2024 Twitter purchase: an old pitcher from an old friend

Tonight's should be a quick post as I'm showing off just one card, but it's a cool one from someone I don't get to mention too often these days. My BB4L/GB4L ((Alison) Brie buddy for life/Gracie (Lawrence) buddy for life) Greg of Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle, who can now mainly be found on Twitter, was doing a thread where he sold a bunch of stuff back in February. I was mainly interested in picking up a card for a TCDb friend but was thrilled to get another one for myself in the deal, with $25 going to Las Vegas's biggest Clayton Kershaw fan.

Here's what I was excited to nab:

And the Jeopardy question is "Who are two pitchers who were fairly significant prospects back in 2008?" Andrew Miller was Detroit's first round pick in 2006, #6 overall out of UNC (oddly enough, one pick before a Dallas high-schooler named Clayton Kershaw and a few before Tim Lincecum and Max Scherzer went back-to-back) and was Baseball America's #10 overall prospect in 2007. At the end of that year he and fellow first-rounder Cameron Maybin were the co-headliners of an eight-player deal that brought Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to Motown. Though he never turned into a top-of-the-rotation starter, he did become a fairly valuable bullpen weapon, mostly with the Yankees and Indians. I'm sure Detroit fans still appreciate him to this day for his part in Miggy spending 16 years in Detroit!

Meanwhile, Richard Joseph "Dick Mountain" Hill was a fourth-rounder of the Cubs out of UM in 2002. While he didn't have that first-rounder shine or make appearances on all the top-100 lists, by 2007 he'd been in the league for parts of three seasons, including his first full one, where he went 11-8. Who knew that the year the above card was made--2008--would be his last in the Windy City, before stops in Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, LA/Anaheim, the Bronx, back to Boston, Oakland, LA, Minnesota, Tampa, Boston again, Pittsburgh, and San Diego? Who would have thought that he'd reemerge as a solid veteran presence in the rotation as he got older, nearly throw a perfect game, and appear in 19 total MLB seasons (with 2024 still on the table!), and remain active longer than the guy drafted four years after him?

Yet that's how the story played out for the two guys on this 2008 Upper Deck Premier Premier Pairings Autographs dual auto, which is numbered on the front /25. And also, who knew that this card would mark a pretty cool milestone in my collection: hit #150 of Mr. Hill? Even I didn't and I'm the one that keeps track of this stuff! That's pretty rad to me as he continues to account for more than 1/3 of my Michigan Baseball PC with the next closest contender being Zach Putnam's 35. My count includes 35 1/1s and something like 99 cards featuring his signature. What a crazy ride my collection of him has been to parallel his own wild career.

Many thanks to one of my favorite old friends in Greg. This one's for you, my dude!:

Everyone else who isn't aware of the absurdly talented band Lawrence, please enjoy the above video and others in their "Acoustic-ish" series (featuring some other absurdly talented musicians) and get on the hype train, because they're amazing!

2020 trade package #14: Bob Walk the Plank

I appreciate every person who's generous enough to put in the effort to send me new cards, whether it's one or hundreds, commons or stars. And it's great to have such a diverse group of friends, including a few with whom I can send higher-end stuff back and forth. It really is a blast when I get to add new stuff to my collection that I wouldn't have thought of, or cards that didn't fit my price range.

One of those folks is Matt of Bob Walk the Plank (and, since his retirement, mostly @walktheplank82). My Mountaineer buddy had last sent me some ridiculously awesome stuff that I posted last December, and then a new envelope showed up about a week ago. "Seems like forever since I sent something your way," said the note he included, though it didn't feel that way to me. I'm also the type that prefers to send the occasional larger package instead of a bunch of smaller ones. Either way, if you looked at what he got me late last year, I think you'd agree that he was allowed as much time as he needed to reload.

I can confirm that Matt spent that time well, as the contents will prove:

There were three cards in this package I knew were coming eventually, and two of those are the 2015 Bowman Draft Blue (/150) and Gold (/50) parallels of Padres two-way player Jake Cronenworth seen above. Matt was nice enough to find those for me on COMC a while ago and I appreciated him including them here as I continue to work on his collection. I'd love to see the former Wolverine get some time in the majors with his unique skillset!

The rest you see here were definitely surprises, starting with Bondo's 2003 E-X RC. This was in the short-printed range of that year's product, which once again went the acetate route, an excellent decision. We sure could use more cards that look like this these days!

Next is an Al Kaline jersey from UD's 2005 Sweet Spot Classic. That's absolutely the kind of thing I can look forward to in an envelope from Matt and I love it. Look at the beautiful classic photo and the vintage jersey swatch of Mr. Tiger, who may be gone but definitely won't be forgotten. I don't have many similar pieces at this point but seeing this one makes me want to drop a few bucks on more if I can find them.

Moving on to a still-active player, I can't say I was expecting to see such a nice autograph of ace reliever Andrew Miller! Numbered just 03/10, this is from 2007 UD Black's Game Day Ticket Autographs Gold Spectrum parallel, another set that uses the ticket motif to great effect. Miller of course wasn't a Tiger for long as they traded him and fellow first-rounder Cameron Maybin in the deal that brought Miguel Cabrera to Motown, but that paid off handsomely for Detroit, and I'm happy for Miller that he was able to emerge as a very effective RP when starting didn't go his way. Miller's not the type of guy I'd tend to keep in my Detroit PC, but there's no way I'm getting rid of a card that's this nice!

And now we switch back to another Hall of Fame Tiger. Pudge will always be remembered more for his time in Arlington, but there's no denying the positive effect he had on Detroit in his four-plus seasons, helping the team back to respectability (and then more). So of course I'm thrilled that my first autograph of the catching legend is this one where he's shown as a member of my team. It also helps that it's on a very cool design from Fleer's 2004 Genuine Insider product, where the section that holds the signature slides in and out of the card's left side. Oh, and Pudge has a great autograph. And it's numbered /150. So, yeah, there's a lot to like about this one!

Heading over to the football side it's totes the GOATs, and two really, really nice cards bookend a fun base trio. The latter include 2002 Topps (not sure how I didn't have that!), 2003 Classics, and 2004 Playoff Hogg Heaven. Card #1, though, was a total surprise: a Torquers (blue foil) parallel of Tom's 2000 Press Pass card. The base version of this alone isn't cheap, so this rarer parallel of a sweet college uni card is awesome! I definitely appreciate it more because it's a Michigan uni card, not because of its value, but that doesn't mean the latter is lost on me!

And as if that weren't generous enough, we'll end on the card that I would say started this particular package. If you caught Matt's surprising new post on Saturday then you might remember that he included some shots of cards he came across while reorganizing and consolidating his collection. One of those happened to be Brady's 2000 Skybox Dominion RC, one he shares with fellow QB Giovanni Carmazzi of the Niners. The Hofstra product was the second QB selected in 2000 (third round), and one of six that went before the Patriots changed their franchise forever at #199 in the sixth.

I don't even want to guess what either of these big Brady items is going for right now since I'd rather celebrate having them. You may recall that I'm slowly chasing every non-auto/relic of each Wolverine in the NFL so the Dominion card is a big get as just my third of Brady's RCs (Fleer Tradition and UD Victory). There's still a long way to go so when someone sends one of these my way like Matt did it really means a lot.

Matt, thanks for once again bringing the thunder in our high-end back-and-forth! I don't have anything nearly as nice to send to you at the moment thanks to not being able to get to a show, but I do have a few things handy and might return the favor soon anyway.

And as a reminder for everyone who's missing Matt's great content, please make sure to follow him on Twitter @walktheplank82 where he now posts his pickups.