Catching Up Before Christmas

I haven't been feeling great lately, and Christmas prep has forced me to fall behind on blogging. Over a week ago I received a very generous trade package from Matt, author of the blog Red Cardboard. A while back, Matt had offered to unload a lot of surplus inventory in exchange for some Reds oddballs. I really didn't have much to offer but Matt didn't mind. (His trade post did say "make a lopsided trade with me" or something to that effect.)

I requested some Red Sox and some 2016 Topps set fillers, but until the box arrived I had not realized just how one-sided this trade would be:

If this had been a "fair" trade, I would have been happy to receive this Big Papi manu-relic and a couple throw-ins. But there were more than a couple extra Sox in the box:

This Cy Young card takes me back - Hygrade and Woolworth All-Time Greats cards were inserted into the 9-pocket pages of the very first baseball card album I ever had, which I purchased(or was it a gift?) at a corner store next to my grandmother's house.

Moar-tiz, including my first Topps Fire baseball card. I have to admit, the gold shiny looks better in hand than I expected.

The first row are all Berger's Best inserts, including the blogosphere favorite 1956 Topps.

The Heroes of Autumn card depicts Pedro's 2004 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, but I will never not think of the Grady Little game when I see an image of Pedro pointing to the sky. 

I should have scanned the Brock Holt horizontally because it's an awesome image, but I was lazy. Finally got me a McAvoy (which is exciting only to my in-laws) and I asked Matt for the Schwarber because the rookie birth year Topps set thing really appeals to me.


This is already a pretty solid trade package, but Matt also sent me 145 cards from 2016 Topps. Mostly series 1, since I needed too many of them to even bother making a list. A few singles turned into doubles courtesy of Gavin's big box of CDs and cards, and a few more arrived in my Secret Santa gift. That said, Matt still knocked 138 cards off my need list: 110 from series 1 and 28 from series 2. 

I'm sure you've all seen this set a thousand times so I'll just scan up some of my favorites:

Finally got my hands on this iconic card. "Joey Bats" used to be one of my favorite players, but his attitude over the past couple years has turned me off (says the big fan of Big Papi)

Speaking of great players who are jerks:

I'm (mostly) referring to Papelbon here, I loved the guy when he was on Boston but there's no denying he's a tool. Harper can be a little arrogant, but I included him here as a reminder of why "Pap" is no longer in the league. 

Not even the smoke effect can detract from these fantastic World Series photos.


And while we're on the subject of World Series winners...

That's not New Order. This is New Order:

I hope that Matt doesn't regret this trade...haha.

Hope you all have a great weekend and a Merry Christmas. If Christmas isn't your thing, Krusty's got you covered:

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