Packin' 'em in

Welp, the Red Sox are definitely done now. Rafael Devers is a Giant, and Boston didn't even get Yastrzemski in the deal 😉 So many Sox fans renounced their fandom when the team traded Mookie Betts - but this one might be worse. Raffy was already signed long-term (unlike Mookie) and they depreciated their own asset by jerking him around about his role with the team until he didn't want to be in Boston anymore. Also, most fans forget that the Sox convinced the Dodgers to take on David Price's albatross contract in the Betts trade. 

The players coming back from the NL West team based in California this time are... slightly better. But they gave up many more years of a superstar under contract and sent the wrong message to the three blue chip prospects who just arrived. Ugh...I'm not just done with this team, I'm done with this sport. 

So let's look ahead to football. 

My Green Bay Packers collection is close to complete, thanks to an order from Sportlots and an order from the Beckett Marketplace. 

Filling in the 1980s requires doubling up on '86-88 cards (I've already completed these sets.) The Tim Hauck Pro Set fills the last spot in my early 1990s binder. You don't see '93 Pro Set singles nearly as often as their first three sets; Hauck and Brett Favre are the only two Packers I have from that set. 

I though I had most of the basic Sterling Sharpe cards but Playoff snuck this one by me - until now. These were 20c each on SportLots. Hold that thought. 

Really wish I could expand the selection of Packer players but Robert Brooks and Edgar Bennett were in just about every mid-'90s set. (Now you see why I picked the Tim Hauck card from '93 Pro Set.)

More Brooks cards, but at least there's some new faces here. I'm not seeking out Mark Chmura cards but I wanted the Action Packed single because I had that hat back in the day. Still do somewhere in my hat bag.

John Michels was the Packers' 1st round pick in 1996 and I'm just now adding him to my collection. Offensive linemen (who washed out of the league within two years) didn't get many cards back then. 

I picked out exactly enough cards to fill my 2000s Packers binder, but the seller couldn't find an Ahman Green card and issued a refund. 

Sportlots still has Beckett beat, especially on price. Regardless, I had to fill a cart with 50 cent commons for one specific single that no Sportlots seller had in stock...

More mid '90s here. If I'm going to pay half a buck for commons they'd better be HOFers like Sharpe and Butler.. but the 1994 Ultra and UD singles are now duplicates because I didn't check them off after buying them 30c cheaper at Sportlots. Oh well, wasted 90 cents there. 

But it came out in the wash when the Eddie Lacy Finest RC I purchased (for 62c) along with another Ahman Green single were out of stock and I was refunded $1.12. where are these Ahman Green collectors coming from?

Here's the 2010s Packers single that prompted my return to Becket marketplace after nearly three years. Can you guess which of these basic looking base cards has finally been crossed off my want list?

That's right, it's the Scott Tolzien Prizm base card. This is one of very few Tolzien singles that depict him as a Packer; he started two games in place of an injured Aaron Rodgers during the 2013 season and was ...not good. And yet - none other than the Dallas Cowboys hired him to be their quarterbacks coach for two seasons!

We'll wrap this up with the newest Pack singles, including a trio of Davante Adams cards.
 

So.. how much room do I have left for more Packer cards?

• 5 more cards from the mid-late 1990s
• 1 more card from the 2010s
• 6 more cards from the 2020s
• 1 miscellaneous card 

Overall, I'm about 60 cards away from filling all my team PC binders. I'll have one more inventory update by the end of June, and then -- assuming my wife's health holds up -- it's the Summer of Slabs.

Thanks for reading!

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