Fantasy Becomes Reality - Some 2015 Bowman Pillow Talk

No, I didn't pull a Kris Bryant super-vallyrian-X-factor-auto card. Sorry to disappoint, but that kind of luck doesn't find me when I open new release packs.

That being said, I had a lot of fun opening up a blaster of 2015 Bowman. I know what you're thinking, "Dude, Ryan has LOST it. He is always raving about vintage and completely trolling modern cards. Now he gives us modern card pack-busting reviews in back-to-back days? WHAT IS LIFE?!?"

Don't worry, I haven't lost my mind - or, at least not that I'm aware of. What I did do was embrace the "do what I want to do" potential of Father's Day a couple weekends ago and it was EVERYTHING I hoped it would be! After getting our two older kids to bed, I kissed my wife on the forehead as she settled in with our newborn and whispered, "I'm off to see Jurassic World. I love you."

You see, pillow talk has always been an area of expertise for me. Sorry ladies, I AM indeed madly in love with my wife - who, by the way, is totally cool for accepting me and all of my geek/collector-tastic tendencies. So, off I went, to go see a summer blockbuster movie by myself that I knew was going to be completely cheesy BUT DIDN'T CARE because I was going to see a movie. By myself. In a theater.

My heart raced as I sped towards the targeted shopping center in my high-performance Camry. Carefully weighted down with two car seats in the back, I made a hairpin turn into the Target parking lot just prior to reaching the theater.

"I'm buying some baseball cards, dammit."

Gypsy Queen had tantalized me for several weeks so I snagged a couple of rack packs. But I wanted more...as luck would have it, I had been adjusting my fantasy baseball lineup earlier that day in the Buy-Buy-Baby parking lot. The minor league prospects from my roster were fresh in my mind, you see...so what happened next was purely an act of impulse.

"Bowman! Bowman! I want SCHWARBER," was the weird rambling that escaped my mouth as I dashed towards the registers. Women & children warranted little regard as I weaved my way to an open register, glancing nervously at my watch to mark time until previews started. It's ALL about the previews, man.

I made the movie (my first 3-D experience) and loved every mouthful of gloriously buttered popcorn as I watched Chris Pratt & Co. avenge the disaster that was Jurassic Park III while falling short of the original movie's excellence. That's okay! I was in Father's Day Nirvana and the joy continued when I returned home to rip open some guilty-pleasure wax. Here were a few that caught my attention:

Nothing beats a Rizzo for my PC!

Okay, maybe a Betances for my PC comes awfully close...

Oooooh, sweet - Yankee prospects! I can lay claim to Luis Severino and Aaron Judge on my fantasy minor league rosters, but I'm glad the Yanks can claim this guy, Jorge Mateo. He is quickly gathering buzz in the Bombers' farm system as a speedster (52 bags as of 6/29) with offensive upside. Batting only .275 with a couple of homers, he is still growing at 20 years of age but has already matured greatly by displaying noteworthy plate discipline and working on his other tools as a ball player.

Wait, there's more?

These Chrome inserts are always nice and I'm ecstatic to add this Greg Bird to my collection. He is on the cusp of joining the Show as the parent club works out a future that is currently clouded with aging stars and rent-a-bats. Their time will eventually come to an end and Bird is a prime candidate to step in as a difference maker despite his season that was interrupted by a stint on the disabled list.

Nelson Gomez was a multi-million dollar international signing for the Yanks. He holds a lot of potential offensive upside and is giving us a glimpse by batting .285 so far this season with five home runs in only 95 at-bats. That translates into some huge power potential, though I am a bit conflicted with his 3B designation alongside my Irish brother, Eric Jagielo. Good problem to have, I suppose.

So there you go, some Bowman fun! I've only lightly dabbled in Bowman for the obvious reason that the set is all about the big prospect "hits" - autographs, colored parallels, etc. Par for the course, I didn't pull any mojo in my blaster. But as a fantasy baseball player who tracks minor league prospects across the league, this set has become a lot of fun for me to rip. I know a lot more of the players than I used to and that adds some meaning and enjoyment to an otherwise gamble-heavy release that my risk-averse collecting approach won't allow me to enjoy.

