My First Soto

As many of you know, I am not much of a baseball card collector anymore. There are only specific things I really chase.

Group 1:

1. 90's Inserts/Parallels from any team/player as long as the cards are 1995-1999.
2. Derek Jeter

These Top Two I wouldn't trade away for anything. These are absolute locks for my collection as long as I live.

The next list I collect there is some flexibility on whether I would move them for something I want more.

Group 2:

1. Mickey Mantle (vintage I would keep)
2. Jasson Dominguez (as long as he remains a Yankee)
3. Aaron Judge
4. New players in a Yankees uniform
5. Key Rookies
6. Anything else that catches my eye

My recent trade with @ChrisParksIT brought in some of these cards.

Like my first Soto in a Yankees uniform. He looks so much better with the NY.

Jasson Dominguez rookie card.

Jasson Dominguez Good Vibrations rookie insert.

Aaron Judge To The Moon. I thought from a distance this die-cut insert looked great, it's even better in person especially since there is a shine I didn't notice before. I now need to add the Dominguez version.

I love the look of this one. Of course, I was already a fan of the Spring parallels and I believe this my first Yankee one.

 

The final card is a Rizzo foilboard parallel.

Thanks again to Chris for the trade and adding my first Yankees Soto among other great cards.

If any of you have a Dominguez To The Moon, let me know!

More Gleybers

 

It's time to showcase my next player in my latest installment of that massive mail day from Sport Card Collector reader Grady M mail day. Today we feature who I consider the cornerstone future star of the Yankees in Gleyber Torres.

Gleyber's cards don't get a whole lot of respect or value in that matter, despite a kid who has put up decent numbers in his short career so far.

Yes, 2020 was a way down year for him but who didn't have a bit of an off year? Also the injury bug hit him some as well. But, his first two years in the league he put up 24 and 38 home runs respectively and I expect big things in 2021 barring no set backs from injuries or Covid getting in the way of a full season again.

I have collected Gleyber since his rookie year, mainly because he was the one guy I kept pulling so it only made sense.

I don't have an updated number on him yet, but hopefully soon I will have it ready on the blog.

  

Power Producers with Judge and Torres. Both Players I collect so had to pick which one to give the card to and I chose Torres.

Aficionado from Diamond Kings. I don't care for their base design but these inserts and subsets are sharp.

Me without coffee, me with coffee

Golden Gleyber Of Fire

Oooooh shiny!

Power Zone is exactly what Gleyber has.

Only one more player to feature in this short series of mail days from my loaded box of goodies. The final player has the biggest amount of cards in my collection and if that doesn't give it away, it's Ken Griffey Jr. Sorry for the lack of surprise element there.

Grady Judged Me

Remember when I said on Saturday that Sport Card Collectors long time reader Grady M sent me a bunch of player cards for my PC's? Well we will continue with the next player today.

My Aaron Judge PC took a nice leap with today's additions thanks to Grady and currently sits at 160 different cards or so. Though I may need a recount on it again just like this years election as I may have missed a few.

I think that Topps Opening Day was one of the last baseball products I reviewed on here this year, that says a lot about 2020. It's been one big disappointment. I really miss doing more giveaways.

Topps Fire National Baseball Card Day

In the right kind of mind, though they didn't win the World Series this year like most expected. Especially the way they started out this short Covid season.

Fire! I didn't get any Topps Fire this year so it's nice to see some up close. Interesting design as always. For me it's about the colors.

Bowman was a HOT product when it released with Jasson Dominguez to be found. Only problem was, you couldn't find Bowman. I lucked out and was able to open one fat pack and that was it. Since that one fat pack didn't have a Judge, at least now I have one.

Mythical....goes well with cards in 2020. They are mythical creatures you can't find in retail.

Prizm Silver refractor

Big League has some great action shots, I almost like Big League design and photos better than flagship. Shhhh..don't tell anyone.

Topps Chrome, another one of those Mythical products

I did get to open some Allen and Ginter this year, no hobby, but a few retail offerings. No Judge to be found though so this will fill in that gap.

You guys will hate me for this I bet, but sometimes I wonder and wished Panini had a piece of the MLB license. This is a creative colorful card even without a logo is a masterpiece. The picture of Judge with his head turned helps as well.

