Repack to the rescue?

It's been a long, busy and successful year, in everything except one area of Life which you, dear Reader, might be particularly fond of: the enjoyment of Baseball Cards. Of course success in economic endeavors is great for obtaining more Baseball Cards. But ultimately there is something even more important than money in the enjoyment of Baseball Cards, which is simply Time, itself. Without time to sit down and casually paw through a stack of Baseball Cards, turning a few over, sorting them some, etc., solely obtaining them can become rather hollow. And when one is hundreds of miles from their card collection, even Free Time is not enough for a little Baseball Card relaxation.

Lately when I have found myself particularly missing Home, and the Baseball Cards therein, I end up drawn once again into a store I don't otherwise really care to visit. One completely full of corporate junk products with the prices set at: Maximum, and also full of already sick people trying to figure out how to make themselves feel better while busily shedding their germs: Walgreens. 

A touch harsh, yup, but riddle me this: who goes to Walgreens for fun? I do, that's who. I can easily tune out those aforementioned concerns as I make a bee-line straight to some quick, EZ relief of my symptoms, too. So as it turns out, I must thank Walgreens for hooking me up with what should be a basic staple of American life, in my not humble at all opinion: cheap Baseball Cards.

It has been an interesting year for me in that regard at least, with a variety of Baseball Card experiences on just 3 or 4 visits to the mini box store, which has been a plus compared to visiting the Big Box store options lately.

My go-to @ Walgreen's is that there Baseball Collector's Edge box, generally of 50-ish loose cards and one sealed pack. It rarely disappoints, completely. Eat your Wheaties, cuz them things are tougher than they look, and let's "rip" one...

Well we're not off to a good start, even though I quite like this card and already have copies permanently enshrined in 2 collections — a complete set of 2024's "The Neon," and also one in a nascent City Connect collection of Rockies cards. This one is letter perfect for that still under construction page, for one of the best CC unis. But I don't really want year old cards in my repack products.

So this repack began with four cards a year old; oddly, two from Series One and two from Series Two. I concluded the repack packer was being careful in disposing of recent cards, even when I pawed straight into more '24 -

I lost all desire to own any more Topps Holiday after a few years, and that has just never rekindled. Perhaps this card will make an exception to that rule, as I also keep a few Sunglasses cards from any pile of cards I have. Maximum Neon could use at least one bling-out on a binder page, I guess, and Holiday Neon is None-More-Neon.

Year old Baseball Cards though, that's not what I want to see in a repack, silly rabbit. Fortunately, those stopped at 5 cards, and amidst the swirling Donruss & Fleer junkwax, the nuggets began to appear:

2001 Bowman

Another good Sunglasses card? Or a good Eye Black card? Albeit one with a live Baseball, incoming.

This card, with its odd half-shadow lighting, won't make an eventual best-of 2023 Heritage High Numbers for me, but I scanned it to remind myself that Kimbrel might could mebbe qualify for a page of 9 uniforms, 9 Topps designs now after reaching the team total in 2025. We'll see.

and boom goes the dynamite

Or maybe the fuse just sputtered, there in a failed-foil scan. Anyhow, that's Jose Bautista, who's future was so bright there in 2006 Topps Updates & Highlights that he had to, yup, wear shades. That there definite year-end Best Sunglasses Card winner has an intriguing card back, too:

which reveals that after 75 MLB games with 4 MLB teams across 2 seasons,

Jose Bautista had not yet hit a Home Run.

He must not have been lucky enough to face Paul Foytack, I guess.

&, I quite like the always-sunny-at-Topps optimistic prescience here, with Topps Card Back Writer confidently calling career-so-far .190 hitter Bautista a "crucial component" and in Pittsburgh "to stay." Next stop, Hall of Very Good.

see what I did there?

I have to wonder what Hitting Coaches might say about that card. A keeper though, bright, and just so ... live, as in Baseball, being played. I did begin to worry, however, that this card might be the duly required Hall of Famer card in a repack, in the mind of the repack packer person. Because I would likely fail a question on Tony Fernandez's HoF status, voting in the affirmative.

This repack, though, seemed to be leaning into this HoVG trend -

this is from one of the years of the Gallery 1.0 product(s), as distinct from the 2.0 revival beginning in 2017; the earlier iterations are a set of checklists I have zero experience with, card-in-hand. This card didn't yay-or-nay me much, though I like the camera's perspective point. The back however,

Pitcher-At-The-Plate.

