Sometimes, Baseball Cards are like Tribbles. Things start out innocently enough, but then...you know the rest. Routine access to a big ole box of randomly assembled Baseball Cards....so nice:
Biggest surprise found about Cosmic Chrome cards? They have stats on the back. Begs a certain question though: Why?
Why I selected it: I once started a collection of Xfractors. You shouldn't be surprised that that is a 2013 related effort, for the Xfractors in 2013 Topps Chrome. On those cards, the pattern zooms itself in and out, like you are heading towards the Abyss but then can easily skip a visit there by simply tilting the Baseball Card in the opposite direction.
On these Stadium Club Chrome cards, the whole idea is just, stupid. The pattern just sits there, little different from how that scan looks. The point of Stadium Club is, supposedly, to enjoy the best of Baseball photography. Obliterating that photography in a superfluous parallel pattern like this, or making Chrome cards of epic photographs in the first place — all that obviates the whole supposed point of the whole product. So, another product, Not For Me. This one hasn't survived the Fanatics chopping block, at least for the short time being. Certain products may just become "semi" annual and I would guess Stadium Club Chrome will be one of those.
But I do collect Detroit Stars cards, and the only way I could remember that one could be found on this Casey Mize card, and nowhere else, was to buy this copy so I could later get a more intelligible copy of the boring old "base" card. So, I just picked up this device that can summon any object to me at any time, and summoned that card, or, at least, to my next shipment of wonderful Baseball Cards, whenever that may be.
Why I selected it: When I was going through the $ Box, I simply pulled every Oneil Cruz card I came across. Since at the time he was injured after a Rookie Year that revealed he was, gasp, only Very Good, rather than already receiving Hall of Fame votes, there were a lot of them.
Do I really want what are usually labelled not "Rookie Card" cards, despite the official logo, but rather "Rookie Year" cards? By the endlessly argued "Rules" that no one has ever seen written down, RC-logo inserts don't count as Rookie Card cards because they are just, inserts. Of course if the player on the Rookie Year insert is named "Shohei" you will still have to pay $10 (or more) for it, even though otherwise no one really wants Rookie Year inserts, "they" say.
On that Oneil Cruz card I do like the elbow pad with some sort of Pirates team motif graphics, so that will be a possibly interesting detail tidbit on other Pirates cards. Otherwise, I don't usually want Rookie Year inserts, either, and probably should have edited my little stack of cards that day. Checklists of such cards routinely look basically pretty dumb, starting just a few years later.
But for everyone else, when the RC Logo appears in a pack, even on an insert, everyone gets to go home a "winner" with that feeling they "got something" from their lottery ticket.
Why I selected it: I collect Satchel Paige cards. I have a feeling he will be a player where I will end up with 9 different cards, all using the same picture, a future post series here, someday.
With this card, I'm not positive what set it comes from. It is an extra-thick card, but there is no indication it is not a base card in the source product. The "T" on the front makes me think it is from Topps "Tribute" but I can't remember for sure if that is a Topps product. I think so?
The card-back text leads with "Triple Take" so I will thus presume this is a card from Triple Threads. A collection of these would look nice enough I guess, but I have to wonder if anyone really cares about a set of Triple Threads cards, rather than all the "hits" in Triple Threads for which base cards have to be assembled, just, because. Eyeroll please, Satchel.
Why I selected it: At the time, I thought I might collect this small checklist of the "Legends of the Game" from 2010 Topps Baseball. But over time I have come to quite dislike this design with all the pointless darkness to it. I will keep this card until I find another one with this picture of Jackie Robinson on it, which probably won't take too long. Quite an unusual backdrop; I again suspect this may be at the Polo Grounds.
Why I selected it: Seems like a nice standard addition to a collection of Oneil Cruz Rookie Card cards. I probably snagged it on the "just-in-case" chance this has a different image than his card in the non-Chrome Topps Baseball set in 2022 (couldn't recall). Also have no clue if this is regular Topps Chrome, or if it might be "Sonic" Chrome. I don't think anyone can hear regular Chrome, but Sonic is supposed to make some sort of noise, somehow. This card is rather quiet.
Otherwise I find "base" Chrome cards to be a fair bit less enticing than their regular cardboard cousins. Despite the Oooohhhh, Shiny, I want more to "Ooohh" over than just, silver.
Why I selected it: I like these inserts. This was their 2nd appearance in Gallery, in 2022, the last year (for now?) it was issued. Year one of "Next Wave" was a fair bit less visually appealing. I could see assembling some pleasing additional copies of year two. If I don't, then this one will look nice on a page of Powder Blue inserts....
Why I selected it: ...same as above, except I already have a set of these die-cuts, just recently completed. But if I have a page of Powder Blue inserts then it surely needs a die-cut representative. Particularly now that by scanning it, I can see how much Topps leaned into the Powder Blue on this card, even 11 years ago, when only one team in MLB was regularly wearing the Powder Blues. Topps, couldn't wait for more, it appears.