Plus, I have half a mind to send all of these to my friend, The Lost Collector, so that he can get them autographed for me. He's a hobby badass like that.

Thanks for reading and have a safe 4th of July!

Ryan

My Mattingly Collection - 1995 Donruss Diamond Kings #4758/10,000

I've been trying to put forth a little more effort (and a little more hobby fundage) towards my Mattingly collection lately.   It's a lot easier for me to chase and seek out newer cards for my modern day player PC's (Kimbrel, Freeman, Robertson and Rizzo).   Their cards fall into my current collecting period and deal in terms, brands and sets that I can understand.

Mattingly cards that I require for my collection (which yes, include any and all Mattingly cards.....ever!) do include modern release issues, but a lot of these are highly priced autographs, relic cards and parallels.   The bulk of missing Mattingly cards, for me, completely span the 15+ year Hobby Ice Age that I unknowingly suffered through from about 1993 until 2011.   A quick glance through a Beckett for these years is enough to make my head spin.   There were so many brands and sets and inserts and....God only know what else produced during these years that included Donnie Baseball!   I know that I will never conquer them all, but I aim to make a pretty good dent whenever I can.

Just such an opportunity came up for me when I was able to snag this '95 Diamond King for less than $5.   Coming during the preface of my Hobby Ice Age, the Diamond King insert is definitely something I am familiar with.   DK's were a frequent pull for us back in the day and, unfortunately, reached a saturation point where they elicited minimal excitement from us whipper-snappers.

It looks like Donruss stepped up their DK game after I checked out:   

A basic design for an incredible rendering of The Hit Man from Mr. Perez. I love this card and it even appears to be in pretty good shape.  I'm not quite so sure how production quality rated back in '95, but the centering on a card like this is key due to the very discernible (and comparable) borders.   Fortunately, it looks like we're good to go with these golden beauties - looking good, Donnie!

Here's the back:

AH!   It's even numbered!   The extremely high production for this "limited edition" card gives me a little chuckle when compared to modern day serialized statistics - I'm sure it does for most of you, too.   That being said, it does add a little dose of 'special' to an already impressive card.   I'm glad they added another nice color shot of Mattingly on the back in those wonderful home pinstripes.

The write-up on this DK is superb.   While Mattingly's career highlights are easily summed up in '84, '85 and '95 for sportswriters, I feel like Donruss pays some wonderfully balanced homage to Mattingly's value as a Yankee and one of the game's best for more than a decade.   Every time I read about his ill-fated postseason debut in '95, I can still feel the bitter-sweet joy of childhood dreams born and destroyed within a matter of months....to be followed by huge "what-if's" the following October.

But for now, I digress.   What a great card to add to my Mattingly Collection!   I hope to be adding more as often as possible.

Thanks for reading and keep collecting!

Ryan

The Lost Collector - PWE SpecOp Extraordinaire

AJ over at The Lost Collector has a penchant for dropping sweet little PWE's in the mail when you think he's getting ready to welcome a new Little Lost Collector into the world.

Sure enough, my good friend managed a few weeks ago to pass along two Anthony Rizzo's that I needed for my Paisan Collection.   The blue Wally-World parallel is a really sharp looking card with an attractive color scheme and the ever-tantalizing rookie cup.   Ahhhhhhhhh......

The Prizm card is a tough-looking metallic Panini special with a raised image of Anthony that's pretty darn cool, too.

Two great cards from a great fellow collector - THANKS, AJ!   And more importantly, congratulations on the new addition to your clan.   So very glad to hear that all are well.

Cigars all around, fellow collectors - thanks for reading!

My Jagielo Collection - 2013 Bowman Sterling Certified Autograph

Woo!

