Wednesday, September 11, 2013

KEN GRRRRRRRRIFFFFAYYYYYY JUUUUUUUUNYAHHHHH

The Junior Junkie, with whom the cards flow bidirectionally here at Red Cardboard, recently held a contest. Yours truly was deemed good enough to earn the bronze and, with it, a prize in the form of a box of Reds goodness. 

An obvious overlap of our fandom, Ken Griffey Jr. spent ample time with the Reds, but with some contention, as his numbers fell through the floor (by his standards) once he donned the Cincinnati red. Also, a lot of Ohioans were upset at his huge salary, particularly in relation to our payroll. But hey. If someone offers you that much money, you're a fool not to take it. And it wasn't as if he ate up all of our cap room. He ate up all of our budget. Meaning that we were unwilling to spend like a winner. This was not the fault of Junior. And of course his numbers went down. He had 11 years of big league action logged by then. Ah well. Blathering over. On to cardy goodness!

My poignant, yet elegantly succinct, entry into the contest earned me quite the stack of red cardboard. The stack on the right: welcome doubles. The stack on the left: new stuff. At this point, that ratio is more than acceptable.

Up first, four Topps base parallels. I'm direly lacking in Topps Gold from 2010. A Heisey RC Gold is an excellent add. Also, I've been absent from card shows since 2013 Series 2 came out, so these three blues were more than welcome.

Curiously, I had three jersey cards from this SPx set, but zero from the regular base set. No more.

A nice cluster of parellels from all over the spectrum. Bowman Platinum Refractor, Bowman International, Bowman Chrome, Collector's Choice Silver Signature, Bazooka Mini, and the superbly titled Turkey Red Red.

New Votto and New Bruce are always cause for celebration. And as for the Ty Howington Chrome insert, I had the Refractor, somehow, but not the regular.

New Dunns! I love Adam Dunn. I had never seen the ProSigs set before. The blue is a bit off-putting. And this was one of the many years the Finest designers smoked one too many in the break room.

I whined earlier about 90's base cards that Beckett didn't have labeled properly. Cards I didn't even know I needed. Luckily, I am now organized and found these three in the stack to finish some team sets, including that sweet 1993 Topps Update manager card.

Ummmm. Yeah. These were included. Awesome. Being a suburban white boy from a very white town in a very white Ohio county, my only real exposure to hip hop music was Yo! MTV Raps, which was hitting its stride when I was in elementary school. These groups blew my 10 year old mind. And of course, there had to be cards of everything back then, eh?

Awwwwww yeaaaaaaaah. Now we're gettin' a little sexy. Showin' some skin. Mmmmmm. Oh, also, old white guys in suits.

Thanks for the contest, Junkie. Glad to share part of these odd little universe with ya. Go Reds.

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