2019 COMC purchases: 2019 was an a-maize-ing year!

It's the second Sunday in February, 2020, and I'm finally ready to close out my 2019 pickups so I can move on to this year!

Today's post will cover Michigan Football guys that I consider PCs in the sense that they have their own albums, though I may change how I present those soon to make things a bit easier for everybody.

Let's get to the cards:

QB #7 Chad Henne had himself a day (or a sale weekend, as the case may be) with this seven spot of new hits.  I scored a new auto out of the 2008 UD Icons product I'm not exactly in love with (but a signature's a signature!) and two relics from 2011 Panini brands:  a Gridiron Gear "prime" piece and a normal Dolphins green swatch from Limited.  Those photos look preeeetty similar....

On the horizontal end I came up with three more 2008 SPx cards from the Rookie/Winning Materials sets that have multiple configurations.  The first two are /75 and the last is /50 but all three are dual swatch versions.  A quick check tells me I have 15 different cards featuring Henne from this product, 11 of which are from the two inserts I mentioned.  They're joined by my third example of a 2008 UD Premier issue, all of which include four swatches and an autograph.  This is the Silver and is #d /60.

These additions are fun on their own but they also happen to bump my Henne collection over 300 to 306 total cards, second only to Charles Woodson, not to mention 136 hits, tying him with baseball leader Rich Hill!  I look forward to adding more of his stuff this year.

I think I promised a good showing in my posts leading up to this one, and maybe you'll agree that I delivered between the Hennes, these vertically oriented offerings, and the horizontals in the next scan.  Here we start with my second "A" and third letter overall in Jason Avant's 2006 Donruss Threads nameplate.  I'll keep looking for the "V" and "T" I need so I can have another completed project to show off.  His former teammate Alan Br--

--ANCH KILLS QBs!

Branch, gets a 17th auto to his collection, and we'll see him again shortly.  The final 1/1 this time is a 2011 Inception Yellow plate of Braylon Edwards, and I love the border that makes it abundantly obvious which version it is.  Leon Hall and David Harris help maintain the offense/defense balance in this scan with signatures from 2007 Bowman Sterling and 2011 Prime Signatures.  I was able to sneak in a fairly cheap Manningham in the form of a dual signature with Marcus Monk from UD's 2009 sticker dump SP Signature, which works for me!  That's hit #94 of my former blog namesake.  Denard, who we'll see again in the next scan, can be seen on a rookie year 2013 Topps Triple Threads Purple parallel /27, with cutouts for the swatches spelling out his various positions.  I wish he'd been given a shot to play QB in the NFL just for fun.  Last up is Gabe Watson, who I forgot isn't one of my PC guys since he's only at 30 cards.  Oh well, that 2006 Absolute auto (his 8th) is still pretty cool!

The horizontals start with a cheap Avant relic and then a 2007 UD Premier dual auto that pairs another couple guys we've already seen in Branch and Hall, who were fellow rookies in the stacked '07 class.  Jake Long gets his own 2008 SPx appearance, joining fellow '08 Dolphins draftee Henne, and this dual jersey /99 is my 10th of Long from the set and 8th from the Rookie/Winning Materials versions.

Then come three new 2013 Denard autographs.  His prices are low enough that I can pretty much pick up stuff like the ones you see above for under $3.  The Prominence card includes a helmet thing but I don't think I filed it as a manurelic; Panini's Totally Certified came with a nice jersey swatch; and Topps Platinum called the third card a patch auto, so that's what I'll go with.  Those additions plus the Triple Threads above were enough to put Shoelace right at 50 hits, making him just the 10th player in my collection to hit that mark!

The last card of the last post for 2019 is a cool rookie auto of yet another star defensive guy from 2007, LaMarr Woodley.  It's funny to end with this card because it's the very first one I bought toward this last shipment, way back on September 8, or almost three months before the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales responsible for the rest of my purchases.  I couldn't let this Ultimate Collection signature slip away after it went on sale for just $1.75.

2019 was yet another great year of collection for me, and maybe I'll go back to that well one more time with a summary post soon (or maybe not!).  Either way, I finished it with fewer than 25 hits to go for 1500 in the football collection, and I'm fairly close to fun milestones in the other sports as well.  Although I may revise my definition of "hits" for those collections, for now I can say that I began the year with more than 2200 such cards of former Wolverines, which is a great place to build from in 2020.

Whew!  With those finally done I'm excited to show you my first trade package of 2020, eBay pickup #1 of the year, and recaps of both card shows I hit in January, plus I have a couple other interesting ideas in mind.  It may be February, but happy new collecting year!

2019 COMC purchases: superb basketball and football

It's been a superb Sunday here in Ann Arbor weather-wise considering it's just the second day of February.  Temperatures got up in the 50s a day after we were dealing with the usual cold and snow, and I definitely took advantage.

Now I'm sitting here putting together a post while glancing at the game every now and then, between two teams I don't really care about.  But the fact that it's Super Bowl Sunday is a good reminder that I still haven't covered all of my 2019 pickups.  This COMC recap and one more should do it.