My Eric Jagielo collection has grown.   Kicked off a couple (few?) weeks ago with my first "1/1" Jagielo printing plate, I have now acquired a second autograph of the Irish Yankee from the Bowman Sterling set - here's a look at a very well slanted, on-card signature :)

The card is simple but sweet and the cold metallic theme of this Sterling design works well with the manly color scheme of the New York Yankees.

Yes, their full name for effect.   Here's the back:

I did not know that Jagielo was only the 3rd Irish player to be a first rounder?   Let's see...was it Jeff Counsel?  Was it Yaz? Who were the other two, I wonder?   I need to look this up!

Welcome to the PC!

Thanks for reading -

Ryan

Hobbynomics: On-Line Box Breaks versus Bay of E Shopping

I'm always trying to find the best way to collect for me.

Last year, I ordered a complete set of Heritage from a very well known Ebay dealer in lieu of buying boxes/blasters and completing the set via trades.   This option was low stress but it eliminated the act of set-building, something I actually enjoy.   The pay-off was supposed to be that I could very quickly dive in and enjoy my complete set.....but inevitably, I set it aside and continued working on the building of other releases.   My thought was, "I'll come back to this later."

I still haven't.

I purchased hobby boxes for two different releases last year, Gypsy Queen and Topps Update.   The Update jumbo box was a lot of fun to bust.   There were a lot of inserts and parallels that have made for some really good trade bait.   Not to mention, it also provided the biggest "pull" of my modern collecting career - so perhaps I'm a bit biased?   I still need to share that one with you guys.   If you follow me on le Twitter, you may have caught it in some tweets.....

The Gypsy Queen was a little off.   The guaranteed "hits" weren't as exciting as I had hoped for but a redemption auto allowed me to make back about 50% of the cost via a quick flip on Ebay.  

It was Eric Hosmer.   Whew!

Speechless

The Update set is complete after acquiring a few cards from trades and I only need one more card to finish up the GQ base set.   That's pretty solid but this was also an expensive and risky route to go.   The "pull of a lifetime" is not guaranteed and if the collation is bad, you could be stuck with a pretty vicious 0-for-2 start to your collecting.   But that's the risk/reward of it all, yes?   I also have plenty of duplicates - anybody need anything?

This past week or so, I tried two more methods of madness - online box breaks (team AND random) of 2013 Archives and some specific player collection shopping on Ebay.   I'll get into the laser-guided PC shopping expedition in a later post!   For the Archives, I hooked up with a great outfit called Sports Card Breaks on Twitter (@sportscardbreak and www.sportscardbreaks.com)and utilized their services.   They run a great operation that was very fair, transparent and fun to participate in.   I highly recommend them if you want to give on-line breaks a try.   My first break with them was a 2-box random break, meaning that I paid for a quantity of "slots" and then all MLB teams were randomized.   For $16, I received the Giants and the Rockies.  

Okay......

Hey, that's the nature of the best.   At least I was going to finally snag some Archives!   If any of the "hits" from the two boxes were from SF or COL, I'd be in luck - and if not, well, I'd have some great trade bait to send off to my Rockies and Giants fans trading partners.

Yes, Virginia - that's a HIT!

My second break allowed for me to select my teams so I went with the Yankees and Braves, of course.   As a Yankees fan, you're kind of doomed to have to fork over the most money of any team, as their high end pulls tend to be more valuable.   The Braves are a little better but the real deal here lies in the smaller market teams, in my opinion.   Of course, they are cursed by Topps' reluctance to issue cards for players on those teams outside of a star or two, so it can be a double-edged sword.  

All in all, I paid $16 for the two randomized teams and a total of $25 for the Yankees and Braves ($15/$10 split).   So, we're at $41 which is about half the price of a single box (just checked BIN offers on Ebay).   I think those prices are really fair.   Again, each break busted open two randomly selected hobby boxes.

So how did I do?