I will end with a fist bump to Grady for the help with these new Judge additions. A couple more players coming up along with more from his massive insert laden mail day.

So what do you think, would you be okay with Panini getting a piece of the MLB license or nah?

Went Fishing With Grady

In my latest box of goods from Sport Card Collectors reader Grady, along with never ending shiny cards and inserts, he hit up a few of my PC's as well. I will be breaking those down by player as I go. Today I am showcasing the face of baseball, no not you Mookie Betts you are great and all, but you are no Mike Trout.

I have been slowly adding more and more Mike's to my collection over the past few months and have totaled 70 different including these.

Trout and some guy who gets hurt every year on the same card.

Full concentration on this catch. I really like the GQ design on this one along with the photo.

No logos, no problem. Diamond Kings design with the reddish jersey and green background gives it a great look and a Christmas feel which I am great with.

And the final add was this Aficionado from Diamond Kings.

At some point on here I will be updating players like Mike and how many of their cards I have. Of course reaching round numbers will lead to future blog posts of guys like Mahomes, Jackson and Trout which are my newest PC's. I am strongly considering adding Russell Wilson in there as well because he has strong religion and is an incredibly talented, yet underrated QB.

More of these posts to come, some of which have tons of cards to show off while others are smaller like today's.

Cardboard Review:2019 Topps Big League Baseball

Baseball season is fully underway and the baseball releases are making their way to the market. One of collectors favorite releases last year was Topps Big League.

It's affordable, has a big checklist and isn't a product that's all hit based. We toss that away and we go back to the 90's sort of with this one.

Let's see what a hobby box break of it offers you.

 In every hobby box break of 2019 Topps Big League is 24 packs of 10 cards. There are no guaranteed hits to be found but there could be one with odds just over 1:100ish.  Boxes are very affordable at just under $30.

The base card design this year has mixed reviews, I don't mind it all that much  but will say it targets the audience it is trying to attract and works. The base set itself is a deep one at 400 cards and some of the photography had my attention. A lot of fun shots which should be noticed by any set collector or any team or player collector.

The base set consists of players of today and of tomorrow. I was a bit surprised by how deep the checklist is and didn't include legends as well. It did include some subsets instead.

 Here is what the base card backs look like. Full stats with a small write up along with other details about the player. Perfectly done.

I liked the base set photography so much, here is a gallery of my favorites along with the subsets.

 Rookie cards. I should note that the Tatis is a Sp to the base set. There are three Sp rookies in the base set including Tatis, Alonso and Jiminez. They aren't overly tough to pull but do fall a couple copies of each in a case.

 Highlights Subset

 Awarrd Winners Subset

 Stat Kings subset

And now the photography. You can't go wrong with this.

 (this Yankees fan can even enjoy a shot like this despite seeing the Red Sox celebrating)

See what I mean?!!? That Albies is one great card I know any Braves fan would want.

Now onto the parallels,

 Golds fall 1 per pack and here are my best ones including Acuna matata

 Ohtani Rainbow Foil /100

 Brad Keller Artist Rendition /50

Other parallels to find include,

 Players Weekend Nicknames falls 1:4 packs and has 30 cards to collect

 Wall Climbers, my favorite insert of them all, falls 1:4 packs with 10 cards in the set to find.

 Star Caricature reproductions fall 1:4 packs with 30 to chase.

Blast Off features 15 players falling 1:4 packs.

Other things to find including hits are,

• Big League Autographs
• Rookie Republic Autographs
• Ballpark Oddities insert

OVERALL: I really have no complaints about Big League. Solid looking product, affordable and targets a different audience. It also has some hits occasionally. Hobby is really affordable which makes retail even more affordable.

It kind of reminds me of Collectors Choice in a way, except its missing something else. Like a Stick Um's insert or maybe some eye black insert. Something else. Still a fun break though.

Even though this is affordable and you don't need a breaker for a product like this, I suggest you check out Midwest Box Breaks when you do need a breaker.

Please make sure to take a minute out to thank Topps for providing this box for me to review and to be able to add cards to the giveaway on Twitter I am hosting. Please follow me there to enter @SportCardCollec. Also follow Topps on all social media sites and visit their SITE, as well.