2024 Facebook purchase: the Champs Feel a Draft

In case I haven't mentioned it lately, the Michigan Wolverines football team won the 2023 NCAA Championship. Yep, they did that! 15-0 including beating Ohio State for the third year in a row, taking the Big Ten Conference crown (ditto), triumphing over Alabama in an instant Rose Bowl classic, and finally suffocating Washington to put the icing on the cake.

I knew I planned to celebrate by buying various memorabilia to help me enjoy what's sure to be a once-in-a-lifetime type of team, and one of those purchases came about a week after the last of the confetti fell in Houston.

A Facebook Marketplace seller had listed complete 110-card sets of the NIL-funding 2023 Valiant Michigan Wolverines base cards, and while I skipped last year's due to the cost, I knew I wanted one from this past season. He was asking $175 each, and I talked him down to $150 each for two of them by meeting up with him and paying cash--one for me, and one for Jeff, naturally.

It worked out nicely for both the seller and me, despite being an absolutely skin-burningly freezing day where I was bouncing all over frozen drifts of snow. The guy had clearly bought a lot of packs and was making money back selling sets while compiling the autographs and other cool stuff.

I got back home, built the checklist, uploaded it to TCDb, and then got to work scanning the fronts and backs of all 110 cards. And now that I'm catching up from January, I thought today, the last day of the 2024 draft, would be a great day to recap them a bit.

Don't worry, I won't show off all 110 cards; You can head here to see the whole thing if you feel like it. But I am going to do a quick run through of the guys in the set who got drafted this year, the players still available as UDFAs, and a few stars that are sticking around for at least one more season.

First, here's a look at a typical front and back courtesy of scary returning DL Kenneth Grant. You've got white borders on two edges, black accents, number/player/position info inside maize and blue sections, and part of that iconic winged helmet up front. The photos of college action look great, and in a corner you can see the logo of Valiant, the marketing company that funnels money from purchases of these and other items to the players.

The back offers a different helmet, more of the same name/number/position data, a bit of biographic info, and notes from their Michigan and high school careers. These cards are unnumbered and I sorted them alphabetically by last name.

On to the draftees:

J.J. McCarthy (QB): 10th overall (first round), Minnesota Vikings

A few players got two cards and it's no surprise that the former five-star that promised to get the team back to the playoff and win it all is one of them. He'll take his athleticism and zen mindset to Minnesota to eventually replace absolute chud Kirk Cousins.

Kris Jenkins (DT): 49th overall (second round), Cincinnati Bengals

Jenkins was part of a defense that consistently stifled opponents, and he finished with career highs in TFL (4.5) and sacks (2.5) while also tacking on a fat guy interception.

Mike Sainristil (CB): 50th overall (second round), Washington Commanders

The converted WR who made the play of The Game against OSU in '21, Mikey is the embodiment of this team and played with zero selfishness after a positional switch. He made big plays and got to wear the Turnover Buffs very often. He'll be a football coach and/or US president when all is said and done.

Junior Colson (LB): 69th overall (round 3), Los Angeles Chargers

Colson is another bigger name guy that gets two cards here. He didn't put up gaudy numbers but was ultimately reliable in his three college seasons. His reaction to former college coach and new NFL boss Jim Harbaugh "choosing him again" was heartwarming.

Blake Corum (RB): 83rd overall (round 3), Los Angeles Rams

What else can you say about "Blake the Great?" The RB with tree trunks for legs isn't a speed burner but he was almost automatic at moving the chains and getting into the end zone from 10 yards out or less. The program TD leader leaves a legacy of big plays in big moments.

Roman Wilson (WR): 84th overall (round 3), Pittsburgh Steelers

The Hawaiian WR more than earned his #1 jersey by becoming a favorite target of McCarthy, finishing with 48 receptions, 12 of which were scores. His TD catch against a Nebraska player's helmet will be a highlight for years, but no play was bigger than the rising catch he made in comeback mode against Alabama in the Rose Bowl.

