as I like the Cardinals

2013 Topps
Chasing History #CH-43 CC Sabathia
Emerald Parallel #256 Madison Bumgarner

While the Chasing History cards didn't mention specific projections for the milestones, CC's certainly implied he should get his 200 wins soon, since he had 191 going into 2013. I'll save you the trip to baseball-reference: he now has 205. That Madison Bumgarner's not too shabby of a LHP either.

2013 Topps
Chasing the Dream #CD-23 Jose Altuve
1972 Mini #TM-42 Willie Mays

When I see young, hyped, talented players like Jose Altuve on bad team, I can't help but root for their teams to get better or for them to find a home elsewhere. That largely comes from realizing a few years ago that, in all of Steven Jackson's career with the Rams, they were never better than 8-8, and only made the playoffs in his rookie season when he was a backup.
As for the Mays card, I didn't realize the '72 minis included retired players. That was a cool card to see come out of the pack.

2013 Topps
Cy Young Award Winners Trophy #CY-JS

First, let me say this is a nice card. It's actually a little shadowbox with a real metal emblem of the trophy. However, it's as thick as 19 base cards (I measured!). That means there were only 33 cards in the pack. Clearly, at 1:, I shouldn't expect to see another one of these in my box, but that's going to put a bit of a damper on my attempt to complete the set. Luckily, like I said before, I already had some base cards going into this, so Series 1 will still likely get finished by the box, but I only added 13 new cards this time.

Series 1 Completion: 146/330 (44.2%)