2024 eBay purchases: Six more from 24

I'm still slowly plugging away at the piles of 2024 stuff left to cover and after this post should have something like two to go (I think).

This one shouldn't take me too long to recap as it features just six cards, though they're all eBay purchases from last June through December and are pretty decently significant. I'll try not to get too wordy!

Win #1 was the most costly and I nabbed it back in early June:

My second certified auto of Sweet Lou hails from 2019 Donruss Optic and is the Red parallel that's limited to a scant seven copies! This one uses an action photo of Whitaker about to make some good contact, and while it lacks any MLB logos I do like the shot. It's also a fun throwback to the 1985 design used the year after Detroit last won it all, so that's a nice bonus.

Lou doesn't appear in a ton of autograph sets and of course this particular card is fairly rare, so I didn't mind spending a bit under $60 to get it. My favorite in my collection is still his 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto, but I'm thrilled to add a second like this one to it. I also picked up a JSA-certified 1983 Fleer auto (apparently from 2011 Leaf Ink) a while ago to give me sort of a third signature.

This one is definitely sweet!

A few weeks later I scored another pricey high-end signature card, and if I recall correctly, Greg was the one that let me know it was available, so if that was the case, thank you to him for the assist.

Bill Freehan's autographs have naturally gone up in price a bit due to his passing a few years ago, although I would say not egregiously so. In any case, I wasn't shocked that this dual signature card of him and fellow Wolverine/Tiger Rick Leach wasn't super cheap since I'm assuming TK Legacy, one of my favorite products as the manufacturer focuses on individual colleges, was likely distributed regionally. I don't recall if I saw this one up for sale before, or at least at a price I could handle, but at this point in my life, a bit under $50 was money I was willing to spend.

Naturally I love it because Freehan's one of my Michigan favorites--he went on to play for the Tigers and is a franchise great there too--and Leach is also a pretty significant Wolverine. But the focus on the college careers of both players is especially cool, as is their link which the back goes into. What it also doesn't mention is that both also played football for the Wolverines. Leach's gridiron career is more notable than Freehan's since he was a touted QB, but Bill was a notable two-sport athlete as well.

Not only is this my 14th signature of Freehan, but as a bonus it's also my first certified signature of Leach, who joins the baseball hits collection as member #40!

Roughly a month later I threw in a low max bid on a basketball card and was surprised to win it:

You all know I love my cheap plates so I was glad to win this one of former Wolverine Nik Stauskas for a mere $6.50 ($4.25 bid plus $2.25 in tax and shipping). "Sauce Castillo"'s RCs were released in 2014-15 so this cyan plate was used to create his rookie in that year's National Treasures product. I believe these plates were actually inserted into a subsequent product like a later National Treasures offering, but we still have them listed under 2014-15 NT on TCDb so I'll leave it categorized as such for now.

Believe it or not this is my SIXTH plate of Stauskas, which isn't something that happened intentionally, and it's hilarious to me that half of my hits of his are of the 1/1 variety while I only just recently picked up an autograph.

At the end of August I continued the printing plate theme with a return to baseball:

As usual here's my disclaimer that the subject of this card is pitcher Matt Miller who was drafted by the Brewers, not the Rockies/Indians P from Mississippi or the Texas Tech lefty who appeared in a few games in the early 2000s for the Tigers. The one I collect was born in South Carolina, went to high school in Indiana, and of course played for Michigan.

It looks like this Miller was only in organized ball between 2010, his draft season, and 2014, all while in the Brewers org. He pitched parts of the 2011 and 2012 seasons with the pictured Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (who doesn't love minor league team nicknames?) and appeared on 31 total cards catalogued on TCDb, with a mix of minor league issues joining regular issues from 2010 Elite Extra and 2011 Topps Heritage Minors and Pro Debut. Oddly enough I now own the yellow plates from both of the latter, and my only needs include his for minor league issues plus the remaining seven 1/1s from the Topps products. As rare as it is to find cards of his I need, $10.60 wasn't an unreasonable price for this.

