2014 Spirit Base Series 1: 291-300

And finally, we're finishing up series 1! Only 7 months after the project began!

#291 - Freddy Galvis
Freddy's not doing so hot in 2014. His OPS+ is -54. 100 is league average...

#292 - Travis Snider

#293 -  Yadier Molina
I thought this was an unique photo for the set. I appreciate that he has his mask up so you can see his face, too.

#294 - Chris Denorfia
I don't know if the stats back it up but Denorfia always seems to be annoyingly good against the Giants.

#295 - Tim Lincecum
It's still weird seeing pictures of Timmy with short hair from last season. Still not as weird as seeing this thing though.

#296 - Brandon Maurer
There's Lincecum's long hair.

#297 - Joel Peralta
I wonder if he's watching DJ Kitty climbing around the catwalk...

#298 - Elvis Andrus
One of the few Rangers to avoid the DL this year. Let's hope I didn't just jinx him.

#299 - Casey Janssen
About half the time I type his last name, I double the Ns instead of the Ss.

#300 - Gio Gonzalez
After a so-so start to 2014, Gio's starting to hit his stride.

Well that closes up Series 1. I kinda ran out of steam there in the middle. Unfortunately, a lot of my spare time will be spent getting ready to move to northwest Arkansas. We'll see how much time I have to get Series 2 going. Thanks for those that have endured Act 1.

UPDATE: Gint-A-Cuffs Spoils

After spending the last few days frustrated by some sort of Blogger snafu that was keeping me from logging in, the bug was serendipitously fixed the same day my Gint-A-Cuffs prize arrived at my door. I was so excited to see the return address from "Mark, Gint-A-Cuffs Commissioner."

Opening the box, I was shocked, SHOCKED to find an N43 boxtopper instead of the cool cabinet card from my last box. Still, Griffey's a decent one to get I guess. But I could tell this box would be different.

As I moved onto the packs, I was pulling the usually variety of base cards, SPs, inserts, etc. I thumbed through them and flipped each card around to check out the back. One of my early minis was a Tim Lincecum, who, as you may recall, is my favorite player. I flipped the back to see if it was a regular or A&G back since I already have the regular.

"Oh, cool," I thought as I peered the A&G logo. Well what I didn't notice until after I was done with the box and sorting everything is that I had pulled a no-number mini. Needless to say I was pretty excited. The no-numbers are tough pulls to begin with (1:111 packs I believe.) But what are the odds I'd pull one of my favorite player?

Actually, they seem to be pretty good. I don't buy a whole lot of boxes since I don't have an LCS around and don't really like paying for shipping too often. But for some strange reason, I'm like 50/50 at pulling Lincecum 'hits.' My 2012 Heritage box that comes with one color-swap variation per box? Lincecum. My box of 2012 Topps Chrome with one Dynamic Diecut? Lincecum.  I bought two boxes of 2011 Update about 4 months apart and got a Lincecum All-Star Stitches relic in both. Unfortunately, I don't have the kind of dough to really test out the odds on something like Triple Threads or Tribute. If I ever do, though, don't be surprised if I get a nice Timmy card to add to my collection.

Among the assortment of minis were a couple of SPs and a Jesus Montero 'rookie' mini.

I did pretty well not getting too many dupes this time around. I'd say about a third of the base were cards I already had, so that means I'd probably be somewhat close to completing the set if I were to attempt such a thing. But I'm not. I still have a way to go on the SPs even though I pulled some of the higher value ones here, like Ripken and Ozzie and Nolan Ryan

Now onto the hits. So far, I've done decently on relics. My first box yielded me a Pujols and Bobby Knight relic (though Bobby K. cost me some G-A-C points.) This time around, it was a little off.

The Kinsler will actually go in my PC and is a pretty nice with the blue swatch. Unfortunately, there's an imperfection along the bottom that's kind of a bummer. The Lowrie, on the other hand, is probably joining my pile of journeyman relics that probably won't find a loving home elsewhere. It's kinda sad, actually.

My final hit of the box wasn't a relic. It was actually an autograph. I've never pulled an auto from A&G so this was pretty exciting. And I must say, if I had to pull an autograph from someone other than one of my favorite players or a Hall-Of-Famer like Mays or Aaron, I can't think of a more fitting subject to come from the Gint-A-Cuffs IV Victory Box. BEHOLD!!

I GOT GUMBEL'D.

Boy, that was a lot of fun. Again, I want to thank Mark for all his hard work overseeing Gint-A-Cuffs. I'm already looking forward to the 2013 contest, anticipating my last-place finish. If you're even thinking about it, you should definitely participate. Believe me, anybody can win.

Pennant Throwbacks

So one of the things that really jumps out at me when thumbing through retro sets like Gypsy Queen is when you see a card like this next to a card like this. No matter how many filters you run on photos of current-day players, they'll never quite match that historic feeling you get from old photos of retired players. One way to help bridge the gap would be to feature today's guys wearing throwback uniforms.

