Walk, Papoy, HSCA Collaboration #18

Lately our box breaks have taken on a nice early/mid 2000's theme. More often than not these sets offer the perfect combination of price, hits and uniqueness.  Kevin continued the theme by choosing 2005 Absolute Memorabilia and 2005 Zenith.

When the Biebs is around the blogosphere you know things are about to get extra Frenchy. 

 This was the big hit out of the Absolute Memorabilia.  Pretty nice dual relic of the Rocket. I'll eventually pass this on to one of my Red Sox buddies. -obligatory "he should be in the hall of fame comment."  Seriously though, put him in Bonds in.

Last month I was reading an article from Jon Heyman how he voted for Bonds and not Clemens. It made no sense. If you vote for one you pretty much have to vote for the other.

 There was about 9000 parallels of the Tools of the Trade cards.

 Here is the plain insert of the relic card above....

 Some base cards of note. I always forget that Nomo was a Ray at one time. I do the same thing with Smoltz and the Red Sox. The lone Bucco was Bay.

 I dig the Z Team cards. Kevin usually gets the AL East in our breaks so this is weird getting all these Red Sox and Yankees cards.

 The Boggs is my favorite out of the base cards.

 The Zenith inserts are not bad looking. The Arod has a cool chrome look to it.

 Kevin was nice enough to send some extra Pirates that he pulled over the holidays. We have been on a bad stretch pulling our own teams the last couple of breaks.  Really appreciate the extras.

Now for the main event.

 Leaf Sportscasters cards are probably one of the more odd parallels in recent memory. They look nice, but the actual numbering is a little confusing. Basically the numbering was derived from the emblem on the top right of the card. Teal card with guy in fielding glove means /35.

Back when card shops existed in my area I accumulated a ton of these.  Some of you have probably received these from me over the years. They make for a great/unique trade bait.

Check this bad boy out

Kevin really blew me away with this one.  He was sneaky and hid this behind the Bieber card inside a top loader. Kevin has sent me a few Clemente's over the years and it blows my mind every time. We have some uber generous people in our great community.

Well Kevin and Brian it looks like I'm up to bat.  What to choose....???

Thanks for reading.