2021 trade package #6: Baseball Card Breakdown

Happy baseball games are back day! The Tigers won and the sport we all love is gearing up to return as the weather (hopefully) warms up. Let's celebrate with some cards of that very sport.

About two months after his Christmas Eve birthday I happened to find a pair of PWEs from Gavin of Baseball Card breakdown in my mailbox earlier this week. That was a fun surprise for sure, and it sounds like he was grateful that I included him in my recent tradition of sending out Christmas cards:

HEY, IT'S ENRICO PALLAZZO! Is it really a trade package from Gavin if there isn't some sort of custom action going on? This Naked Gun-inspired card of Leslie Nielsen's most iconic character isn't printed on regular card stock since he just used it for a brief note, but I'll keep it with the other customs I've accumulated from him and others over the years regardless.

And on a somewhat related note, here's what was in the pair of envelopes (spoiler alert, I needed most of them!):

First up is a corrected version of a very cool custom Gavin sent me for Christmas 2019 starring former UM defensive coordinator Don Brown. He was nice enough to fix it after accidentally spelling Brown's first name "Dan" a couple times and send it to me now. The Wolverines ended up letting Brown go after the 2020 "season" due to increasingly bad defenses, but he was still fairly successful at the school, not to mention a fun personality, and I wish him luck in his new role at Arizona. Thanks again for this, Gavin!

Former Tigers prospect Wakeland's 2000 SPx card is a fun reminder of how much I love that year's iteration (up there with the '96 and '97 versions for sure), even if chasing numbered RCs wasn't for me (as in buying them--I'm happy to get them in trades!). I own the non-numbered Update cards and might try to grab the main base at some point because they're nice to look at.

Gavin managed to hit three of my PCs with new cards in the form of an oddball Keebler Rangers of Howe, Topps Rainbow Foil of Richard, and Starting Lineup card of Tettleton. All three are great as they knock off needs, and I think I'm most excited about the Tettleton since those SLU cards don't tend to be cheap, plus it's got a great looking photo of Fruit Loops wearing the tools of ignorance.

There's also a couple interesting Panini Golden Age minis here. PC guy Bill Freehan is the 2013 American Caramels Blue back which I already had, but that will find a happy home with John who's likely excited to receive another item of a guy we both collect. Meanwhile, the other is of Nate Colbert, a guy whose name you may have seen a few times on Card Hemorrhage. His 2012 Broad Leaf Brown back doesn't list a team but some seem to think he's shown as a Tiger and I'm glad to accept that. Colbert came to Detroit in a four-player trade in late '74 and then played 45 games there before being bought by the Expos, bouncing to Oakland, and retiring. His count of Tigers cards is minuscule so this is a pretty cool way to add him to my collection!

The theme of the rest of this post is, creatively enough, "Too Many Verlanders!" The BCB dude sent me 11 cards and I needed 10 of them, with the lone dupe being card #2 above, a 2019 Bowman base I snagged from Baseballcardstore.ca and haven't posted yet. That, too, will find a good home.

Everything is from 2018-2020, which means Astros cards, and that's great because I have a lot fewer of JV's cards from those years at this point, meaning they're great fodder for trade packages heading my way. Brands here include Topps Archives, Donruss, Gypsy Queen, flagship Topps, and Opening Day. I don't get Topps' recent thing with cards featuring images of other cards, but that's Topps for you.

The horizontals look quite nice, as cards often do in that orientation. These include Big League (2018 and 2020) bookending Update and flagship. The Update card is the 2019 150th Anniversary stamped parallel and the second Big League issue includes 2019 teammate Gerritt Cole and rising star Shane Bieber. That '19 Astros team was crazy successful (for reasons that are now apparent) and still managed to lose the Series to the Nats.

The healthy stack you see here got me up to a solid 465 cards (second place on TCDB!) of the former Tigers ace in my never-ending quest to own too many.

Thanks for the double dose of PWEs and customs, not to mention the other great stuff, Gavin! I appreciate you hitting multiple PCs including a bunch of the guy in my blog's title, not to mention some really useful stuff of the other guys. I'm not sure when I'll have cards for you next but as always I'll work on a pile until it makes sense to ship it out west to you.

