Anonymous PWE Bomb?

So I came home yesterday to a PWE with no return address and an illegible postmark. Someone who has my address and knows what I collect only limits this to about 50-100 possible candidates. Maybe somebody I myself bombed last week with my "pay it forward" post? Or maybe somebody starting a war who does not want retaliation. Hmmm.

Regardless, I would like to thank my mystery donor publicly since I can't do it personally. Thanks for the Target Red parallels!

We've got a trio of Rookie Cards including one of the best cards of the year below in Blake Parker. I'm starting to think about going after the rainbow on this one.

And a fourth Target Red parallel, this one from Series 2.

An added bonus is that all four cards were new to me. I had a few Reds from Series 1 but that was it. Putting together these parallel sets might get me through the rest of the offesason.

Thanks again, mystery donor!

2013 Topps Update Cubs Emeralds

Several times a week I like to run through some of my favorites searches on eBay to see if anything of interest pops up. This ranges from mini collections I'm working on such as 1991 Topps Desert Shield or Tony Campana to the biggest focal point of the collection, Cubs in general.

I search "Cubs lot" quite bit because it brings up such a variety of items. Sometimes it is cards, autographs, memorabilia or a mix of all of the above. Once I weed out Cub Scout stuff and bear figurines/knick knacks, there are a lot of hidden gems. And by gems, today I mean emeralds.

I came across a listing a few weeks back that had 14 different Cubs Emerald cards from the Update release. As someone who had just picked up the base version, I knew that there were only 14 different Cubs in the set. I don't think the seller realized because he only listed it as a "lot" and not as a complete team set. Sure enough when I clicked into the listing, it included a photo of 6 of them but listed all 14 players in the set. I had seen a couple of the sets sell for between $7-10 plus shipping. Thats's a little out of my price range considering in a few weeks/months, they'll probably be a quarter each on Sportlots or Just Commons.

I ended up winning the complete set "lot" for just $1.74. Not bad for a lot that included 5 Rookie Cards too. (But when your roster for the season includes 56 different players, there should probably be some rookies.) The shipping was a bit high at $3.50 but I picked up a few other things from the same seller to make it more reasonable. Now I just have to figure out which ones I still need from Series 1 & 2. May as well complete the whole set!

The foil names don't show up great on the scans so I've added them for the curious.

Blake Parker

Brian Bogusevic, Carlos Villanueva, Dioner Navarro

Edwin Jackson, James Russell, Junior Lake

Justin Grimm, Kevin Gregg, Kyuji Fujikawa

Luis Valbuena, Mike Olt, Pedro Strop

Scott Feldman

2013 Topps Update Scott Hairston

Back-to-back Scott Hairston posts. Don't worry, there's a method to the madness.

Yesterday, I showed off my Hairston ATCRCS card, but I'm still trying to figure out which Series 2 Cubs cards I need to break down before I get to the Update cards. When I came across another card from my parallel pickup the other day, I knew I wanted to look into it as well.

You got Hairston's history with the team yesterday, so today, let's just look at the card.

These red teams look pretty good framed in the Wal-Mart blue. I would have preferred Hairston zoomed out just a smidge more to get some of the bat in there, rather than cut off part of his hands, but otherwise nice selection on the photo.

I like how it appears that the older fan underneath Hairston's left elbow looks like he's wearing a Smurf hat.

I'm no expert on the Nationals uniforms but I think it looks pretty good. And I say that because this is actually Hairston's Halloween costume....

 



Photo by Scott Cunningham (courtesy of Getty Images)



It started off as a Cubs uniform! I'm a little dissapointed to not get a Hairston Cubs card when it was very possible (more on that when I eventually get to the Update Cubs). No Series 1 (set released before Hairston signed), no Factory Team set (probably same issue), no Series 2 (best option) and now, no Update.

So how about the game? If Hairston was a Cub, it had to have been fairly early in the season since he was traded in early July. The Cubs were still in it back then, right?

The caption on Getty Images dates the photo back to April 7, 2013 in a game against the Atlanta Braves. A quick search on Baseball Reference gives me the boxscore.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL201304070.shtml

Scrolling down and it looks like Hairston pinch hit for a pinch hitter. Say what?

Well with two outs in the top of the 7th, Braves starter Tim Hudson walked third baseman Luis Valbuena. The next batter, second baseman Alberto Gonzalez (remember when Darwin Barney was hurt at the beginning of the year?) popped up to his Braves counterpart but it resulted in an E4.

Now with runners on 2nd and 3rd, Steve Clevenger is announced as a pinch hitter for Cubs relief pitcher, Michael Bowden. The Braves make a move on their end, relieving Tim Hudson with Luis Avilan. The Cubs pull Clevenger back and send in Scott Hairston instead.

Hairston proceeded to hit a ground ball to third baseman Juan Francisco who threw to second to get the force out and end the inning. With a 2-0 count and no other at bats in the game, this photo appears to have been taken during that ground ball.

The Cubs would lose the game 5-1 and drop to 2-4 on the young season.

I forgot how fun these were to do. I can't wait to dive into the rest of the actual Cubs cards!