Once again just a couple weeks later I added one more plate to my collection courtesy of eBay:

I think I may have mentioned my proclivity for collecting Rich Hill around here before! Now I can make the crazy claim that I own more 1/1s of Dick Mountain than I do combined hits of any one other player in my baseball collection (Zach Putnam has 35 to his name)!

This is my first of his from the 2020 flagship set to go along with the same year's Chrome Update and an On-Demand Mini Silver 1/1 parallel. The lefty dwarfs all others in that collection with 152 hits, literally representing more than 1/3 of the 447-card total. It's a mountain of Hills! (That definitely sounds better in my head than a mountain of Dicks.) Sometimes it's not easy staying at the top and I definitely had to fight off a few other bids to land this one for a bit more than $16.

My final personal eBay purchase wouldn't be until early December, and the subject of the card (at least one of them) remained the same:

The "Chirography" name had been around for almost a decade as part of Upper Deck's SP Authentic product when this dual signature starring Hill and fellow lefty pitching prospect Sean Marshall was made in 2006. I believe I own nearly 100 cards that include Rich's autograph so you could say I've studied his handwriting quite a bit in my hobby career.

Out of that grouping, I have a few signature cards he shares with others but this is my first that includes his former teammate Marshall, who was drafted a year later than Hill in 2003. He lasted nine years in the Majors, pitching six in Chicago and three more with the Reds, mostly as a bullpen guy from mid-career on. Marshall's now 42 and has been out of the game since 2014 while Hill has a chance at 45 (in March) to pitch in his 21st season. Crazy! I hope he gets a shot at more than the four games he pitched for Boston last season and gets to go out on his terms when he's ready.

Once again, hooray for more cards that I can put away! I think my last two '24 posts should be a few more Facebook Marketplace buys and then my late-year COMC haul. Then I'll be glad to get reporting on 2025 trades, shows and more.

2018 Sportlots purchases: Motown and Cin-City

I managed to hit a large number of players among my copious PCs on this latest Sportlots jaunt, and in many cases that resulted in a stray card or three.  Since I don't consider those enough to warrant their own post I decided to lump some together in a pair of them.  For this one I even came up with a theme:  former Tigers and Reds.  The 47 cards of 13 players (see what I mean?) below cover guys who had some affiliation with either team or even both in a couple cases.  A mix of oddball and mainstream and variety of number of new cards (from one to 15) should make this a pretty interesting compilation:

Steve Boros was a Tiger for four seasons and Red for two so he's a double-dipper for this theme.  He's pictured here with the latter team on a 1978 TCMA 60's I issue, and you'll see that brand a bit more throughout this post.  I completed his regular checklist a while ago so this was a fun optional addition.

Bill Freehan, of course, was a Tiger for all 15 seasons of his excellent career.  This 100% oddball pair includes a repeat of the TCMA 60's set above along with a 1989 Swell Baseball Greats issue that's a bit of a rarity as a Freehan card released during that decade.

Next up is Kirk Gibson, this post's only non-Wolverine, whose two stints in Detroit added up to 12 seasons.  You may recall that in this series' second post I showed off a 1981 Kellogg's hologram of Gibby's teammate Alan Trammell.  I'm happy to be back today with a 1982 version of another of my favorite Tigers in Gibson.  To that I added a couple more oddly sized cards: 1990 Dodgers Target (the first of four you'll see in this series), which is a set you've surely seen on more than one Dodgers-centric blog, plus the oxymoronic 2013 Topps Archives Mini Tall Boys.  These are definitely appropriate for a guy that was anything but standard in his heyday.

Former two-sport star Drew Henson is a bit of a technicality as he never suited up for the Reds after joining them in a trade with the Yankees, and then he returned to the Bronx for all eight games and nine ABs in his bust of an MLB career.  But as they say, my blog, my rules, so here's an early 90s trio I added to his PC.  A 2001 Fleer Tradition base is my third RC of the ex-Yankee, and that's joined by one of Drew's two appearances in UD's fun 40-Man product from 2002, plus a Mini from Topps' 2003 Bazooka.

