2013 Topps Heritage and a Random find in a bottom of an old box

I am now once again hooked on collecting baseball cards.  I feel like a 12-step program may be in my future.  I can tell this because I just casually bought two blaster boxes of the 2013 Topps Heritage and all I could think about was, "Okay, who can I trade these to?  How many Brewers are in this set?  What hits should I be looking for?"

One of the hits I got is a "Mini", the approximate odds of which are listed at 1 in 235 packs.  The weird thing is the hand-numbering serial numbers to 100 despite the blaster box not indicating that these minis were not sequentially numbered.  I'm pretty sure that the 1964 Topps set didn't have that.

But, I did get a mini and a sequentially numbered refractor card as well.

First, the Mini:

Wilin is not sure where exactly he is supposed to look for this photo.

Now, the Refractor, numbered 345 of 564:

I also liked the news inserts -- I got the Rolling Stones and MLK.  I didn't like the "Then and Now" having Eddie Mathews and Adam Dunn on the same card when the only thing they could highlight as "in common" with one another was that both guys liked to take walks.  Mathews was 7th in MLB in 1964 in walks, while Dunn was 1st in 2012.  That's all you got?

Anyway, the other fun thing I found was something in surprisingly good shape for having spent most of the past thirty years in a package in a box.  I looked around on Google, and I have seen this referred to as being Michael Jordan's true rookie card...okay, then.

It's the Nike Promo card set from about 1985.  It has James Lofton, John McEnroe, Doc Gooden, Lance Parrish, and a Nike front card with several anthropomorphic sports balls:

It's the iconic "Jumpman" pose that appeared on all of Jordan's Nike shoes and is more recognized as being Michael Jordan, I'd argue, than Jerry West being the NBA logo model.

That said, I'm torn about this one.  I've never "slabbed" anything in my life before, but I'm considering doing that with this Jordan card (and maybe the whole set), and if I do that I will probably sell it.  At the same time, I'm thinking, "this will increase in value -- I know it will."

So my question to you is this:  what should I do with it -- keep it as is, slab it and sell it, or slab it and keep it?

Repacks and Inserts that Make Me Feel Weird

My Target trip yesterday yielded a lot of good stuff.  One of the more interesting items (to me) that I found in one of my repack purchases was a 1992 Topps Gold Winners card.  Why I found it interesting was that it featured noted "winner" Dave Otto.

I don't mean any disrespect to Dave Otto by this post -- I mean, he's an excellent baseball player by the mere fact that he made it to the major leagues and, in fact, he has been inducted into the University of Missouri's Sports Hall of Fame. But, the idea of labeling every single player in a set as a winner -- which is what Topps did -- is ridiculous.  For instance, in 1991 (the season before this card), Otto went 2-8 with a 4.23 ERA (nearly league average) but with just 4.2 K/9 and allowing 9.7 H/9...and, to be clear, this was probably his best Major League Season.

Labeling Otto as a winner after that season is like giving every kid in a league a trophy for participating.

Speaking of giving kids trophies for participation, I present the following insert from the 2013 Panini Elite Extra Edition from a blaster I bought at Target.

Relic inserts for guys who played major league baseball is okay.  I'm not a huge fan -- I'd rather have the entire jersey if I'm going to collect something like that -- but they don't offend me too much.

But this relic creeps me out.

Did Panini really get the jersey from a 14-year-old kid, cut it up, insert it into cards, print them up, and think "I bet the collectors will really love these cards"?

Seriously?

I suppose it is only a matter of time before some entrepreneurial sort starts releasing releasing cards for highly recruited high school football players.

What's that you say?

UGH.