Today I'll be showing off my basketball scores and, yes, some of the football as well!  (A quick note:  I don't have all of the former cataloged in my own albums or on TCDB yet as I've had to create their checklists myself, which sometimes takes a bit.)

I believe I mentioned the crazy number of plates I purchased in the last post, and a large chunk of the ones staying with me are surprisingly from basketball, my least favorite of the four major sports.  I'm not the type to pass up a good deal when it comes to my Michigan collections, though, and four of these were under $4, with the other less than $5.

Here's the backs so you can tell who actually appears on each card.  I landed my first plates of Burke and THJ (times two!), second of Rice, and fifth(!) of Sauce Castillo himself, Nik Stauskas.  All of them are from higher-end products meaning Panini did their thing where they affixed the plates to super thick pieces of cardboard.  Those are totally fine but I really like what they've done with colorful backs on the actual metal the last couple years.  Three of these were inserted into the following year's National Treasures products so checklisting them can take a bit of work.  But who cares, because five new basketball plates!

The football section is quite good as well, though you're in for a pretty good show in the final post of this series.  WR Amara Darboh's up first with a cool pair from 2017:  a Playoff autograph and Absolute dual jersey/football auto RC (#282/299).  As long as Panini keeps producing Playoff cards with college photos like that, I'll keep buying them!  Those two bookend my first 1/1 of former QB (and one-year WR) Devin Gardner.  It's a magenta plate from his only NFL card out of 2015 Topps Field Access, a product known more for its plethora of sticker autos.  He's looking quite acrobatic there for sure.

The middle contains three new players to the collection.  First is DL Rashan Gary, a former top college recruit who went to the Packers in the first round last year.  I came up with a 2019 Panini Legacy auto of him in a Michigan uni, which is awesome, though his signature is anything but.  Hey, they can't all look like Griffey's and Rivera's!

Next is his fellow New Jersey native Ron Johnson, not to be confused with the former Michigan RB.  This one played on the D-Line and was part of that same recruiting class, but he transferred out last year.  He's one of a few future college players I can name from the autograph portion of that 2016 Upper Deck USA set.

The last of the newbies is another former QB that changed positions like Gardner, but in Zach Gentry's case, the move to TE stuck, and it worked out ok for him since he got drafted by the Steelers.  His 2019 Contenders Draft auto looks pretty cool, which doesn't surprise me a bit, and he has a somewhat interesting signature too.

Moving on we have another QB, transfer guy Ryan Mallett.  As I think I've said a few times, I occasionally collect his stuff as long as he's not shown in an Arkansas uniform.  Here you can see a 2011 Plates & Patches jersey/auto RC (#080/299) followed by a Topps Magic signature from the same year.  Both are cool in their own right but Magic is a somewhat recent Topps product I actually like, so that's notable.

Ok, we're on to the last QB of the day, I promise.  John Navarre, the gumpy signal-caller from Cudahy, Wisconsin, gets another of his very occasional appearances; this is just my 13th hit of him.  Luckily I found a cheap new addition in the form of a 2004 Bowman's Best Green auto (#189/499).  I already had the base version, which I prefer mainly because the green ink doesn't look great here--the parallel version of the card is fine otherwise--so it's nice to have them as a pair.

Last up is former Michigan DL Chris Wormley, who's often a fun follow on Twitter:

I hit the trifecta today! I got pooped on, peed on, and puked on by my lovely daughter. 👍🏽

— Chris Wormley (@Chris_Wormley43) January 29, 2020

My second auto and third hit of his is a rookie year 2017 Donruss Optic Rookie Autographs Blue auto (#23/75).  What better color of a parallel could you ask for in terms of a former Wolverine?  He's seen a decent amount of playing time with the Ravens and hopefully that increases enough for him to earn a rare non-rookie appearance in some Panini products.

That's it for today but stay tuned for another blowout post where I cover the rest of my football purchases.

2019 COMC purchases: the 12 cards of COMChristmas

I'm going through another one of those periods where I want to get some posts up, especially so I can catch up to new stuff from this month, but I don't feel like writing.  It also doesn't help that work's been stressful lately, plus there was the tragedy of the helicopter crash yesterday that cost Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and other families their lives.

Solution:  don't write much and just get posts up!  Pictures something something thousand words, right?  So here's the baseball loot from my latest COMC shipment, mostly comprising purchases from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions:

Today's only autograph is my first card of Nationals pitching prospect James Bourque, an Ann Arbor native with a pretty strong mustache game who pitched for Michigan in 2013 and 2014.  He got a one-game cup of coffee (Shot of coffee?  Drip of coffee?) last season five years after the team drafted him in the 14th round.  He's got lots more Bowman Chrome autos (like this one from 2019) to chase as well as a 2019 Topps Update base and its 50,000 parallels, and is the 27th member of my baseball hits PC.

