2021 trade package #12: My Sports Obsession

It's been a while thanks to other stuff grabbing my attention, but I'm back this evening with a trade package that I'm posting the same day as the birthday of a player that trader and I both collect. Former Wolverines and Reds great and HOF SS Barry Larkin turned 57 today, and I wouldn't be surprised to see my fellow Larkin collector do a quick post about him tonight. That would be longtime buddy of the blog Jeff of My Sports Obsession, who sent me a well packaged little box a week or two ago.

As usual I was interested to see what he'd found for me since we're often swapping Michigan sports dupes back and forth, and rest assured you'll see some of those. There was a nice mix of my favorite MLB team, the Tigers, as well, though, as much as it must have pained Jeff to part with them.

Here's a look at all the cool stuff he sent me this time:

We'll kick things off tonight with a couple scans worth of vintage and vintage-adjacent (I'm never sure at what point to draw the line--1980? 1989?) Tigers. The '74 team checklist was a fun surprise, and I liked how Topps decided to go with the players' signatures up front, definitely a cool idea. I was just as geeked for the second-year card of star catcher Lance Parrish (1979), the oldest card I now own of him that isn't his multiplayer '78 Topps RC. LeFlore and Rozema ('80 Topps) are both native Michiganders who spent a few years as notable Tigers players. And Brookens was my favorite of the '81 Fleer bunch, though again the other guys are well known to Detroit fans, plus the checklist was new to me!

Continuing the run of Fleer, first we have a four-spot of '85s, led by Lemon, one of the starters on the '84 Wire-to-Wire winners. Kuntz's last MLB season was '85 so he got a ring himself, Monge pitched for both pennant-winners in '84 (but not in the playoffs), and Scherrer came over to the club from the Reds late in '84, but in plenty of time to make three appearances in the Series win over the Padres. Brumley played one season in Detroit while '89 (the year of the Fleer Update release that includes this pair) was Williams' last in the bigs.

Moving back to the present, or thereabouts, almost everything here was new to me. I'm surprised I didn't already have Opening Day starter Boyd's '19 Topps base, but Jeff checked it off the list so that's no problem. I believe just about all of the Miggy cards were new additions as well, including two of the three 2020 Update issues. Former Tiger Iggy is still in the league, but here he's overshadowed by a mini of Larkin's fellow HOF SS Alan Trammell, looking game ready in his retro Tigers digs.

Somehow there's still more Tigers cards to get to. Of the first six guys only Goodrum is still with the team, though Morgan's working his way through the minors in a system that doesn't really have any good prospects blocking him. The Heritage team card is cool, and Moya's 2015 Bowman Chrome Green Refractor auto (#d /99) was one of the biggest surprised of the package. The Puerto Rican OF never amounted to anything in the pros but I'll be damned if he doesn't have a sweet signature!

Now we'll take a quick look at the player collections Jeff hit. His namesake, a pitcher named Criswell, was a big part of Michigan's 2019 team that made it all the way to the finals of the College World Series. He was drafted by Oakland in the second round last year, and here he's pictured on a Panini USA Stars & Stripes base, my first card of his! Fife is also a former UM pitcher with just two mainstream cards to his name: the '74 Topps RC you see above and an OPC from the same year. Griffey's 2020 Archives base is a throwback to that very set. Birthday boy Larkin can be seen here on an '87 Classic Update Yellow/Green Backs card that I'd never seen before, plus '88 Score. And that's a sweet trio of 2004/05 cards of Maddux, probably my favorite pitcher of his era.

Cal is yet another player (and HOF SS) that Jeff and I have in common, so it's fun sending his cards back and forth. Panini's run with the Triple Play name produced some fairly boring cards, but that doesn't remotely apply to the base issue you see above noting the Iron Man's election to the Hall in 2007. While I'll probably make a bigger deal about it in a future post, now is as good a time as any to announce that Ripken recently became my first player collection to hit the 1000-card mark! My current TCDB count shows 1,010, which is a very cool milestone for me.

And how could anyone who trades with me not include something of the guy whose name is in the title of this here blog? Three many Verlanders is a nice way to close out the baseball section.

There's just a bit left to cover but it's an exciting quartet for me. I'm always glad to receive basketball stuff in trades because I'm so unlikely to buy it, so it was super nice of Jeff to include relics of THJ (with a huge swatch, numbered /325) and Mo Wagner, whose little bro may decide to join him in the NBA soon. Those are my eighth and second hits of each player, respectively.

And to close things out today we have a nice defensive football pair. Hudson (2020 SAGE HIT) was an excellent LB recruit who took over at the celebrated "viper" position in Michigan's defense after Jabrill Peppers left for the NFL, and he was very productive there, good enough to be drafted by Washington in the 5th round last year. It would appear that all of his available cards so far (fewer than 50) are from draft-oriented sets, and that's great for collectors like Jeff and me because we'll take all the Michigan uni cards we can get! In my case this is card #1 of Hudson, so hopefully I can add more soon.

And then we have a 2020 Prizm Draft auto of former Michigan DB David Long, a 2019 third round choice by the Rams who got a bit of play the past two seasons. His signature on this sticker is just a bit cramped, but at least you can easily make out the "D" and "L". This is somehow my fourth autograph of his, split evenly between pro and college uniforms. Naturally I love the action shot here of Long returning a pick along his team's sideline.

Jeff, thanks a lot for this surprise box that had a lot of great new stuff I needed (whether or not I knew that I did)! Odds are that I'll be making a return to my monthly show this weekend so there's a good chance I'll be able to start a new pile for you so I can return fire before much longer.