To: Me From: Me

What did I treat myself to for Christmas? A box of cards from the LCS, waiting for a Boxing Day sale, of course. It was mostly hockey on sale, but the prices dropped on a pair of baseball products. 2014 Bowman Draft Jumbo and Panini Classics were my two options for on sale baseball.

I opted for the one where I could pull cards like this:

Yup. I'd much rather have this base card with catcher's equipment from the early 1900s as opposed to an auto of someone who might not sniff the majors until 2017. It is even nicer to look at other recent cards of his on COMC, and see that this doesn't appear to be a re-used image.

And a nice little write up on the card backs. Probably not needed for the current players in the set, but really nice for the legends. The base set is put together more or less alphabetically by first names, with the first 150 being a mix of Hall of Famers and current players, with the final 50 being rookies. The packs are 8 cards, with 4 or 5 from the first group, 2 rookies, and 1 insert, 2 if they include a hit.

So, that means the veteran portion is slightly more scarce of a pull than the rookies. With 24 packs, I had perfect collation with the rookies, missing only 2 of them from the set (Matt Davidson and Randal Grichuk). I was 34 short on the others.

The legends portion is filled with people you don't see or won't see in a Topps product. Give me a chance of pulling a Shoeless Joe card any day.

And here are more names that showed up in my packs, but are rarely if ever seen in Topps. A Jim Thorpe baseball card? And a whole bunch of people who haven't been seen in Topps products in a while. I know using COMC isn't always the most accurate, but the most recent Topps appearance from this group was Miller Huggins on a 2011 release. Some show up in a 2010 Yankees themed release, but that's it for about a decade for cards of some baseball legends.

I had one parallel in each mini box. I guess the Negro League uniforms don't have to be photoshopped. It makes for a beautiful looking card, especially with the silver background on the black and white photo.

And now, the insert sets, which landed me 6 of each.

 

The Lumberjacks is quite cheesy with the forest background, and perhaps I would have liked to had at least one player from the black and white era show up in the Stars of Summer, but that's a minor beef. And at least I pulled Met and Blue Jay from this.

And the hits. A redemption for a pitcher with a 10.90 ERA this past season? Ouch. I'll still enter the code and see what comes of it. And he was only a rookie and was a Rule 5 draftee. So, maybe a year in the minors will make this better than it seems now. The others are a little more pleasing. I love the design on the Castro, and Joey Gallo is a pretty good pull. And you can kinda parse his auto. There's the off-sticker J. A Y. And the entire last name. That's a lot better than Garin. Nothing major, but I really didn't buy this product looking for a major hit - I just wanted some great old school names.