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I’m very, very close to being able to post trade bait again. I just need to update my want lists after a couple recent purchases and then I should be all set. No more trips coming up that I know of. No work crap slowing me down or taking away my nights and weekends. It’ll be nice. I also want to start looking at blog want lists to reach out to you folks a bit too, if I can balance my time well.
That means more trade packages coming in hot the second half of the year, I hope. So, I need to give my past trades their due quickly.
Tom from The Angels, In Order sent me a ton of cards, mostly John Lackey and Gwynns. If you want to review the first part, you can do so here. This installment is going to focus on cards from 2007 and 2008, because I still can’t be bothered to do things in order.
 Future card-ography subject I’m sorry, but old Bowman designs are really boring. I’d maybe like it more if I were a vintage guy, but also 90% of the appeal would be the age of the card rather than the look.
 The striped sock set The last year of Fleer was not a very strong one.
 Nice try Here we see Lackey trying to fool his dog by “throwing” the ball.
 Not an All-Star quality photo And here he his upset that it didn’t work.
 I don’t know about trying to copy the print quality of the ’50s Not every old Topps set was good. There’s bound to be a clunker now and again.
 Was this the elevator door set? At least 2007 Fleer was better than 2007 Upper Deck.
 Maybe the most colorful one I’ve seen I really wish I understood why SP Authentic was a thing for so long when the cards looked like this. It must have been about the hits.
 So much Chrome I’ll need to chase I don’t know how others feel about 2008, but the circus look is growing on me the more I see it.
 The regular base card is numbered To end of the session, we’ll look at the first reboot of Stadium Club. The one that didn’t go so well. I wasn’t collecting then, but I do know that this is the First Day Issue parallel and that some players saw this as a numbered card, while others (like Lackey), did not. Sounds confusing. I’ll stick with singles through trades with great people like Tom! Thanks again!
I’m back home in Chicago after a long, emotionally draining trip. My stomach still hasn’t fully recovered, but I already feel my sleep schedule getting back in line. I don’t know how much I’m going to talk about my time in India after this. I do want to talk about my trip out to London that happened a couple weeks before if I can figure out a good way to do so with cards, but that will come a little later.
Today, I continue to recover and take it easy by continuing to catch up with the Cubs. It’s nice to be able to watch the games again. The 80th game of the season was played yesterday and I’m typing this as game 81 is happening. Almost there. For this batch of games 51-60, the Cubs went 8-2 which is the best stretch featured so far. That also means getting more scans formatted and uploaded. The sacrifices we make for a winning record.
 I wonder how they choose the background colors Win #29 – Jason Heyward – I wanted to give it to Lester for a 2 hit game at the plate, but his pitching was not great. This was the Pirates game to lose and they did. Heyward went 3-5, including a double. He only contributed 1 RBI, but it was a key insurance run. There were some big hits overall by the whole team.
 Clearly not by team Win #30 – Zobrist – On the day, Zo was 3-5, including a 2-run homer. He was also a triple short of the cycle, just like so many others before him.
 I know where the stripe colors come from Win #31 – Schwarber – He only had two ABs. He was 1-1 as a pinch hitter with a Sac Fly. The hit was a 3-run homer for a total of 4 RBI. Not bad for someone that didn’t start. That turned out to be the difference in the 7-4 win.
 I don’t collect Farrell and I don’t know if I’d have any cards of him if I did Win #32 – Luke Farrell (not pictured) – Montgomery pitched well in another start, but Farrell gets the official win by pitching 5 innings in relief. In that tied game, he allowed 2 H, 2 BB, and notched 7 Ks before the Cubs dropped 6 runs in the 14th inning to beat the Mets 7-1.
 This is from the Mini set Win #33 – Lester – 7 innings, 2 hits, 3 BB, 7 K, ERA 2.44, 0 runs. Pretty sure he’s going to be an All-Star this year. I could have picked Baez, who stole home, but Lester was working on no hitter for 5.2 innings.
