Random Stuff

Featured Cards: 2011 Topps Allen & Ginter’s Baseball Highlight Sketches #BHS-10, Ryan Howard; 2006 Topps Chrome Rookie Logos #CRC43, Matt Smith; 2005 Donruss Timeless Treasures Material Ink #MI-30, John Kruk

As suggested by the title, the following is just a collection of random items I wished to hit upon:

On Monday’s post, I accidentally reused a card that I previously posted back in August. Since I’m attempting to avoid double-posting of the same card, I clearly need to do a better job of checking previous entries when posting. I think that my biggest shock is that it happened so early in the life of this blog. So, rather than replace the image in the post and pretend it didn’t happen, here’s a different card Ryan Howard card, in an effort to realign the karmic scales…

Returning to my “Alternate Photos” post from a few weeks ago, upon obtaining the Domonic Brown Vintage Chrome insert I found that Topps reused the photo from his card in the regular Topps set for the insert, thus shooting down my conspiracy theory as to why it wasn’t used for his regular Chrome card. Nothing like having the facts completely get in the way of unfounded conjecture…

Because I wasn’t obsessively collecting or meticulously keeping track of new issues during the 2004-2008 period, I am still discovering cards which I want to add to my collection that were printed during that period. Along those lines, I recently discovered and obtained the 2006 Topps Chrome Rookie Logos Matt Smith card. Like the Rich White card I talked about it in the “Parallel Dilemma, Part 5” post, there are no other Topps cards of Matt Smith using the basic Topps design from that year. I have also discovered that Aaron Rowand is depicted as Phillie in the 2007 Topps Opening Day set (a set I typically ignore), but not as a Phillie in any of the other sets that year. In a tangentially-related fashion, Topps mysteriously issued a Silk card for John Mayberry in this year’s Update set, but there’s no Mayberry card to be found in any other Topps issue this year. Of course, I plan on adding both the Mayberry and Rowand cards to the collection…

While the post-NLDS malaise was a huge factor as to why I didn’t post for nearly 10 days, there was one other huge reason: I was a business trip to Las Vegas last week which made posting nearly impossible. However, my flying out there has given me an excuse to post another card of the greatest Phillie to play there while the city hosted a minor league team: John Martin Kruk. Looking at his minor league numbers, I will never understand how it is that the Padres sent him back there for a second full season after his amazing first season there. Then again, I’m sure some old school talent evaluator in the organization thought he wouldn’t hack it in the majors and wanted to see if he could repeat those AAA numbers. He did, and the rest is history.