Monday Night Breakdown

Five cool @breakdowncards on a cool Monday night. 

The Blazers won and my vacation starts tomorrow night, so I'm feeling pretty good about things at the moment, even though this is officially day one of many with no baseball. Oh man, now I'm starting to get sad again. Fortunately, here's some cards from Baseball Card Breakdown to cheer me up. I acquired these several months ago, and please don't talk to me about how it's almost November.
First up is Matt Carpenter's very blue "silver pack" parallel, which is numbered to cool 115 for some reason.

This one is an always tough to find "vintage" parallel of the Cardinals defense ace, numbered to a cool 99.

Swagerty didn't make it past the AA level, which isn't very cool... but I'm sure he's a cool person! Most people don't get to pitch professionally. Do any of YOUR friends pitch professionally?

Gavin makes great customs, and was kind enough to hand me this "what could have been" 1978 style Topps card, featuring Ozzie Smith. It goes into my Ozzie binder. It's very cool.

Wait, how did this Cub sneak in to this post? Not cool! Not cool!! (I needed it for a set.)

Football Binders: The Keepers

Looking at the few things I kept from the Goodwill football binder. 

I'm not a big football collector, but as many of you know, I do have a stash of Oregon Ducks alums that I'm still working on cataloging. I also kept some Eagles cards, a team I don't usually make a huge deal out of around here. The years that these cards came from (first half of the '90s), however, is right in my sweet spot of Eagles appreciation. I miss the old kelly green unis, basically.

Mark Bavaro finished his NFL career with the Eagles. This is a Special Effects parallel, but unfortunately the "effects" were mostly lost in the scanning process. You can see that his name is shiny, though.

This is apparently a Colors parallel of Byron's 1993 SkyBox Impact card. The only difference I could tell between this and the base card is the foil "impact" stamp.

Here's a pair of rookie year Charlie Garner cards. Garner spent the first half of his NFL career with the Eagles, usually playing behind someone else, before going on to spend his two best seasons with the 49ers.

Former Duck Chris Miller, who now coaches in the Portland area, was featured on one of those early '90s Fleer insert sets which focus on a single player. I am quite sure I didn't have any of these before. I just need to find the rest of the set.

Apparently, the Collector's Choice football answer to baseball's "silver sigs" parallels are just slapping a foil team name on the card and calling it good.

One of several Fleer All-Pro inserts I kept, this one prominently features the NFL logo (aka The Shield).

Clyde Simmons was also featured on the 1993 design.

Former Cal QB Dave Barr was apparently drafted by the Eagles, though he never played a regular season down with them.

This is old enough to be in my collection already, but I had to keep it just in case. My Eagles cards just sit in a box, aside from Randall Cunningham, of course! (Sadly, there were no Randalls in the binder.)

Another Fleer All-Pro design, with a superhuman Eric Allen.

Fred Barnett was my favorite go-to target in Tecmo Super Bowl, which is where a large chunk of my Eagles fandom came from.

In between his lengthy stay with the 49ers and his better known Broncos career, Bill Romanowski stopped off in Philly for a couple of seasons. This is a strange practice photo.

In case you missed it, here's more about this Goodwill find.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 9: Into the ZonaZoo

The Ducks head into the desert for some Pac-12 After Dark action. 

After blowing a huge opportunity last week by completely failing to show up in the first half against the Cougars, the Ducks try to regroup this week as they head way down south to Arizona. The Wildcats have been disappointing this season so far, with their only conference wins coming against the lifeless Oregon State Beavers and an up-and-down Cal team.

Oregon's big O-line injury seems to have hurt even worse than expected, but with a week's worth of practice to right the ship, they hope to avoid the major missteps (pre-snap penalties, especially) of last week's first half debacle. A big game from Justin Herbert (who else?) would help things tremendously on the other side of the ball.

Some links:

• The ZonaZoo is currently accepting members for a fee. I don't remember having to do any of that stuff when I was in school.
• The Herbert Heisman Watch is dead, folks. All of the attention has turned to whether or not he comes back next season (please come back!)
• Know Your Opponent: It is Homecoming, and a night game... it's gonna be lit?
• The Unis!: All white with black helmets. Switching it up a bit this week after all.

Going old school this week with a throwback to 1995. There's a whole playlist.

