Opening Day is Finally Here!

Opening Day is finally upon us. For the first time in many, many years, all of the MLB teams were slated to begin their season on the same day. I've already heard that weather may have scrubbed the Reds/Nationals game, but my team...the Braves will be hitting the field in just over an hour to take on the Philadelphia Phillies. 

Today is one of those days where I relish getting to work from home...however with so much baseball on TV today I can't say I've accomplished a lot of work! Shhh, don't tell my boss! Later today I also hope to rip into some baseball card packs and boxes I've had sitting off to the side. Some 2018 Topps Opening Day (seems appropriate, right?), some 2018 Donruss and last but not least a hobby box of 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen.

Back to my Braves. Today's opening day roster has quite a few changes over last year. On the mound will be the Braves' ace, Julio Teheran. He was very up and down last year so I hope we'll see a more consistent Teheran this season. The starting pitching is a big question mark for the Braves so we'll need him to step up his game and help anchor the starting rotation. 

The rest of the starting rotation appears to include new comber Brandon McCarthy (acquired in the Matt Kemp deal w/ the Dodgers), Mike Foltynewicz and Sean Newcomb.

The outfield will consist of Ender Inciarte (CF), gold glover who I enjoyed watching from the outfield at SunTrust Park last season. Preston Tucker gets the start in LF, a player that I'll be honest I don't know much about. Drafted by the Astros in 2012 and played in Houston his rookie year in 2015. While he does show some promise, I believe he will just be a place holder so to speak until they are ready to call up Ronald Acuna. Nick Markakis gets the start again in RF.

Infield consists of Mr. Reliable himself at 1B, Freedie Freeman. Ozzie Albies, called up late in 2017 gets the start at 2B vacated by Brandon Phillips. Dansby Swanson fills the hole at shortstop. He was up and down last year so I'm hoping we'll see more offensive abilities from him this year. 3B is another new face, Ryan Flaherty. Ryan previously played for the Baltimore Orioles, drafted in 2008 by the Cubs. Johan Camargo will most likely be the team's third baseman, but he is starting off the new year on the DL with oblique discomfort.

The bullpen has a lot of new faces as well and I'm really hoping these guys will hold up better than the bullpen of previous teams. A.J. Minter may eventually win the closing job from Arodys Vizcaino. A familiar face returning to the bullpen this year is the Aussie, Peter Moylan.

I'm so ready to go! Baseball is back! I'm having a blast with some of the early 2018 baseball card products and I can't wait to see what this season has in store for all of the teams, especially the Braves. Now let's go play some ball!!

Affordable Group Break - 2nd Team Randomization

Now that all of the slots have been filled and everyone has paid, it's time to randomly assign the unclaimed teams.

01 - Cardboard Collections - Braves / Angels
02 - Cards on Cards - Cardinals / Rays
03 - Angus - Mets / Marlins
04 - Cardboard Conundrum - Cubs / A's
05 - Daily Dimwit - Astros / Rockies
06 - CaptKirk42 - Expos / Blue Jays
07 - Royals & Randoms - Royals / Brewers
08 - Chronicles of Fuji - Yankees / Mariners
09 - Jason German - Reds / Twins
10 - Daily Dimwit - Dodgers / Padres
11 - 2x3 Heroes - White Sox / Indians
12 - 2x3 Heroes - Pirates / Tigers
13 - Royals & Randoms - Giants / Diamondbacks
14 - Royals & Randoms - Red Sox / Rangers
15 - Royals & Randoms - Orioles / Phillies

If you'd like to trade a team(s), please comment on either this post or on the Facebook post. That way I can make sure I keep up with who's swapping who.

Affordable Group Break: Sign-Up Deadline 03/27

*** UPDATE 03/26/18 ***

The Break is full! Boxes have been ordered. Should be able to break live this Saturday evening at 9 PM Eastern.

Alright, in order to break these boxes next weekend (March 31st) then I need to fill a minimum of 5 of the final 6 slots. The deadline to claim a slot will be Tuesday, 03/27/18. If I'm unable to fill 5 slots by then, I'll be cancelling the break and refunding everyone's money that has paid.

I was really hoping that I'd get enough interest in doing something different, but with the overall cost I simply can't afford to absorb that kind of a hit. Hopefully everyone understands that.

Please help me spread the word via Social Media and let's fill up those spots. Remember, if you've already paid and would like an additional slot, you'll receive a $2 discount. 

For all of the details and to sign up, please go HERE.

