Showing posts with label John Axford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Axford. Show all posts

2015-02-08

2015 Is Here

Ok, it's been here for a few days. But, I've been entirely too busy to open the hanger box (is that the right term for the 72-card, $10 box?) I bought Friday at Target. I'll probably wind up purchasing a Jumbo box, rendering all of the base cards in this box expendable, but I decided to be less practical and more fun in my collecting from now on, and a $10 bill won't kill my budget. But, enough about my collecting philosophies; onto to the cards!

2015 Topps
#11 Jon Jay
#48 John Axford
#80 Adam Wainwright
#220 Shelby Miller
I consider any pack consisting of over 1/30th Cardinals a success, even if one is pictured as a Pirate and another (Miller) has already been traded away for Jason Heyward.

2015 Topps
Archetypes #A-22 Hank Aaron
Rainbow Foil #279 Coco Crisp
First Pitches #FP-06 Agnes McKee
Robbed #R-12 George Springer
The Jackie Robinson Story #JR-2 Serving His Country
Free Agent 40 #F40-5 Goose Gossage
First Home Run #FHR-05 Derek Jeter
First Home Run #FHR-10 Anthony Rizzo
The first time I flipped through the cards, I didn't notice this Coco Crisp card was a parallel. The Rainbow Foil effect is somewhat hard to discern with the colorful borders. For the First Pitch cards, I thought it was kind of a cool idea when I read about it, but of course I was focusing in on the celebrities like Jeff Bridges and Eddie Vedder. Even though my card has a 105-year-old woman I've never before known about, I'm still in favor of the set. In the second row, you can see I pulled the mandatory Jeter card, which was actually the first 2015 cards I saw in person. I was a little surprised to get 2 cards from the First Home Run set, though.

2015 Topps
Call Your Shot Game Card
Highlight of the Year #H-8 Ted Williams
I doubt that bar code has enough information for you to redeem my Call Your Shot codes, but in case it does, I've already entered, giving me a 1:1,000,000 shot against everyone else who opened 2015 Topps this week.

The Ted Williams highlight card is nice and all, but overall, I'm not that overwhelmed by the inserts from this box.  Usually at least one catches my eye, and the whole set makes its way to my wantlist. Archetypes is obviously full of big stars, so that may be one that I go after. When looking up the Williams card in an online checklist, though, I saw there's a Nomar Garciaparra card in that insert set as well. I'll definitely be trying to track that one down.

Well, that's my first taste of 2015 cards. I'm sure the next will come when I'm waiting in line at Target and feeling froggy, so that could really be any day now.

2014-05-04

2013 Topps Jumbo Pack #8

I've had quite a few Cardinals in the box so far, but this one has just one base card, and it's of a guy who only played here for a month of last season, John Axford.

2013 Topps
#59 John Axford
Chasing History #CH-26 Chipper Jones
Chasing the Dream #CD-17 Addison Reed
Emerald Parallel #65 J.P. Howell
 A few other standard inserts were in the pack as well, but nothing earth-shaking.

2013 Topps
1972 Topps Mini #TM-42 Willie Mays
Gold Parallel #298 Pablo Sandoval #1040/2013
This is the second Mays mini from this box; I also got one in Pack #2. But that's ok, because what I'm really after is the base cards, and there were 43 in this pack. 32 of them were new, meaning I'll need 29 and 30 out of the last two packs to complete the set.

Series 1 Completion: 271/330 (82.1%)

2014-01-25

Chavez Ravining Winnings

Alex at Chavez Ravining has had at least one contest running every day since I've been following him. A few weeks ago the Randomizer picked me, and I won a David Price Heritage Chrome card. He also threw in a few Cardinals for my collection.

2004 Topps Total - Team Checklists #TTC27 Albert Pujols
2008 Upper Deck First Edition Update #349 Matt Holliday
2008 Upper Deck First Edition Update #474 Chris Duncan
2012 Bowman Chrome #117 John Axford
2013 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects - Prospects #BDPP125 Jake Stone
2013 Heritage - Chrome #HC60 David Price #139/999
It felt unbalanced to post a scan that Holliday card by itself, and 5 vertical cards, so turn your head a bit if you really want to see it. That's from his time with the Rockies, so along with that orange and black All-Star jersey, he's got some (purple, I believe) pinstriped pants on. That's quite a look.

Also in the bunch was a Pujols card I didn't have, local radio personality Chris Duncan, recent rent-a-reliever John Axford, and a kid who's only played 1 year at Rookie level so far, Jake Stone.

Thanks for the cards, Alex, and all the contests of course.