 My scanner created those lines on the holo parallel Win #34 – Heyward – He only went 1-5 but the 1 was big. Jason crushed a walk-off grand slam on a 2 out, 2-2 count. The Cubs were down 5-3 after the Phillies scored 2 in the top of the 9th, but went home winners.
 No lines on the non-holo Win #35 – Rizzo – This one hit game is less impressive. He batted 1-3, with a solo home run and a controversial Sac Fly (where Phillies catcher apparently was at fault for a collision thing – I didn’t watch game) adding to 2 RBI total. Nothing crazy showing up in the box score, so Rizzo gets the nod here.
 This color makes sense Win #36 – Ian Happ (not pictured) – This is a first, but I’m giving it to a player with no hits or RBI. Happ was 0-3 at the plate but was great defensively in LF with 3 diving grabs. Two of those were in relatively important positions and one to end the game with flair.
2000.
The St. Louis Rams beat the Tennessee Titans to become NFL champions, making my college town in Southern Illinois freak out a bit.
The Los Angeles Lakers come back into the championship fold, giving Kobe his first title over the Pacers. On the WNBA side, the Houston Comets continue to dominate with their fourth straight title (over New York again).
Evander Holyfield wins the Heavyweight Boxing title for the fourth time.
Lance Armstrong wins the Tour de France. Oh, oops. Wait. No he officially didn’t.
Tiger Woods wins every major golf tournament except the Masters. That green jacket went to Vijay Singh
The New Jersey Devils deny the Dallas Stars their second straight Stanley Cup.
Major League Baseball dissolves the National and American Leagues as separate legal entities, which I would have thought was done a long time ago, but wikipedia says it was this year. They’re never wrong.
The Yankees win yet another World Series title against the Mets. I think I’ll call it “The Subway Series.” Pretty clever right? I just thought of it.
And in 2000, card manufacturers released 306 cards of Greg Maddux that I deemed worthy of my collecting efforts.
Thanks to the generosity of reader Jeremy, originally mentioned in our landmark 500th post (and in my 1993 Overload post, and 1994 post, and 1995 post, and 1996 post and 1997 post and 1998 post and 1999 post), I now have 30 more of those cards as I did before.
2000 Before Jeremy – 27/306 cards – 9%
2000 After Jeremy – 57/306 cards (including zero upgrades) – 19%
1999 was the first year to reduce the number of cards, going down by 250, and 2000 fell another 100. That’s honestly quite amazing, and my overall card spending is grateful.
In the many years since Jeremy’s package, I’ve acquired 24 more 2000 cards, bringing my total to 81 for the year ’00, and putting me at over 26% for that year. Still, as always, there’s plenty of progress yet to be made. For now, let’s focus on what Jeremy sent.
 That is not his fan autograph signature As always, we start at the top of the alphabet and work our way down. In 2000, Bowman still hadn’t caught parallel fever on the paper side. I only need the gold parallel #/99 and the retro-future insert. Not too bad.
 Rays from el rey Crown Royale is back with the die cuts once again. If you covered the date in the corner, would you be able to tell which year is which? I can’t, but I still like the die cut.
 Ruby plated crowns are a thing, right? The red foil Pacific used was probably the best part about their cards. Although if I were to get the Platinum Blue, then maybe THAT would be the best.
 Gaming through this one I’m pretty convinced that by this point Fleer forgot how to make good base sets.
 Relegated to the bottom I mean, who wouldn’t find this league leader card appealing?
 Stepping into/out of a portal Even the Metal cards are lazy. Sure there’s etched foil, but it’s a random-ass pattern and nothing’s happening in the background.
 Like a giant coming over the wall Alright, maybe the acetate cards are the best thing Pacific has done.
 Should have used the red foil for the diamond suit I appreciate this insert set, but it is a tiny bit bland. A little bit of background in that inner rectangle would have gone a long way
 My favorite Pacific product About a year ago now, I opened a box of 2000 Prism. Maybe one day I’ll post that, too… I didn’t get any new Maddux cards there. Here is the regular version.
