black as night

proving that it sometimes pays to comment, night owl sent me some cards after i gave an opinion on one of his 'name the design' posts.  these cards included this 2010 topps jon garland walmart black parallel which is not a night card.

the package also included this 1993 topps dave hansen gold card

and, lookie here!  another parallel card, although this 1997 score showcase series artist's proof ismael valdes card is not your typical black, gold, red, blue, green, pink, or camo parallel!

that card looks like it should have been made by pacific in 1993 or so.

moving on to the hologram portion of the post, here is a 1996 upper deck spx mike piazza card

this one is marked as a 'tribute' which is odd since he had only 3 full seasons under his belt when the card was released.  by the way, what is piazza thinking in blaming vin scully for some sort of falling out with the fans?  i never stopped cheering for piazza - i think the vast majority of fans realized that the fox group was wrong and didn't blame piazza for wanting a ton of money.  i guess he really is a met.

this here is a 2010 topps chrome clayton kershaw card (obviously)

and this is a 2012 topps sticker james loney...sticker.

i have to admit that i didn't know what this thing was, though.

i picked up some singles of 2010 topps pro debut, but didn't realize that they had made another set in 2011.  welcome to the blog, scott schebler.  see you again in a few years, hopefully.

i will end this post with a 2000 pacific omega adrian beltre card

not as garish as many other pacific cards, and i miss having beltre at third for the dodgers.  it would have been nice to avoid the revolving door at the hot corner that existed prior to his arrival and that has returned since he left.  which gets me to thinking that i need to do the evolution of the third baseman series of posts.  stay tuned.

thanks greg!

more like 'kraft monstrous home runs'

reader david offered to send me some cards recently, including one of the 'nefarious 9' - a 1994 kraft singles mike piazza

i guess i wasn't buying a lot of processed cheese slices back in the mid 1990's, because if i were, i would not have needed that card.  kraft did it again in 1995, and david sent that one to me as well.

these non-licensed cards actually look ok when it's a catcher being featured, thanks to all the gear that hides the team logos.  take a look at this 1996 leaf steel piazza card that david also included

you can't tell that leaf has the license, but kraft does not.  back to the kraft cards, i know why they put sluggers like piazza in the set, but i hope that at least someone in the marketing meetings spoke up and suggested including bip roberts or kenny lofton or brett butler in the set.  actually, my point is moot because i just checked and tony gwynn led the majors in singles in 1994, and he's in the set.  let's move on.

there were also some more recent cards in the package, like this 2012 topps gypsy queen card of matt kemp

david was kind enough to note that this is the sp version of kemp's card.  very helpful.  i have not purchased any gypsy queen this year, and i don't think i bought any packs last year either, so it's nice to get them in trade or just out of kindness.

there was also this clayton kershaw with the gold frame border

it's quite fancy.

i also got my first look at the 2012 topps stickers, thanks to david

pretty sure those are all images that topps has used on other releases.

thanks for reading david, and for sending me the cards.  and also, i suppose, for eating cheese.  it's all very much appreciated.