2001 marked my first year of college and it was also an excellent year for collecting, falling right in the middle of that '95-'05 decade that I love so much.  Upper Deck was still around and they obliged relic-hungry collectors back when that was still quite a novelty.  For just a few bucks each I scored three such cards of Tony Gwynn, all from products I'm very familiar with:  SP Game Bat Edition, SPx, and UD Legends.  I believe I now own 10 relics (plus an autograph) of Mr. Padre, and I'll happily add more of these whenever the price is right.

Although he's known better as a Yankee during his brief (failed) foray into baseball, Drew Henson was a Red for a bit before being flipped back to the Bronx.  That makes the color of this Mirror Red parallel of his 2003 Leaf Certified Materials bat relic somewhat appropriate.  Donruss/Leaf/Panini/Playoff/whoever made some beautiful cards like this in the aughts and the price was low enough to add another Henson relic (#074/250), giving him 15 in the baseball collection.

Don't worry, I'm not boring you today with a post that's just hits, which I'm guessing a number of you would ignore as they're not your taste.  Looking for something else?  I got you, fam!  The "90s inserts rule" tag makes another heralded appearance today in part because if this amazing '97 Leaf chase card called Knothole Gang (#1046/5000).  Leaf layered a thin, wood-like material die-cut in the shape of a fence with a large hole in the middle over a photo, in this case Barry Larkin doubling up Braves stalwart Jeff Blauser.  These are too cool and I believe I'm chasing a few other PC guys, so I hope I'll have more to show off soon!

It's been long enough since I finished up my purchases on COMC that I can't remember for sure (and don't feel like doing the work to verify this), but I believe I came out of those sales with 19 printing plates/one-of-ones intended for my PCs and Christmas Cards packages.  Something like eight of those stayed with me, including this 2019 Topps Update Black plate of PC dude Clayton Richard, who appears with the Blue Jays for the first time.  Richard is now one of three Michigan Baseball guys with nine or more such cards in his collection, joining J.J. Putz (10) and Rich Hill (23) with nobody else above four.  Also, this marks my 130th plate and/or 1/1, though I may revise that collection a bit in the near future.  Anyway, I'll be casually on the lookout for the other three plates to go with this one!

The three jerseys of Gwynn above are awesome but this trio of Ripken inserts might be my preferred group of the two.  Up top is the '97 version of UD's amazing, um...Amazing Greats insert.  These also have a bit of a wood grain texture with a diamond shaped slide/cel insert on the right.  The '98 iteration is beautiful in its own right, and they're so different that I'm happy to appreciate both.  Oddly enough, Cal's my only example from '97 while his '98 card is the only one I lack of the Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken group.

The other two get me a bit closer to the fun 2000 Fleer Gamers Cal to Greatness set.  #s 6 and 9 here give me the full run of 1-10 while I'll now have to track down the rarest ones, #s 11-15.  Those were a tough 1:144 while the first five were 1:9 and the others 1:25.  This might take a bit of time and money.

I don't harp too much on HOFer "Gorgeous" George Sisler having played at Michigan, do I?  Nah, I'm sure I don't.  In case you forgot, here's a great photo of him courtesy of Panini's 2015 National Treasures Collegiate Multi-sport product.  It's a numbered base card (#74/99) and I initially balked at the price of more than a buck for such a card, but I eventually relented, especially as I'm trying to get him past the 100-card mark.  Hopefully the next time I add some they'll be this nice!

I'm happy to end today's post with a pretty nifty card of recent HOFer Alan Trammell.  Back in the early 2000s the Playoff brand was responsible for a product called Absolute Memorabilia, and boy did they make some great looking cards.  One of their most notable issues was the Tools of the Trade insert, one that came in autograph, memorabilia, and combo versions.  And when I say "combo" I mean you could get six-plus game-used pieces and maybe even a signature!  No matter what you got, the design looked great, like this here 2004 card of Tram (#088/250).  This bat/jersey duo appears to give me a nice split of five each of autos and relics of the Tigers legend.

Hopefully I'll get the next post in this series up a bit sooner.  For now I'm planning a combo basketball/football post, then more football for the big finish.  That way I can finally get around to covering a huge trade package, a show or two (the next one's this weekend!), and one eBay card, and get to where I'm somewhat caught up.

12/28/19 card show report: 90s inserts rule at the end of 2019

As I mentioned in my last post covering my in-person trade with Paul, we hit up his (extremely) nearby show in Troy on the last Saturday in December, marking the second time in 2019 that I got to two shows in a month.  That ended up putting me over $200 in card spending for the month, the only time that happened last year, though I came within $1 on two other occasions.  There was plenty of good reason for that, though:  besides the two shows I finished up my COMC purchasing for my Christmas Cards.

Anyway, Paul made sure it was worth the trip for me in a few ways, starting with that trade.  Plus, as I also mentioned in that last post, we got to meet up with Chuck (C2Cigars) from TCDB, which was really cool.

