Post: Not quite Kellogg's but still cereal cards

As a kid eating cereal was never about actually that - eating the cereal. It was all about the baseball cards hidden inside the box. I never got to complete a set back then but still have a few cards from the glory days when cereal came with baseball cards buried inside.

As you can see six year old me didn't take care of his Griffey cards too well. Looking back at all my Griffey cards they all have some bend or crease somewhere probably from me and all my friends passing them around in awe as we played this: 

My favorite player was Chipper Jones growing up in Atlanta but Griffey was close and being a kid I thought any card with Griffey was cool even base cards. Try telling an 8 year old a base card isn't cool. I'm sure we were drinking Surge and eating Hot Cheetos as well. Anyways here's the back of the card:

Here's some more from '94 Post:

Suprised I didn't feed this card to my dog, the Phillies beat my Braves in the 1993 NLCS. I actually did destroy players cards I didn't like as a kid. I remember me and some friends burning a bunch of  Yankees cards after the '96 Series... Sorry Tim.

The Big Hurt, as a kid I never notice these cards didn't have logos but they are all shot where that fact is pretty unnoticeable.

This is one I've received recently through a trade, I never had good luck pulling Braves as a kid even out of cereal boxes.

I can't recall pulling these out of the box as I was only 4 years old at the time but these are still pretty cool looking cards and featured some future Hall of Famers.

Like this guy, I thought George Brett was a cheater as a kid from seeing the pine tar attack highlight so many times but now realize he was just an angry bastard.

Full career stats - gotta love it.

Same with Darryl Strawberry. I just remember the bad things like him getting busted for Cocaine.

Chopped Up: Brick O' Cards

Steve over at The Card Chop told me he had some Braves to send me when he got back from vacation. A couple weeks later this showed up in my mailbox:

There were definitely cards in here for my collection, a ton of Braves I didn't have. 

I have mentioned on this blog before that I don't have very many cards from before I was born (1988) and posted about the few recent vintage purchases I have made to start collecting older cards.  Steve jump started that big time as seen above in the main picture. 

1960 Carl Willey. I had one '60 Topps so this doubled my collection. The 1958 Rookie of the Year

My first '61 Topps - Mr. Nottebart would go on to pitch to a 3.65 ERA over a 9 year career including a stop as a Houston Colt .45. Speaking of which I need to get some of  those old .45's cards

Another first - '64 Felipe in excellent condition I'll add

1971 Batting Leaders, gotta love the black borders.

Batting Average  s c a p y 1. Carty (ATL) .366 2. Torre (STL) .325 3. Sanguillen (PIT) .325 4. Williams (CHC) .322 5. Parker (LAD) .319 6. Gaston (SDP) .318 7. Perez (CIN) .317 8. Clemente (PIT) **.352 9. Rose (CIN) .316 10. Tolan (CIN) .316

On-Base%  s c a p y 1. Carty (ATL) .454 2. McCovey (SFG) .444 3. Dietz (SFG) .426 4. Carbo (CIN) **.454 5. Hickman (CHC) .419 6. Perez (CIN) .401 7. Grabarkewitz (LAD) .399 8. Torre (STL) .398 9. Staub (MON) .394 10. Wynn (HOU) .394

Slugging %  s c a p y 1. McCovey (SFG) .612 2. Perez (CIN) .589 3. Bench (CIN) .587 4. Williams (CHC) .586 5. Carty (ATL) .584 6. Hickman (CHC) .582 7. Aaron (ATL) .574 8. Allen (STL) .560 9. Cepeda (ATL) .543 10. Gaston (SDP) .543

Have a year Rico (stats from baseball-reference.com)

Yes those are '75 Topps minis you see in the big picture up top. These are awesome, crazy colors and the great Braves throwbacks in old Fulton County Stadium, well at least the Robinson is. 

Another mini this one featuring a Hall of Famer.

I've mentioned Topps overuse of the gray Niekro before but this one seems appropriate.

Steve sent plenty of newer cards as well but there's so many good one i'm going to split it up by era. Thanks so much Steve enjoy your summer hiatus I will be working on a return package for you.

Mail Bag: Frickin' Lasers!

 Saw a lot of Chipper cards on Ebay the other day, most of which I didn't have and put a $0.99 bid in. A few days later I had won so for $3.32 with shipping I got a nice stack of new cards of which I only had one. 

This laser cut card I'm sure was a technological masterpiece in 1996.

I had never seen any of these 1995 Pinnacle Clear Shots before this one. Pretty cool card that scanned terribly.

Some sparkly Bowman from '93, '94 & '95. I got 2 of the card on the left if anybody needs it.

The Starquest was the only card I already had out of the whole lot. Collector's Choice was all I could afford with my allowance as an 11 year old and I think 1999 was the last year I bought cards for a long time according to the huge 10 year gap in my collection.

Some nice looking Pinnacle prospect cards, my second ever "Emotion" card and the Topps top prospects I've always wanted but never wanted to pay "book" for are all mine now! 8 year old me is ecstatic.

Closing out this Chipper bomb with the great photography of Stadium Club.

Catching Up: Bob Walk Trade + LCS trip

Well I didn't post yesterday, too nervous for the hockey game that ended a great season for my Lightning. Ben Bishop played balls out and with what turns out a torn hip, if he hadn't gotten hurt and missed a game who knows what would've happened but alas the Blackhawks are champions again... anyways let's move on to less depressing subjects like baseball cards.

