2019 Sportlots purchases: They Call Me. MISTER Tiger

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

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

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

Please enjoy six scans worth of Mr. Tiger!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2019 Sportlots purchases: Old Tigers' Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2019 Sportlots purchases: Let Me Tell You 'bout Kell

Everybody, be it Tigers fans or those that root for other teams, remembers Ernie Harwell as the voice of Detroit baseball, but those who caught Detroit games on TV from the '70s to the '90s will brag about the great PBP/color pairing of George Kell and Al Kaline.  The two were together for so long that I naturally associate their names when I hear either mentioned.

Today we're going to be focusing on Kell, a HOF 3B whose almost 40 years as a broadcaster bolster a less obvious induction case.  The Arkansas-born infielder originally signed with Brooklyn in 1940 but the released him a couple years later, and it was only in 1943 that he ended up with the team that gave him his start, the Philadelphia A's.  They flipped him to Detroit in May of 1946, and that's where he had his longest tenure, six-plus seasons, before stints with the Red and White Sox and finally the Orioles.

A very good hitter for average, if not power, Kell won the 1949 AL batting crown and was named to 10 All-Star teams.  He wasn't able to compile the kind of counting stats Hall voters prefer as he played in under 1800 games over parts of 15 seasons, leaded to a 37.4 bWAR and a JAWS number that puts him way below many players at his position.  Still, the Veteran's Committee elected him in 1983, and we Tigers fans are happy that they recognized a guy who enjoyed a solid playing career before finding his calling in the booth.

Kell isn't as popular among collectors as a guy like Kaline, so I hadn't received many of his cards in trades, and a smaller number of cards with the Tigers means I didn't pick up many myself in the past.  Fortunately it was Sportlots to the rescue once more with these 22 new items for my collection:

Once again there's lots of familiar sets from this series in today's post while a few stand out a bit.  Up top is the oddball-ish trio of '88 Pacific Legends, '93 Action Packed, and '93 Ted Williams.  You see those every once in a while but not terribly often compared to a lot of the other stuff coming up.  After those we have retro themed cards from '94 Upper Deck All Time Heroes and '98 Sports Illustrated Then & Now.  Then we keep up the black & white/sepia party with 2002 Greats of the Game and 2003's Flair Greats, SP Legendary Cuts, and Sweet Spot Classic.  I don't get sick of looking at these beautiful designs so I hope you don't get sick of my singing their praises.  What a great bunch of vintage photos on classic looks!

Compared to the last scan, this one is full of some fairly mainstream brands, though that doesn't dim their excellence.  Up top we finish off 2003 with the beautiful Topps Gallery HOF and then head into 2004 with strong offerings from Greats of the Game and SP Legendary Cuts.  The latter isn't quite as nice as other designs in the series but Fleer Greats kills it as always.  Down the middle are another gorgeous Sweet Spot Classic look, from 2004, plus 2005 Donruss Greats and the same year's Sweet Spot Classic, with a design I don't love quite as much as the previous two, but a terrific vintage photo.  At the bottom are one more SP Legendary Cuts appearance (2007) and a pair that used the same photo:  2013 Panini Cooperstown and Topps Tribute, another spiffy high-end set specializing in HOFers.

Now here's the scan where I get to mix things up a bit.  Kell's 2018 Topps Archives base is fairly standard, with its '81 Topps design.  And we've seen SP Legendary Cuts a bunch today, but this is our first horizontal version.  Then get into the unorthodox a bit with George's 2013 Panini Cooperstown Colgan's Chips disc insert, which is my fifth from the product.

But perhaps the most interesting item today is up last, a vintage throwback from a more modern time out of 1993 Upper Deck's All-Time Heroes.  Baseballcardpedia helpfully explains that these are done in the style of a 1912 set called Hassan Triple Folders (T-212), and this is indeed a tri-fold card, with the three distinct sections pretty clear in the scan.

