2022 Sportlots purchases: the Michigan stuff

We've hit February and I've got a show to get to in a couple days so tonight I've decided to start covering the Sportlots cards I purchased at the end of 2022. I've split them up into three groups so I don't drag out getting them posted for too long, and tonight you get to see the Michigan Baseball and Football PC cards I nabbed from there:

Scan #1 starts with my 12th different Jeff Criswell. You also see four of the six Cronenworths I picked up there (with two way down below), from a few different variations of '21 and '22 Topps. At some point I should compare how many Drew Henson baseball cards I have versus football, out of the 100+ in his collection. And it feels like I pick up lower-end cards of Hill far less often than I should be able to, so these two and the pair in the next scan felt like a win for me.

The other two Hill cards joined the Rainbow Foil parallel out of '20 Update, and those are Royal Blue and Yellow inserts. Also, as you can see, I definitely didn't neglect my Larkin collection (930 cards strong!) with the seven cards you see here to go with three more near the bottom. Sometimes I think '96 Topps Chrome doesn't get as much love as it deserves compared to the initial version of Finest but maybe that's just a nostalgia thing for me. Speaking of loving Chrome, the '21 Stadium Club card looks excellent as a perfect combo of the two.

Sportlots has been a good source for parallel versions that seem overly expensive elsewhere, like the Topps Limited and First Edition cards of Matheny above. Hal Morris demonstrates some fun options we had back in the 90s out of Leaf Fractal Matrix, Pacific Online (Web Card! Yep, the ones with the codes), and the Gold version of '99 Topps Stars, #d /2299. Putz's sickly green parallel came out of the 2014 product. And Clayton Richard gets in on the parallel fun with Rainbow Foil, Limited, and 582 Montgomery Collection cards, plus another one in the next scan.

Another Richard parallel and another team too as the Blue Jay appears in Topps' 150th Anniversary insert. Meanwhile, my collection of Branch Rickey is very small at just eight cards, but it was much smaller before these additions so I was glad to bolster the collection of the former Wolverine and innovator of the game. How could you possibly go wrong with products like SP Legendary Cuts and TCMA?

There ends the regular sized vertical stuff but I added a few oddball items as well, and I'm happy to report you'll see similar items scattered across the other two posts. To Larkin's collection I added an '89 Panini Sticker, which I probably pulled from a pack and stuck in the album when I was about six, plus a couple tiny Topps Micro cards. Then I got full-on oddball with a 1984 7-11 Coin of Ted "Simba" Simmons. While I'm much more familiar with the most recent offerings from the convenience store, namely the 2000 set, I have just a few of the coins from the 80s so I love adding fun pieces like this one!

The baseball group is complete with this six-pack of horizontals. My tiny collection of Bourque increases by one thanks to another Rainbow Foil parallel. A shared Padres card that includes Cronenworth gets a couple appearances thanks to 582 Club and Star versions. My Tommy Henry PC nears double digits with a Heritage Minors issue from 2020. It's pretty rare to find new items of Ryan LaMarre that I need right now, but I did track down a '17 Topps All-Star Game factory set version. And Rickey gets one last look on a classic UD card depicting him with recent birthday boy and monumental baseball innovator Jackie Robinson.

To those I added nine football cards, all of which are rookies except for the Collins, which I must have added by mistake since his '22 Prestige card would be a second-year (but is still much appreciated). Other than that, let's pretend I scanned the rest in order. QB Scott Dreisbach has four RCs I'm chasing and I picked up my first two out of '99 Leaf Rookies & Stars and Score Supplemental, so I'm happy to welcome him to the Rookie Blue project. Floyd's Playoff Momentum Retail is the 10th card in his collection and seventh of eight first-years that I need. Fellow '98 guy Griese is down to just five missing rookies out of 39 with the addition of the shiny Upper Deck Encore you see above.

Bengals rookie DB Dax Hill is the first of two Michigan uni cards, and his '22 Panini Legacy RC is my second such card of a guy who just missed out on a rookie-year Super Bowl appearance. Transfer RB Jon Ritchie is yet another '98 guy and I'm chasing four of his 12 rookies after picking up his '98 UD base. Saints OL Ruiz is the other college uni guy tonight, and the '20 Playoff of #51 is the third of seven cards I need, which is actually a decent number for an offensive lineman! Finally, Pats LB Josh Uche, who had two three-sack games this season, sees a '20 Donruss Optic RC added to his bunch, number five of the 13 I need to complete his run.

I'm quite happy with the variety I picked up that you see before you this evening and I'm looking forward to seeing what people think of the other two groups as well, so watch for those soon!