The Hatless Horsemen aka Topps 206 Mets

So I stopped at a mini card show this past weekend.  Many of the dealers were packing up, but I found one that had a bunch of 2010 stuff unsorted in large boxes and was happy to wait around as I poked through them.  One of the benefits to being a Met fan in the Chicagoland area is that Mets are pretty much thrown in with the commons.  This guy had a whole bunch of Mets mixed in with his 2010 Topps 206, so I picked up a bunch.

First, I found a Jackie Robinson.  Not a Met I know, but he still fits in with this theme since the Citi Field entrance is a fitting ode to him.

Look ma, no hat!

Next came a trio of pitchers.

The Ace

The Up-and-comer

The Kid

And a trio of hitters, now more question marks than exclamation points unfortunately.

This card perfectly summed up Beltran's season, nice work Topps!

The one Met hitter who had a very good year.

 His smile can still light up a field.

And finally, one I picked up in a trade rather than at the card show.  A Tom Seaver mini piedmont!

Hats off to madding over at Cards on Cards for this terrific, puns intended, throw in.  I will probably get around to posting the central card in the trade another day.

I'd be interested to hear what other Mets fans think of these.  I don't mind these hatless cards, but maybe the Mets just have interesting looking heads even without the caps.

Muesum Quality John Olerud

I have been steadily adding to my John Olerud collection which is now at 118 cards!

The last four were contributed by Shelliebee over at The Middle Child.  Fortunately I had some cool Rockie cards to send and got the below museum themed Olerud cards in return as well as a bunch of other cool stuff.

First, a nice museum quality frame:

Next, a Museum Collection Pinnacle card and its base counterpart:

Thanks a bunch Shelliebee, I'll continue saving my Rockie cards for our next trade!

Padre Piazza

In 2006 Mike Piazza played for the San Diego Padres. He actually had a productive season there posting an OPS of .843 and hitting 22 HRs while playing 99 games as catcher and getting into almost 30 more as a pinch hitter or DH. He even had fairly even home and away splits and helped the Padres get to the playoffs that year. He only had one double in 10 post season at bats, but his numbers seem to indicate that he tired a lot in August after a torrid July.

Well, I mention all this because Joe from The Sandlot sent these two Padre Piazza cards my way in a much larger trade. That brought my total number of Piazza cards in which he appears in a Padre uni up to 4. So thanks Joe, because before I looked up the numbers I did not realize what a solid year he posted for the Padres and thanks for the trade!

Red and White Back for Blue and White Back

I turned that red back Nolan Ryan from several posts ago into this wonderful blue back (my first) Tom Seaver with some help from the good man over at Play at the Plate.




I'll always be happy to trade a Ranger for a Met (or in this case a former Met in Rangers uniform for a former Met in Met uniform).

And just for kicks and a belated Fourth of July celebration, here are the two different colored backs to compare:

2010 Topps Blue Back (Wal-Mart)



2010 Topps Red Back (Target)

Blue is my favorite color, especially when next to Orange

David Wright just hit a homerun to put the Mets up by five runs on the Marlins on this fine Saturday. That reminded me of a card, which I got in the mail this week from EdS over at Roll Out the Barrel.


Now refractors are pretty cool, I mean even the name is cool. However, a BLUE refractor is another step up from refractors of other colors. It just looks so right on a card of a Met like this one.

Now EdS sent me a bunch of other David Wright cards and Mets stuff in general, all of which I am very appreciative of. Yet, I wanted to highlight this gem: A Julio Franco card.


First, this is fun because I did not already have a Julio Franco card in a Mets uni. Second, this card is hilarious because Mr. Franco clearly has a sawed off bat on the front of a card lauding his hitting prowess. Third, I find a foil card of old man Julio to be funny in itself. It seems to me that Julio Franco, at his age in this card, should only be on nice cardboard only cards.

Anyway, enjoy your Saturday, thanks again EdS, and hopefully Jon Niese and the Mets can hold off the Marlins the rest of the way.

Let's Go Mets!

Carlos and the Killer B

Many thanks to MMosley over at Stats on the Back for two piles of great cards and some old school Mets stuff. I sent him several cards he needed to build the sets he is working on and got some great cards in return. I claimed the Beltran and Biggio cards. The two played together briefly during Beltran's big playoff series in Huston. Here is one of the Biggio cards. I'll give you one guess why I chose to show this one.


