Super Big Game Day

#FlyEaglesFly 

It's hard for me to know now if I've been an Eagles fan since I first played Tecmo Super Bowl, or if it all started when I first gorged myself on $5 boxes of 1990 Pro Set. In any case, somewhere around that time, I declared myself for House Eagles and have watched (and sometimes not watched) all the ups and downs since then.

NFL has always come in a distant third in terms of my professional sports fandom, but I have memories of watching every Super Bowl going back to 1982 (coincidentally, the first one after the Eagles first one.) Technically speaking, I listened to most of Super Bowl XXXVII on the radio on a drive back home on I-5, but I caught some of it on the air at least. Still, I really didn't delve into actually paying attention to the league as a whole until Randall Cunningham came along and made me root for sports played largely on the opposite coast.

I'm excited about today's game. I rarely have a rooting interest in this game, so my usual witty banter will probably be kept at a minimum today as a I actually get excited and/or cringe at each play. I won't be devastated or surprised by a loss, but I'll be rooting hard for Nick Foles, Fletcher Cox, Malcolm Jenkins, Jay Ajayi, Alshon Jeffery and (Ducks!) LeGarrette Blount and Kenjon Barner. And a lot of other players I didn't mention! Like... Jake Elliott! He kicks bombs! Hey, I named a bunch of football players. Look at me.

Enjoy the game. Enjoy the nachos. Enjoy Justin Timberlake, I guess. Go Eagles!

All Numbered

These sports cards from Thorzul all have one thing in common.

This spring, Thorzul held a group break that consisted of the contents of a big all-serial-numbered multi-sports lot he purchased. Being both a sucker for grab bags, random chance and things that are serial numbered, I opted in and claimed my favorite teams. I even came away with two additions to my player collections.

Ozzie didn't spend his entire career with the Cardinals, of course, but he did retire a Cardinal and spent more than a decade and a half with the team. I guess that counts as Forever? I have really liked a lot of the Fleer Greats cards I've seen over the years, which makes me wish it was something that could be revived at some point.

Albert Pujols is back to doing Pujols things these days, which mainly involves crushing a lot of home runs. His power numbers are on par with some of the seasons he put up in St. Louis right now as we're more or less at the midway point in the season.

It's a rough time to be a Blazers fan right now, so here I can look back to brighter days with a couple of cards from former Blazer greats. With the team now in rebuild mode, there's a decent chance that the upcoming season will see Portland with their worst record since B-Roy's rookie season.

I've always been a huge Sheed fan. This card is very shiny, but the giant serial number detracts from the look far more than it adds anything.

There were a lot of Eagles cards to be had as well, but it was tough to find one to scan of a player I genuinely enjoyed watching. Brian Westbrook shared carries with Correll Buckhalter and Duce Staley over the years. I paid a lot more attention in the McNabb/Andy Reid era than I do now, but having Chip Kelly in charge does keep things more interesting than with most NFL teams these days.

Offseason Teams

How much do you care about your other teams in the offseason? For me, it's not always a lot.

It's hard for me to get too fired about sports that aren't actually actively scheduling contests among their teams. I'm not sure if I've always felt this way or if it's been a somewhat recent thing, but aside from this week's draft and the ensuing flurry of signings and trades that will commence in the week that follows, I can't say I'll be giving the Blazers a ton of thought. It's not that I don't care, either. This is the team whose allegiance I was born into, and I will holler at the TV and at the court from the nosebleeds with the ragiest of them when the season begins in earnest. However, my NFL fandom can barely register with more than a blip during the actual season, so the 24/7 NFL news cycle is completely grating to me. I have by and large avoided ESPN since MLB Network came to exist for this very reason.

Mets Cardboard unloaded some sportsball cards on me from these other sports a few months back, but every card included was a player from yesteryear. This won't be as hard to write about as, say, Sam Bradford or Arron Afflalo. (Afflalo was barely a Blazer long enough for me to learn how to spell his name correctly, incidentally.) The Mets aficionado has been waiting (patiently?) for months and months for me to hold up my end of the bargain, so I am hoping the massive package of baseballers headed his way in the next few days can somehow make up for the lost time.