Here's what the back looks like:

I'm kind of amused that the left panel is a photo of Kell with the Tigers while the excellent play at the plate photo is from a game he played while with Boston.  But that's the kind of thing you can do with an oddball item like this!

This nice bunch of Kells bumps his collection up to a more respectable 40 cards, and this series has me inspired to continue to add to it along with many of the players I've already featured or will be soon.  On that note, stay tuned for three more all-Tigers Sportlots posts!

2019 Sportlots purchases: Thanking Hank Thursday

As promised in my last post, today's is much more manageable at just 19 cards of a single player, a guy who certainly deserves his own post.  That would be one Henry Benjamin Greenberg.

The "Hebrew Hammer" and original "Hammerin' Hank" (though Mr. Aaron rightfully gets that nickname now), Greenberg plied his trade in Detroit for "12" of his "13" Major League seasons.  Quotation marks are definitely required here as he got all of 1 AB in 1930, and that season plus 1936, '41, and '45 added up to a measly 110 games split between four seasons.

But when he was on, boy was he on!  He piled up 150 or more RBI three times in his career, socked 58 homers in 1938--and piled up 331 dingers in just 1394 games--won MVPs in '35 and '40, and helped bring Motown its first two World Series titled in '35 and '45.  Oh yeah, and he missed large chunks or the entirety of 1941-45 due to military service.  Yeah, I'd say he was Hall-worthy.

Here's the nice selection of his cards I found on Sportlots to add to my small collection of one of the team's all-time greats:

Here's a mix of the usual suspects you've seen so far plus some new ones, some of which may pop up again in this series.  Hank was indeed an honorary captain for the '84 All-Star Game, played a couple years before his death, and that was a good sign for the team that went on to win it all that year.  Sportflics Decades Greats is back and Greenberg's run in the 30s is honored here.  You'll see a few more from Pacific Legends soon and maybe the raised surface of Action Packed a bit more, plus the always fun Conlon, besides what you see here.

Card #6 in this scan, honoring Hank's military service (one of two of those today) is from UD's Baseball:  the American Epic set made in '94.  Then there's a trio that's a sight for my sore eyes:  the comfortingly familiar 2002 Greats of the Game and Sweet Spot Classics and '03 Flair Greats.  I sure wish we still had products that looked like these, but at least I can enjoy going back and chasing what does exist, especially as it builds up some of my Tigers collections.

Round 2 brings a few more familiar looks:  2003 Fleer Fall Classics--a great reminder that Greenberg played in four World Series--plus 2004 SP Legendary Cuts and Sweet Spot Classics, with different designs using the same photo.  The newcomers here start with a 2003 Topps Record Breakers insert that highlights that 58-bomb campaign in '38, making him one of just nine players to reach that mark.  Also from 2003 is an Upper Deck Play Ball 1941 Reprint, which is probably as close as I'll ever get to owning the original.  And then there's one last vintage/modern mashup:  a 2010 Triple Threads base that has a newer design but a super cool old-school photo of the legend.

These last four hail from Panini brands so some of you have probably gone off to read something else, but for those have stayed, check out some pretty cool stuff!  Up first is another card that gives due credit to Hank's military service:  2012 Cooperstown With Honors.  The back does a great job of explaining just how much of his career he gave up for his country:

A rare non-player card is next in the form of a 2013 Cooperstown Museum Pieces insert.  Panini did a great job of showcasing some of the Hall's most interesting artifacts, such as Hank's 300th home run ball.  Given a fuller career of something like 15-18 full seasons, he likely would have been a member of the 500 club.  A pair of 2014 Classics cards capture that:  the base plus an insert called, yep, Home Run Heroes.  The back of the latter notes that Hank was just the fourth player to get to 58 round-trippers, and he still leads the franchise 80+ years later, with Cecil Fielder's 51 in 1990 (hit over the course of four extra games) getting the closest.

