I Didn’t Post About Them (Yet), But I Definitely Didn’t Throw Them Out

Back in April I received a swell little package from Jared of the blog CMMDTO – Cards My Mom Didn’t Throw Out. While I haven’t had the misfortune of my mom throwing out my cards, it’s certainly a tale familiar – and familial – to me. That’ll have to wait for another post, however – probably in about two weeks time.

Meanwhile, I owe a little recap post about the sweet cards that Jared threw my way. First up was this 1988 K-Mart memorable moments card of Nolan Ryan. It’s always nice to be able to knock of the oddball team sets, and when it comes to the 80s, that often means finding the Nolan Ryan card(s) last.

But as cool as landing this card was, it was far from the coolest thing about this package.

I’m not going to waste any time either – let’s have a look at the best part first:

TOPPS TEK! Oh hell yes! Acetate glory! Jared sent two cards from the 1998 set my direction, the first of which was this superb Moises Alou, pattern 8. One of the features of this set is the “Upcoming Milestones” section on the back. Topps had Alou pegged to reach 1000 hits, 150 HR, and 1000 games all in 1999. He finished the 1998 season with 966 / 145 / 919, respectively, but wouldn’t reach those milestones until the 2000 season as he missed all of 1999 due to injury after tearing his ACL in the offseason.

Tek is just really too cool. I can’t wait until I can fill pages of it with the various patterns and see a whole load of it together. This Pattern 32 version of Richard Hidalgo was the other card Jared sent my way, and it pegs Doggy for 500 hits in 2001, 250 RBI in 2002, and 100 homers in 2003. He fell 14 hits short in 2001, but had already racked up 299 RBI by the end of that season, and eclipsed 100 homers towards the end of the 2002 campaign.

There was also some more shiny in this pack, including a sparkly mini Josh Hader (sigh) and a very red Finest Jeff Kent. This Finest set design confuses me, it doesn’t have any logic to it.

And finally, there were some throwback designs in there as well. The Backe is a lovely ’06 Heritage, harkening back to the ’57 design, which is one of my favorites. The Carlos Lee is from the 2007 standalone Topps Turkey Red set, and I just love the old school park in the background.

Many thanks for the cards, Jared!