Dime Boxes and Nachos Grande

My trial is over and I am able to breathe a sigh of relief and focus on some baseball cards.  Excellent.  Today I am showing off a couple of packages that I received from a couple of prominent bloggers.

First up is a few cards that I got from Nick, he who specializes in the Dime Boxes.  Nick recently showed off some Pacific Online cards that he had.  I noticed that many of them were red, which was apparently the color of the retail base set.  I realized later I did have the Jason Varitek card from this, which is not unusual for me.  Anyway, I asked about Red Sox he received because I love this Pacific set, based entirely on the terrific player selection.  Online is my favorite of the big team collector sets because all of the players played in the Major Leagues, unlike Topps Total and UD 40 Man.

1.  1998 Pacific Online Web Cards Steve Avery.  The gold-foil parallel came one-per-pack.  Avery was signed to a contract soon after Roger Clemens left town.  He had been a big winner with the Braves in the early 90's, but he had been struggling for several years by the time he joined the Red Sox.  And he was pretty bad both years in Boston.

2.  1998 Pacific Online Red Darren Bragg.  It is a shame that Bragg is all Boston had to show for the Jamie Moyer trade because he was the kind of scrappy, hard-nosed players that fans love.  He played hard all the time.  I remember one time he fell into the stands in right field making a catch of a home run ball, just a great play.

3.  1998 Pacific Online Red Jim Corsi.  Corsi was a local boy from Newton, MA and so he was an immediate fan favorite.  He was a very important part of the bullpen in 1997 and 1998.  Yet this is the only set he appeared in.  I wish there was still one set out there that had a huge player selection so the Jim Corsis (Andrew Miller, Scott Atchison, etc.) of the world could still get cards.

4.  1998 Pacific Online Red Pedro Martinez.  The Great Pedro.  Surefire Hall of Famer.  What else is there to say?

Thanks Nick!

And next is a part of a group break that I participated in over at Nachos Grande.  This was a two box break of 2012 Archives and 2013 Topps.  I took a chance on it, even though I already had a lot of the stuff from both.  Up next are the new cards I got in this break:

5.  2013 Topps Jonny Gomes.  Gomes embodies the spirit of the Red Sox team this year more than anyone.  He plays hard, even though he is not the most talented guy in the world, yet he gets things done and he comes through in the clutch.  He has already won a couple of games on walk-off home runs this year.  I foresee an Unknown Heroes post.

6.  2013 Topps Koji Uehara.  He has become the team's closer.  He was an underrated signing that has come through in a big way.  I wish he could have been an All Star.  I voted for him.

7.  2013 Topps Felix Doubront.  He has improved quite a bit and become one of the most reliable starters on the team.

8.  2013 Topps Gold Jackie Bradley Jr.  Easily my favorite card I received in this package.  I am looking forward to his return.  I just hope it does not mean Jacoby Ellsbury's departure.

9.  2013 Topps Joel Hanrahan.  Boston is having bad luck trading for closers and has lost a number of good young players trying it.  Hanrahan is the latest failure as he blew a couple games and then was lost for the season.  Too bad.

Thanks Chris!