Short Walk

The Pirates are a couple years removed from having Neil Walker on the active roster. Supposedly the Bucs had made an offer to keep him around, but the two sides could never come to terms. Kind of weird that Walker had to settle for so little this offseason, but I'm sure the Yankees didn't mind. Hard to believe that more teams weren't interested at one year 4 million.  While never the most durable he has been crazy consistent over the past 7 years.  2-3 WAR players don't grow on trees. 

2013 Topps Mini Neil Walker 1/1

I don't actively search for Walker cards these days.  My collection has most of the rookies and key autographs. Most of my needs are parallels which I don't actively chase. 

The card above sort of just fell into my lap. I was searching around for some trade bait and discovered a seller that was auctioning off a bunch numbered Topps mini cards. Turns out he had a 1/1 Platinum Walker.  For $10.50 I was able to add it to my collection. While nothing special looks wise it is always fun to add a rare card for a good price. 

Thanks for reading. 

Walk, Papoy and HSCA Collabration #10 (Plus Brian Sends Some Crazy Nice Pirates)

Brian is in the process of moving right now. He sent me a picture of his new house.

Seems like he should have room for his Twins collection. That pool seems a little small though Brian, maybe you can negotiate a little more. I think downsizing to this home was a smart idea.

Box breaks....

Brian went the way of a volume break for his choice of boxes. He went with 2006 UD Futures Stars, 2010 Bowman Chrome and 2013 Topps Mini. All offer some chance of a high end hit and feature some decent cards for our main PC teams.

Overall we did reasonably well. Kevin received a Gary Sanchez auto from Bowman Chrome which was cool and I got three autos,  two of which are productive major leaguers.

This was a pretty decent hit from the UD Futures box. Cruz is one of the most productive power hitters in the game right now. While not super valuable it is a card I will be able to pass along to a Rangers/Orioles/Mariners fan in a trade.

It was a good box for Rangers. Rupe did see some action early in his career, but as far as I can tell he is out of baseball.

This set features a good bit of international players as well as a whole insert subset is devoted to the WBC.  This card was probably worth $100 at some point. I think Dice K might be one of my least favorite players of all time. Have you ever watched a game he pitches? It is freaking brutal. He would take what felt like 10 minutes between pitches.

 A sampling of some of the base cards. Our box was void of Pirates, but overall it yielded some fun cards.

 Anybody that held onto some of Donaldson's autos from this set is sitting pretty now.

 Like Donaldson, Martinez is another guy who took a while to find his way in the majors. I'm sure the Astros regret letting him walk.

The last big rookie from my portion of the box. The Cardinals paid a big price to get Jason Heyward by shipping him off to Atlanta. Some rumors have been popping up that the Braves may look to unload Miller and/or Julio Tehrans and go with the complete blowup of the roster.

 A gold rookie /50

 Some of the Bucco minis

We broke the odds and pulled an auto out of our mini box.  I've opened a good bit of this stuff and have only pulled one myself. Hellickson was just shipped to the Phillies.

 I'm hoping to pull a super rare Wyld Stallyns card!!!

This card wasn't part of my break. I believe it was to stay with Brian, but since he knew Jedd was a WVU guy and from Morgantown he shipped it my way.  This is the pink parallel /25

 Brian threw in some UD Vintage. The Pops steals the show from this bunch.

Very happy that Steve Pearce has put his career together. He was given every chance to succeed in Pittsburgh, but could not shake the injury bug.

I love this card! Kendall doesn't have a ton of certified autos so anytime I can get one it is a big deal. 

 This proof is /50. You get a nice backdrop of the city too.

Now we are getting serious. I believe this is the 1952 Berk Ross Ralph Kiner. I don't have much in the way of vintage Kiner cards. This will be the new centerpiece of that collection. What a beauty.

 This is the most American card ever made.

The final card Brian sent was this purple parallel /10 of Starling Marte. Awesome!

Holy smokes Brian. Thanks for hooking me up with all the Pirates and you seem to be my lucky autograph charm in box breaks. I've been accumulating cards for you for our next break. I'll be shopping for something over the next week. Just to please Kevin it will most likely be a PANINI product.

Thanks for reading!

Box Break: 2013 Topps Mini X 2

I busted both of these boxes over the holidays. Topps Mini boxes were all the way down to the $25 range so they made a good choice to get over shipping thresholds. I've accumulated a bunch of this set so I may have to see about finishing it. Since everyone knows what these look like I'll only show the parallels and relics.

