grab bag - brag or drag?

i bought two team bag semi-mystery bags at the fall church show (as mentioned in this post), and i promised i would go through the contents in a subsequent post which, as you have guessed, is this one.  these were marked at $4 each which means i got them for $2 each. it turned out that there were 10 cards in each bag. i didn't bother to try to move the cards around to count or peek before i bought, by the way.

the first one had this card on the front - 2021 panini elite extra edition troy glaus all-time first round materials

and this one on the back - 2019 panini prizm manny machado blue hyper prizm parallel

neither of these cards really fit in my collection, but i was intrigued enough to add the bag to my stack. i assumed the other cards were parallels or inserts, but didn't know for sure. here's what was between those two cards

2019 panini prizm carlos correa blue hyper prizm parallel

2022 topps pristine josh donaldson purple refractor parallel (numbered to 99)

2024 topps chrome adley rutschman ray wave refractor parallel

2021 panini elite extra edition calvin ziegler optic auto (numbered to 99)

2021 topps stadium club chrome max scherzer virtual reality insert

2021 topps stadium club chrome jacob degrom 1991 design variation refractor parallel

2023 topps chrome spencer strider future stars insert

2021 panini prizm robin yount carolina blue prizm parallel

so, not a bad lot of cards. the new york referenced on ziegler's card is the mets, by the way. he missed all of 2025 due to tommy john surgery so will see if he bounces back. the scherzer was a need for my dodger collection, so that was a happy surprise. 

there were, i think, four of these bags in the box, but i only bought one more. the other bag i bought had this card on the front - 2022 topps pro debut elijah tatis autograph

and this one on the back - 2024 topps chrome will smith raywave refractor parallel

so i knew i was adding a dodger card to my collection. i'll note that tatis is wearing number 23 on that card - that's a big deal in chicago given their history with number 23 on the bulls and cubs, and robin ventura was no slouch, either. doesn't matter, though as i don't think the younger tatis is active any longer.

just as before, here are the cards that were sandwiched between those two:

2023 topps chrome miguel cabrera sepia refractor parallel

2019 topps heritage minors tim tebow

2020 topps inception kris bryant purple parallel #/150

2019 panini father's day brandon lowe #/199

2022 panini usa baseball stars & stripes sean mclain jumbo relics #/150

2022 panini prizm yordan alvarez blue mojo prizm #/199

2019 panini chronicles blake snell obsidian prizm

2019 panini chronicles whit merrifield phoenix holo prizm

the sean mclain card presents a bit of a quandary for me. it could fit in my collection a couple of different ways - mclain was the dodgers' 5th round pick in 2022 (i've used this tactic once before with a team usa relic), and he also hails from tustin, california.

i have a mini-collection in the works that includes tustin (foreshadowing another future post). not sure what i'll do with this card as of now.

it had been decades since i had bought a grab bag at a show, but i am happy with these. not sure i am happy enough to try my luck again, but never say never!