2020 trade package #26: Stadium Fantasium

 

You just never know what might lead to a trade. Recently I did a live stream of busting a box of '88 Pacific Legends (I might have mentioned that once or twice), and one of the viewers was Andy over at Stadium Fantasium. I think I was following his blog at the time but didn't really know Andy himself, so that was a fun way to meet a new blogger.

My break got him interested in checking what he had from the set and before long he put together a wantlist. That led to an easy deal because I knew I'd have a ton of extras. I was able to flip him 26 cards for his set, plus the empty box and a few packs (for his cool storage system) and a couple other things. We actually worked the deal out on TCDB (find him there at this link, or on Twitter).

In return I picked out five cards, which finally arrived the other day thanks to the Republicans' Operation Delay the Shit out of the Mail (this wasn't remotely Andy's fault since he actually sent out my package a day before I mailed his). Here's what I grabbed:

Though I scanned it last I'll actually start with Fielder's '96 Denny's hologram. This is the only one of the group that I picked out of Andy's TCDB trade bait as the rest were listed on his blog. These cards were a staple of the 90s, and as fun to collect as Denny's food is garbage. Though I'm not chasing the set I now have 5 of 28, to go with Gwynn, Larkin, Maddux, and Ripken. With Jay Buhner representing the Mariners I don't think I'll be trying to track down any others. Anyway, check out Big Daddy probably going yard!

The other four cards all come from 1969 Topps, and I was happy to get these since my vintage collection is a relative weakness for me, and that includes Tigers team sets. Detroit appears in that set 42 times that year, with nice boosts from the league leaders and World Series subsets. I'm now more than a quarter done with that group thanks to this quartet, about which I'll go into a bit more detail here.

Matchick was an infielder whose career was brief, but he was part of the Series-winning '68 Team. The light-hitting Matchick even contributed a two-out walk-off two-run homer that year!

Price was another short-timer in the league, spending all five of his seasons in Motown. Happily, the catcher's second year coincided with that World Series win. Like Matchick he went hitless in limited ABs, but I'm sure that didn't exactly dull the celebration for him. He's since gone on to call the team's games on the radio for a long, long time.

I believe I've mentioned Wilson once or twice here, but he's certainly notable enough to look at again. The Tigers grabbed Wilson, a solid pitcher for Boston, during the '66 season, and he'd reward them with 22 wins the following year, plus two more subsequent solid offerings after. Though he lost his lone Series start in '68, again, I think he was happy with the final result!

Last up is a card from the multiplayer Star Rookies subset, an old Topps feature I used to love. Canadian pitcher Mike Kilkenny spent three-plus seasons in Detroit, where he accumulated most of his playing them over five years. He was traded three times in '72 over the course of a bit more than a month! Meanwhile, OF Ron Woods was grabbed from the Pirates in 1966, played in a few games for Detroit, then was flipped to the Yankees. He spent most of his brief career with them as well as the Expos.

As I sometimes do when there's so few cards to work with, I scanned the backs as well:

Andy, thanks again for such an easy deal! I look forward to trading again, and in the meantime I'm happy to recommend you as an excellent trade partner both as a blogger and TCDBer. I'll keep following you and I hope you don't have to wait long to finish that Pacific Legends set.