Barry Larkin is definitely the outlier in today's post as he clocks in with 15 new items, three of which were throw-ins from an apologetic seller.  One of those appears after I got Larkin to join in on the Sportflics action (1990) in the form of a '91 Topps Cracker Jack four-player card that appears to be an uncut version, something I hadn't seen.  Some higher end Topps--'95 Finest, '99 Chrome, and '01 Gold Label Class 1, add to the fun along with a couple parallels--'92 Topps Gold Winners and '97 Score Showcase Series--plus an '02 Heritage base.

Donruss' Leather and Lumber product was fairly forgettable, just the opposite of last year's Contenders Draft Picks which again brings the fun of college action to baseball collectors.  Then we have a pair of horizontal '96s with a Stadium Club subset and Upper Deck checklist that co-stars fellow HOFer Chipper Jones.  Those are joined by another throw-in, a '91 Panini Sticker, and slightly larger '03 Fleer Double Header base.

All in all it was a nice purchase for Larkin whose total vaults up to 717 items, second only to fellow SS Cal Ripken Jr.

Former Michigan QB Rick Leach was a Tiger for the first three seasons of his career but today you'll see him with the Jays and Giants.  The first three are fun oddballs from Blue Jays Fire Safety sets made in 1984, '86, and '87.  Meanwhile, card #4's product should look fairly familiar to a number of you:  Mother's Cookies from 1990.  Those rounded cards are pretty solid food issues and are always fun to collect.  Last up is an item for which I finally caved and added to my cart:  a 1991 Leaf error that was supposed to depict San Fran P Jeff Brantley but actually stars Leach.  Once again I can call his collection complete!

1990 Dodgers Target card #2 is of Don Lund, a Brooklyn Dodger for parts of three seasons who was also a Tigers OF for four.  His BB-R entry notes that the Michigan alum is buried in Ann Arbor's Forest Hill Cemetery where several former University presidents as well as legendary coach Bo Schembechler are interred.

Outfielder Elliott Maddox was a Tiger for just one season a couple years after Detroit drafted him in the first round in '68, but that's good enough to include him today!  Here he is on the first card I've acquired since completing his checklist, another SSPC piece, in this case from 1975.  By the way, Maddox never did appear on a card with the Tigers; his '71 Topps RC shows him as a member of the Senators, another of his one-and-done clubs.

As with Leach I scored both oddballs and needed checklist cards of Hal Morris, a guy who played for both of the teams featured in this post but of course known mostly as a Red.  The top three cards you see are Columbus Clippers issues from 1988 (CMC and Police) and '89 (ProCards) from his time in the Yankees system.  It warms my heart every time I think about the 80s/90s Yanks suffering a World Series drought thanks to getting rid of guys like Hal.  The other two are 90s parallels from '96 Metal Universe (Platinum) and '98 Topps--the Minted in Cooperstown stamped cards that were, well, what it says right there.  I appreciated the small dent in Morris' checklist as I get closer to 75% of his run.

Pitcher Heath Murray was part of both systems I'm covering today but never played for the Reds.  He did appear in 14 games for the abysmal '01 Tigers (who'd get even worse in '03) which is why he's here today.  While I didn't land any of the five cards I need to complete his collection I did come up with a couple "others" to add from '94 Signature Rookies and Best's '96 Double-A All-Stars, with the latter being light years better in terms of design.

As I did with Maddox I was able to find a couple more cards to add to a completed PC, which in this case is late pitcher Ross Powell, a one-time Red.  He's shown with a couple of Cincy's Minor League clubs here:  the AA Chattanooga Lookouts (1990 Grand Slam) and AAA Nashville Sounds (1991 Line Drive AAA).  Minor League cards don't always have the greatest designs but they're fun to collect thanks to the many fun team names and the fact that they're sometimes the only way to get a player on cardboard.

