A Good Day for a Nice Cold Coca-Cola

It has been pretty hot here in Southern California over the last couple weeks and in addition to the higher temperatures, we are experiencing some pretty high humidity as well - very rare for So Cal.  My card room is the only room upstairs so when I get a chance to escape the craziness of the house for a while it is upstairs I go.  I am typing right now with sweat running down the back of my neck, despite a little breeze through the open window and the ceiling fan on full speed.

For the last several months, when I look down on my desk I have been seeing this:

 This is the wrapper from last year's Giants' AT&T Park card give away with a nice big Coca-Cola across the top.  What I wouldn't give for a nice cold beverage right now.  I decided I finally needed to get this post written so I can remove this tease from my desk.

As far as I can tell, the Giants started giving away team sets packaged like this in 2005 with Emerald Nuts being the sponsor.  In 2013 the sponsor shifted to Chevron and last year Coca-Cola joined the mix.  According to the list of AT&T Park promotions there isn't a card giveaway scheduled for this year which bums me out.  If you hear different please let me know.  The last 2-3 years I have bought a set right after the game and I have slowly been picking up the other team sets.  The 2010 set featuring a Buster Posey rookie was elusive for quite some time with the only sets on eBay having Buy It Now prices of $85-$100 which is too rich for my blood.  That may change in the not too distant future.

Here is the team set in numerical order.

The design on the front mirrors the 2014 Topps release.  The red Coca-Cola logo across the bottom right doesn't really detract from the photo, I kind of like it.  Outside of Joe Panik, who at the time of this set release wasn't even in the big leagues, Travis Ishikawa who was a late signing and Jake Peavy who was a later in the year trade acquisition, I think all the key players for the championship run are included in the set.  I flipped over the Joaquin Arias card to show the back (I am sick of looking at his photo - it bugs me) and as you can see only the card numbering differs from the Topps flagship release.  One thing that did throw me for a loop is the lack of a card #SF7.  At first I thought my sealed pack might have been missing a card but I can find no record of it anywhere.  So either this was part of the lame Mickey Mantle tribute, there was an error or someone got pulled late.

Regardless, I am very happy with this addition to my Giants collection.  Now off to get a cold drink!