I hope you all enjoyed some cardboard of another Tigers legend.  I have a few more players to feature here and would love to get them all done in plenty of time to show off what's sure to be lots of COMC Black Friday/Cyber Monday loot when it arrives next month.

2019 Sportlots purchases: Happy Halloween from Prince Hal!

Happy Halloween, everybody!  In the spirit of the holiday--no tricks, just treats--I thought I'd show off some cards of a scary good former Tigers pitcher:  Hal BOOhouser!  ::spooky Halloween laugh::

Newhouser spent 15 of his 17 MLB seasons with Detroit, winning exactly 200 games and the 1944 and '45 AL MVP awards on his way to the Hall.  From 1944-50 he averaged 22 wins, and in '45 he led the Tigers to a seven-game World Series victory over the Cubs, just the franchise's second, with a 2-1 record, including the pivotal game 7 decision.

Hal hasn't been a big part of my Tigers collection to this point but I'd be happy to change that with purchases like this one, which added a season-appropriate 13 new cards to his PC!  Check 'em out here:

Well hey there, bunch of brands that I like!  80s Sportflics is a great place to start, in this case 1986 Sportflics Decade Greats, the card you see in its full animated glory up top.  I already mentioned some of Hal's best stats above so by now you should understand why he's part of the group "Best of the 40s."  Don't be surprised to be seeing a bunch of old friends throughout this series like the rest of the sets represented here.  From 2003 we have Flair Greats, Fleer Fall Classics, SP Legendary Cuts, and Sweet Spot Classics, while SPLC comes back for '04.  Everything looks great and I'm happy to have Newhouser as one of the Tigers I can collect among these great designs.

Some backs, because why not scan them when there's only 13 cards to show off today.  Wait, I did some extra work?  Spooky!

Moving on to somewhat more recent sets, but keeping things classy and vintage, we get one more SP Legendary Cuts appearance, this one from 2007, and then there's a fun 2012 Panini pair:  Golden Age and the horizontal Cooperstown.  The latter is a great use of the X-axis design!  The middle row takes us into 2013 with Panini Cooperstown once again, then an SP from A&G.  The Topps card stars a cool look at an old Detroit uni, and I don't think I even paid a premium for the short-printed issue.  Lastly, I came up with a pair of Topps Archives base offerings from 2016 and '18, each on a classic Topps design.

More backs, for those of you that care about that kind of thing.

The lucky 13 cards above give me a new total of 25 Newhousers, a pretty solid number.  You won't see me booing the chance for adding more as soon as I can, either.

I hope everyone has a great Halloween!  Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with something extra special that I've been keeping under wraps for a while.

2019 Sportlots purchases: Sparky Saturday

With a couple hours to kill until Michigan's second straight night game I thought it would be fun to go back to my unposted Sportlots stuff and see what I wanted to show off today.  In the spirit of the Fall Classic I chose a guy who guided his teams to five pennants and three World Series wins:  George "Sparky" Anderson.

Sparky's managerial career was a very good one, and it started off on the right foot with the Reds reaching the World Series in his first season, 1970.  They'd repeat that feat in '72 before the Big Red Machine won it all in 1975 and '76.  The Tigers were fortunate enough to acquire his services in 1979, and he became a franchise icon thanks to his 17 years in Motown, highlighted by the wire-to-wire '84 champs.  Though he led the Tigers to just one more playoff appearance in 1987, he left the team after 1995 having won more than he lost, and he'll forever be remembered for the magic of 1984.

That's where his career ended, but some of you may have seen an interesting story recently about how he almost became the skipper of the Angels with their new manager Joe Maddon getting set up as heir apparent.  If you didn't catch that I highly recommend checking it out.

Ok, time for some cards, with a quick note that I have a couple more of him to show off in a future post.

