New partial set to work on: 2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites
Saturday, October 11, 2025
Set Completion Carousel
New partial set to work on: 2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites
Monday, October 6, 2025
Big McGriffs
Fred McGriff is one of my favorite guys to collect. As a kid growing up in San Diego, I loved having him on the Padres for those 2+ seasons. These days I feel like my McGriff PC is "in a good place" or whatever, and don't seek out additions much anymore though am happy to add a new card here and there. Supercollecting the Crime Dog is best left to professionals such as @ICollectMcGriff. (So happy for him when Fred finally got his call to the Hall.)
But I still have a legit PC in my own right, and I figured I'd show off some big ones in a post.
That'll do it for today. Wishing a Happy Birthday to @ICollectMcGriff! Thanks for stopping by.
Monday, September 29, 2025
Completed Refractor Run: Eric Owens
Here's another collecting project I completed recently: every Eric Owens refractor. All the variations and everything.
Background: Eric Owens was a fan favorite for a couple years on bad Padres teams at the turn of the millennium. He was a scrapy guy who played hard and would deliver an exciting highlight here and there to help keep the season interesting in San Diego. He had already hung up his cleats by the time I returned to the hobby, but going back and collecting his cards brings back fond memories of watching him play, and in turn memories from those days, meandering my way through community college with plenty of freetime to watch Padres broadcasts all summer long. Good times.
So yeah, he's a guy I like to collect, and am somewhat compelled to supercollect. But with all my other active collecting goals keeping me busy, I'm reluctant trying to supercollect anybody besides maybe guys with less than 50 total cards like Dan Walters from last post. TCDB says Eric Owens has 259 cards, and I'm tempted to log my PC one of these days, but I'd be unlikely to ever land them all without putting in significant effort and money (he has some 1996 Select Certified Edition "Mirror" [foilboard] color parallels that can get pricey due to low print runs), so just focusing on refractors seemed like the way to go.
I went through Eric Owens' TCDB checklist and made myself a list of just refractors. The "refractor run" took some patience, but I eventually tracked down them all. Luckily, the final Chrome set he was included in (2004) was the last one before 2005's premiere of the superfractor as we know it, and so there were no 1/1's I had to worry about. Barring anything that slipped by me and/or TCDB, I can now say there isn't an Eric Owens refractor that I don't have.
Without further delay, let's check out all of Eric Owens' refractors.
As I said before, for a collecting standpoint it's lucky for me that he didn't stick around long enough to be included in 2005 Topps Chrome, because that's when the superfractor came into play (not to mention printing plates getting packed out by then), so hobby completists had to rethink the old "collect them all" philosophy.
As for Eric Owens' journey, the Angels liked his moxy enough to bring him back as a minor league coach for a few years. He returned to the majors as assistant hitting coach for the Blue Jays in 2015 and 2016. Since June 2024, he's been head coach of his alma mater's baseball team, Ferrum College, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of his native Virginia. Sounds like a sweet gig for him.
Thanks for reading.
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Joy of a Completed Player Collection: Dan Walters
Back in November 1991, a Padres catching prospect named Dan Walters was a special guest at a nearby card show. I was able to talk my mom into driving me so I could get him to autograph a minor league card of his I had recently pulled from a pack. I definitely wasn't much of an autograph hound-- I think the only autograph I possessed at the time was of '50s Olympic diver Pat McCormick, who had done a motivational talk at my middle school-- but it seemed like something fun to do. Turns out Dan lived in East County San Diego, and was even an alum of a rival high school, so it wasn't out of his way.
It was pretty cool when he got called up the following June and did a fine job filling in behind the dish the rest of that season. Dan stuck on the roster of his hometown team a couple months into the 1993 season, but as a major leaguer he tapped out a career Padre with 84 total games in the bigs. His last season in pro ball was '96, then he became a police officer. Sadly, he was paralyzed in the line of duty in 2003, eventually passing away in 2020 at age 53.
When I returned to the hobby as an adult, Dan Walters became a PC guy for me, thanks to my brush with him as a kid adding a personal connection (I only got maybe 4 or 5 ballplayer autographs as a kid, and the rest were all old-timers). For a while there I was riding high as his #1 ranked collector at TCDB. Then last year, a collector going by RollingThunder88 entered his impressive collection to the site and overtook me by a few cards. My competitive nature kicked in, and I set out to complete my Dan Walters player collection, hunting down the dozen or so cards I was lacking. Took me a few months utilizing the usual card sources-- eBay, Sportlots, COMC, and a TCDB transaction-- but I was able to land all 43 cards TCDB has listed for him, cementing the title of #1 ranked Dan Walters collector. Woo!
So now let's take a look at a full run of Dan Walters baseball cards.
1994 Osceola Astros 10th Anniversary - This might be the only card in the PC I had to break double digits buying. Not a great looking card, just a black & white sketch of a headshot, but it's scarce (guessing the set was only briefly available at a minor league stadium), so what are you gonna do?
1995 Colorado Springs Sky Sox - A friendly TCDB user sent me this tough card for free after I asked about it. Hobby warm fuzzies, right? I did my part to pay-it-forward a bit by scanning it for the site, as it was Dan's only card without images uploaded. Seems to be a Rolling Rock he's celebrating the PCL championship with in the photo. It's nice that he had that high point to remember at the twilight of his playing days.
1996 Edmonton Trappers - A stoic shot from his final stop as a ballplayer. Kind of a downer to go out on, contrasted by the happy faces on the other 2 cards here. But maybe that's fitting with how his story ended. (Rest in peace, Mr. Walters.)
So there's my Dan Walters supercollection, I guess I can call it. Thanks for checking it out with me.
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Topps Retired Triad of HOF 2003 refractor autos
Haven't done one of these in a while. My "Topps Retired Triad" series is where I show off 3 additions to my hoard of Topps Retired Signature Edition cards, which I consider my top collecting priority, as far as allocating hobby funds. While sometimes I mix it up among the 3 years of the product, this post is pure 2003 refractions, and all Cooperstown homeboys, at that. Hitting you with three shots each: a couple different refractings and a shot of the back.
Frank Robinson was a nice one for me to grab recently.
Thanks for stopping by. My big COMC order has arrived, so I should have more posts for y'all soon.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Other people's customs
I don't buy customs all that often these days, but coincidentally I scored some recently from two different independent card makers and they both arrived on the same day. One is a set of cards-that-should-have-been '80s Career Cappers by Gio at When Topps Had Balls. The other group of cards are artistic interpretations of cards-that-actually-were (and some that-never-were) by Mark at IDrawBaseballCards.
I love both and figured I'd mix them together in a post.
So there you have a few neat custom cards I added to my collection the other day. Mad props to Gio and Mark for their fine work.
Thanks for stopping by.