My Last Bite on 2013 Retail Flagship

I bought a blaster this afternoon hoping for luck pulling a few Reds, Tigers and some other favored players. This is surely it for my taste of 2013 flagship (retail purchases, at least) since I'm not collecting the base set. That said, opening at least a few packs of new cards can just be fun when the day's been rough. Before I go on, I've listed a bunch of cards I'm happy to trade.

My luck wasn't what I had hoped for but I did manage to pull the Walmart blue of the entire Marlins team (shown here).

I like Former Mike. Really not much of a shot but I'll probably keep it around.

I found precious few Reds in the box. Two, actually. Zack Cozart and the Walmart Blue Mat Latos. So, also with Sean Marshall in hand and a promise of Joey Votto and Didi Gregorious in a trade, I need everything else. Base cards, inserts, color parallels, so on.

I had more luck with the Tigers. I snagged Ryan Raburn, Max Scherzer and Jhonny Peralta and a Walmart blue Prince Fielder. I also have Tigers ALDS Game 5. 

 

I'm in the market for anything else Tigers.

By the way, check out the Raburn card.

At first I thought maybe this was some kind of extra special annoying short print, but apparently not.

Notice the couple of stray arms entering the shot from either side. How pissed you must be to be those guys. Oh so close to being on a baseball card. Wow. 

 

I suppose it could be worse. They could have made the card and been making a bizarre face - saved for card eternity. Or you could be shouting to the ages that you're a Pirates fan.

But really, how cool will it be for those people to show their grandkids? Amazing to think, but this card will be packed away in their great-great-grandkids basements in their houses on Mars long after they're all gone.

(Pictured) Great-great granddaughter's house of the dude in the yellow shirt who's head is cut off in the card.
Not the Pirates guy, but the other yellow shirt. 

The blaster did yield some cards I really wanted, or learned I wanted. On the Cubs, a team near and dear to many in my family, I look for a couple of Cubs (Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo).

I pulled zero Cubs from the base set but I snagged the Rizzo '72 mini, which is cool, and the Walmart blue Starlin Castro - which I think is sharp with the Cub uni.

My patch was the Bryce Harper, commemorative patch card. It's currently promised and not available for trade. I dig the logo and I guess these have some appeal to many.

Finally, below I'm listing the cards I have on the block. 

 

Reminder: I'm looking for Reds and Tigers that I didn't mention above; any other versions of Castros and Rizzos; as well as cards of local product Jarrod Parker - along with Adrian Gonzalez and Clayton Kershaw. More on why those two in a future post.

 

So, here are my available cards (including inserts) broken down by teams in no particular order. If I trade inserts, I'd want the same back ideally. But obviously if you have a gold parallel or pink (yeah, I'm going to look for these), those carry weight with me.

Red Sox:
15 - Dustin Pedroia

66 - Daniel Nava

118 - Daisuke Matsuzaka

Emerald 279 - Vicente Padilla

(an additional insert card featured at end of post) 

 

Dodgers:

9 - Dee Gordon

16 - Andre Ethier

74 - Kenley Jansen

Walmart Blue 158 - Chad Billingsley

295 - Brandon League

 

Yankees:

Chasing History 5 - Yogi Berra 

72mini - TM31 - Mark Teixeira

52 - CC Sabathia

Target Red 90 - Andy Pettitte (checklist)

212 - Eric Chavez

214 - Curtis Granderson

282 - Russell Martin

329 - Rafael Soriano

 

Nationals:

97 - Danny Espinosa

120 - Ian Desmond

170 - Eury Perez (who with 3 stolen bases is just 1,403 away from Rickey Henderson's record)

328 - Jayson Werth 

Diamondbacks:
Walmart Blue 131 - Ian Kennedy
169 - Brad Ziegler
169 (again) - Brad Ziegler
240 - J.J. Putz
Walmart Blue 274 - Miguel Montero

Royals:
167 - Luke Hochevar
243 - Aaron Crow


Padres:
77 - Dustin Moseley
Target Red 111 - Casey Kelly
Walmart Blue 223 - Yonder Alonso
290 - Tom Layne

Cardinals:
Walmart Blue 50 - Adam Wainwright
188 - Brian Fuentes

Angels:
72mini - TM2 - Dan Haren
Target Red 187 - Nick Maronde
210 Vernon Wells
266 - Albert Pujols (checklist)
Walmart Blue 313 - Maicer Izturis

A's:
ChasingDream 20 - Tommy Milone
48 - Ryan Cook
76 - Brandon Inge
259 - Bartolo Colon

Blue Jays:
Chasing Dream 13 - Drw Hutchison
304 - Kyle Drabek
311 - Rajai Davis

Pirates:
98 - Gaby Sanchez
174 - Jason Grilli
262 - Kevin Correia

Mets:
Chasing History 41 - Johan Santana
21 - Lucas Duda
89 - Johan Santana (checklist)

Rays:
133 - James Shields
Emerald 168 - Kyle Farnsworth
218 - Ben Zobrist

Giants:
Walmart Blue 3 - Hunter Pence
38 - Brian Wilson
132 - Ryan Vogelsong
256 - Madison Bumgarner WS Game 2
298 - Pablo Sandoval WS Game 1

Rockies:
165 - Ramon Hernandez
185 - Rob Scahill

Brewers:
Chasing History 34 - Robin Yount
149 - Yovani Gallardo
307 - Norichika Aoki

Phillies:
Chasing Histoy 40 - Mike Schmidt
Walmart Blue 6 - Ryan Howard
83 - Darin Ruf

Indians:
17 - Shin-Soo Choo
267 - Jason Kipnis

Braves:
72 Mini - 7 - Craig Kimbrel
105 - Freddie Freeman
Walmart Blue 115 - Tim Hudson

Orioles:
Walmart Blue 143 - Jim Johnson

Mariners:
Walmart Blue 252 - Dustin Ackley

No Team:
94 - AL ERA League Leaders (Price, Verlander, Weaver)
95- AL Wins Leaders (Price, Weaver, Harrison)
Emerald 95 - AL Wins Leaders (Price, Weaver, Harrison)
189 - NL Batting Average Leaders (Posey, McCutchen, Braun)

Oh, and before I go, I also found this card in the box.

I pretty much would be happy with about any other die-cut in return except for: Darvish, A. Jones, Price, Cruz, Cain or Hamilton.

Thanks for the pageview.