Mailbag: Night Owl

 Back to the mailbag again, and a somewhat bulkier than usual mailer.

Even if it isn't a SP, knocking anything off the set build for Heritage is nice. Only 50 left, including 41 SPs at this point. (I really should add them to my wantlist linked at the side)

Bills! Bills! Bills! I had absolutely no memory of Dominic Rhodes with the Bills. Google told me that he never played a regular season game with them - he was signed and released before the 2009 season. So it is a photoshop special. Kiko Alonso will always be (in)famous for the jersey story on Deadspin from his rookie season. Cornelius Bennett's 'Big Bear' entry is definitely the 'drugs were involved' concept both in this post, and probably Bills cardboard history. Fortunately, his entry above is much saner.

A couple numbered cards, both which don't bring back the best of memories. Losman for his on-the-field performance, and Hardy for far more depressing ones.

The Mets content was even more numerous than the Bills stuff. The best thing about the Now/Then insert sets is that it allows for people that rarely make appearances in modern card sets to show up. Although Garr has made a few appearances in autographed for in Archives releases. Other than that, give me the wonderfully garish, Diamond Kings-ish background on the Cosmic Chrome of McNeil any day.

The Mets also get some numbered content.

The Blue Jays portion of the team collections in this was the smallest, but the mightiest. Kevin Smith, who went to Oakland in the Matt Chapman deal, And there's an autograph that I knew was on the way after seeing it come out during a break, but it was still nice to see. Even if it meant 2/14 baby Gabriel Moreno had to be traded away to bring in Varsho. 

I'll also never be able to forget the fact that Daulton was born 9 months and 1 day after his father Gary's last MLB game. 

Nice as that was, that wasn't the most interesting item in the package. This was, bringing some quality cardboard-themed literature to the table. This is a book from 1988 that includes a picture of every Expos card out of the flagship set from the team's debut to the publishing date. There's also a few paragraphs worth of recap of the previous seasons through 1987.  I definitely picked up the Blue Jays version at WH Smith at the time, but really doubt the Mets one was available on this side of the border.

I should probably open it up to scan a sample page, but that would likely mess up the spine, and I can't see myself doing that to a book.

But there you have it!