Baseball Cards

My Topps Now Anthony Rizzo boo boo

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On September 30, 2018, Anthony Rizzo hit his 100th RBI of the season. Check out the video below courtesy of NBC Sports Chicago.

Look how excited and pumped that Rizzo is on that play! He’s jumping up and down like a little kid. I love it! The Cubs went on to beat the Cardinals that day 10-5. Now being that I really like Anthony Rizzo, I hopped on the Topps Now section of the Blowout Card Forums to voice my enthusiasm. Rumor has it that one of the Topps folks in charge of Topps Now cards monitors their forums. I wanted Rizzo to get a card celebrating his 100th RBI so I posted the following post to the group.

As you can see, I went as far as adding two sources for the card. I was happy, proud and confident I would persuade Topps to include Rizzo in the following day batch of cards. During the afternoon of the next day, I aggressively refreshed the Topps Now page to see if they had included Rizzo. When the new cards appeared, there was Rizzo. I was thrilled! As I looked closer at the description on the front of the card, it said the following:

4th in franchise history with 3 seasons of 30 HRs, 30 2Bs & 100 RBI

Hmm, how odd I thought. I didn’t remember Rizzo getting to 30 HRs. Before I looked at the stats, I got back on the forum. Others had noticed the incorrect stats. But I sourced it directly from MLB’s website! I went back to their website and read the article. I looked at the date of the article and it showed September 2, 2017.

I was in shock and disappointed in myself for posting an outdated article. Not only were folks on the forum frustrated, but I was also seeing people talking about this on Twitter. I felt terrible about this! I had to own it at this point so I went on the offensive. I posted to the forums and to Twitter that I was the one who suggested the card but posted the wrong link. I pleaded with Topps on Twitter that the stats were for the previous year and to use the first link from NBC Sports Chicago that correctly mentioned Rizzo as being the first Cubs lefty to get 100 RBIs in 4 seasons.

The next day I noticed the front of the card on the Topps website had changed to the correct stats. However, the back still mentioned the stats from 2017. I still hoped that it would be fixed once it was printed. I received the card today and the back is exactly the same as it was on the website. Drats!

I’m not sure why the folks at Topps didn’t check this a bit closer, but I still feel partly responsible for it. The folks on the forum seemed like it made for a good story. The Rizzo card turned out to be the second to last Cubs Topps Now card of the season as the Cubs were eliminated in the wild card game against the Rockies. Maybe next year!

Sammy Sosa additions

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I was scrolling through Twitter one night and saw that Jon (@CommunityGum) was selling things on Sportlots. I asked him what his username was so I could check out his cards. I looked around on there and discovered he was the one with 2 of the 2013 Topps Archives Sosa cards I needed. He proposed a trade and I sent him my Sportlots page so he could see if there were any cards he wanted.

He picked out a few including a 1983 Donruss Tony Gwynn RC and asked if I would trade them for 6 Sosa cards. 4 of those 6 happened to be 2013 Topps Archives Cubs Season Ticket Holder stamped cards which I don’t think I’ve seen for sale. I agreed to the trade and sent out his cards with a few extra from his posted want list.

The cards I sent him arrived on Friday while the ones he sent me arrived on Saturday. The stamped vs non-stamped cards are identical minus the Cubs Season Ticket Holder stamp on the front of each card. I’m very excited to have them in my collection!

Thank you Jon for the great trade! For more on Jon, check out his website: http://www.communitygum.com/

@CommunityGum order (6 cards)
2013 Topps Archives Chicago Cubs #CUBS-66 Sammy Sosa
2013 Topps Archives Chicago Cubs #CUBS-72 Sammy Sosa
2013 Topps Archives Chicago Cubs Season Ticket Holder #CUBS-10 Sammy Sosa
2013 Topps Archives Chicago Cubs Season Ticket Holder #CUBS-38 Sammy Sosa
2013 Topps Archives Chicago Cubs Season Ticket Holder #CUBS-66 Sammy Sosa
2013 Topps Archives Chicago Cubs Season Ticket Holder #CUBS-72 Sammy Sosa

Sticking with the Sportlots theme, I figured it might be time to order the cards I need on Sportlots vs hoping I get what I want with eBay lots. I had around $15 to spend and ended up with 36 different Sosa cards I needed for my collection. Three of the cards were Topps Micro cards and boy are they small! They are around 1″ x 1 3/8″. I’m not sure how to store them other than keeping them in the folded over sleeve that they arrived in.

