2019 Sportlots purchases: twelve for Tuesday

As I keep rolling along on these Sportlots posts I'm back today with one of the bigger ones you'll see in this latest series, covering all of the Michigan Baseball guys whose cards I nabbed this time.  Scanning/editing/captioning/cataloging/uploading everything took me a while, which is why I haven't posted in a couple days, and I'm really starting to lean closer to transitioning to use TCDB both for cataloging/checklisting and scans.  I've been meaning to overhaul my collection links here anyway, so maybe I'll put in some effort before the end of the year to make things easier on myself.

In the meantime, here's a fun deluge of new cards!

#1 today--and in pretty much any post where he features--is Jim Abbott.  I'm pretty happy with the mix I found here, opening with a Starting Lineup card, mixing in some inserts, and going a bit oddball with a Topps/Coke Commanders of the Hill card from '93 plus '94 Fleer Extra bases.  The bottom-left card represents the last of Jim's '94 Score issues I needed--the Gold Rush parallel of his highlights subset appearance in the base set, the one that honors his amazing no-hitter.

Also among pitchers getting in on the action today is #1 PC dude Rich Hill.  For fun I added his base card from the goofy 2017 Honus Bonus product, then knocked seven cards off his checklist.  The one outlier is a Upper Deck Rookie Foil Silver (#250/399) parallel while the rest hail from Topps products made in 2017-19.  In that pile you'll find two each of Limited Edition versions, All-Star Game-stamped cards, and ("On-Demand") Minis I needed.  I'm slowly marching toward hitting 300 of his checklist cards I'm chasing and am at around 63% of his total at the moment.  Here's hoping the free agent lefty finds a nice home with a legit contender (e.g. one that won't waste his talent) over the off-season!

For a relatively underappreciated HOFer, Barry Larkin's prices often tend toward those belonging to bigger stars, so I'm always glad when I can add quality stuff like this on the cheap.  Up top I have a couple early/mid-90s inserts along with a great double-dip from UD's 1995 Special Edition product.  You know I love me some Fleer/Sports Illustrated mashups like the one you see here from '97.  The trio of '98 Topps Stars cards--base, Bronze, and Silver--were cheaper than I expected considering they're all numbered.  So were the two '99 Flair Showcase cards that end this scan, and what a beautiful product that was!  The hobby is worse off without manufacturers like Fleer.

Here's a couple more Larkins that get their own scan.  I may be in the minority but I absolutely love 2001 Topps Fusion as it combines three of the best iterations Bowman's Best, Gallery (seen here), and Stadium Club, in those products' entire runs.  And I couldn't resist another UM uniform card, in this case the second of a pair of his variations from 2017 Contenders Draft.  I've now completed his runs of base cards in both products seen here.

Almost everyone else here is a supercollection of mine, including new Royals manager Mike Matheny.  TCDB helped me realize that the first card seen here, a checklist from '94 Ultra (which also includes Mike's RC) existed since Beckett ignores the player depicted.  Score another one for that excellent site!  The other four needs were from 2002 Topps Chrome and UD Victory, '04 Topps Total Silver, and '05 Bowman Heritage Mahogany.  A nice five-card day gives me exactly 100 of the 218 cards of him I'm currently chasing, with more possible now that he's managing again!

When it came to one William Harold Morris it was a tale of low end and high, with pretty much nothing in-between.  I knocked off his '93 Pacific Spanish base along with both Topps Inaugural factory set cards honoring the Marlins and Rockies that year, and Stadium Club Members Only parallels from '95 and '96.  After those I upped the ante with '97 Flair Showcase (Row 2) and asking price with a '97 Bowman Chrome International Refractor and 1999 Pacific Prism Holographic Purple (#215/320).  That effort paid off as I hit the 75% mark of his checklist on the nose with 270/360!

Here's one of three new PC guys you'll meet today.  Ray Ricken is another one of those guys whose name was unfamiliar to me, but thankfully he came up as I searched through TCDB for Wolverines I was missing.  The Yanks took him in the 5th round in '94, and he bounced between minor league levels with them as well as the Padres before ending his career in indy ball in 2002.  The pitcher appears on cards from '94 Stadium Club Draft Picks, '96 and '97 Bowman, and '96 Topps--the one base I already had.  The above haul got me to six of his 11 issues, plus I added a couple minors cards from Best and Fleer/Excel.  Three autographs from '97 Bowman will make him a bit difficult to chase, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

Hey, it's Spuds!  Here you can see I tracked down seven needs from Sabo's checklist plus a fun oddball--one of his 1990 Starting Lineup cards variations.  I also knocked off an early need in his '88 Topps Traded Tiffany, grabbed yet another appearance from '94 Fleer Extra Bases (I think this is the last one), and came up with a 2014 Topps Update World Series Heroes insert.  Hey, the dude went off in the '90 World Series!  To those I got a nice little 1993 run:  Pacific Spanish and Pinnacle (not sure how I didn't have that already) plus, like Morris above, the Topps Inaugural Marlins/Rockies cards.  And I almost matched the feat I did for Hal, getting Sabo to about 74%.  That's lots of Reds cardboard!

I bunched these four guys together because they formed a perfect nine card scan, and the first two players are today's other n00bs, players that also came up in my TCDB search.  Russ Brock was a pitcher drafted by Oakland in the second round in '91 while Flannelly, a 3B, was yet another Wolverine picked by the Yankees, in the third round the same year.  Neither made it to the pros but both were included in the '92 Stadium Club Dome set, which featured some of the same goofy photography of prospects found in that year's Bowman product.  Those are their only mainstream issues but each has some minors cards I might chase, like Brock's '93-'94 Fleer Excel card above.

For the sake of brevity I can also lump Putnam and Richard together.  As with Rich Hill, I found some recent Topps flagship versions of them I needed.  Zach's cards are the 2017 All-Star Game and Limited factory set versions while Clayton's hail from 2018 (All-Star Game and Gold /2018) and 2019 (base and All-Star Game).

We'll end this post with a HOFer in George Sisler, who's nearing the century mark.  I landed a second card of him but found out it was a dupe after it arrived, so for Gorgeous George it'll just be this 2011 GQ Framed Green parallel of his first of two cards in the base set.  In case you're curious, I have both of those base cards--the other depicts him with the Braves--plus three versions of card #2 including, nicely enough, the same green parallel.  Hopefully soon I can go on a nice little Sisler spree and cross the 100-card mark.

Next time I post you can probably look forward to something shorter with fewer items to gawk at.