Going Back to School

All good things must come to an end... and tomorrow is the last day of Thanksgiving break.  On Monday, I'm back in the classroom for three weeks... and then it's our holiday break.  It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

This morning I spent a few more hours opening up care packages from fellow bloggers.  

Let's start off with some Tony Gwynn cards from Nick over at Dime Boxes -- The Low-End Baseball Card Collector's Journey:

2002 UD Piece of History Tape Measure Heroes #TM12

This card immediately stood out to me, because Gwynn wasn't known for hitting the long ball.  However it highlights arguably his most famous home run.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here.

I also thought this card was interesting:

1998 Bowman Minor League MVPs #MVP4

Gwynn never won the NL MVP Award.  But in 1981... he won the inaugural Northwest League MVP Award.  Never knew that until I took a closer look at the above insert.

I need to flip over cards more often.  That's where I discovered Gwynn kicked his professional baseball career off by hitting twelve home runs in forty-two games.  What happened to his power?

Nick also tossed in a trio of Oakland Athletics:

2022 Panini Capstone Rookie Materials #RM-KS

2022 Topps Chrome X-Fractor #148

2023 Topps Green Foil #340

Three quick notes about these three cards.

1.  When I hear the name Kevin Smith, I think of the guy who wrote and directed Clerks... not this guy.

2.  Feels like Matt Olson has been with the Braves for a long time, but he was still on the A's three years ago.

3.  Green foil parallels were made for A's cards.

The final two cards in Nick's package originated across the Pacific:

2013 Sega Card-Gen #J13-124

Did you know that Hiroki Kuroda has a lower career ERA in the MLB than fan favorites like Hideo Nomo, Masahiro Tanaka, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Kenta Maeda, and this guy:

2023 BBM Infinity #11

As for Darvish, he holds the MLB strikeout record among players born in Japan and he only needs 13 more wins to tie Hideo Nomo's win record.

Moving along is another care package containing Japanese guys.  Only this time the focus is on race car drivers.

Back at the start of the school year, Raymond over at Rebel Random Ramblings emailed me to let me know he had some cool items for my Japanese athlete collection.  He wasn't lying.

Let's start off with the cards:

2024 Parkside NTT IndyCar Premier #57

2024 Parkside NTT IndyCar Premier #101

Takuma Sato is the only Asian driver to ever win the Indianapolis 500... and he did it twice (in 2017 and 2020).

Next up are some "hero cards":

Takeshi Kimura

Marino Sato

Hiroshi Koizumi

If you're wondering what "hero cards" are... then you're in luck, because Rebel Coyote broke it down for me.  They are cards that teams and drivers distribute to fans.  These are larger than standard size cards.  Each one measures approximately 6" x 8.25".

My two favorite are these Toyota Gazoo Racing team cards:

Ryo Hirakawa

Kamui Kobayashi

Three years ago (right before Matt Olson was traded to the Atlanta Braves)... I purchased a Toyota GR Supra.  I've been collecting Hot Wheels of this car... but I'm still waiting for a trading card to be made.  For now... these two "hero cards" are nice placeholders.

A few of these "hero cards" appear to be signed... but Raymond didn't mention anything about autographs in his note.  So they may or may not be facsimile signatures.

The final two "hero cards" are super sized (8.5" x 11") and don't feature Japanese drivers:

Slade Stewart & Andy Lee

Sam Shi

However... who doesn't love Lamborghinis... especially pink ones with a unicorn nicknamed "Sparklefarts".

Rounding things out are a stack of cards that (former blogger) Wes (aka jaybarkerfan) sent me.  Let's kick things off with a Kurt Suzuki four-pack:

Every time someone sends me some cards of Zuk... it reminds me that I need to make time to add my collection of his cards to TCDB.  I'd love to see where I rank among their members.

Next up are a huge lot of Ichiro Suzuki cards:

Wes included Ichiro cards ranging from 2001 all the way to 2015.  Plus there was a serial numbered Kaz Matsui and a Tsuyoshi Shinjo rookie card tossed into the mix.

The highlight of this care package was the card featured at the start of this post:

2008 Topps Target Back to School #TB6

This card is AWESOME on so many levels...

#1:  I love the 2008 Topps flagship design.  It's in my Top 10 of all-time.

#2:  Mariner Moose is Ichiro's co-star.  Mascot cards rule!

#3:  It features a candid photo of the pair hanging out in the dugout.

#4:  You don't see these cards very often.

They were only inserted into these specially marked Fairfield packs sold at Target... probably right around the start of the school year.  I would have loved it had my parents bought me cards to lure me back into the classroom.

I guess in a sense... these bloggers have essentially done that for me... as I head back to school on Monday.

Thank you Dime Box Nick, Rebel Coyote, and jaybarkerfan for these generous care packages.  I'm sorry it took so long for me to crack them open and appreciate.  But honestly... the timing couldn't have been better.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!