Keeper.

1997 Pinnacle

Pop-Up.

Sunglasses.

'nother Keeper.

1992 Pinnacle

This card is moving me into acceptance of a conclusion that of all the 1990s sets of Baseball Cards that might still exist in an unopened state, the one I might most want to peruse pages and pages of its cards, said set might just be this one. Mesmerizing. Classy.

This is a Public Service Announcement:

1993 Fleer Ultra is not aging well.

Another sometimes seemingly required inclusion in a repack is a taste of, Oooohhhhh, Shiny....

oh well. I was way looking forward to scanning this one, as it is around an 8.5 on the Oooohhhhh, Shiny scale, in-hand, which is quite impressive, particularly on a sunny day. Sometimes they scan fabulously, sometimes they don't.

Otherwise the other stick-in-my-head aspect of this card will be the set name from whence it came, 1995 Pinnacle Select Certified. I would have to wonder what a Marketing 101 textbook would comment on that mouthful. 

But the Pop-Up page will need an Oooohhhhh, Shiny rep, so into the collection it goes. Repacks are so good for the side collections, such as:

another entry for page 2 of truly Devout players

OK, quiz time:

How long has it been since you held a 1994 Stadium Club Baseball Card in your hand?

I'll bet you didn't know that last name there, straight off the DYMO•Tape machine about which youngsters are like, what's a DYMO•Tape machine, well on that cool facsimile of DYMO•Tape the faux impressioned plastic letters are actually embossed onto the Baseball Card as part of the printing. A Deluxe Baseball Card, in the sky. I did not remember that, not having held a 1994 Topps Stadium Club Baseball Card in my hand since, 1994.

Pop-up Hot Pack.

Sunglasses Hot Pack.

Manager - Dave Roberts, foil-fail scan strikes again

'nother keeper.

TOPPS

2005

I like 2005 Topps a little more every time I see it.

However I think it might be a long time before I discover another Baseball Card with not one but two hitters in a batting stance, even though this is the second one I have scanned for you recently.

Overall the repack packer had come through for me, with a respectable quantity of collectable Baseball Cards, for MY collection(s), anyway. I had not pulled an actual Hall-of-Famer Baseball Card, but I liked the optimism that Dave Roberts will "get the call" one day, which seems likely, to me.

My eventual memory of any of these little overly-glued, rectangular boxes will often depend on what actual sealed pack is included. Here, it was a re-run, same as my last  $6 "Collector's Edge" purchase before this one -

1988 style

Again. Not my hope & dream when I successfully open/destroy one of these boxes, but the pack is sealed and a small portal back in time to 1988 -

a favorite name from my youth, still going strong from Vintage, on into Junk Wax

Should I put a card of a Pitcher wearing a Batting Helmet in with the Pitchers @ Plate cards? Decisions, decisions.

Maybe the blue uniform on a blue plaid (did I just type that?) Baseball Card isn't a problem, after all, when you are at the Stadium nice and early on a sunny late morning. NY Mets - Donruss Card Miner nailed this one. A great First Card upon opening the pack.

now that's how to MVP Baseball Card

yet more Hall-of-Very-Good action

this repack packer's got skillz

did I mention liking these MVP cards?

Both, in one pack!

Wait.

The Braves and the Dodgers both play in the National League.

Which can have only one MVP.

(googles)

& What about George Bell and Andre Dawson, 1987 MLB MVPs?

do their 1988 Donruss Baseball Cards say MVP on them too?

I was told there would be no homework assignment.

88 Donruss, strikes again.

the pack tries to make amends...

all of the above, and a Diamond King

(what's up with those blue, green & yellow diagonals doh?

I'm not sure suprise color spaghetti helps out, on this design)

but wait, there's more

got racing stripe? New York, Mets.

Were these things created in suburban Chicago, or deep in NYC?

88 "Plaidurday" Donruss Mets Team Set? Hmmm.

Ha!

Now you can't ever unsee this Baseball Card, either.

Were they the M&M's back then?

And there's _that_ digit? Don't see that every day.

How much do you think the guy wants for that pair of white pants there in the back? 