I still have to pick up my Braves and Yankees winnings from the post office, but I'm excited to check them out.   I am fairly certain that I completed the base card team sets for both of them - that would be a big relief.   If not, hopefully I can swap out the Giants and Rox cards to make them whole.   I think there were a couple of cool inserts as well, so those will be great additions to my team collections.

At $41, how many of the cards that I want from this set could I have claimed off of Ebay without any risk?   I like the Tall Boys insert, the #'d gold parallels and....that's about it.   The Fan Favorites autographs are also stellar!  

My latest findings after a quick and dirty search, including delivery:

$5 -     Braves Team Set (base)
$8 -     Yankees Team Set (base)
$5 -      Freddie Freeman Gold (#'d)
$4 -      Anthony Rizzo Gold (#'d)
$7 -      Jeter Tall Boy
$3 -      Anthony Rizzo Tall Boy
$1.50 - Robbie Cano
$4 -      Otis Nixon SP
$37.50

Okay, so with about $3.50 to spare, I could have notched both team sets, picked up 3 inserts for my Player Collections and even added the Jeter, Cano and Nixon (love seeing Nixon on a card again!) to the team collections.

Should be in GQ Wall Climbers, too!

Tough call!

Yes, I have a lot of Archives cards right now that I don't need, but if one of those boxes had produced that Mickey Rivers Fan Favorite Auto or the Otis Nixon Auto.....well, they didn't.

Mick The Quick!

This shopping list doesn't look so bad, either:

$5 -        Braves Team Set (base)
$8 -        Yankees Team Set (base)
$11.20 -  Mickey Rivers Autograph (Yankees)
$7.50 -    Darrell Evans Autograph (Braves)
$9.99 -    Otis Nixon Autograph (braves)
$41.69

414 HR's, people!

It's hard to argue with checking off your favorite teams' complete sets and also adding three certified, on-card autographs (in nice, vintage designs).    In the end, though, for all of this - it's still $40.   That's a lot of money out of a family's budget for some cardboard!   But if you ARE able to save up and utilize some petty cash for your collecting enjoyment, the question is how do you want to spend it - methods and pursuits.   I find this to be an on-going evolution for me.

Fortunately, it's mostly fun to figure it out along the way!

What do you guys think?   Anybody else like to participate in the on-line group breaks?   Do you stick to eBay shopping?   Or do you prefer walking into a hobby shop / retail and just picking up a few packs?   These are the questions :)

Thanks for reading!

My Rizzo Collection - First Ink, Part One

Yeah, totally a shout-out to those fantastic Rambo movies of my youth with that title.

Happy Friday!   On to baseball cards.....

My last post announced my latest Player Collection (PC), Anthony Rizzo.   A bold move for me as Anthony doesn't play for the Yankees or Braves, my two favorite teams.   Have I betrayed myself?   Some may think so, but that's the great part about our hobby - collect what you like.

And I think Rizzo is pretty damn cool.   So, off I go.....

The collection started with one.

And, then a mini made two.

The next obvious move?   How about some ink on that third card?

YES!

Home Run

From 2013 Gypsy Queen, here's a sharp on-card autograph from the Cubbies' first baseman.   I am not the biggest fan of GQ this year though the 2011 inaugural version is a big part of how my tentative return to the hobby shifted into fifth gear.   Therefore, I still feel some set loyalty.

Rizzo's signature isn't winning any awards from me (I can see Killebrew shaking his head) but it is what it is.   What I DO love about this card is the way the blue ink works with the blue in the Cubs uniform.   It contrasts nicely with the sadly forlorn gray of the '13 GQ border.   AND, IT'S A RIZZO AUTOGRAPH!   For about half the price of a blaster, I was more than happy to scoop it up (30YOC nod).   Here's the back, just for kicks:

Thanks, Topps.

Love it!

Welcome to the collection.

