What Have I Done?

I'd guess that everyone who dabbles in this memorabilia hobby has done this....make a purchase and know immediately (maybe even beforehand) that it's a mistake that you'll regret very soon.

I was killing time between scouting last week and stopped at a Target. I ventured over to the card aisle as I always do just to see what they had. I rarely buying anything but I like to see what's around.

But like the dope that I am I decided that I was going to waste some cash since I hadn't attended the local show for a couple of months and I felt my hobby budget was yearning to be spent. I soon found myself at the checkout stands holding a large hanger pack (I guess that's what they are called) of Heritage High Numbers/Updates(?), a hanging box of 2015 Topps Regular Set Update and an Astros team set. That was one of those things that Topps puts into blister packs.

My premonition that I was wasting money turned out to be spot on. The Heritage pack got me two cards of guys for my fantasy baseball binder.

And that was a a hollow victory because I already had cards of Boxberger and Lowrie from this year with the correct teams. But I felt obligated to use these new ones in the binder.

I got about five cards of other guys I've actually heard of including these two:

And I got a bunch of cards of guys about whom I'm clueless....

And no Orioles, dammit.

The Update box was more interesting. A couple of old school Astros on special cards:

Home Run Derby cards.....they make me hear Chris Berman in my head. Ugh.

Two useless Orioles cards. Manny Machado in an All Star warm-up jersey. Don't need this. And a Mike Mussina card. I'm not one of those Orioles fans that insert a expletive between 'Mike" and 'Mussina' when I say his name but I also don't need to see him in orange and black anymore.

Brock Holt goes in the fantasy baseball binder. The other card is fancy with a gold-ish border and the throwback Topps logo.

Fernando! I like my Stadium Club Fernando more. And we begin seeing the hate my scanner has for newer Topps cards with white borders.

Same deal. My scanner hates these. But it's a Griffey (and Brandon Belt???).

Guys from the World Series.

Hamels updated. I kept his '15 as a Phillie card in the fantasy binder.

A braves pitcher with a gold-ish card.

This Aoki guy had a couple of hits on a mid-season Sunday night to hurt my fantasy team's week as I recall. Don't need to be reminded of that.

And the last card of interest is Dallas Keuchel wearing one of those atrocious All Star caps. Outside of pimping these for profit is there a reason for these to exist? I think not.

But the card is here because it reminds me of this:

Speaking of the Astros the team set had a few cards I thought were pretty nice and cards that represent one huge boatload of strikeouts.

So all in all it's pretty obvious that I could have found a decent '63 Fleer Yaz for what I paid for this stuff. Live and learn.