Happy birthday to Bill Freehan!

I owe you guys a couple more trade posts, not to mention plenty more that show off lots of pickups from the last few months.  But that would involve scanning and writing, and I'm too lazy for that right now.  Besides, today is a special day that deserves its own post:

Happy birthday to former #Tigers catcher and 1968 World Series champion, Bill Freehan! 🎉🎂 pic.twitter.com/z8YMOK0XGJ

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) November 29, 2017

That's right, Tigers catching great (and favorite player of John's Big League Baseball Blog) Bill Freehan turns 76 years old today!

The 15-year catcher and '68 champ has a special place in my collection because not only was he a a Tigers fan favorite, he also played ball (and later coached) for my alma mater, which I may have mentioned before is the University of Michigan (yep, football too!).

While has health has been in decline for a while, mostly due to Alzheimer's, it's still easy for a fan like myself to picture him in his prime at and behind the plate, despite the fact that he played his final season seven years before I was even born.

So why not celebrate Bill's birthday with a Plaschke Thy Sweater is Argyle special:  a pentafecta?  The quick rundown is that it includes a rookie, relic, patch, autograph, and 1/1.  Since I have a pretty decent Freehan PC, that won't even make me break a sweat:

Of course Freehan's lone RC is this 1963 Topps which he shares with three others in all their floaty-headed goodness.

For the relic I chose this classy looking 2001 SP Legendary Cuts Debut bat.  While I have a number of choices here (especially thanks to the 2005 version) I quickly decided on this simple but elegant Upper Deck offering.

Speaking of 2005 SP Legendary Cuts (which recycles that commonly used photo), it's currently my only option for a patch example.  As a matter of fact, Bill doesn't seem to have any such cards outside of this very product.

My autograph selection faced plenty of stiff competition including the likes of Fleer's Greats of the Game and multiple UD choices (2004 Timeless Teams and 2005 Past Time Pennants come to mind).  But in the end I had to go with the beautiful 2005 Topps Retired Signature, in this case the Refractor version (which was removed from its uncirculated-style case before I acquired it).  It's simply an amazing set and the Refractor factor puts it over the top.

Believe it or not, I was more limited when it came time to select a patch than choosing a 1/1 as I have a pair of those.  The runner-up from 2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites was a very close second thanks to its cool retro action shot.  Still, this post is all about celebrating a portrait of the athlete as a young man, so I gave this 2006 Greats of the Game Magenta plate the nod despite the third instance of that photo out of the five cards I chose!

So here's to one of Motown's best backstops.  Happy birthday, Bill!

2016 COMC purchases: MLB Michigan Men

All right, let's start looking at some of my loot from COMC purchases from 2016, including cards purchased during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend!

First up are some cards of six PC guys that all have one thing in common:  they played baseball for Michigan.  Three or four of these guys should be pretty well known to most of you, and hopefully some of you will become aware that I collect the others and eventually help me find new cards of them as well!

On with the cards:

First up alphabetically is Jim Abbott and this Dugout Collection parallel from 1996 Score.  It's a bit of a strange photo to use and reminds me of one of my favorite memes:

I've always admired the simplicity of the '96 Score set, though, and consider Dugout Collection cards (and its relatives, such as Gold Rush) to be solid parallels.

Cronenworth is one of those guys I'm betting few, if any of you, know.  I first wrote about him last May when I started collecting his stuff, which so far is limited to 2015 Bowman Draft/Chrome.  That means chasing a bunch of parallels, but at least many of those are Refractors, like this Purple version (#134/250), which gives me eight of his 19 cards so far.

It's always a celebration around here when I can add new cards to my favorite PC, that of Rich Hill, who I hope continues to enjoy success with the Dodgers in 2017.  First up is Hill's Mini Green Back card (#26/88) from 2008 UD Goudy.  It was the last card I needed to sew up that product, and I may put up a separate post soon showing off the six-card rainbow.

The other card is much more recent and shows Rich with his other 2016 club, Oakland, on his 2016 Topps Gold parallel (#0557/2016).  That's only my second Hill card from the product besides his base card, though I'll soon be showing off another in an upcoming trade post.  For now, these two put me at 252/373 Hills, with a denominator that's grown a bit in the last few months, a happy development in my opinion.

Here's a card that was an easy buy:  I love collecting Larkin, I love '96 Sportflix, and I think Artist's Proof parallels are great.  Plus the nostalgia factor looms large--I opened a bunch of packs of this product when it came out and wouldn't have dreamed of pulling a card like this as such parallels were relatively rare at the time.  As a pleasant surprise the scan turned out quite nicely--I like when you get a glimpse of multiple facets of a hologram-style card like this.

