Friday, December 19, 2025

Random Wax: 1991-1992 SkyBox Basketball - 3 Packs

91-92 SkyBox:   I've said it before, but while I knew how great Larry Bird was when I saw him play but never got to enjoy him.  He was always ruining things for my Hawks it seemed.  He won 3 MVP trophies and was top 4 in MVP voting overall 9 consecutive years.   

Kevin McHale wasn't pretty.  He wasn't smooth but he just did so many things right.  The Hall of Famer was a 7X All-Star, 3X Champion, 2X 6th Man of the Year, 6X All-Defensive and 1X All-NBA.
Dennis Scott went on to shoot an amazing 39.7% from three-point range for his career.  He would have loved today's game.
SkyBox was ahead of their time in some of the stats they highlighted on their League Leaders cards.
Who didn't like John Starks?  Wait, who did?  He was part of those gritty Knicks teams of the 90s and they had plenty of enemies.  I'm sure New York fans loved him.
They had some pretty cool looking inserts/subsets.  I like seeing the Hornets mascot on the All-Star Weekend Stay in School card.
Some foreboding for the last card of this post.  I liked how this set showcases highlights from the NBA Finals.

The backs were fun.  We get to see players in not the norm photos.  We even see Larry smile.  I'm digging Chris Mullin's tracksuit.  Oh the memories.
Jordan and the Bulls would go on to win 5 more championships after the 1991 NBA Finals victory over the Lakers, beating them 4 games to 1.  So many memories with this set and so much fun to show off.

BREAKDOWN:
45 – Total Cards
2 – Stats
1 - Finals
1 – Stay in School!
1 – All-Rookie Team
1 – All-Star Weekend
1 – Best Single Game Performance


Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Random Wax: 2024 Topps Stadium Club

2025 SCRonald Acuna Jr. dealt with injuries again in 2025, but he still had an excellent year hitting .290/.417/.518 with 21 home runs and 42 RBIs in 95 games.  Fingers crossed we get a healthy and productive 2026 from him.  I do like the photo and the Red Parallel we see him on here.
Always been a fan of Andrew McCutchen.  He's a 1X MVP, 5X All-Star, 4X Silver Slugger, has a Gold Glove, and a Clemente Award winner.  He's played 12 of his 17 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
My Pink Parallels including retired great Willie Stargell.  Another Pirate legend, Stargell played his entire 21-year career in Pittsburgh.  He was an MVP, 2X World Series Champion, WS MVP, and was also a Clemente Award winner.  He hit .282 and had 475 home runs.  He led the league twice in home runs.
I always enjoy the photography on these cards and the designs on Stadium Club normally allow plenty of room for them to shine.
While Mountcastle has had a good career, Junior Caminero jumped on the MLB roadmap with 45 dingers last season for Tampa Bay.
Three Yankees legends.  I love the legends in these packs.  Sorry to see Don Mattingly didn't make the Hall of Fame again this year.  He'll be forever one of the "what if" storylines of baseball.  Back injuries robbed some of his magic later in his career.  He still managed an MVP, 9X Gold Glove, 6X All-Star, 3X Silver Slugger and a batting title across 14 seasons.

BREAKDOWN:
15 – Total Cards
5 – Retired Greats
3 - RC
3 – Pink Foil Parallels
1 - Chrome
1 – Red Foil Parallel


Sunday, December 14, 2025

2014 Contenders Football with Autograph

 2014 Contenders: I'm a big Peyton Manning fan.  He was one of the all-time great quarterbacks and has a great personality that makes him a good ambassador for the sport.  7X All-Pro, 5X MVP, 2X Super Bowl Champion, Super Bowl MVP, and the All-2000s team.  I miss him on the field.
No idea why I've never posted this pack I bought over three years ago.  I really like this design.  Just something about how the colors work, the design and the big logo in the background.  I can see me picking up more of these.
As a reminder, the Section, Row and Seat numbers are the player's height (feetinches), weight and uniform number.  Sam Bradford is getting a lot of MVP chatter for his amazing season he's having.  This was probably part of a Blowoutcards.com purchase.
That Touchdown Tandem is a good-looking card.  Always happy to pull an autograph but if you haven't heard of David Fales, join the club.  He played three seasons and got into 5 games in his career.  That is a Rookie Ink Gold #/10.  Great pull.  Just wish it was someone else from that draft like an Aaron Donald.
I know that Robert Griffin III's career didn't quite make the mark he hoped for, but I do like that photo and card.  The gold pants on their unis always look good with that jersey.  I'm also a fan of the dark blue Chargers unis.  Nope, not a powder blue Chargers uni guy.
The backs are okay.  The photos are duplicates of what we see on the front.  No stats but overall, I've seen worse.  5X All-Pro and All-2000s team member Luke Kuechly is one of my favorite players, so I was really happy to see him show up in this pack.  