Zak Zinter (OG): 85th overall (round 3), Cleveland Browns

Zinter was a huge piece of the interior of an O-line that protected McCarthy and run-blocked for Corum and the other running backs, so when he went down with a broken leg in the OSU game, the team could have folded. Instead, Blake Corum scored a TD for "6-5" on the very next play, and the team finished their job without missing a beat.

A.J. Barner (TE): 121st overall (round 4), Seattle Seahawks

The Indiana transfer made the best decision of his life heading northeast to Ann Arbor for the '23 season. Though his numbers don't stand out, he appeared in all 15 games and got himself drafted after proving himself to be a solid TE2.

Trevor Keegan (OG): 172nd overall (round 5), Philadelphia Eagles

Another absolute monster that fits the stereotype of offensive linemen, he'll likely be a fan favorite on a team that just saw Jason Kelce retire.

Michael Barrett (LB): 240th overall (round 7), Carolina Panthers

Michael Barrett is a guy who'd been around since the 2019 season, meaning he saw the lows of the goofy 2020 COVID campaign and still stuck around through everything. His reward: glory and lots of hardware.

(No card) LaDarius Henderson (OT): 249th overall (round 7), Houston Texans

The Arizona State transfer tackle doesn't appear in this set, but he did a sold job at that position despite not being a star. Very cool that he gets to hang out with fellow Wolverine Nico Collins and troll his QB about winning The Game.

Jaylen Harrell (EDGE): 252nd overall (round 7), Tennessee Titans

I believe Harrell had another year of eligibility left but obviously opted to forgo that, and there's nothing wrong with going out on top. He improved on a pretty nice '22 season--7.5 TFL and 3.5 sacks, with 9.0 and 6.5, respectively, along with a pair of forced fumbles.

Cornelius Johnson (WR): 253rd overall (seventh round), Los Angeles Chargers

While Michigan didn't break the record of 15 players drafted, CJ's former/new coach Harbaugh made him #13, a program record. He scored just one TD on 47 receptions in a run-heavy offense that tended to favor Roman Wilson and the TEs, but he was often reliable with an occasional drop. The replays of him torching OSU DBs for long catch-and-run TDs will forever be burned in my brain.

A few ex-Wolverines who were also drafted:

• Xavier Worthy (WR), #28, Chiefs: he doesn't really count but was a one-time commit who couldn't enroll due to some of the usual admissions ridiculousness that tends to happen around here. I'm happy that he went on to have a great career at Texas that earned him a first-round selection
• Erick All (TE), #115 (4th round), Bengals: a very talented TE, All will forever be remembered for a game winning catch-and-run score against Penn State in '21. Injuries shortened his '22 season and then he transferred to Iowa, only to have his season cut short there. It's nice to see him get a chance in the league.
• Joe Milton (QB), #193 (6th round), Patriots: a QB that could amaze you and baffle you on consecutive plays, Milton opened the 2020 season with a bang, then lost his job to Cade McNamara. He could throw the ball the length of the field and sometimes even within a few yards of one of his teammates. He put up 20 TDs through the air and another seven on the ground in his third and final season with Tennessee, and reportedly isn't interested in a position switch. We'll see how that works out.

The following players, most of whom were in the set, are now undrafted free agents:

Karsen Barnhart (OG)

I'm a bit surprised the Paw Paw native didn't get drafted, but at least the team valued his versatility in Ann Arbor, where he played all along the OL except for center.

Trente Jones (OL)

Jones is one of a number of guys who could have come back, and in his case he very likely would have been able to put more on film after being a swing lineman, filling in ably as needed and working well in jumbo sets.

Braiden McGregor (EDGE)

I believe McGregor is another guy that could have stuck around for one more season. He put up career highs with 9.0 TFL and 4.5 sacks along with a forced fumble, and he made some important plays, though didn't pop up as much as some of the team's bigger stars.

(No card) Drake Nugent (C)

A transfer from conference foe Nebraska, Nugent came in and handled the center position well. I guess some of the transfers just didn't make it in time to be part of the set for whatever reason.

(No card) Josh Wallace (CB)

Wallace transferred in from UMass as a grad student and quietly had a pretty solid season that ended with some excellent plays in the two playoff games.