The other player in today's post I'm betting almost none of you are familiar with is Yankees farmhand Michael O'Neill.  That's not a huge surprise since the 2013 third-rounder hasn't advanced past AA yet.  I scored two more of his cards this time to add to my small-but-growing collection.  First up is a new autograph (my 13th), a Green Refractor version from 2013 Bowman Sterling, giving me five of his 10 cards from that product.  As you can see, Paul's nephew has a very nice signature.

The other card is also a Refractor, this one a Pink Wave out of 2014 Bowman Chrome Prospects Series 2.  O'Neill has a ton of cards from 2014 Bowman Chrome products--I count 42--so every little bit helps.  I don't know how I feel about the "Wave"-style Refractors, but pink is a reasonable color for the iconic parallel.

Make it 29/85 cards (including a couple of dual autographs with Yankees legend Paul I wasn't aware of until yesterday) in O'Neill's collection.

Finally, you can see that I got on a nice little run of George Sisler pickups.  As it turned out, Black Friday was a great time to chase a bunch of inserts (and a few base) of Gorgeous George.  First up in this starting nine is Sisler's base from 2002 Sweet Spot Classics, one of my favorite looking sets that I don't own but should definitely grab someday.  A classic photo with a classy design is always a desirable pair.

Next is a trio from one of Topps' best offerings, 2003 Gallery HOF.  Honestly, if Topps made more products like this I wouldn't be crapping all over them in every single post.  These cards are flat out beautiful and well executed.  The first two represent George's base card and then a variation (sans ad on the outfield wall) while the third is the Artist's Proof version of the former.  As usual, Topps nails it with a Gallery product, and I'm going to enjoy having these in my collection.

The next pair comes from a less interesting but still solid product:  2011 Topps Marquee, which should have been named "Why Didn't We Just Make Stadium Club?"  At least it has the borderless design I like along with some cool photos.  The two cards you see there are Blue (#292/299) and Copper (#137/199) parallels featuring foil corresponding to the parallel color along with serial-numbering up front.

Panini's 2013 Cooperstown set has appeared on my blogs a few times thanks to appearances by Sisler and fellow Wolverine Charlie Gehringer.  Here, Sisler makes another cameo in the form of a very nice Blue Crystal parallel (#095/499), which goes along with the base and Green Crystal versions I own.  Stop me if you've heard this one before, but The Scan Doesn't Do It Justice!

Our eighth and ninth hitters both hail from Panini's 2014 Hall of Fame product, and they're two of my favorite inserts that came out of it.  On the left we have a card done up in Donruss' fantastic Crusades design, an insert that dates all the way back to 1998.  These shiny gems used to be highly coveted due to their scarcity and great looks, and I'm glad Panini brought the design back for use with Hall-of-Famers.  And speaking of homages to past designs, our last card is a throwback to Donruss' Elite Series, an insert that was absolutely huge when it burst onto the scene in the early 90s.  While the one Panini used here isn't my favorite, I love the throwback to another early Donruss set.

These nine newbies gave my Sisler collection a nice little boost to 64 cards.

Stay tuned for more COMC, eBay pickups, and trades soon!  Also, please head over to TMM this evening for even more COMC loot.

A study of player collecting, or, this collector doesn't fly over the Midwest

I hope the title and charts below don't scare you away, but this is a post I've been thinking about doing for a bit.  See, I currently collect 30 different MLB players that played baseball at Michigan, and that seems like a good sample to look at the teams they played for in the Majors (if at all), plus a few other interesting stats.  This seems like a fun idea because I'm not a hardcore team collector like many of you (not that I mind acquiring your Tigers), but instead collect players from many teams due to their college connection being the main reason I chase them.  I hope some of you find this as interesting as I did.

First, here's a list of all the players, the teams that drafted them (or first signed them, before the draft), and each team for which they played at least one Major League game.  If a player never reached the Majors, I noted that with a "*****".


And now here's a chart that clarifies things a bit:

And finally, here's some interesting conclusions to draw and other notes about these players and teams:

• I knew a lot of these guys were Tigers, but seeing this graph really makes it hit home that lots of these guys were either drafted by the nearby MLB team, played for it at some point in their careers, or both.

ALMOST a Yankees Wolverine!