Here's the first insert set for the Pennant brand. The design for Throwbacks isn't specific to a certain era, just a bit of an amalgamation of a handful of characteristics you'll find in various retro sets. It kind of follows the philosophy of the base set, combining a feel for the old and contemporary.

The hard part here is finding the right images in a somewhat shallow pool. There aren't a whole lot of throwback games on the schedule so the odds of finding an actual star wearing these duds in a good photo are a bit smaller than usual. The Lincecum image here is from a 2008 game while the Kemp one is from last season. The color boxes aren't the exact shades you'll find in the teams' styleguides, but they're in the right neighborhood to allow for the sometimes funky colors of the throwback unis.

Another wrinkle to add to the set is a relic parallel. With a round cutout just above the last name, it's a perfect place to house a sliver of these throwbacks. And, luckily, since the uniforms depicted are so singularly unique, you know that the swatch is from the actual uniform depicted. Even though it's the Dodgers, you have to love that baby blue relic.

Here's what the base and relic look like side by side.

On the backside, you'll see the write-up is specific to the game in each throwback uniform is involved. The base has a game recap along with a little bit of info regarding the throwback worn. For the relic version, it includes the fine print of the swatch being authentic and unique to the player and uniform depicted.

1-2 Punch

The last post focused on heavy hitters so now it's time for mound masters (sounds like a great name for another inserts somewhere down the line.) The hook for this one is spotlighting teams with 2 pretty good or even great pitchers at the front of their rotation. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to put together the checklist. For quite a few teams, the drop off from number 1 to 2 is pretty big. That's why guys like Kershaw and Sabathia are absent here. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got a couple of teams with deeeeeeep rotations that end up leaving off a some great pitchers, Cole Hamels and Madison Bumgarner* in particular.
* I reeeeally hope Timmy gets back to normal or his inclusion over MadBum will look particularly egregious.

Basically we've got player cutouts on top of a gold diamond (mimicking the 1-2 Punch logo shape) on top of a team-color saturated photo. The big 1 and 2 on the side look really cool with the cards stacked next to each other.

The design here is a little more 'sophisticated' than a couple of the other Clubhouse inserts, but I think it's nice to appeal to some different tastes with a low-end set. We have some gold foil here on the 1-2 Punch logo along with the player & team names. I included the fineprint (copyright, MLB and MLBPA logos) on both sides so the number 2 guy doesn't get dumped on. I figure player collectors would probably appreciate having a full side of their guy on a 2-player card.

Here's the 14-card/28-player checklist I came up with. See any blatant snubs?

GIANTS: Lincecum, Cain
PHILLIES: Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee
TIGERS: Justin Verlander, Doug Fister
RAYS: James Shields, David Price
BREWERS: Gallardo, Greinke
RED SOX: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester
DBACKS: Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson
ANGELS: Jered Weaver, Dan Haren
BRAVES: Tim Hudson, Tommy Hanson
REDS: Mat Latos, Johnny Cueto
CARDINALS: Adam Wainwright, Jaime Garcia
MARLINS: Josh Johnson, Mark Buerhle
RANGERS: Yu Darvish, Derek Holland
NATIONALS: Strasburg, Gonzalez

2012 Spirit - Artistry

Time for another insert! This round focuses on the elite pitchers of MLB, nine each from the NL and AL. Pitchers are often referred to as being 'artists' on the mound so I figured they'd be a great subject for a painting-like design. I know we've had UD Masterpieces and various iterations of Diamond Kings and National Chicle, but these seem to be a little bit different.

They're strictly digital 'paintings' so they retain a portion of photographic clarity. Through various blending modes, filters, image adjustments and plain old 'painting' in Photoshop, I arrived at what you see up there. I'm pretty happy with the results but mostly because I stopped at two. The card stock would be a matte-like feel, maybe even similar to UD Masterpieces but without the canvas texture. Player name and Spirit Artistry logo have a gold foil stamp.

For the backside of the card, the painting theme is applied via a picture frame border. Above some weathered-looking canvas is brief write-up about each player and their 'artistry,' I'm not much of a writer, so the copy is pretty standard stuff.

Here's the checklist for all 18 cards in the set:
1    Matt Cain
2    Chris Carpenter
3    Roy Hallady
4    Cole Hamels
5    Tim Hudson
6    Ian Kennedy
7    Clayton Kershaw
8    Cliff Lee
9    Tim Lincecum
10    Josh Beckett
11    Mark Buerhle
12    Felix Hernandez
13    Mariano Rivera
14    CC Sabathia
15    James Shields
16    Jose Valverde
17    Justin Verlander
18    Jered Weaver

Quite a few teams doubled-up (or even tripled-up) but I think it's pretty unavoidable when looking at the league's pitching staffs.