OF Leon Roberts, who I just learned hit a grand slam off of fellow Michigan alum Geoff Zahn in 1978, is another guy whose collection I've long since completed--noticing a trend here?  But I always like to add more cards to a PC when I can, so I came up with this interesting quartet.  #1 is a return to the '75 SSPC set made during Roberts' second and final season with Detroit, the team that drafted him.  I also found him on a 1987 ProCards minor league issue as the manager of the Tigers' AAA affiliate in Toledo--another new fact I learned!  And you know what else I was previously ignorant of?  How about the Senior Professional Baseball Association, a 35+ league that featured a number of former stars that ran from 1989-90.  Leon appears here on 1989 cards representing this association from T/M and Topps.

Last up today is very well known Reds 3B Chris "Spuds" Sabo, and all three of these were checklist needs, so that was pretty exciting.  #1 is an '89 OPC base that leaves me five short of his run from the 80s, and I was glad to grab that because the brand sometimes carries a price premium on this side of the Canadian border.  Second is another junk wax era offering, 1990 Donruss Best NL, made a couple years after his NL ROY campaign.  And last up is a Gold Rush parallel of his 1994 Score Rookie/Traded base that shows him as an Oriole after he signed with Baltimore that year (before eventually returning to the Reds).  This trio gives me exactly 150 cards on his checklist out of the 210 I'm chasing, so it really feels like I'm making progress there.

Stay tuned for one more post like this one packed with a bunch of players, then three more solo posts featuring some very popular PCs!

2018 other purchases: Topps sets from ARPSmith #2 (1985)

Way back in January I made a deal with Adam of ARPSmith's Sports Card Obsession to purchase four complete Topps sets from the huge collection he'd acquired.  Now I'm showing those sets off one at a time by highlighting the key RCs, PCs, and Tigers from each.

I said the other day that we wouldn't have to go far to get to the next set, and in fact it's the 1985 version!  Once again it was 792 cards in all, featuring some different subsets like "Father/Son", #1 overall draft picks from various years, and perhaps most notable, 1984 USA Baseball Olympians (made famous by Mark McGwire's card).  Cards include 1984 stats so they capture the heroics of that season's World Champion Detroit Tigers, a big plus for me.

Lots of stars here with Ripken, Rice, Winfield, Carew, Carlton, Dawson, Garvey, Whitaker, Strawberry, Rose, Raines, Gwynn, and Trammell on top of team bags!

Here's a look at the highlights I scanned, starting with the rookies:

Saberhagen was one of those pitchers from when I was younger that I recall being quite good for a number of years, and looking at his stats confirms I remember correctly.  Most of his success came with the Royals, though he did help the Mets and Red Sox a bit, and it was in KC that he won a pair of Cy Youngs on the way to a 59.0 career bWAR, so he definitely deserves to be highlighted here.

Clemens, McGwire, and Puckett are the three obvious "key" cards in this set, though of course only one of them is enshrined in the Hall of Fame for now.  The Rocket, like Barry Bonds, was one of those guys who was outstanding even before he went all roid rage and saw his career tainted by PED accusations.  His seven Cy Youngs, MVP, two titles, and 139.6 bWAR will get him in eventually.  McGwire's card in this set is about as controversial as his career ultimately was, raising the usual arguments about what should be considered a true rookie card.  Kirby's short career did lead him to the hall, though off-the-field accusations have cast a pall over a guy who was otherwise a beloved Minnesota icon.  (Quick side note:  I already had these three key cards so Adam held onto them and gave me a fair price on the set.)

Hershiser is another guy like Saberhagen I couldn't leave out due to his prominence with a good team in the 80s.  His 1988 season with the Dodgers was outstanding, plus he had enough talent to stick around for 18 years, with just his rookie and sunset campaigns seeing him put up negative value.  Though not Hall of Fame caliber, his 56.3 bWAR places him as one of the more important players of my childhood.