Game time is 7:30 PM PDT on ESPN. Clay Matvick, Don Orlovsky and Paul Carcaterra are on the call.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 8: Wazzu

The Game of the Year. Again. 

After a nerve-wracking, nail-biting overtime victory over Washington last week, the Oregon Ducks hit the road to take on the pesky Washington State Cougars today. The Cougs are flying high with a shiny new Top 25 ranking of their own this week, and are finally hosting ESPN's College GameDay for the first time, after decades of having their team flag on display during every broadcast. Mike Leach's "air raid" offense usually gets all of the attention (much of it deserved), but this time around it's the defense that's turning heads.

On the Ducks side, the team suffered a huge loss last week when true freshman beast Penei Sewell suffered a high ankle sprain. The offensive line has been one of the keys to Oregon's success this season, so this is a big blow that they'll have to deal with for the rest of the regular season. The Ducks leaned heavily on the running game to eventually overtake the Huskies last week, which seems to be a big focus of Mario Cristobal's offensive philosophy, himself a former lineman.

Will Oregon be able to sustain their success as they hit the road for just the second time? Pullman is a crazy place to play. Will the Cougar students be able to continue their GameDay party all night? If there's any place that could pull it off, it's probably Pullman.

Link time:

• The Cougars have the nation's 15th ranked defense, but it's the penalties they draw that are killing opponents.
• This week is the fourth straight time Oregon has faced a ranked opponent, but supposedly the Pac-12 is subpar. That doesn't add up. Predictions seem to be mixed for this one.
• Herbert Heisman Temperature Level: Still mild. Still gaining acceptance.
• Know Your Opponent: With the party starting so early up in the Palouse, the Ducks can only hope everyone has turned into Popcorn Guy by the 4th quarter.
• The Unis!: All white with chrome helmets, same as the Cal game. Announcers still continue to talk about their endless uniform combinations, despite the evidence that they've been whittled down to just four.

You have to go back to 2014 to get to Oregon's last win over the Cougars. It was a squeaker.

Game time is 4:30 PM PDT on FOX. Tim Brando, Spencer Tillman and Holly Sonders will be on the call. Go Ducks!

Envelopes of Intrigue

The smallest of packages from @pksteinberg and @bbcardclubhouse pack a big punch. 

Here we are, with baseball playoff games still going into the late hours of the night, and there's college football to write about and a Blazers opening night coming up... tomorrow?! There's really too much going on right now. I thought I'd show off just a few cards, first from Peter of Baseball Every Night.

I "claimed" a couple of trade bait cards that Peter posted after he had purchased a box (or pile, or something?) of this year's excellent Stadium Club set. The Altuve, of course, goes into Erin's collection.

Reds fan Adam of Cardboard Clubhouse sent over some goodies as a thank you for this summer's big free group break, including this Allen Craig card from the inaugural Panini Prizm set. It looks like they haven't put out a Prizm set in a few years, which is in sharp contrast to the huge popularity of the NBA set. Could it be something to do with the (no) logos?!

Finally, this one was a big set need, as I already had one copy for my Cardinals collection. I am definitely excited whenever I am able to take down any Heritage insert from my huge list of lists.

The Rest of the Pizza

Hey, I finished a set! 

On the eve of the new NBA season, I can announce that I'm finally done with a set. Okay, sure, sure... it's a six card set. Back in May, I showed off an eBay pickup where I bought 4 of the 6 cards from the Blazers Papa Murphy's set (a single season item released in 2015-16). I had never seen the remaining two cards pop up online until the other day, when I was to pick up the missing pieces. Admittedly, I spent way too much money on cards that were given away for free with a reasonably priced take-'n-bake pizza, but I'm a big sucker for regional food issues (and the Blazers, obviously.)

I assume that Dame has watched a few more flicks since Straight Outta Compton came out. He and the team will get a crack at the Spurs in their second game of the season this Saturday. I will be there!

The elusive Lillard card made since, considering that he's one of the top players in the league (first team all-NBA in 2017-18!), but not being able to find Meyers Leonard was a little perplexing. Leonard enters his seventh season, the longest tenured Blazers -- in a tie with Damion Lillard, of course.

Is The Blacklist still on the air? I always meant to give it a shot.

