Shiny Battery

Too wiped out for a real post tonight, so here's a couple of shinies sent to me from Night Owl.

Purple Hanson pitches

to Bronze McCann

Both numbered to 599 for some reason. Bronze... Purple... I guess Topps has to mix it up every once in a while. Thanks Owlie.

Hanson MLB Logo Promo

I didn't even realize Topps was doing this promo this year:

Apparently you could get these cards each week from the local card shop free with purchase of some packs. They are actually fairly attractive if you ignore the in-your-face MLB logo. That logo is there for a reason - it's to commemorate Topps' despicable monopoly new exclusive license with MLB Properties as sole manufacturer of licensed baseball cards. Sez so right on the back: " This card of Tommy Hanson has been specially created to  celebrate the exclusive partnership between Topps and Major League Baseball". Well, at least something good came out of it. The thing I don't understand is that it says onthe back to "visit your HTA store each week for a new card" but there's 50 cards in the set. This thing will drag out until next year at that rate. I'm at least 15 weeks behind so I'll pass on this one. The Hanson shore is purdy though.

In other marketing news, The Topps Transmogrifier will be spitting out football cards this autumn. Topps will probably add a super special Tim Tebow card around week 11 to commemorate his NFL debut in the fourth quarter to take a knee at the end of a blowout game against the Chiefs. 

A good pack spoiled

I ended up on another late night Wally World mission tonight. I didn't wanna go, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. I sacrificed by picking up a few packs of Topps out of boredom. I was hoping for a code card or two to hold in reserve. It's a giant march of the late '70s in there right now so I won't be redeeming any anytime soon, but it's nice to have 'em just in case. I unfortunately got none, but I did get what could have been an awesome pack if not for a horrible flaw. My flaw, let me show it to you.

93 Joe Nathan

Joe's decent, too bad he's hurt. There's an odd baseball stitching shaped bump on the front of the card. I have no clue how it got there.

148 Cody Ross

Fish annoy me, but this is a great photo.

273 Pat Neshek

The patron saint of card bloggers. One of these days I need to get over my irrational fear of pestering celebrities and send a card to Pat to get signed.

100 Albert Pujols

Keeping the 'Best Player in Baseball by a Wide Margin" seat warm for Jason Heyward for the next few years. Gotta love pullin' an Albert. 

20 Tommy Hanson

YEEEAH TOMMY. The dude's been in the league less than a year and he's already the Ace of the staff. This is shaping up to be a hell of a pack and we haven't even gotten to the inserts yet.

259 Daniel Hudson

Don't know who he is, but he's a rookie. Next is the last card before the inserts, let's see what we go-

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOOOO

OOOOO

OOO

O

I hate everything about this card. Fffff - I just - auugh. Does someone need this? please take it from me.

TR39 Vlad Guerrero Turkey Red

I need this card but I can't enjoy it. The pain is too fresh.

No 1 in a series of 45 Babe Ruth Blue Back

Oh thank goodness, the power of a Good Yankee can overpower the power of an Evil one. This is the perfect card to sooth my shaken spirit.

TTT6 Ichiro ToppsTown

Any Ichiro is a good Ichiro. Things are starting to seem normal again. I finally tried out Topps Town and I was not impressed. My kid might like it though, so I think I'll give him my codes this weekend and let him go to town, so to speak.

50 Zach Grienke

I got a bunch of Greinke cards in the packs I got. Just one of those weird collation quirks I guess. All of them are going in a package I am mailing to Heartbreaking cards tomorrow 'cuz I really just don't need 'em. Matt is happy I got stuck at work today and had no time to hit the post office now.

113 Willy Tavares

Nice looking card of Willy about to try to beat out an infield hit.

That could have been a very good pack if not for the awfulness. I will try to think of the pleasant cards like Hanson and Ruth instead of gimmicky abominations. I just need to remember that this too shall pass.

Random Current Braves #7

BRAVES vs. PHILLIES!