 When in doubt, look up a guide online This is the rapture silver with an assumed print run of 916. Now that I have the two most common ones out of the way, I only need 14 more cards from the set!
 Color wheel The 1999 Private Stock looked better. This is a sturdy card that is trying to be like Topps Gallery, but it needs some happy little trees.
 The dominion is cloudy The Skybox Dominion set has several cards and insert parallels that I don’t think I’ve ever seen like the Double Play Plus or Eye on October. Maybe some day.
 Gold glover When did SP Authentic become so bland? Was it always that way? I think it has.
 Does the logo need to be in the pennant? I need only 3 more Stadium Club Chrome cards. That’s the same amount I need from the 2017 set where it was treated like an insert. Think about that.
 Subset, not an insert I hate to complain this whole time, but I think the “gallery” part got away from Topps here. At least the card stock has some tactile interest.
 Okay, but why are they “Classes?” The best years of Gold Label are when they put the class number on the front of the card, like this one.
 Here’s class 3 For this year, I’m missing the Gold parallels for each of them, all numbered to 100. I’m still largely in the dollar or less phase of my collection so it may be a while.
 Is it like an alternate Stadium Club? And for the HD set, which was a thing, I’m “looking for” the Platinum parallel. Fewer cards in 2000, but a lot of them are low numbered.
 You’re gonna be a star, kid In a strange turn of events, Topps Stars scaled back its product even more and I only need one parallel for each of the two base cards. Metallic blue. That should look cool!
 Time for Name the Tek Pattern Pattern #10 – Position Position Position
The triumphant return of the Tek naming game is immediately deflated by having a card that names itself, mostly.
 Ice cold blue I bet you can’t guess what cards I’m missing from this set. Yup, the low numbered parallels.
 False advertising Not a hologram, don’t care. But, I do only need 2 unnumbered inserts here.
 Do you know what I’m missing? So, clearly we’re into Upper Deck territory, so we’re nearing the end. This is the Legends set. There’s the snippet explaining why he’s a legend if you didn’t think so already.
 Low numbered parallels and a relic Oh, and here’s another card that basically says the exact same thing. 4 Cy Youngs deserve 2 cards, though.
 Don’t care for the bar code vibe MVP is a set that kind of wore out its welcome as well. I’m really cynical today, aren’t I?
 Not standing, though Okay, here’s a good one. I like cards that utilize texture. Ovation has the bumps and grooves. That’s cool enough to get a pass.
 Send the design back to the minors And now we’re back to the bland stuff. Another common theme with Upper Deck is overlapping boxes.
 More overlapping boxes Shouldn’t the boxes have things in them? Wouldn’t that be a better attitude to have? Maybe the Stats that are so full of “tude.”
 Kinda looks like the lightning’s coming from his butt We end things with an insert from the Vanguard set. I like the regular base cards. This insert isn’t too bad. There are too many parallels of it, though. So while I tried to end on a positive, it’s mired by the recurring problem of collecting.
But, how about this positive? I’m finally in the home stretch of this massive package received from Jeremy over five years ago. I’m sure he’s long abandoned reading the blog, but I often think about his generosity and I’m determined to share more of it soon. Thank you very much!
I’ll be honest. My organizational skills have improved in the near decade after starting the blog, but it’s still not perfect. Usually when cards come my way, I’ll keep them in separate stacks for scanning so I can label them appropriately with notes about where they came from. However, sometimes too many inbounds come my way before I can scan and I sort of lose track of what came from where or why. That’s what’s happened with some of the cards I’ve received from Kerry/Madding at Cards on Cards.
I kind of think this is from one of our trades over the past 12 months or so, but I think he’s also sent me random stuff and this could be part of that. I really don’t know. The Cubs you’ll see are from a trade (don’t remember what I traded back), but I think the basketball and Frank Thomas stuff is from a different package.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter a whole lot, does it? The important thing is that I believe both sides are happy with the outcome of the exchange. I know I am. There’s a lot more Cubs stuff to show from that trade still to come. But today, we start with hoops.
