Year in Review

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I did not make any goals for 2016 other than to take cards off of my wantlist and get cards of Jason Varitek.  I am up to 896 Jason Varitek cards right now and I knocked off a few cards from my wantlist.

I made some progress off of my Top 10, which now looks almost entirely different from a year ago.  The following cards were nabbed:

2006 Flair Showcase Hot Gloves J.T. Snow.  This has been the #1 card on my Top 10 Most Wanted for some time now.  I love die-cut inserts like this and this is such a random player choice, especially for the Red Sox.

2012 Panini Cooperstown Bronze History Herb Pennock.  I love the fact that Pennock's Hall of Fame plaque features a Red Sox cap.  It is likely a mistake, Pennock had some good years in Boston, but his best were clearly with the Yankees.  

2014 Topps World Series Champion Relic Felix Doubront.  I just wanted one of these cards which are ridiculously priced for relics.  I chose Doubront, who was one of my favorite Unknown Heroes around that time and because he was cheaper.  I do love the fact that this is a patch card.

1996 Donruss Diamond Kings Mo Vaughn.  The Diamond Kings have always been one of my favorite subsets/insert sets.  I liked the controversial selections and the artwork.  Vaughn was not a controversial selection as he was coming off of an MVP season, but I still wanted to get all of the Diamond Kings cards for Boston.

2005 MLB Showdown Trading Deadline Matt Mantei.  This card was on my Top 10 because there were so few cards out there of Mantei with the Red Sox.  Mantei was not good with the Red Sox, but other than this card, all he had out there was a Topps Total card.  Man, I miss Topps Total.

2015 Panini Prizm Signatures Camo Alexi Ogando.  I did not necessarily want the Camo version, I just wanted one of the Ogando autographs.  He does not have many cards with the Red Sox either.  In fact, it is just this one and the 2015 Topps Update.  And this is his only auto.

2015 Panini Prizm Fresh Faces Red White & Blue Heath Hembree.  Similar to the Ogando, I just wanted a version of this card.  This is, to date, Hembree's only Red Sox card.  I do expect that to change next year after the year he had in 2016.

2016 Topps Archives Signatures Carlos Baerga.  I was very excited for Archives Signature, mostly because of the inclusion of Sandy Alomar Jr. buyback autographs.  But I also discovered a couple of Red Sox players without many autograph cards out there.  Baerga was the most interesting to me, and this is a terrific autographed version of his 2003 Heritage card.

2013 Panini Hometown Heroes Curt Schilling SP.  I loved this set.  It would have been better with an MLB license, but a lot of players who have not gotten cards in awhile appeared in the set.  I had most of the regular base cards but was missing the short-printed Schilling card.

2011 Topps Heritage Peter Bourjos/Ryan Kalish/Daniel Nava/Chris Heisey/Logan Morrison.  This is a short-printed card featuring headshots of a number of rookie outfielders.  Ryan Kalish had a lot of talent, but never did much, due to injuries.  Daniel Nava was an underrated favorite of mine.

PACK PULL OF THE YEAR

This was not the greatest of years for pack pulls.  I pulled the Chrome Refractor of David Ortiz from this year's Heritage.  It is the only serial-numbered Red Sox card I pulled all year.  There were a few parallels and low-end inserts but this was the best.  Ortiz of course had a terrific year in his last Major League season.

I will once again not make any specific goals for my Red Sox collection.  I would like to work out a super trader group so if anyone wants in, please let me know.  I would also like to be more involved in the blogging community and be more generous.  I feel kind of separated from a lot of people.  I work out the occasional trade with other bloggers, but the vast majority of my trading is done on the forums.