Sabonis is one of my all-time faves, and on this card he gets teamed up with a couple of other European players of the day, one (Danilovic) that I've never actually heard of. These somehow just didn't pop as much as the old 1980-81 Topps cards. We don't get a rare glimpse at Vlade in a Hornets uniform but we do get the teal borders.

In addition to Blazers, there were also many Eagles to be found, many from the Tecmo Era. Bubby Brister showed up in green sometime in the SNES portion of the Tecmo Era, which is how I found out about most NFL transactions back in those days.

Randall is hands down my favorite football player of all-time. One of these days when I get my Eagles cards organized I'll start cataloging my Cunningham cards and entering them in Zistle as I've done with my other player collections. I don't have many, so if any of you have some QB Eagles cardboard examples, feel free to drop them on me. I won't mind.

Early '90s football cards were like the stock market and crack combined, but mostly focused on the devastating letdown that comes with a good drug/money high. This is some fancy see through card made out of plastic. bank accounts and tears.

Here we move out of the Tecmo Era for a moment and into the NFL 2K era. The Duce is loose!

I don't remember Pro Set ever having a high(er?) end product, but here you go. Pro Set Power. It's been unleashed.

More Football Cards From The Diamond King

If you send me nothing but football cards, you have to suffer the wrath of the (occasional) football card post.

It's a long, long ways off before I'll care about the NFL again, but I am still adding a few cards here and there to my dusty Eagles collection. The Diamond King sent over a half a dozen interesting cards including the serial numbered (081/250) Westbrook card above. I should have scanned the back, because this card is actually mocking the Eagles and Westbrook by mentioning that Philly lost all 3 of their MNF games during the previous season. Westbrook wasn't quite the focal point of their offense, either, which means I don't really understand this card at all.

ESPN's Cris Carter was recently critical of the his former team's handling of its former star receiver, DeSean Jackson, drawing comparisons to his own (drug-related) departure from the team. I think the jury is still out on the DeSean Jackson thing. I don't buy Chip Kelly giving up on a talent that great unless he was truly a bad guy (for the team). That is, unless Kelly is just a stooge like most coaches in that league.

This is a great card of my favorite football player! It's numbered 49 out of 50! Exclamation points!

Here is ESPN's Herm Edwards not shouting.

Here is ESPN's Ron Jaworski not acting like he knows everything about playing quarterback and just playing quarterback.

Here is Kevin Kolb not getting ready to succeed as an Eagle.

Thanks again to The Diamond King. Check out his new Latin Players project if you have a chance.

Eagles Cards from a Cardinals Fan

Yeah, I know. Not a football blog.

Reader John H has claimed some Cardinals cards that I had to get rid of (still have a lot of those!) in the past, and he kindly responded recently with some Philadelphia Eagles cards. While I am interested in your excess Eagles on occasion, I am going to try not to focus on it too heavily here. Still, since I haven't had much of a chance to post about stuff John has sent, I thought I'd show a few here tonight.

First off, Casey Matthews' card presents a bit of a conundrum. Matthews, the younger sibling of Clay Jr. (and son to Clay Sr., of course), is a Duck first and foremost. He goes into my Ducks binder. My Eagles cards don't even have so much as a binder, just so you know where my priorities lie.

Randall is my favorite NFL player of all-time. This is a great card. I'm not sure if it's a parallel or just Bowman (Topps) trying to be fancy, 1993 style. Cunningham got me into the NFL game by way of his dual threat game. I wasn't terribly interested in the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust style of the game and still am not. Are you surprised that I'm a Ducks fan?

I still maintain that Donovan McNabb was a great quarterback. He never had a single season as impressive as, say, Dan Marino, but his career more than holds up.

Here's a classic card from the first and only valuable Score issue in any single sport. I think?

Strange but True: Cards from Thoughts and Sox

I usually try to post about packages I receive more or less in the order that I receive them. However, before I could post about the recent package I got from Adam of Thoughts and Sox, I unexpectedly received another package from him that contained something rather... extraordinary... which I felt warranted bumping him up the queue. More on that later, but let's first look at package number one.