 Sneaking one Upper Deck in the mix There are a ton of basketball sets put out by Panini each year and I haven’t even attempted to catch up. There are a couple of random sets that I tried to collect in the past, and I’m still going for the Past & Present master set if anyone has some inserts I need, but most of my basketball comes from Kerry.
Look at what I’m missing! So much shine. The die cuts. The action shots. The inserts. We saw a little of this through the Pinnacle baseball product, but the baseball production line’s don’t look like this.
I think my favorite of the bunch is the Grant Hill, because it reminds me of another acetate insert from his second year that was one in 2 or 3 boxes. My binder is 24 hours of travel away right now, but that was my favorite card as a teen.
 I could care less why Durant joined the Warriors. Good for him on getting that trophy Plenty of parallels to be found, of course. I prefer the Donruss basketball style here once again with the gold border. The Durant on the right of the middle row pops a lot more in-hand. Everyone loves stickers, right?
 Breaking my rules of showing each card individually I’m still not really sure how to catalog Star cards. It boggles my mind that there doesn’t seem to be a good resource for what they produced. One of these days I’ll have to do some research into at least the people I collect. I’ve decided to call this the “Blue-Gray Non-Glossy” version. I know that there is a glossy version that was a more limited set, but also a non-limited that looks the same. These don’t seem to be super glossy, so I’m making that call since I don’t have the original snap case. Let me know if anyone knows differently.
 Nice of them to zoom out to show the ball This set also breaks the trend I’ve run into so far of 9-card sets. Nope, this one is 11 and I’m pretty sure it’s complete as is. Star is weird, man. Fascinating, but weird.
 Like a gold spotlight Why did Big Hurt cross the road? To get the other half of his broken bat.
 So many parallels needed Just a quick transition into the Cubs stuff via Kyle. Wouldn’t this look better with a gold border? I think so.
 Foggy day in Florida One of the coolest parts of this trade (because I know we’re in trade territory now) is that my Maddon collection doubled from it. I bothered to write that down at least.
 That fog looks really rough now Sometimes the Rays still feel like they are a team that just started 5 years ago, even though there’s proof that’s not true.
 Sunny day, need the shades Doing what managers do best: Walking. I wonder if Topps will bring manager cards back next year, or maybe in update this year? Would be nice to see them back.
Thanks as always to Kerry! We’ll see Cards on Cards back on this blog in the near future as well, because he sent a couple larger packages my way and they aren’t going to post themselves. Wouldn’t that be cool?
One of the most annoying things about collecting, in my opinion, is dealing with the non-standard card sizes. I’ve expressed my displeasure of minis in the past, but rarely do I get to talk about the oversize stuff.
That’s because I haven’t been actively seeking the oversized cards for quite some time. When I went to my first National in 2015, I was really hoping to find some there, but I didn’t. Same for 2017. Perhaps those dealers have the same issues that I do: Storage and shipping. They would have had to package them up to get to the show floor, and don’t easily fit in most card protecting things.
As for me, I’m very hesitant to try buying them from ebay. They are already condition sensitive, since most are box toppers and are rattling around in the box before getting that thin pack opened. However, I’m more worried that the seller won’t protect them properly. We all know how bad people can be about cutting corners, so I assume the worst, like plain unpadded envelopes or not putting “do not bend” anywhere so it winds up folded, or they literally cut corners to get it to fit into whatever package is not meant for cards.
So, I’ve been slowly working on getting these, because it has to happen sometimes. Mostly I’ve been searching on COMC, because you can look at the scans, even though that’s not a perfect system and I’ve received ones that seemed okay but do look a little dinged in a corner or two. But if you have some of the boxtoppers, or other cards I need, please let me know. I have some that I’ll probably list for trade or sale at some point, but I’m afraid of messing up the shipping as well.