Two other former players who transferred also went undrafted (and weren't part of this set):

1. Eyabi Okie-Anoma (EDGE): a bit of a nomad, he suited up for Alabama in 2018, Michigan in 2022, and Charlotte last year.
2. Taylor Upshaw (DE): Upshaw was a Wolverine from 2019-2022 then headed to Arizona for his final season. He finished with 8.5 sacks but missed out on winning a title.

Finally, here's a few returning stars from the set who we'll get to see in 2024:

Donovan Edwards (RB)

Mason Graham (DL)

Will Johnson (CB)

Colston Loveland (TE)

Semaj Morgan (WR)

Alex Orji (QB)

That takes care of the 2024 draft for now, at least until I can start buying up and trading for cards of some of the above players. I'll be back with more posts soon but until then, as always, GO BLUE!

1/6 and 1/20/24 card show reports: 2 shows 2 start 2024

That's right, it's show time once again! For this post we're traveling all the way back to the beginning of 2024 when I made it over to my first show of the year in Taylor, before heading to my second just two weeks later.

We'll get to that one in a bit, but first here's a quick recap of my usual monthly show.

Somewhat unusually I headed east to Taylor on the first Saturday of the month instead of Friday, I think because I didn't feel like taking that Friday off. Michigan had just earned a thrilling OT win against Alabama in the Rose Bowl a few days earlier and I was just biding my time until the following Monday's matchup with Washington, not realizing what was in store for my Wolverines.

While I was at the show I spent a pretty reasonable $70, and if you'd like me to break that down further I'm afraid I can't because it was literally almost four months ago now. Suffice to say I dug through my usual favorite boxes and was pretty happy with the results.

First up: a tiny amount of trade bait, I believe from the $1 and $2 boxes:

Reed is /500; Michael is #105/105(!); Durham is #03/10.

Claim 'em if you wanna trade for 'em!

Next up we have my keepers:

This is a great scan buoyed by some "90s inserts rule!" goodness. Junior is from an awesome '96 Stadium Club insert called Mega Heroes and the card has an excellent comic book vibe. Grandy's from an insert Donruss did much better under its original name than the Panini version: Career Stat Line. He had 1564 hits (before finishing with exactly 1800) but Panini numbered the card /500. Henry is a Michigan guy, nuff said. I don't remember if I paid $2 or $5 for Mad Dog's '97 Ultra Baseball Rules insert but I don't care because it's a sick die-cut chase card anyway. Mize has been solid in his return to the mound this year. Then Maddux is back with a numbered card (/799) from 2008 UD a Piece of History, and Pudge gets some love for winning the NLCS (and eventually the World Series) in '03 with the Marlins.

The basketball content is exactly one card: a '17-'18 Donruss Optic of ex-Wolverine and 2017 Bucks first-rounder D.J. Wilson, featuring that Rated Rookie logo that I can help preferring over Topps' rookie cup (it's ok, unfollow me if you have to!). Griese is a '99 Score Anniversary parallel numbered /1989 on the back while former teammate and GOAT DB Charles Woodson hails from '22 Classics' Premium Edition.

In terms of hits, the first is a SAGE HIT, oddly enough, starring former Michigan OL Ben Bredeson. A fairly successful lineman out of Wisconsin (maybe their top export?), he parlayed solid performance late in the 2010s into a 4th round draft choice by the Ravens in 2020. Since then he's suited up for the Giants and signed with Tampa. His only cardboard appearances are from SAGE brands but I'm happy to welcome him to the collection with a signature.

And lastly, I think I've had more luck buying Devin Funchess hits at this show than anywhere else, though I have no idea why. Anyway, I came home with the 2015 Certified and Crown Royale jersey/auto/RCs and a relatively low numbered sticker auto for just a few bucks each and was happy to do so. The trio pushed him up to 28 hits and 12 of those include a signature, so that number's growing nicely.

