Sunday Fun: SpastikMooss: Master of Trade Bait

Come on, you didn't think I'd pass up a chance on that one, did you?

In all seriousness, Tim of the Great Sports Name Hall of Fame put on a unique event last weekend when he ran what was as far as I can tell the first ever trade bait draft.  In hopes of a cash infusion, he managed to convince six participants to pony up $10 each to get to pick 25 cards from his available trade bait.  Considering I was well aware of some of what he had to offer, I jumped at the chance.  Luckily, I landed the third pick, which meant I at least got a couple of the cards I wanted most (alas, I missed out on a couple Rich Hill jerseys, but I'm still happy with how I fared overall).  Here's a look at how I did:

2008 Upper Deck Heroes Navy Blue Autographs auto:  This was my #1 target and #1 pick (which would have been grabbed by Justin of Justin's World, I'm sure, otherwise (he got one of the remaining Hill relics; the other was grabbed by BA Benny, who apparently enjoys kicking puppies and hates freedom).  I'm trying to see how many of the nearly endless variations I can get after acquiring a good chunk of them from Tim, and this was another good step towards that.  The blue suits the card very well since it goes along with Rich's team colors.  It was a great start and I was very happy with it.

Wanting to get at the remaining autographs before they ran out, I grabbed this 2006 Bowman Scott Olsen autograph.  He's now with the Nats and hasn't looked terrible effective, but I thought it would make good future trade bait for me, and an autograph is an autograph, plus all the other hits I wanted were gone at that point.  In fact, that was the last auto/relic I'd end up with, and despite my 3rd overall pick I finished with fewer "hits" than everyone else.  However, I still had another card on my radar that I hoped nobody would grab:

This 1967 Topps Bill Freehan.  Tim had all of his non-hits listed pretty much by set and number but not player, but they were helpfully sorted by team and I was able to deduce that this one was a Freehan I very much wanted, which should now be pretty much my oldest Tigers card (beating my '68 Kaline by a year) to the best of my knowledge.  It's at least my best old Tigers card anyway, and should help get me working on collecting the former Wolverine/Tiger.  <segue>Speaking of former Tigers</segue>

throughout the draft I pretty much focused on getting Detroit stuff for me.  Towards the end when I ran out of obvious choices Tim helpfully picked out some great stuff, such as the Black Gold Tettleton, some older Detroit players, and a trio of Rusty Kuntzes he was liquidating (and that sentence is about as dirty as the start of this post).  One last Tigers card made it into the bunch along with some other great stuff:

That's right, some multi-player rookie cards!  It's nice to recognize some of these guys too, such as manager Bruce Bochy.  There's also a '71 Athletics dual RC in there, which is pretty cool.  I also nabbed a Barry Larkin for the old Michigan PC, and Tim grabbed me a couple older Topps cards toward the end when I was out of ideas.  Lastly, I ended up with some other nice stuff:

In this group you'll find a RC of Alex Gordon, a great Frank Robinson insert, a WBC Refractor, a Yo Mama of Ryno (non-Original Back) and a couple later round steals:  a Finest Anquan Boldin RC and BowChro Marques Colston RC.

So overall I was very happy despite finishing with "just" two autographs--I still landed the card I wanted the most (the Hill) plus another that was tops on my list (the Freehan) PLUS a lot of other great stuff.  I have the Olson available for trade, plus likely more of this stuff, and others will stay in my collection.  Long story short, I can easily say I got my money's worth, and Tim's well within his rights to charge more next time.  As a reminder, check out the full results here, and more importantly, keep an eye out for his next draft, because you won't want to miss out--it was definitely a major event and everyone had fun with it, even those that were just watching.  I should mention that I've had preliminary discussions with Tim about co-sponsoring a similar draft to expedite getting another one going, so keep an eye out for that, especially once I'm able to reload on trade bait items myself.

Big thanks again to Tim and everyone else that participated!