2025 trade package #22: Sport Card Collectors

Hooray, I'm now only about a month behind! And my first November trade package came courtesy of the person who sent the final one in October, Matt of Sport Card Collectors. While he sends me PWEs throughout the year, he tends to put together a larger package around the holidays, and that was the case here as these constitute my Christmas present from a person who really values that occasion.

And a very nice gift it was! Here's the contents of the bubble mailer:

First up: a nearly full set of 1989 ProCards London Tigers. Minor league affiliates can change decently often and that was the case for Detroit's AA club, the Glens Falls Tigers, who moved from that city to London, Ontario, a couple hours away from Motown, for the 1989 season. They'd remain there until 1993, switch to Trenton (NJ) in '94, Jacksonville from 1995-2000, and ultimately their current location in Erie, PA. I'll show off the biggest name of this bunch in the next image (plus another guy I collect) but I'll also mention that the group includes 1986 first-rounder (18th overall) Phil Clark, a catching prospect that never panned out.

For those interested, the full team set appears to be 32 cards strong and Matt sent me 25 of those, including the two I would have wanted the most.

Miggy leads off this scan in festive form that's perfect for the upcoming holiday, and also in a 1989 disguise, back when I was celebrating my seventh Christmas.

Greg Everson is one of the two '89 Procards cards I'm highlighting because he's a Michigan alum who was also born in my hometown of Livonia, Michigan, so that's about as good as it gets. TCDb has nine cards listed for him (all minors issues) and this is my 6th. Not bad! I'll skip over one card to talk about the other '89 London Tigers base which stars the most successful guy in the set: Travis Fryman. Detroit chose the well know left-side infielder with the 30th overall pick in '87 and he rewarded them with eight productive seasons, half of which saw him get selected for the All-Star game. After the '97 season he was dealt to the brand new Diamondbacks, who then flipped him to Cleveland a couple weeks later for Matt Williams.

And now we have some cool inserts to look at. Those start with a Bowman Gold parallel of pitcher Luke French, a guy whose career wasn't really notable. The next card is, though: a '23 Topps Heritage '74 Topps Stamps card that includes Mr. Tiger Al Kaline plus recent guys Tork, Baez, and Greene. I'd actually traded for this card in a TCDb deal but got sent the wrong one, and thanks to Matt I didn't need to go back and get that fixed to land a card I really wanted! Rotation stalwart Mize's card is a '21 Topps 1952 Topps Redux Chrome in all its Refractor-y glory. Franklin Perez, a headliner in the Verlander deal, also pops up on a nice looking Refractor from 2020, numbered /150. And Tork makes his second of three appearances, this one from Topps Heritage's long-running New Age Performers insert.

Tork #3 is a '24 Topps Royal Blue parallel, one of the ones that are mercifully easy to ID. And he's joined by a trio of--or should I say "three many"--Verlanders. Two of those are Topps Holiday cards like the Miggy so that makes them perfect for the season as well.

The rest of this scan is a good time to ask the question, "Do you really like looking at cards of Ken Griffey Jr.?" If the answer is "Yes!" then you're in luck. If not, you'll want to scroll down quite a bit. Also, you all know I collect Griffey and have over 1000 cards of him, so why would you not expect to see these here?

Anyway, Matt and I are very close in age and both loved watching Griffey play throughout the 90s. And so he devoted quite a bit of space in this envelope to cards of George Jr., which I was very happy to accept!

The horizontal group that kicks off the pile includes a couple mid/late 90s base, a 2001 Fleer Triple Crown insert called "Future Threats," and a 2023 UD Goodwin Champions base, the latter of which includes a much more recent photo of the retired superstar.

(Vertical) Griffey group #1 starts with the early 90s and zooms into 1996. My favorites are the Stadium Club Charter Member card with Junior and Senior, the UD superhero card (we all thought he was a superhero back then), and the '95 Stadium Club base showing off his sweet swing.

Here a couple more '96s give way to six checklists from the 1997 Collector's Choice set. Griffey was a UD spokesman for a few years back then so they featured him prominently in a number of products. In this case the lower-end kid-friendly set gave collecting tips for younger folks in the hobby.

Now we're heading into the late 90s and early/mid-2000s with this bunch. For me I don't think it gets better than that 1996-2001 run UD had, including the '98 design you see above. The Fleer Update card marking his 400th homer is a nice addition, and of course he'd sock another 230 before all was said and done. The fourth card is an UD entry from a multi-product effort celebrating opening day in 2000 and it turned out great. The rest are quite nice too, especially 2001 SP Game Used, and unfortunately my scanning went off the rails with the last card, but I didn't notice until I was putting this post together and didn't feel like re-scanning!

Now we're into the late career and post-career stuff, a lot of which is also fun. I'll take UD's Masterpieces over Ginter any day, but now I don't have to choose! Recent Donruss Preferred doesn't hold a candle to the original, but I do like the callback, just like I do with the Donruss base (though the last card in the scan looks much better than the couple from '21). A Topps '86 throwback insert increases my count of Griffey on the Reds, we get one more Goodwin Champions base, and then there's probably the best photo in the bunch courtesy of--who else?--Stadium Club, and a Home Run Derby moment.

Junior does sneak one last card into this scan as well! I'm working on the '24 Topps Celebration of the Kid insert and this one gives me a total of 8 of the 24, so I'm making decent progress there.

Matt threw in one basketball card and it was a bit of a surprise: a relic of THJ, out of 2018-19 Prizm. He's out in Denver after spending last year with the Pistons, and he's putting up decent PPG as a bench guy.

And we'll close things out with Michigan Football. As I write this post the big news in Ann Arbor is coach Sherrone Moore getting fired for an inappropriate relationship with an employee. I'm sure lots more info will come out over the next couple days, but in the meantime I'm mainly thinking of his wife and three daughters and hoping they can get through this heartbreaking situation. UM will find a new coach at some point and life will go on, but may their lives not be made a million times worse by his awful decisions.

That aside, I have a few more cards from Matt to enjoy. The first is Panini Zenith No Huddle red parallel of RB Blake Corum's RC. He just had himself a game, piling up 128 yards on 12 carries and two TDs including a 48-yarder as his Rams thumped the Cardinals. Hutch is always welcome in a trade envelope, be it on his own cards or on those that include other fantastic college/NFL defenders like Paye and Gary.Ojabo still hasn't found his footing in the NFL and I don't know if he will, but I love college-themed cards that remind me of him helping take down Ohio State. And DPJ may be out of the league but he had some memorable moments in Ann Arbor wearing the maize & blue, like he's doing on a Panini Legacy card above.

Matt, thank you once again for this awesome stack of cards, headlined by the Griffeys but supported by lots more of my favorite PCs. I appreciate the warm Christmas wishes and promise I'll return the favor pretty soon so you have something to put under your tree!

I'll be back pretty soon with another trade package recap!