---

Finally, in much sadder news, Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen passed away today. He also owned the Seattle Seahawks, and had a lasting legacy in the tech world, music, research and philanthropy. He had owned the Blazers for 30 years and was only the team's second owner. He may have been an eccentric billionaire, but he was our eccentric billionaire. (And, you know, Seattle's.) I was hoping to find a basketball card somewhere with the man on it, but we'll have to settle for this (unfortunately watermarked) picture of him rockin' out on guitar instead.

RIP, Mr. Allen.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 7: Fuskies

The Game of the Year. 

For the second time this season, and maybe the third depending on how much you cared about the Cal game, it's time for Oregon to take center stage in their biggest game in years. This one is personal. I may have made light of, in this very space, the opponent and how they lost twelve straight times to Oregon. Kenny Wheaton's gonna score, etc. All of this stuff happened, and it was very glorious. Unfortunately, the Ducks have been outscored 108 to 24 in the last two meetings. One hundred and eight to twenty four. One hundred and eight to twenty four. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT TO TWENTY FOUR. 108-24! What. The. HELL.

Of course, an obvious thing to look at in the recent history of this series is that one team has always severely outranked the other, and up until recently that was always Oregon. The last two seasons, UW had the ranking and Oregon had no ranking and a lot of issues. Today is very different, in that both schools are in the Top 25 and both have no expectation of losing. It's going to be quite a game.

Senior QB Jake Browning matches up against Junior QB Justin Herbert, who actually made his first start against these Huskies in the dreadful first blowout of 2016. There's no doubt that Herbert wants to right the ship here, while Browning has been fairly lackluster in his fourth season. The Ducks were fortunate enough to have some time to heal with the early bye week and should come into today's meeting at nearly full strength. Tony Brooks-James, a senior who's ostensibly the starting running back, has been limited or completely held out of the running game several times this season, so it should be nice to see him back. Some alarming things happened defensively even in the comfortable win over Cal two weeks ago, so the hope is that the defense has also had ample time to recover.

Links:

• Coach Cristobal is full-on embracing the rivalry, which is refreshing and nice to see... and not what we've come to expect from a non-alumnus. I'm good with it.
• Oregon enters unprecedented territory with their third consecutive game as a ranked opponent facing another ranked opponent. FYI, they are 32nd all-time in weeks ranked in the AP poll.
• Herbert Heisman Temperature Level: Mild. I mean, I guess he's on the list.
• Know Your Opponent: Yes, everyone remembers Jake Browning taunting the Ducks two years ago at Autzen. You should be concerned about payback, you Huskies.
• The Unis!: Although this would be a perfect time to pull out some Kenny Wheaton era throwbacks, yellow it is.

#17 Oregon hosts #7 Washington in a football game. Do you remember the time when Washington got smashed... by a lot? That also happened.

Game time is 12:30 PM PDT on ABC/ESPN2 (mostly just in SEC territory.) Sean McDonough, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe will be on the call.

Goodwill Find: Football Inserts and Oddballs

I don't collect this stuff, so (nearly) everything must go!

About a month back, I teased on Twitter that I had picked up some football cards at Goodwill for just the cost of a regular binder. I don't really collect NFL cards, so the majority of this stuff I hope to put in other people's hands. There was a whole binder full of inserts, oddballs and parallels from around 1990-95, most of which I hadn't seen before.

I'll likely be hanging on to the Eagles stuff, and Oregon players (Chris Miller, basically), but everything else is up for grabs. I took a ton of (sideways, sorry!) photos with my phone of the album if you want to dig deeper.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/w65KiLNt3cWRyEyH8

Let me know if you're interested or have any questions. Tell me about your favorite teams, sets and/or players!

Want Lists, Attacked

Dennis from Too Many Verlanders/Manninghams sends over some Top 10 needs. 