There's a nice mix of Reds and Tigers cards today and I'm cool with that, especially since it highlights Sparky becoming the first to manager World Series winners in both leagues.  Up top, a couple Topps parallels--'87 Tiffany and '92 Gold Winners--bookend '88 Pacific Legends, a product we'll see a bit more of in this series.  A '96 Upper Deck checklist--which I saw in someone else's post a month or two ago and knew I had to have--is the last vertically oriented card made during his career.  What a great photo!

With those covered it's time to get into the main course:  products that tend to focus on retired MLBers, legends, and HOFers.  The second and third iterations of Fleer's always excellent Greats of the Game are right down the middle, one each for both teams he skippered.  And the bottom brings a terrific 2003 trio of Fleer's Fall Classics, SP Legendary Cuts, and Topps Gallery HOF.  Topps hasn't produced anything matching that Gallery product lately but I sure do appreciate the ones that appeared in the early aughts.

The classy and attractive '03 Sweet Spot Classics leads off this scan, and it's joined by a 2014 A&G base at the bottom as the only clear Tigers cards; 2012 Panini doesn't clearly depict or list a team.  From there it's the franchise where Sparky enjoyed the most success.  2004 is represented by SP Legendary cuts once again, and then one of his three appearances in a set I still love:  Upper Deck Legends Timeless Teams.  I have a post in this series planned covering just that product and I'm looking forward to it!

2005's lone representative is from Upper Deck Classics while that same manufacturer's 2008 Goudy product uses an image that looks very familiar for some reason.  2013 Panini Golden Age and 2017 Topps Archives join the previously mentioned Cooperstown and A&G cards as the only ones from this post made this decade.

We'll close out the post with a trio of horizontals, the first two of which are the lone vintage cards today.  Up first is the '75 Topps checklist, not that I had to point that out to any of you thanks to that set's instantly recognizable design.  I was fine with the condition considering the low price but thought I might share the back of this one since

one of its owners used it as originally intended!  Who needs pristine when you have fun stuff like this?  I wonder if this person ever tracked down the last two he needed for his team set.

Sticking with vintage is an issue that isn't a checklist, from '78 Topps, one of my favorites given its bevy of four-player prospect cards, many of which star my favorite Tigers.  This one covers his stats as a player, including his one MLB season with the Phillies.

Last up is a 1993 Topps Gold parallel that pairs him up with fellow manager Art Howe, then of the Astros.  '93 would be the last of the latter's tenure with Houston, but he'd go on to manage the Moneyball A's from 1996-2002, and then the Mets for a couple seasons after that.  Suffice to say that his career pales in comparison to Sparky's!

Stay tuned for more Sportlots pickups, most of which will feature more Tigers greats and fan favorites.  In the meantime I'll be putting together my Michigan gameday post for the Wolverines/Irish tilt tonight and keeping my scanner busy.

2019 Sportlots purchases: the Mick x2 (not that Mick)

Part two of my Sportlots haul centers on a couple guys named Mickey, neither of which played for a team that won't be winning a World Series for the tenth straight season, the Yankees.

First up is Gordon Stanley Cochrane, better known by his nickname "Mickey," though he was also called "Black Mike."  This, of course, is the guy for whom Mantle was named.  The HOF catcher/manager spent his first nine seasons with the Philly A's, winning a pair of rings with them in 1929 and '30, plus an MVP in '28.  After being dealt to Detroit late in 1933, he was a player/manager for the Tigers from '34-'37 (and just a manager in 1938), capturing another MVP award in his first season.  Oh yeah, he also led the team to consecutive pennants in '34 and '35, winning it all in his second season and bringing Detroit its first crown in the sport.  He was pretty good, you might say.

To my previously paltry Cochrane collection I added 13 cards, starting with this nine spot.  I don't think anything here is obscure to anyone--Hygrade, Pacific Legends, Conlon, Swell Baseball Greats, and a trio of fun Fleer products that focused on classic players.  The 2003 Fall Classics base that ends the scan is one of two today that depicts Mickey with the A's, which is totally fine by me since it looks great.

