Cards From Bloggers

Lots of cards incoming and lots of posts upcoming, so let's start by thanking YOU the blogosphere for sending so many great cards to Collector HQ!

I offered GCA of the Collective Mind blog (LoQtus on TCDB) a low-numbered parallel of a Washington RC .. but he doesn't collect Nationals. The Collector regrets the error. But! GCA countered with a very generous offer that included some set fillers and PC players:

A sampling of the 40 cards I received, including one of the nine Robin Younts in this trade, a Mattingly I've had my eye on for quite a while, and one of the '96 Score set fillers I needed to complete the near-set Dennis sent to me (more from Dennis in a minute.) 

The 2018 Panini Classics are a huge boost to the base set I decided to build after offloading at least a dozen singles in prior trades. That Kelce guy sounds familiar for some reason....

Gavin of the Baseball Card Breakdown blog sent this to me six years ago. I would never sell it -- it's Gav's IP to begin with -- but I have wondered how much he could sell these for considering another blogger, Gregory of Nine Pockets, has a nice little side business of custom cards and he isn't taking advantage of Taylor mania (yet?)

Gotta throw this in - I guess I understand why Queen Taylor stayed in an enclosed luxury box at Lambeau Field when the Packers beat her man's squad last Sunday... but Simone Biles was out among the crowd, in the elements, cheering on her man Jonathan Owens. I'm just sayin'.

Speaking of gifts... Tom of The Angels in Order blog (calangels on TCDB) has been sending out some BAGs lately. Just a few hours after reading that Jon Penneysleeves received a Blog Appreciation Gift, Tom send me a TCDB offer which included these:

Moar Yountz!!

Jeremy of the Topps Cards That Never Were blog has been breaking some shiny new baseball blasters. As it happened I bought the Rays slot on Nachos Grande's 2023 Topps Archives break and thought I could send a few over to our resident Rays collector. That got the ball rolling on a nice little trade:

He's Karensjer on TCDB and this was his first completed trade there(assuming he received the cards I sent him?)

Next we have Kerry of the Cards on Cards blog (madding on TCDB) who sent a few set fillers my way:

Cards of Cards from Cards on Cards

And finally we have a third care package from Dennis of the Too Many Verlanders blog. The fella known as FreehanSolo already has a Hall of Fame reputation on TCDB. This was not a TCDB trade, just some good ol' generosity from one of my best blogger bros.

Do any of you remember the 'war' between Bob Walk the Plank and Wes/JayBarkerFan? If I had the budget, I'd drop 'bombs' on Dennis like those guys did, cause these are the types of things he sends me:

No big deal, just a Raffy Devers patch relic from a high-end product. Oh, and these:

Glorious Pacific inserts! Super cool die cuts! I have to say the Clemens is my favorite here; even though I dislike the man he has some fantastic cards. The Brodeur McDonalds cards are awesome as well.


I'm very fortunate to have such generous blogger friends, and I hope that what I'm sending out to some of you is half as good as what you've sent to me. Thank you Greg, Kerry, Tom, Jeremy, and Dennis!

And thank you all for reading and supporting this blog! 

Have a great weekend!



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Free Stuff Friday - NBA picks

I've been in a basketball mood lately. With no sports happening I need something on in the background while I sort cards or do COMC challenges. I've been listening to Bill Simmons podcasts partly because they're long and uninterrupted (there's one sponsor promo at the beginning and maybe one more halfway though. That's two brief ads in a two-hour show.) His NBA redraft discussions are filling in the 15-20 years of basketball I wasn't watching. 

Kerry offered to send out a few cards to anyone who asked. I can get Red Sox singles just about anywhere - and Kerry has tons of great basketball cards - so I requested some Milwaukee Bucks. This seven-card PWE arrived in the mail Tuesday. Since I'm hooked on redrafts, let's take a look at how these six Bucks compared to the rest of their draft class:

Michael Redd - Drafted 43rd overall in 2000. 4th-highest win shares in his class. Great pick. 

T.J. Ford - Drafted 8th overall in 2003. Ranks 23rd in his class in win shares - lower than their 2nd-round pick Keith Bogans(who they "traded" for cash on Draft Day anyhow.)

Brook Lopez - Drafted 10th overall by the Nets in 2008. Ranks 6th in his draft class in win shares. Great pick by New Jersey. 

Giannis Antetokounmpo - Drafted 15th overall in 2013. Has the highest WS total of any player in his draft class. Milwaukee knocked this pick out of the park. 

Eric Bledsoe - Drafted 18th overall by the Thunder in 2010. OKC traded him to the Clippers, but he didn't develop until a few years later in Phoenix. He's now 8th among 2010 draftees in win shares. 

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Drafted 1st overall in 1969. NBA's All-Time Leading scorer and, not surprisingly, has the highest career win shares total of any player ever. I'm no NBA expert but I think the Bucks got this one right.

You probably know this already, but the Bucks picked an all-time great player 9th overall in 1998. He's a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer and has the most win shares of any '98 draftee...

 ..and they traded him for "Tractor" Traylor on draft night. This is why I love revisiting past drafts, in any sport. 

Anyway...you're here for free stuff, am I right? I don't have a lot of basketball cards to offer (and there aren't a lot of NBA fans on the blogs) but there are some stars in here, including Dirk. Please pick up to six cards. I'll have another batch available next week.

Let me know if you have any requests for certain sports, teams, or players and I'll do my best to offer them up in the next three weeks. 

Thanks for reading!


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Stranger Things

Sports are unpredictable*. That's why we love them.


*except the NFL

Three weeks ago we saw highly-favored Duke lose in the NCAA Tournament. Not the championship, or even the Final Four, but the Elite Eight--and they barely made it that far.