I have a "10 Most Wanted" list on the blog that I don't give nearly enough attention. It tends to sit over at the blog sidebar, hoping someone (not on a mobile device) will notice. Here's what it looks like currently for those on mobile devices:

1. Matt Carpenter - 2014 Topps All-Star Access #ASA-MCR

2. Ozzie Smith - 2016 Topps Berger's Best #BB2-1980

3. Art Howe - 1984 Fleer Update #U-54

4. Adam Wainwright - 2014 Topps Allen & Ginter #324

5. Lonnie Smith - 1982 Topps Traded #108T

6. Yadier Molina - 2013 Bowman Platinum #14

7. Michael Wacha - 2018 Topps #51

8. Jack Flaherty - 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen #36

9. Ray Lankford - 1991 Classic Game #83

10. Pedro Guerrero - 1991 Topps Cracker Jack I #8

Dennis from Too Many Verlanders / Manninghams took down several of these needs a few months back, only to find that more needs have popped up to replace them. It's funny how that works! Here are a few of those cards, plus some more fun stuff that wasn't on the list but was definitely on my massive unending want list.

Joaquin "Walking Underwear" Andujar may "now (be) with (the) A's", but I still needed the card because of the uniform he's in.

Back in the early '00's, Fleer (and other associated brands) used to short print all of their rookie and prospect cards, which must have been super annoying. I missed those years.

This guy was such a dominant player when I was in my teens, but it's really rough to listen to him on the air, calling games in the playoffs. Maybe he works as a regional color guy, but I couldn't stop making fun of him during the Astros game yesterday.

Another serial numbered Fleer rookie. Mystique cards are pretty slick looking, though.

It would probably be tough to surf in full catcher's gear.

It's always great to take down an '80s need. I've been working on my '80s list... really, all of my lists lately, to be honest... but I know there are still plenty of holes.

Back to the present with a 2018 gold Waino parallel. These aren't as gold as they used to be.

Dennis is also a big college football guy (Michigan, if you've got anything to help him out) and always sends along a treasure trove of Ducks cards. I save a lot of them for Saturdays in the fall, but here's a glimpse at a former D-line star.

Doing This (High) Heritage Thing Again

Bring on the end of season sets with my first 2018 Heritage High Number blaster. 

I haven't been able to find any of this stuff in stores, so I finally took to Amazon to get my first look at the extension of the 2018 Topps Heritage set. I always appreciate more Heritage cards to collect, in theory, but it was a bit of a relief when this product was shelved for a few years. After a few years in a boxed set format, the packs returned in full force back in 2015 and haven't relented since.

Here's my standard disclaimer that often gets ignored. This is the only card you'll see in this post that is actually available for trade. Should I start throwing a fancy little sticker on the "for trade" card photos in my posts? I wish I had Photoshop skills, because that kind of sounds like a cool idea. This is one of those Chrome Refractor parallels that have no business appearing in a set like this, but are cool enough for player and team collectors at least.

I think the insert sets are the same as the past few years, which means Topps flips "Then & Now" to become "Now & Then" and only features a single, current player.

My first Cardinal card of the box was of a player who had a truly dreadful debut in the Birds on the Bat. Holland was signed out of desperation (really, on both sides) as St. Louis had some beat up players in the bullpen in spring and Holland didn't have a job, despite leading the league in saves the previous year. He essentially skipped out on spring training altogether and was a disaster on the mound. He would up in Washington before the season was out during the Cardinals July Purge.

Corey Kluber is not doing a lot to disprove that he's a robot here.

Rookie Performers are among the most popular inserts in this set year after year (just look at the prices for those Kershaw cards from 2008!) This gets an appropriately cheesy late '60s design.

I got Ohtani's card out of the way right off the bat, which is good. These cards are cheap right now, but this could've easily turned into one of those things that no one wants to trade me down the road.

Here's a former Cardinal who became a prominent reliever for the Rockies. He was on the mound for their Wild Card win last night (gave up a run, but kept them in the game?)

Deckle Edge inserts continue in the High Number series. I was a bit surprised at getting Marte here, as he's neither a traded player nor a rookie.

As with the other Cardinals I pulled, this goes into my team collection, meaning I'll need a second copy.

Tyson Ross's second stint with the Padres was abbreviated. He ended up as a long man in the Cardinals bullpen by season's end.

Yairo (pronounced like how awful people mispronounce gyros) was one of the big surprises of the Stephen Piscotty offseason trade, as he had a fine season plugging in holes in the Cardinals lineup while others were injured. I'm not sure he belongs in the infield, though. The other surprise of that trade has to be Nick Martini, Oakland's lead-off hitter in tonight's AL Wild Card game. (Sorry, A's.)

We finish off the Heritage Year much like the way we started it, with a Randal Grichuk card.