Random Wax: 2024 Topps Stadium Club

2024 Stadium Club:  Max Fried looks great on this Pink Holo Parallel mostly due to being a Braves uni. Sadly, he took his talents to New York.  Though battling some injuries this season, Fried is still having a good season with the Yanks.

Braves hot pack!  If you remember, 2024 Stadium Club was big on team hot packs.  Chris Sale is having another great season as the Braves' ace.

Yamamoto is enjoying another really good season for LA.  The Dodgers picked up Tarik Skubal at the trade deadline to help bolster their pitching staff. Boooooo

My Green Refractor Chrome, the nice backs and my Power Packed insert.

We love the photography and they again do well.  We also get retired greats like Lou Gehrig.  2X MVP, Triple Crown, 7X All-Star, 7X World Series winner, and he won a batting title.  He ended his career with a crazy .340 batting average.  Love looking at the video game stats during his career.

BREAKDOWN:
15 – Total Cards
5 – RC
3 – Pink Holo Parallel
2 - Chrome
1 – Retired Great
1 – Power Packed
1 – Red Holo Parallel
1 – Green Refractor Chrome

Ford v Ferrari (2019)

Ford v Ferrari:  The BLUF is Ford wants to take down Ferrari in the prestigious race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  With NASCAR taking a break last weekend, pop and I watched this one.  I'd seen probably 75% of the movie in bits and pieces and figured we'd both like it.  And we did.  Really good story.  Matt Damon and Christian Bale do a great job.  Hard not to enjoy this movie.  You don't have to be a racing guy or even a car guy.  I think most will find it easy to enjoy.  

Random Wax: 2024 Blaster

2024 Topps:   Ronald Acuna Jr. recently returned to the Braves' lineup after recovering from injury.  Felt like he was getting his swing back before the injury and the lineup needs his bat.  Hoping for good things in the second half of the season.

Nolan Arenado is a 10X Gold Glove winner and recently reached 2,000 hits for his career.  He's currently playing for the D-Backs.

Speaking of...  A nice photo on this horizontal card.

Gabriel Moreno has hit at or above .300 most of this season.  Nice bat to have in your lineup especially as a catcher.  While he's helped my fantasy team, in truth there is no helping my fantasy team this season.

2023 Greatest Hits, Home Run Challenge and Grand Gamers.  The latter gives a chance to see all-time greats like Ichiro who truly is one of the greatest hitters we've seen.  Maybe someone breaks his streak of 10 consecutive 200 hit seasons but it feels like it will be near impossible to beat.

Checklist, Holiday Parallel (Easter), and Blue Parallel.

The backs on the '89 Topps inserts are solid and seeing Jose Ramirez stats are always fun.  Such a good hitter.

Really good collection of hitters including two 1989 Topps inserts.

Team card.

Stars of MLB are okay but getting a bit stale by 2024.  No complaints with my pull though.

2024 Topps backs are good.  Love seeing all those stats.

More stars of the game and what a fun box.  Mike Trout is having a really good year.  Average is still down but he's hitting with power and getting on base.

BREAKDOWN:

84 – Total Cards

17 – RC

7 – Stars of MLB

4 – Future Stars

4 – Holiday Parallel (Easter)

1 – Checklist

1 – Team Card

1 – Grand Gamers

1 – Blue Parallel

1 – 1989 Topps Baseball

1 – Home Run Challenge

1 – Topps All-Star Rookie

Random Wax: 1992 Upper Deck Football

1992 UD:  Joe Montana was just amazing.  Four Super Bowl wins never throwing an interception in those games.  MVP in 3 of those games and you can tack on 2 regular season MVPs for good measure amongst all the accolades he's gotten in his career.  Just crazy great and would have been so much fun to watch in today's game.

Kosar and Lathon went to 1X Pro Bowl while Ken O'Brien went to 2.

Greatness.  He was MVP in '89 and '90.

Subsets/inserts included Rookie Force, FaniMation and NFL Scrapbook.  All are good and a nice pull in each.  That's animated Deion by the way. Maybe that should be more obvious.

Just a big fan of this design.  Upper Deck killed it with their early football designs.

Not sure why Joe Montanta got scanned twice but dang it, he deserves it.

