2020 trade package #3: Chronicles of Fuji

I count myself among the people lucky enough to trade with Fuji and I'm always glad to hear when he's sending something my way since I know it'll be great.  That was mostly definitely the case when Mark played Santa last month and sent out a fleet of envelopes all over the country.  Even with my expectations high Fuji's generosity always manages to surprise me.  Check out this latest mailer:

Make no mistake, this package was a hit parade, and this isn't even half of it!  We'll start with Michigan pitching great Jim Abbott on a signature from UD's Goodwin champions.  As usual with the brand the artwork is suspect but the auto is top notch!  Then there's a whole mess of Tigers.  The first of two Miggy relics from 2019 Topps is a jersey from the set done up in the '84 design, which reminds me of the Tigers '84 set I grabbed at Comerica Park last year.  Next is a 2017 Topps Holiday jersey of Michael Fulmer which is somehow my first hit of the former ROY whom I continue to hope returns to full health.

Going a bit older school we have what I considered a pleasant surprise:  a 2000 Topps Traded autograph of former catcher/infielder Brandon Inge.  He could be streaky but put together a few nice seasons in the mid-aughts with his best year coinciding with Detroit's return to the Fall Classic.  That's my first auto of BInge and only my second hit overall along with a jersey, so this was a great inclusion!

Last up in this scan is a trio of nice jersey relics of Trashtro pitcher Justin Verlander.  I may cover this more in a future post but for now to answer what may become a FAQ:  yes I still collect JV, though I've soured on him as a player given his lackluster reaction to his team cheating its way to a title.  Anyway, these relics are quite nice and hail from 2017 Ginter and Heritage and '19 Donruss.

And the bevy of Tigers doesn't end there!  Up top is a very cool acetate auto out of 2002 Topps Pristine of '01 first-round bust P Kenny Baugh.  In a round one short on quality regulars (Joe Mauer, Mark Prior for a minute, Gavin Floyd, Mark Teixeira) Baugh was still a bad miss as he never made it out of the minors, plus he was selected ahead of, among others, David Wright!  That see through auto card is super cool, though, and I'm planning on keeping it for now despite the fact that I rarely hold onto cards of such players.

The other two here are somewhat similarly designed jersey relics of former teammates Miggy and V-Mart.  Cabrera's is from 2019 while Victor's was made the previous year.  I may have looked this up and mentioned it before, but as teammates from 2011-18 they combined for 454 HR while seeing their production fall off a cliff after 2016.  By the way, this is just my second hit of Victor and first of him as a Tiger, so again, nice job by Mark!

And now we're on to the "other sports" portion of the package.  I thought the Jimmy King/Ty Wheatley duo card made for a nice segue between the two games seen her, and naturally I enjoyed the college photos out of the terrific looking '95 Classic Five Sport set.  Biakabutuka's card is also very interesting:  a $20 phone card inserted into packs of '96 Press Pass.  They apparently also could be found in values of $5, $10, and $1996.  Remember phone cards?  That's so 90s.

And I'll give the best card of this bunch its own paragraph.  Glen Rice is probably the best player from the '89 champs and I'm always happy to get new stuff of his, especially when I don't have to buy it myself!  This 2016-17 Panini Excalibur Calligraphy card is a textbook example of how nice his signature can look, and he clearly lives up to the set's name here.  This is my fifth auto of Rice and of course I want to keep adding more.

Last up is the football hits portion, or what I'm going to refer to as the "Long haul" for obvious reasons.  I wonder if any of you can picture my face after I pulled card after card out of this package and thought, "How much great stuff did Fuji just send me?!"  I mean, take a look at the previous three scans and keep them in mind when you look at this bonanza.  Yowza!

Let's start with Touchdown Tim in the upper-left corner.  You wouldn't know it from the looks of it but that card was made by Fleer during his rookie year of '96, and despite the plain look it's nice to have since he doesn't have a ton of signed cards.  Then we have what's just my second auto of DL Ryan Glasgow of the Michigan walk-on Glasgows.  The reason it's difficult to see his name in that scan is the color of the foil--blue, appropriately enough--since it's a parallel version of his regular auto in the set.  As usual with Contenders/Draft I think it looks awesome and love the college action photo they went with.

Before we get to the guy who had the biggest day I can cover two of his teammates and fellow '08 draftees.  #1 PC guy Chad Henne is first with a jersey relic out of that year's UD product and then we jump forward two years for a sweet dual jersey out of Sweet Spot of another top guy in Mario Manningham, a.k.a. the namesake of my defunct sister blog.  The latter looks especially cool with, yep, a great college photo.

And now to the man of the hour, Jake Long, who represents a quarter of today's hits, with all of them being autographed!  Two of them--'08 Stadium Club and '09 Topps Mayo--include "just" signatures while the other three--'08 Leaf Certified Materials, Bowman Sterling, and UD Premier--come with relic bonuses.  Again, pulling these out one at a time was a crazy experience, and I'm humbled once again by Fuji's trademark generosity, not to mention the effort I like to credit when people go above and beyond to hit my preferred college collections.

Mark, thanks once again for this stunner of an envelope!  I'm not sure when or how I'll hit you back, but regardless of what you say I intend to do so one way or another.  And in the meantime I'm enjoying seeing the similarly amazing packages popping up on other blogs.  It's good to be a friend of Mr. Fuji!