• The Yankees were a close second with four draftees and five total Major Leaguers, but that didn't surprise me because I'm well aware of the backgrounds of Henson, Kamieniecki, Morris, and Parrish of the drafted players, and Abbott and Maddox's time with the team as well.

• The Cubs and Reds chipped in three draftees apiece, and a total of nine pros overall.  Conclusion:  a lot of these guys stayed near the Midwest!

• 16 of the modern MLB teams didn't draft a player on this list, though at least some of them have drafted other Wolverines, though I don't believe most of those made the Majors, at least not anytime recently.

• Only four modern Major League teams were left out of this list for not having rostered any of these players:  the Marlins, Expos/Nats, Pirates, and Rays.  I bet I'll be able to get a player from each of them eventually, but now I'm curious how long that will take!

• Four of the players haven't reached the Majors for any length of time:  Christian, LaMarre, Miller, and Parrish.  Christian was in the Twins system last year, so he still has an outside chance.  LaMarre reached AAA last year and could still be a role player some day.  Miller hasn't moved much in four seasons, so I'd just about count him out.  Parrish washed out years ago.

• Of the 26 players that did make it to the Show, they played for an average of about three teams over the course of their careers.

• Roberts was the only player to join six teams; Maddox and Sizemore each played for five different franchises.  Oddly enough, those three guys are the newest to my PC!

• Freehan, Gehringer, and Larkin all played out long careers with just one team (back when guys used to do that).

• Gehringer, Larkin, and Sisler are the three Wolverines that can be found in the Hall of Fame.

Again, that was certainly enlightening for me, especially realizing which teams' players I was collecting and which I wasn't.  If any of you other player collectors out there do something like this, I'm curious to see the results, so please share!  Oh, and please continue to contribute whatever you can to these PCs!

My Barry favorite Larkin card!

(note:  another double post with TMM since this one's big enough to include on both blogs!)

I have one more outstanding trade post to get to, but I'm wussing out and going with the quickie post today, especially since it's a card about which I'm very excited.

Today's post is even more relevant after Chris from Nachos Grande's insanely cool news, which you can read about in his post.  It started a few days ago when I was trolling eBay for my usual players and came across a very interesting card with a BIN/BO listing.  I lowballed and was automatically rejected, then added $5 and suffered the same fate.  Down to my last strike I made my BEST best offer, adding $5 more and knocked it out of the park like a HR from a certain recent HOFer:

Embiggened, because I SAY SO

Here you see MY best Barry Larkin collection piece--a 2005 Sweet Spot Signatures Red Stitch Black Ink auto (#162/175).  OMG, that's an eBay 1/1 #d to the number of games in an MLB season!

Yessir, this here's my first auto of the best Michigan baseball alum of my (sorta) generation!  I have no idea if I overpaid except for the fact that I know I'm so thrilled to have this autograph, there really isn't any such thing.  It's such a great card--the Sweet Spot design makes it 1000x better, and you guys know I loves me some Sweet Spot autos, like this other pretty good SS--that about the only thing keeping it from being an ideal card for me is that he's not pictured as a Wolverine, but then again, I won't even complain about that because Barry is so synonymous with the Reds, I don't think he should be depicted as anything but.

This ridiculous Larkin immediately shoots to the top 5 of my Michigan baseball PC, and honestly, it's definitely up there in my baseball autograph collection too.  And that makes it worth every penny I spent picking it up on eBay.  Any thoughts, Reds and Wolverines fans?

Package porn: this post delivers

So what did I do with my Sunday?  Apart from some various other projects, I spent this afternoon (and almost two blasters worth of cash!) packaging and shipping out a bunch of stuff, which means it was awesome!  This is definitely a part of the hobby I really enjoy because it makes it feel a bit like Christmas year-round.  Here's a quick look at what went out today:

• Medium flat-rate box:  Larry (ECDG), for winning my latest contest.  It's huge because I'm also sending him a Michigan baseball jersey he wanted.  Wolverines in the Pacific Northwest represent!
• Small flat-rate box:  Matt (26 Cent Summer), also for winning that contest (most follows)
• Small box:  a surprise!
• Bubble mailer:  Colbey (Cardboard Collections), with whom I'm trading 2012 Topps football
• Priority envelope:  also a surprise!

This post has been brought to you by Blue Tape®:

Blue Tape®:  If you don't ship with it, you're a total douche.  Buy Blue Tape® at your favorite store today!