He brought a nice little stack of TCDB customs I'd seen around the site, and I happily took an autographed version of the one you see above.  It's a nice reminder of getting to meet one of the nicer guys on the site, and I hope some of you on TCDB trade with him eventually.  He was nice enough to bring me something straight off my wantlist:  a 1957 Topps RC of former UM football player Lou Baldacci.  A terrific addition to my vintage and RC collections, it's my first of the FB/QB/HB/PK, which isn't surprising since he has all of three cards to his name--this one and a couple reprint versions Topps did in 1994.  It gives me a completed run on my Michigan Football RC project checklist from 1955-'94, a string of 78 players.  Thanks, Chuck!

After the meetup I hit up one of Paul's favorite sellers, a guy who's usually at Taylor, though I tend to spend my money there on my favorite dude's tables.  I believe I ended up with $10 worth of quarter cards, including a nice bunch of $0.25 hockey autos that might make for good trade bait.

Then we headed over to the table of a guy I hadn't met before.  Paul was nice enough to alert us to his crazy deals, and after talking to him he sounded like a guy having fun and just wanting to sell stuff at ridiculously low prices to people who'd appreciate it.  He didn't seem to be aware of the value of current stars and was checking a Beckett or some other price guide, generally in favor of the buyer.

I dropped $38 at his table on a few things for my self and some pretty nice trade bait, some of which will go out eventually, plus a few cards for Paul as well--call it a finder's fee!  Here's the stuff I took home with me:

The "90s inserts rule" tag portion of the post covers these two fun inserts from that era.  Mr. Padre's is a '96 Denny's Holograms Grand Slam Artist's Proof, which was fun since I didn't realize Pinnacle inserted those into the packs found at the restaurant known for its food being garbage.  It's Gwynn on a hologram insert made in the 90s so it's 100% gold to me.

Joining him is Ripken on a shiny (not that you can tell from the scan) chase card from '97 Circa called Icons.  In fact, it's funny looking at the image in this post and then down at the actual card with its reflective rainbow foil front.  Cal was indeed an icon of his era and the back of this surprisingly thin card lauds him for his professionalism during "the most celebrated baseball feat in recent history.  That's great, but I was already sold on 90s insert+Cal+shiny!

Next up we have a couple graded rookie year cards of Michigan QB Brian Griese.  Besides the fact that my opinion of grading couldn't get much lower, I just felt like it would be more fun to crack these and see them up-close, so that's exactly what I did, and grouped them with my other football pickup from the guy:

Fellow QB Todd Collins looks awesome on his own rookie year insert, an acetate die-cut 1995 Playoff Contenders chase card called Rookie Kickoff.  Reread that sentence and then try coming up with a scenario where that doesn't come home with me!  And now we get a better look at the Griese cards from '98.  Up top is a Finest Refractor from that year, and despite the lack of film it hasn't been peeled--it's the rarer No-Protectors version!  Fortunately I didn't have to take the grading company's word for it as these are easy to identify with one trait:  the No-Protectors have the same Refractory look on the back.  Please allow me to demonstrate with something that took enough effort that I'd better get a comment from Gavin:

Shiiiiiiny!  That pairs nicely with Griese's '98 SPx Finite RC (#1535/1998), which was a bit too reflectively to scan nicely.  With that one out of the way I'm short just six of his 39 first-years I'm chasing.  Plus I got to celebrate yet another milestone in 2019 by landing my 200th card of the '97 National Champ.  Woohoo!

This guy also had a binder full of completed and near done baseball and football insert and relic sets.  This Amani Toomer autograph is just my second signature of the former Giants WR, and it hails from 2000 Playoff Prestige's Team Checklists set.  It looks like the last 30 of them were signed, and that includes fellow Wolverines Elvis Grbac and Tyrone Wheatley, the latter of which I also own.  One of the reasons I spent a lot of time digging through this seller's cards is that I first asked him for a price on this one and he wanted $2.  Sir, you have my interest!

Last up from this seller was a very appropriate color for a parallel of a former Wolverine star.  Here's a beautiful Blue version of Marty Turco's 2003-04 O-Pee-Chee base, numbered up front 432/500.  As usual I'll happily laud Topps when they deserve it, and I'd argue that they knocked this one out of the park (though I'm not surprised since they were still putting effort into their releases back then).

On the way out I made sure to stop by the tables of a guy who always has a huge variety of BCW supplies and some miscellaneous other stuff, because he was asking $3 for opened factory sets of 1990 Topps.  That worked for me since the set definitely doesn't warrant paying shipping, which costs more than the worth of the set.

I had most of my PC guys' cards from this one (though not all, which I'll get to in a second!), but scoring the complete set filled a nice gap in my collection:  I now own complete Topps flagship sets from 1984-2010, a run I'm fairly proud of.  Plus I had plenty of fun getting this set all sorted and in order (they didn't ship that way, I believe) as that gave me a chance to take a closer look at all of the cards.

And, as I alluded to a minute ago, I did end up with a few new additions:  two of Tony Gwynn's issues--All-Star and regular--and one of Ripken, also the All-Star subset.

