2024 trade package #20: Baseball Card Breakdown

Christmas is just a few days away but tonight I'll be showing off cards I received from someone born the day before the big holiday. Longtime friend Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown sent me some cool stuff back in September and it's about time I posted it:

Scan #1 includes two things I associate Gavin with more than pretty much anyone else. First is one of his trademark customs. His creativity has resulted in him using many different methods to create them, and one of them is sun bleaching. While I think he debuted that technique with the eye-blindingly yellow 1991 Fleer set, you can see he also gave it a try with 1988 Topps, and I was treated to Tram's All-Star subset appearance in that product.

Here's a look at the back which also includes a cool custom feature:

I really like the stamp Gavin uses as a calling card, and that he also signs his initials. What a treat these are! One of these days I really will try to show off the various customs he's (and maybe others) sent me in the long time that I've known him.

A dogged pursuit of a number of Topps' extremely cool Retired/Fan Favorites base and autograph sets is another thing I associate with Gavin. His accumulation of some of the tougher cards, especially from Archives Reserve and Retired Chrome Refractors really is impressive. If you don't believe me for some strange reason, head over to his blog and check them out.

As for me, I was super happy to receive the five-spot of '03 Topps Retired base you see above. The product used that year's flagship design but went with white instead of blue borders, and somehow that made them look even classier in combination with their great vintage photos. Gavin gifted me Sparky, '84 Tigers Evans and Gibby, phenomenon Fidrych, and HOFer Kell, which gave me six from that set (to go with the Tram I already had). I just updated my wantlist and appear to need Kaline, Gwynn, Ripken, and former Phillie/Tiger Jim Bunning. Again, I can't overstate how much I like the looks of these, made back in the days when Topps actually cared about design.

That's not all he sent, though, as I have one more scan of goodies. A Rainbow Foil of John's favorite guy (and new Cubs P) Matt Boyd leads off. That's followed by a Ginter X base of one of my personal faves, former blog namesake Curtis Granderson. Do I have too many? The answer is still no, but I'm proud to be in the lead on TCDb, at least for now.

Another former Tigers P on a Topps parallel is up next with ex-RP Shane Greene out of 2018 Update's Gold insert, which is naturally numbered to that year. Then we jump to another classy design in the form of Topps' Heritage Minors (2011), and a surprise autograph of former prospect Francisco Martinez, an IF/OF that played a couple stints in Detroit's system but never reached the Majors. His rather interesting signature graces a card numbered /861 on the back.

Former ROY Michael Fulmer is the final pitcher in today's post, and maybe from the scale of his card compared to the others you can tell it's from Topps Mini's 2019 version. He didn't pitch in the Majors this year but rumors exist that the Red Sox may try to shift him back to the rotation, and regardless, I hope he gets to enjoy a healthy season.

And the last card is one that brings to mind base-stealing king Rickey Henderson, who sadly passed away yesterday. Nobody's ever going to do it better than him, but back in 1997 the Tigers had an OF by the name of Brian Hunter, and he led the Majors in steals with 74, which is exactly what Rickey averaged per 162 games in his 25-year career. In '98 Topps's Stadium Club brand included a parallel called One of a Kind that was limited to 150 copies, not quite living up to the name, but they looked cool. Hunter's card appropriately shows him zooming in the direction of the next base on a beautiful foil parallel I'm now proud to have in my collection.

Gavin, thanks so much for these cards from about three months ago, and happy early birthday! There's a chance you'll get a small envelope from me this week in time to celebrate because I'd never leave a Christmas Eve baby/collecting friend out of my Christmas cards!

As for gifts that have hit my mailbox, I currently have one envelope left from September to cover, then two each from November and December, as long as no others decide to appear before the end of the month. Stay tuned for the September cards next!

2023 trade package #18: Night Owl

 

Greg who runs Night Owl Cards needs no introduction so I'll just lead off by saying I made a deal with him recently and now I'm here to show off my end of the deal. I became aware that he was slowly working on the 1988 Pacific Legends set and I happened to have a good chunk of dupes left from my box break, so I sent him something like 19 of his needs plus a couple other Dodgers. Because I know Greg's on TCDb I thought I'd make it fun and easy for both of us by sending him a trade proposal so the cards would automatically go into his collection, and then I picked out a few cards I hoped to get in return if he thought it would be fair. He did!

