Too Many New Cards (A Trade Post)

I recently completed a trade with Dennis at Too Many Marios/Verlanders.  It was a record long trade for me, as we often passed weeks between our communications before we actually got down to business.  In the midst of the trade, Dennis also posted his freebie lots on his blog and I claimed a couple.  The end result was shocking to me when I received it:

This was so much more than I expected.  I'll walk you through the spoils of the transaction, starting with the actual trade.  It was a blind trade, with both of us just saying we had a pile of cards set aside for each other.

This is the stack of Cubs that came my way.

I'll start with Moises Alou because I don't think he gets enough recognition.  He is one of my favorite Cubs ever, but I didn't collect during his stint with the team, so my collection has very little Moises.  All of these cards are welcome additions.

Dennis included cool cards of a variety of pitchers.  I didn't realize until now that many of the guys featured here were pretty good closers.  I should have grouped them in starters and closers.

Mad Dog needs his own picture, though.  I sure wish he could have spent more of his prime in Chicago.  I still believe that Greg Maddux and Peyton Manning are the two most cerebral athletes I've ever seen.

Kerry Wood is another favorite Cubbie pitcher, and Dennis sent a large stack to me.  Here are just a few of the highlights.  EX cards were always a nice design, but that Stadium Club on the bottom left is a thing of beauty.  Wood on the mound with Piazza swinging in the foreground.  Stadium Club at its finest.

Mark Grace was another player that Dennis sent a nice stack of.  Here we see some late 90s goodness with EX and Gold Label.  Once again the Stadium Club is an awesome photo.  You don't see too many cards of Gracie on the basepath.

Here are a couple of nice oddballs.  I don't have too many Starting Lineup figures or cards, so this is the first time I've ever seen this Berryhill.

Speaking of Mr. Cub, here are a couple more new additions, along with another baseball legend and former Cub, Rogers Hornsby. 

I was never a big fan of the Alfonso Soriano signing.  But truth be told, he was probably a better player than I give him credit.  I just never liked the price tag.  These two cards side-by-side are a pretty solid addition to my collection, though.  I love the green sparkle here.

We have some football here to wrap up the trade.  Dennis and I both like to collect players from our colleges.  I think I sent him every former Michigan Wolverine I had in my collection.  In return, I got a few former BYU Cougars here. 

Now for the freebies.  I claimed a few of his free stacks based off of the top card that I liked/wanted.  It turned out the stacks were bigger than I anticipated (see the 600-count box at the top of the post).  There were a lot of cards.  Here are the highlights.

I claimed the Colts stack to get the Luck Brilliance card for my set completion.  I got Luck-y with a few other cards of the young gunslinger, included a Strata rookie in the top middle.

I saw the rookie of future Hall of Famer Larry Fitzgerald on top of the Cardinals stack, and I took it.  Also included was a rookie of Anquan Boldin, who is no slouch himself.  In fact, he probably would be getting more Hall of Fame talk for his own impressive career had he not spent most of it in the shadow of an all-time great.  The Patrick Peterson is a refractor, and I love me some refractors.

I needed the Harper Perspectives for my set, so I snagged the Nationals/Expos stack.  This was an interesting bunch of cards.

A Henry Rodriguez Pinnacle Mint with the coin.  Honestly, this is the first time I've seen a Mint card with the coin.  Pretty cool, except for the fact that the coin is WAAAAYYYY thicker than the card, so it looks kind of weird.

We'll end with a couple of IP autos.  I'm assuming that these were included with the Nats/Expos, as they both feature players in Expo uniforms.  However, both of these guys spent time with the Cubs--actually as teammates in 2007--so they may be part of the trade.  I'm not sure.  Either way, both of these former Cubs have a spot in my collection.  And how cool is it that Cliff Floyd is signing autographs on the card that I now have autographed?

Thanks for the great trade/freebies, Dennis.  I wasn't expecting so much to come in that package.  I can only hope that I was able to hold up my end satisfactorily.