I am a big Beltran fan. I feel that he is underrated and has been one of the best producing free agent acquisitions the Mets have made in recent history despite his injuries. There are not many better all around center fielders in the game today (he is a much better hitter than Torii Hunter in my opinion).


I like this card despite all the negative space on the left (reserved for the game used hits I guess).

I also got a good number of pre-Met Beltran cards which was great, because I did not have that many of those already. I particularly liked this one:


Thanks again to MMosley and to Beltran, get healthy soon, your bat will help the Mets' offense.

Trade With Big D

Now, I have gone on record as not being a huge fan of this year's heritage set generally. At the same time I like some of the Mets cards from that set like this Daniel Murphy. Therefore, when BigD posted this over at Hey, That's Mine! along with a F-Mart Heritage card as being available for trade I jumped at the offer.


I sent him some Rangers cards from his want list along with some catchers in full gear. In return he sent me several of the Heritage cards he was uninterested in that I will enjoy. However, he also sent along some 2010 Mets Upper Deck Cards, including what is perhaps Upper Deck's attempt to laugh with its last gasp in baseball, this card:


Though this fact has been documented elsewhere, I still find it extremely amusing that this card depicts Castillo attempting to field a pop up after the dropped pop up he had last year against A-rod and the Yankees that ended up costing the Mets the game (and any hope that the 2009 season would be a success).

The Mets Exchange: Second Trade with Mike of BA Benny's Buffet

So Mike and I are both Mets fans, fortunately for me he is also a Yankee fan. That works out because I send him my Yankee cards and any Mets doubles I may get and he generously returns some of his own Mets doubles like this Reyes Topps Unique (It is kind of hard to tell from the scan, but "Reyes" is in glossy black on a black mat running vertically down the left side of the card).


However, this time around I was captured by the design of some Topps Pristine cards he had posted. He pulled some non-Mets players that he did not collect, but that I do. This particular Kerry Wood really stood out to me.


For some reason I really like how the geometric line behind Wood plays against his picture in the foreground. Not sure why, but I guess I just like the design of that set. Therefore, I was able to get a Brian Giles, Prior (yep I still collect both the Cubs busts), and Jeff Kent along with this Kerry Wood card.

Happy Easter & David Wright Thank You

First off, Happy Easter everyone. As I am a big NL fan, my celebration of Opening Day starts tomorrow, and there will be a big celebration as I am hosting a party of sorts on Monday. For now though I wanted to send out a thank you to William over at Foul Bunt. I sent him some Brady Anderson cards I had accumulated over the years and the package he sent me back almost doubled my David Wright collection in addition to providing me with some other great stuff. Here is just a sampling of the cards he sent:


The texture on this UD Ovations card is great.



I fell in love with this Propaganda Posters insert set from Topps Update 2009. In fact, I am trying to put together the whole set. If you have any you would be willing to part with check my want list for my needs and shoot me an email. I could see how some people might not have liked this insert set, but it immediately stuck me. I would be interested to know what others think about it.


Here's a Sweet Spot, and here's to hoping Wright finds the sweet spot of his bat connecting with more baseballs causing more HRs this year. I personally did not think Wright had a terrible year last year, but I still hope he has a better one this year. We will begin to see tomorrow!


Turkey Red: textured and a painted effect means I was a fan. This is kind of a funny looking pose for Wright, but the colors in the background are cool.


Last, but certainly not least, I got this 2010 Topps Town David Wright from the great guys over at Opening Day Cards along with a Topps Million Card Giveaway redemption card (I ended up with a 2006 Matt Treanor whose wife, Misty May, has a better professional sports career than he does at the moment). Anyway, I strongly encourage you to check out Opening Day Cards. They are in the running for Upper Deck's best blog contest, so at least check out their site so you can make an educated decision on who to vote for.

Mail Day

So I ended up getting four packages in one day earlier this week, needless to say it was a fun day.

The largest pack was a trade with Madding over at Cards on Cards. I sent some Cardinals and got some nice Mets in return. Here are some highlights.

First, I found this card to be hilarious. I'd love to see posts of other "Words of Wisdom" cards. Now I thought Willie was a good manager in general, but still this is just funny.


