Friday, May 18, 2018

Red Sox Homers and Clearance Cards


I'm very happy to say that I attended the Red Sox game last night when they took on the Orioles in the first game of a 4 game series against Baltimore. This game was originally scheduled way back on April 16th but was postponed due to weather, and in a way, I'm glad, because the weather for last night's game was perfect.

The Sox ended up winning the game 6-2 thanks to homers by Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez. But perhaps the best part of the game was David Price who was 1 strike away from a complete game shutout until Manny Machado belted a 2-run homer.

Nevertheless, Boston prevailed and after the game, I went to the team store with the friend I went to the game with, just to see if any baseball cards appealed to me. I originally didn't think so, that was, until the checkout line where I saw a package of 50 cards in the Red Sox bin instead of the all-baseball bin. As I reached to put it where it belonged, I saw that it was discounted from $10 to $5.

Suddenly, I became interested. I saw the Ty Cobb Golden Greats insert located at the top of the bag...

and a Miguel Cabrera 2018 Topps Opening Day card at the bottom. Immediately seeing cards of players I collect along with the $5 markdown was enough for me to say "why not" and spend $5 for the 50-card bag.

As I exited the store, I realized that the 2 cards were both Tigers. Nervously, I opened the bag, fearing I had somehow picked up a bag of all Tigers cards, which I knew I'd have no one to trade them to.

Thankfully, the next cards in the stack disproved my theory as I found a couple of Pinnacle cards from the 90's that included the black borders. I barely have any Time Raines cards on the White Sox, and I'm always looking to add to my Wade Boggs collection. Not to mention how well the black and white uniforms each player is wearing goes so well with the black borders on each respective Pinnacle set.

Anyway, now that I discovered the stack wasn't all Tigers, it was time to see what I was able to get in this $5 card bag.

A duo of 1997 Upper Deck cards of some of my biggest player collections was upon the first cards I pulled from the bag. The Randy Johnson card expands upon his strikeout abilities on the back of the card while the Ivan Rodriguez card shows Pudge in the Ranger's spring training St. Patricks Day jersey and an all-star game stamp.

The most surprising thing about the whole purchase was the number of cards I got of players I collect. Out of the 50 cards in the stack, I'd say around 30-35 of them were players that I collect, which will thoroughly help me boost my player collections. Furthermore, I didn't even pull many doubles. Nearly every player collection card was needed, like this Cal Ripken Jr. card from the 1990 Topps set. 

The Orioles were one of the more prominent teams out of the stack as I found multiple cards of Orioles I collect while attending a Red Sox game against Baltimore. One of those cards is shown above; this 1988 Fleer Glossy Eddie Murray from his last full season in Baltimore.

These 2 cards may be from different insert sets, but they're both from the 1996 Upper Deck set which explains why the designs and color choices are faintly reminiscent of one another. The John Smoltz is from the Strike Force insert set, which I assume is for pitchers only while the Sammy Sosa Global Impact is likely for all players who grew up in different places all around the world.

For whatever reason, there were a decent amount of 2017 Topps Yankees Factory Set cards. I don't why or how Fenway Park would have Yankees team set cards, but I must say I wasn't too annoyed to get these cards. The Jeter at the top of this post can go directly into his player collection while the others (Betances and Bird along with Sanchez) will certainly be available for trade and for sale on Sportlots, since I'm certain Yankees fans are scrambling to collect as many cards as they can of their team now that they've become a legit threat in the AL East once again.









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