So here's what I ended up with:

I know some folks find those 1990 Swell cards too low-end for their tastes, but I enjoy them plenty, especially since they include appearances of some guys that don't have enough, like the Bird (who, by the way, was in '88 Pacific Legends too!). It's not like Fidrych collectors are spoiled for choice, and anyway the colorful look here is pleasing to my eye at least, so I was happy to add it.

Seeing Maddux on a team other than the Cubs and Braves is always a bit jarring, so his stints with the Dodgers and Padres captured on cardboard still throw me off sometimes. But I'll happily take anything I can get of one of my favorite player collections, especially a Topps Gold parallel numbered /2007.

Considering the relatively low quality of most of what I sent to Greg I wouldn't have blamed him if he didn't want to include the '75 Topps Denny McLain base you see there that pairs him up with '68 rival Bob Gibson. But he's a generous guy so he did just that and now I have another fun piece in my McLain collection, now 25 cards strong.

Here's where I'll probably lose a lot of you as I'm sure many who read this blog don't collect football or at least not Wolverines specifically. But these additions are just as fun for me as the baseball ones.

First up is my first (and probably only for a while) card of former UM RB Ty Isaac. Isaac was a highly recruited back from nearby Illinois who opted for USC over Michigan in 2013, then transferred to Ann Arbor a season later and had to sit out a year under the old rules. He put up some decent numbers for the Wolverines in 2015-2017, if not stats that would correspond to his recruiting ranking, then went undrafted and played briefly for the fly-by-night Alliance of American Football league, as captured on the card you see above from Topps. The product includes 10 total cards (including three autographs) for me to chase and I'd love to add more if I can.

And then we head back into Greg's wheelhouse: vintage. Randy Logan was a safety for some very good Michigan teams at the beginning of the 70s, then was drafted by Philly in 1973's third round. He spent 11 years suiting up for the Eagles and compiled 23 interceptions. What you see above is his 1979 Topps base, which marks just my fourth card of his, and the oldest besides his '76 Topps RC.

From the same set I also snagged my fifth card of College Football HOF RB Rob Lytle. The late Lytle was a Wolverine from 1973-76, selected by Denver in 1977's second round, and put up 14 total TDs over 87 NFL games in his seven seasons. He has just 12 cards to his name on TCDb and I now have four from his playing days (including his '78 Topps RC) to go with an autograph.

Here are the backs for those that enjoy them:

Greg, thanks once again for another fun deal! I'm always glad when we can swap cards despite the large differences in our collecting philosophies.

More trade recaps and other stuff to come!

TCDB trade roundup: four trades and three PIFs!

It's New Year's Eve Eve and this will probably be my final post of 2022 unless I'm feeling especially celebratory tomorrow for events related to the gridiron and not the end of the year. I'm sending off this year in collecting with the latest batch of cards that hit my mailbox thanks to TCDB. That amounts to four trades plus three PIFs (pay it forwards), the latter of which were perfectly timed with the season of giving.

Here's how those transactions went:

Deal #1 was my first with Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life, though it was through his TCDB ID of borosny that we were able to connect for this swap. He matched me for nearly 20 cards on my wantlist--man, does using that site ever make trading easier!--and I came up with more than 42 cards for him off his baseball set wants on his site. Those came from '95 and '96 Score plus '96 Donruss and Leaf. Here's what I got in return:

As I often do when it comes to trades there I picked out a wide variety of items to hit my many collections. You'll see '84 Tigers like Bergman and Brookens again in this post. Three more Grandersons add nicely to my quest for "too many." Ex-closer Mike Henneman pops up twice in this deal (see the next scan). AJax is another ex-Tiger I've come to appreciate in the years since he's been gone. Matheny and Hal Morris are two of the four Michigan alumni to be found here, and that Morris minors card is pretty cool.