Gooden went down as one of the most electric young players in the early 80s before some addiction issues derailed him multiple times from what could have been a truly special career.  Still, he managed to put up a 53.0 bWAR, mainly on the strength of his first decade, especially an insane 1985 season.

Finally, Eric Davis is another guy whose career never went to the heights it should have, but you can't really blame him for that considering the bevy of injuries he worked through, plus being diagnosed with colon cancer later in his MLB tenure.  He still went out as a fairly successfully player mostly known for his time with the Reds, including winning the 1990 World Series, and his 36.1 bWAR isn't bad when you keep in mind he played in as many as 127 games only eight times over 17 years.

Now we'll have a look at all of my player collection guys in the set, starting with the non-Tigers:

Believe it or not three of the cards in this group were new to me despite lots of copies being readily available.  Ripken is one of those beneficiaries as I needed the regular base card out of his pair you see above.  As a small side note that gives me a milestone-ish 700 of his cards scanned into his album!

Roberts, Leach, and Zahn are all Michigan guys and each returned after appearing in the '84 version.  Roberts was making his final major brand cardboard appearance in this set as 1984 was his sunset season.  Leach would play for a few more years but here he appears for the second time as a member of the Blue Jays ('84 Topps Traded).  Lastly, Zahn popped up in the '86 set before his career ended.

Meanwhile, for the second post in a row I have one or more new Tony Gwynns to add to his PC!  For whatever reason both of his cards here--regular base and All-Star--eluded me up until now.  How could I have gone so long without that image of Mr. Padre wearing those awesome shades in my collection?!  Crisis averted.

And now here's the terrific trio of Tigers to round out the PC group:

Sweet Lou was an All-Star starter in '84 but didn't get a card in that subset for some reason.  At least he gets a kick-ass photo on his only base appearance!

Gibby popped 29 HR for the first of five seasons in which he'd average in the upper 20s, the best streak of his career.  The two he bashed in game 5 of the World Series were huge, of course.

Tram was also an '84 All-Star but had to watch from the bench with Ripken as the starter, meaning Tigers fans had to suffer with just Whitaker, Lance Parrish, and Chet Lemon opening the Midsummer Classic.  Trammell's World Series MVP that year was probably enough to console him, though.

And now we get to the rest of the Tigers:

Lemon, Rozema, Wilcox, and Parrish are all repeats from the previous year's set, and as I mentioned earlier but Lemon and Parrish were All-Star starters.  Kuntz, on everyone's all-name team, chipped in a bit in '84 then ended his MLB career with five games the following year.  Jones was an April '84 signing and contributed 12 homers in just 79 games, then finished his career with the Angels.  And Ho-Jo put up decent numbers mainly as a starting 3B, then was flipped for Walt "Terrible" Terrell after the season, a trade Detroit probably regretted since Johnson flashed some nice power for the Mets in the late 80s/early 90s.

The other two cards here are from the Father/Son subset.  First up is the Ray/Bob Boone combo.  Ray is pictured with Detroit and spent time with Cleveland, among other teams, as well.  His son Bob played primarily for the Phillies and Angels, managed the Royals and Reds, and also passed the game on to his sons Aaron and Bret.

The other pairing is Ossie and Ozzie Virgil.  The elder Virgil, who was actually "Ozzie" as well (short for "Osvaldo") had a nondescript career mainly with the Giants and Tigers.  Meanwhile the younger Ozzie got to start for a few seasons with the Phillies and Braves before ending his career with Toronto.

In this next scan manager Sparky Anderson, pitcher Dan Petry, utility guy Marty Castillo, and 3B Tom Brookens are the only holdovers from the '84 set.  Also notable is that for this set the manager cards also serve as team checklists, which makes a lot of sense to me.

