Are you Man enough?

Ok, so not a baseball card post today, but I'll let this Stan "The Man" Musial help me lead into this post. I am sure many on this blogroll play fantasy baseball and I know a couple of you readers are in this same league that I am referring to.

It's a 30-team, franchise, dynasty league that is starting up. I am not the commisioner but did say I would try to help him fill in the last three spots.

The league charter is linked under my want lists for you to look at. I have played with a number of the guys in the league and it's a great group. There's a good amount of trading and people are from all over the country and a couple outside the U.S.. It is a daily league and you need to be active in that you have full active rosters.

If you want to see if you're ready for a Man's league, please email Bryan at    bluhrs   at  gmail.com

2013 Topps Retail Loose Packs

Without further ado, some of the cards from the first couple of retail packs ....

The emeralds are not numbered. Not collecting these, nor the pinks or camos. So any I get, they'll be available for trade.

And first Red Sox of 2013, is Salty. Too bad he may be traded come Spring Training.

I know I have another Red Sox on top of one of the two rack packs I got but not sure who it is. Will wait till tonight to open those.

Some more, these from my second and third packs.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS SHOT!!! And nice that's not a short print. 

Target Reds are back, not serial numbered. Also not in every pack.

All in all I limited myself to 15 loosies (from a retail box and gravity feeder) and two rack packs. The had the deck boxes (72 cards) and the blasters. All the prices are the same as previous years for the entire line of retail product.

Ok time to get back to work but just wanted to share with you that 2013 Topps retail is live!  It's a great looking product from the few packs I have opened and will definitely be putting this set together.

2013 Topps Retail and in my hands!

So just popped over to the Target around the corner from work (North Shore, Mass.) and behold ... UNTOUCHED single packs, drop box box packs, rack packs!  Normally this Target doesn't put product out early but it did today!

So with that, the first card in my first 2013 Topps pack.

#101 Bryan Shaw.

Will post a couple more cards shortly.

Housecleaning and Collecting Goals

With spring training just around the corner, I needed to get around to some posting and cleaning up of lists. Spent about and hour yesterday on ebay and Beckett's marketplace filling in some holes. Finally finished off my 1975 Topps set. Needed the Joe Morgan, Brooks Robinson card and two team cards. Nice to finally cross that off my needs.

Also finished off my 2012 Topps Debut set in the process. I really like having this set bookend the regular Topps flagship set. I hope Topps continues to do these sets in the future. Maybe they can add an end of the year draft pick set and make it an online exclusive ala the Heritage High Series Set.

Along the way, cleaned up on some missing Red Sox cards and some 1971 Topps high numbers and short prints.

Also, I know I need to reach back out to a couple of traders on some trades. I would love to get rid of the piles I have been accumulating on these fronts. So please bear with me.

So onto my 2013 Collecting Goals

1. To finally land a 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan rookie card. Doesn't have to be perfect, can even have some creasing, pinhole, or paper loss.
2. Finish off my 1971 Topps Set. Easily doable as I am not missing any overly expensive cards. I think the Ernie Banks is the highest priced of the bunch.
3. Try to reduce my needs list in half on both the 1968 and 1973 Topps set. I have a fair number of commons to obtain, just need to find outlets (online, shows, other card stores) to make happen.
4. Land another large lot/partial 1960s Topps set. I know some of the high numbers in these years can be the killers for those trying to complete these sets. I do like the designs of the 1960, 1962, and 1964 sets, but then again I already have a 1966 Rose and Koufax in my hands. I need to look at how many cards I have for each year and see what lines up best.
5. Make more trades. Granted, I really only purchase the Topps flagship as far as boxes/packs go and some other packs here and there. But I do have a number of oddball issues and variety of different cards from across the spectrum (70s-00s). I also have a number of Red Sox to trade as well and would even part with Red Sox relics in order to finish off some of my sets.

So, if anyone can lend a hand in helping me with these goals, drop me a line. I'd love to start chipping away.