I also got this 2010 Opening Day Carlos Delgado card which I can add to my growing collection of Topps 2010 Delgado cards.


Now Madding sent me a bunch of great stuff which I am not listing, but this next card is to make a point. Here is an Opening Day Topps Town David Wright.




Compare that with this Andrew McCutchen Topps Town card that was generously bestowed on me (I like Andrew McCutchen) by Matt over at Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius as part of his 2010 Topps Giveaway. This was in package number two along with a bunch of other great Topps base stuff I requested.


Even if you are adamantly against these Topps Town cards, you have to admit that this is one place where the Opening Day release has the advantage over the regular Topps set. The Opening Day version is so much nicer.

As for package number three that contained the results of my first group break conducted by the great Thorzul over at Thorzul Will Rule. It was a lot of fun, and I even got a hit: this nice red parallel numbered to 249. I appreciated the base too. I will be looking forward to future breaks with Thorzul if and when he chooses to have them.


Next on the list of packages contained this Keven Youkalis from the great guys over at Opening Day Cards. It was extra nice of them to give this one and the Prince Fielder up as Joe and Chris are Brewers and Red Sox fans respectively. Seriously, check out their site as they post some very cool videos of breaks and give away lots of free cards. Go initially for the cards and then keep going back for the videos. Thanks again guys for this nice looking card.


Last, I'd like to round out the post with this Daniel Murphy card in anticipation of Opening Day (which, incidentally, I consider to be Monday not Sunday). I hope that Murphy has a nice season this year and can fit into the Mets' plans next year as well. For some reason, I really like this particular card. It especially vivid, down to the unimaginative Inaugural Season at Citi Field patch on Muphy's sleeve (don't worry the patch on the cap was much nicer). Well thanks again to everyone who sent me some cards!

Set of the Month: 2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces

So I broke down and decided to get the entire set of Upper Deck Masterpieces 1-90. I like the set because it combines two of my favorite things about contemporary baseball cards: an all painted set and an interesting material. The material is considered canvas paper, which is like a textured heavy cardstock and had been touted by Upper Deck as "unlike any set ever created before."* The paintings transferred to the cards depicted some of the greatest moments in baseball along with some of the best players and rookies of the year. It is a nice set, so onto some pictures.

This is one of my two favorites. A card worthy of Play At The Plate whose current blog header is also from this particular set.

Here is my other favorite.




















Now these two are both base cards, but the set also had nicely framed versions in various colors which I am sure each had different runs and seeding ratios. Anyway, I got a Jared Weaver, Vlad Guerrero, and Travis Hafner with a green frame, which I believe is the least rare of the parallels, depicted below that are up for trade. I actually also got a game used jersey Matt Holliday insert called "Captured on Canvas" but I already promised that to Madding over at Cards on Cards.




* Check out this press release for more info on 2007 UD Masterpieces

First Completed Trade

Courtesy of BA Benny I got my first package of trade material in the mail today. He was very generous with me, especially considering the fact that we are both Met fans. I got some great game used cards and other Mets singles in return for the vast majority of my yankee collection including the one game-used card I have ever pulled (of course it would be a Bernie Williams card) and all my Jeters and Posadas. Thank you for taking them off my hands and sending me back some NL New York cards! I even got an Edgardo Alfonzo card that I did not already have.

First, my favorite game used from the bunch, a Turkey Red Pedro Jersey card. Yes, I am posting back-to-back Pedro game used cards, but I have always enjoyed Turkey Red and I love the texture on this card (which you can see from the scan) in addition to a black uniform piece that will compliment the white ones from the last post. I was looking at the statistics from Pedro's first season with the Mets, on the back of a Topps Opening Day card from the trade, and I had forgotten how good Pedro was that year: a 0.95 WHIP and almost 9K/9. That was one of the best years in Pedro's career.

My favorite completely cardboard card was the David Wright on the right. I like the return to classic card designs that the industry decided on several years ago. The bright colors on this card are awesome and contrast nicely with the black and white photo.

So thanks again BA Benny! I will let you know when I get some more Yankee cards worth trading.

I should be getting several other packages in the mail this week from trades and ebay, so I have some fun stuff to look forward to.