Trade with Plain Gray Swatch

A few weeks ago, Roy-Z from plain gray swatch left a comment offering up a 2013 Topps base Darwin Barney and its Target Red counterpart. In my quest for Cubs rainbows, I gladly accepted. 

Some of my regular readers will note that my older son is falling prey to the hype machine that is the Washington Nationals bandwagon. All I can say is that not even the Cubs have played so bad that they get back to back #1 overall draft picks.

I kid, I kid. The W-Nats' Single A affiliate Potomac Nationals are my local minor league team. I've written previously how I've taken my kids to games and gotten autographs. So I am kind of partial to some of the guys I've seen come up through the system. With that said, I have no problem keeping my son involved in the hobby by picking up some parallels of players we've seen make it to the show.

Roy-Z's blog was new to me so while checking out previous posts, I stumbled across some Washington Nationals TRU Purple parallels which he graciously included. 

Along with those requests, Roy also filled the rest of the package with various Cubs cards and I've scanned a few to showcase. The Ryne Sandberg card below was one I already had in my Sandberg player collection, but is nice to have an extra for the Cubs collection in addition to two other Cubs from the same set that I definitely did not have. These Pinnacle Zenith cards were from 1996, a hole in my hobby life.

Two serial numbered card also made their way into the package. The first, a dual Sammy Sosa/Corey Patterson card from Fleer in 2001 projects Patterson to be a "superstar in waiting." Huh. Also from a time where I didn't collect/follow the game as closely, I don't think that panned out but I am still happy to add this to my collection. The card is numbered on the back 1714/2000.

The other, a dual Alfonso Soriano/Hanley Ramirez card from 2009 Upper Deck, claims they are Cut from the Same Cloth. According to the back blurb, the assertion is based on a rare combination of speed and power and that both had put up most of their numbers from the leadoff spot. Fast forward to 2012, who would have thought that Soriano would be the one still among the league leaders in offensive production while Ramirez was subject to a team's salary dump first? This card is numbered 881/999.

Thanks Roy!