2019 COMC purchases: wild cards

I'm back today with more COMC loot, and this time there's a lot less to cover, which makes things easier on me!  In honor of the MLB playoffs pretty much starting--good luck to this year's four wild card teams--let's have a look at the baseball stuff I picked out this time:

 

Let's start with a bang with this gorgeous acetate insert of Mr. Padre.  Gwynn's 1998 Upper Deck Amazing Greats (get it?) is one reason I get to use my favorite "90s inserts rule" tag today, and for good reason.  I mean, just look at this card and try not to like it!  It's see through, it's limited to 2000 copies (so rare!) and it stars one of the greats of his generation.  This embodies everything great about collecting in the 90s and it's still amazing to think cards like this were being made 20+ years ago.  I should also point out that I'm also after the 1997 versions, which look awesome in their own right.  As for this one, I happily knocked it off my single/player wants list.

Next, this Steve Howe '94 Stadium Club Team First Day Issue parallel probably doesn't interest the vast majority of you, and ordinarily it would barely move the needle for me, too, except that in this case it's the 81st and final card I needed to complete his mainstream checklist.  All that's left to chase are oddball-types and minor league stuff.  It feels good to get another PC done, especially after needing just one card for so long.

And now, back to 90s inserts that do, indeed, rule.  I've long loved the multiple glove-themed die-cuts that were available during that decade, such as Pacific Paramount's Fielder's Choice.  Of the three that came out of the brand my favorite design is the 1999 version, but this one from its 1998 debut isn't exactly chopped liver, and, I mean, I want all of my PC guys from all three anyway.  That includes all-time Gold Glove king Greg Maddux here, who would win half of his 18(!) awards after this card was produced.  The glove's die-cutting is well done but Pacific gets bonus points for attention to detail by also cutting the webbing inside.  Just more classic 90s fun.

When you talk playoffs you'd be remiss if you didn't include three-time Series winner and '91 World Series MVP Jack Morris.  35 years ago he led the juggernaut '84 Tigers to their most recent title, winning game 1 of the ALCS and games 1 and 4, with the latter two in complete game fashion.  It was a season for the ages and culminated in a matchup with a young Tony Gwynn and his Padres.  That series is highlighted here on this 2002 Upper Deck World Series Heroes Classic Match-Ups Memorabilia jersey card, featuring a Morris swatch dead center.  Tony went 1-2 with a pair of walks in the Series opener, then 1-4 in the penultimate game, but his fellow HOF foe was the one celebrating after game 5.  And I'm celebrating my fourth hit of Morris, the first of hopefully more relics!

And we'll end with two more 90s inserts that rule of one player, Mr. Cal Ripken Jr.  #1 is another beautiful die-cut glove card, this time Fleer's 1994 Flair Hot Gloves.  Cal joins Griffey and Maddux in this 10-card set available in Flair's second annual offering, which continued through 1996, moved to Flair Showcase in '97, was a memorabilia chase set in 2001 Legacy, went back to Showcase in 2003-04 as both an insert and multi-material memorabilia insert, and made its last appearance as an insert only in 2006 Showcase.  It's got a lot of history, as does Cal, who actually only won two Gold Gloves, mostly due to playing at the same time as SS legend Omar Vizquel.

 

We opened with an acetate card and then saw two glove die-cuts, so why not close things out with one more see-through insert?  1996 Ultra's Season Crowns were apparently not that tough to pull at 1:10 packs, but they were a Series 1 insert, and I only ever busted Series 2, so I never pulled one of these, and somehow missed out on them until landing one of Maddux at some point.  That led me to chase Cal's card, which largely celebrates the Streak, and here we are!  The back points out a Streak fact that doesn't always get as much press:  it included 8,243 consecutive innings from June 5, 1982-September 14, 1987, meaning he didn't just start every day, he finished.

