Diamond Kings Blaster

I have mentioned before how much I really like the Diamond Kings set.  So recently I decided to splurge and pick up a blaster.  There were only 35 cards in the blaster.  And yet, this is the results for the Red Sox:

So yes, I did very well.  Three cards out of 35 is a very impressive ratio.  The Hooper and Betts are both base cards, though I am thrilled with the Hooper.  Player selection is one of the things I was most excited about with this set.  The Ted Williams card is an insert, and one of my favorite pulls of the year.  The Williams is really a nice card.  I was very happy with my break here.

But it was not all great.  Take a look at this:

I pulled cards of Yoan Moncada and Chris Sale, two players who were traded for each other.  And yet, both cards show them with the White Sox.  How is that fair?  If you are going to update the team for one player, update it for both.  This Sale card should be a Red Sox card.

2017 Topps Now: April 5

I am going to be picky about buying these this year.  Only obscure players and truly special events, though I do still want to get all of them.  Sandy Leon does not have too many major highlights, but his walkoff home run in the 12th inning on April 5 is definitely one of them.  He started off well, but cooled off significantly.

2017 Topps Trade

Catching up on posts now.  I received these cards quite some time ago, but I was doing the 30 Day Challenge.  So here we go:

1.  2017 Topps Silver Slugger Mookie Betts.  Betts was one of three Red Sox to win the Silver Slugger in 2016.  I still wish he would have won the MVP.

2.  2017 Topps 1987 Mookie Betts.  The second Mookie of the trade package.

3.  2017 Topps Heritage Chris Sale.  This is the highlight of the trade.  This is just my second of the short prints from 2017 Heritage.

4.  2017 Topps Drew Pomeranz.  Pomeranz has been frequently eluding me in sets.  It is telling that he was one of the last base cards I needed from the flagship set.

5.  2017 Topps Dustin Pedroia.  I still don't understand why Pedroia has a league leaders card for finishing third in batting average.

6.  2017 Topps 5 Tool Hanley Ramirez.  I don't think he really qualifies anymore.  He is, at best, an average fielder, and he is nowhere near the baserunner he used to be.  He can still hit though.

7.  2017 Topps Heritage Tyler Thornburg.  Finally, my first Thornburg card.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 30

DAY 30: YOUR FAVORITE CARD IN YOUR COLLECTION

What else could it be?  This card truly stands out in my collection.  It is the only bat barrel card in my entire collection.  And it is my favorite player.  This is the only bat barrel card available of Jason Varitek.  Add all of that up, and you get an easy choice for my favorite card.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 29

DAY 29: A FAVORITE CARD FROM BEFORE 1950, WHETHER YOU OWN IT OR NOT

Yes, I own it.  I have a few pre-WWII cards, but this one is still my absolute favorite.  This is the second time Moe Berg has appeared in this series, but how can I not share this card?  This is from the 1940 Play Ball set.  Berg was not much of a player, but he was a fascinating personality.  And I love this card.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 28

DAY 28: A FAVORITE RELIC/MANUFACTURED RELIC CARD

Uh, just look at that patch.  That is really incredible.  I did not want to put a Jason Varitek card in this post, there will be one coming up.  But I really love that patch.  Plus, this is a Rickey Henderson card with Boston.  Henderson will not be remembered for his time in Boston, so when I can add a great-looking card like this, it's going to be a highlight of my collection.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 27

DAY 27: A FAVORITE ODDBALL CARD FROM 1990 OR LATER

This card is from a boxed set of 66 cards that was extremely hard to find, and pretty expensive when I did find it.  All 66 cards were Red Sox, with half being players in the minors.  A lot of obscure players appeared in this set.  The Buckner though is my favorite because it is the only card of him from his second stint with the Red Sox.  He hit an inside-the-park home run with Boston, helping fans get over his crucial error in the 1986 World Series.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 26

DAY 26: A FAVORITE ODDBALL CARD FROM THE 1980'S

I always did love the box bottom cards.  I do consider these oddballs because they were not really parts of mainstream sets, and unless you bought boxes, you did not get these cards.  This one is particularly interesting because the highlight that this card celebrates is Don Baylor breaking the Major League record by getting hit by a pitch for the 244th time.  There's something to be proud of right there.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 25

