A COMC Blaster - Part 1 - The 2/14 Additions

The COMC Blaster is a term coined by Shane over at Shoebox Legends. Easy to play: You put the cost a blaster on your account at COMC and spend that amount on goodies. The contents of this particular blaster showed up earlier this week, and it is time to show them off.

Up first, the contents for my 2/14 collection, and three new faces, all on their way to the baseball portion.

First up, somewhat of a strange choice for me - a player without hits making his debut as an autograph. But that was the cheapest option for the Rays draft pick available at COMC. He was drafted out of high school in the 25th round, but seems to have gotten a slight bit of attention so far.

Being born in 1997, he takes over from Ryan MacInnis and Nikolaj Ehlers as the youngest member of the collection. Also, at 19, he has plenty of time to develop.

One of the benefits of doing the COMC Challenges is you get somewhat of an advance preview of cards that would be going live in the near future. After seeing some of the Dodgers Target cards show up, I got the feeling I might be able to get some new faces into my collection, since this set highlighted every player in Dodgers history at the time. So, this photo goes all the way back to the 1890s, and the Brooklyn (Bride)Grooms and maybe the best name in my collection - Candy LaChance.

At least until Pretzels Getzien gets a card.

Mike Hechinger might be proof of how thorough this Target set was. He played 13 games. 9 of those were with the Brooklyn Superbas. He still has a card in this set. He probably was near the top of the list of "guys who will never show up on cards in this binder". But here he is!

There are a few more that appear in this set, but since I already have cards of theirs (Tim Jordan, Len Gabrielson), adding their Target cards are less of a priority.

This might be the first zero-year card in the collection. Tom Borland never played a game for the Houston Colt .45s after being traded from Boston in March of 1962. Yet, he still makes an appearance on this 1989 Smokey Bear issue. This is the 3rd card for him, and I only need his 1960 Leaf to finish his cardboard run.

From guys who make rare appearances in the collection, to the guy who appears most frequently. Card #143 of Marian Gaborik, and the last (for now) of his Canvas inserts from Upper Deck flagship.

Finally, a throwback uniform to end this post. Jeff Graham rocks the old Chicago Bears look on this card. This puts his total at thirteen, and the throwback makes this my favourite in the bunch.

Tomorrow, the rest of the football portion of this blaster.