The Missing Link

Which year is missing from my baseball card collection? Here are your guesses:


1951, 1953, 1953, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1958, 1963, 1965, 1965, 1966, 1966, 1968, 1983, 1994, 2002

One of those is the correct answer..i had a video reveal but it refused to upload straight so I scrapped it.

Congrats to Nachos Grande and Brett Alan! Please let me know if you would prefer a sport other than baseball. Your card will arrive in the mail by the end of November (unless I have to pick one out from COMC.)

Thank you all for reading and participating!

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Weekend contest - win a free vintage card!

 This Sheldon Jones card is one of two 1950 Bowman singles in my collection.

It's not the oldest card I own. However, it is the first in a chain of singles representing nearly every baseball season from 1950 to 2022. There is only one missing link. This particular year has eluded me, though I haven't tried all that hard to acquire any of that season's offerings. 

Here's the contest: simply comment below with the year that is missing from my collection. That's it. You don't have to specify a brand, since there may have been more than one set released that season.

Consider this a 'thank you' contest for sticking around during my hiatus. Anyone is eligible, though comments will be moderated until the end of the contest, Monday night at 8 p.m. EST.

The winner will receive: a single card from the missing year, up to a $10 value (definitely not a common) Not a baseball fan? No problem! You can't choose the card but you can choose the sport. 

If two readers answer correctly, a second prize will be awarded (probably not from the same year)

If more than two readers answer correctly, those names will be randomized to determine a winner.

Here's a clue: If a year/season you're thinking of contains an iconic moment or milestone, that season is most likely represented in my collection.

Good luck, and thanks for reading!


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In Local News...

 

"New" sports card shop opening two blocks from my house:

I have never lived so close to a card shop in my life. Figures it would happen after the increased prices and decreased quality turned me off of new products, likely for good. Hopefully they'll have some nice vintage singles and supplies. 

Pack Wars is going to be insane here; I have no idea where 20-30 cars are going to park. Not something I'll have to worry about though..

Jon, you were right 😜

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Blogging >> Trading

I bought a stack of 100 stamps just before the latest increase in postal rates (thanks again, GWB) with the intention of making 50+ trades on TCDB. I had hoped to offload all 1,200+ duplicates in my trade box, but it seems I've hit a wall. There aren't a lot of active traders who want what I have, or have what I want.

The trades I've 'completed' lately have included damaged cards far too often. Some traders aren't getting back to me, while others have countered my trade offer because they suddenly can’t find what I asked for - or they just sold the card I really want (more on that later).

I can't even give cards away. Three days ago I offered up two free Pay it Forward 'trades'. One user replied right away and was very grateful. The other has checked into the site every day since - but still hasn't accepted my free cards.

Meanwhile, while I've been on break from blogging.. Night Owl has been hard at work sending his 250-card repacks to 20 lucky readers. Guess it's easier to give cards away here, huh? 😜

I wasn't one of the first 20 to comment (was visiting my mom in CT that weekend IIRC) but I made a comment that Night Owl appreciated and so he scrounged up a small 50-card sampler for me:

 

A pair of Packers starts off this pack. These are from 1977 Topps.

Some Red Sox, including a fantastic Lenny Green from 1966 Topps. It's card #502 in a 598-card set so I assumed it was one of those pesky high numbers.. but it's not listed as such on TCDB or COMC. Still one of the nicest vintage Sox singles I've received.

No Night Owl repack would be complete without some of his surplus Dodgers cards, including a Hideo Nomo Stadium Club RC and a shiny Clayton Kershaw (with A.J. Puk on the back) Love the Duke Snider Archives Reserve single, too.

More signature N.O. favorites here, including a Kellogg's card of A's catcher Jeff Newman, a Jim Wynn scratch-off game card, and a Willie Wilson food issue from 1983. The '78 Ron Guidry is a nice one as well.

Newer Topps singles, the cornerstone of any repack. The top three are from 2010 Topps Update.

This repack didn't guarantee a hit, and I didn't see the odds posted on the side. Guess I'm just lucky mine contained a Diamond haha. The Josh Johnson OPC black is very cool, and a pair of early '90s Oilers are a nice bonus.

 

(Mostly) non-sports singles here including '80s icon Molly Ringwald. The wrestling ladies are the exception, I s'pose.

Once again Greg, thank you so much for your generosity and for all you do in the card blogging community.

Kevin at The Diamond King also offered up some freebies recently. I thought I’d missed out on claiming a card there, too, but a couple days ago this showed up in my mailbox:

When I saw this shiny Schwarber I couldn't help but offer it a good home. Kevin was kind enough to oblige. Thank you Diamond King!

If I ever get my blog reboot off the ground I will have some type of freebie page as a 'grand re-opening'. Hopefully you'll find some cards worth claiming.

Back to that failed TCDB trade. I made a 4-for-4 offer, specifically for a Mikaela Shiffrin parallel. A few days later I got a counter offer with the Shiffrin card removed, as the guy had "sold" it and forgot to remove it from his inventory. Recent examples of the card in question have sold for about two dollars!