 Finally, a Stadium Club card with a border Perhaps the first box topper type cards are the Stadium Club master photos. These were really cool at the time, but the novelty has worn off for me. I got this from Andy during his huge Stadium Club phase.
 Sorry Ellis, no room on the scanner for you Technically this is a box backer. My parents found these cereal boxes at an antique mall and gave them to me for Christmas, not even knowing that I collect Tony Gwynn.
 They use a different picture/color on the inset minis All the rest of these are from COMC. To be honest, I have no idea why Ryan Dempster is on this Allen & Ginter box topper. I’m going to assume it’s because of a home run given up to Pujols. The back doesn’t explain what Decade of Dominance means, it’s just the checklist. When trying to research it, I think it’s because Pujols hit the most home runs off of Ryan (8), but it’s really not that evident.
 Dempster has the same hair underneath that cap, Brian Here’s maybe a happier Dempster boxtopper, even though he’s not smiling. Now I’m just down to needing the blue tint version, which has eluded me ever since this set was released (and is not very easy to tell apart from the normal card).
 Fix your hair! Here’s a happy fellow. Sticking with 2011 Heritage is Zobrist with no logos anywhere to be found. Billy makes up for it though.
 No hair issues Back to serious. Lester is another middle child in 2013.
 Yeah! No Cardinals in sight! Back to Dempster. This card may have spurred a spending spree, because it was surprisingly cheap at a time when Altuve was either winning MVP or the World Series (don’t remember which) and I wanted to beat them to the punch.
 Belt’s nostrils bother me The ultimate stare down between Belt and Montero. Who will blink first? Neither, because it’s a picture. Well played, gentlemen.
 Look at that whipper snapper with the backwards cap The last one is possibly the most unexpected. I wouldn’t have assumed David Ross would make the advertising panel cut (since he has less than 200 cards I need total in his career), but here we are.
I haven’t been able to fully checklist the advertising panels from Heritage, so some of them may be missing from my want lists, especially from this current year, but again, if you have any, I’m open to receiving them. I may not like them that much, but I’m still collecting them if I collect the player. For some reason.
While I’m getting caught up on the Cubs schedule a bit, I’m farther behind on my monthly Ebay purchase breakdowns. I’ll get there. I just need to do more than one a month a few times and I’ll be there. Gotta take in fewer cards than I’m posting out. All easier said than done when there’s so much out there to buy. January was small, but February was a decent haul.
 Yup, this set again To start, I found someone selling a partial team set of the black parallels. These are not numbered, and so I didn’t have a saved search going for a long time. Still, I want to keep my eye on them, because the black versions show up once per box, making them potentially more rare than the greens.
 #/99 This purple Fire of Lester has shown up from several sellers and while I now have my copy, I still have to double check when it shows up in my saved search emails.
 Just need one more black Arrieta The 2018 parallels have been a lot tougher to grab, but I’m still finding good luck with my 2017 auctions. I know this is a subset, but still counts!
 Who needs a bat? The pinks have been tough in general. It seems like fewer of these pop up for some reason, compared to blues that are the same print run.
 Da-Boo-Dee Speaking of blue, here’s one! The market for Hendricks is so volatile. It’s weird.
 Da Boo Die And another. See? More common. Topps must have run out of toner for Series 2, because that blue shade is not as pronounced as the S1 above.
 No one likes the wave in baseball One of my least favorite things about modern collecting is that each year adds new levels of parallels. Now we have gold waves to contend with in our chrome, along with the regular gold refractors. These waves are kind of gross.
 He didn’t win the 300th game with the Braves Lastly, we have a Maddux relic #/100. I honestly don’t know how I found this, but obviously the price was right. There is a mountain of Maddux relics that are still on the want list and here I am with my little spoon trying to shovel. Still, progress is progress, right?
My goodness does time fly. There are trades initiated in November of last year that I still haven’t posted on here yet. I’m sorry to anyone else who is still waiting for their cards and thanks to show their face. I’m a work in progress. The good news for me is that this will be covered in one shot (by slightly breaking my rule of 9 scans per post).