As for the newbies, we'll start with Garbey, a utility guy whose career started on a high note with the World Series win, after which he played one more season with Detroit, was flipped to Oakland, signed with Texas, and ended his career with 30 games with the '88 Rangers.  Middle-infielder Baker played less often during his Tigers tenure (1983-87), was traded to the Twins in '88, then finished his career with Minnesota after the 1990 season.  And Monge, a seldom-used bullpen guy, came over from the Padres in June but didn't get to face his old team in the Fall Classic.

That leaves the notable duo of Guillermo "Willie" Hernandez and the late Dave Bergman.  Both guys arrived in a preseason 1984 deal with the Phillies for OF Glenn Wilson and utility guy John Wockenfuss.  The trade would prove to be a steal for Detroit as Bergman was the primary 1B and Hernandez took the league by storm, winning the Cy Young and MVP awards.

Our last group includes three more newbies.  The late Lopez came to the Tigers in a 1978 trade with St. Louis and had himself a nice 1984 season when he was second only to Hernandez in appearances and compiled a 10-1 record with 14 saves.  He went a pretty nice 53-30 in Detroit almost exclusively out of the 'pen.

Scherrer was a first-round choice by the Reds in 1978 and came to Detroit late in August of '84.  He pitched a bit in the Series, stuck around through the '86 season, then bounced around a bit before calling it quits in '88.

And lastly, possibly the most significant new player here after Hernandez is DH Darrell Evans, a veteran power presence who socked 141 homers over five seasons in Motown (1984-88).  Only 15 of those were hit in '84, but he went on to total 12.4 bWAR over the next three years, including hitting 40 HR in '85.

As for the rest, Herndon held down LF after enjoying career years over the previous two seasons. Morris, of course, was the ace who tossed a no-hitter, won two World Series games in '84, scored rings with Minnesota ('91, MVP) and Toronto ('92), then found himself elected to the Hall this year.  Grubb was on the tail end of his career but contributed around the outfield and got himself a ring.  Berenguer, who I think I kind of left out last time, was in his third of four seasons with the Tigers and scored a career-high 11 wins as the #4 starter.  Parrish was an All-Star for the third of five straight seasons and won his second consecutive Gold Glove and third straight Silver Slugger.  Finally, Bair was the #3 reliever in the 'pen and put up a 5-3 record with four saves.

And that's it for the '85 set.  Next time we'll be going forward in time a bit more, which makes sense since I already own the 1986-88 sets.

2018 other purchases: Topps sets from ARPSmith #1 (1984)

Way back in January I made a deal with Adam of ARPSmith's Sports Card Obsession to purchase four complete Topps sets from the huge collection he'd acquired.  Now I'm showing those sets off one at a time by highlighting the key RCs, PCs, and Tigers from each.

It's not quite opening day here in Michigan thanks to rain postponing the season opener until tomorrow.  Still, the return of the sport makes for a good reason to start this series which covers my first 2018 purchase, one that includes a ton of Tigers.

Topps' 1984 set, all 792 cards of it, was produced the last time Detroit won it all.  Since I was just a year old at the time I don't have the fondness for it that many of you do, but I still value the fact that it comes from an era when Topps wasn't mailing it in.  That's one reason I'm interested in filling out my complete set collection with some of Topps' efforts from around when I was born.  I also like the fact that it hits a nice number of my PCs, even if I've already acquired most of those cards individually.  But as you'll see in this series, each new set added at least one new card to one of my player collections, so that was a nice added bonus.

Adam did a great job of packing all four of the sets into team bags, usually about 40 cards at a time, hence the 20 bags seen here.  I thought it might be fun to give you all a look at some of the various subjects of the set even though most of you are already pretty familiar with it.  You can see a good number of stars up there like Dawson, Ripken, and--wait--

::enhance::
::enhance::
::enhance::

Confirmed:  Captain America is in this set, repeat:  Captain America is in this set!