And since I don't wanna look like I'm delivering on the title, here's something for y'all to enjoy on this fine Sunday afternoon:

The Rich get Richer

While I'm waiting for one more eBay pickup and a package from Sportlots, here's something I grabbed for a steal of a price via Blowout:

Whatcha lookin' at up there, Rich?

This is Rich Hill's 2008 Topps Triple Threads Emerald triple jersey/auto.  For a mere $5 delivered I couldn't pass up this green stunner, numbered 26/50, especially since I have a White Whale version of this very card.  That actually makes it my third Triple Threads card of Hill thanks to this one.  Hill #33 in my PC ended up not being part of the rainbow of him I'm working on, but fear not--you'll see more of those cards soon.

Card show report: 11/27: a Michigan Man will buy Michigan cards

Previously:  a trade with Dustin (No Relics Pulled), some sweet vintage

Finishing off my pickups from Sunday's show, here's a look at two other purchases I made:

First off, I grabbed three cards from a guy who cut me a reasonable deal and also told me to be on the lookout for a Jim Abbott autographed baseball the next time I'm there.  The hits:

Mike Comrie 2003-2004 Upper Deck Rookie Update Top Draws auto

Not the only hockey auto I picked up on the day, this is my second of Comrie.  Mr. Hillary Duff inked a nice signature on this card, even if he didn't take advantage of ample space, and he thought to include his uniform number too.

Jim Abbott 1990 Topps in-person auto

For a couple bucks, I couldn't resist adding my first autograph, even if it's not certified, of the former one-armed standout.  Besides being an excellent pitcher, not to mention an inspiration, Abbott reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from the killed-far-too-soon-but-funnier-than-the-rest-of-the-crap-on-these-days Party Down (still available on Netflix Instant!):

Yes, Veronica Mars fans, that's Jason Dorhing, a.k.a. Logan Echolls, and one of many VM actors to cameo on this outstanding, hilarious show, including Kristin Bell herself.  Check it out!  Jim Abbott?  Jim Abbott!

Rick Leach 2004 TK Legacy auto

This card of a former Michigan dual-sport star allows for a great juxtaposition later, so keep an eye out for that.  Another $3 steal, at least in my book, Leach fits several of my PCs:  Michigan baseball, Michigan football and the Tigers, as he was Detroit's first-rounder in 1979.  Though he never lived up to that billing on the diamond, his baseball skills were probably on par with his football acumen, so you can't blame the guy for going that route, and to his credit, he didn't exactly go full Henson on us, plus he did beat Ohio State three times.  His dual-sport skills merit my picking up a football autograph of his before long as well.

My second purchase involved three more TK Legacy singles plus a couple packs.  Here's what the two 2004 TK Legacy III packs yielded:

These are the six base cards, and I didn't have anything of any of them, so they were cool pickups.  Of course, I bought the packs for the one-per-pack autos which were:

Erick Anderson and Marcus Ray, both new additions to the PC.  Anderson, the 1991 Butkus award-winner as best LB, played here from '88-'91 and went onto a brief NFL career.  Ray, a safety, played from '95-'98, including, of course, the '97 championship team.  He's since gone on to coaching at several levels and, as a Michigan Man, is sure to excel at whatever he goes on to do.

Those two packs were part of a package deal for two MORE TK Legacy singles:

Welcome to the football PC, Bill!  Yep, along with Leach, a football star who played baseball, here's Freehan, an eventual baseball star who also played football for the Wolverines in 1960, from the 2003 set.  I'd seen this one on COMC but could never get a good deal on it, so I pounced on it in this package deal, and now I have 59 different subjects among my 387 football PC cards, more than 250 of which are autographs.  Not a bad feat thanks to ANOTHER UM baseball/UM hockey/Detroit Tiger!

And then there's this bad boy from 2004, my favorite pickup of the show.  I briefly considered a couple other dual autos, but in the end this one won me over.  Hand-numbered 002/100, this card combines autographs from probably the two most important people in Michigan hockey history--legendary coach Red Berenson and goalie Marty Turco--two men who are responsible for Michigan's two most recent hockey championships.  If names like Bo, Woodson and Harmon are synonymous with college football's best historical program, these two are among the gods of college hockey's flagship school.

As you can see, despite there not being much of a mix of brands, I ended up with a nice assortment of Michigan sports hits this time instead of focusing exclusively on football, despite my desire to hit a nice round 400 before the end of the year.  Part of that was due to a dearth of stuff I needed, but fortunately I know where to look next time for some top-notch stuff like the Berenson/Turco.  You may just see stuff to that effect in just a few weeks, so stay tuned.