Diamond Kings and Donruss Breaks

I think I bought these two blasters sometime around my birthday last year.  Luckily the breaks worked out pretty well.

Up first is the Diamond Kings blaster.  And this one was awesome for me.

1.  Joe Cronin.  Diamond Kings likes to reuse certain old-time players over and over again.  Joe Cronin is one of those players.  Cronin is a Hall of Fame shortstop/player-manager for Boston.  He wears a Red Sox cap on his plaque.  Cronin has a problematic legacy though given his widely-reported reluctance bring black players to the Red Sox.

2.  Rafael Devers.  As I am writing this, the news that Devers has agreed in principle to an 11-year deal with Boston is fairly fresh.  I am thrilled.  Some readers may recall my rant about the team not treating its homegrown stars well.  They have broken that cycle, at least for now with Devers.  This is the Artist's Proof parallel.

3.  Rafael Devers.  And here is the base card.

Here though, is why this was a really good break for me:

4.  Alex Verdugo.  I do not pull a lot of Red Sox relics.  This is the first relic I have pulled since a Rick Porcello relic out of Allen & Ginter back in 2019.  Sure it's just a boring gray swatch, but there is just something so exciting about pulling something like this in a pack.

Up next is Donruss:

5.  Rafael Devers.  This is the Unleashed insert, my third Devers of the day, and a good day to be showing off Devers cards.

6.  Connor Seabold.  This was my first card of Seabold, who was acquired in a trade deadline deal in 2020.  Seabold and Nick Pivetta were acquired in exchange for Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree.  Pivetta alone makes that trade a steal.  Seabold has been terrible in the Majors but pitched well in the minors.   In five games, he was 0-4 with an 11.29 ERA, but struck out 19 batters in 18.1 innings.

7.  Kyle Schwarber.  Schwarber makes a surprise appearance with the Red Sox here, given that some other players were updated with their new teams.  

8.  Alex Verdugo.  Here is one of the variation cards with Verdugo's nickname on the front.  It is also tough to tell, but it is a purple foil parallel.

9.  Jarren Duran.  This is another purple foil parallel.

So, out of the two breaks I pulled three parallels, an insert and a relic.  Not bad at all.  Probably my favorite breaks of the year.