Why I selected it: I've been waiting to get this one into the scanner, to see how it turns out. This stack of cards probably got a little mixed with 10-months-ago and 1-month-ago purchases as this one was definitely from last winter. These are extra thick cards, the first clue they aren't just useless, regular base cards. They are also Gold bordered, another clue they aren't just useless, regular base cards, though they are not serial #'d like pretty much all other Gold cards are.
The final clue that this isn't just a useless, regular base card is the printing of the "facsimile" signature, which is done in dramatic shiny Gold ink. And that's why I bought it.
I found it very surprising that Topps would still take an interest in producing a card with a facsimile signature on the front; something I can't recall them otherwise doing in the 21st Century outside of just one set, 2007 Topps Baseball, except for when they are faithfully re-issuing an older design that included them. Probably there are more examples in the Bowman product line.
But at this point, the concept of autographed Baseball Cards is so here, there, and everywhere that when you type something like "2005 Topps Baseball" into a Google Images Search, the top results will all be of cards autographed "in person" by a player. And there are uncountable thousands of Baseball Card collectors who ONLY collect autographed cards, one at a time. Every single person who plays Major League Baseball has an actual autographed card, or hundreds of different ones, that can be collected now. The only "real" Baseball Cards are the autographed ones, "The Hobby" routinely seems to want to say.
That all makes the old-timey tradition of a not-real autograph just look rather quaint on a brand new 21st Century Baseball Card. And to include them but also to then blow it up via special gold-ink printing — Topps, err, Bowman, is darn proud of these "signatures."
So, I decided to collect some of these dramatic fake Gold signatures. They look cool on a Baseball Card. Even when they are essentially a useless regular insert card of a by now long since failed Prospect (exception: Pomeranz had a solid MLB career) wearing a fake uniform.
Why I selected it: Ya gotta remember, this was purchased back in the offseason before the 2024 season, when the glimmer of hope around Torkelson was actually glimmering, a little. Even though my LCS had dumped all his Rookie Card cards into their Dollar Box already. So this one went straight into my pile of 91¢ acquisitions as soon as I saw it.
At least, it will help make progress on the HICKORY collection.
Bonus Round
Why I selected it: This is an unusual card in that it begs a question: What is Tyler Stephenson doing here? Is he racing back to the dugout?
I initially was intrigued by this being a Night Card, on the 1986 Topps design, which looks like Night on the top. A little subset collection of that concept would look purdy neat, I thought. And, it still might. I am a long ways from making final decisions on what to do with 2021 Topps Baseball cards. I think there should be 150 different 1986 design cards issued with it, as well as another 100 or 150 Chrome/Mojo cards, generally with a different image, I believe, though I haven't tested that proposition. So there might be 9 2021-1986 Night Cards to be collected, dunno.
This is also Stephenson's 2nd Rookie Card card to feature him blowing a bubble, while he is playing Baseball. That makes this card a Bubble Gum, In Action card, and those are my favorite kinds of Bubble Gum cards. This one might not count as a Rookie Card card, because remember, insert cards don't "count" as Rookie Card cards, nevermind what the RC logo is doing on the card. There are Rules about this stuff. This is a Rookie Year insert, and don't you forget it.
Stephenson's regular Rookie Card card in 2021 Topps Baseball does at least solve the riddle of what is happening on this odd card, as the image was clearly taken immediately after this one; on that card Stephenson is looking up to begin fielding a pop-up. So, someday, this card could end up in a few different odd corners of my collection. We'll see.
Double Bonus Round
Why I selected it: Because, surprise. I was kinda taken aback to see players who -might- become players for my favorite team, already Photoshopped onto my favorite team. I mean, that's stuff that only happens with the real Major League teams, the ones that play in the East or West divisions. Everybody knows the teams in the Central divisions are just Farm Teams now, and they don't need their prospects Photoshopped into their uniforms because their prospects will all eventually fail. But if they don't, they won't retire from a team in a Central Division, either, so no one wants to see them in fake Photoshopped uniforms like these, later on.
So once a Detroit Tiger(s) was (were) selected to be on a prestigious Bowman Chrome Prospects fake MLB uniform card, I had to hop right aboard this particular bandwagon.
Triple Bonus Round
Why I selected it: Well because I like these Topps Chrome Prisms. Having a yellow outfield wall stripe on one might be kinda neat. Might not. At least the classic "mb" ball-in-glove logo is in full color, unlike some other teams on the always more increasingly boring 2022 Topps Baseball design. Though I appreciate elegance in Baseball Card design, 2022 was just a bit lacking in....something.
Anyhow I grab Prisms when I see them, even when I'm not sure if I need my requisite one, just one, copy of one of them from a given year. I really need to make a little list of which years I still need Prisms, Pinks, and Sapphires for, from both the vertical and horizontal divisions, before I go delightfully jumping into the $ and 50¢ boxes down at the LCS. So, I guess I'd better get goin, and get some more homework done...
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