BREAKDOWN:
22 – Total Cards
1 – Touchdown Tandem
1 – Rookie Ink Gold #/10




Saturday, December 13, 2025

Random Wax: 2023 Kayou DC Glory of the Universe Collection

Glory of the Universe:  I'm a huge Green Lantern fan.  I've liked him since I was a kid watching Super Friends and when I started reading comic books.  I know John Stewart is probably the Green Lantern who is vogue right now, but I I'm more bullish on Hal Jordan seen here.
I like the simple design on these licensed cards.  Very simple but the art is good though simplistic.  Here we have some of the Batman family.  Batgirl and Catwoman are favorites of mine.
This is a Plot card from the Justice League movies.  They also do these for Shazam, Suicide Squad and Black Adam.
These Cinephile cards are different enough and colorful enough that I like them and are from the movies as well.
Here we have a Storyboard card which I like.
That middle card is the back of the base cards.  Sorry I don't read Chinese.  The cards are on a very thick card stock which is fine though the corners can be issues for those who want their cards not to show wear.
These are fairly simplistic, but I like them.
This is one of the oversized Group Portrait cards showcasing Bombshells Supergirl, Wonder Woman and Bat Woman.  The best checklist I've found is here.  Information on Kayou sets is not easy to come by.  
Super Cute cards.  I like them.
I liked Black Adam but obviously I am in the minority.  I need to go back and give it another watch.
I enjoy sharing these sharp looking cards.  It's a nice design and are fun for DC fans like myself.
BREAKDOWN:
31 – Total Cards
10 – Plot
10 – Character
3 - Cinephile
3 – Super Cute
3 – Storyboard
1 – Fate
1 – Oversized Group Portrait




Friday, December 12, 2025

Random Wax: 2024-2025 Donruss Basketball

24-25 Donruss:  Giannis is such an amazing player.  He is 31, 2X MVP, 9X All-NBA, 5X All-Defensive, and a Defensive Player of the Year winner.  His talents really are freakish.  He is so athletic and at his size he is almost unstoppable when he gets going downhill.  This card is one of two Holo Green Laser Parallels I pulled. 
This is a pretty good Donruss set and a great pull in this pack.  Shai is having another amazing year while Anthony Edwards, Georgia Bulldog alum, is having maybe his best season in the NBA.
Alex Sarr has taken a nice leap forward this season averaging 19 PPG for the Wizards.
Kristaps Porzingis has helped the Hawks to a winning record this season and challenging for a playoff spot in the competitive Eastern Conference.
Payton Pritchard is having a career year with Boston with plenty of playing time available as the Celtics deal with injuries and traded off key players in the offseason.
Jamal Murray is having a great year and may get his first All-Star nod.  He's averaging 24 PPG shooting 46% from three.
BREAKDOWN:
30 – Total Cards
5 – Rated Rookie
2 – Holo Green Laser Parallels
1 – Bomb Squad




Thursday, December 11, 2025

Frasier TV Series (1993–2004)

Frasier:  I did a rewatch of Frazier.  I'd watch some or all of an episode before going to sleep.  I enjoy doing that with comfort watches like this.  Frasier ran 11 seasons and for good reason.  I like to say I've watched the series before including plenty of reruns but there was much of this show that I didn't remember.  Nothing wrong with that.  I enjoyed it all.  It really is a good series.  It feels like awkward moment after awkward moment which makes it fun.  I enjoyed the Niles and Dafney storyline the most as Niles falls for her even though being married.  This eventually leads to them falling for each other.  Lots of fun here.  I'm glad I went back and watched it in its entirety.  I feel like there was much I hadn't seen.  Again, lots of fun.  Not a top 10 all-time for me but this is a series I really like.  I've already started a rewatch of Cheers.  An all-time favorite I'm really enjoying it and will post something once I complete it.



Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Random Wax: 1994 Ted Williams Baseball 4 Packs

1994 Ted Williams:  Hall of Famer Eddie Matthews was a 12X All-Star.  He led the league in home run 3X, walks 3X and OBP 1X.  He finished his career with 512 home runs and won a World Series title with the Milwaukee Braves and with the Detroit Tigers.
Ted Williams himself as well as catching great and fan favorite Gary Carter sporting those great Expo unis and Juan Marichal.  If you are saying "wow those names are hard to read" you aren't wrong.  Even in hand they are very challenging.
Youngsters appear on Dawning of a Legacy (Cliff Floyd and Tim Salmon only) and The Campaign cards.
We get Negro League cards as well as a nice-looking checklist card which is a Dan Gardiner Collection (#54063).
The backs highlight the best five seasons of a player's career.  I do like these.
Goin North highlights players as they readied to start their MLB careers.  I like these as you don't always get to see players from this era in their minor league unis.
Mike Schmidt Swingin' for the Fences, Women of Baseball and Etched in Stone.  The latter looks at highlights of a player's career.
Frank Howard, Gil Hodges, Nellie Fox and Walter Johnson.  It's fun showing off these cards.  So many players we aren't used to seeing on modern cardboard.

BREAKDOWN:
48 – Total Cards
6 – The Campaign
5 – Negro Leagues
2 - Checklist
2 – Women of Baseball
2 – Dawning of a Legacy
1 – Etched in Stone
1 – Swinging for the Fences
1 – Dan Gardiner Collection (#54063)