Random Wax: 2025 Topps Baseball

2025 Topps:  Ted William's stats are pure video game stuff but I'll cherry pick a few:  

1941: Batted .406
1942: Triple Crown
1943-1945: Served in WWII
1946: MVP
1947: Triple Crown

I've always been a fan of Nolan Arenado, who I know is nearing the end of his career but I'm hoping for a bounce back year.  He's already on pace for his most home runs since 2023.  Matt Chapman had 8 RBIs against the Cubs this month.   What has happened to Chicago?  Zach Wheeler is 36 years-old but he's having another great year for Philly.

What a start to Yoshinobu Yamamoto's career. 2X World Series winner, 1X World Series MVP and an All-Star nod.  And yes, he's doing excellent again this season.

Astros Team Card.  They have dealt with so many injuries this year and it's not surprising they are struggling.

Ronald Acuna Jr.'s bat finally started coming around...and he hurt his hamstring again...  ugh.  Looking good on this Stars of MLB card though.

Some horizontal goodness including this Checklist card featuring the Tampa Bay Rays on the front.

Anthony Rizzo helped the Chicago Cubs get the monkey off their back in 2016 with a championship.  I was okay being happy for Cubs fans who had suffered for so long.

Always enjoy League Leader cards.  Fun pack of cards with a good pull.

BREAKDOWN:

36 – Total Cards

6 – RC

2 – Stars of MLB

1 - Checklist

1 – Team Card

1 – Future Stars

1 – Call to the Hall

1 – League Leaders

Random Wax: 1991-1992 SkyBox Basketball - 3 Packs

91-92 SkyBox:  Karl Malone was nothing short of a beast.  The Mailman played 19 seasons and had career averages of 25/10/3 with 2 MVP trophies and 14 All-NBA selections.  He was also a 4X All-Defensive team member.  He was also incredibly durable playing 80 or more games in 17 of those seasons.  And you can add 193 playoff games, averaging 41 minutes per playoff game, on top of that.  That's amazing.  

Big man love!  Moses Malone's played 3 season in Atlanta and average 16 and 10 with the Hawks.  Another unicorn, Moses played 21 seasons leading the league in rebounding 6X and 7X leading the league in offensive rebounds.  He still holds the all-time offensive rebounding average for a career with 5.1 per game.  He was also a 3X MVP and 8X All-NBA.  Crazy great career. 

Three All-Rookie cards and all three were solid players.  Derrick Coleman was a big man with a soft touch.  He averaged 16 and 9 for his career and was a 2X All-NBA selection.

I like cards like this giving us highlights from the season.

A couple of my all-time favorite players in Larry Smith and Trent Tucker and I really like Terry Cummings as well.  Like Moses, Smith was a great offensive rebounder.  He once led the league in offensive rebounds and had a career average of 3.9, good for 8th all-time.

The backs were great.  Gerald Wilkins was one of the sharpest dressed men in the league and Karl Malone was an outdoorsman and didn't disappoint.

More great highlights and two of the great shot blockers of the era.

Dee Brown with the no look dunk!  Assume this is from the 1991 Slam Dunk Contest.

The fronts o fmy Best Single Game Performance pulls.

Centennial Highlights give us game history.

Such a great set and so much fun.  Reggie Lewis was the future of the Boston Celtics before passing away too soon at the age of 27.

BREAKDOWN:

45 – Total Cards

3 – All-Rookie Team

3 – Best Single Game Performance

2 – Centennial Highlights

1 – Checklist

Random Wax: 2024 Donruss Football

2024 Donruss:  I'm a big Christian McCaffrey fan and it was great seeing him healthy and play 17 games last year.  He led the league in touches from scrimmage with 413, the 3rd time he's done so in his career.  He's also a 3X All-Pro.

Tyreek Hill still hasn't signed with a team since being released by Miami.  He's still recovering from a major knee injury that included a torn ACL.

Taliese Fuaga has started 30 games in his two years in the league.  Malik Washington, on this Blue Press Proof Parallel, might be in line for more targets in Miami with Hill no longer there.  He has 72 career receptions.

Greg Rousseau has started his entire career with Buffalo and has 32 career sacks.

Great threesome here.  This design isn't my favorite Donruss look but I like it enough.  And it does have solid photography as well.

Retired greats!  A great way to end the post.  I like James Lofton so that was a fun pull but also happy to get Broadway Joe and Andre Rison.

BREAKDOWN:
30 – Total Cards
4 – Rated Rookie
4 – Retired Greats
4 – Blue Press Proof Parallel

Random Wax: Donruss Baseball 1991

1991 Donruss: What else can you say about Rickey Henderson?  He is the only player in the 3,000-hit club who never recorded a 200-hit season.  He holds the record for the most unintentional walks in baseball history with 2,129.  And Henderson stole three or more bases in a game 71 times in his career, including four steals 19 times, and five steals once, and on July 29, 1989, he scored four runs without registering a hit (four walks in four plate appearances) against the Mariners in Oakland.  Thank you interwebs and MLB.com.  And I love these All-Star cards from Donruss with great league logos on them.

