2022 Not So Secret Santa

Piles of cards on my desk have been going unsorted for far too long.  Unfortunately, this also means I've been shirking my blogging duties.  Chris of Nachos Grande fame, held his Not So Secret Santa exchange a while back, and he's been blogging about the returns.  Which in turn, reminded me that I had placed my not so secret Santa gift among the piles of cards on my desk.

The above stack of Twins cards was part of my gift package, along with a Twins ball cap (not pictured and which my daughter has confiscated).  It might take another 50 posts to go through this stack, so I'll share a few of my favorites.

Up first is this trio of Puckett's.  The Score red, white and blue is catchy and it's hard to believe I didn't have the 1995 UD Collector's Choice card.  The Nestle may be a duplicate, but some of those sets look alike and I need to dig out the box where these are stored.

Any card of 'Killer' is good with me.

This pair of Joe Mauer's are looking good.  He may be the best hope for another Twins hall-of-famer.

This Turkey Red of Johan Santana is sweet.  In his prime Santana may have been the best lefty in the game.  Between this and the Mauer above, these are the only cards I have from the Turkey set.  Chris may have inadvertently started me on another project.

Here's a trio of shiny cards from the 2000 Fleer Showcase set.  These cards actually have a nice silver background, but it shows up as white in my scanner.  This trio of Twins were part of the club that fought contraction.  Curse you Bud Selig.

This nice portrait style card from 2007 UD Artifacts is also new to me.  Hunter is in my 'hall of very good' players.

Another first.  I've seen these Bowman Chrome cards around, but just haven't bothered collecting them.  But a Brian Dozier RC is pretty cool.  Dozier was the best 2B the Twins had since Chuck Knoblauch exploded on the scene.  While he won a gold glove with the Twins, he ended up on a World Series team with the Nationals (who beat the Astros).

Lots of firsts in this stack.  I like the design of this 2000 Skybox Impact set.  Corey Koskie was another key player on the team that 'saved baseball' in MN.  He played with MN from 1998-2004, and was so appreciative of the fans that after signing with a new club (Toronto), he took out a full page ad in the local paper thanking them.

The Not-So-Secret-Santa concept is definitely unique and fun.  Thanks for letting me part of it and I can't wait to see what ideas Chris has to make this bigger and grander!