Work has been very busy this week. I have had multiple hearings every day, often in different courthouses requiring quite a bit of travel. On top of that, I had to do a deposition this afternoon, which took up that much more time. So I have not had a ton of time to go through and scan my new cards and do mailday posts. So therefore, this is going to be a long multi-mailday post:
Up first, Tom from Waiting 'Til Next Year, who I imagine will be searching for a new blog title and is likely still recovering from the events of Wednesday night:
Up next is a minor league card package encompassing the next two scans. Each of these players appeared in Major League games with the Red Sox, yet have no Major League cards. All of them will be covered in upcoming Red Sox with No Cards posts, so I won't go too in-depth on them, other than to possibly explain why they have no Red Sox cards.
3. Matt Fox. Fox played in three games in 2010.
4. Aaron Cook. This one is surprising. Cook was a big part of the rotation in 2012 and made it into 18 games with 94 innings-pitched. He should have found his way into an update set, especially since he was viewed as a decent low-risk, high-reward signing.
5. Clayton Mortensen. 50 games over the course of two seasons is apparently not enough to ensure your appearance on a card. This one is annoying.
6. Justin Germano. We go to the other extreme: one game, 5.2 innings.
7. Che-Hsuan Lin. This one upsets me because Lin should have gotten a Bowman Draft card at some point due to winning the MVP of the Futures Game.
9. Pedro Beato. 14 games over two seasons.
10. Quintin Berry. 13 games, including a home run and appeared on the postseason roster in 2013, appearing once in all three series. This one is kind of annoying too.
11. Jemile Weeks. Rickie's little brother appeared in 17 games over two seasons.
12. Andrew Miller. And here we have the most annoying and the reason I bought these cards. Miller is a big star now, but managed to never appear in a Boston Red Sox uniform on a card, despite pitching in 157 games over the course of four seasons. Ridiculous.
Next we have a trade post that locked down the remaining base cards I needed from Topps Update, plus a card of my newest mini-player collection:
14. Aaron Hill. The trade for Hill made sense, but he did not really work out. He won't be back next year.
15. Chris Young. Oops. Double.
16. Xander Bogaerts. Hopefully just the first of many All Star seasons for the X-Man.
17. Mookie Betts. It was recently announced Mookie is one of the finalists for a Gold Glove. He should be the favorite for right field too. He did win a Fielding Bible Award.
18. Brad Ziegler. I am very excited about this one. I love side-arm pitchers, especially when the cards show it as this one does. Chad Bradford never appeared on a card, so it is good that Ziegler does.
19. Junichi Tazawa. I would have preferred if Topps had skipped Taz in the Update set in favor of Robbie Ross Jr. Don't get me wrong, I really like Taz, but he had a bad year while Ross was a very steady reliever.
And next we have a very large package with a large variety of different players and some nice inserts:
21. Josh Beckett. I was recently trying to think of players that I kind of overlooked during their time in Boston and Beckett was near the top of the list. Sure I have over 200 cards of him, but I never really seemed to seek them out. And he was the ace for several seasons.
22. Yoenis Cespedes. It is safe to say that he will not be coming back to Boston. Not that they really need him, but he did not seem to enjoy his time in Boston and management did not seem to enjoy it either.
23. Bryce Brentz. His Red Sox career is likely at an end, but his numbers don't look too bad if it is.
24. Mike Carp. He never appeared on many cards, but his walkoff grand slam against the Rays in 2013 was one of Boston's biggest wins of the season.
25. Carl Crawford. An absolute disaster in Boston, which was very disappointing to me. I was so excited when he signed.
26. Chris Carter. This is the rarer photo variation of the player Boston received when Wily Mo Pena was traded to the Nationals. I was not aware there were photo variations.
27. Joel Hanrahan. Another bust. Hanrahan was supposed to be the closer in 2013, but needed Tommy John surgery early in the season. The trade cost them Mark Melancon, among others. At least Boston also got a player coming up in the next scan.
28. Jonny Gomes. Tons of clutch hits, weird diving catches, and a fun personality made Gomes one of the more fun players to watch in 2013.
30. Tommy Hottovy. His Red Sox career consisted of just eight games, yet I have nine cards of him. Compare that with Andrew Miller earlier in this post.
