3/23/19 show report: show-pening day

It might have taken a bit longer than expected but the Tigers came away victorious on Opening Day in Toronto behind strong pitching from Jordan Zimmermann (of all people!) and the bat of young OF Christin Stewart.  The pitcher needed just 70 pitches to get through 7 innings while allowing just one hit (a tough grounder up the middle) to mar his stat sheet while the slugging LF bashed a no-doubt 2-run shot to right for the game's only runs.  In a season that will likely be light on wins it was a fun way to kick off the season!

Let's celebrate said occasions with some cards from the second show I made it to this month.  As I mentioned last time I headed up to Troy this past Saturday mainly to meet up with Paul of Scribbled Ink.  It was just the second time I'd been up there after having previously been around a year prior, and I had the same general lack of luck due to my overall dislike of the sellers' offerings and prices, but that's because I'm so picky and obviously prefer my guy in Taylor.

I still managed to dig up a few things for me (as well as trade bait) in spending $11.50:

• 4 $1 cards and 10 dimes from one seller for $5
• 6 cards from a 6/$5 box, 2 from a $0.50 box, and 20 $0.05 cards from the other for $6.50

You know the drill:  check out a few fun things I scored over on TMM and peep the rest right here:

These five of Griffey came from the dime box of the first seller I mentioned, a pretty reasonable guy who also sets up in Taylor.  I remarked to Paul that it was fun finding stuff like this for even less than the $0.18 minimum on Sportlots.  The quintet of 1998-99 cards is right in my wheelhouse and I was glad to officially hit the 800-card mark for Junior.

I can't remember which seller was responsible for the 2000 Topps Gwynn variation (my third) you see above, but I can definitely thank person #2--who I always skip at Taylor for a few reasons--for the '98 Topps Flashback insert pictured first.  Out of the 6/$5 came the last PC guy I needed from this fantastic chase set (back when Topps put effort into inserts) and he now happily joins Griffey and Ripken:

Maddux joined Griffey at the top of the heap this time with five new cards of his own.  #s 3 and 4 came from the cheapie boxes and represent 2018 Stadium Club and '96 Pinnacle Aficionado.  Meanwhile the other three were the rest of my personal take from the 6/$5 and can be described by one of the best phrases in collecting:  serial numbered inserts!

#1 is the super cool 1997 Donruss Armed and Dangerous (#1609/5000) and takes me all the way back to when I enjoyed breaking boxes of another excellent Donruss product.  The second is a League Leaders insert from the otherwise unnecessary 2002 Donruss Best of Fan Club (#047/300).  It's difficult to tell thanks to the reflective foil in the scan but this one notes his 17 wins in 2001, good for 5th in the NL.  Speaking of that stat, we complete the numbered Donruss-branded trio with 2004's Elite Career Best (#0963/1000), which highlights his 20 wins in 1993, which was the second year in a row he reached that mark--a feat he never repeated.

We'll finish up with the last of the cheapies.  Cal shows off the fun of Score's '94 Select product with two fun fielding shots paired up on the front.  And my best $0.05 might have been George Sisler's 2011 Topps Marquee base, which I can finally add to the numbered Blue and Copper parallels I own.

I'll be glad to get back to more familiar territory next month but am glad that I found a few things at this show I could enjoy, while meeting up with Paul and swapping cards in-person once more was definitely the highlight!