The other four continued in a similar vein:  2003 SP Legendary cuts (just beautiful!), '04 Greats of the Game (ditto!) and Sweet Spot Classics (can't go wrong!) and 2013 Panini Cooperstown.  The back of the Sweet Spot Classics base (A's again) notes that Cochrane struck out a ridiculous 217 times in 13 seasons.  That's less than or equal to four players' single-season totals, including Mark Reynolds' 223 in 2009!

I feel great about adding some nice stuff of a Tigers legend, and this has me motivated to track down more on subsequent Sportlots runs.

So Cochrane's nickname beget Mantle's own name, and the next guy was christened after the Yankees legend and fellow Oklahoman:  Mickey Tettleton.

The guy they called "Fruit Loops" (they gave him his prodigious strength!) was drafted by the Oakland iteration of Cochrane's original team, then had stints in Baltimore and Texas that bookended his four seasons in Detroit, 191-94.  It was a very productive stretch for him that resulted in 112 HR and 14.8 bWAR, or around half of both career numbers.  He had an awesome batting stance as a switch-hitter and was often seen with a huge wad of chew in his cheek, something I loved when I was younger (but hate now that I'm aware of its effects).

This Mickey is much more prominent in my Detroit collection as I've made more of an effort to collect Tettleton as one of my favorite recent-ish Tigers.  The 15 cards you'll see here get him up to 87, and this first scan is mostly one of my favorite brands, Stadium Club.  Here you see Mick's cards from 1991-95, plus 2015.  That's a rare good decision by Topps these days!  I really like the 50/50 split of catching/hitting these offer, plus the mix of designs is fun to look at.

Also included is his oversized base card from the oddball-ish 1994 Fleer Extra Bases, which you'll see a couple more times in this series.

Oh hi, "90s inserts rule" tag, how have you been?  I'm not at all surprised to see you here thanks to this bevy of fun chase cards, plus some great base products as well.  Up top we have an early version of Fleer's Lumber Company name, plus Leaf's "should have just made these the base set" Black Gold, both from '92.  You're damn right that Mickey made the cut for the iconic debut of Finest--gotta get me that Refractor!--in 1993, and that's joined by the beautiful (and maybe early Dufex?) Pinnacle Home Run Club and another high-end debut, Upper Deck's SP.  

1994's lone entrant is the last lenticular brand to use the "Sportflics" name before Pinnacle switched it to "Sportflix" for its final two years.  And speaking of Score/Pinnacle, our final two cards, both from '95, are fun parallels from those brands:  Museum Collection and Gold Rush.  I've said it a ton and I'll say it again:  1995 Pinnacle is my absolute favorite version of that product, and the Museum Collection cards are flat-out beautiful.  That's why I didn't mind grabbing another card of Tettleton as a Ranger.

What will I show off next?  I dunno.  I'm not even sure when I'll be posting next, but I've got lots more cards to scan and share with you and I'm looking forward to seeing what you readers think.

I do take requests

...especially when it means less work for me!  I didn't feel like doing the work of putting up a post today, but then Kin of I Feel Like a Collector Again left a comment on my post from yesterday that he wanted to see all eight of my Charlie Gehringer cut autos at once.  Well, Mr. K., that sounds like an easy enough request to fulfill!

For your enjoyment (and anybody else who happens to be reading this), here they are in their scanned and enlarged glory:

2005 SP Legendary Cuts Autograph Cuts (#76/97)

2006 Exquisite Collection Cuts (#06/65)

2006 SP Legendary Cuts A Place in History Cuts (#23/57)

2006 SP Legendary Cuts Legendary Signature Cuts (#67/76)

2006 SP Legendary Cuts When It Was A Game Cuts (#18/64)

2007 SP Legendary Cuts Enshrinement Cuts (#03/65)

2007 SP Legendary Cuts Inside the Numbers Cuts (#52/60)

2011 Donruss Limited Cuts 2 (#25/49)

Thanks for reading and for your comment, Kin!  Readers, please show him some love by heading over to I Feel Like a Collector Again now (or maybe again, if you just came from there.  Even if you already did, go there again.  Now.)

