How intriguing

I used one of my daughter's favorite words in the post title, kind of to celebrate that she's back to her goofy self after her bout with the flu.

She will often talk about words she likes. She likes the sounds they make. "Intriguing," is one. So is "information." She has a whole list of them. Completely random words that roll off her tongue.

"Intriguing" also describes the card packages that have arrived here recently. Intriguingly, none of these packages are connected to trades. In fact, most of them are "gifts." And because of their similar nature, I thought I'd throw them all together to share the intrigue with everyone.

The first card is the Ryan Howard card that leads off the post. Chris from Nachos Grande read that I needed the card for the Allen & Ginter set and shipped it off to me. Howard will always be cool to me even if he did struggle periodically in the World Series. (My daughter told me that she heard Yankees supporters in her school today saying that the "Phillies stink." Ah, Yankees fans. It takes me right back to my school days. It never changes does it?)

With the arrival of this card, I am down to card #339, Jordan Schaefer to finish off this set. It's pretty annoying that it's taken me this long. I bought TWO BOXES of A&G this year -- two boxes more than last year -- and it's basically taking me as long to complete the set as it did last year. I won't repeat that mistake next year.

The next bit of intrigue arrives from Brian at Play at the Plate. Brian is very cool with sending cards out of the blue. And I've wanted this card from the moment I saw it.

Everyone knows how awesome these propaganda poster-style cards are. I generally do not like artsy type cards -- sketches, paintings, blah, blah, blah. Keep the art to the comic books and the photos to the baseball cards. But if you do it right -- and this was a flawless idea -- then I'll be in line with all the sketch freaks.

I had picked up the set of Dodgers from this year's Updates & Highlights at a card show (although I think there's an All-Star Jonathan Broxton card that I need), so this was the only other card from U&H I wanted. Sure there are parallels and hits and all that, but really, does anyone care about that stuff anymore?

OK, yeah, I still care, too. This is why. Here is some super fancy, crazy high-endness, but also some "intriguing" cards from the Upper Deck Ultimate box break at Saints of the Cheap Seats a couple weeks ago.

This is about my only opportunity to get cards like this. I'm not buying these on my own and hardly anyone will send them to me in the mail, so Dan's willingness to do this is greatly appreciated.

I didn't fare as well as some of the participants. No wacky patch stuff or anything like that. But I like Kevin Youkilis and it's a cool-looking card, even if he appears cut off at the mid-section.

This one of Francisco Liriano (where the heck is this guy now, anyway) is nice, too. Got to love blue.

Of course, neither of these are Dodgers. So I'm open to trade offers if anyone is interested.

An extra bit of awesome intrigue arrived with this card. It's a 1975 Topps mini card of former White Sox slugger Bill Melton. That is awesome in itself.

But the intriguing part is related to how the card arrived here.

I don't know if you can read that, but it came from Australia. Yes, my first card from Down Under.

It was sent to me by Andy, who has his own card blog and offered to send it after seeing my sorry Melton mini on my other blog. I gratefully accepted and have now received cards from people in four countries and on three continents. Wow.

Look, the note paper came from the Marriott Brisbane. That is so cool.

OK, last one. These cards are from Kerry at Cards on Cards. You may remember that we had a wager back when the Dodgers played the Cardinals in the NLDS. I ended up the lucky winner.

He sent me some Dodgers I wasn't expecting, including this insert from 2002 Topps. I always liked these "shattered-glass" inserts. Yes, I know it's very early '80s MTV. But you don't want me to think anything the kids are doing today is cool, do you? That's creepy. I've already been forbidden to sing "Party in the USA" by my daughter. And, really, I'm OK with that. Nobody needs to see that.

These appear to be your average 1978 Topps Dodgers. That definitely would not be intriguing. I have doubles, triples, and some quadruples of a lot of the Dodgers from this year.

But a good way to make them intriguing is ...

... to O-Pee-Chee them! Welcome to a land where the "Play Ball" game is "Au Jeu"! Impressionnat.

But the real prize from Kerry was a Clayton Kershaw autograph. And this is what I won:

It's not only an autograph, but it's a swatch card, too. Yeah, I know it's a sticker autograph and it's Ticket to Stardom. But that means nothing to me because it's a great-looking card of a guy who will pitch his way into the Hall of Fame one day. Yes, that's what I said. So Indians fans and whatever other daydreamers that are out there can stop drooling over him, just stop it right now, stop it, stop it, stop it, I said stop it.

For me, this card is the best thing to come out of the 2009 postseason. Probably the only good thing.

Yes, definitely the only good thing.