Sportlots order (36 cards)
1991 Bowman Base Set #350 Sammy Sosa
1991 Topps Micro #414 Sammy Sosa
1992 Score Base Set #258 Sammy Sosa
1992 Topps Gold Winners #94 Sammy Sosa
1992 Topps Micro #94 Sammy Sosa
1992 Topps Traded #109 Sammy Sosa
1992 Upper Deck Gold Hologram #438 Sammy Sosa
1992 Upper Deck Gold Hologram #723 Sammy Sosa
1993 Donruss Triple Play #151 Sammy Sosa
1993 Score Base Set #143 Sammy Sosa
1993 SP Base Set #89 Sammy Sosa
1993 Studio Base Set #121 Sammy Sosa
1993 Topps Micro #156 Sammy Sosa
1993 Upper Deck Base Set #819 Sammy Sosa|Cubs Checklist
1994 Bowman Bowmans Best Red #70R Sammy Sosa
1994 Donruss Base Set #337 Sammy Sosa
1994 Donruss Special Edition II #57 Sammy Sosa
1994 Donruss Triple Play #78 Sammy Sosa
1994 Leaf Limited #92 Sammy Sosa
1994 Score Select #58 Sammy Sosa
1994 Stadium Club Base Set #80 Sammy Sosa
1994 Topps Base Set #725 Sammy Sosa
1994 Upper Deck Collectors Choice #263 Sammy Sosa
1994 Upper Deck Collectors Choice Silver Signature #263 Sammy Sosa
1995 Finest Base Set #197 Sammy Sosa
1995 Fleer Base Set #424 Sammy Sosa
1995 Kraft Base Set #29 Sammy Sosa
1995 Leaf Base Set #272 Sammy Sosa
1995 Dennys Holograms #26 Sammy Sosa
1995 SP Base Set #35 Sammy Sosa
1995 SP Silver #35 Sammy Sosa
1995 Stadium Club Super Team World Series #174 Sammy Sosa
1995 Stadium Club Super Team World Series #238 Sammy Sosa
1995 Stadium Club Super Team World Series #497 Sammy Sosa
1995 Studio Base Set #78 Sammy Sosa
1995 Upper Deck Collectors Choice SE #85 Sammy Sosa

During another Sportlots order for Rizzo, Happ, and Baez cards, I tacked on 6 new Sosa cards for my collection. The Topps 205 cards are interesting and I hope to pick up more of them in the future.

Sportlots (6 cards)
2003 Topps 205 Polar Bear Exclusive Pose #328 Sammy Sosa
2003 Topps 205 Series 2 #200 Sammy Sosa
2005 Topps Update #1 Sammy Sosa
2007 Topps Update #205 Sammy Sosa
2008 Upper Deck Base Set #398 Sammy Sosa
2008 Upper Deck Spectrum #95 Sammy Sosa

Finally, I found a 2003 Upper Deck Play Ball #14 ‘Slammin’ Sammy Sosa card on eBay that was $0.99 with free shipping in a plain-white envelope (PWE). (I’m not sure how they make any money on these cheap cards with free shipping.)

Total unique Sosa Cards as of 4/21/2018: 278
Visit my Sammy Sosa page for the entire list of cards in my collection

Recent Anthony Rizzo acquisitions

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It’s getting closer to baseball season and I’ve found myself wanting to expand my Anthony Rizzo collection. The guy is such an inspiration on and off the field and his recent response to the school shooting at his old high school in Florida proves he is a leader. While I had a handful of his cards, I did not have any rookie cards. I had to change this.

I prefer to get graded rookie cards when I can afford it, but the PSA 10’s were a bit out of my budget. I have no problem getting PSA 9 cards to save a few bucks as I usually can’t tell the difference between a 9 and 10. I found the 2011 Topps Update #US55 Anthony Rizzo card on eBay that had a best offer on it. I haggled with the seller and we settled on $15 + shipping for the PSA 9. (the PSA 10’s are in the $40-50 range)

I am a big fan of getting batches of cards on eBay so I looked around for a Rizzo lot. I found one that had 25 cards and a best offer which I negotiated to $5.99 with free shipping. Not too shabby! I did notice one of the cards was not a Rizzo card so technically it’s 24 but not a big deal. They were all different which is good as I don’t really need any duplicates.

I also won an eBay auction for a 2018 Topps 1983 #83-54 Anthony Rizzo card along with the 2018 Topps Chrome Refractor #11 Anthony Rizzo. I’m guessing the Chrome version came from one of those silver packs that were included in the 2018 hobby boxes or cases.

I was reading through the buy/sell forum on the Blowout Cards Forum and someone was selling a 2018 Topps #50 Anthony Rizzo SP variation for $2 + shipping. I couldn’t pass that up so I told him I would take it. I sent him the money and he shipped within a day or two. He turned out to be super local and shipped at a post office 5 miles away from me. He shipped on February 22nd and I figured it would show up the next day. No luck. Surely by day 2 it would arrive. Nope. By the 25th, it was in the lovely state of in-transit. Seriously, we don’t have that many post offices in our city.

I had to wait 7 days to file a missing mail claim which I filed on March 1st. I waited a few more days with no change in the tracking or response from the USPS. At this point I figured it was lost in the mail. On March 7th, I received a text message from the USPS that my package was delivered to my PO Box in Champaign. I checked the box after work and sure enough it was there! I opened it up and the card was fine. Whew! What a journey it must have taken over just a few miles! I like the card and now I just need the SSP variation to complete the 3 card set.

Finally, I found some 2018 Topps Heritage blasters at Meijer the other day. This was my first encounter with them so I bought two blasters. The first box was rather boring but the second box was a hot box as it had a bunch of purple chrome cards in there. One of them was 2018 Topps Heritage Chrome #THC-20 Anthony Rizzo purple card which made me really happy. (I also pulled a Kris Bryant purple chrome in the same box!) The scan looks a little weird but I like the card a lot.