2024 trade package #5: Night Owl

Moving on into April, here's a look at the first trade package I received that month, courtesy of Greg of Night Owl Cards:

As it was April, Greg was wishing me a happy baseball season with these cards, which was a very nice thought. It's largely been more of the same frustrations with a few highlights mixed in, but that's what happens when you're a fan sometimes. I still love this team and most of the players, just not the awful owners.

Anyway, a lot of the cards in the package were new additions to my Tigers collections and that's great! Baddoo is a classic flagship numbered Gold parallel that's pretty much been a mainstay since 2001, and I'm always happy to add more of those to my collection. Baez has been one of the frustrating parts of the club the past few years but I still enjoy the Purple Heritage cards. I'm looking forward to adding more cards celebrating Miggy's dual 3000 hit/500 HR accomplishments, and you can't go wrong with a Heritage insert to do that. Clemens got dumped to Philly but Carpenter's been a rare pleasant surprise on offense when healthy. Englert hasn't done much to get excited about but his card's a Refractor so it's worth celebrating. And Greene continues to mix flashes of tantalizing talent with the lingering effects of injuries. I'm still all-in on him for now as a franchise mainstay, though.

Greene was well represented here which certainly works for me! That Action Stars insert was odd enough in its design and photo that if I didn't see the Tigers logo I would have guessed it was something made by Panini or Leaf. The unrelated Shane Greene can be seen in Yellow form. Confused? Don't be! Pitcher Garrett Hill gets a two-fer on his Topps Chrome Update base plus one of several orange/black foil Halloween-related parallels from the regular Update product. And I always enjoy showing off cards of legends Kaline and Kell together as I remember listening to the pair call games.

Manning has yet to live up to his prospect billing, partly due to health issues, but there's still time, though it'll feel like a (Topps) holiday if he does! Maton's bat caught whatever disease is going around the Detroit clubhouse and was mercifully let go. Greg included a nice selection of Ripkens for me here, two of which are from the 90s with the other pair being more recent. Naturally I really like the earlier cards more, especially the one made by Panini, though I do sometimes like Panini's Donruss parallels. E-Rod bolted Motown because he could make more money and be on a potentially decent team, though he apparently needs some good health news to actually get back on the mound. He was a Tiger long enough to make it into this year's Topps Series 1 set and its various parallels. Speaking of those, his former catcher Rogers can be seen on his appearance in the Holiday insert.

The rest of the baseball including the horizontal cards makes for a fun scan full of variety. The most interesting vertical card to me here is Tresh's '70 Topps base, my first vintage item of the Central Michigan grad who appeared in about 8.5 seasons with the Yanks before being flipped to Detroit in June of '69, his sunset season. Leave it to Greg to treat me to a cool vintage Tiger I didn't have!

As for the X-axis cards, they start with a bang thanks to the fancy Heritage parallel starring three former Tigers pitching prospects in Burrows, Funkhouser, and Garcia. It looks like Burrows bounced around a few systems since departing Detroit and he's now in the Phillies system. Funkhouser was in AA with Texas last year and hasn't pitched since that I can see. Garcia was a Yankees MLFA that the Tigers took in the 2019 Rule 5 draft and he also hasn't pitched in 2024 that I know of after spending last year in AAA.

Topps' kid-oriented Big League sometimes results in fun looking cards and the graffiti card above gets a thumbs up from me. Ditto for the design on Mize's card with a very cool background going on. I have no idea who Michael Papierski and Cody Sedlock are but neither was in the Detroit system for very long and appeared on a dual prospect card anyway. And lastly, Vierling's been a fairly solid addition in the deal that also brought Maton to Detroit for, among others, Clemens above. His Heritage card also includes a terrific background on the action photo.

Baseball wasn't the only sport to be found in this envelope but I'm not shocked because Greg's a fan of the Bills so he probably didn't find it too difficult to dig up cards of a few of the guys I collect. In fact, two of them here, Collins and Riemersma, played for Buffalo! Robinson and Stribling, meanwhile, both bounced around the NFL a bit before spending a bit of time in the short-lived AAF. Stribling also dabbled in the XFL, CFL, and USFL while Shoelace went into coaching and other athletic roles, though of course he recently lost his Michigan job due to a very stupid OWI.

As far as I'm concerned the two Bills cards are the best here because Collins appears in a Michigan uni and Riemersma's Fleer base has a typically cool design from the brand. But as always I appreciate folks like Greg who include any former Wolverines when they trade with me like Greg did here.

And with that I have to give a hearty thanks to Night Owl for an excellent trade package to lead off the MLB season! I may have complaints about my team but I have nothing but praise for this great bunch of cards sent to me by a first-ballot blogging HOFer. Greg, I have a little stack I've been putting together for you and hope to have enough to send a return your way soon. Until then, thanks for the cards and all the great content you provide, and good luck to your Dodgers in 2024!