Until this year, the only Mikaela cards I could get my hands on were flimsy perforated singles from Sports Illustrated for Kids issues:

 I think this was a blog freebie as well :)

Thanks to 2021 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions, there are now several Shiffrin singles to collect:

In fact I just spent $5 on four more Mikaela cards, which will probably stay at COMC HQ until after Black Friday, along with this..

This Luis Arroyo cost $3.25, and it's unofficially my 196th different 1956 Topps card (depending on whether or not I buy some more in the interim) I was hoping to hit 200 by my birthday but I'm going to fall just short of that goal.

I'm about to hit 900,000 career COMC Challenge credit points, and I've spent all of it. I'm going to try and save up all the credit I earn from 900k to one million and earn a high-end single or two absolutely free. Easier said than done. But is it easier than giving cards away on TCDB? We shall see...

Thanks for reading!



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That's Not Wright

 Kingston Center Shane Wright was projected to be the first overall selection in the 2022 NHL Draft. 

The Montreal Canadiens owned the 1st overall pick, while the New Jersey Devils had the second pick. Most mock drafts had Wright going #1 to Montreal, followed by Slovak winger Juraj Slafkovsky going #2 to the Devils.

 

New Jersey has selected #1 overall twice in recent years, taking centers in 2017 (Nico Hischier) and 2019 (Jack Hughes). Devils fans would have been happy to have a 6' 4" 230 lb winger fall to them at number two... but Montreal flipped the script and selected him with the first pick.

It's rare for a consensus #1 pick to not go #1 overall, in any draft. There didn't seem to be much dispute over Shane Wright's standing as the top prospect available - though he wasn't seen as a generational superstar such as Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews. Scouts compared Wright to Patrice Bergeron, a future Hall of Famer who excels on both ends of the ice but has never been a top-tier scoring star.

Perhaps Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald could have traded the pick, acquiring a veteran scoring winger to pair with Hischier and/or Hughes. Instead the Devils used the second overall pick to select.. not Shane Wright.

Perhaps Simon Nemec will develop into a franchise cornerstone like Victor Hedman or Drew Doughty - two other defensemen taken #2 overall. Perhaps Fitzgerald will regret passing on Wright, who was selected #4 overall by Seattle.

Far too many NHL "experts" assumed that New Jersey had no need for the highly-touted centerman. The Devils are set at center was the common refrain. No one even paid lip service to the idea that a team that missed the playoffs in 9 of the last 10 seasons should take the best player available.

 

Jack Hughes is a star in the making. He's also 21 years old and hasn't played a full season in the NHL. Hischier - who was also seen as a two-way center in the Bergeron/Kopitar/Toews mold - just finished his fifth season, in which he set career highs with 21 goals and 60 points. 

New Jersey had one player in the NHL's top 50 point scorers - left winger Jesper Bratt. Hughes didn't finish among the league's top 100 point producers. Hischier didn't rank among the NHL's top 100 goal scorers.

But we don't need Shane Wright. We're all set at the center position.

Here's my rebuttal to that, if the 'best player available' mantra doesn't work for you.

In 2004, the Pittsburgh Penguins had the 2nd overall pick. They selected Evgeni Malkin, a center.
In 2005, Pittsburgh won the lottery and selected 1st overall. They chose Sidney Crosby, a center.
In 2006, the Penguins again had the 2nd overall pick, which they used to select Jordan Staal.. a center. 

 
In 2008 the Penguins reached the Stanley Cup final. The next year they were Cup champs. Who were the top three scorers on that championship squad?

Want a more recent example of a team drafting three centers in the top three? Let's look at Edmonton:

In 2011, the Oilers had the #1 overall pick. They selected Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, a center.
In 2014, the Oilers had the #3 overall pick. They selected Leon Draisaitl, who is also a center.
In 2015, the Oilers once again picked first, selecting Connor McDavid. Guess what position he plays?

Edmonton hasn't won a Stanley Cup or even made it to the final with their haul of high draft picks. However, they were in the Western Conference final this past season. Three of their top four point producers were, in order: McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins.

Let me be clear here - I am not comparing Hughes/Hischier to Crosby/Malkin or McDavid/Draisaitl. Sid, Geno, Leon, and Connor have all won NHL MVP trophies and scoring titles.That's my point.

Hughes and Hischier are not on that level yet, and it's unlikely they ever will be. So why would a non-playoff team pass on a prospect like Shane Wright, whose ceiling is higher than Hischier's by all accounts, simply because they're all centers? Nico would be a heck of a #3, just like Staal was and Hopkins is. 

If scouts or GMs or talking heads want to make the case that Simon Nemec has more upside as a future top-pair defenseman, or that Wright had plateaued - perhaps even regressed - in his draft year, I can't argue those points. But the notion that New Jersey doesn't need another talented center doesn't make sense to me.

I'm happy the Kraken selected Shane Wright 4th overall, not just because they're my 'girlfriend' team but because Philly had the fifth pick  😯

Here's hoping that both the Devils and the Kraken got the .. right guy. Sorry, I had to!

 

Thanks for reading!


 

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