Blog Bat Around: Mini Collections

I've noticed another topic going around several trading card blogs I follow and I decided I'd chime in on this one. As Fuji so elegantly wrote on his blog, when I first got into collecting I didn't really have a player or a team I collected. I was brand new to baseball cards (thanks to a friend) and knew nothing about them. All I knew was each card had a number and I thought the goal was to collect them all. I never have looked at myself as a set builder, but looking back at my humble beginnings of card collecting I guess I am.

As I got more and more into collecting, I eventually adopted the Atlanta Braves as my team and started to specifically put aside those players. That led to collecting certain players, but a lot of us do that. I'm here to talk about those "other" collections.

It wasn't until I got into blogging that I realized some people had, well odd mini collections. Whether it was BA Benny (what ever happened to him?) and his collection of cards that featured the American flag or a cup, to collections that featured a play at the plate or someone bunting. That lead me to creating a few small mini collections of my own...

Being more a fan of the National League than the American League, I particularly like to see cards that depict a pitcher at the plate. There are tons of cards featuring the pitcher perfecting his craft, but few with wood in their hands. I'm working on scanning all the cards in this collection to share one day. I don't have a lot because they seem to be far and few in between. I actually did a post on this 7 years ago.

 

Another smaller collection that I have that unfortunately I haven't been able to add to much is my Cards with Kids. It seems like the 90's had more candid shots of players. I wish the Topps would use some photos of the players with their kids during the All-Star break. I love seeing the kids with their dads watching the events such as the Home Run Derby. Those would make some great cards, possibly a great insert set in Opening Day?

Outside of those two collections, I obviously collect other players that aren't Braves or Hall of Famers. Why I collect some of these players may have not been obvious, but I've recently re-branded these collections on the right side bar. My faith plays a big part of who I am so it made sense to me to find players that share my faith. It wasn't long before this list really started to grow and now I'm lucky just to get a few base cards of these players.

 

Another collection of mine are players that played ball for NC State University. The baseball side of this collection is small, but I love to pick up cards, especially football and basketball of the players in their college uniforms.

I also collect players from my hometown of Charlotte, NC. I may have added a few players that are from NC, but not from Charlotte (Madison Bumgardner - he's from Hickory which is an hour or so away). I'm really trying to expand this a little more lately and now have a few players from the late 50s and from the 60s that I'm looking to pick up.

I always love seeing what others collect and the whys behind the collections. This was a great topic and I'm glad I was able to participate.

Group Break Update

Still have 8 slots to fill in order for this break to happen. $18 will get you two spots (1 team of your choice & 1 randomized). We'll have at least 20 hits plus a bonus box or packs. Tell your friends, let's fill this up!

For more information or to sign up, please refer to the original post HERE.

Hidden in Plain Sight

Between work, family, hobbies and the multitude of blogs I try to maintain each day, each week, each month, there are going to be things that slip through the cracks. I've been taking advantage of my boss' 2 week vacation and get caught up on a few things and get my home office desk cleaned up a bit. While doing so I found a simple plain white envelope and inside was a folded 9 pocket sheet that contained several 2017 Donruss cards I needed for my set. Marc from Remember the Astrodome was kind of to send these, yet it's taken me this long to publicly say thank you.

I'm now 7 cards away from completing the base set, minus the short printed Diamond Kings, Rated Rookies and the base variations. I've yet to jump into 2018 Donruss, but I plan to eventually so I'm glad I'm so close to finishing out the 2017 set.

If you want to help, here is what I'm still missing:

Diamond Kings - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

Rated Rookies - 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45

Base - 171, 172, 176, 179, 182, 185, 193

Nachos Grande 2018 Topps Heritage Group Break Results

Chris from Nachos Grande has thrown his hat recently into the ring of hosting group breaks. I grabbed the Braves in his recent 2018 Heritage break. I don't usually buy much if any of Heritage, so I figured this would be a good way to get the Braves cards I wanted without having a lot of cards I didn't want.

I feel as if I did pretty good, getting multiples of every non-SP Brave in the set. I did manage to get one SP, Nick Markakis.

The Detroit Tigers ended up being my second team that was randomized to me. I only got 3 cards, but it appears all 3 are SPs. I'm keeping the McCann for my Faith Brothers collection, but the other two will be available for trade.

While Chris was waiting to break the actual boxes of Heritage, he opened a few bonus packs. Nothing too exciting, but I love the junk wax era and even though I may already have these older Braves cards in my collection I'll still gladly take them.

Thanks Chris for hosting the break and getting the cards out to me so quickly!