Ok, let's start with the RCs I thought were the most important:

Mattingly is pretty much the only "key" first-year in the set at this point, though at least a few others are interesting.  Side note:  I told Adam to keep the Mattingly (and a few key cards from the other sets) to lower my cost and give him more bang for his buck too as I already had them.

The other three guys went on to pretty nice careers themselves.  Strawberry was a force until his demos caught up to him, Van Slyke put up a career bWAR over 40.0, and the late, do-everything Phillips went for about 51, a testament to his versatility and longevity.

Next up are the non-Tiger PC guys:

The Tony Gwynn that leads off this group is the only card of any player collection subject that was brand new to me here, but it's nice to have all of them in set form as well as some single versions.  Sorensen, Howe, Zahn, Boros, and Roberts are all Michigan Baseball guys, and you'll see two of them again in the next scan.  You also get two of Ripken's three issues in this set:  his All-Star subset and regular base.

These team leaders cards also serve as team checklists.  Zahn, Ripken, and Sorensen make repeat appearances from above.  Sorensen's poor team-best ERA led me to look up the '83 Indians and they were...not good.

And now we continue with the player collection theme, this time with those that were also Tigers in this set:

Gibby, Whitaker, and Tram are here, naturally.  I don't know my All-Star history well so I looked up why Gibson and Trammell didn't make it in '83.  Kirk had a bit of a down year that season before a nice bounce-back in '84, and I realized that he never made it to the Midsummer Classic!  Trammell, though, put up a typical 6.0 bWAR Trammell season, but lost out to Ripken, who to my surprise wasn't the starter, and top vote getter at the position Robin Yount.  Whitaker was a reserve behind Cleveland's Manny Trillo.

So Sweet Lou appears on three cards as he joins Cal in the All-Star subset, gets a regular base card, and also appears on Detroit's team leaders card with 2018 HOFer Jack Morris.  And the other guy I haven't mentioned yet is Tiger/Wolverine Rick Leach on his last cardboard appearance with Detroit before heading off to Toronto.

These final three scans capture the rest of the Tigers team set:

I know at least a bit about all of these players except Martin and Krenchicki.  Detroit drafted Martin in '78, traded him to the Cards a couple years later, purchased him back in '83, then saw him play his final Major League games that same season.  Krenchicki was a former first-rounder chosen by the Orioles who bounced around and lasted a bit longer but never amounted to much.  Meanwhile Brookens, Petry, and Morris were key members of the '84 champs.

Bailey and Gumpert are the unknowns for me here, with the former out of the pros after '83 and the latter bowing out after '87.  Of course everyone remembers HOF manager Sparky Anderson, who made history by winning titles in both leagues after the success of the '84 squad.  Castillo was a solid utility guy while Herndon manned LF.  Of the pitchers, Abbott and Bair were swingmen that mostly pitched out the 'pen, and Rozema was pretty much the fifth starter.

From this group Wilson and Jones weren't with the team in '84; Wilson was flipped to Philly in the deal that brought key guys Dave Bergman and Guillermo Hernandez to Motown before the season, and Jones fizzled out after signing with KC before that season.  Wilcox was excellent that year, going 17-8 over his 33 starts.  Lemon put up another strong season in center and his career 55.6 bWAR makes me think he lived up to being selected in the first round way back in '72.  Parrish was one of Detroit's best behind the plate and socked 33 homers in his third of five straight All-Star appearances.  And Morris was in good company in '83 in joining fellow HOFer Steve Carlton by leading his league in strikeouts with 232 (the only time he did so in his career) as the only ALer to go over 200.

I hope you all enjoy my look at this fun set from very early in my life.  Soon(ish) I'll get to the next one, and it won't require us to jump ahead in time very much at all!

