Choo'n Gum

 Jeff from the always-entertaining Wish They Still Came With Bubblegum is quickly becoming one of my most steady trade partners.  I do believe that the PWE that I'm about to show off is already representative of our third exchange in the last couple of months.  Based on the contents of his trade packages, this is definitely okay with me.

Since I'm eating a big bowl of breakfast cereal as I type this, it's only appropriate that I lead off the recap with this balanced breakfast pair:

Food issue cards are all the rage right now, thanks to Topps and their partnership with Walmart's Marketside pizza brand.  However, as much as I like those cards, they don't compare to the grandaddy of all cereal cards - Kellogg's 3D Super Stars.  Until now, I only had one of these in my collection and i can see why that was such a shame.  Thank you Jeff, for fixing that abomination.

Also, major bonus points for the powder blue, pinstripe uniforms that the Cubs wore in the late-70's; they are by far my favorite ugly uniform in baseball history.

Here we have a Series One need of the best fourth outfielder in baseball (on paper) and it's twin-like brother set in Jon Lester's Opening Day appearance.

Speaking of Opening Day, I'm absolutely giddy that baseball season is officially upon us and the Cubs start to play actual games today.  That said, I'm kinda bummed that they're opening in LA against the Angels and the game won't start until 9pm.  Darn west coast games.

Here we have a Cub of the past on the left and one of the future on the left.  

Hack Miller, not to be confused with Hack Wilson, was the son of a circus strongman who took after his pappy.  Widely considered the strongest MLB player in his day, he used to pound wooden stakes with his bare hands and swung a 47 ounce bat.  Unfortunately, though his big bat was powerful (.323 career BA, with double digit HRs in both his full-time seasons), he was a DH before there was a DH.  Darn near incapable of fielding, he was out of the Bigs after just 6 seasons.

Meanwhile, though being drafted in the first round of 2012, Albert Almora has yet to make the ultimate ascension.  He seems to have the opposite problem of Hack - his glove is not only MLB ready, but perhaps Gold Glove worthy in centerfield; however. his bat has been inconsistent.  He'll start 2016 in Iowa and if he shows some improvement with the stick, he might just "stick" in the Bigs before it's all said and done.

A pre-rookie and a rooke Kyle Schwarber!  Hell yeah!

I know I've gone on this rant several times before, but these base cards come at a ridiculous premiums for Schwarbs and Bryant at my LCS.  I'm definitely too stingy to drop $5 a piece on these, even if they're swell cards.

But, thanks to Jeff, I can now add them to my collection at my favorite price point - free!

We close out this trade recap with some faux-vintage and actual vintage.  This is actually only my second card of Dexter Fowler as a Cub and first without gratuitous Photoshopping - so that's pretty cool, in my book.

Meanwhile, my favorite card in this whole package might have been the Don Kessinger.  1966 Topps is in my top 5 favorite sets of all-time and Kessinger was one of my grandfather's favorites.  Furthermore, I'm pretty sure I worked with a relative of his at my last job - his last name was Kessinger, he had the same kind of accent and was from the same area as Don.  Unfortunately, I never got up the courage to ask him before I moved on.  Oopsy daisy.

With that, we've reached the end of Jeff's latest and greatest PWE and I'm sure it will not be the last either.  Jeff, thank you for the generosity and hopefully your return package appears at your doorstep in the next couple days.

In the meantime, I've got to restock my Braves tradables, seeing as Braves and Dodger bloggers seem to grow on the proverbial trees.