Matt from Red Cardboard worked out a trade with me for a healthy stack of 2008 UD Documentary cards from my post found here. At some point I might put together a trade list for what’s left, but for now, if you collect a certain team or player from that set, let me know because I still have A TON of the stuff I’d like to move.
The team Matt claimed might surprise you. Okay, no it won’t. It was the Reds. I still have more thanks to duplicates, but I was able to off-load a nice chunk of cards in exchange for an assortment of Frank Thomas cards and this guy below.
 Anyone gonna miss Bunt this year? My Bunt collection is ever growing. This may not be an Ebay post, but you still can’t escape it! Somehow I was able to obtain the two parallels for Maddux before I got a base card (aside from the one for my master set attempt) here. I think. This is the last one posted at least.
 The off-center divide in the name plate bothers me I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating that there is still a lot of junk era stuff that I still need. If you want to trade with me, don’t assume I have those overproduced base cards! Matt didn’t assume!
 You don’t need a box or anything for that inset picture Oh boy, if you like unlicensed broder cards, you’ll want to stay tuned. I actually went to a card shop in April and I hit the motherlode. I love this stuff.
 Sorry I missed this set when it came out Strangely, I thought I had this card already. Maybe I was thinking of some reprint thing, or a different player, or maybe even this specific card since it’s been several months. This is why we need spreadsheets.
 Hey now I want more cards of people accepting awards. By the way, I never solved the mystery of the 5X7 version. If you want to get on the case – please see here!
 Woah, he’s in front of and behind the foil! 1996 Leaf was a step way down from 1995. I think they were still trying to be sort of higher end like Ultra, but were falling in the middle of the pack like Ultra.
 What food is he thinking about? I like this year’s Pinnacle, but the parallels still confuse me. I kinda wish Panini would give it another shot and maybe go more retro like this.
 Like a black hole I miss the golden age of Score. This isn’t that, but at least they were still going after those subsets. The border just consumes the card too much.
 Gotta love the woodgrain Select only lasted one year as a comeback, too and I liked it. It was basically Prizm again, though so I understand why it was cut.
 Don’t peel the Select Under my new policy, today’s post would be over by now, but lucky you get to scroll right past this sentence and never read it. Great card, though!
 Pre-Oakland Possibly one of the earliest appearances of an alternate jersey. Was this used in a game? I tried a quick search but couldn’t find anything after two minutes.
 It has the space between each letter like all the cool kids are doing This is where Score really falls off the rails. This is nothing like the brand I knew and love.
 Spring training! I think this is the second checklist in the bunch. Thankful to have this one as I’ve had the gold medallion for a while.
 Weird factoid to include Upper Deck was weird about their cards. The foil stamps and text on the side seem like subsets, but that’s not always true.
 Perhaps the base card is less common than the variations To end the day and the trade, we jump forward 18 years and Donruss is back at it again. Whether that’s good or bad is up for debate. I think there are positives to it. This design has grown on me at least.
Thank you so much for the trade, Matt! I’m sorry again for the long delay in showing these off. Hopefully we’ll get to do this again sometime and I can be a little quicker.
I’m currently writing this after the Cubs finished their 70th game of the season. I’m trying to get caught up on things while still maintaining some variety in the blog. Also, as I’m writing this, I have another 1.5 weeks in India, and one of the few positives about it is that all the hotel time makes it easy to post blog posts more regularly.
I appreciate anyone taking the time to read this stuff still. Before I left, I acquired a ton of new cards, and I have a ton from before that still need to be shown. This kind of post is a nice and easy way to get that done.
 Pulled from a box of SC I bought at the NSCC Win #23 – Lester – Not a long outing, but an effective one. Jon tallied 6 innings, 1 hit, 8 K, 1 BB, and 1 earned run on a homer. That reduced his ERA further to 2.52. Oh, and he drove in a run on a sac bunt.
