2024 trade package #1: My Sports Obsession

Ok, I'm finally caught up on 2023 so let's look at new cards that joined my collections in 2024. To begin with, we'll go with a trade package I received way back in early January. Jeff of My Sports Obsession hit my mailbox with this mailer not too long before we met up in Kalamazoo for a show he and his cousin were doing (details in a future post). It was stuffed with Tigers, some of my favorite bigger PCs, a few Wolverines, and more!

Here's what trade package #1 of 2024 contained for me:

Baddoo started out hot and has actually had what I'd call above-average success for a rule 5 pick, put right now he's playing for a pretty stacked AAA squad in Toledo. Jeff also really boosted my collection of el Mago, and even cooler, everything has him in a Tigers uniform. His tenure in Detroit has been less than ideal and we'll find out eventually if he's one of the guys that gets booted out of my Tigers box, but for now, I appreciate the thought while I wait to see if he can still bring anything to the team.

I wasn't joking about the Baez boost! I also really appreciate the trio of chrome-y Cabreras. As a reminder, the Tigers legend played 16 of his 21 MLB seasons in Motown, so this is the first year since 2007 that fans won't see him at the plate wearing the olde English "D." Switching teams (and fandoms, over to Michigan), Cronenworth is a guy both Jeff and I collect, and I love having more than 100 cards of the St. Clair, Michigan product. After scuffling a bit last season he's had a pretty decent start for the Padres in '24, and I hope he can get his numbers back up to their All-Star levels of '21 and '22.

Speaking of scuffling a bit, Greene's bat could use a wake-up call, but he's far from the only Tiger you could say that about right now. At least he's still out there making highlight reel plays in left, and I know his bat will warm up as we (eventually) say goodbye to the snow. Jeff also treated me to some cool items of the first two guys in my big PC quartet, Griffey and Gwynn. Ginter and Topps Chrome Platinum pop up quite a bit in this post and I'm guessing he was generously thinking of me while sorting through card shop boxes as he does.

After a couple more Gwynn items we go back to a Wolverine in Hill. I can't tell you how many copies of that card I've received through blogger and TCDb trades but it's up there! Kaline and Kell are forever linked in my mind as Tigers legends and broadcasters so it's only natural they get paired up here. Another common collection for Jeff and me is Larkin, who also gets the multi-Chrome treatment on a cool pair. Maddux is the third of the "big four" PC guys and there's even more of him in the next scan! He also appears on a TCP card here and another in the next scan, plus one of the others below depicts him as a youngster with the Cubs.

Right down the middle here we have a cool present/near-ish past/distant past trio of Tigers pitchers. Mize looked a bit rusty in his first MLB game since '22, but the Tigers picked him up against the hapless Mets. Morris and Newhouser are both here courtesy of, yep, TCP! I don't know if Mize will join them in the Hall but he's one of a few talented hurlers the Tigers employ who could get there someday. I believe Cal is our final shared baseball PC guy of the post and was happy to see the fourth of the "big four" as I always am. And how about one more TCP for the road, Ted "Simba" Simmons? He's another ex-Wolverine for whom I've piled up 100+ cards since I started collecting him.

The baseball portion closes out with five many Verlanders, whose PC count continues to climb thanks to trades like this one. The Finest Throwbacks card is interesting to me because I'm such a fan of the '96 set it's honoring, though the border color is all wrong for bronze or gold. Either way, it's fun to get more cards of him as a Met considering his 16 game tenure with them last year, not unlike Mike Piazza's famous five games with the '98 Marlins before being flipped to, oddly enough, the Mets!

Flipping over to football, it's taken me a while to get my first UM or NFL card of transfer RB Zach Charbonnet (I just got one at a show this past weekend), but I'm hold onto others folks send me all the same, just not counting them towards his collection. Heisman winner Desmond Howard cleaned up nicely for a Classic Four Sport issue. And I love that two of the three cards Jeff sent me of recent star Aidan Hutchinson are college issues.

Nothing wrong with seeing him as a Lion since he's been a huge part of their turnaround, but you all know where my loyalties lie! And I continue to enjoy seeing past stars like Law, Toomer, and Woodson in more recent products like Mosaic, Prestige, and Select. Hutch, Law, and Toomer all played on teams just a year or two away from national titles but of course GOAT DB Charles Woodson won it all in '97, just like this past season's squad (if I hadn't mentioned it).

Jeff, thanks for such a great envelope to start the year! I have a pretty nice stack of stuff for you and will likely just hold onto it for now because if the likelihood that I'll see you at another show in just over a month.

I believe my next few posts will continue to be trade recaps but may also mix show summaries and other stuff in there if I feel like it. Lots more to come!