With these cards posted I'll turn my attention to the fun of the postseason while working on the other two football COMC posts now that the calendar has flipped to October.  Stay tuned to those and good luck to any playoff teams you're rooting for!

2018 Sportlots purchases: A-toZ PCs

Before I cover the last two single-player posts I'm going to use this one to show off the rest of the PC guys for whom I mostly just picked up a handful of cards (or even just one!).  They didn't fit the Tigers/Reds theme from a couple posts ago but they do share one thing in common:  all are former Wolverines, which isn't a surprise since the vast majority of my PCs are Michigan guys.

So here's a bunch of different players, some of whom I hope you recognize:

Jim Abbott is surely one of the most well known guys in this post and it didn't take much luck to turn up eight new cards of the one-handed wonder.  There's a nice mix of oddball--'90 Topps Magazine and '96 Angels Mother's--base, including a cool pairing with Nolan Ryan from '92 Pinnacle, and parallels, especially '96 Pinnacle Starburst.  I now count 259 cards in his collection.

Previously I didn't have enough cards of former Yankees OF prospect Casey Close to warrant an album, but thanks to these four I went ahead and made one, adding to a couple Michigan-specific items I already had.  Close is now known as a superagent who represented Derek Jeter, among many others, but in the 80s he was toiling in the minors for New York and Seattle after a terrific college career.  These four minors products, two each from '88 and '90, capture him with the Columbus Clippers (Yankees, AAA) and Calgary Cannons (Mariners, AAA).

If you've read at least a few posts on this here blog you know my favorite supercollection is that of current Dodgers lefty Rich Hill.  While putting together this massive Sportlots card I was fortunate to find a couple new cards for my assault on his checklist, this pair of Topps All-Star Game Silver cards from the special stamped sets the manufacturer made for the occasion.  In knocking off a couple more cards for those rainbows I also got closer to the 300 mark and am just five short!

I'm still lacking one freaking card ('94 Stadium Club Team First Day Issue) for my collection of late pitcher Steve Howe, but I did find this interesting pair to bolster it.  He's the third of four players I grabbed from the 1990 Dodgers Target set, and the second of another quartet, this time from Line Drive's 1991 AAA product.  You already saw Ross Powell's card a couple posts ago and you'll see the other two shortly.

One of those guys is former Brewers pitcher Mike Ignasiak.  I completed his 15-card collection a while ago but I'm always on the lookout for new stuff like this Minor League trio with cards from 1990-92.  The brands represented are Grand Slam, Line Drive, and Skybox, and the teams are the El Paso Diablos (AA) and Denver Zephyrs (AAA).

The other is pitcher Scott Kamieniecki, a pitcher mostly know for his stints with the Yankees and Orioles.  To his nearly-completed run I also added a trio of Minor League issues with the '91 Line Drive card book-ended by '90 Best and 1991-92 ProCards Tomorrow's Heroes (and its little foil diamonds).  Albany was the Yanks' AA squad while Columbus was their top affiliate until 2007.

Former Brewers/Giants/Cardinals catcher (and manager for the latter) Mike Matheny is one of the more well-known guys among my PCs, and I managed to track down new checklist needs from three of his four clubs (the Blue Jays aren't represented since no cards of him with the team appear to exist).  Those are, in order, a '98 Pacific Online Red parallel and base cards from 2005 Donruss Team Heroes and 2016 Topps Heritage.  I'm getting reasonably close to 100 unique cards for his collection not to mention 50% of what I've checklisted so it's nice to have productive days like this.

Former QB/current pitcher Clayton Richard is a few years into his return to San Diego, and while he hasn't been terribly effective he's at least been able to eat some innings for them.  As you can see here I finally nabbed his 2017 Topps Update base and got the Rainbow Foil parallel to go with it as my first examples of his issues from that product.  I still have lots of his stuff to track down, especially cards released over the last couple years, but I'm at just about 60%, and hopefully future posts will see more bunches of his cards.