 Tough to tell, but this is the holo version Win #24 – Heyward – This is for the second game of a doubleheader. After losing the first game in 11 innings, the Cubs bounced back to win 10-0.. Heyward was 2-4, and drove in 4 of those runs. His 3RBI triple really put the game out of reach.
 Probably struck out Win #25 – Baez – Batting 3-4 on the day earns him the game honors. He had one RBI on a solo homer, but that’s only because Schwarber hit a 2-run bomb right before that.
 Easier to tell this is the holo Win #26 – Hendricks – Kyle hasn’t been amazing this year, but still respectable. On a day where only one extra base was hit by the Cubs (yet we still scored 6 against SF’s 2), Kyle gave the team 7 innings, and 7 Ks against 2 hits, 1 run on a homer, and 2 BB. His 3.16 ERA may not be as good as Lester’s but still not bad.
 Love the reflection in the shades Win #27 – Baez – Almora was 3-5 on the day, but Javy’s 3-run shot in the 4th turned the game around. He went 2-5 with those 3 RBI giving him 42 on the year, which might have still kept him as the NL leader at the time?
 There need to be more purple cards Win #28 – Mike Montgomery – Mike was getting start in Yu Darvish’s DL stead, He only went 5.2 innings (probably to ease him into starting), but Mike gave up no runs, only 2 hits, 0 walks, and recorded 5 Ks for a great fill-in start from a guy that definitely wants that role. He was also 1-1 at the plate in a Cubs blowout. By the way, this is the “Rizzo slide” game and in my opinion, it was not clean. Don’t bother arguing with me, though, because I don’t care enough.
Through 50 games, the Cubs were 28-22 and found themselves 4.5 games back of the Brewers in the NL Central. Winning 6 out of 10 is nice, but you have to have a few better stretches than that to really contend. Let’s see what the next 50 will bring, 10 games at a time.
This is part four of a twenty-five part series chronicling my budding collections of the 2016 World Series champion Cubs. Obviously, I’ve already starting showing off some of those cards, but I wanted to offer a formal introduction to the various players. With my legacy player collections, I’m still going to attempt to show every single card on the blog, but with these new guys I’m taking a different approach as you’ll see here where I lump cards in one scan, and will probably skip many of the more basic cards I get unless I can get a good theme together.
There’s no specific reason for choosing Kyle here other than to try to mix up some of the more popular players with the ones that don’t get as much attention and prestige.
 Did not start out with a lot of Schwarber cards Quick note about the cards in the second row in case you care: These are from the 15 card World Series blister pack that Topps released. Topps also created a 25 card hanger box that had some different pictures. That card on the right is the same in both the 15 and the 25 card bundles.
Kyle is one of our recent home grown prospects that fast-tracked themselves into the majors. The Cubs drafted him with the 4th overall pick in the first round of the 2014 draft presumably because of his sheer power and our potential need for a catcher in the upcoming years. He started playing in the farm system in June 2014 and quickly rose through the ranks and got his first call-up in June of 2015.
 He must have felt as glittery as this card looks During his first game at the plate, he went 4-5 and had 2 RBIs. He was sent back down after a few games, but an injury to Miguel Montero brought him back to the club on a more permanent basis.
 Farm’s Finest Mini The rest of the year was productive, but he wouldn’t stay a catcher. It seemed pretty apparent that this wasn’t going to be the best position for him and the team relied on Montero and David Ross instead. He was moved over to left field, and although he’s not great in that position either, he certainly seems to be making an effort and his arm is recording several outfield assists.
 I already said he’s not a catcher He wasn’t drafted for his fielding. It was for his bat. In 69 regular season games, Kyle belted 16 home runs and drove in 43. And in the 2015 postseason, which saw the Cubs win 97 games in the regular season to finish 3rd in the NL Central and earn a wild card spot, he hit five home runs across the three series, including a monster that landed on top of the right field scoreboard and stayed there for months.