HOFer Jack joins the Morris and '84 Tigers parties with an early 90s duo. Former Wolverine Leon Roberts indeed managed Detroit's AAA squad, the Toledo Mud Hens, at one point. The Maddux/Ward/Cora trio completed or nearly finished their three respective sets--'94 Ultra Series II, '95 Donruss Series I, and '96 Donruss. And lastly we have a fun trio of late 80s Topps Stickers Super Star Backs. Barry's from the '89 set while Tram and Lou are rightfully seen together out of the previous year's product.

Bo was awesome to work with and I look forward to making more deals with him, plus I'll continue to follow his excellent blog.

Next up is a smaller deal with bravefan1, my third with him since I joined the community. Naturally I gave up a few Braves cards, including a couple low-end autos, and in addition to a solid relic I'll be including in a belated Christmas package, I nabbed these three for myself:

These three are right up my alley! First up is a 2004 Absolute Memorabilia base of Tigers HOFer George Kell. It offers a beautiful, shiny rainbow foil design and is numbered (/1349) so it's right in my wheelhouse. Mad Dog's 2000 UD Faces of the Game Insert isn't quite from the 90s but it's close enough, and this is another one of those chase sets I fondly remember from back when it was actually fun and affordable to open boxes. Finally, I managed to sneak in a 2022 Topps Gallery RC of #1 overall pick Spencer Torkelson, who hopefully got his sophomore slump out of the way with his tough freshman campaign. That's my first RC of his, and I look forward to seeing how he bounces back in '23 on what will mostly otherwise be a pretty uninteresting tanking squad.

Next, I made more headway on a couple set chases plus scored a nice PC pair in a deal with Mat9975. In return for a quartet of 1996 baseball base and a pair of '06 Bowman football RCs, I got these:

How sweet is that Barry Larkin '94 SP Holoview FX card? Upper Deck had already shown some hints of what they could do with holograms in previous years, but they really upped their game on this insert, that's for sure! The Long Ball Leaders card of PC guy Dean Palmer produced the same year by Donruss also looks very cool. I'm so grateful we didn't have to suffer through a Topps monopoly and instead got the greatest decade in card creativity in the 90s.

The two set wants I grabbed are from the same year, oddly enough. Larry Walker's Finest card puts another small dent in that one, and I'm down to just 17 that I need. And between the Kieschnick and the Maddux from above, my second set of '94 Ultra Series II that I was building after my Facebook collection purchase should now be done. Once I verify that I'll be happy to make it available for trade!

The last of my trades before we get to the PIFs came from pdmkam. He made a proposal aiming for 13 of my '95 Donruss baseball dupes, and after a quick counter from me, we had a deal. Here are the nine cards I ended up with:

I told you you'd see more '84 Tigers! There could have been even more in this transaction but I swapped a few of them out for a couple of the newer items you see above. The late Bergman appears on '82 and '84 Donruss cards when he had yet to be flipped to Detroit. Brookens joins him in the latter set that came out the same year the Tigers last won the Series, as does the Big Wheel, Lance Parrish, who also gets his '83 card from that manufacturer added to the pile. HOFer Ted Simmons joins the 80s party with his '81 Topps appearance.

As for the "newer" cards I referenced, those came in the form of Mr. Tiger's '84 Topps Archives reprint of his '54 RC, plus my latest Rich Hill add, his '22 Topps Update base. It took Topps until Update to include Hill despite the fact that he re-joined the Sox before 2021 even concluded, but that's Topps for you. How long will I need to wait for my first card of Dick Mountain with the Pirates?

I mentioned that I ended up with nine cards and this fun oddball of the Bird from Upper Deck's 1993 All-Time Heroes product was the last. UD did a great job picking images for the main panel and the left side, I must say. According to TCDB I just need Ty Cobb's solo appearance (#32) and one he shares with Honus Wagner (#145) to finish up the team set!

