2011 Bowman Error

Obviously most sets have errors in them these days, nothing is perfect which we all know however this one is so obvious I think most of us might have overlooked it. Take a look at this Willie Cabrera card and tell me if you see something wrong with it because I have one here in my hand and still passed it by until someone told me they noticed it.

Apparently it's not obvious to anyone because no one has it listed on eBay as an error card. Makes me wonder if he signed his contract electronically by entering a series of numbers and letters into a pdf document...

Please tell me you noticed it.... Also, I would like to know if anyone noticed this before while opening packs because I gotta be honest, I had to go through my set and see for myself that I missed it altogether while sorting.

Sunday Question

The injury to Buster Posey this week sparked a debate around baseball on whether rules should be changed regarding runners headed for home.

Florida Marlins' reserve Scott Cousins propelled himself in Posey as he was attempting to catch the ball.

Posey ended up with a broken leg and ligament damage in his ankle from this collision. He'll likely be out for the season.

I've made my opinion on the matter (and even had a Facebook poll, if you want to vote). I think rules regarding how runners attempt to score on close plays should be examined and, hopefully, changed. I feel too many players have been injured in these types of plays. Besides Posey, think of Carlos Santana from last season or Angels' catcher Bobby Wilson. Wilson made his first big league start when Mark Teixeira smashed into him. Wilson suffered a concussion and hurt his leg.

Who has forgotten Ray Fosse?

I think the way the NCAA handles such situations is better than MLB. If catcher are not blocking the plate, runners should try to avoid contact and get into a sliding lane. If the runner does barrel over the catcher and the umpire deemed it unnecessary, the player is out.

I know there are many people who don't agree with my opinion,  but that's why we have the Sunday question. What do you think MLB should do regarding home plate collisions?

There are people who say it's how baseball is played, but there are plenty of rules that change over time - such as the DH, wildcard and replays. I think this is one that certainly needs to be examined.

Sell Sell Sell

How many of us thought that at the end of May beginning of June that Matt Joyce would be leading the American League in batting average? I will tell you that I definitely didn't think so. He has a higher batting average than Albert Pujols.... Seriously.

Joyce is fairly new to the big leagues, his rookie cards are all 2008 and fairly inexpensive. Not that I am considering a new player to collect, but I thought it would be interesting to see how his cards were doing considering he has been on fire. Time will tell what kind of hitter he will be on a consistent basis, but he's a young guy so anything is possible.

There are plenty of rookie autographs on eBay, most of them are pretty cheap if you are looking for a young guy to collect. Take a look at a some of the ones I saw.

Matt Joyce Rookie Cards

Fail Horn Friday -Fake Patch Edition

Last night I was searching around looking at Robinson Cano cards on eBay when I stumbled upon an auction that was ending relatively soon. I knew immediately I had caught someone with a keen knife and some spare patches laying around to do a nice butcher job to a card that is already hard to get.

Take a look at this completed auction for a 2010 Topps Tribute Cano "Patch" and see what you think. I had tweeted to Topps last night with a link to this card and was informed that it is indeed a fake card and that their legal team was going to be looking into the matter. This seller has apparently take other cards to the chop shop as well.

This seller has over 600 cards for sale currently and they are all high end cards, autos, game used or patches. Take a look at this 2009 Topps Triple Threads Adrian Peterson Patch, which looks like a regular card you could pull in a pack.

Now I am not saying every card this seller has is fake. Nor am I trying to point out some negative aspect of collecting. The reason I am writing this post is that I know there are many collectors just getting back into the hobby and maybe you see one of those Cano cards of a player you like and you end up getting duped. I don't want to see that happen to anyone.

Another idea I had about this seller is that he may buy bulk lots of high end cards and not look at every single one when he buys it, however if that is the case he should notice them when he scans them. Anyone dealing with cards as a business would know that you would NEVER get a DUAL PATCH /25 like that. So even when I tried to play devil's advocate on this, the guy is still wrong. You should know better if you are running a "card store" on eBay from "Rookie Card USA".

The return of the atomic refractor

I realize I may be a little late on this (and I am), but I have to talk about the return of the atomic refractor by Topps.

When I initially opened Bowman, I didn't care for the base cards and some of the inserts. My eyes immediately opened widely, however, when I saw a Bowman's Best insert. They are so pretty. 

Atomic refractors were widely popular in the 1990s. It was probably the best parallel you could pull from a pack - unlike now where I presume the superfractor reigns supreme (but I personally like the Gold and Blue). 

This morning - in one of my bouts of procrastination - I found pretty Derek Jeter cards.

Immediately, I noticed the price. $1,199!!!! Just for a Bowman's Best insert. That's when I saw the words though - Atomic. Refractor. Topps made atomic refractors 1/1 in this year's set. So, I won't ever own this card, but I'm OK with that. Really. I promise. 

There are other refractors also with Bowman's Best. According to Beckett's database, there are regular refractors /99 and x-fractors /25. That Jeter x-fractor is already going for $55 right now. 

Here are some other atomic refractors to make their way into circulation. 

Tim Lincecum

Ryan Howard

Michael Pineda

Zach Britton

Available Teams for Facebook Case

Some of you have asked what teams are available in the Facebook case break of 2011 Topps Series 2 Jumbo so I thought I would list it here as well.

If you would like a team from this break you need to send the payment with "FACEBOOK" in the title so that I can file the payment with that break. If you are sending payment here and have a team in the blog case, please note that with your address so I can mail in one box.