I'd call landing this much stuff at a show that hasn't had much for me in the past an unqualified success and definitely a great way to end 2019.  Many thanks to Chuck and Paul for a fun meetup!

As far as shows go I did get to Taylor this month but haven't decided what order I'm going to cover my in-hand stuff, so we'll see when I get to that.  In the meantime, here's to another great year of shows and trading!

12/7/19 card show report: Christmas shopping

As I sit here awaiting the results of the MLB Veterans Committee vote, which could right a few wrongs including Lou Whitaker still waiting to hear his name called, I figured it would be a good time to show off my latest show haul.

I headed out to Taylor as usual yesterday hoping to find a bit more content for some upcoming Christmas card packages (more on those soon!) and did pretty reasonably well for $50:

• 125 quarter cards @ 5/$1 = $25
• 18 dollar cards @ 6/$5 = $15
• 6 $2 cards @ 3/$5 = $10

All most everything I got for myself came from the quarter boxes, though a few dollar cards ended up in my pile too.  Here's what I landed this time:

Baseball part one starts with a 2003 Elite base of former Tiger Jeremy Bonderman (#0185/1750) which I grabbed for his collection because I love the design.

Then you can see four of five Gwynns I pulled, including a '95 Classic $10 phone card (not sure why I put that first here), a '92 UD insert with comments on players by Ted Williams, his '94 Finest base, and finally, a '96 Donruss Hit List insert (#08117/10000).  Oh hey, "90s inserts rule" tag, it's great to see you!  Naturally Mr. Padre is #1 in that set, and this would have been a fun pull back in the day.

Then we get to a quartet of Ripkens.  He also got in on the phone card action, plus he appears on base cards from 2000 Upper Deck Ovation (not sure how I didn't have that one) and 2003 Fleer Rookies & Greats.  But my favorite pickup of the day came from the $1 box:  a 1996 Sportflix ProMotion insert.  I remember busting lots of packs of the product around that year hoping for any of the cool inserts while enjoying the base set, and while I didn't have any luck back then, now I can pick them up at my convenience.

If that's not worth an animated .gif, I don't know what is!  I did laugh when I saw that Cal turns into a glove, though.

Gwynn and Ripken made one more appearance on a horizontal card each, but first I need to mention my lone Griffey score of the day, a '94 Upper Deck Electric Diamond parallel of one of his base cards in that excellent set.  While that parallel doesn't do much for me, I'm a fan of '94 UD and the leap in design it made over what in my opinion was a pretty meh look in '93, though I expect comments filled with opinions that state otherwise.  Anyway, UD did a great job with photography and holographic foil, and this was easily worth a quarter to me.

As for the other two guys, Gwynn stars on a '93 UD insert called "On Deck With" that includes a nice close-up photo and quick answers to some interview questions on the back.  Meanwhile, Cal's last cameo looks like a TV appearance thanks to the design of a '97 Collector's Choice Exchange card, the result of a winner being sent in.  That and the ones above get him up to 939 items and he maintains a commanding lead among my baseball PCs.

I was fortunate to track down six new Michigan Football cards while I was at it.  Former college QB/WR/QB again Devin Gardner is seen flying high on a Gold parallel of his 2015 Topps Field Access rookie (#42/99).  Topps knew CB Ty Law was one of the game's Finest way back in '97 when he was included in the set of the same name, and now 22 years later he's been rightfully elected to the football Hall.  And WR Amani Toomer is looking cool on a 2000 Black Diamond Gold parallel (#0522/1000) that makes me remember how much I liked the product back in the day.

And then I get to end on a fun trio of Charles Woodson cards.  First is a rookie-year insert from 1998 Upper Deck called Define the Game, one that was made not long after Woodson became the first primarily defensive player to win the Heisman.  Next is a 1999 Playoff Prestige SSD Spectrum Blue parallel (#002/500) that set me back a buck, well worth it for a variation of the best color, not to mention one that's numbered.  And last up is Chuck's base card from 2000 Collector's Edge Masters, one that's numbered as well (#1496/2000), albeit in digital fashion instead of foil.  These three give Woodson a total of 312 items, maintaining his lead among football players I collect, though Chad Henne is gaining ground.

That's it for this month but you'll probably get to see most of the rest of what I bought this time over the next few weeks when they arrive in mailboxes around the country.  Until then, LET'S GO LOU!

2019 Sportlots purchases: They Call Me. MISTER Tiger

The subject of today's series finale needs no introduction, but here's one anyway:

A Baltimore native who'll be turning 85 in just a few weeks, he's spent his entire career in Detroit.  This OF won the AL batting crown in just his second full season and piled up 3007 hits over 22 years.  One of just four Tigers to smash 300+ homers with the franchise, he owns the team lead with 399.  He went to 18 All-Star games, won 10 Gold Gloves, and was worth 92.8 bWAR, with a JAWS score that places him 7th among RFs.  In the seven-game 1968 World Series triumph over St. Louis he hit .379 with 2 HR and 8 RBI.  And finally, he took his rightful place in Cooperstown in 1980.