31. Jean Machi. I was a little disappointed that Boston cut Machi after the 2015 season. I thought he had some potential to be a decent bullpen piece.
32. Carl Yastrzemski. These Crusade cards look terrific, but might look even better if Panini had a Major League license.
33. Cy Young. It is always fun to find a photo on a card of Cy Young that has not been used a thousand times. I'm not sure what Young is wearing here, but this is the first time I have seen this photo.
34. Shane Victorino. This package is quite heavy with the 2013 team. Victorino was one of the biggest heroes of the team, with some timely hits in the postseason. He was on fire down the stretch.
35. Tris Speaker. Obviously a Cleveland uniform, but still a Red Sox card.
36. David Pauley. Pauley was acquired in a trade with the Padres in which Boston gave up Dave Roberts. He made it into nine games over two seasons with Boston but he later became a big bullpen piece for the Mariners.
37. Travis Shaw. He had kind of a rough first full season, but his power is very real. He will be given the chance to keep the third base position next season.
Sorry about the scan. Photobucket is down.
38. Hideo Nomo. One of my all-time favorite One-Year Wonders. Nomo was a favorite player when he was with the Dodgers and he had a reasonably successful season with the Red Sox in 2001.
39. Eduardo Rodriguez. While Andrew Miller was blowing people away in the postseason, people were upset that Boston had traded him away. Boston received Rodriguez in the deal, and he has a lot of potential and seemed like he was starting to really develop in the second half. It would have been nice to keep Miller, but Rodriguez could be an impressive starter.
40. Will Middlebrooks. He was ultimately a bust, but Middlebrooks had one of the most impressive games that I have personally witnessed when he hit two home runs with a double and five RBIs in a game at Kansas City in 2012. By the way, Jason Varitek had the best game I have personally witnessed when he hit three home runs.
41. Daniel Nava. Yet another 2013 Red Sox. Nava had one of the best under-the-radar seasons of the team that year.
And next, we have another card of my recent mini-player collection:
Next, I traded a couple of relics, including a very rare auto/patch card of Pete O'Brien for a bunch of pre-1970 vintage and one very big rookie card:
43. Ted Bowsfield. Bowsfield was coming off of a decent rookie season in which he was 4-2 with a 3.84 ERA. He played parts of two more seasons with the Red Sox before being traded to the Indians for Carroll Hardy and Russ Nixon.
44. Ted Lepcio. He never really lived up to expectations, but he did have some decent seasons with Boston and hit 53 home runs over eight seasons with the Red Sox. Not too bad for a middle infielder in the 1950's.
45. Marty Keough. Keough was included in the trade with Bowsfield that brought Carroll Hardy and Russ Nixon.
46. Jim Lonborg. This card was on my want list. Lonborg is kind of under-represented in my collection. He seems somewhat forgotten these days, mostly due to only really having one great season, in 1967 when he won the Cy Young Award with the Impossible Dream Red Sox.
47. Jose Tartabull. Danny Tartabull's father did not have his son's power but had more speed and provided some good moments for the Impossible Dream team.
48. Jim Lonborg. This now gives me 19 Lonborg cards.
49. Roger Clemens. This was the big rookie card, the last of the three Clemens rookies. I do already have the 1984 Fleer Update as well. The Donruss has eluded me however. I think these cards were well worth the O'Brien card.
And yet another knuckle-baller:
52. David Ortiz. This card celebrates the Red Sox signing Ortiz as a free agent. It was not big news at the time and Ortiz was not immediately a starter, but it turned into one of the best free agent deals of all time.
53. David Ortiz.
54. Dustin Pedroia. This knocks off the last non-SP base card from 2016 Gypsy Queen I needed.
55. Dustin Pedroia. With the retirement of Ortiz, Pedroia becomes my largest current player at 330 cards. He is also a finalist for the Gold Glove Award.
So, 55 new cards. A lot of scans and a lot of writing. That's good for now.
Wow, 5 cards? I'll say you need a break! I'm glad the Ortiz filled a gap in your collection. :)
ReplyDeleteShoot... 55 cards is what I meant to say! Sorry, I need to proofread before posting.
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