Election Week Mailbag

Shane sent me a bubble mailer full of Red Sox in return for the PWE I sent him a couple weeks ago. Like Bo, he must have glanced at my TCDB wantlist before I trimmed it because all 25 of these cards were new to me:

 

This is my second "free range" Red Sox card from 1959 Topps, joining Don Buddin (I have graded copies of Haywood Sullivan and Pete Runnels.) Shane is working on the '59 set and I hope to see the finished product one day.

 

Some oddball-ish Sox and Donruss base. I was shocked that I didn't have that '88 Donruss Jim Rice already. I know I had a few of them thirty years ago but they were probably tossed in the garbage. The reprint in the top row is Billy Goodman.

I was also surprised that the 2007 Bowman David Ortiz was not in my collection until now. That's because I have the gold parallel. The Dustin Pedroia Topps Town insert is my 196th different Pedey card and 203rd overall. I have 264 different Ortiz cards, tops in my baseball collection. Not sure if you can see the name through all that slime-colored shine, but the emerald green parallel is Ryan Lavarnway.

Some Heritage and Archives here. The Nomar '82 is new to me, though I have the Peach parallel. Before receiving the Stadium Club Cespedes I had just one of his (solo) Sox cards - 2015 Topps.

 
Two horizontal heroes here. Raffy Devers is probably my favorite Boston star. I feel bad for Rusney Castillo. Yes, he was paid $72.5 million to play baseball, but his prime years were wasted while Boston buried him in triple-A. He's probably the only player that cannot earn a call up to the majors no matter how well he performs. And he couldn't play at all in 2020 because the minor leagues shut down.

Sigh.. I laughed when the Yankees did that to their international free agent signings, but now we're the ones paying players not to play - Pedroia included. And the Sox just re-hired Alex Cora to manage these overpaid stiffs. I can't decide if I should be happy or angry. Am I the Masshole?

At least my Packers beat the Niners last night. Some small amount of revenge for the NFC title game.

Two TCDB trade packages arrived in today's mail, including one from 49ants. I sent three low-end inserts/parallels and a Steven Duggar gold refractor #d/50 to Mike in exchange for set fillers such as these legends for my 1987 Topps football set build.

 Four decent-to-good players for my 1989-90 Fleer basketball set build.

And another 1993 Score Franchise insert. I also added some relievers to my Frankenset.

The other trade package arrived from Canada, courtesy of TCDB user seppola10.

I sent him a Sidney Crosby SP Authentic base card and a handful of '90s dupes for eight hockey cards. The Taylor Hall OPC is a red parallel from the Canadian-only Coast To Coast set. 

Give a Ryan Smyth, get a Ryan Smyth. This is from an Oilers-only set, which I would have jumped on 15 years ago. By the time this was released in 2013 I'd narrowed my focus (and my budget.)

You might see this card again during my All-Time Teams Series - NHL Edition. (The borders are not this red in hand.) I'm working on selecting the rosters and hope to have a few posts pre-written by the end of the month. The first post will be published on the first of January.

We are very close to knowing the results of the 2020 Presidential election, and I am very close to crowning a "Celebrity Crush Champion" for 2020. Unlike the race for the White House, the incumbent is in the lead.

But look who's back, y'all.

If this were posted just a little earlier I'd have tied it into Collecting Cutch's Save Second Base event for sure. Perhaps I will think of some way to help the cause anyhow. It's never too late to donate.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!



~