BATTLE FOR FIRST PLACE!

TOMMY HANSON ON THE MOUND! WOOOOOOO!

YOU KNOW WHAT THE ONLY THING MORE SCARY THAN FACING TOMMY HANSON IN A DIVISION GAME IS?

HANSON DOING A RADIOHEAD COVER:


AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH I KINDA LIKE IT NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Two more racks of Heritage

Here's highlights of two more of those Heritage Rack Packs I found last week. The first one was kind of boring so I'm showing off another one too. Of course now I need to find a fifth to pair up with the last rack pack. Of course I've bought four more since then since I haven't seen blasters yet. Of course you'd like me to shut up and get on with it already. So I will.

Pack 2:

Tommy Hanson

Great googely moogely I love this rookie cup card. the only Heritage card I could possibly love more than this one is the Jason Heyward card that will come out in the High Numbers set later this year.

Yaz Debut Flashback

This was the only insert in the pack which seems like sort of a rip to me. Then again, it is one of the best inserts possible and I also got Braveage action, so I'm not complaining this time. Yaz is on the short list of non-braves players I really like.

Chipper Jones

I bought eight hobby packs and got one Chipper Jones. So far I've bought eight rack packs and I've gotten one Chipper Jones. Chipper Jones is apparently in one in every eight packs.

Javier Vazquez

I'm not as insences as the rest of the state at having to give up Javy, but I'll be honest with ya. I'd rather have three more years of Tim Hudson than one more year of Javier Vazquez. I'd rather have both of them and blister-footed Derek Lowe elsewhere of course, but you can't have everything.

Pack 3

The last pack was pretty boring, this one is much more interesting.

Topps Stamps Carlos Quentin and Gerardo Parra

Here it is, the fabled '61 Stamp card. The ones whose coolness are mitigated by the difficulty of their pull. At 1:108 packs, it is over three times easier to pull a jersey card than one of these things. The stamps are enclosed inside a plastic frame and are not sliding around in there, indicating to me that they are stuck. The back is numbered out of 50, I've put it in my binder already and it's in the other room and I'm too lazy to get it so don't worry about the actual number on the back. Yeah this card looks really nice. At the risk of earning the wrath of a certain Sox fan, I'm going to say that this particular specimen is not all that impressive. It's kind of like pulling an original '61 stamp panel of Vic Wertz and Jerry Lumpe. Why Topps didn't just put one panel of unframed stamps in every pack and them give out a stamp album as a box topper, I simply do not know. Topps has stamps in the '62 set so maybe they will get it right next time.

Jamie Moyer

I posted this card for two reasons. To try to lure Dinged Corners away from studying for a moment or two, and because The Aged One is looking pretty majestic on that card. So, Is Moyer even a possibility for the Hall of Fame or is he the to the '90s and '00s what Frank Tanana was to the '70s and '80s? Discuss.

Checklist

I'm not a huge fan of the '61 set, but DAMN did they have some mighty fine checklists. Not even the unfortunate photograph can spoil the perfection of this checklist.

2009 National League Home Run Leaders

2009 NL HR Leaders: Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard, Mark Reynolds.
1961 NL HR leaders: Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Ken Boyer, Eddie Mathews.

One you're done yelling "Moyer in the Hall?? You must be mad!" you can all discuss which group is better instead.

Another non-Bip

Although I wouldn't blame Mark from Stats on the Back for Bipping me. I did a bad thing. I'll let Mark tell you about that though.

