I hopped in my car just after lunch today and drove over to the local card shop. My local card shop, it turns out, is the brick-and-mortar place known as
Freedom Cardboard. Yup, the shop 6 miles from my house is the host of one of the most active sports card forums around.
I didn't know what to expect from the place because I have seen mixed reviews online for it. To keep the doors open -- and I don't fault them for this -- FCS has much more store area for comic books and Magic: The Gathering than it does for baseball cards. As an aside, I should have mentioned to the guys there that one of my college roommates is something of a legend in the M:TG world; he might have appreciated it, I suppose.
That said, the sports cards -- and, in particular, the baseball cards -- didn't get a lot of shelf space at FCS. No matter. I still dropped more money than I should have there, and I will be returning.
What did I buy? Well, I tried to satiate my burgeoning crush on the 2013 Topps Archives cards. The card designs that bring back the 1980s (and 1972 too) are just too much nostalgia for me to resist. I bought the two hobby pack boxes that FCS had there, and I came home and ripped them open.
I still like the base set a lot, and I was not disappointed at all with my purchase. I hit all the expected numbers in terms of short prints, tall boys, 1983 All-Stars, etc. So what were the cool hits I got? Let's start with the refractor inserts, all numbered to 199:
So, that's the Wizard of Oz at 33/199, Adam Eaton (now of the White Sox) at 27/199, and the Chicken Man of the Hall of fame at 126/199. Not bad gets.
I also got two of the stained-glass window cards, The Gallery of Heroes:
I like those. I want more.
Then, there were the autographs. As some of you might recall, the Archives hobby boxes promise two autographs per box. I got two boxes, so I should have four autographs. Here's what I got:
Tom Brunansky was a very good power hitter for the Twins in the late 80s. Bruno started with the Angels, then bounced from the Twins to the Cardinals to the Red Sox to the Brewers and back to the Red Sox. He only appeared in 96 games for Milwaukee and hit just .187. He was done in the bigs at age 33 and never returned after the 1994 strike.
Matt Williams, of course, played for the Giants, Indians, and Diamondbacks over the course of his career. He was on pace to break Roger Maris's record in 1994 before the strike intervened -- he had 43 homers in just 112 games. He is now the manager of the Washington Nationals.
Then there is Darren Daulton. Perhaps it is my background as a catcher as a kid that gives me a soft spot for guys like him and Gary Carter. I always liked Daulton -- he was hard nosed, got beat up behind the plate, but kept hitting and hitting. He was nearly never healthy -- he played over 100 games in just 4 seasons, and lead the league in 1992 in RBI. I think I liked Daulton because I got him as my catcher in a Fantasy League for the 1992 season and he blew away all the projections out there with his crazy season.
Okay, so that's three autographs. I did get a fourth:
I graduated high school in 1990. So, RATT was right in my wheelhouse in terms of music, timing, and all that. They were a decent band. They were never, ever Guns N Roses, though. So,
I threw this card at eBay as quickly as I could say, "Round and Round."
Let me know if you want to trade for the cards I've put up or if you are interested in any of the Archives cards. Thanks for reading.
