Card Shop Visit

My wife was in Chicago over the weekend recently so I decided to drive down to my hometown (two hour drive) and see family and friends.  I also stopped in to the card shop I spent many hours and a lot of money in for the first time in several months.  He used to hold Red Sox cards aside for me, but since my visits are far more sporadic lately, he kind of stopped doing that.  I did pick up a few things though.

Up first is the remainder of the Topps team set I needed:

1.  Dustin Pedroia.  Leading things off is Pedroia who has been hurt the vast majority of the season.

2.  Steven Wright.  I no longer focus much on him, but I still love picking up cards of the knuckleballer.  He is also hurt right now.

3.  Rick Porcello.  Boston's most recent Cy Young Award Winner is one of the rare such award winners who has never been an All Star.

4.  Craig Kimbrel.  On the other hand, Kimbrel has been there three times since joining Boston.

5.  Combo Card.  The outfield trio of Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Andrew Benintendi has seen a lot of cardboard love in the last year.

6.  Matt Barnes.  Not sure what happened with this scan, the card is not cut off.  Barnes is one of the players I was most happy to see make it into the set.  Topps needs to make more cards of setup guys and role players like Barnes.

7.  Mitch Moreland.  Even Moreland has been an All Star, come on Porcello.

8.  Christian Vazquez.  You cannot go wrong with catchers shown in full equipment.  Still my personal favorite shots.

9.   Eduardo Nunez.  Nunez was another player I was excited to see in the set.  I do not have many cards of him yet.

10.  Team Card.  I'm not going to bother attempting to identify everyone here, this goes down as a simple team card.

11.  Eduardo Rodriguez.  Another injured Red Sox.

12.  Rafael Devers.  This season has not gone as well as hoped for him, but hopefully the team will remain patient with him.  He is just 20.

13.  Andrew Benintendi.  One of the bigger breakout stars on the team this season. 

I tried my luck at some various packs, starting off with one of the Silver packs.  That pack did not produce any Red Sox.  In fact it was one of the more bizarre packs I have ever opened.  Of the four cards, two were Yankees (because of course they were), and two were Manny Machado (one was the blue parallel).  How does that happen?

Next was a Bowman fat pack, which only resulted in one Red Sox card.

C.J. Chatham.  A second round draft pick from 2016, Chatham is playing well in High A and will most likely be in AA next season. 

And finally, I bought a hobby box for the first time in years.  It was not great.  I picked up last year's Diamond Kings.  I only pulled two Red Sox, and a whole bunch of Yankees:

1.  Johnny Pesky.  I am a little disappointed that this is the same picture as is on his 2018 card, but any Pesky card is great.

2.  Andrew Benintendi.  He might be one of the fastest growing players in my Red Sox collection.