The last of the multi-card players for today is former pitcher (and Michigan Baseball manager) Geoff Zahn.  As with Ignasiak I completed his run a while ago but was glad to find other stuff to add, like this oddball pairing.  On the left is the third and final Kellogg's issue I added through this series, in this case from 1979.  It's not exactly mint--the scan doesn't show how much the card's cracked--but it's not like I especially care as I'm just happy to have another fun lenticular food issue.  And as promised I can show off the last of the '90 Target Dodgers.  Zahn was with L.A. for the first two-plus seasons of his career so he too was part of that very cool perforated set.

And now we'll take a quick look at the guys for whom I picked up just one new item:

• Brett Adcock, a 2016 4th round selection of the Astros out of Michigan, is my latest brand new player collection.  The lefty isn't high on the team's list of prospects for now but you never know!  The first card for his debut is his 2016 Bowman Draft base and I currently have 16 of his cards to track down.
• Like Howe above I need just one card to complete Jake Fox's PC, though the quad auto I'm hunting will be much, much harder to find.  In the meantime I added my first non-checklist card thanks to this shiny 2006 TriStar Prospects Plus base from his time as a slugging Cubs catching prospect.
• Former White Sox IF and current front office guy for the same franchise Chris Getz has a larger checklist for me to chase, but I likewise added a Minor League issue, this one from the 2008 Just Autographs product from which I already own an autograph.
• That's right, it's a run on Minor League cards!  Injured pitcher Zach Putnam completes the trio with another TRISTAR-branded offering, 2009's Projections.  Zach was a member of the Indians organization at the time and this card includes a shot of him with his pro debut club, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a low-A affiliate in the NY-Penn league.  The Niles, Ohio-based team is still affiliated with Cleveland today.
• Vintage legend George Sisler is the lone HOF PC guy in this post (though Nolan Ryan does make that cameo!) and while I usually can find more new items of his at a time I was happy to add this SSPC HOF card from the product's 1980-87 run.  There's no date on the back so I'm not exactly sure when it was made, but I do like that it shows him as a member of the 10-person 1939 Hall of Fame class that was the fourth ever inducted and also included Lou Gehrig (thanks to a special election due to his health).  It represents my 83rd card of the one-time single-season hit king.
• Last up is a final SSPC offering, once again from 1975, of former Cardinals (among other teams) IF Ted Sizemore.  I'm adding it to his completed collection along with another non-checklist card as a fun vintage oddball item. 

Two more large single-player posts await, so stay tuned!

2017 Sportlots purchases: Rich on the Hill (and other guys)

For a huge number of baseball fans like myself, Christmas came early this past Saturday when the World Series-bound Houston Astros gave us all the gift of Yankees Elimination Day!  Houston celebrated its fifth year in the AL by taking home the pennant, largely thanks to this here blog's namesake, Justin Verlander.

But I don't have any cards of him to show off today, and as a matter of fact I'll be pulling for JV's opponents, the Dodgers, this Series--even though they (rightfully) left former this here blog namesake Curtis Granderson off the roster.  Why?  Just look at L.A.'s starter for game 2--one Rich Hill, he of the incredible comeback a couple seasons ago that culminated in consecutive playoff appearances with his latest team.

In his first taste of the postseason since 2007, Hill went 1-1 in three playoff appearances last year, winning his lone start--game 3--of the NLDS to the eventual champion Cubs.  Now he's taking the mound for the favored Dodgers in game 2 of the Fall Classic--crazy!

That made me do some quick digging to find out the last time a Michigan alum

• ...made it to the playoffs (Hill, 2016 Dodgers)
• ...made it to the World Series (Barry Larkin, Hal Morris, Chris Sabo, 1990 Reds)
• ...won a World Series (that same Reds group)
• ...participated in the World Series as a pitcher (Steve Howe, 1981 Dodgers)
• ...won a World Series as a pitcher (Howe, 1981 Dodgers)

So this is a pretty significant game for one of my favorite PC guys and you know I'll be watching!  To celebrate, I have some Sportlots pickups of both Hill and Howe, plus some of a few other guys who came in at four or fewer cards in my enormous 1000-ish card haul from the site:

In grabbing these flagship and Archives issues I finally got my first 2017 cards of Hill, and therefore my first of him in a Dodgers uniform, because why would Topps have done that in last year's Update set?  Or even Series 1 this year?  God I miss those idiots having competition.  I'm back up to around the 2/3 mark of his run though that doesn't include his Chrome Sapphire releases, which I haven't been able to checklist yet.