So who else could it be but Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline?  Al's one of the most recognizable Tigers and has appeared on a ton of cardboard in his lifetime, which gives collectors like me lots of options.  This purchase took one of my rich Tigers PCs and made it richer in a big way.

Please enjoy six scans worth of Mr. Tiger!

'83 Donruss HOF Heroes is as old as it gets today, but there's nothing wrong with a card made the year I was born, highlighting a guy who'd just joined the Hall three years earlier.  '86 Sportflics Decades Greats is back one last time here with the "Best '60s Outfielders" including Kaline, Tony Oliva, and Billy Williams--nice choices!  Four more sets also return:  '88 Pacific Legends, '92 Action Packed ASG, '93 Ted Williams, and '94 UD All-Time Heroes.  The 3000 Hit Club member is a natural choice for 2000 UD Hitter's Club's Why3K? subset.  And we get a couple great looks at Al's stance in 2001's SP Legendary Cuts and Topps American Pie.

Speaking of 2001, how about a pair from Upper Deck Decade 70s, a design that I consider superior to American Pie (though Retro is probably my favorite of the three).  2002 brings a flawless Diamond Kings design, plus Fleer Fall Classics, SP Legendary Cuts, and one of my favorite Sweet Spot Classics looks.  Then we get to 2003 with two of three variants of Al's Bowman Heritage card you'll see today.  The base is on the left while the other is the "knothole" version.  Also from that year is Donruss' Team Heroes, a product that was kind of fun but somewhat forgettable in its three-year run.

All right, who here likes black & white photography?  There's plenty of it here in the form of some sweet vintage shots of a young Kaline on some classic designs.  We continue 2003 with Fleer's Rookies & Greats, a nice enough looking set that probably wasn't necessary given the plethora of choices at the time; SP Legendary Cuts in one of its best versions; and the gorgeous Topps Gallery HOF, which is a variation that includes stripes on his jersey.  2004's contributions include a stellar Greats of the Game design (with a classic pose) and a solid offering from SP Legendary Cuts.  After those, 2005 gets into a few more products that look nice but were a little excessive:  while Sweet Spot Classics was usually worthwhile, Donruss Greats, Topps Turkey Red (as a standalone product, not the insert), and Upper Deck's All-Star Classics were a bit much.

Card #1 here, 2005's Upper Deck Classics (not to be confused with the above All-Star Classics), kind of falls in that decent-but-unnecessary club from above, but at least Al's card #1!  I still have plenty of appreciation for SP Legendary Cuts, of course, including the 2007 version above.  A somewhat austere 2008 Donruss Threads base ends that decade, and then we're finally on to this one.  The middle is a Topps trio including 2010 flagship's Cards Your Mom Threw Out (the regular back), which is a reprint of Al's RC I wish I owned; a National Chicle base, also from 2010; and a second consecutive flagship reprint insert, 2011's 60 Years of Topps (reprint of his '66 base).  The bottom three are a bit more in my wheelhouse:  a 2012 Panini trio of Cooperstown, Golden Age, and Prizm.

Here's where we end the run of vertical cards, starting with another Panini pair:  2013 Golden Age and 2014 Classics.  The former is too similar to Gypsy Queen for my tastes but the price was right to add it to a collection I've been wanting to grow.  Next is another card #1 in a set, Leaf's 2015 Heroes of Baseball, a product sold in blasters that guaranteed some pretty controversial Stan Musial autos.  The bottom gets us back to some classic products with 2015 Topps Archives, 2017 Diamond Kings' Heritage Collection insert, and finally, a towering Kaline adorning his 2019 Stadium Club appearance.  Once in a while it's fun to see old greats like Mr. Tiger in Stadium Club, though given how great the product was without them in the 90s I don't think it needs to be a yearly thing.

Let's end a post chock full of fun cardboard with five horizontal issues.  Up first is Al's second appearance from 1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes, a set we also covered when I posted some Mark Fidrych cards.  It looks terrific and I may see about chasing the rest of the Tigers that can be found.  Second is the dual image variation of Al from 2003 Bowman Heritage, the third and final piece of that puzzle.  Speaking of that product, how about the 2004 version, which reprinted Kaline's '55 Bowman card in all its vintage TV glory?  Heading back to modern looks there's 2005 Donruss Champions, a design that left a lot of room for relics and stickers.  And last up is one final SP Legendary Cuts appearance, this one also from 2005, on a design that wouldn't look out of place in Cooperstown.

This huge haul destroyed the century mark milestone for Kaline in my collection, jumping him all the way to 136 items.  That's a healthy total that I'm excited to build on, be it more affordable stuff from Sportlots or maybe some nicer pieces down the line.

I hope you all enjoyed this look at a ton of Kaline cardboard, not to mention this series as a whole.  These Sportlots purchases tend to take me a while to scan and post but I really like how productive they are for my collections, and maybe they give a few of you some ideas of what you might chase there.

