Contest winnings from Rod

Recently, Rod from Padrographs held a contest on his blog. He opened a ton of packs/blasters, and had everyone guess how many hits he would get. DHoff of Coot Veal and the Vealtones guessed the correct number, and he got the first 3 picks of all of the hits, as well as cards of his favorite team. Congrats to him. I was 3rd in the randomizer, and I picked a 2018 Topps Holiday mini of Jose DeLeon #d 25/25. Rod was also nice enough to send me a bunch of Rays from the huge pack bust, and threw in some extra goodies which turned out to be a highlight of the package. Here are the Rays that he sent me. 

These cards really helped me out with my 2017-2019 Rays sets. I rarely open any Gypsy Queen, Pro Debut, Archives, Gallery, and open a few packs of Heritage, Opening Day, and Big League, but I usually don't end up with too many Rays from those sets at the end of the year. With all of the nice trades I have been involved with lately, including this one with Rod, I think I may be close to completing a few Rays teams sets in those years.  I am especially excited about the 2019 Bowman Wander Franco rookie. I was looking for some Rays on COMC a few months ago, and have heard Franco's name mentioned as one of the Rays best prospects, but Franco didn't have any cards in my price range. The '19 Bowman Rod sent me is my first Franco, and I'm excited to finally have a card of him.

Next, Rod sent me a pack of '92 Fleer and '93 Fleer. I haven't busted too many packs of either, so it was nice to get them, and they will help add to those sets. The 1993 pack was a really good one for me. I pulled a nice insert that gave me a nice card for my Favorite Player Collection. More on that in a minute.

Here are some cool Ogden Raptor cards Rod sent me. A while back, Fuji did a post on his best friend in middle school, Chris Amos, who played in the minor leagues and appeared on the set. I didn't get the Amos card, but I think this whole set is cool, so I'm glad that I have a handful of cards from the set. These will definitely go in my special card binder. 

Lastly, here are some Tigers, and guys for my Favorite Player binder. The last card is the insert from the '93 Fleer pack, a Rafael Bournigal Major League Prospects card. It was so cool to pull an insert of one of my favorite players from a random pack sent by a legendary blogger in a trade package! And not just any player, but an awesome guy who was nice enough to put up with a semi-annoying fan like me and do nice things like give me a ride home from the YMCA and sign cards for me, come through my line at the grocery store I cashiered at when he could've went through whichever one was shorter, and write a nice reply to a ttm autograph request I sent a year or two ago. Here is a link to his page with all of my cards of his and the full stories.

If all of the cards in the trade package weren't enough, Rod was nice enough to send me one more card that is currently en route. One of the hits in the contest was a Sidney DeJong '07 Upper Deck Future Stars World Future Stars Purple parallel card. I already picked up the card online, but I asked Rod if he happened to pull the base card. Rod said he did, and was nice enough to put the card in an envelope and send it to me.

Rod, I promise that when I get this Padres replacement player set finished and get some more ink for the printer, that the set will be the first thing I print, and I will get it out to you, hopefully giving you some more cards that will get signed for your Padrographs project. You went above and beyond with this contest, and you are truly one of the good guys in this hobby. Thank you for the awesome package.

Tomorrow, I have a few projects in the yard that will probably take up the first half of the day, but I am hoping to get done and have a few hours to organize my Rays binder. It is going to be so much fun to put all of these new cards in the binders and see what they look like. Whenever that is done, I will start on the Favorite Player binders, taking pictures of all of the cards as I do them. After that, I will start updating each players pages, and eventually put all of my Rays/Tigers/Favorite player cards into my Trading Card DB inventory. It is going to be a long process, but it will be worth it in the end.
Thanks for checking out my latest post./
-Jeremy