Two weeks later I was excited to be heading about an hour and a half west to Kalamazoo for an awesome meetup opportunity. Not only did I have the chance to see Jeff and his cousin Sluggo who were all set up again as sellers, and not only did John make the quick trip down from nearby Portage--a combo that's happened on a few fun occasions--but my buddy Jason a.k.a. jasongerman9 from TCDb, who lives an hour-ish away in Niles, stopped by as well with his girlfriend Sam. The two hung out at the show for a bit before taking in the hockey game at the Wings Event Center where the show was, and it was awesome to finally meet them in person.

Here's a quick look at all of us:

Me, Kevin, Jason (kickass t-shirt!), Jeff (kickass jersey that I got from Jason!), John, and Sam.

I had a blast hanging out with these folks and picking out some stuff for some of my favorite traders (a few of which were at this very show with me!). Between trading Kevin a few cards he could use and the very generous discount he gave me I spent $25 at his tables, all of it for trade bait (including some Red Sox for Boston/Alabama fan Sam!). I love in-person meetups like this and you just can't beat talking cards with friends for an hour or two.

So yeah, I'd say I started the year with two very successful shows. Thanks again to all the folks that made it to Kalamazoo, and I'm hoping to see some or all of the same friends in just a few weeks if we can all make it back there!

2024 trade package #2: Scribbled Ink

My next trade package from January arrived courtesy of another longtime buddy of the blog, Paul, who can be found on Twitter now that he no longer blogs as Scribbled Ink. This one was just full of surprises and, well, just check it out:

It wasn't long after Christmas that the envelope showed up in my mailbox so I'd say the little Tigers helmet was still appropriate for the season. It looks great and has a perfect little olde English "D," and I may decorate a small tree late this year with all my sports-related ornaments.

Paul also included an unopened 2023 team set of his local minor league team, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. The sets you can get starring these teams are very cool, period, and I'm always glad to add more whether I've seen the team or know any players on them. This set includes last year's roster of AA players working their way up Toronto's system and the subject I'm most familiar with is a favorite of Paul and his son, Orelvis Martinez. The slugging Dominican infielder popped 28 HR in his first full minor league season, 2021, then added 30 and 28 more the two subsequent seasons, working his way up to AAA Buffalo. He's a top 100 prospect and I hope his fans get to enjoy his Major League debut soon!

The MLB stuff starts with some '96 Topps Tigers, and the less said about the teams back then, the better, though the players seen here are of higher quality than the average guy on those 90s squads. Cronenworth's start to the '24 campaign gets Gold Stars from me in addition to Topps. That Griffey Topps insert is deceiving because it's actually a green version and numbered /299! And a couple late 90s Cals lead into just a few more in the next scan.

Seven's just a few, right? The couple recent Topps and Donruss parallels are great--orange really goes well with Baltimore's unis, of course--but those 90s cards are outstanding. 1997's design is one of my all-time favorites from Topps, and Chrome makes it look even better, plus the photo they went with on this one is easily a top-10 Ripken for me. The horizontal Zenith is simply a work of art depicting the HOFer at bat. And the others are excellent too!

Paul even managed to sneak a Verlander (just one!) into this package, a Rainbow Foil from last year's Topps flagship product and one of a small number I own that show him with the Mets.

And last up for baseball, Paul was nice enough to snag one of the last two 1997 Score Hobby Reserve base cards I needed to re-complete my set. It's been a few years since I discovered that while most of my complete set included cards with the "HRxx" numbering on the back, a handful of the cards were the wrong version lacking numbering like that. I chipped away at the set until I got down to just two cards: the Nagy that he picked up and shipped to me, and the Andruw Jones Goin' Yard subset card you see above, which I bought myself on Sportlots last year. So, once again for the first time, I'm the proud owner of the full 1997 Score Private Stock/Hobby Reserve base set. w00t!

And we'll end on a strong note with some football and hockey. The latter is made up of a pair of UD All-Star related cards from the early 90s starring a couple Wings favorites from the team's 90s/2000s dynasty, Fedorov and Yzerman.

And the second football item is quite nice: a triple jersey of former UM QB and current (for now, given his arrest earlier today for OWI) staffer Denard Robinson, my 57th of Shoelace.

But SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP, what is that leading off this scan? Are you kidding me, Paul? An Aidan Hutchinson printing plate AUTOGRAPH?

Yep, sure is! That's an unexpected late Christmas gift if I've ever seen one, and a very, very, VERY generous one at that! Hutch could be found in Leaf's 2022 Ultimate Draft football product and this plate, which is indeed signed, was used to create Aidan's autographs found therein.

This is just my third Hutchinson hit and somehow all three include his signature, but it's going to be extremely difficult to top a signed 1/1.

Paul, sorry for the super belated post but thank you again for the incredible stuff above, truly a great mix that lives up to your reputation for sending a good variety every time. I don't have anything remotely close to the quality of some of this but will be able to hit you back relatively soon, which I can hopefully do now that the shock of the contents of this package has worn off!

This post wraps up January's blogger trades so next I'll either move on to one from the following month or recap some shows or something. We'll see relatively soon.

2024 trade package #1: My Sports Obsession

Ok, I'm finally caught up on 2023 so let's look at new cards that joined my collections in 2024. To begin with, we'll go with a trade package I received way back in early January. Jeff of My Sports Obsession hit my mailbox with this mailer not too long before we met up in Kalamazoo for a show he and his cousin were doing (details in a future post). It was stuffed with Tigers, some of my favorite bigger PCs, a few Wolverines, and more!

Here's what trade package #1 of 2024 contained for me:

Baddoo started out hot and has actually had what I'd call above-average success for a rule 5 pick, put right now he's playing for a pretty stacked AAA squad in Toledo. Jeff also really boosted my collection of el Mago, and even cooler, everything has him in a Tigers uniform. His tenure in Detroit has been less than ideal and we'll find out eventually if he's one of the guys that gets booted out of my Tigers box, but for now, I appreciate the thought while I wait to see if he can still bring anything to the team.

I wasn't joking about the Baez boost! I also really appreciate the trio of chrome-y Cabreras. As a reminder, the Tigers legend played 16 of his 21 MLB seasons in Motown, so this is the first year since 2007 that fans won't see him at the plate wearing the olde English "D." Switching teams (and fandoms, over to Michigan), Cronenworth is a guy both Jeff and I collect, and I love having more than 100 cards of the St. Clair, Michigan product. After scuffling a bit last season he's had a pretty decent start for the Padres in '24, and I hope he can get his numbers back up to their All-Star levels of '21 and '22.

Speaking of scuffling a bit, Greene's bat could use a wake-up call, but he's far from the only Tiger you could say that about right now. At least he's still out there making highlight reel plays in left, and I know his bat will warm up as we (eventually) say goodbye to the snow. Jeff also treated me to some cool items of the first two guys in my big PC quartet, Griffey and Gwynn. Ginter and Topps Chrome Platinum pop up quite a bit in this post and I'm guessing he was generously thinking of me while sorting through card shop boxes as he does.

After a couple more Gwynn items we go back to a Wolverine in Hill. I can't tell you how many copies of that card I've received through blogger and TCDb trades but it's up there! Kaline and Kell are forever linked in my mind as Tigers legends and broadcasters so it's only natural they get paired up here. Another common collection for Jeff and me is Larkin, who also gets the multi-Chrome treatment on a cool pair. Maddux is the third of the "big four" PC guys and there's even more of him in the next scan! He also appears on a TCP card here and another in the next scan, plus one of the others below depicts him as a youngster with the Cubs.

Right down the middle here we have a cool present/near-ish past/distant past trio of Tigers pitchers. Mize looked a bit rusty in his first MLB game since '22, but the Tigers picked him up against the hapless Mets. Morris and Newhouser are both here courtesy of, yep, TCP! I don't know if Mize will join them in the Hall but he's one of a few talented hurlers the Tigers employ who could get there someday. I believe Cal is our final shared baseball PC guy of the post and was happy to see the fourth of the "big four" as I always am. And how about one more TCP for the road, Ted "Simba" Simmons? He's another ex-Wolverine for whom I've piled up 100+ cards since I started collecting him.