BREAKDOWN:
15 – Total Cards
1 - Fanimation
1 – Rookie Force
1 – NFL Scrapbook

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (NO SPOILERS)

 My son, grandsons and I saw Spider-Man: Brand New Day on Thursday and we enjoyed.  It is probably not the Spider-Man movie we're used to.  It feels more grounded and story driven.  The youngest son said it needed more action and for a 9-year-old I get it.  There is action though.  Again, how it plays into the story might make it different from what we've seen before.  Good movie and one of our favorites in the Tom Holland era.

Random Wax: 1990 Upper Deck Baseball

1990 UD:  Will Clark was a great hitter averaging .303 for his 15-year career.  He also batted .333 in 31 games with San Francisco, Texas and St. Louis.  Clark's first hit, in his first at bat, was a home run off Nolan Ryan in 1986.

Willie McGee, a switch hitter, had more hits than Clark in his 18-year career while hitting .295 in his career.  He also won an MVP and 2X batting titles.  Like many I've always been a fan of this set.

In 1991, Clark would set a career high in runs batted in with 116 and would lead the league with a .536 slugging percentage.

The backs really are nice even if we don't get career stats.

1985 was Willie McGee's MVP season.

My Team Hologram insert which is too cool.

I'm a big Robin Yount fan and I'm a big Upper Deck Checklist card fan with that art.  Yount was a 2X MVP who had 3,142 hits in his 20-year career.

BREAKDOWN:
15 – Total Cards
1 – Team Checklist
1 – Team Hologram

Masters of the Universe (2026)

 When the trailer for Masters of the Universe came out, I was excited.  Overall a good movie.  They lean into this having an '80s feel and the humor.  I've watched more of the current Master of the Universe animated offerings in the franchise.  Wasn't a big fan when I was younger.  I go back and forth from wanting this to be a more serious adaptation in tone as opposed an action comedy or just enjoying it for what it is.  As is, it is good.  I won't say great.  I like some of the visuals and the way the characters look, especially Skeletor.  Not sure if there'll be a sequel but I'm glad I watched this one after being told by a few folks to watch it.  It's on Amazon Prime Video right now for subscribers.  It may be on other platforms but I'm not sure.

Dutton Ranch

Dutton Ranch is a good show.   Having seen and enjoyed Yellowstone, I knew what I was getting into.  No matter where Beth and Rip go, peace isn't an option.  Things start off rocky right off the bat for the two and I can't say it gets better for them.  That said, the chaos isn't of their doing.  Now how they handle the chaos is what we've grown to know and love about the pair.  Me and pop enjoyed the show.  If you liked Yellowstone, I think you'll like Dutton Ranch.

Random Wax: 1992 Triple Play (4 Packs)

1992 Triple Play:  Dwight Gooden's 1985 season was one of the best I've ever seen.  24-4, 1.53 ERA, 268 strikeouts, 16 complete games, and 276 innings pitched - all lead leading - enroute to winning the pitching triple crown.

Donny Baseball on a nice horizontal card.

Some catcher love all with good photos.

Paul Molitor running in his photo and he stole 504 stolen bases in his career.  He stole 40+ bases in a season 4 times. Fun Greg Harris photo.

Two of my Awesome Action pulls and a card back.

The first official night game at Wrigley Field was on August 9, 1988.

Three greats of the era and another fun photo.  Ripken was a 2X MVP and 8X Silver Slugger.

BREAKDOWN:
60 – Total Cards
3 – Awesome Action
2 – Stadiums

1992 Lime Rock Pro Cheerleaders

1992 Cheerleaders:  The Raiderettes have been around for a long time, starting out in the 60s while becoming more popular in the 70s.  The logos are the actual squad logos.

This set highlighted 4 teams - Cowboys, Dolphins, Raiders, Saints.  These are niche NFL cards but I like them as an interesting aside to the sport.  The Cowboys Cheerleaders are probably the most famous of all the squads and I do remember them well from when I was a kid.

The design is simple.  The squad's logo, photo and name.  They made sure you could see the name which meant it would move around depending on the photo.

The backs give us personal information for each of the girls and a personal photos.

Not something I collect, but I've come across these packs over the years.  They are cheap and the set is good for what it is.

BREAKDOWN:
11 - Total Cards