Minor 2/14 Additions

 I'm returning to the 2/14 content of my most recent COMC shipment today, and breaking up the baseball content by showing minor league cards in today's post. I also have a Team USA and a Perfect Game card, but since they're not minor league cards, I'll show them off when I get to the rest of the baseball.

Here's Vicente Garcia. The design on this is all sorts of hideous, but it does act like a reverse of the jersey, so there does seem to be some sort of reasoning behind it.

Also, I was convinced this team played in Salem, Oregon. At least there I could believe there was a logic behind naming the team 'Avalanche'. Nope. They played in Salem, Virginia. A state famous for such natural disasters.

Syracuse has a Baseball Hall of Fame, and this card comes from a Syracuse Skychiefs set that salutes its members. This is where I point out that the 2/14er on the card, Red Barrett, does hold the record for throwing the fewest pitches over a complete 9-inning game. That record of 58 is one of those "never be broken" ones.

Other than obscure printing variations and buybacks, I've pretty much run out of major league options to add John Marzano cards to the collection. So, here's a pair of minor league ones. He's currently at 74, with a couple more sitting in my COMC inventory. 

Callix Crabbe's numbers also jump by 2 with this pair. The star-spangled Ogden Raptors card was the first of his baseball career.

Ending with these four players making their collection debut. I get to mention Salem, Oregon for the second time in this post, and legitimately this time, as that is the Salem referenced on the baseball card, and with an appropriate team name for the location too. 

And there you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 20 - Comfort Food

 With my posting the contents of the 250+card cube over the past two months or so, as well as the Repacks in the Mail, it has been too long since I posted some Dollarama hockey repacks.

So here's three of 'em! One of each. The first two were bought over the past week or so, the final one has been in hand for several months.

Grabbing this particular repack was an easy decision with a mid-level base card of a Kitchener Rangers card as the opener. Anything else was a bonus, and there is some envelope filler for a future mailer to Ann Arbor. Even if inserts aren't expected from this, the regrettable, never-ending Portraits insert doesn't really feel like a bonus.

The Value Bundle's contents.

Starting with the HOFer pack. Just wait a few months, and it won't be just a single HOFer contained within.

Since Mike Van Ryn was a former coach in Kitchener, I could totally add cards of his to that collection. But, it is a dupe, so it will instead be part of the next envelope addressed to Ann Arbor. That's Bobby Holik on the final card, for those don't want to wreck their eyes trying to interpret the foil text.

An insert from this year's Extended shows up within a couple months of the product's release date? Wow. That's so unexpected I won't even complain that Brady's descent into persona non grata with the Sens kinda wrecks the greatness of acquiring such a recent Sens card in a repack. 

Finally, the Stadium Club pack. The best thing about these is you can play the game of "Who has the oldest, and newest rookie card shown on the back?". This game is complicated by the fact they don't use O-Pee-Chee as an option, only Topps entries.

It didn't matter with the oldest. Don Beaupre's 1981 card predates Grant Fuhr's OPC rookie by one season, and his Topps one by several more.

But it does with Tim Sweeney, who did have earlier OPC cards, but gets the always-interesting self-referential rookie card.

That was a super interesting repack. Will one containing entirely inserts/parallels surpass it?

Johnny Gaudreau cards feel so different after his passing. 

Shininess! It would be better if this were from a season later where it would be a Utah Mammoth card vs a Utah Hockey Club one.

BO-RING!

Interesting to end this on a pair of Calgary Flames cards from the Canvas inserts. Rene Bourque's trip to McMahon stadium before a Heritage Game easily beats the more generic card that completes a Tkachuk brother 1-2 within the repacks.

But it isn't enough to give this the nod over the middle Value Pack.

There you have it!

They Come Runnin' Just as Fast as They Can

 'cause every girl is crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man!