And where's his customers?

but wait, the train is still here in the HoVG station...

the Giants & Giants though?

and finally, the Last Card is reached, another famous name:

however that was not an opportune day to take a Baseball Picture Card photo; RJR has better Baseball Cards than that one.

1988 Donruss. They just don't pack 'em like they used to.

Rescued.

yeah Man, < 50¢ a little

Maybe someday I will reach the end of the stack of 50¢ Baseball Cards I have been enjoying. That's probably a little tougher than pondering true Dollar Box cards, because the fiddy¢ card pile grows a little faster, of course. Which is a very fun fact. 

Why I selected it: This one might be because I need to do some homework on 1999 Topps, more than anything. Of course Brad Ausmus will be a name connected to the Tigers organization for a lot more than a 1999 Topps Baseball Card, which is why it is in the 50¢ box in my town and nowhere to be found, ever again, in your town. He managed the Tigers basically unsuccessfully after the retirement of eventual Hall-of-Famer Jim Leyland; an essentially impossible-to-be-successful task given the Tigers slowly closing "window" at the time.

But for some reason, I can't seem to find whatever 1 or 2 sample packs of 1999 Topps Baseball I purchased, a year I didn't collect beyond a check-it-out purchase. This card makes me think, "for obvious reasons."

So one thing I want to check out is - how did they make a Gold parallel, for this year? Maybe they didn't?

I also need to wade through all of the Brad Ausmus cards ever made, to find the one with him on the dugout steps with a laptop computer. I believe I have seen the card, now I just need to find it...

Why I selected it: Tall players get better cards, for one. 2002 Topps is a major improvement over doings just 3 years before. And this is just a great Empty Seats card, so apropos for a 2021 card. Recently I decided to assemble a best Empty Seats page, of just Rookies, so it will be easier to also assemble another best-of Empty Seats. This card, though, would look great on the Best-of, too.

Why I selected it: This card feels like an homage. Not to another player, per se / specifically, but definitely to a certain Baseball Card: the 1974 Topps Steve Garvey card. So I just had to have this one and it will 100% certainly make it to my Top 9 verticals of whatever year Stadium Club this card is from, which is something I can never remember just by looking at the front of the card. Meanwhile on the back, I have to use the handy "Magnifier" app on my phone these days to sort out what year a Stadium Club card is from. Doesn't matter, for this card.

Why I selected it: This happy Baseball Card single-handedly made me want to assemble 9 of the 2021 New Age Performers, a Heritage insert I rarely pay much attention to. Those inserts do, however, pay attention to the graphical styles and motifs of the year, and set, they came from, usually. Here, the overall level of 1972-Topps-ness is quite strong.

I figured I had pulled a few of these in my purchases of 2021 Heritage, and that proved correct - 2 each of 2 players who did not "Perform" at all in MLB but rather flamed out quickly and dramatically. The eternal problem with putting Rookies on insert checklists that are supposed to be interesting, later. And it's never any fun to start an insert collection by pulling 2 doubles right off the bat.

So this great Ke'Bryan Hayes card will just be a reset to begin building up a few of these; a happy find.

Why I selected it: I can't say it would help me to have to keep track of another Pirate outfielder named Polanco. Though differing decades would keep me straight eventually. But then, a Bowman card only sometimes = Major Leagues. This one, probably does not, it appears, now, after 3 seasons have passed since it was issued.

But I bought this Baseball Card because I like cards with Trees on them. Trees = good.

Why I selected it: I do always like a road uniform on a card design that just prints the team name and nothing else. Washington. Nationals. Really though a build of this 2021-1986 checklist is looking increasingly likely, so here I have knocked down another one of the "big boys" in the set though I am near certain an Ohtani card will still be waiting for me on top of the mountain. Maybe soon I will start collecting only checklists without an Ohtani card. At least now I can afford to complete all the checklists with Trout cards.

Why I selected it: I was afraid I did not pull a Kyle Tucker Rookie Card card back in 2019. I think his career, or more particularly, his Baseball Card career, might really take off in Chicago in 2025.

If it turns out I already did pull a Kyle Tucker Rookie Card card back in 2019, well I think his Baseball Card career might really take off in Chicago in 2025, so having a "double" of this card will be, good.