The baseball portion closes out with five many Verlanders, whose PC count continues to climb thanks to trades like this one. The Finest Throwbacks card is interesting to me because I'm such a fan of the '96 set it's honoring, though the border color is all wrong for bronze or gold. Either way, it's fun to get more cards of him as a Met considering his 16 game tenure with them last year, not unlike Mike Piazza's famous five games with the '98 Marlins before being flipped to, oddly enough, the Mets!

Flipping over to football, it's taken me a while to get my first UM or NFL card of transfer RB Zach Charbonnet (I just got one at a show this past weekend), but I'm hold onto others folks send me all the same, just not counting them towards his collection. Heisman winner Desmond Howard cleaned up nicely for a Classic Four Sport issue. And I love that two of the three cards Jeff sent me of recent star Aidan Hutchinson are college issues.

Nothing wrong with seeing him as a Lion since he's been a huge part of their turnaround, but you all know where my loyalties lie! And I continue to enjoy seeing past stars like Law, Toomer, and Woodson in more recent products like Mosaic, Prestige, and Select. Hutch, Law, and Toomer all played on teams just a year or two away from national titles but of course GOAT DB Charles Woodson won it all in '97, just like this past season's squad (if I hadn't mentioned it).

Jeff, thanks for such a great envelope to start the year! I have a pretty nice stack of stuff for you and will likely just hold onto it for now because if the likelihood that I'll see you at another show in just over a month.

I believe my next few posts will continue to be trade recaps but may also mix show summaries and other stuff in there if I feel like it. Lots more to come!

2023 COMC purchases: check out my last post for 2023

That's right, this post will finally wrap up 2023 for me. At least it only took a third of 2024 to get there!

I'm going to take a quick run through the cards I picked up for myself so I can get ready to finally get started with 2024 stuff. Here's what I scored this time around the Black Friday weekend:

90s inserts rule! Three numbered Gwynns? Don't mind if I do! The first is "limited" to 3000 copies and you'll see the back in a bit. The other two had just 5000 copies made of each. As a reminder, that seems pretty high these days, but these were still pretty rare back then, way before today's era of "absolutely garbage boring insert or one of 200 parallels."

Tigers PCs Dean-o and Phillips each get a tougher parallel for their collections, and I splurged a little for the UD Amazing Greats Ripken, a definite top 10 insert for me since I pulled my first one way back then.

One insert I went all-in on was '97 Pinnacle Inside's Dueling Dugouts. You've seen at least one of these here, but basically the double-sided cards feature two players with a wheel you can spin that will show those players' stats in a given year. These four of some of my favorite player collection guys leave me short just Griffey's card (shared with Andruw Jones) in terms of what I want to collect.

And here's a few backs for you. Gwynn's paired up with the solid Brian Jordan. The other three are guys I really don't care for: Jeter (Ripken), Clemens (Maddux), and A-Rod (Ripken). One-time Pirates prospect Jose Guillen was on the flip side of Gwynn's "Great X-Pectations" insert, and the back of Cal's Amazing Greats (a fun pun of a title to go along with an elite design) is also worth a look.

They don't make 'em like they used to but there's still so much 90s greatness to chase that I may never have to worry about the absolute nosedive inserts took after the 2000s.

And now it's time for the (mostly) hits! I don't count manurelics as I consider those inserts for the purposes of my collection, but they're still fun to pick up on the cheap. My second Blomgren auto is another Michigan uni special and it's die-cut too. Brewer joins the hits collection with his first auto. I now have five signatures of Criswell after picking up a cheapie Heritage Minors auto. How could I pass up a large Granderson swatch? Framed Ginter cards still look miles better than the regular ones, and the signed cards are even better, so I scored my fifth sig of pitcher Tommy Henry. Kauffmann also gets his fifth auto on a great looking Elite Extra card. Larkin's manurelic is a reminder that he was a nine-time Silver Slugger as a SS, and that bat relic is pretty cool too.