Set up a trade with Matt over at Bob Walk the Plank, our first and he was kind enough to send me these 2 2012 Archives Fan Favorites autographed cards. Both are new autographs to my collection and guys I grew up loving as a kid. Thanks Matt!

He also sent over these serial numbered Falcons from 2004 Fleer Platinum #'d out of 100 as seen on the Warrick Dunn card below.

Mr. Dunn is now a minority owner of the Falcons and seems to always be on the news doing charity work both here in Tampa and up in Atlanta. He gives furnished homes to single mothers around Christmas every year and was one of my favorite players back in the day.

This guy.... this is a cool card

I was over by the only LCS in Tampa the other day around lunch and grabbed a 2000 count box and few cards out of the binders on the display case, grand total $4.75, better than ripping a single pack.

This is my first of the newer unlicensed Studio cards, used to have a bunch of the huge 8x10 1997 or so but have no idea what became of them. 

Can't pass up new Chippers, the middle card is serial #'d 4432/9799.

Blastin' Blasters: 2015 Archives

I won't bore you by complaining about the thin card stock  or everything else wrong with the newest card release, several more skilled/knowledgable bloggers have already covered that. Instead lets just look at the cards I pulled out of my blaster in digital scan format and enjoy the mostly excellent photography selections.

This Griffey is as good as you can get without showing his follow thru/swing.

2 of my PC guys, Chipper looks perturbed that Deion is displayed as a Red.

Nice mix of Hall of Famers, I don't have many cards of these guys so these are nice additions for me.

Bunch of aces and a young guy (Walker) with ace like stuff.

Giancarlo's mini picture - "Hey girl, I heard you like home runs well check out this scan!"

West coast outfielders - one MVP candidate, a injury magnet and a kid just plain MASHING 

Kevin Kiermaier is creeping me out here. This could go in Dimebox Nick's next horror movie post.

The hit of the box #'d /199, a grey, I mean silver Mookie Betts who hit a homer in the 1st inning Friday night then ran his face into a wall in the 2nd inning as seen here : Mookie mushes face

What the hell are you doing in my baseball card President Bush, I thought the Patriot Act left cardboard off the list. 

Well thanks for looking, keeping it short and sweet. Some of the cards I didn't scan will be making it into some of your mailboxes very soon.

Highly Subjective and Completely Awesome: A trade post

Forgive me for the horribly cheesy post title. 

I set up a trade with Brian over at Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary for a mini Julio Teheran from a post he did last month on 2015 Gypsy Queen. I sent him some Twins and PC guys and he sent me these cards:

Didn't expect this awesome mini gold Kimbrel to show up, serial #'d 46/99 which I checked my only other gold mini that Underdog sent me and it too is #'d 46/99 just thought it was crazy 2 cards from 2 different traders had the same serial #. 

Brian also sent over some normal sized cards that I needed including these new Braves. Shelby Miller has been pitching great so far this year and has pitched 6 scoreless today as I write this. Grilli has filled in nicely at closer so far for Kimbrel, they both have 2 blown saves and Grilli has 16 saves to Kimbrel's 15 so far and has a lower ERA.

I CURSED SHELBY METS JUST SCORED TWICE

2 Heywards, a Medlen and a Golden Upton who apparently hated my scanner. Looking forward to seeing Medlen pitch again in Kansas City, he is about to come back from his second Tommy John and I hope he can capture some of what he used to have.

Had the Flagship of this Freeman but this Opening Day and Chrome are new, as is the Chipper. You can never go wrong with Chipper.

This is my first Sheffield in a Braves uni, I think I have about 60 different cards of his but somehow this is my first with him as a Brave. Mike Hampton.. ugh so much money, so many injuries. Will Andruw Jones get any HoF votes? He has the 104th highest career WAR over guys like Jackie Robinson, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Willie Stargell.

Not worried about this guy getting any votes as most RBI by a 3B is just one of the records he holds.

Love this '84 Topps, Archives should've done cards like this instead of the Presidents insert.

These were my first '79 Topps, I don't have many cards from before I was born but have been picking them up lately and trades have acclerated that quickly.

Same goes for O-Pee-Chee cards, I had almost none but now thanks to trades I do which of course will lead me to picking more of these up.

This '81 Fleer card is just a goofy ass picture if I was Rafael Ramirez i'd be pissed this terrible picture of me was floating around as one of my baseball cards 

2 awesomely oversized Murphs to close out the baseball portion of this post. 

In the end Brian covered all 3 of the teams who's cards I collect including this Vinny which i'm closing with to say.....

 GO LIGHTNING!!!!

The Addiction is real: 2015 Topps Archives

So after going to 3 Targets yesterday and Walmart.. I went to 2 on the way home from work and realizing I have a very serious problem I finally found a rack pack of the newest cardboard release. They had blasters but I subdued and settled for this rack pack for the time being.

Pulled a Will Ferrell in my first pack, not too bad!

I guess this guy is getting a rookie card in every set ever made, he's talented I just have like 50 cards of his already and like 1 Bryant and 1 Soler... odd choice Topps.

I know where this Kennys will end up unless Brian already got one....

Got a Folty, this design is probably my favorite of the 3. Jansen has pitched well since his return from injury. A Molitor and that other J-Hey guy.

One pitcher who has an elbow about to fall off and a guy who pitched 2300+ innings. The other 2 are 2 of my fantasy outfielders, which I'll probably bore you all to death in a fantasy post in the next few days.

Well I didn't pull anything earth shattering but I like the product and will buy more... will probably hold off til the card show next weekend and vulture the singles up that way. Thanks for reading!