Why I selected it: This had to have been discovered after I wrote a recent post largely about the Topps Stars of MLB inserts, and a small bit of certainly way incomplete history of graphical stars-on-cards. Can't have too many Stars in a Baseball Card collection.

Why I selected it: I figured it would be nice to have a Tigers card in with the Empty Seats cards, which usually come from Cincinnati, not Detroit. But the Tigers are on the road here, so ... wait, those empties aren't red, so this isn't Cincy. This just barely qualifies for a nice Empty Seats card but I got to have some Tigers cards outside of the Tigers binder at least occasionally, somehow.

Why I selected it: A Powder Blue Hall-of-Famer. Is this Morgan's Sunset Card, you ask? No, he still hadn't been to Oakland yet.

Why I selected it: Well I do like the Giants' Alternate black uniform even when it's not real, I guess. But mostly I kept this one because even Bowman players might display The Cross, which I quite respect.

Why I selected it: Well this horrendous scan certainly begs that question. I collect/save Dontrelle Willis cards when they appear in front of me, because I like daydreaming about the idea of playing Baseball while under the influence of Xanax, a thing of the past now in MLB.

Normally Dontrelle sure looks chillax-d on his Baseball Cards, but on this one you can't see his face, so who knows. That's usually a no-go for my collection, but this card is unique in that it is a promo card for a Topps&MLB collaboration of some sort, for a video game. It was issued in packs of 2006 Topps it turns out.

The back of the card features a "cheat code" to use playing the game, that is very hard to read ... except maybe my scanner can read it:

The code is a bit more discernible, electronically, appropriately enough. But it is just the word "Unhittable," which feels pretty lame in that I could probably guess the other 10 cheat codes now. Cracking the top 9 Dontrelle Willis cards might need a stronger cheat code, for this card. But it is a nice reminder of how strong his career was, there in the mid-00s.

Why I selected it: I am definitely heading into collecting all of the Significant Statistics cards, which appear in multiple years of Topps Baseball. I'm not even sure how many yet; I just keep these when I find them now. Can't be a bad thing to start another year of them with the Mike Trout card, even those aren't expensive any more.

I wrote up this same Average Distance for a Mike Trout Significant Statistics card from 2021 just the other day month; thus this 2020 card back has little mystery but these cards are meant to be enjoyed on the back, so

I haven't decided yet, but I might put these into binder pages showing the back of the card, for easier 'memberin of the text, later on down the road.

What's better than an Oooohhh, Shiny card?

 

Actually, I'm not all that completely devoted to Oooohhh, Shiny Baseball Cards. 

But — sometimes.

I've posted this card before, also as the lead/thumbnail card for you all to see on blog rolls, when I was pondering the use of stars on Baseball Cards. This card features stars all over the place, starting right at about dead center on the card, which has to be pretty unique in that regard. 

I think it is likely this card will be my 2024 Card of the Year, whenever I finally finish up with the delightful "The Neon" set of 2024 Topps Baseball, which occasionally fits along in starts and stops. I picked up a couple more packs of 24 Update just last week, for example. I think I can safely anoint this 2024 Topps Baseball Series One insert as my 2024 Psychedelic Card of the Year, right now. 

This card is just fun to have, in-hand. I sometimes wonder if there will come a day when we can make 3D scans of cards. If such a thing were possible, this would be one of my first experiments. When holding this card, the rainbow-ish palette for the exploding star behind Riley there starts to shimmer and catch the light. Maybe Tolkien's Elves would start wars over this thing, it's so purdy when light is bouncing off of it.

So aside from anchoring a page of these superb 2024 inserts, and also appearing amidst my collection of the Detroit Stars uniforms as seen on Baseball Cards, I began wondering if there could be another way to enjoy this ridiculously overly-fascinating slice of cardboard enjoyment.

And thus the question that titles this post. Could an Oooohhh, Shiny card become even better with the mysterious extra layer of Oooohhh, Shiny known as a "Chrome" Baseball Card?

hmmm

Surprisingly, the Chrome version of this card somehow dials -BACK- the Oooohhh, Shiny, when enjoyed in-hand, like Baseball Cards should be. In this case, the "Chrome" seems to be nothing more than an extra layer of some sort of translucent plastic that means you should probably wash your hands after holding this particular Baseball Card, before eating anything. (The new Chrome cards falling out of all packages of Heritage these days display this trait on the card backs, which look like they just came out of a shrink-wrap machine. Weird.)