With this series all done I temporarily find myself lacking any new in-hand purchases but I expect that to change very soon with a show this coming weekend and a bunch of quality COMC loot soon to be on its way, a lot of which could be heading to readers like you.  Happy December to all, and get ready for Christmas cards from TMV!

2019 Sportlots purchases: Old Tigers' Day

It's a sunny, not-quite-so chilly Sunday afternoon here in Ann Arbor, plus my Wolverines had another nice game yesterday, so I'm feeling pretty good.  Why not keep up the good vibes with some cards?

The penultimate post in this series is kind of a grab bag of older Tigers that didn't warrant their own posts or necessarily fit in with previous themes:

We'll start with "Gator", a.k.a. William James "Gates" Brown, an absolute beast of a PH who spent all of his 13 MLB seasons with Detroit.  That indeed included '68 so he appears in the 1988 Domino's Tigers team set celebrating the champs from that year.  I grabbed this copy because the one I already had from what used to be a complete set was in rough shape.  I still need to track down a few more of these, including Mickey Lolich's card, which I believe I used for an IP auto.

Next is slugging 1B "Stormin'" Norman Cash, a Tigers mainstay after coming to Detroit from the White Sox via the Indians in an absolute steal of a deal.  His 15 years in Motown included five All-Star nods, a ridiculous '61 season in which he won the AL batting crown and socked a career-high 41 dingers (377 career) with 132 RBIs, and a very nice 52.0 bWAR.  Oh yeah, and he was another key player in the '68 squad.

My Cash collection is smaller than I'd like at just 18 cards, only four of which were made during his playing days, but that's what Sportlots is for!  I did add a vintage piece in the '73 Topps card you see above, then added modern issues from 2001 Topps American Pie (which, again, came up a lot in this series), 2005 Upper Deck Classics, and 2013 Panini Golden Age.  Don't be surprised if I add more vintage items to this bunch in the near future.

The next two guys are even more well known.  My collection of Cobb is fairly healthy thanks especially to generous traders, but I was excited to add a pair of beautiful Fleer Greats of the Game cards from 2001 and 2002.  As for Ernie, the voice of the Tigers, he doesn't have a lot of cardboard to chase, but I still came up with a younger Harwell on his 1989 Pacific Legends issue, plus the gorgeous 2003 Topps Gallery HOF.  The latter set really is a work of art, and kudos to Topps for including him here.

And here we have a couple more Tigers greats.  Heilmann starred for Detroit in the early part of the 20th century, spending 15 of his 17 MLB seasons with the Tigers.  He was an outstanding hitter for average, winning four batting titles and hitting .403 in 1923, and had a bit of power to spare, too.  Can anyone here guess when MLB implemented new baseballs?

Heilmann's .342 career average and 72.2 bWAR were eventually enough to get him in the Hall in 1952 after 13 years on the ballot, and almost 50 years later he appeared on the 2001 Greats of the Game base you see above.  It's one of only four of his cards I own, but as he can be found in many other products I like, that number may increase before much longer.

Last up today is 15-year vet Harvey Kuenn, an OF/IF who spent eight very good seasons in Detroit, where he accumulated eight of his 10 All-Star appearances, was the '53 AL Rookie of the Year, led the league in hits four times, and won the '59 AL batting crown.  He was flipped to the Indians before the 1960 season for Rocky Colavito, who gave the Tigers four nice seasons himself.

Up top he stars on a couple late '80s oddballs in '88 Pacific Legends and '89 Swell Greats.  The next two are reprint-style offerings from 1991 and 1994 Topps Archives.  The '91 set reprints 1953 Topps, though Kuenn's card falls in the "cards that never were" group mentioned by BaseballcardPedia--he didn't appear until '54, which is accurately represented by the 1994 card.

Finally, the last three comprise a trio of fun 2000s Upper Deck products focusing on past greats.  In order they are:  2002 SP Legendary Cuts, 2005 Upper Deck Classics, and 2007 SP Legendary Cuts.  Combined with what I already had, I now own 15 Kuenn cards, and hopefully I'll track down more of him as well.

With these done I'm down to one more post, a big one starring a single player, and I'm really looking forward to getting that one done since I know a bunch of you will enjoy it.  It'll take me a bit to put together so look for it in a few days as I work to try to get it done before my attention turns to COMC shopping this holiday weekend!

2019 Sportlots purchases: Willie and the Bird

The afterglow of Michigan absolutely dominating MSU yesterday has me plenty energetic on this chilly Sunday, so let's go back to my unposted Sportlots stuff and have a look at a couple of guys who were winners in their own time.

