i checked out my cards

Every black friday (I refuse to capitalize it and acknowledge this day as an American holiday) I take advantage of the sales and free shipping over at Check Out My Cards. This year I had been building since early summer or possibly late spring, and only managed to walk away with about 40-50 new cards. Nothing spectacular, but hopefully you'll find some nice commentary on this page today.

First off, as you can see, was Jose Fernandez. He's kind of a dreamboat. Here's some more of him:

This year's Bowman was a little cluttered, but the International parallels came out nice. The blue? Well, it came cheap.

This year's Prizm was just fine, once you get past the ghastly mirror base cards. Here's a camouflage parallel...which was kind of disappointing in-hand. It is paired with the 2014 effort of Topps' Spring Fever...redemption set? Which is exactly the same as 2013.

Good 'ol Topps.

On November 17th I went on a COMC spree for Russell Martin cards, becuase of course I did. He's been a long-time favourite of mine except for two years he spent with The Evil. These cards were had for surprisingly cheap. I've been collecting the Bowman Sterling WBC for a while, now, and this is my favourite so far. Also, DIRT.

He'll be catching baseballs from this guy a lot in 2015:

He's good. But on to some past Blue Jays for a while.

He was really good. Aside from Ken Griffey Jr., he's the only other favorite of mine who I've seen hit a home run in person. And it was a doozy. But here he is, fielding for some reason:

I had never seen a TSC Matrix card before, and in hand it's a strangely mis-struck, digital holofoil that scanned poorly. Of course I love it. DIRT.

Not enough dirt here to acknowledge, but a player who's uniform always seems dirty from great defense - whether or not your defensive statistics say so or not. I was aiming to pick up some Alomar Padres cards - and managed just this one. I collect Robby in all uniforms, though the orange ones from the Mid-Atlantic bother me deeply. Also, 1993 Leaf might be the best set ever.

Pt Borders was only a starting catcher for about four years of his 17-year careers, but two of those are 1992 and 1993. Those were very good years if you'll recall, and it's hard to ignore Pat's impact on those Blue Jays teams.

He's also a TEAM USA guy, from before they were awful.

Okay. No more Blue Jays. 

Oh, Pedro. Being awesome signing a 1996 Expos programme and being awesome...for the ladies. 

And Pudge. Being a huge badass in the Gold Medallion on the left, and a huge creep in the Rangers Studio on the right. My lawwwd, that mustache. It's even worse on the back.

We'll end with some Rock Raines, terrible mis-cut in his 1981 Donruss GEM. I didn't realize how poorly both were cut until I had them side-by-side. In real life, Rock is a 100% Hall-of-Famer and not in any way mis-cut.

Smile, 

Love, Salvador Perez.