Adam lives in Missouri, where Cardinals cards are in scarce supply. (The same can be said of Blazers cards where I live, unless you want to shell out 50 cents a pop for Steve Blake cards.) He still managed to toss in a few, including this Kelvin Jimenez 2007 Upper Deck card that I happened to be missing. I've found that I'm missing a surprisingly large amount of cards from this set, although I managed to knock a handful off of my wantlist at the last card show for a penny a piece.

This is actually a black MINI O-Pee-Chee card of Adam Wainwright, despite the fact that it appears slightly larger than the rest of the images. You'll just have to trust me on this one. The Rick Ankiel card at the top of this post apparently was an inserted preview image for O-Pee-Chee's set before Topps got angry at Upper Deck or something. I don't even remember the whole story, and I thought the whole O-Pee-Chee set was so uninspired almost to the point of seeming intentionally awful. The bottom line is this: I don't care, but I do want the Cardinals cards anyway because they are Cardinals.

I've coveted this card ever since Upper Deck's first series of cards came out a year ago. I really like their Team Leaders cards but was not all that impressed overall by the regular base design. It's not bad, though. From what it sounds like, Upper Deck is going to attempt to put out a comprehensive base type set in 2010, which as far as I know is uncharted territory for an unlicensed set. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Here's a rookie card of long forgotten point guard Alvin Williams. Williams was just starting to come into his own when the Blazers ran out of patience with their starting point guard Kenny Anderson and traded him for Damon Stoudamire. Blazers cards always have a home here.

I haven't really mentioned the Eagles on this blog all season since the, er, unpleasantness. I did break down and watch a couple of games, but I was disgusted with their performance at the end of the season and opted not to watch the playoff game, which turned out to be a wise decision. Vick should be gone by next season, so I will probably pay more attention then.

The impetus of the trade was a healthy stack of 2009 Allen & Ginter cards which cut my wantlist down by quite a bit. I usually seem to get a Mickey Mantle card out of one of the first packs of every Topps product I purchase, so it seemed kind of odd that I didn't own this already. I didn't even realize he was in the set.

So the second package came yesterday, and I do vaguely an e-mail suggestingt hat Adam had a few additional old Heritage cards to send me. Let's take a look.

Here's Juan Encarnacion, former Cardinal. His career ended sadly, gruesomely and suddenly, and I hope he's enjoying a good and productive life away from baseball now.

Boss and Power, eh? Is Chipper threatening to keep playing until Cox retires so he can take over managing the team?

Here's a much-needed Rookie Performers insert from the 2008 Heritage set. I'm starting to find that, dastardly short prints aside, a lot of the stuff I'm missing from this set is from the high series.

Finally, there were a couple unlicensed 2008 Donruss Threads Cardinals cards, including Eck here. Of all of the Hall of Fame relievers (there aren't many), he seems like the most "regular guy." Unlicensed cards are just so awkward, and the only reason I like getting them in trades is so I don't have to spend money on them - because I won't.

Wait... there was another group of cards in the package.

STRANGE BUT TRUE!

IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE!!!

Yargh!!! Ol' Red does kind of have a pirate look to him here. At least I got Bipped with a Cardinal. I don't think others have been so lucky.

The Very Last Thing I'll Say About the NFL (For Tonight, at Least)

My last post was interrupted by real life work stuff, so rather than let my anger subside and post nothing at the time, which would have likely resulted in me not posting anything at all, I decided to continue what I was going on about at a later point. That later point happens to be now.

Now that I've calmed down a bit, I have to ask the question: is the NFL worthy of my interest and support at this point? I received a few comments on my last post to this respect, so I thought I'd address them here:

• Night Owl: "The criminal behavior with a lot of the players is just too much to take. And the league is so hyped." I have to agree here with the hype thing. It drives me crazy to hear NFL talk 365 days a year, though I certainly enjoy Sundays during the season. I used to enjoy Mondays as well, but that was before I started having to work nights. As far as the criminal behavior goes, I feel that the same things drove my interest in the NBA down a bit, but I think things have gotten better in the past few years (or perhaps I'm just thinking about the Blazers alone.)
• Sooz: "i am not done with the NFL. I feel like, as a baseball fan, it's being hypocritical, in a sense. [...] Ok, steroids and dog fighting are not the same, but the premise of breaking rules and doing illegal things are still the same. " I can't say I agree with much of what Sooz says. One involves breaking rules in a sport in an attempt to gain an advantage, which is something that is, for better or for worse, a part of every sport imaginable. The other was disgusting and depraved off-the-field criminal behavior. The two don't really compare, but I have to think that I have a lot more of an issue with a team willing to have someone like Vick represent their organization than someone who cheated - took drugs - and was caught. I'm not thrilled by either, mind you, but I don't think my continued interest in baseball and lack thereof in pro football is hypocritical.
• kevincrumbs probably puts it best, however: "It was a deliberate choice, not an 'Oops, I accidentally ran over my dog' once incident." Whenever I hear blowhard talk show hosts and their less-than-stellar call-in participants try to compare this issue with - yes - former Eagle Donte' Stallworth's DUI manslaughter, I think the argument is incredibly short sighted. No one should get involved with comparing these two incidents in the first place, but if you have to make the awful comparison, you should at least consider that Stallworth and others who can truly look someone in the eyes and claim that they made a life-changing mistake that they'll have to live with for the rest of their lives are going to do so with the knowledge that they were participating in an ongoing pattern of criminal behavior. Someone like Vick only admits that he made the "mistake" when he is caught and learns what the consequences may be.

All of this leads me to more indecision. It would be hard to totally ignore the NFL once the regular season comes around. (The preseason has always been forgettable.) It will also be hard to turn my back on the Eagles, unless Vick is running out on the field. I feel bad for Donovan McNabb, who has been the QB of the team for 11 seasons now. He has taken the team to 5 NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl and has posted Hall of Fame caliber numbers, yet has had so many detractors over the years (ignorant racists and otherwise) and is likely desperate for success. Desperate enough, that is, to endorse Michael Vick and apparently be the one who led him to Philadelphia in the first place.

I could support the Seattle Seahawks, who have some young former Oregon Ducks trying to break through with the team like Nick Reed, Max Unger and Jordan Kent. I think it would be tremendously difficult for me to fully support another NFC team, however. There's always the New York Jersey Jets, where former Duck Kellen Clemens is trying to win the starting QB job which should have been rightfully his last season before that guy from There's Something About Mary showed up and took it from him.

Right now, though, I'm ready for the start of college football and the final six weeks of the MLB season. I will return this blog to its usual light-hearted baseball tone with my next post, I promise.

I'm Done With the Eagles (and the NFL by Proxy)

I realized at the beginning of the last NFL season that my interest in the sport had waned considerably over the years. I kept looking for things to keep my interest and had even entertained the idea of occasionally writing something NFL-related for this blog. Eventually, I found my interest disappearing altogether with the Philadelphia Eagles disappointing start to their season, culminating with the 13-13 tie with the horrendous Bengals in Week 11. Eventually their play improved enough to get the team in the playoffs where they were surprisingly just a twist or turn away from making it to the Super Bowl.

This year, I began to ask myself the same questions as last. Why should I care about the NFL? What can I do to get more engaged in the games that my favorite team plays? Last season I even tinkered with a fantasy team, but it wasn't nearly as interesting to me as fantasy baseball is, since there seems to be less managing and more watching and finger-crossing.

But things had already started unraveling. The heart and soul of the Eagles, Brian Dawkins, was unceremoniously dumped. Backup running back Correll Buckhalter, who was a hard luck favorite of mine, joined the mass exodus which also included Lito Sheppard, Greg Lewis, LJ Smith and Tra Thomas. As much as I can admit that the team had probably overacheived in reaching the NFC Championship game, I don't really feel that the addition-by-subtraction plan was going to help the team a whole lot. The Dawkins thing really hit me the most, however, and it really made me question my allegiance to a team I've followed since fairly early on in Randall Cunningham's career.

And then, today, this happened. I'm done with this team.

At least I'll still have Tecmo Super Bowl.

[To be continued...]

Black Friday Miscellany

Am I back on the Eagles bandwagon after last night's big win? Should I be? I haven't had a lot of fun watching NFL games this season and it's not entirely the Eagles fault. Last night's game just reaffirmed the obvious: if Brian Westbrook is not healthy, the Eagles will fall apart. Otherwise, they're a pretty good team. Smith and Jones here are a couple of cards I got from the nickel bin at the card show I went to last weekend. Spike Jones is not this guy (too young) or this guy (too old) so he'll have to settle for 3rd-Most Talented Spike Jones.