While filling my cart with loot of the other PC guys you'll see in this series, I dug deep for everyone I collect just in case, hence the appearance of a few guys today such as Dransfeldt, the former Texas farmhand.  I turned up a couple minor league issues from 1999:  Baseball America Diamond Best Gold and Just.  Both were decent products and I've always liked the look of the BA set (not to mention the magazine and its excellent prospect coverage).

Here's the other World Series-winner I mentioned (as a Dodger!), Steve Howe.  Throughout this post and the rest of the series you'll see a good number of oddball items, mainly from the 80s and early 90s, after I let loose and grabbed almost literally everything of my PCs that was $0.20 or under.  Such is the case here as we have a couple 1983 Fleer offerings:  a Star Stamp (you can kind of make out the perforations in the scan) and a Sticker as well.

Getting back to mainstream issues for my supercollections, here's my favorite card of the post:  David Parrish's 2001 Topps Chrome Retrofractor.  A parallel of a RC he shared with fellow catching prospect Scott Heard of the Rangers, this is one of the best Refractor-type cards Topps produced, and that's saying something!  It features the typically excellent parallel finish, which looks great with that shade of green, plus it includes an old-school cardboard texture on the back to give it that "retro" feel.  My 20th card of the son of former Tigers backstop Lance leaves me just two shy of his run!

I belatedly discovered that Powell was a Michigan alum around this time last year, and in the roughly 12 months since, I've tracked down all but one of his seven cards.  The '94 Score Gold Rush parallel on the right was no problem as I could have nabbed it several times if I didn't mind paying more, but the Pinnacle Artist's Proof from the same year is one of those issues I was beginning to think didn't exist!  I was so shocked when it turned up that I immediately made sure to buy it before it disappeared, either in a sale or as a mirage.  Now I'm just left chasing his '94 Score Boys of Summer insert, a copy of which I've seen online so I know it's extant!

Just as I was happy to see Rich Hill finally appear in 2017 flagship Series 2, I was also pleasantly surprised that injured White Sox RP Zach Putnam also gained admittance, his first in a flagship product, not to mention his first mainstream issue since 2010!  I now get to chase his rainbow from that set while I try to lock up the final three cards I need from his earlier cardboard appearances.

By my reckoning Putz is the made the next most recent appearance by a Michigan alum in the playoffs, Arizona's 2011 NLDS loss to the Brewers.  As with Putnam I only tracked down one card of the former closer, a 2014 Topps Wal Mart Blue parallel made the same year as his sunset season.  It's my ninth from that rainbow with a good number of parallels still to go.

Howe's not the only player for whom I went all oddball, all the time.  I'd long since completed the checklist of Sorensen, a late 70s/80s pitcher for seven different teams, when I managed to come up with these fun additions:  another 1983 Fleer Sticker (we're not done with those yet!), another sticker from Topps' 1984 version (shared with Royal Larry Gura), and a standard-sized 1990 Swell Baseball Greats.  Man did people in the 80s look weird....

We'll finish at the end of the alphabet with another pitcher whose checklist I've had completed for a while:  Geoff Zahn.  Another former Dodger, Zahn appeared in the 1982 postseason with an Angels squad that lost to Milwaukee, who'd lose in seven to the Cardinals.  I added three more stickers to my collection in the form of Zahn's entries from 1983 Fleer and Topps and 1985 Topps.  Then I went big--literally--with Geoff's 1985 Donruss Action All Stars, a large 3.5 x 5 inch release from a 60-card set.  Adding these four boosted me to a nice even total of 40 Zahn cards.

And with that I'm off to watch two of my favorite PC pitchers duke it out on baseball's grandest stage!  Good luck to both in what I hope continues to be a classic Series.