 Probably should have put this card with the Pro Debut paragraph He became a little bit of a local legend for that, and the future looked bright going into 2016, but during the second game of the season things changed for Kyle. He had an outfield collision that tore a couple ligaments in his knee and forced him out of the regular season.
 No one cares about the Bowman RC In all honesty, I think everyone assumed he was not going to come back, even if we made the postseason. I certainly didn’t want him to rush anything and aggravate things further. After all, if our World Series hopes relied on a rookie that played 71 regular season games, then maybe the team isn’t as strong as we thought. I also remember a lot of trade chatter starting around this time. As the 2016 deadline came about, he was brought up as a throw-in to get someone good we could use right now.
 SP version I didn’t agree with the idea of trading him. Sure, his value was low at the time, but things like that tend to bite the Cubs in the ass more often than not, so he’d probably end up thriving for some AL team for years and those same fans would be whining about letting him go.
 The chrome version looks better than the non-chrome Anyway, long story short, he worked hard and the reason I’m collecting him at all is that he made it onto the World Series roster. He couldn’t play the field, but still found a way to contribute with 7 hits and 3 walks. No homers this time, but did hit a double, but drove in two and managed to record a stolen base over the 5 games he appeared in. Every little bit helps and Chicago brought home the trophy in a series I never thought the Cubs were going to win.
 Quite the impact Fast forward a little and Kyle struggled in his first full season, ending with a .211 AVG (but still hitting 30 homers). Some of that could be residual from the injury (either physically or mentally). The trade chatter started up again, and his card prices have started to fall. But he does seem to be pretty determined to succeed. He worked out a lot in the off-season to slim down significantly while still maintaining his power, and 2018 has been better so far. He’s still striking out a lot (but so is nearly everyone else in the MLB), and his defense needs work, but he should be a more productive power hitter with a few more walks and a bit more speed as well. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the year shakes out.
Here’s hoping he can hit a few more of those long home runs in the postseason again this October.
Alright. Two months have passed since the last installment of this trade package. I really need to get better about staying up to date on these things. Anyway, as a quick recap, these are from Kyle at Nolan’s Dugout. If you want to revisit part 1, it is available to you right here. Part 2 is here. Last time, I shared all of the Gwynns and the start of the Kerry Woods. Today it’s going to be all Kerry, all the time to close things out. Sort of like how he was a closer for a time. You know what? Never mind.
 The blocky digital look is starting So, of course the first card I show also features someone other than Kerry Wood. Morris was selected 12th in the ’95 draft, and Wood was 4th. Looking at the list, that’s not a terrible first round. Not amazing, but plenty of guys that had lengthy careers. Ryan Dempster was selected in the 3rd round that year, too.
 The Opening Day is starting Back before it transitioned to just being a foil-less version of flagship, I usually liked the way Opening Day handled the design more. This is a better shade of blue for the border.
 And keeps going This gray is also more pleasing than a bland old white. Of course the blue foil also helps.
 And going Nothing on the border this time, but the foil changed to blue. It looks better in person, but a muted tone on the border would have been nice to see again.
 It’s back! Here’s more blocky text. Or should I say, “Tech-xt?” Kids like computers, right? They especially like 1980s style graphics in 2004. Kids also like a lot of gray.
 Ticket is no longer mint Gotta love that gray. Yes, I’m aware I praised it in the Opening Day border, but if you can’t tell the difference, then I don’t know what to tell you.
 He looks disgusted Gray is a little better than whatever passed for the SP Authentic designs. Just about all of these later sets were terribly boring.
 Once more, with color Fleer just couldn’t leave the blocks alone. Maybe someone’s kid was playing with an etch-a-sketch and they ran with it.
 Kinda looks like a wild pitch from this angle Normally I post these in order, but I decided to jump a bit and end on a more positive note. Back when Ultra was more fun. I love the gold medallion parallels when done right, and the addition of the die cut is certainly right.
To add another positive, I have to say thanks once again to another great trade with Kyle. If you ever get the chance, do yourself a favor! Hopefully we can do it again sometime soon when I get my stuff together.
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