Teams available:

Marlins

Pirates

Orioles

Diamondbacks

Astros

Rockies

Blue Jays

Royals

Twins

2011 Topps Series 2 Jumbo Case Break

I wanted to let you guys know that the date for the break is creeping closer and we still have some teams available. I need to fill this break immediately because payment is due one week prior to the release. Please leave a comment on the team you would like followed by PayPal payment as a gift to our e-mail. ($24)

Here are the teams available:

Marlins
Mariners
Diamondbacks
Royals

Sunday Question

This weeks hot topic has definitely been the release of 2011 Bowman. The hype associated with this product has been great, but I still think last year has it beat with the Strasburg cards. I think that this year's product will do very well with Bryce Harper as the "chase" card for the set, but it probably won't turn into the circus we all experienced last year where you couldn't find a pack for months in a local retail store.

I went on Card Corner Club Radio the other night and talked about the product for a little bit with Rob and Doug. One of the things we touched on that we all noticed was the lack of quality in the facsimile autograph scans. I don't know if you guys noticed this on some of your cards, but you should take a look at them. (Note: Bryce Harper's signature is pristine on scans.) Aside from that I didn't really see much lacking in terms of the quality control aspect.

Here is what I am wondering: What was the best part of the 2011 Bowman in your eyes? What was the worst?

For me personally, I love the inserts. Now, take that in stride before you guys attack. I will say that I think there are too many inserts this year and maybe it's turned into a bit of a mockery of the player collector in the sense that they put Best, Brightest, Future, 100, etc. and now you are stuck chasing a bunch of cards that are essentially all the same thing. What I specifically like is that Topps added some new designs and elements to the set. What I think would have served them and all of us better was separating some of these out to Chrome, Draft Picks & Prospects, and maybe even Series 2 of the flagship set.

Now the worst part.... Redemption autographs of mystery players. Honestly, what is that all about? As if it's not bad enough for the box to not have the autograph or one of the autographs, they couldn't even tell you who you are getting. That really annoys me. They have an autograph checklist, what is the issue here? Perhaps I should e-mail someone at Topps and ask what the deal is with this mess.

Gypsy Queen Autograph Replacements

Today the UPS guy came with a bubble mailer that I needed to sign for from Topps. I knew what it was and was immediately excited. We got our 10 autograph replacements from our case of 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen.

Here is what we were sent and I am going to need everyone who got an autograph to please send me a self addressed stamped envelope to mail them out.

I will give Topps credit for getting them out to us quickly, but I am kind of disappointed to receive duplicate autographs of 2 players. Kind of ruined the fun of more people getting to walk away with something. Then again, at least we didn't end up with a friggin' Gypsy auto.





Al Kaline auto = pure awesomeness.

Please e-mail me for the address to send them to. I would suggest you send a bubble mailer for an auto but that is up to you. I would also be happy to send them in a bubble mailer if you send me $2.50 as a gift thru PayPal. Whatever is easier for you to do is fine with me.

What do you guys think about how this turned out?

2011 Bowman Baseball Rack Packs

I overheard some of you talking at your computers last night saying, "Gee, I wonder what cards you can pull out of a rack pack. I wish they showed me that." So, I took it upon myself to go retrieve the 2 rack packs I hid yesterday, you know just in case they were out of everything. As luck would have it they were missing the entire gravity box of packs, literally. Someone took the box, too. There were 6 rack packs left not including the ones I stashed for safe keeping.

So here goes. This is what you can get in a rack pack.

Chipper Jones!


Gold parallels



Base Prospects


Chrome prospects


Purple Chrome /700


Topps 100


Bowman's Brightest


Topps of the Class

There you have it. So now since I went out and slaved over a new post, you should send me all your Robbie Cano parallels and Heathcott, Montero, and Romine cards from 2011 Bowman. I'm only partially kidding, I'd trade you some stuff for 'em.

Second Look: 2011 Bowman Baseball

Finally.....
Bowman Baseball has come back to Tar-get! Sorry, that was a Rock (WWE) reference.

Today when I went to Target they had 2011 Bowman Baseball rack packs strewn on the shelf, and a shipment box on a register with a sealed gravity box, which I opened and took 8 packs and 3 blasters which I also snarfed for safe keeping. I honestly don't know what to do with the blasters, I may only open one and sell the others. What do you think?

I opened the 8 loose packs and I scanned the prospects and inserts to show you what you can get from a random bunch of packs. Here we go!

You might be wondering why I included 2 base cards, but I hate these two cards. Not that I hate the players by any means, but honestly why use a photo of a pitcher hitting? Not a fan. Also, I don't like these goofy angles of a guys swing on a card. Sooz was right that many of the pictures on the cards are terrible, these were just my two worst ones.


Gold parallels


Orange parallel, Aaron Hill

Some sort of state insert that is actually part of the regular set. Card is numbered within the set, no idea what purpose they serve.


Base prospects



Chrome prospects



Purple Chrome /700


Topps 100 Which are coincidentally 100 times better than last years.

Finest Futures These are really nice looking inserts, these along with the 100 and Best would have been sufficient inserts for this set.


Topps of the Class


Bowman's Brightest

Bowman's Best (Best insert if you ask me.)

I had a good time opening these, but I think it was more fun finding a whole shipment box filled with unsearched goodness in Target. It felt like Christmas morning, only with way more baseball cards.

What insert do you like best? The Finest Futures and Bowman's Best may be my two favorites.