All of these deals went off without a hitch and marked the end of a great year on the site, which I'll briefly recap in a minute. But first, here's a quick look at the three PIFs that came my way in December:

#1 was from Bo who I guess appreciated the fact that I threw in a few extra Yankees when I sent his envelope. Back my way came this six pack:

Gwynn, Maddux, Ripken, and a (former) Tiger PC guy too? Yes please! All of these were on my wantlist and it was fun looking though them when the PWE showed up. The two food issues bookending everything are great, and I've always been a fan of the Triple Play and Score products representing Gwynn as well. Thanks again, Bo!

Next, Colorado native Jim, a.k.a. budler, went on his own Secret Santa spree, as evidenced by the many thank yous he received in the "Pay it forward" thread. I happened to be one of his lucky targets and enjoyed seeing these two:

There's that trademark Gwynn hairstyle from the late 80s! Once again, both of these were needs, and I appreciate Jim's Christmastime generosity.

Finally, while trying to PIF another member, one of my site buddies was able to get their address from Joe, a.k.a. ymmat, so to show my appreciation I sent Joe a bit of baseball set help from my dupes. Not long after he returned the favor with these:

Yeah, it was a Holly Padre Christmas in this three-pack of PIFs, and I'm absolutely fine with that! It was great adding so many new Gwynn cards to my collection, enough to get me over the 800 mark, as it turns out. Once again all of these were new to me as they came straight from my wantlist, including the oddball playing cards and Gold Topps Micro. My favorite by far, though, is the '97 Topps Hobby Masters insert. 1997 was the first year of what I consider modern Topps' best five-year run in terms of base design plus inserts after years of being very blah. That's a fantastic looking chase card of Mr. Padre and I'm happy to add it to his collection with everything else you see above.

Based on how much I talked about the site this year and all the trade recaps I did, you'd probably assume I had a great year on TCDB, and you'd be correct! Between 2019 and last year I'd completed only 18 total transactions there. Things got a bit better for me this year when I put more effort in:

Yep, I finished up 76 formal deals to go with a nice number of PIFs back and forth. I even managed to shed a net 10 cards, not including those that didn't get captured in the count due to PIFs or unofficial trades. Now that I'm approaching 100 completed transactions I'm looking forward to boosting that number even more in 2023!

Thank you again to all the members I traded with this year who made TCDB a site I'm happy to spend lots of time on. I'll be back better than ever in January.

2021 Sportlots purchases part 5: Lucky Tiger Seven

Previously: Quick summary and set wants; Big and small we have them all!; Better off Ted; A Tettle-ton of Froot Loops

Since my last post was a Michigan player and the Sportlots one before that focused on a solo collection I thought it would be fun to highlight a group for tonight's. Not that there aren't any Wolverines in this post, mind you, but the theme here is Tigers greats of the past. Also, if you're wondering why you don't see certain Tigers you're sure would fit in that category, rest assured there's another team post coming at some point! (Also also, if you're a fan of the movie tonight's title vaguely references, you're extra cool in my book!)

So here's seven of Detroit's finest, from the recent past to way before I was born:

This first scan covers four players alone, since I picked up just a few cards of each. Player number one is the Bird, one of the Franchise's most colorful and recognizable guys, and I was geeked to end up with his 2010 Topps Triple Threads base (#d /1350) for cheap. It's my 24th card from his fairly small oeuvre of around 200 issues (according to TCDB), and I'd love to add more, whether they're recent high-end base like this or some of his earlier items.

Fidrych's amazing 1976 ROY campaign coincided with catcher Bill Freehan's sunset season with the team, and they'd form a battery just once that year for the pitcher's second start. It looks like Bruce Kimm caught every other Bird start, maybe as a personal catcher sort of situation? Anyway, Freehan, who's a favorite of mine as well of John's, of course, can be seen here on a textbook Action Packed issue, in this case 1993's All-Star Gallery. As you would expect it's raised and embossed, plus the shot of the '68 champ in the dugout with his chest protector and bat is quite cool. It's not easy for me to track down new Freehans that I need, especially cheaper ones, so I was happy with this deal.

