Sunday Night Baseball: Welcome to the Hall of Fame Pedro Martinez

Tonight on the day of Pedro Martinez Induction into the Hall of Fame ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball is honoring the occasion by Featuring the Boston Red Sox as the Host the Detroit Tigers.

2002 Bowman Heritagae #66 Pedro Martinez

After a little bit of debate, I have decided to go with a Retro card as my Anchor card for Pedro's Phungo HoF series.

I love this card - A decade ago when Retro Sets were still sort of new it felt like the card companies tried harder. 2002 Bowman Homages 1954 Bowman. The Pedro #66 Card echoes the Ted Williams Card that sort of held the position in the original Bowman release.

2002 Bowman Heritage #66 Pedro Martinez (b-side)


And there is your proof that Martinez lives at House #66 in 2002 BowHeritage, notice above that I specified that was a position "Sort of" held by Ted Williams. Turns out that in 1954 Topps had inked a trading card contract with Topps and Bowman had to pull the card from the set. Rather then leave an open spot on the checker Bowman replaced Williams with Jim Piersall

Similarly #66 in Heritage is occupied by a pair of Red Sox.

2002 Bowman Heritage #66 Pedro Martinez/Nomar Garciaparra (b-side)

2002 Bowman Heritage #66 Nomar Garciaparra

There is the A-side of Nomar. I think the Black box for the player signature is an additional level of variation in Bowman Heritage - so yes variations have been around a while.

Pedro Martinez HoF Index
1997 Bowman Chrome #53
2000 Skybox Dominion #7 (ERA Leaders w/ HoF Randy Johnson)
2001 Topps Chrome #45 (card# = uniform#)
2004 Topps Pristine #18
2009 Phungo #45
2009 Topps Heritage #563 (w/ Phillies)
2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars Sign Sealed Delivered #SSD-8 (w/ Phillies)

1995 0603 Perfect Game Spoiled in Extra Innings (includes game ball in HoF)
2009 03xx Pedro pitches in the WBC San Juan PR

Sources and Links
Ted Williams HoF Index
Baseball-ref
Cardboard Connection

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Rack Pack

GQ isn't my thing, but I was in the store during it's opening week and picked up a rack pack - I am a sucker for those 3 card parallel packs. Ozzie Smith on the cover was also a selling point.

Racks contain three 6-card packs plus a 3 card framed parallel pack. The price was $9.49.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Shelby Miller

New Atlanta Brave Shelby Miller was the first card pulled in the 3 packs. He reps his new club, but I also picked up an Evan Gattis card that still has him with the Braves

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Zach Britton

I have a Rack of Opening Day that I have yet to post - it didn't have any Phillies cards :( and For the second consecutive pack opening where we didn't get any Phils,

In lieu of a Phils card we are posting a card of Zach Britton from the Team Phungo AL Squad, Baltirmore Orioles.

2015 Gypsy Queen Nomar Garciaparra

MLB Alums are part of GQ - We didn't get an HoF players but we did get this fine card of Nomar reading the signs from his 3B coach.

2015 Gypsy Queen RA Dickey

Great Shot of Knuckleballer RA Dickey. He is holding the now defunct Allan H Selig MLB Baseball that we have had under the microscope in a few recent postings.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Matt Moore

Cool Pix of Rays Pitcher Matt Moore wearing some sort of goofy uniform

#Added Value

2015 Gypsy Queen Walk off Winners Bryce Harper

This card reps a game played on August 7 2014, an extra-inning game versus the Mets that Harper won with a 13th inning Homer off of Carlos Torres. 

2015 Gypsy Queen Minis 
Salvador Perez
Josh Harrison
Phil Hughes

Each of the three packs contained a mini. Here I present them with the b-side of the Miguel Cabrera card for a size comparison

Bonus Cards

2015 Gypsy Queen Javier Baez (Base and Framed Parallel)

Each 3 Pack Rack contains a parallel pack with 3 Frame Cards which are parallels of the base set. The Frame is an actual frame and slightly raised off of the card.

2015 Gypsy Queen Ben Zobrist (White Frame)
2015 Gypsy Queen Devin Mesoraco (White Frame)

The other two Frames in the bonus pack.

And we close with the wrapper for the pack, Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith

Sources and Links
Baseball-ref
Cardboard Connection