Still I wanted to enjoy this card forever more on yet more binder pages than just the two I initially assigned this one to. 

I could just attempt to find 8 more Oooohhh, Shiny Riley Greene Baseball Cards, which here in the most wonderful season of Detroit Tigers Baseball in about a decade, will become ever easier. I even have a first page-mate, amidst a tiny collection of 24 Topps parallels, which includes a 10th, 'overflow' card, featuring Riley. I'll probably just go ahead and work on 'clecting that project, too. 

That triple inclusion in my various Baseball Card binders still didn't feel like, enough, particularly when I would happen to notice this complete gem of a Baseball Card selling for just 35~40¢, each - can you believe it?

After a couple rescues of this totally awesome Baseball Card from the fairly undeserved fate of being so ignominiously cheap, I finally figured out just what really is better than just one Oooohhh, Shiny Baseball Card-

The Result

Livin 4 dimes & a nickel at a time

Looks like I stayed with that fiddy cent box for quite a while, one fine day early last summer. Treasures galore...

Why I selected it: Topps has only issued "Active Leader" cards a handful of times, appearing in the 1984, 2012, and 2020 Update sets. I'm not 100% positive on that being a complete list and would prefer to be wrong and discover some more of these.

I find them to be a fascinating snapshot not of a single year of Baseball activity, but more of a look at, say, 5-10 years of which players are really producing, every season, to climb to the top of a stat category. It is also interesting to see if a leading player can then make the major milestones such as 500 Home Runs or 3,000 Strikeouts. 

I have a long way to go on the 1984 cards, so I was happy to find this one.

Art by Mayumi Seto

Art by Mayumi Seto

Why I selected these: The captions explain it all. More progress on these; whenever I see a 2017 or 2018 Gallery card I generally already know which artist created which card, but that can always be confirmed on the back. 

Why I selected it: I'm a Tigers fan, silly. It must have been Bring-Your-Own-Can-Of-Blue-Spray-Paint Day at some unknown stadium some fine afternoon in 1978.

Why I selected it: Previously in this box of delights I had picked up the 81 Trammel, so for once I was able to keep this famous pair together. Progress.

Why I selected it: Why not? For a year+ now, I have regretted not buying an Aaron Judge KABOOM! card at my LCS, for basically cheap. Those are "case hits" and can go up into the mid 3 digits in price. I could have had Mr. #ALLRISE for just a pair of digits, and enjoyed reading KABOOM! on it whenever I wished.

This card is not a case hit and is thus not worth any money. But, it still goes Boom! Or Roar, or something.

Now I just gotta figure out what kind of cage to keep this thing in.

Why I selected these: I always notice when Topps can't get their Rookie ducks in a row on time to print a player's Rookie Card card before they go out on to the field of play and earn themselves membership on the Topps All-Star Rookie team.

Thus I had solid memories of the regular versions of these cards from 2016 Topps. So - what were these cards? Photo Variation$ ? 

Nope. Just "Factory Set" variations. I would say the Conforto is a definite improvement on his regular 2016 Topps card but the same can't be said about the Sano card.

Why I selected it: Seems to me that a collection of Baseball Cards that sometimes seeks to use them to know Baseball History could use some Tommy John cards.

Why I selected it: What a great menacing look out at the Pitcher. This recent Diamond Kings effort will be a great contrast to the other 8 regular photo-based Baseball Cards on my nifty O'Neil Cruz page. I also like that the artist & card composer managed to well obfuscate the RC logo, which is just not attractive on Panini cards.

Bonus Round

Why I selected it: I sometimes wonder if I know less about Bowman cards, or Panini cards. A moot point if I never buy actual packages of them.

I bought this one because there aren't a lot of cards with Miggy wearing sunglasses, I guess. Also another Miggy-on-the-basepaths card, which are not common.

But I also thought this is one of Bowman's Worst; using a team logo as some sort of under-image backdrop has never made for an attractive card, particularly when the ginormous ® then has to be included. Is Miggy R-rated? Probably.

This card scans up like a gumball machine; the (used to be "atomic") pattern is nowhere near that fascinating, in-hand. Ima stick with Topps, me thinks.