Bookending another '68 champ we'll get to in a minute is another Wolverine/Tiger, Charlie Gehringer. Up top is a Burgundy version of one of his two appearances in Conlon's 1994 set (which continues numbering from the previous one). He got an "In Memorium" banner because he'd passed away the previous January, a few months shy of 90. It's a nice card that's even improved a bit with a royal kind of border. At the end of the scan is an even older issue from TCMA's 1980 All Time Detroit Tigers set. The only horizontal card in a set of 12 (and why not? Fielding shots look great on this axis!), he's in great company with obvious choices like Cobb, Greenberg, Kaline, Newhouser, Cochrane, and more. I might have to try to track down the rest!

And then there's the last player in the scan we haven't covered yet. Even though he's pictured with three of the five other franchises for whom he played, there's no way you can leave out Willie Horton when you're talking about past Tigers greats! After 14 excellent years in Motown, the pinnacle of which was that '68 season, Horton played one game for the Tigers before being sent to Texas. His stay was short as before the '78 season he was flipped to Cleveland, which started a very nomadic summer that saw him get released, picked up by Oakland, and traded to Toronto. In January of '79 the Mariners signed him, and he'd spend his final two MLB seasons in Seattle (though he'd eventually get traded to Texas again, released, and signed by the Pirates). At least some portions of that journey are captured on the three Topps cards above from 1978-80, giving me a nice run in his collection from 1970-80.

And next we have TOO MANY GRANDERSONS OUT OF NOWHERE! I was pretty picky about what I bought this time of one of my favorite recent Tigers, but the price was right to grab all seven of his appearances in Topps 2008 team gift set. I don't anticipate finding a deal on the complete set of 55 anytime soon, so I'm happy to just pick up singles of guys like Curtis and JV. Besides a solo card, Grandy gets paired up with 2007 All-Star Carlos Guillen, who was terrific in Detroit, and lauded for a few accomplishments. The biggest was his 20-20-20-20 season in which he accumulated 20 each of doubles, triples, homers, and steals, one of four players to achieve that feat. Besides that, in 2007 he was named AL Player of the Week in July, led the sport in triples (naturally!), and was among the team leaders in hits and batting average. That year was by far his best in terms of bWAR, and given his overall numbers that makes total sense. Believe it or not it ended up being his career best, even after some of those big seasons he had in the Bronx! By the way, I'm nearing 200 many Grandersons, so he's now on milestone watch.

Even though I mostly scanned these in alphabetical fashion they get increasingly homogenous as we continue; including this scan the last three cover just two other players. No complaints from me, though, since I get to own and you get to gawk at a whole bunch of Kalines! I treated myself to 19 new cards of Mr. Tiger, which is one short of his age when he won the 1955 AL batting title. There's nothing vintage or anything, but it was fun to give his collection that much of a boost in numbers, not to mention some very cool cards. 

The oldest is from a 1995 Upper Deck food issue produced for Eagle snacks, and he's part of an excellent nine-card checklist. UD is represented again with the always excellent SP Legendary Cuts (2006). Fleer makes the cut twice with one of its cool Sports Illustrated products, 1998's Then and Now, plus 2003 Fall Classics. Donruss' lone entry is 2004's World Series product's Blue parallel. And Topps claims the rest thanks to 2000 Stars, 2010 flagship's Turkey Red insert and 206 base card, and 2011 GQ. There's lots of classic vintage photography and images to admire here, something I don't get to appreciate as much as I should because most of my PCs are modern players. All the more reason to chase some Kalines! 

So here's some more Kalines I chased! These are from the Toppsopoly era so they're blander than they could be design-wise, but there's still some nice images to enjoy. Though I don't believe I own any of the much older "test issue" versions of Topps' cloth stickers, I grabbed the insert version from 2011 Lineage, which is pretty cool. It looks like 2013 GQ (Framed White) and Heritage's Flashbacks insert opted for the same image, kind of like the Turkey Red and GQ cards above. A 2014 Triple Threads base is definitely the highest-end card here, though that year's set wasn't numbered, and if you wanted the same photo on a different design you could go with 2020 A&G below. I think my favorite photo/image in this bunch is the one featured on 2017 flagship's Salute insert, which shows a very young future HOFer.

