A Second Cracking of the Bat

Today we will be looking at even more cards Julie from A Cracked Bat sent my way.  A very nice assortment of cards ranging from the early 90's to 2014.

First up is Gary Thurman! Okay, nobody has been that excited for him likely before, but I like the look of this card.  I have had one for a while, but never actually looked at it.  His eyes are drawing you in. He looks like Pinky, but I know in his mind he thinks like The Brain.  WE WILL TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! NARF!

I was always a fan of Ultra cards, at least the early 90's ones.  This is a nice addition to my collection as I was a fan of Brent Mayne.  Between Mayne and Mike Macfarlane, the Royals had the catching position pretty set.  Today if Salvador Perez goes down, we have... Erik Kratz.  No offense to Kratz, but he would have some big shoes to fill.

Embossed cards have always piqued my interest from the first time I got one in a school yard trade (the most I ever got excited over Shane Conlan).  I have had embossed football and wrestling cards, but never any baseball I don't think.  This has now changed as I have two.  These Action Packed cards are nice but I notice a little problem- not a lot of action.  Michael is standing in what is likely a corn field in Nebraska for his photo (which by the way, I like teams who resemble their MLB teams colors, but those uniforms are really bland even for 90's standards).  One day I need to go see Omaha play a game.  No longer known as the Royals, the Omaha Storm Chasers are still the Royals AAA affiliate and have won 2 straight AAA championships.  Shows that the Royals have talent in the minor league system, and hopefully it translates into the major league system.

At least the Jeff Granger shot is one where he is doing something.  He looks like he is pitching in a batting cage though so it makes me wonder if Action Packed got banned from MLB Stadiums and just randomly told players where to pose for pictures. I do like the baseball graphics on the card though.

A couple months ago in my first month of blogging, I think I mentioned I bought a box of cards at a flea market and it was filled with these Stadium Club cards.  What was interesting is that it didn't have very many Royals cards.  It surprised me because it had Cardinals cards and some fairly big names for the time, but not many Royals.  While I liked this set growing up, though held very few in my hand, after buying that box, I am starting to get sick of the set.  I think I'll see if I can finish the set on Just Commons to get it out of the way.

Anyone else notice Gary Thurman still TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!  His eyes are still drawing you in.  Archie Corbin (who I never even heard of until now) isn't buying into it.  Maybe that's why Archie never became famous.  He should have been Gary's sidekick and they could have ruled!

After all these years I still like Mike Macfarlane and this Upper Deck set.  It was I think one of their first sets that had a fairly different design than their devut set.  In this photo, Mike is showing that he shouldn't be hired for kids parties because he can't juggle.

Next we have a mix of old and new.  I think I remember Rod Myers, but not too sure.  Team Best cards seemed cheap, but I still had a few.  I'm not sure if that was really the Omaha Royals logo at the time or what, but it just looks a bit off.

I would consider the Toys R Us card an oddball.  I collect oddballs, so this fits in nice.  I like how the jumbotron make a brief cameo in the background of the shot.  Overall this is a nice card.

Let's look at newer stuff.  Here is a very nice Bowman card of Billy Butler.  This is one of the finer action shots I've seen in a while. Match that with a powder blue uniform and the fact Billy was playing an actual fielding postion, and this makes a great card.

This Eric Hosmer card is my first for the 2014 Finest series.  I have to admit I was pretty excited when I pulled this card out.  The card does look a lot better in hand than I thought it would.  They even used a photo from a throwback game to boot.  Maybe next year I will search for some packs in addition to completing the team set.

Next is more Upper Deck.  Nice shot of Tom Gordon, I can't imagine them taking a better shot to be honest.  I am a bit confused at the Keith Miller card though.  You see the runner sliding into second, you see Miller protecting the bag, but you don't see the bag!  Either it  was just left of the frame (most likely as the runner looks to be just sliding) or someone used some software to remove the base from the photo.  While it would be funny if that was the case, I don't see that happening, but then again I've seen stranger.

Next is a 1994 Fleer Mike Mac.  There's a pile of dust surrounding him so I guess he is really trying his entertainment chops.  The last card of him was him failing as a juggler.  This one he may have secured a role as Pigpen in a Charlie Brown special.  I reality though it looks like he is blocking the plate from the incoming runner.  In 2014 that's a big no-no, but back then it was fine.  I'm not sure if I like the new rule, but its something I'll have to accept.

A couple days ago I showed some 1994 Bowman Julie sent with the last package.  Today here is some more she sent.  The two I like the most are the Jeff Granger and Johnny Damon cards.  I actually picked up the Damon card somewhere this year, but I'll gladly take another early years Damon.  The Granger card I like because of the bucket.  It makes me think of every spring when the MLB season begins I buy a bag or two of sunflower seeds and enjoy the free trial week of MLB I get from Directv.  By the end of the week, my tongue hates salt so much I don't eat seeds for the rest of the year.  That might not be a problem much longer since I plan on cutting DirecTV.


We will end the day on a few more current cards. I still feel sorry for Luke Hochevar for missing the entire 2014 season due to injury.  Though to be fair, I don't think we'd be in the position we was if he was healthy.  I hope he bounces back next year.

I have been liking the old designs on new cards Topps has been doing lately.  This is an awesome Alex Gordon card.  Awesome might be a bit much, but I really like it.

We round up this post with Salvador Perez.  In the two packages I got, I got 3 of these cards.  It allows me to show the front and back, so I'm not mad.  The back of the card is pretty cool how they show the stats.  Having 3 gives me the option of trying to get one signed TTM next year.  That might be the plan for a few of the cards I have doubles of.

That's going to wrap it up for today, thank you for reading, and tomorrow I will show the rest of the cards she sent.  I can't thank her enough.  Have a great day everybody!