Here are a couple of 1984 Fleer Cardinals, just because. I begged and begged for a Starter jacket like Rayford's when I was younger and finally got one just as the satiny-puffy jacket thing in baseball was fading away. Mike Ramsey just looks like a hell of a dude. I bet Rayford and Ramsey would make a great crime fighting duo.

Bye Week

It's a bye week for both the Ducks and Eagles this weekend, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about the cards I won from Cardboard Junkie's contest awhile back. Demetrius was the top receiver for the Kellen Clemens-led Ducks teams in the mid 00's (or whatever this decade is supposed to be.) This card from... Aspire? I'm not even sure what this set is supposed to be... scores big points for not only being a Duck player, but a Duck player in a Ducks uniform. I've decided to casually collect Ducks football players, but ones in the college uniform are much more desirable to me.

1973 Topps - Mel Tom (I received a handful of vintage Eagles cards as well as some random Eagles stuff from more recent years. "Vintage" to me means it from before 1980.)

I will update this later as I completely ran out of time today. Be sure to keep watching Cardboard Junkie as there are rumors afoot of another contest coming soon.

[10/20 Update: And here's the update. Let's continue...]

Mel Tom's card has a "hilarious" cartoon on the back. Wow. There aren't many words that are fit for this.

1974 Topps - Al Nelson (Al's Wikipedia entry is exactly one sentence long. That's no good. C'mon, football historians, let's get to it.)

This card belongs to Bridget, by the way. Bridget, dear, I'm just holding it for you. You can have it back anytime you want. You know where to find me.

1976 Topps - Will Wynn (Will looks really unexcited to be photographed. Does anyone really like Picture Day? I know there's the 10% or so of the class that just loves mugging for the camera, but Will certainly isn't one of them. I'm sure he was much more comfortable knocking fools down.)

1977 Topps - John Outlaw (True story: I was lazy enough to think for awhile that Mr. Outlaw here was related to Blazers' forward Travis Outlaw. True, his dad is also named John. Also true: his father did partake in the sporting life. That John Outlaw played college basketball, however. This guy is a defensive back.)

1978 Topps - Nick Mike-Mayer (I can't get over how awesome this card looks. The design looks a lot more 60s (or even 50s) than 70s. And Nick, with the mustache and single-bar helmet with nothing but green on the sides looks amazing. How many children of the 50s had hyphenated last names?)

1999 Upper Deck Black Diamond - Doug Pederson (It's easy to forget that Pederson started the first 9 games of Donovan McNabb's rookie season before McNabb tookover. Actually, that entire season is best forgotten.)

1997 Pinnacle Xpress - Ty Detmer (On second thought, I have no idea why I chose to show this card. I can't think of anything to say about Detmer. In football card lore, he was moderately controversial back in 1991 for having a Pro Set card in their NFL set a year before he actually turned pro. In actuality, he was no better than his brother Koy.)

1999 Ultra - Charlie Garner (I always liked Garner. He rarely got an opportunity to be the featured back, but I enjoyed seeing him play when he was given the chance.)

1998 Absolute / Skybox Premium - Bobby Hoying (Wow, somehow I had completely blocked the Bobby Hoying era out of my mind. Here's to another ten years of forgetting all about that disaster.)

1995 Stadium Club / Pacific Prisms - Randall Cunningham (Ah, yes, this is what it's all about. This is why cards are printed. I just saw part of a show about the 1998 Vikings playoff run on the NFL Network the other day and it made me nearly as misty-eyed as a sports-related moment could make me.)

Wow, the Eagles fans holding up the ratings numbers at the bottom of the card are really... strange. I didn't collect football at this point, so I have no idea if all of the cards look like this or if the "fans" vary from card to card.

2006 Fleer / Topps Total - Brian Westbrook (Westbrook is awesome. He really needs to work on staying healthy, though.)

2006 Topps Total - Donovan McNabb (You could say the same about McNabb, too, though he's made it through this season relatively unscathed so far. They really need to bring back Topps Total in all sports.)

2006 Upper Deck - L.J. Smith (Just a nice shot of the current tight end.)