DAY 25: A FAVORITE ODDBALL CARD FROM THE 1970'S

Hostess or Kellogg's?  That is the question.  Ultimately, I like the Kellogg's cards a little bit better.  And I really like players that spent a short period of time with Boston.  So here we are with the first designated hitter in Red Sox history.  Orlando Cepeda spent just one season with Boston, but it was a good one.  Unfortunately he does not have a ton of cards with Boston, particularly from his playing days.  So this one takes the honor.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 24

DAY 24: A FAVORITE ODDBALL CARD FROM THE 1960'S

The Post cards from the early 1960's are really nice.  This is the only one I have, which I hope to change in the near future, but this one will still be hard to top.  This is the only card of Willie Tasby with the Red Sox.  Tasby was the first black player acquired by the Red Sox and he only spent the one season in Boston.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 23

DAY 23: A FAVORITE ODDBALL CARD FROM THE 1950'S

I don't know that I would necessarily consider this an oddball or not, but it is the only thing really close to that in my collection.  I would love to add the Hires Root Beer cards or the Red Heart Dog Food cards.  This is one of two cards from the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set that I have and it is my favorite of the two.  It is also the only Ted Williams card in my collection released during his playing career, something that is typically very expensive.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 22

DAY 22: A CARD OF A COMMON PLAYER THAT ALWAYS SEEMED TO ELUDE YOU

For some inexplicable reason, this card took me over a decade to add to my collection.  I do not know if I would characterize it as eluding me so much as me simply forgetting to add it.  It was the only card from the major brands in 1991 that I did not have within a couple of years.  I did not get this card until 2003.  That is a long time for just a common card from the over-production era.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 21

DAY 21: A CARD OF A ROOKIE YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE "INVESTING" IN

This is another thing I never really did.  But I did pick up a ton of Hanley Ramirez cards in the early years.  I was excited about him.  I have never really been that excited about a prospect since, because he was traded after only two games in the Majors with Boston.  I was very disappointed with that trade.  I could have probably made some money with that collection, I had a number of high-end cards, but I don't break up my Red Sox collection.  Hanley has since returned to Boston and had a terrific season last year, but the Red Sox missed out on his best seasons.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 20

DAY 20: YOUR FAVORITE PARALLEL CARD BASED ON THE PARALLEL, NOT THE PLAYER

The 1993 Finest Refractors were the first really amazing parallel set.  And for good reason.  They are still pricey to buy.  I do not think that anything will ever really come close to them.  I only have one 1993 Finest Refractor card in my Red Sox collection (though I do have a Sandy Alomar Jr. as well).  This is it.  Ivan Calderon only played part of one season for Boston and he was a massive disappointment, but I still jumped at a low price to get this card.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 19

DAY 19: A FAVORITE CARD FROM A COUNTRY OTHER THAN THE UNITED STATES

I could have gone the O-Pee-Chee route.  I could have gone the Sega Card-Gen route.  Both of those were considered very strongly.  I decided to go outside the box though and pick this card from Venezuela.  This was my first Sandy Leon card and, at the time, I thought it would be my only one.  No one foresaw what he did last year.  It is still my first Sandy Leon card though.  And it is definitely an unusual addition to my collection.  I have since added a few more Venezuelan cards, but this was the first.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 18

DAY 18: A CARD OF A PLAYER WHO BECAME MANAGER OF YOUR FAVORITE TEAM

I remember Butch Hobson being named the Red Sox manager.  He was considered a very good minor league manager and he was given a chance with Boston in 1992.  Unfortunately, Hobson was a much better player than a manager, and he was not that good of a player.  He managed for three years and Boston finished below .500 each year.  He later had legal issues.  He did have that 30 home run season in 1977 though.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 17

DAY 17: A CARD FROM THE FIRST SET YOU PUT TOGETHER HAND COLLATED

Again, I am not a set collector, but I once bought a hobby box of 1991 Conlon and managed to put the whole set together out of it.  This Berg card was my favorite of the Red Sox cards, even though that included Babe Ruth.  Berg is such a fascinating character and this was my first card of him.  I do not have any idea if I still have this completed set, but it was the first one that I was able to put together myself.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 16

