I got Baseball for my Football

I offered up a bunch of Football cards I didn't really need a while back. Matt from the blogs...
1. Cards Over Coffee
2. Big Blue Cardboard
3. Matt's Wonderful Blog Of Hobbies

took the Football off my hands and scoured his collection for stuff that might fill in the holes in my collection. Specifically, recent refractors and Cuts and Colors!! And he delivered!

But first, anyone know how Matt has the juice to keep up with three blogs??? I'm barely keeping my head above water with one! Anyway, to the cards!

OK, so the title says "Baseball for Football", but first up are three Basketball that Matt included in the package. Matt being a great New York collector, its very appropriate that I got my first three RJ Barrett rookies!

Two solid Duke Blue inserts and the cream of the crop, a Prizm Blue!!

A very welcome addition to the trade, as one of the main purposes was to shore up the holes in my collection, which these certainly did.

On to the Baseball!



Here is a smattering of a few of the cards Matt sent, and already you can see that there is a huge variety and a crap-ton of color!

Here are a few that stood out to me as stuff that appeals to me for my Cuts and Colors collection:

This package was heavy on Votto and Lindor (more to come!), players who I have always had an appreciation for. But this really isn't about the players, just look at the sheer color in this scan! I think my favorites are the Votto "Out of this World" and the Trevor Story "Future Stars" cards. But that Ventura in the lower right is way better looking in person and makes it a tight race! Also the Muncy "I have no idea what variation this is" refractor is cool.

 
OK, I am trying something I have never done on the blog and including a video. It is a closeup of a bunch of the refractors/prizms. Blogger won't let me preview this, but it looks like they might have cropped the video when I uploaded it. I guess we'll see!

There were in the neighborhood of 40 refractors and various prizm's in the package. Hopefully the rainbows show OK in that video.  Give it a play and let me know!

And to finish this off, I decided to show 8 of my personal favorites from Matt. These are no brainer keepers, and much appreciated.

2016 Topps Chrome - Future Stars Francisco Lindor - Is it valuable? Nope. Is it beautiful? Yup!! I have always loved stained glass looking cards, and these are beautiful. My main concern is that the card companies will overproduce the beautiful designs, and thereby make them feel cheap and commonplace.

2002 Bowman Heritage - Chrome Refractor Rafael Palmeiro - This card is REALLY shiny. The scan does not do it justice. My eyes keep sliding off it, because it is just so slick looking. Straight into the Steroids Project binder!

2013 Panini USA Baseball Champions - Certified Legends Die-Cut - Mirror Blue Tommy LaSorda /199 - What a great looking card! And timely too, given his recent passing. The strange side die cuts on this set are perplexing, but they don't really detract. I am happy that this is the 'Mirror Blue' version, as blue is Tommy's Color, even if he isn't in a Dodgers uni here.

2016 Topps Stadium Club Phil Niekro - I think this is the Black Foil version. Which is cool because it is somewhat more rare. But the real draw of this card is the 'wise old ballplayer' pose. Almost has a Casey Stengel feel to me. Great shot.

2016 Topps Stadium Club - Legends Die-Cuts Johnny Bench - Complicated and shiny die-cut of an all time legend. This one is a no-brainer.

2014 Panini Hall of Fame - Crusades - Purple Steve Carlton /50 - I have always liked the Crusade motif, even if this isn't the best implementation of it I have encountered. But very shiny, and numbered /50 is quite nice.

2019 Topps - Cactus League Legends Rod Carew - Carew is one of my top childhood favorites, and I knew him as an Angel who was always smiling with a bat in his hands. So this card hits me right in the childhood. And going with the spring training theme that has gained popularity lately, this is just a cool card.

2018 Topps Finest - Sitting Red - Gold Refractor Joey Votto /50 - Love the look of this one! I didn't realize it was a gold refractor until I started writing this up, I was so entranced by the nice vibrant look of this card. It seems to have more 'depth' than most cards. Needless to say, my scanner did not do it justice. Looks like the non-refractor Sitting Red are easy to come by, but I have to believe that these refractor versions are vastly better looking.

Great package Matt, hope you were able to enjoy the Football cards!!