04/25 Mailday: Trade Package from Swing and a Pop Up

I recently made a blog trade with Bert from the great blog Swing and a Pop Up.   I sent him a random assortment of Red Sox cards and some of his own set needs.  I have thousands of cards from my 20+ years as a collector just collecting dust and definitely enjoy packaging them together in exchange for Red Sox cards I need.  He sent me the following cards that I did not have:

I am going to go a little out of order here.  That 1977 Topps Steve Dillard was the card that started this trade.  Bert posted that he had doubles of it and wondered if anyone needed one.  Well I did so I responded and we built it up from there.  

I have several Topps Big cards but for some reason not many from 1989.  Bert sent me several, including the four in the scan above.  I do not typically go out of my way to pick up minor league cards, unless they are of a particular player, but never mind getting them in trades.  Michael Bowden, Aaron Bates, and Lars Anderson all spent some time with the big league Red Sox.  Bryce Cox never made it and is now out of baseball.

Some more minor league cards up first.  Yamaico Navarro made it to Boston before being traded to Kansas City and then Pittsburgh.  Chih-Hsien Chiang was having a monster season in AA in 2011 before being traded to Seattle in the Erik Bedard trade.  He has hit a bit of a standstill since.  Will Middlebrooks is of course with Boston now.  Then we have some random cards that I needed.  I like the John Burkett because there are not a ton of cards of him with Boston.  He did have a couple of nice seasons for them at the end of his career.  The Steve Avery is a parallel, Pacific did tons of parallels, so many it was hard to keep them straight.  This is a rookie year card of John Marzano, the longtime backup catcher.

I always liked these Score Young Superstars cards.  One day I will have to figure out which ones I still need.  Then we have some more 1989 Topps Big cards.  Marty Barrett was a good second-baseman for years, Rich Gedman was a two-time All Star and of course Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame.  The Pepsi card of Tony Pena is probably my favorite card in the entire package.  These things are hard to find.  Then we have a vintage card of Jack Brohamer with a bad air-brush job.  Finally, some more minor league cards.  Brock Huntzinger is in AA with Boston.  Che Hsuan Lin made his Major League debut last season for the Red Sox but was lost to the Astros on waivers.  Caleb Clay is currently in Washington's system.

More minor league cards.  Oscar Tejeda is in Pittsburgh's system.  Ryan Dent is still around Boston.  Hunter Jones made a brief appearance in Boston in 2009 then was traded to the Marlins.  Daniel Bard is back up in Boston now.  David Pauley had a couple of appearances.  I kept waiting for Jon Still to develop because he had big power, but he never did.  Then we have some random cards of Tony Clark, Steve Crawford, and Todd Benzinger that I needed.

This is the last scan and features some more minor league cards, most of which I have discussed.  Reid Engle and Jason Place are both out of baseball.  Finally, the big stars from Boston in the late 1980's, Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens make appearances.