DAY 16: A CARD OF A PLAYER WHOM YOU APPRECIATE BUT DON'T LIKE

No, I was never a big fan of Manny Ramirez.  I definitely loved it when he was hitting well and helping the team, but he did so many things that were so frustrating.  From constantly complaining about his contract, to fighting with Kevin Youkilis, to pushing the traveling secretary to the ground.  Of course the worst stuff happened after he complained his way into being traded away.  Manny had a lot of faults as a person, but he was a damn good hitter.  I have a ton of his cards with the Red Sox, but that is more due to his status as a great hitter and getting a ton of cards made.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 15

DAY 15: ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CARDS FROM THE 2010'S

It is very tough to beat a World Series celebration shot.  I have considered cards for one of these posts before, so I needed to get one in somehow.  The 2013 season will go down as one my best baseball memories.  I had just bought a house literally a few days previously and I was watching this final game from my brand new living room.  Koji Uehara was my favorite player from that run, despite David Ortiz's one-man wrecking crew.  Koji is the one I will remember best and this card captures why.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 14

DAY 14: ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CARDS FROM THE 2000'S

By the time I started collecting, food issues were becoming a thing of the past.  They were far less common than they had been in previous years.  There were still a few here and there, but my family typically did not get the kinds of things they appeared in.  In 2001, Post issued cards in cereal boxes for the first time in a long time.  And I picked up a box specifically to get this card.  It still remains a favorite of mine because it was so rare for me to get food issue cards the way they were intended.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 13

DAY 13: ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CARDS FROM THE 1990'S

I know, I have already had a card of Greg Harris in this series, but I do really like this card.  This card features Greg Harris pitching left-handed in a warm-up.  Harris was ambidextrous and really wanted to pitch from both sides of the mound in a game, but he never got that chance with Boston.  This is his custom-made glove that he could switch hands with to pitch with both hands.  It is just a fascinating card.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 12

DAY 12: ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CARDS FROM THE 1980'S

As readers of my blog know, I am obsessed with really good players who spent a short amount of their careers with the Red Sox.  And the first player that I really was aware of that fit this description was Tom Seaver, who spent the last half season of his career with the Red Sox.  Seaver pitched well, but was injured and missed out on the post-season.  This is a great-looking card from an iconic Topps set.  It is one of my favorite cards from the 1980's.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 11

DAY 11: ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CARDS FROM THE 1970'S

I loved the In Action subset.  Early 1970's Topps had a lot of nice action shots, but unfortunately so many of the Red Sox photos were kind of boring.  So it was up to subsets like this to get really good photos of the Red Sox, and this one definitely qualifies.  I first saw a picture of this card in a book that had photos of all the Red Sox Topps cards from 1952 to 1988 in it.  I loved this card, partly because Aparicio was a Hall of Famer and partly because of the photo.  So I eventually hunted it down.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 10

DAY 10: ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CARDS FROM THE 1960'S

This 1961 Fleer card was sent to me by Zippy Zappy.  And I love this card because it is so off-the-wall.  1961 Fleer was a set dedicated to old-time players and alot of these guys are not particularly well-remembered now.  Including Pipgras.  So there is the player selection.  Then there is the fact that is not exactly known as a Red Sox player.  He was a very good pitcher for the Yankees for a long time and only spent the last three seasons of his career with the Red Sox.  29 games total.  Although interestingly he was originally a Red Sox prospect and was traded to the Yankees for Al DeVormer before he made the Majors, a trade that worked out much better for the Yankees, of course.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 9

DAY 9: ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CARDS FROM THE 1950'S

Harry Agganis is a very tragic story.  He was a terrific local athlete that could have been a professional football player if he had not pursued baseball.  And he was developing into a young star when he was stricken with pneumonia.  He appeared to be recovering when he suffered a pulmonary embolism and died suddenly at the age of just 26.  This is the only real card of Agganis from his playing days.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 8

DAY 8: A CARD THAT REMINDS YOU OF A FAMILY MEMBER

I have mentioned this card before with this same story, but it bears repeating.  This was the first card I ever got in a trade.  And the person that it reminds me of is my older brother.  He and I never had a real close relationship growing up.  But when I first got into collecting, he returned to the hobby after getting some cards here and there for a few years before this.  In my third pack, I did not get any Red Sox cards for the first time.  I did pull a checklist card and my older brother offered to trade me this Harris card for the checklist.  I never forgot that.