Saturday, April 16, 2016

a buzzed blaster of 2016 Donruss

At the grocery store this afternoon, I was looking for some celebratory cards (got the taxes mailed out earlier in the day.. hurray! finally!). Probably would've gone for 2016 Gypsy Queen, tbh, but they didn't have any, so I settled for Matthew Scott's favorite, 2016 Donruss.


Seems David Ortiz and Tony Gwynn take turns being the Donruss coverboy.


My first hit of the box. A checklist. SSP? Prolly. I'm entertaining offers on this card. SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY. And no, there's no highlight photo on the reverse, just more names and checkboxes. Didn't think they made these things anymore. But there you go. Ultra rare.


I like these guys. The retro cards are just "off" enough to bother me, with the upper right sitch being too big/busy, and the team name (er, city) too tiny. But I'm happy with these dudes nonetheless.


Here are some guys I enthusiastically collect.


Here are some guys I indifferently collect.

I will say the base design of 2016 Donruss is a big improvement to my eyes over the past couple years, though the photos are still very boring and generic. At least Mattingly is fielding.. that's something.


Chris Sale is sailing along pretty well so far this season.. nice to land his DK. And always cool to pick up a new Brett insert, I suppose.


A pair of Pucketts. The HOF one of the right is apparently an SP. Pretty dumb variation, with just the bottom text different, plus the back is upside down. Whatever. I'm probably due for another trade with Brian one of these days.


Here we have Cal Ripken reenacting the JFK assassination. Too soon, Cal. Too soon. :/


Trade bait!!!!
They clearly save their interesting photos for the '82 inserts. The pink parallel is cool.. but really, any color besides white would be an improvement. You think Panini is kicking themselves for choosing nobody Richie Shaffer as a Rated Rookie while had they given Trevor Story a card, they would've sold twice as many boxes of this stuff?


Base trade bait!!!

And my promised hit... (drum roll)


Well, it's a guy I (indifferently) collect, at least, so I'm not complaining. A-rod cards are worthless these days unless an auto, but still, I'm reasonably happy with this unnumbered bat chip. Pretty blue. The photo makes it looks like Alex ate some bad fish that's catching up to him.

According to baseball-reference his name is "Álex Rodríguez". Really? Seems like too many accents. He's off to a slow start so far this year, so Barry Bonds is getting cocky about his tainted home run record being safe, and he's probably right. Maybe if Bryce or Trout stays healthy and plays into their 40s, but otherwise safe.. and Barry would long be dead from a steroid-related heart-attack by then anyways, so it's fine.

That's it. A fine li'l box. Not the best $20 I ever spent, but not too bad, and again, I was celebrating the end of a stressful week.
Hope you're all having a nice weekend. Get your taxes in!

11 comments:

  1. Honestly, that's not a bad $20 spent. With the 82 tribute cards, the Kinsler numbered card, and the A-Rod men card, I can definitely think of lots of worse things (card and non-card related) to spend that amount on. I'd take a blaster like that any day.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not too bad. Even as a Yanks fan I am not an A-Rod fan anymore after the steroid era. But, I think scoring a bat card instead of a plain jersey is win.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're kidding about the checklist being an SP, right? Either way, I kind of like checklists being brought back into the fold.
    If no else makes a claim, please set the Dexter Fowler card aside for me!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's a better blaster than the one I got. Congrats. I'm interested in Mr. Nobody, Richie Shaffer and the pink Kiermaier. It's about time to send more cardboard to you anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great post. I'm indifferent to this set for the most part but I do like the 1982 style cards. Like you it seems they put better photos on those cards. I've always liked the Diamond Kings cards as well. While these aren't my favorite. I do like them as well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I actually like what I've seen from the '16 Donruss set. I'm interested in what they will do next year because I think the design theme there been using the last 3 years has pretty much been used up as much as it can.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Donruss intrigues me mostly in the inserts. It looks like the parallel game is stepping up too. Not a bad blaster break at all!

    ReplyDelete