We did make an actual trade, Cards for Parker's Birth Year Set for this lil' beauty:

Do I need any more Turkey Red cards after this? Probably not, but I'll get 'em anyway. Mark is known for sending really weird and esoteric schtuff too (I still have an oddball box that he sent me last year that I'm trying to figure out how to display properly) and included in the package was this:

That there is a 1972 Atlanta All-Star Game decal. I have no clue where he found the thing but it goes nicely with my All-Star pennant and program. I'll have to quit throwing '69 NLCS programs into bonfires and send one Mark's way one of these days. Always Earth friendly, Mark's package had this on it:

Recycle kiddos! Especially when the address label is really cool! You all should recognize that if you've been keeping up with the blogs in the sidebar. I said I'm only posting one card from non-Bipping packages (Hanson was the reason for the trade so that doesn't count) and I'm going to keep doing that. I couldn't decide between an oddball Chipper Jones and a cool Mark Lemke though. As always, I am the master of compromise:

The Joy of a Sell Sheet Get

You know how when you look a a sell sheet for an upcoming product, and there's a really kickass card on there, and you really want that card, and then you finally track down that sucker? You know how good that feels?

Yeah, I feel like that right now.

Also: a comparison for comparison's sake

Topps Cereal Box ($9.99)

46 base cards
1 Yo Mamma card
1 History of the Game
1 Turkey Red
1 Lineage
1 Peak Performance
1 Tales of the Game
1 When They Were Young
1 Million Card Giveaway code
1 ToppsTown code
1 Shiny crome refractor bonus
TOTAL: 56 cards

Two Topps Rack Packs ($9.98)
59 base cards
2 Yo Mamma cards
2 Turkey Reds
2 Lineage
2 Peak Performance
1 When They Were Young
2 Million Card Giveaway codes
2 ToppsTown codes
TOTAL: 72 cards

Use this knowledge wisely.


One more thing: the next post on this blog will be the video of my Obak box rip. If I never post again, you will know that I am a lazy, lazy man who has still not uploaded the video.

Tommy Hanson G-Braves Schedule

Things I learned from the Gwinnett Braves game today:

1) Unlike Turner Field, you can't bring food into the stadium even though I specifically looked for a prohibition on that on their website and found nothing saying I couldn't do it.

2) Jason Heyward looks incredible. 20 years old and the guy looks better than anyone in the current Braves outfield right now. 3rd inning he got a solid hit to plate the eventual winning run, then stole second, then stole a run when he scored from 2nd on an infield hit that was almost the third out in the inning. He looks beautiful out in right field too. Just beautiful, man. Anyone worried about Frenchy, fugheddaboudit. Heyward's the deal.

3) if you take kids to the Gwinnett stadium, be aware that they have bouncy things for them to jump on in the outfirld for two bucks a pop or $15 for an all-day pass. Between this and the food thing, it is actually cheaper for me to bring my son to a proper Braves game even though both food and parking are cheaper in Gwinnett.

4) I am officially a Brian Barton fan and am sad that he will very likely not get another chance to make the Braves' roster. It just means he'll become an astronaut sooner I guess. His at-bat music pushed me over the edge from "yeah, Barton's an ok player" to "I am a Brian Barton fan".

5) The goofy Groundhog mascot I mocked a while back is freakin' hysterical. Best mascot I've ever seen for a Braves team that wasn't an actual Native American. Of course we've had some real crappy mascots here in the ATL, but Chopper is legitimately talented. Call him and Jason up ASAP.

I learned some other stuff but those are the important things. Oops, I forgot a very important thing. End of the season gift shop blowouts rock. I got the G-Braves' team set, a pack of minor league cards and all three programs from this year for less than the prce of an all-day bouncy pass. One last thing for people who read all the way down here on a Sunday night: Be the first to post the attendance for the game I went to today and I'll send you that Tommy Hanson schedule up there. This is the age of the interwebs, someone should be able to figure it out.

Recap

Just so we're all clear on this:

IN

CF Nate McLouth

OUT

SP Tom Glavine

UP

SP Tommy Hanson

GONE TO PITTSBURGH

SP Charlie Morton

CF Gorkys Hernandez

LHP Jeff Locke

Hope you were paying attention, because there will be a quiz next period...

(and why can't I find a single card of Charlie Morton??)

HANSON CALLED UP

Major league Debut on Saturday.

Medlen goes to the pen.

The future is NOW.