The thing I like about Dodgers fans...

...is that they have no desire for D-Backs cards and so they give them to me.

Night Owl is as big a Dodgers fan as there is and he can't stand D-Backs cards so when they end up with him by mistake, he sends them to me. Thanks Night Owl!

Let's start with some vintage. Okay, it's not vintage, but these 2013 Allen & Ginter minis were the oldest cards Night Owl sent. I love the bat barrel shot of Adam Eaton and would love to have him sign it during Spring Training.

 The rest of the package was all from 2016. Let's take a look!

First up are a couple of 2016 Opening Day cards of young players.

Tomas had a a nice 2016 after a somewhat disappointing rookie year.

The D-Backs got Brandon Drury as part of the Justin Upton deal from Atlanta. Drury had a nice rookie season in 2016 batting .282 with 16 home runs.

Aaron Hill was traded to the Brewers in January 2016, so he never played for the D-Backs in 2016, but he did show up on this 2016 Topps Series I base card.

Moving along to Update, we have this glorious Paul Goldschmidt All-Star card.

Next up are the Topps inserts including this 500 HR Futures Club card of Goldy and The Future of the Franchise card of Peter O'Brien. 

I'm not sure I would put the Future of the Franchise tag on O'Brien just yet. He playing in just 28 games in 26 and only had 9 hits. He does have some power though. of his 9 hits, 5 were home runs.

Here's a 1st Bowman card of Taiwanese pitcher Wei-Chieh Huang. 

A.J. Pollock had an All-Star season in 2015, but 2016 was injury riddled and he only played in 12 games. 

 

Hopefully he'll be fully recovered and back to his All-Star form in 2017. 

These Bowman Platinum cards look fantastic, especially in person. Apparently Yoan Lopez intended to to retire mid-way through the 2016 season, but I think the team talked him out of it. Wish him all the best. 

Thanks again for all the great D-Backs cards Greg!

TTM Tuesday

Here is a look back at my recent TTM returns.

This past week I got a return from Puerto Rico. I got 5 cards back from two-time A.L. MVP Juan Gonzalez.

In addition to the two MVP awards in 1996 and 1998, Gonzalez was a six-time Silver Slugger Award winner and led the A.L. in home runs in back to back seasons (1992 and 1993).

Despite his career .295 batting average and 434 home runs Juan only earned an All-Star nod three times over the course of his 16 seasons. This surprised me because Gonzalez was an absolute stud during the 1990's hitting monster home runs including five seasons with more than 40 homers.

Speaking of home runs; Gonzalez was named by Jose Canseco in his book Juiced as a teammate that Canseco claims to have injected with steroids and ended up in the Mitchell Report.

I got 4 cards back from former NFL Tight End, Chad Lewis. Lewis is an Eagle Scout who walked on at BYU after learning Madarin and serving a two year mission for his church in Taichung, Taiwan.

He went undrafted after college, but signed as a free agent with the Eagles in 1997 and played a couple seasons there before signing with the Rams in 1999 and was a part of their Super Bowl XXXIV championship team. He then went back to the Eagles for the next 6 seasons, three of which he earned Pro Bowl honors (2000, 2001, and 2002).

The NFL took advantage of Lewis knowing Mandarin and sent him to China during his career to promote the league.

Lewis signed a card for me and personalized a card for each of my three boys.

Card Show Recap

I went to a card show and the card shop on Saturday. This post I'll just recap the card show. Don't get too excited. I think I spent less than $5 between the two. I'm sure I spent more in gas than I did on cards. I took my three boys with me though and the two oldest bought a few things, so it was worth it.

The show didn't have as many dealers as usual. There were lots of empty tables. Probably about 25% less. It's also a coin and stamp show, so there just wasn't a ton of cards.

I stick to the dime boxes mostly and at this show the only dime boxes are just the base from boxes that the dealers have opened recently, so it's somewhat limited.

Enough excuses. Here's what I got.

For ttm.

Love the different photos that they use in this set.

This is for my donut collection.

For ttm.

A few D-Backs.

For my Cards Featuring Awards collection.

More D-Backs. I had a hard time distinguishing the Hudson and the Miller cards.

 Big Papi tipping his cap one last time.

All the previous cards were dime boxes. This was my big purchase at the show, coming in at $1. Sad that it's a Dodger, but I thought a Topps Now card for a buck was too good to pass up.

I got Zippy Zapped!

On Thursday I got Zippy Zapped by Kenny from Torren' Up Cards!

There were two packs filled with D-Backs...

....with this Chase Anderson card in between the packs... 

....with this custom behind the packs! Kenny, you did a great job on this and the back is fantastic!

Let's take the a look at the cards from the packs. Here is what was in pack #1.

I love this 2010 Topps card of Chad Tracy showing off the flip. My boys just finished up their fall baseball season and the flip is something that my oldest son's team worked on all season.

It doesn't look like it but this is the foil version of the card. 

Here's a trio of Nick Ahmed cards; including two from his minor league days. 

Can't wait to have Pollock back healthy for a full season next year. 

I've got some research to do on this guy. I'm back. Isan was part of the trade with the Brewers that brought Jean Segura to Arizona. Segura had a fantastic year with the D-Backs and Diaz was the 2016 Minor League Player of the Year for the Brewers, so it looks like it might be a win-win situation. 

This is probably my favorite Chris Young base card because it features a young Paul Goldschmidt. 

Pack #2 contained some great cards as well. 

Here is the base version of this card.

I love the new Stadium Club.

Great looking card of J-Up. 

Nice to see Ender find success in Atlanta. Saw that he just won a Gold Glove.

Nice lot of 2016 Bowman including two David Peralta cards.

Lopez had to be talked out of retirement last season citing emotional issues. I hope things turn out well for him. 

Thanks Kenny!