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After a few non-sports posts I thought it was time to throw something together about baseball. I was at the local hotel show this past Saturday and did something I rarely if ever do at a show...buy packs of current cards. I also picked up some vintage sports and non-sports stuff (the trip wouldn't be worthwhile if I didn't) but a good bit of that is already out the door in PWEs.

As you can tell by the top card I bought a couple of packs of Stadium Club. I got my first and only Oriole from that set. Stealth pie-thrower Adam Jones came with gold lettering on his card. One of my few beefs with this set is that the front lettering is too hard to read. At least I find it so. I wish Topps would have used black as the font color and let silver be a special insert color like gold is. Now get off my damn lawn. 

A secondary reason for the baseball post is that I went to Minute Maid Wednesday night to see the Astros play the Blue Jays. I went with my wife, my sons and their significant others. Watching baseball is fun with a group and despite the outcome (a 3-1 loss) we had a great time. 

I was hoping the 'Stros could help out my Birds but their pathetic line-up came up dry. Currently the Astros either get production from Jose Altuve or they get nothing at all. Speaking of Altuve..... 

That appears to be a playoff win celebration from last year. Their bats better rebound or a repeat is unlikely. But that's a pretty cool card, no?

The Jays got three dingers, two by this guy...

Joey Bats hit one as well. The Astros were down two in the eighth, put runners on second and third with one out and had Altuve and Correa coming up. Everyone was excited. But Altuve lined out and Correa struck out looking.

On the plus side (for some) was the fact that it was Pokemon Go night.

Luckily (or not) we missed the pregame silliness that had grown up game players chasing Pikachus and whatnot on the field. As I looked around the crowd during the game it seems that more than half the folks near us had their faces planted in their phones most of the night. I'd like to think they were checking scores or stats but I'll bet not.

I got this card of Kole Calhoun and noticed something that is probably very old news to everyone but me. The Angels are just called the 'Angels'. Not 'Anaheim', 'Los Angeles', 'LA Angels of Anaheim' or anything else. How long has this been going on? I feel dumb for not having a clue about this.

I got this Mike Trout insert out of Archives and checked just to confirm that it's done across the whole Topps line. Yup.

I dug thru COMC and went back to 2004 before I found this:

I didn't check every set between then and now but it seems like it's at least a decade long policy. OK, now I know. I don't understand it, but at least I'm aware of it.

My final Stadium Club to be scanned is this black lettered one.

Again, much easier to read than the standard SC. And it's another nice one. I've bought one blaster and a few packs of SC this year. I'm not going to try to chase it. I tried last year and I'm still lacking a bunch and not too inspired to go after them. Not that it's not a great set, it certainly is, but I have too many other things higher on my list.

Oh, my one other gripe is collation. With just the few packs I have of 2016 SC I've some packs that seem to mirror others. Four or five dupes from one pack to the next. That's discouraging. But it's still my favorite contemporary set.