Down The Ebay Rabbit Hole #5 - All That Glitters

Happy New Year! I hope you can look back on 2023 fondly, and that this year will be filled with much joy and good health!

 

It's been awhile since I did one of these, so let's kick off the year with a refresh. I had a prepaid gift card that was set to expire soon (this month actually), so I went on a bit of an eBay spending spree. We've reached the penultimate purchase. (Technically, these were the last cards I bought, but I'm saving the biggest purchase for the last post of this series!)

One side project of mine has slowed to a crawl in recent years. In 2018, I decided to celebrate the Red Sox World Series Championship by acquiring the serial numbered gold parallel of every Red Sox card in the base and update sets. 5 years later and I was just a smidge over 1/3 of the way. Furthermore, I almost went the entire calendar year without adding any new cards. I can't have that, can I? I decided to search for some cheap card, and found a seller that had a few I could bundle together. I also picked up a Rainbow Foil parallel, just for fun.

 

 

Ian Kinsler was a trade deadline pickup necessitated by the unfortunate injury woes of Dustin Pedroia. He wasn't quite the offensive and defensive boost the Sox were hoping for, but he didn't hurt the team either, and that consistency was enough. In the World Series, he went 1-10 with an RBI. 

Which is still better than what Hanley Ramirez did. Hanley was a big off-season acquisition in 2014, and just didn't perform well over the course of his contract. He was released on May 30th of the season having only played 44 games. He still got a ring though!

The Rainbow foil is of course of the Orioles' new closer, Craig Kimbrell. Although he was an All-Star every year he was with the Red Sox, he has a tendency to struggle in the post-season (see this year's NLCS). When the last out of the World Series was made, it wasn't Kimbrell pitching but Chris Sale. Good luck with that Baltimore.

The Golden Sox Project is now over 40% complete, and I'd like to get over 50% by this time next year. As far as completion goes, it'll be tough finding an affordable copy of Dever's ASR ...yikes, I should have snagged one before he signed that massive extension...