I pulled 7 golds /62.

The Rays got a lot of bad press when they traded David Price to the Tigers in a three team trade that also involved the Mariners to get Smyly and Nick Franklin. I'm sure the Rays got offers for bigger named players, but a small market team like the Rays have to look at getting years of control too. While Smyly and Franklin don't have superstar potential they make it up in being quality major leagues who are cost controlled for multiple years.

The Nats are going to face a roster crunch soon with guys like Span, Fister and Jordan Zimmerman all approaching free agency.

 Looks like Salty has a perm.

Tigers are going to need a big year from Cespedes to stay at top of the Central. I don't think the Royals are going to be as good this year, but the Indians look like they could be dangerous.

 I pulled three pinks /25

Rangers galore!

 This black Brendan Ryan was a nice hit as it is /5

I think this might be the first time I have ever pulled a Wainwright. He is one of my favorite pitchers even though he torments my Buccos. Two years back the Buccos had the Cards on the ropes but the combo of Wainwright and Michael Wacha was too much.

Broke the odds again by pulling an auto in one of the boxes. You have to feel for Profar as the guy was a top prospect, but he just can't stay healthy. Tough to be a Rangers fan right now as no team has lost more players to injuries. Now with Darvish out it may be another long year. Both the Angels and Mariners look like playoff contenders. 

Topps mini makes for a fun break and a pretty economical way to accumulate some cool trade bait. I'll actually be busting one more box as I've been holding onto three more boxes for my friends and I to open for our monthly break here in the next couple of weeks. 

Thanks for reading. 

Walk and Papoy Join Forces

Kevin and I are becoming pretty good blogging buddies. We often email back and forth talking about cards and blogging ideas. Early this week we got on the topic of opening boxes. It is something we both like to do as long as the budget keeps in check. After some back and forth we began brainstorming ways for us to join forces to bust some wax.

First, we decided that no money would exchange hands. We figured if we had a set budget it would all equal out in the long run. This gets a little complicated as Kevin has to deal with high shipping rates to get the boxes, but for me to ship him cards probably cancels out a good bit of the discrepancy. So with the money situation in check we can focus on card distribution.

Obviously Kevin would get all the Blue Jays, and the Buccos would be mine. For the rest of teams we decided to do a divisional draft. This is something that will change with every round so both he and I can accumulate trade bait of all the big market teams that so many of the blogosphere like. This time Kevin had the AL East, AL Central and NL West (minus the Dodgers). I had the remaining divisions minus the Mariners.

Kevin let me choose our boxes for the inaugural first round (We still need a cool name for the collaboration). I decided we would go with 2006 UD Ovation and 2013 Topps mini. Ovation offers 18 packs with an auto and a relic while Mini offers 1 relic or auto per box.

While I still have all the cards in my possession, I'll only be showing off my cards (it's not many). Kevin absolutely dominated the Ovation box and did really well by getting a unique auto and a relic of an All Star. I'll just show a couple cards from Ovation more just to remind people what the look like.

If you recall these cards have a textured feel that kind of mimic the baseball stitches on the card. At least I got a Pirates right....While not an ideal box for myself, it was a blast opening. In my experiences of opening boxes with my friends it will all even out over time. I'm just glad this box yielded a cool card for Kevin.

The 2013 Topps Mini box was the real showstopper. Figures the cheap box would be right! For those who don't know this product combines Series 1 and 2 into one big mini set. While the set does offer a relic or auto per box the real prizes are the parallels. This box would not disappoint, although it looked like I was going to pretty much go empty handed until the end.

The gold parallels are /62. We pulled three and I hit two of them for myself. No big names but the DeJesus card is a cool shot. Kevin's parallels were some big names and lower numbered.....

All was not lost for me though as I made a pretty rare pull. 

Henry Rodriguez Cyan printing plate. I think this is only the second plate I've ever pulled. While not a big name it was still pretty exciting to get a rare pull. Once you see Kevin's post in a week or two you will understand why this box was a real winner.

Our whole idea was to make it as fun as possible with the least amount of work for the person opening the packs. I would say we did pretty well on both accounts. Two low end boxes yielded some unique cards.

Kevin will be hosting the next break in April so he is now on the clock!

Thanks for reading.