The Best of the Rest

It's Sunday... which means another few hours set aside in the day to sort cards and hammer out a blog post.

Today i'll be wrapping up Rod's (aka Padrographs) care packages... which arrived back at the start of summer.  I'm gonna start off with a 9-pocket page of Athletics:

Once upon a time, the A's were sitting in first place atop the AL West.  As of this morning, they have the 2nd worst record in baseball.  A lot of that has to do with the lack of quality starting pitching and a ton of injuries... including two of their brightest young stars:  Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson.

Both of these guys are out for the rest of the season, but I'll happily add their cards to my collection whenever I can.

Next up are some Padres inserts and parallels:

The A's were crazy to trade away Mason Miller... but I sure am glad that he landed in San Diego.  He's recorded 34 saves with a 0.90 ERA since his arrival.  That refractor of him wearing the City Connect jersey is right up there with the Swinging Friar card as my favorites.

Rod also sent me a bunch of Topps Now Padres.  Here's 90% of the 2024 Topps Now Opening Day Padres team set:

Robert Suarez was the only card missing, but I ran over to eBay and picked up a copy for $2 + tax & shipping.

He also sent me some 2023 and 2024 Topps Now Padres.  The card sitting in the #5 spot is a short print variation of Dylan Cease's no-hitter celebration.  I had heard about these variations before, but this is the first time owning one.

If you look carefully in the regular version of Cease's Topps Now card, you'll notice the Peter Seidler memorial patch on his jersey.  Rod sent me the gray version of this patch:

Peter Seidler Memorial Patch

He also included this 20th Anniversary of Petco Park patch:

Petco Park 20th Anniversary Patch

These two patches sent me on a wild goose chase to track down a few more patches for my baseball collection, but I'll share them in a future post.

He also included some memorabilia cards.  Here's my very first Trent Grisham relic:

2021 Topps Allen & Ginter Relic #AGA-TG

He had a few memorable walk-off home runs for the Padres during his tenure with the team.  I wonder if this piece of wood came from one of those bats.

Unfortunately Topps didn't bother including any information about whether or not this swatch of wood came from a game-used bat.  C'mon Topps... do better.

2004 Topps Clubhouse Career Legends Relic #CL-WM2 (#'d 044/141)

Twenty-two years ago, you at least assured collectors that this jersey swatch was worn by Willie Mays in an official MLB game:

But even this COA could be interpreted a variety of ways.  That being said... I'm not going to complain.  This is a freaking Willie Mays jersey card.  How often do you see one of these pop up in a care package?

I know that memorabilia cards aren't as popular as they once were, but I'm still a big fan.

Here's another one from Rod's collection:

Baseball Card Breakdown Custom Relic #BG-Relic-Bip (#'d 1/1)

This one was created by Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown:

As you can see, Gavin wrote a quality COA that states that the uniform swatch came from a pair of game-used pants worn by Brian Giles during the 2000 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Well that wraps up Rod's three care packages.  Thank you so much for all of the new additions to my Padres, A's, and autograph PC's.  And of course... I can't forget that sweet Willie Mays jersey card.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!