Rookie phenom Mark Fidrych burst onto the scene and the national consciousness in 1976 with his trademark nickname,

a crazy pre-pitch routine on the mound, and some absolutely dominating numbers:  a 19-9 record, league-leading 2.34 ERA, 24(!) complete games, and a 9.6 bWAR. He was named the AL ROY and placed second to Jim Palmer in the Cy Young balloting, plus he started the All-Star game.  As a rookie.  TWENTY FOUR COMPLETE GAMES.  CC Sabathia tops the list of complete games by active MLBers with 38, and Justin Verlander is second with 26.  The Bird did it in a season.  Wow.

Unfortunately a knee injury in spring training the following year derailed that momentum, and a torn rotator cuff suffered a few weeks later sapped him of any effectiveness for the rest of his career.  Though he seems to have enjoyed his post-playing life, he sadly passed away in 2009 after an accident while working on a dump truck.  Fans of the Tigers and the sport in general will always remember Fidrych fondly for his amazing '76 season and mound antics.

Because of his brief career he didn't appear on a ton of cards so my Bird collection was fairly small before this latest Sportlots run, but I was able to boost it a bit with this fun group of seven pickups:

The oldest card in this scan is Mark's 1980 Topps base, which gives me all of his single-player flagship issues and leaves me short just a league leader card from '77, the same year his RC was produced.  Next is the low end but solid '88 Pacific Legends, which did quite a nice job with player selection, which I'm betting you'll agree with if you like collecting both stars and fan favorites.  Then comes '92 Action Packed All-Star Gallery (once again!) which is packed with lots of great players in a small set.  1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes is another product we've seen more than once in this series, and the design brings to mind Upper Deck Vintage designs that would come out in the ensuing decade.

Then we get into the next decade where things are a little more modern.  Again, you'll see a lot of sets repeat as I often tried to find all of the available Tigers I needed while searching each, so Topps' funky 2001 American Pie gets another appearance here.  I was also excited to find the Bird in Fleer's classy 2004 Greats of the Game, even though he was only really "great" for one season.  And lastly, it was also nice to see him make the cut for SP Legendary Cuts (sorry) as that always offers a nice design and is generally filled with legends as well.

This lucky bunch of seven cards give me 22 of the Bird and have me wanting lots more.  The Fleer Greats card has my favorite design while Action Packed and UD provided the best photos.  I've put his other cards I'm interested in on my TCDB wantlist, so don't be surprised if you see him make another appearance here in the future!

Next we move from the mound to the outfield and a player who enjoyed a much longer and productive career in Motown.  William Wattison Horton patrolled the deeper part of old Tiger Stadium for parts of 15 seasons from 1963 until he was traded to Texas in 1977.  While here he socked more than 250 of his 325 career homers, made four All-Star teams, put up a career-best 5.4 bWAR in 1968, and was a driving force behind that team that won it all for a reeling city.  His #23 was retired in 2000 and his contributions to the team and city as a fan favorite made that a natural choice.  You may have seen this clip before

in which Horton, from his LF position, made a perfect throw home to catcher Bill Freehan to nail speedster Lou Brock in Game 5 of the '68 Series.  The play was crucial with Detroit down 3-1 in the Series and helped turn things around, with Detroit owning the last three in a row.

My collection of Willie is also smaller than I'd like it to be, but purchases like this one help motivate me to grow that number with more cool stuff like this:

I was glad to give this group a triple dose of vintage goodness.  Topps cards from 1975 (I already have the Mini) and '76 flank a simple oddball-ish example of 1976 SSPC.  I still need to track down Horton's '64 Topps RC, or any of his cards from the '60s for that matter, as the oldest I have of him right now is from 1971 Topps.  There's something for me to work on in 2020.

The next couple are from sets you just saw in Fidrych's scan:  '92 Action Packed ASG and 2001 Topps American Pie.  I really like the photo Action Packed went with, which shows a focused slugger at the plate in an old-school Tigers uni.  The back notes that he was fourth in franchise history in HR at the time with 262, and Cecil Fielder (who was traded) and Lou Whitaker, who were active back then, never caught up.  In fact, only one player managed to eclipse him (as well as #3 Hank Greenberg):  Miguel Cabrera, who'd need 61 more to top franchise legend Al Kaline.

After those we end the day with a couple "newer" cards.  The first is 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game and another gorgeous design.  I also love that year's version for its various team Greats insert, which includes the Tigers, but this is simply another joy to look at.  Horton is my eighth Tiger from the base cards and I'm short just the Denny McLain, which I might get eventually, but I'm not terribly motivated since he's been such a jackass since he retired.

Last up is 2014 Panini Golden Age, a set whose design and checklist definitely evokes A&G and Gypsy Queen.  That means it's not exactly high on my list of favorites, but I was still happy to add it to Willie's collection.  The back highlights his outstanding 1968 season as the AL's "dominant offensive force" in "one of baseball's most pitching dominated seasons."  His bat certainly loomed large for the Tigers both in the regular season and playoffs, but don't forget his arm as seen in that clip above!

This fun look at a pair of fan favorites gets me down to two more posts, which I hope to have done soon with COMC's sales looming.  My plans include one more multiplayer post followed by a big solo finish I know other Tigers fans will enjoy.