The NHL's top-seeded Tampa Bay Lightning were swept in the first round, as were the always-dangerous Pittsburgh Penguins. Two of the top three seeds out West, Calgary and San Jose, are one loss away from first-round elimination.

Even the NBA playoffs have seen some surprises so far; the Golden State Warriors actually lost a game to the L.A. Clippers - the biggest playoff underdog ever while the second-seeded Denver Nuggets are down 2-1 in their series. Oh, and Tiger Woods won a golf tournament. woo.

All of this is strange, but it still has an "any given Sunday" feel to it. The greatest teams in sports can have one bad game or one bad week. It happens. One bad month, for a defending World Series champion returning a near-identical roster, is truly bizarre.

I keep waiting for the Boston Red Sox to snap out of this slumber and start winning... but it hasn't happened yet. Roughly 20 games into the 2019 the Red Sox are the second-worst team in baseball, behind only the Marlins. Kansas City has a better record, so does Baltimore. Tampa Bay has the league's best record, and they're running away with the AL East.

Yes, my Sox are suck right now. But I still love collecting Boston-based baseball cards - and Kerry included a bunch of them in his Guilt Free Basketball Card mailer:

Classic Clark, Pink(?) Porcello, and some early Pacific issues. The 2004 Red Sox were certainly an Elite team...

..the 2019 version? Not so much. These were my first 2019 baseball cards; I bought two packs of Opening Day shortly after opening Kerry's mailer.

 Heritage and Ginter, including a David Price relic. Thanks again, Kerry!

Many of these have been added to my box of Sox hits, which is now overflowing! It's also the last box of baseball cards I've yet to catalog on TCDB. I'm going to try and finish all of my non-hockey this weekend.. which includes a smattering of non-sports cards.

My wife and I have been watching Stranger Things recently, and as of tonight we'll be all caught up on the first two seasons. I've seen blaster boxes of Stranger Things cards in Target (and a Jim Hopper relic on COMC) but I haven't been tempted to buy any yet. I like that Topps uses the old-school card stock - which makes sense since the show takes place in 1984 - and it shouldn't cost too much to put together a complete set.

That said, I'm weird about buying non-sports cards. As much as I loved The Hunger Games quad-rilogy, I only bought the cards because they were heavily discounted - and they were still a big disappointment.

Also I don't feel the need to have any specific Stranger Things scenes or characters represented in my collection. The only character that stands out to me is Eleven, and I'm not about to chase a piece of clothing worn by a pre-teen actor. (Wouldn't mind a Winona Ryder relic though.)

Have you watched Stranger Things? What strange sports story interests you the most?


Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend, and a Happy Easter! 


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Pucks n' Bucks

Thank you to everyone who entered my Stanley Cup Contest. More than half the slots were filled, which I'd consider a success. I'm a bit surprised that no one claimed the Bruins - but not nearly as surprised as I am that the Columbus Blue Jackets are dominating the Tampa Bay Lightning. It's still early (just ask last year's Capitals) but if the Jackets could win their first-ever postseason series and eliminate Tampa, that would blow the field wide open.

Jackets goalie Sergei Bobrovsky is a free agent after this year, and I've heard rumblings that both Bob and star winger Artemi Panarin want out of Columbus (something related to John Tortorella I bet) While I'd love to see the Devils sign either one, I'm becoming a Bobrovsky fan and I'll be adding him to my expanded list of PC players this summer - unless he signs with a team I can't stand (*cough* Canes)

Jersey was once again far out of the playoffs, and they were slotted to select third in a draft that has two premium prospects - American center Jack Hughes and Finnish winger Kaapo Kakko. As luck would have it, the Devils won the NHL Draft lottery and will select first overall for the second time in three years. The Devils have actually won the lottery three times; in 2011 they selected Adam Larsson fourth overall - which was the highest they could move up under the old rules.

I'm really excited for the Devils rebuild to bear fruit, assuming they draft Hughes to pair with Nico Hischier up the middle. Mackenzie Blackwood has enough potential in net that the Devils probably won't even pursue Bobrovsky, last year's first rounder Ty Smith is ready to make the team and GM Ray Shero has four picks in the first two rounds to play with. 

As for the playoffs, I'm not pulling for one team in particular just yet. I'd be happy if the Capitals could repeat, and I'd be just as happy if the Predators won. But Joe Thornton and the Sharks have to win eventually...right?

I'm trying to watch more of the NBA playoffs this year, and I'll probably watch a game or two today. It's odd and a little refreshing to have a postseason without LeBron James; almost like the MLB playoffs without the Yankees. 

I don't know enough about the Western teams to have a favorite (anyone but Golden State would be fine) but I'm pulling for the Milwaukee Bucks to come out of the East.

Kerry sent me some guilt-free basketball cards, which arrived Friday. Someone else claimed Ray Allen specifically, but I got plenty of current Bucks including the Greek Freak..

..Bledsoe, Brogdon, and my birthday bud Khris Middleton. Jack Sikma was finally elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame last week, along with former Buck Sidney Moncrief and Vlade Divac, among others. Guess it was a good year to clear out some backlogged players - but I'm surprised that Chris Webber and (to a lesser extent) Tim Hardaway still have to wait.

 

Speaking of the Hall, Kerry included a sweet Oscar Robertson Hall of Gold insert from Panini Gold Standard. The Jabari Parker holo parallel is my third from '15-16 Donruss.

A handful of '90s Bucks, featuring "Big Dog" Glenn Robinson.

Kerry also sent a couple Hakeem Olajuwon cards and a big Stack of Red Sox cards, which I'll show off in my next post. Thanks again for all the great cards!

I'm hoping to finish cataloging my baseball cards today, but my daughter has a soccer game this afternoon. The weather is just too perfect to stay inside anyhow.


Hope you're all enjoying your Sunday!


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