No, I'm not going all-in on Rogers as Detroit's catcher of the future, but including the last card in the previous scan, I found three signatures of his that I really liked: Diamond Kings with a couple of swatches plus the top-notch Stadium Club design and the Chrome version. Stewart is also a newbie to the Michigan PC, a rare Michigan State-to-Michigan (grad) transfer drafted by the Angels in the 9th round in 2022

One of my two basketball pickups, which unfortunately didn't scan well, is my first autograph of "Sauce Castillo" himself, Nik Stauskas. While I owned 10 hits including a crazy five plates of the ex-Wolverine, I hadn't scored a signature until now.

And now it's time to talk about football stuff I picked up before the team beat Alabama and Washington to become National Champions. Anthony transferred to Oklahoma for the 2023 season but spent 2021 and '22 in Ann Arbor, highlighted by a six-catch, 155/2 TD performance against his hometown Spartans in the suspect '21 loss. The Darboh is my 49th hit, all but 15 of which are signed, but I wasn't passing up a cheap one! Eubanks was a fun TE who bounced around the NFL the past few years after going undrafted. Kinnel played DB from 2015-18 and appears to be out of the league now. LB Cam McGrone played in 2019 and '20 for Michigan and was drafted by the Pats, though so far he's only appeared in NFL games with the Colts.

Cade was the guy that somewhat rescued Michigan during that weird/hapless 2020 season, bringing the team back from the brink of a terrible loss to Rutgers. He transferred to Iowa and said some stupid stuff, and there are rumors he gave successor at QB JJ McCarthy the could shoulder while they were teammates, but he was a key part of the 2021 Big Ten champs who defeated Ohio State, so I'm happy to have him in my collection. Nordin was a huge big-legged kicking prospect and Jim Harbaugh famously slept over at his house during his recruitment. He could be as inconsistent as any other kicker, booming some and missing easy ones, and he kind of had a Rickey Vaughn vibe. I thought the multi-piece Toomer jersey looked badass even if I don't really have any love for the Giants these days. And I finally scored a certified auto of Vaughn, the RB/FB who bravely spoke out about the sexual assault he and many of his teammates suffered at the hands of team doctor Robert Anderson. I continue to commend his courage in coming forward despite his trauma to make people aware of this monster's horrible acts and how the athletic department did nothing.

Last up in this scan is a lone hockey player joining the collection, center Cooper Marody. A native of nearby Brighton, the three year Michigan icer was drafted by the Flyers in 2015 and got a couple very small cups of coffee with Edmonton, though he's mostly toiled in the AHL since leaving school.

And last up we have the horizontals. Like I said, if they're cheap enough, I'll pick up the occasional manurelic like the Larkin above. Mo Taylor is the other new basketball auto I added this time and it's from back when those cards could look really cool (no surprise it's from Bowman's Best). I don't know if two counts as this kind of volume, but I scored more bunches of Funchess in the form of a jersey auto and sick five-piece relic card. Those put him at the 25-card mark, so, not bad! My third hit of Buckeye-destroyer Hassan Haskins is a cool patch (or prime jersey) auto. And last up, I believe the last card I added before shipping everything was one of the best looking Jake Longs in his (currently) 97-card collection of hits: a true patch/auto.

And with these I'll call it a year on 2023. As always I had a blast trading with so many people, getting out to shows, buying elsewhere where I could, and sharing stuff for those of you who are nice enough to follow me here.

I'll also take a brief moment to celebrate a big milestone I hit at some point last year even with some reshuffling of categories: 2500 Michigan sports hits! My official count appears to stand at 2570 and includes

• 38 baseball subjects
• 32 from basketball
• 248 representing football
• 61 hockey folks
• 4 from other sports

You might be able to tell from how I described my haul above that I put more effort into guys I'm missing in my hits collection with a special focus on trying to get at least one certified autograph of as many as I can. Once again, thank you to all who've contributed to this chase, one I'll be happy to continue for however long I keep collecting, which I expect to be a long time!

I'll try to be back soon to get started on 2024, for which I believe I already have something like four blogger trades received (and a bunch from TCDb too), a few shows, one eBay purchase, and two cool Facebook Marketplace buys. Thanks to those who've stuck around while I've dragged my feet on posting, and I hope to be back with more soon to keep everyone interested.