Interesting Note:   Out of all of my official PC's (Mattingly, Freeman, Kimbrel, David Robertson, Rizzo), I lack autographs for the two I've had the longest - Freeman and Mattingly.   For Donnie Baseball, we're talking about 28, 29 years or so.   And while I have autographed cards for both Robertson and Rizzo, this Rizzo is the only CERTIFIED signature.

Funny how that happens.   Hopefully I'll be fortunate enough to remedy the voids soon enough.

But for now, I'm really excited to have a cornerstone for the Rizzo PC.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Announcing Anthony Rizzo - My Latest PC (Paisan Collection)

Huge news here at Ryan's Pitch.

I'm collecting any and all cards of Anthony Rizzo!

I only have two cards of Rizzo, so we're definitely on the GROUND floor for this collection.   You read that correctly - TWO.   I pulled his Allen & Ginter card out of pack last summer and then stumbled upon his mini from this year's Gypsy Queen set, also out of a pack:

Didn't dig the whole set, but I dig this card!

Without further ado, let the call ring out - I would love the chance to work out some trades for any Anthony Rizzo cards that you don't need for your collections!   That is all.......

But, as the Talking Heads pondered - how did I get here?  

Call it an epiphany of sorts - I've been following Rizzo's career pretty closely since the beginning of the 2012 season.   By then he had already been through Boston and San Diego before being shipped off to Chicago in exchange (pretty much) for Andrew Cashner.    I began my first season of fantasy baseball last year, so for the first time, I began dabbling in the "goings on" of minor league prospects throughout the majors in an effort to scout out rising talent for my own "team".

And I found Mr. Rizzo.

The Cubbies were hurting, as usual.   Their offense needed a boost and first base wasn't exactly blocked off by a long-standing beloved Windy City veteran.   In fact, the last prominent first basemen that I can recall at Wrigley would have to be from my first collecting period - Mark Grace.   No slouch! 

Uniform = AWESOMENESS

Anthony was called up in late June and had an immediate impact.   He couldn't singlehandedly turn around the Cubs' season but Rizzo proved to be a solid fielding 1B (.995 in 735 chances) with a great eye at the plate and some power to boot (.285 and 15 HRs).

But here is where I really started to feel a connection to the guy - he is of Italian descent, just like yours truly.   In fact, Rizzo can trace his family's roots back to the Sicilian village of Ciminna.   Ciminna is just inland, south of Palermo. 

Il mio connazionale!

One of my grandfathers, whom I mention quite frequently on this blog, was primarily responsible for solidifying my love for the game of baseball.......and he was also a first generation Italian American whose parents traveled to this country from the Sicilian village of Villarosa.   Villaroasa is fairly central to the island, several miles northeast of Caltanissetta.

Hopefully, at some point, I'll be able to travel to Sicily and see where I come from.   And don't THINK I didn't take a look at Rizzo's and my ancestors' location relative to Corleone!   I know.   Ridiculous.   But I couldn't help it.   Perhaps one day, I can hang out with Anthony and these guys, drink some coffee and tell some stories:

How y'all doin?

Fantastic.   I'm looking forward to collecting this guy and following his career.   I'm hopeful he can continue his current trends at the plate and settle in as a reliable part of Chicago's fledgling foundation with fellow infielder, Starlin Castro.   Rizzo recently made some comments about his hopes to be a part of the Cubs organization and that city for many years to come.   It's tough to do these days, but I'll hope along with him (unless he wants to wear pinstripes or tomahawks?).   Here's the back of that Rizzo GQ, by the way:

That's right......since RICK WILKINS! What?

It's almost like a return to my collecting youth in a lot of ways.   So many years ago, it was the love of The Mick shared with me by my Dad that introduced me to the Yankees and everything fell into place for my collecting ways to quickly center around Don Mattingly.   That quest continues today!   Likewise, a family connection and some random geographical coincidence from half way around the globe has now led me to cheer on another southpaw first baseman.

You can check out my PC list here.   More changes may be on the way soon, so stay tuned.

I love this hobby!

Thanks for reading!