Return of the Grande Box: The Odds & Ends

 

Last year, I hit the drop button on a cumulative set of Nachos Grande Breaker's Club results, and posted the findings on here over the course of a week or so. 

It is time for round two.

I think I've just become the Yankees/Phillies guy in these breaks. There used to be another guy that took the Phillies, and I've always given him time to claim it if he wants, but they're usually left, and I usually take them anyway. So I get both my teams and any odd, nebulous card stuff that was absent from my collection before. In a big ol' box. 

I've obviously got a few days' worth of content here, cause there was a lot of cool stuff here, but first, let's talk about the uncategorizable stuff that doesn't work in Yanks/Phils posts:

Cool Stuff I Don't Quite Collect:

There was a lot of this. I do collect a lot of team heroes and HOFers, but I also try to stay away from steroids guys and great players whose greatness I can't exactly vouch for. While it's cool to see any cards of Raul Mondesi on the Yankees, even in a grey brick card from 2003 Bazooka, it's not one for the collection.

It is great to see cool ideas from several different periods of collecting history. That 1998 Tradition Rico Brogna delivers a throwback that you don't see often in a static enough shot. And while I love this 2021 Archives Goodfellas-y poster subset, I'm probably not collecting 2021 Archives, which is the first time in like 6 years I'm not going for the set there.

Some ideas are so cool you wish you were collecting these. For 2001 Donruss, which Playoff released 3 years after the old Donruss shut down, they put out packs-in-packs of 1-card samples of what Donruss would have looked like in 1999 and 2000. These were from the 1999 set, and while these are pretty interesting takes on it, I don't collect either of these guys. 

There were also some Yankee rookies of some interesting cases. Westbrook's career highlights came in Cleveland and St. Louis, Lowell was obviously a Boston/Miami hero. Lowell we pulled both the regular base and the photo variation, so that's cool. Drew Henson is a very interesting case indeed, as he's a two-sport player who took reps for the Yankees while also QBing in Dallas. But the biggest fun fact with Henson is that at Michigan, he fought for the starting quarterback position with a little guy named Tom Brady. 

Diamondbacks:

Oh yeah, because 2021 Big League was delayed a year, the last leg of the group break where I claimed Arizona [admittedly for some Randy Johnson cards] was included here as well. Nice to get a now-rare Starling Marte in Phoenix card.

Trivia Prizes:

During this last batch of group breaks, Chris began throwing in trivia questions to sweeten the pot, and suffice to say I got a few right, so I had my pick of some prize cards. There were a few easy choices for me- Jeter's 2001 UD issue is one I did not have, and while Melido Perez is an obscure Yankee, it's still a buyback, and those are cool.

These are more indicative of how I collect- a Pacific Prism Edgar, a 2007 52 rookie of Cameron Maybin in Detroit, a Pacific Raines, and a Panini Cooperstown Killebrew. 

This was just because I was surprised that a 2021 Tribute Ronald Acuna was still up for grabs, so I went for it. Not a huge Acuna collector, but it's a cool-ass card.

The 1998 Pinnacle Zenith

Yes, folks. One of the boxes in this break was the much-maligned Pinnacle Zenith, aka the Dare to Tear set. You get oversized cards, and you either keep your big subject that you can't fit into a binder page or you rip it open and hope whoever's in there is someone you collect. At least I think that's what other people think when they open this. I got a bunch of Yanks and Phils from this set, and ultimately I chose to keep one card unripped, and that's the one I think would be worth the most unripped. Apologies to any Scott Rolen or Andy Pettitte collectors, but those won't go for much on the bay. Maybe I'll do something with this Jeter sometime. I honestly just didn't want to destroy a Derek Jeter card.

As for what was inside the other ones:

Yeah, a nice batch of decent star power from the late 90s. I don't collect all of these guys, but I have to admit these are pretty cool. The Maddux is an unnumbered Z Silver parallel. 

And the cooler ones: I-Rod is a Raising the Bar insert. I find it funny that Chris goes out of his way to pull Ivan Rodriguez cards in Group Breaks, and ultimately I get one here. It was this or a Tim Salmon.

Mondesi's is a Z Gold parallel, which is numbered to 100. At least it has a place in my mojo binder, then.

Tomorrow, or whenever, I'll dig into the Philadelphia portion of the box.