Since 19 doesn't go into two nicely when it comes to scans I decided to place Al's last pair of cards at the top of this one. On the left is the 2004 version of Heritage's Flashbacks insert, and I give Topps credit for going horizontal with a great shot celebrating young Kaline winning that batting title at 20. Did you know that the previous youngest batting champ at that point was one Ty Cobb? Anyway, Al's run ends with a simple 2020 Archives base that has a strange portrait photo but a cool batting action image.

And tonight we end on another HOFer, granted one that was a relative short-timer for the franchise compared to most of the rest of these players. George Kell came to Detroit from the Philadelphia A's in 1946 and spent the best years of his career with the Tigers until being sent to the Red Sox in a nine-player deal in 1952. That means he missed out on the '45 championship team plus he was traded just a year before Kaline debuted. At least they got to form an all-time great broadcasting pair.

His first two cards here--1991 Topps Archives (reprint of his '53 base) and 2001 Fleer Boston Red Sox--depict him with his third team, but fortunately the others are all about the Olde English "D". The first is from the gorgeous 2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame product, and the one I have here is the variation with a white "D" on his hat, while I already owned the orange letter version. The other two are Archives issues from 2019 and 2020, and in my opinion the '19 card, done in the style of the cool '75 set, is executed better, but both are quite cool.

Though I only came away with five cards of Kell, they were enough to get me over the 50-card mark to 53, so that's worth a little celebration.

I'm curious to see what people think of these items in the comments, but regardless I know I had a blast picking up some cool items of some of the best players in the team's storied history! Next time I'll probably be back with another single-player post, but first you can expect another surprise PWE trade post.

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.

TCDB trade #1: TripleCrown24

Recently I made my first trade since joining up on TCDB.  Technically it's my second since I picked out some cards from Paul on the site and we went through some of the process to create a formal trade, including both of us getting feedback.  But for the purposes of this series (I'm hoping there's plenty more to come!) I'm considering this one #1.

My trade partner was TripleCrown24, a guy who collects Tigers and Lions, and he initiated the deal by offering a wantlist card of one of my supercollection PC guys, asking for one of the Miguel Cabrera items on my trade list.  I then used the site's counter-proposal feature to add a bunch more Cabreras I had available for him, and a few more things on his trade list I was interested in.  I came out a bit ahead so I told him he could add more from my trade list but he was happy as-is.  Wanting to make a good impression, though, I tossed in around 25 Chris Sabo doubles I noticed he needed.

Heading back my way were 10 cards I'm happy to show off this evening:

We'll start with a quartet of '81 Topps Tigers, which I picked out since I don't own the set.  The 1980 squad featured a number of contributors to the '84 champs, but you wouldn't have known it at the time.  Brookens was in his first full season (second overall) and put up a career high 2.5 bWAR as the primary 3B.  Fidrych sadly was unable to return to effectiveness after his injury and would be out of the majors after this season.  Parrish, one of my favorite Tigers catchers not named Freehan, socked 20+ homers for the first of seven occasions in his second full season (fourth overall) and capped off the year with All-Star and Silver Slugger nods.  And Petry went 10-9 (for the first of consecutive years) in his second big league campaign, the beginning of a season-season run of double-digit wins.

I tossed in a Stadium Club base of Palmer because he grew on me while with Detroit, probably because of his big bat in the 90s.

And then there's the baseball PC stuff.  The Abbott is a Golden Rainbow parallel from the same '94 Stadium Club set as Palmer's above.  I chose the Gwynn Stadium Club base from this year sight unseen because I knew it would be great, and it is!  Looks like Mr. Padre at the '99 All-Star Game at Fenway.  Speaking if this year's Topps products, supercollection guy Clayton Richard appears on flagship's 150th Anniversary parallel, the card that started this deal.  It's my 125th that I've tracked down toward his checklist and only the second from 2019.  Last up is a 2014 GQ Mini of former blog namesake Curtis Granderson, who's still a blast to watch no matter the uniform.