6/6/15 card show report: PC pickups large and small

A couple Saturdays ago I hit up the monthly card show in Taylor for my usual PC/trade bait spending spree and had another productive day for less than $50.  Here's what I landed this time:

I'm a broken record but, while I can't stand Denny's, the cards they produced in the 90s are still fun.  For less than $1--I got this with other $1 items at a nice discount--I landed this set of Denny's Holograms from 1992.  It would have been cool enough grabbing the cards for that much so I was pleased to get the album as well.  The '92 set's cards are all hologram on the front, as you can see here,

and focus on players with at least one career grand slam.  Jack Clark (9) and Kent Hrbek (7) pace the group which does include more universal star power in Barry Bonds, Ryne Sandberg, and Cal Ripken Jr. to balance out guys like Kal Daniels and Luis Polonia.  I'll show off the set in its entirety in a future post since I need to scan the Ripken anyway.

And now some PC guys:

First up is this Kirk Gibson die-cut parallel of one of his base cards from '95 SP Championship.  His three years of postseason play noted at the top were 1984, 1987, and 1988.  Gibby of course made it to the Series in '84 and '88 and was a winner each time. 

Next is a fun trio of Griffeys:  1990 Sportflix, 1995 SP, and 1996 Ultra.  I chose these because holograms are always cool, the SP has a gorgeous design and shows Junior celebrating winning the '95 ALDS over the Yanks with his winning run, and I love the shot of a grinning, backwards-hatted Kid on the Ultra.

I found just one Tony Gwynn for his collection this time, but even one at a time is fine.  This Hot Commodities insert from 1997 UD has a very cool (hot?) design featuring big flames in the background surrounded by a smoky black border.  The previous year's version was great in its own right and I'll have to grab my PC guys from those as well! 

You might say I had a bit more luck with Greg Maddux at this show thanks to these eight newbies:  1987 Fleer Update and Topps Traded XRCs, 1996 Score Dugout Collection and 1997 Score Showcase Series parallels, 2001 Topps HD, 1998 Topps Etch-a-Sketch, and 1998 UD All-Star Credentials.  There's a lot to like here, from Mad Dog's young mug on a pair of '87 cards, to the gimmicky but cool HD base card, to a couple fun fun inserts from the late 90s.  By the way, that's not all I grabbed:

One of my favorite sellers, from whom I grabbed the Denny's set above, also had this '93 Stadium Club Master Photo of Maddux in his $1 pile.  Who can pass these up?!  There's a chance I have this very base card and just haven't scanned it, so maybe I'll get around to it eventually.  Hooray for nine new cards for the best pitcher of my time! 

Finally, I found a very nice total of six new Ripkens for his collection.  Like Griffey earlier I found his '90 Sportflics base, and to that I added a 1995 Donruss Dominators insert that includes fellow HOFer Barry Larkin(!) and...Wil Cordero.  To be fair, Cordero had a very nice strike-shortened '94 with the upstart Expos.  Next is 1996 Upper Deck #1, which celebrates the top moment of 1995.  (Out of order) we then have a '99 UD View to a Thrill insert, Cal's Class 1 base card from 1998 Topps Gold Label, and his 2010 Topps Turkey Red insert.  It was a good day to be a (cheap) Ripken collector!

Don't think I completely ignored my Tigers, though, as I picked up each of the next three cards for just a buck apiece:

From 2013 Topps flagship and Gypsy Queen, here's a pair of jersey relics of former Tiger Austin Jackson.  The seller had a few copies of each, most of which had the usual plain white swatch, but I found these which were a bit more interesting.  Although I'm no fan of the GQ base set I do love that it includes Topps' ubiquitous framed hits, so the mini is my favorite of the pair, though I'm happy to add both.  I now have seven AJax hits, and though he's a Mariner, I'd be glad to add more of him during his Tigers tenure.

And lastly, I picked up this Rick Leach IP auto (of his '84 Topps base card) because I collect him and I have no reason to believe this was faked given how much Leach has signed in the area recently.  It's fun collecting him as a Wolverine/Tiger double-dipper, and for $1 you just can't go wrong.

Though my haul there isn't quite as plentiful, please make sure to check out tonight's TMM post as it includes a few other things I purchased from this show!