2016 eBay purchases: New Year's Eve with Chas and Steve

This post marks my final 2016 purchases (except for my Black Friday COMC haul), so between that and covering the final trade post from last year, I'm pretty much caught up on 2016.  Not bad!

Chas and Steve are a couple guys I believe many of you know, and while I didn't spend my New Year's Eve with them, these eBay cards made it to my mailbox before the evening of the 31st, so my rhyming title works.

First up is my second autograph of former Dodgers/Yankees RP Steve Howe.  This is his Silver auto from the excellent 1996 Leaf Signature auto-per-pack product, and it matches up with the Bronze version I nabbed back in October.  That one cost me just $3, and I was reasonably happy to pay $7 for this rarer version that leaves me just a Gold shy of the trio, and two cards from sewing up Howe's run of 81 cards (with a '94 Stadium Club Team First Day Issue being the other I'm in search of).  For all his faults, Steve had a pretty nice signature, and it looks great on this iconic design.

Of course, I was a bit more excited to add this guy to my PC.  Gehringer is an extra fun player for me to collect since he played baseball both at Michigan and for the Tigers.  Plus, he was, you know, a really, really, really good player.  So I've really enjoyed adding some cut autos to my minuscule Gehringer PC, and now a crazy six of the 30 cards I've accumulated of the Mechanical Man are that exact kind of card!

The sixth is this gorgeous When It Was a Game Cuts card from 2006 SP Legendary Cuts, an UD product that's been a huge factor in bringing affordable HOF cuts to collectors; As a matter of fact, this one set me back just a bit more than $40 delivered, and I'll take that deal anytime.  Upper Deck's typically strong design comes into play here, combining another beautiful Gehringer signature, apparently from an index card, with a classy look that includes a player photo--always a plus when it comes to these cards, in my opinion.  This is my fourth from that brand, and fifth from UD out of the six overall.

Thanks to Chas and Steve for a rockin' New Year's Eve!

2015 eBay purchase: the Mechanical Man cuts right to the chase

I've got some stuff from the show I went to this past weekend to show off, but I'm lazy and I've been wanting to show off what's in today's post for a bit anyway.  Ordinarily I'd post these over on TMM but I'd rather a larger audience get to see these, plus they fit in with this blog's theme anyway.  Also, I hadn't posted over here yet this year!

As I said in a couple posts late last year, the certainty of my budget at that point meant I could swing for the fences a bit as 2015 came to a close.  That resulted in beautiful auto pickups of Lou Whitaker and Greg Maddux, but as 2016 neared I still had a pretty nice amount available should I decide to spend it.  I wasn't just gonna throw away money for no reason, though--what I found would have to justify the cost.

And then I found the perfect way to close out my purchases for the year:  this pair of gorgeous cut autos for under $100 together from one seller:

Charlie Gehringer 2005 SP Legendary Cuts Autograph Cuts auto (#76/97)

Charlie Gehringer 2006 SP Legendary Cuts Legendary Signature Cuts auto (#67/76)

Gehringer joins Bill Freehan as part of a small club of players I collect that played for Michigan and the Tigers, and his cards are easily some of the highest-end in my entire collection.  As you can see he has a top-notch signature (they don't make 'em like they used to!), and these cuts done in ballpoint and sharpie really pop.  As with my first Gehringer cut (I now have three!) I was adamant that I wanted something that included some sort of photo, not just one of those lower-end framed index card types.  These two are exactly in my wheelhouse and they're the type of cut that usually gets listed for closer to the amount I paid for both, if not more, so $95 was nothing if not a steal.

We're just a day away from MLB's Hall of Fame class of 2016 announcement, and I'm sure to be celebrating in honor of one of my other PC guys, which will tie in nicely with my show haul, so keep an eye out for that tomorrow!