Active dudes

I should probably hurry up documenting my last COMC haul. Already got some Sportlots orders on the way and I don't want to fall too behind!

I don't mess with new cards that often these days, so "flipper madness" and this whole thing about no more cards sold at Target or Walmart doesn't affect me much. But I collect my share of active players and will occasionally pull the trigger on cards that catch my eye.

I wanted to score myself one of those fancy Instavision inserts from Stadium Club and got this one from 2017 featuring Kris Bryant. I believe these are case hits, therefore usually pricey. I got a good deal on this one ($5.23) before he started being good again (and now they're like 3x that). I like how it commemorates the Cubs finally winning it all. Nice baseball memory.

Cheap numbered cards from a couple low-key PCs of mine, Walker Buehler and Seth Beer.

Rhys Hoskins has turned out to be one of the main active players I collect. He's good enough to get into many insert sets, but not good enough to the point he's one of the most expensive cards in such sets. So like when I see a neat Knothole Gang card on the blogs and want to grab one for myself-- or maybe a 1970 Cloth Sticker insert from 2019 Topps Heritage-- I can do a search by cheapest first and Rhys is often a familiar name to find and add to my cart.

I went on a Michael Lorenzen bender one day last spring and bolstered my PC of the sorta two-way player with this solid lot. Bummed he's been hurt this season.

And speaking of the Reds, I grabbed some Joey Votto refractors, as well.

Juan Soto here with a couple sharp-looking cards.

And we'll wrap it up for today with this trio. I think I just searched Mike Trout by cheapest serial-numbered card and ended up with this stat line parallel. Franmil Reyes was a fun player in the Padres lineup for a brief while before being shipped to Cleveland. And Manny Machado is going to be around San Diego for a long time. "2019 Panini Prizm - Illumination - Prizm" is another shiny insert set that caught my eye on the blogs and snagged an example for myself.

- --o

Unrelated, but R.I.P. Gavin MacLeod.

Passed away today at age 90. Best known as the captain of the Love Boat but had a pretty interesting career. Growing up, he was the only other Gavin in the world (as far as I could tell; the name's more popular these days), so always felt kind of a weird kinship with him. I've got his autograph (or most of it, at least) in my card collection via this 12/25 auto scored back in 2014.