Juan Gonzalez would have a breakout year in 1991 with 27 home runs and go on to lead the league in home runs in '92 and '93 with 43 and 46, respectively.  He also averaged .295 for his career which is great for a power hitter.  He had 434 career dingers and was a 2X MVP.

And we get actual game stats.  <clapping>

Always enjoyed the Diamond Kings from this era.  Hall of Fame Edgar Martinez ended his career with a .312 batting average, .418 on base percentage and 309 home runs.  Solid Rated Rookie pull as well.

Gene Nelson?  Yep.  A teammate of Rickey who helped the A's win the 1989 World Series though his 54 ERA in the Series belies his solid career in the MLB.  He was also a base stealer in his own right as evidenced by his career highlights writeup.

Steve Finley was a 5X Gold Glove outfielder, won a championship with the D-Backs, and was named to 2 All-Star teams.  He had 2,548 hits in his career.  That really surprised me.  Why didn't he get the honor of being the final card?  Fun pack with lots of fun memories.

BREAKDOWN:

16 – Total Cards

2 – Diamond Kings

1 - Puzzle

1 – All-Star

1 – Rated Rookie

 

Random Wax: 2021-2022 Illusions Basketball

21-22 Illusions:   I know the Spurs are in a 2-0 hole, but maybe Jerry West can give them some inspiration.  He's 5th all-time in NBA scoring average in the playoffs at 29.13 PPG right behind Kevin Durant.  Jerry West played with as much determination and fire as MJ and Kobe in my opinion.  He's the only player to win the Finals MVP on a losing team (1969 NBA Finals).  He's also 7th all-time in regular season scoring average at 27.03 PPG, again right behind Kevin Durant.

Josh Giddey, on this Intriguing Players insert, is now on the Bulls.  He's coming off a year in which he averaged 17/8/9 with the Bulls.  That Trendon Watford is an Orange Parallel.

I've always liked Illusions brand for some reason, and this one had a pretty good design to it.  The set included retired greats like Dwyane Wade and I always like retired greats.

Small pack of cards I purchased back in 2022, but I liked it.  Enjoy the game tonight and hopefully the Spurs can get a win.

BREAKDOWN: 
12 – Total Cards
3 – RC
2 – Retired Great
1 – Orange Parallel
1 – Intriguing Players

2026 NBA Finals: New York Knicks vs San Antonio Spurs

Knicks-Spurs kick it off tonight in the 2025-2026 NBA Finals.  It's hard not to be as excited as everyone else about San Antonio and Wemby but the Knicks are good.  Really good.  Led by Jalen Brunson, they are a deep team with multiple players who can shoot and score.  This includes one of the best shooting big men ever, if not the best, in Karl-Anthony Towns.  His play around the 3-point line could make for an interesting matchup for Wemby who likes to sag a lot and can do so against traditional bigs.  But Wemby and the Spurs seem to have an energy right now that might be hard to stop.  And New York doesn't have the defense OKC did. San Antonio needs the ball in De'Aaron Fox' hand to keep down turnovers and to be that calming presence.  Wemby will be flying everywhere on defense which makes it tough for shooters and anyone close to the lane alike.  I like San Antonio in this series.  The Spurs can be streaky though and the Knicks have plenty of scorers so I think it will be close and I expect 6 games.

I did enjoy looking back on the 1999 NBA Finals where Tim Duncan and David Robinson led the Spurs over the New York team with Latrell Sprewell, Allan Houston, Marcus Camby and Larry Johnson in 5 games.  While we knew that Spurs team was good and that Duncan was special, did we really know it would lead to 5 San Antonio Spurs Championships?  I've always been a closet Spurs fan dating back to George Gervin, Artis Gilmore, and Johnny Moore in the early 80s, so I definitely have a rooting interest in this series.
 

Random Wax: 1991-1992 Topps Stadium Club Hockey

91-92 Stadium Club:   I don't do much Hockey but with the NHL Stanley Cup starting tonight between Las Vegas and Carolina let's do it.  Al MacInnis is a Hall of Famer who won a Stanley Cup in 1989 with Calgary and was a 7X All-Star.

Stadium Club has always been solid.  This isn't my favorite design of theirs.  We need a logo or at least something more here.

The backs are solid.  I really like getting the player's rookie card here.  That's great!  I was a big fan of The Sporting News back in the day, but I'd like to see more stats here but that wasn't the norm with Stadium Club.

Photos weren't quite as consistently good as we see today but I think a lot of that has to do with technology and availability.  Still, it's hard to complain about their cards.

We do get horizontal cards which is great and I like this photo.  The card also has an update showing Ray Sheppard is with a different team.

Fun pack and we get some goalie love.  I don't have a rooting interest in the Stanley Cup but maybe I'll go for Carolina since their owner is also the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers now.

BREAKDOWN:
12 - Total Cards