Katz Out of the Bag

Back to posting about baseball cards! 

My pal Shane Katz sent me a big bubble mailer stuffed to the gills with Buccos early last week. Shane is very active on Twitter so you may want to follow him there as well. He is always posting cool items and is craft beer fan to boot.  I'm extremely jealous of his proximity to world class breweries. 

Here is a fun oddball.  I wasn't familiar with JJ Nissen so I had to look them up.  They are a big time bread producer in the New England area that was bought out by a big conglomerate several years back.

Mad Dog!

Very familiar with Toys R Us cards since I use to beg my parents to buy me some. Al Pedrique is only 26 years old in the picture.  He looks 46.

A nice numbered Pedro from Heritage.

I always call the Kellogg's sets the most beloved in our community. The Candy Man is looking great as always.

The Pirates of my youth.  Shane hit me up with a lot of great oddballs.

Two Smiles.

A nice mix of Topps Gold cards including a fantastic Jay Bell card.

Sid Bream is best remembered for scoring the winning run in the NLCS as a member of the Braves, but the biggest portion of his career was with the Pirates.  He is also from the Pittsburgh area and frequents games.

Ugh....that Brian Bullington pick in 2002.  BJ Upton was the consensus number one rated player but was going to come with a huge price tag.

The Jose Mesa is a fantastic card. Lot of people forget he was a Pirate.  I will always prominently show a Derek Bell card. OPERATION SHUTDOWN

Manager card!

I feel this scan of 8 cards really sums up the early and mid 2000's Pirate teams.  For every decent major leaguer they had it was counteracted by replacement level guys.

The Jimmy's All Star card is one of my favorite Pirate cards of all time. All three of the players featured would probably be in my top ten favorite Pirates of all time.

Shane sent me a ton of legend Pirates. I'm always a little confused on why Topps produces so many cards featuring Maz and Pops at the tail end of their careers.

I love the Cutch Archives and Ginter cards.  For whatever reason they have historically been better than any of his Stadium Club cards.

A nice mix of current Buccos.  The Taillon Stadium Club with city backdrop is an all time great Pirate card.

Cardboard legend Jason Kendall in the house.  For him to have so many great base cards in an era focused on relics and autos is truly amazing.

Also here is Jeromy Burnitz looking like the least intimidating hitter of all time.  It kind of feels like a pose you would use for your Little League picture.  Love it!

It is hard to pick favorites out of this bunch. You have the great uniform and a fantastic collection of facial hair. If I'm forced I think I'm taking the Phil Garner.

Thanks so much for sending me so many great cards Shane.  My Red Sox stash is empty right now, but I'll be sure to hit you back soon.

Thanks for reading.

Off the Wall!

It is fun breaking the ice with a new trade partner. So many great people in the blogging world so little time to trade with all of them. A few weeks back Shane Katz from Off The Wall  sent me a message about a possible trade.  If I recall Mark Hoyle sent him my way (thanks Mark!). I told Shane that I would break the ice as I always have to replenish Red Sox cards and it would take a little time to get some useful cards.  

About a week after I sent Shane the package he sent me quite the Pirates bomb in return.  It was 3 team bags full of Black and Gold goodness. 

 I feel like if this was a Red Sox card it would be the perfect wallpaper for Shane's blog. It seems like every trade package I receive a trade package I get a cool UD card.  Man, I really miss them.....

 Jerry May intimidating runners with his cannon arm.

The pioneering "closer" of baseball.

 So many minis! I didn't have many of the Goodwin versions so I was happy to see those.

 Fleer Tradition was a favorite of mine back when K'mart was a thing in my area.  They always had tons of it on sale.

 I feel bad for Sean Rodriguez.  That car crash he was in was scary. I know he is out for the whole season, but it could have been so much worse for he and his family.

 Dreaded Cutch!!!!

 I'm always a sucker for a good manager card. Clint Hurdle should start smoking in the dugout like Jim Leyland.

 Does this Beimel count as an autograph card? I say yes! These were three of my favorite cards in the bunch Shane sent.

 Keith Osik doing his best Jason Kendall impersonation with a great catching card.

 I always spend time discussing Pacific on my blog.  I was collecting on a pretty tight budget in the late 90's so Pacific was always a go to pack bust. Kind of cool to see some of those sets doing well on the secondary market now. The Prizm Guillen is really cool.

 Three super cool Ultra cards. I like Kevin Young going all Pete Rose into third.

 Mike Spanky Lavalliere looks like a guy that would be pretty fun to have a beer with.

 The vintage portion of the program is pretty epic. Thanks a ton Shane for sending all these my way.

 John Candelaria set the stage for Bob Walk's flowing hair and mustache.

 Put Bonds in the Hall of Fame please....

 The Ginter Clemente is great but I love some diecut.

 Now Shane is really trying to get my attention.  Ten time sexiest man of the year Bob Walk.

 Wakefield didn't get a ton of Pirate releases so I'm happy to receive them when I can. If only Wakefield would have came in against the Braves instead of Stan Belinda.

Thanks so much for all the great cards Shane. It was a blast going through all of them.  I think you might receive beer from me before our next trade of cardboard!

Thanks for reading.