 

I also noticed one football card that piqued my interest:  this 2017 Elite Draft Picks Passing the Torch insert starring Michigan greats Charles Woodson and Tom Brady.  Gimme college unis any day, and especially cards of two of the greatest Wolverines ever to go on to NFL glory.  The player choice here is somewhat unorthodox since the insert typically pairs a legend with an up-and-coming guy, hence the "passing the torch" theme.  Regardless, they both earned NCAA rings in '97 and then won it all in the pros, so I'm happy to see them here together.

This is exactly the kind of trade I was looking forward to making on TCDB and I look forward to having more to show off, especially as I get my trade bait added.  Until then, consider this a thumbs up for trading with TripleCrown24.  And don't forget to hit my TCDB profile to see what wants and trade items I've gotten to!

2018 trade package #21: Night Owl

Highly decorated and prolific blogger Greg, whom everyone knows better as Night Owl, was nice enough to send me a great little package after I completed a few of his wants a couple months ago.  Getting a Night Owl package is lots of fun because I never have any idea of what I might get.  Oh sure, Tigers will likely be part of the equation, but in what form?

There's no reason for me to keep you in suspense, check them out!:

Mini Miggy, Donruss Miggy, Topps Miggy, Blue Miggy.  Sounds like something you might hear on The Big Bang Theory followed by "Bazinga!" ::laugh track for 10 minutes straight::  That blue Donruss parallel is perfect and I love the throwback to the '84 set.  And no, I don't remember flipping the Topps and Donruss base cards while scanning these.

Recuperating starter Michael Fulmer looks good on the plan-but-solid '18 Donruss design, as does Mr. Tiger on a name variation.  There's also a Topps Rookie History reprint of Kaline that's another reminder that I need to knock that original card off of my collecting bucket list before it gets reprinted 20 more times.

Greg also fired the McCannon a couple times with a pair of inserts.  Naturally I'm especially attracted to the Refractor from 2015 Chrome but the Big League card from this year is no slouch.

Of course I was excited to see two Verlanders among the goodies, especially since one is a true RC:  his 2005 Donruss Throwback Threads base in which he looks every bit of the 13 years younger that he is as pictured.  I say true RC as opposed to the ridiculous "(RC)" designation that lingered for a few years.  Anyway, that's a great card, not to mention generous on Greg's part since JV escaped Detroit's poor coaching and reestablished himself as a top pitcher!

Joining that is a Topps team card from 2015 which is very cool since those don't tend to be easy to track down, at least without having to purchase the whole set.  They're also easy to miss since the photo up front is identical, but the large numbering on the back beginning with "DT-" is very helpful.

I tossed the rest of the modern Tigers in this same scan, and those include another 2015 Chrome Refractor, this time swingman Buck Farmer, a couple base examples of 2018 Big League in the form of Dixon Machado and Jordan Zimmermann, a 2015 flagship Snow Camo ("SNOW CAMO?!") parallel of short time closer Joe Nathan, and a 2018 Opening Day insert of fan favorite mascot Paws.

I said "modern" Tigers above because here's where things got especially interesting.  An '84 Fleer base of Chet Lemon, a guy who was an All-Star that year on a fantastic team, is about as mainstream as it gets.  That's followed by a fun new addition for me, a '94 Ted Williams base of Mark Fidrych.  I neither have many cards of that brand or player, so it's definitely a cool throw-in for me.

Next is a five-spot of old, olllld Tigers from 1992 Conlon, giving me a great opportunity to learn about more players from that era:

• Shea was with the Tigers from 1927-29 and again in '39.  The backup catcher's career spanned parts of 11 seasons and six teams, and his claim to fame appears to be when he was sent to the Browns by Boston for future HOF catcher Rick Ferrell.
• Sorrell pitched his entire ten-year career (1928-37) in Detroit and put up decent numbers, including a 92-101 record and 17.0 bWAR.  Unfortunately for him, by the time the 1935 World Series team rolled around he wasn't on the mound much, and sometimes out of the 'pen when he was.
• In Stoner's case somehow a rapper of the same name did not impede my search results.  The pitcher came from a huge family where pretty much all of the kids seem to have been named after famous people--Ulysses S. Grant in this case--and there's also a story about how he came to have an oddly bent index finger on his pitching hand on his SABR page.  He spent most of his nine year career in Detroit, in 1922 and 1924-29, and went 50-57.
• Tavener was nicknamed "Rabbit", and why not back then (1921 and 1925-28, plus a year in Cleveland).  The SS was small even for his era at 5-5, small enough that Ty Cobb didn't want him, but he put up a few solid seasons in Motown.  So I guess now we know what it would be like if someone my size played in the Majors in the 20s!
• Finally, Joyner Clifford "Jo-Jo" White was lucky enough to earn a cool nickname and get a ring with the '35 Tigers.  The OF was with Detroit from 1932-1938, and while it doesn't look like he lit up box scores, he was apparently a solid enough option off the bench to appear in both the '34 and '35 Series.

And now I'm going to borrow one of Night Owl's cooler features (I mean he's got so many), one I don't think he's even used in a while:

For me the best card in the package was definitely the last card you see in that scan, card #61 in a set produced by local paper The Detroit News in 1981 that celebrated 100 years of the Tigers (one that I definitely need to track down now!).  This one honors the World Series champion 1945 squad, and the back helpfully lists who appears:

The biggest names here are Newhouser, who put up a ridiculous 12.1 bWAR that year, longtime Tiger Dizzy Trout, and Rudy York.  Hank Greenberg, returning from three years away due to WWII, isn't pictured for some reason, but he was a big contributor in the win over the Cubs, so I'll at least mention him here.

And then we have the final card in the package, and the only one that doesn't fit the Tigers theme.  It's a 2017 Topps Update base of PC guy Ken Griffey Jr.--a very young Junior Griffey, in fact, working a camera at Comiskey Park.  There's never a bad time to include Griffey in a package of cards heading my way!

Thanks once again for surprising me with all of this great stuff, Greg!  I know we don't trade often but I promise I'll send some more wantlist help and Dodgers so we can do it again!

Complete sets: 2006 Greats of the Game Tigers Greats

Yesterday among my COMC PC purchases I showed off an Alan Trammell insert from 2006 Greats of the Game, and now, as promised, I'm back to show off the full set.  As I mentioned, I'd already previously picked up the Bill Freehan and Kirk Gibson cards for those guys' collections, and that means this time I nabbed the Tram and seven others.  And now you get to see and learn more about this fun set.

The Tigers were one of six franchises honored with a 10-card team greats insert set in this Fleer product, with the others being the Cardinals, Cubs, Dodgers, Red Sox, and Reds.  At least in Detroit's case, nine of the players featured also made an appearance in the base set, and a 10th was thrown in--Ty Cobb, oddly enough!  If you look at the list of players below and wonder why Lou Whitaker isn't included, for example, you're not alone, though to be fair, Sweet Lou appeared in very, very few products after '96.  I would have probably made a couple replacements--where's Mickey Cochrane, Hank Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer, for instance?--but in a set of just 10 cards I think Fleer did a reasonably good job.

Card fronts are divided into two sections.  The top 2/3 is a dark blue rectangle encompassing an inset classic photo of the player and a photo of old Tiger Stadium over which are placed the Fleer Greats logo, the iconic "Olde English 'D'", and the player's name and position.

The bottom third is a grayscale cropped photo with the years of the players' Tiger career (not including Gibby's second tenure, apparently) in the bottom right corner.  Another logo with Detroit's "D" done up in a regal banner style sits between the player photo and this section.

The back is again divided in a 1/3-2/3 scheme.  The smaller section is another dark blue rectangle that includes the card number (or lettering, as the case may be), player name, "D" logo, and biographic info.  Another grayscale-type image sits in the other section, on top of which is a white box with an intricate silver border (topped by the previously-mentioned banner logo again), inside of which is the standard write-up.

This is a very classy insert set from a product with a classy reputation, and the Tigers theme is the icing on the cake for me.  Here's your look at all 10 cards: