Bubbling Up

The latest in a long line of excellent trade packages from Too Many Verlanders.

The year already feels like it's slipping away from me, so I know that it's well beyond time that I finish up some posts about trades I've received in 2025. I really don't want to head in 2026 talking about something I got, like, last summer. Since the vast majority of what I add to my collection has been coming from TCDB for the past few years, the bubble mailers full of surprise goodies have been something to savor. This particular one came over from TMV back in June, when things were finally starting to heat up here in Portland. Of course, we're now well into November and I've been looking for breaks in the gloomy weather all week to just to have a few moments to sweep a bunch of leaves off of my deck.

Anyway... cards! David Freese cards! While Randy Arozarena's 2020 playoff Babe Ruth act wrecked a lot of Freese's postseason records, he was pushed down the lists a bit more by some prolific players this year.

Vintage Blazers?! Nice! I am fairly certain that a bunch of these are going to end up being upgrades over what I already owned when I finally crack open the Blazers binders again.

A Bol Bol rookie rookie? I'll always take these! He may not have spent more than a blink at UO, but I'll always be fascinated by him.

It's a 20 year old parallel of a Hall of Fame Cardinals player? You can't knock that.

Three Blazers, er, legends all signed this slab of wood, or so the scan would have you think. They actually signed clear stickers that were affixed to this wood-like card-shaped object. I did like Jarrett Jack for a time, but he was made expendable when Brandon Roy came around.

Dion Jordan seems to have a ton of "hit" cards from his rookie year, or at least I seem to own a disproportionate amount of them. I will never mind this as he will always remind me of the tremendously fun Marcus Mariota era.

I think Jalen Reagor was supposed to be a speedly slot receiver type when he came to the NFL out of TCU, but he didn't seem to progress beyond a third option to pass two and made some costly errors on the field in his two seasons in Philly. It looks like he is out of the league now. I kind of like the design on this relic card, however, or at least the placement of the Eagles logo.

There's that man again (and his signature!) 

Jordan Matthews played more football for the Eagles than Reagor. However, after being a heavy target early in his career, he eventually became more of a guy you call up on the phone when you run out of healthy players.

The early 2010s will always be a special time for me and watching Oregon football, even though Chip Kelly is kind of a turd. Kenjon Barner was a huge part of that, and it was fun to hear him join the broadcast during a Ducks game earlier this year.

Jimmy Baseball! Now that he's been off the air for a full season, it's easier to enjoy his baseball cards and playing career.

Arik Armstead is with the Jaguars these days, and has certainly come along way from his days at Oregon when he was a two-sport player (football AND basketball... both kinds!)

The last one up is certainly the most special one, at least for me. As I continue to contemplate how I want to spend my card budget dollars, I know that excellent cards of the Wizard need to take precedent over any random blasters I decide to buy on a whim.

Saturday Stars and Players for the Rest of the Week

 

Football, baseball, basketball, hockey?!

 

Fresh off a customs inspection at the border (presumably) and sitting around my office for awhile is another pile of goodies from buckstorecards. As always, he hit up a bunch of different areas of my collecting interests. I could have easily saved the DJ Johnson Prizm signature for this week's Good Luck Ducks post, but it clearly says "SATURDAY STAR" on it while Oregon is actually playing on a Friday this week for the second time in three games. I have rules, you see. (Also, DJ plays on Sundays these days, if you can call what the Panthers have been doing "playing".)

Vernon Adams Jr. really seemed to kick off the era of Oregon looking to transfers to help their QB ranks, although he certainly wasn't the first.

It's fun to follow Ducks players in their pro careers when the NFL thing isn't in the cards. Fortunately, CFL cards exist, as do generous traders who drop them on my doorstep (figuratively, of course.)

Here's a nice, numbered, high end Kiko Alonso card from something called Topps Supreme. I wonder how many of their old brands Topps will resurrect when they get their NFL rights back.

With the nearly complete lack of labels and color here, you'd have to forgive me for assuming this was one of those janky Leaf products. It's actually a Press Pass Showcase card, and looks very interesting with the red ink signature (on card!) and two distinct head shots.

I still pick up the occasional Eagles card from time to time, and this one is right in my wheelhouse as it's one of the members of the Super Bowl LII winning team. Nice.

It's on to a different sport and a bird of a different color. This is the white bordered variation of Lance Lynn's not-Photoshopped 2024 card because the photo is actually from 2017 (or earlier.) I did the research when the set first came out to track down the original Getty photo to confirm this, but I'm not doing it again.

I don't typically put college/draft cards of players the Cardinals drafted on my want list unless there's a prominent mention of the Cardinals on the card somewhere, but I also do include them in my binders when someone sends them to me. Pete Hansen is still working his way through the minor league ranks and played at high A this past season.

Is this art, AI, or some sort of AI-assisted art? I'm not sure, but I do know that it's from one of those online exclusive mini sets. This looks to have been released prior to Albert's reunion with St. Louis.

It's on to the non-aviary section of the package now, as we're checking out a "teal explosion" parallel of a Jerami Grant card. Grant is currently my favorite player on the team and was actually born in Portland when his father (Harvey) played for the Blazers, but with the team stuck near the bottom of a seemingly bottomless pit ever since Chauncey Billups came sniffing around, any decent veteran like Grant is always the subject of intense trade rumors.

Cards like this are just unfortunate, and a product of the way the NBA Draft functions, or at least used to. Joey Dorsey probably wore this Blazers cap for a few minutes that day before he was dealt to Houston. Sometimes you do get fun stuff out of these situations, like LaMarcus Aldridge holding up both  Bulls and Blazers caps during one of his photos. Still, this is a nice little oddball to have, and certainly less unsettling than seeing Luke Walton on a card wearing a Blazers jersey as a gimmick/tribute to his father.

It's already hockey season?! I've seen some of the scores come across the ticker already, so it must be. I picked out a former Blues player I'm actually somewhat familiar with for today's Blues-card-o'-the-post. Pacific made a lot of junk in their day, but this isn't bad.

Thematically Connected?

 

Another stellar batch of goodies from a Canadian friend. 

 

Just as soon as yet another big package of stuff arrived from Sportscards From The Dollar Store, his turn for a mailing sent back in January was up to the front of the queue. As always, this is another fantastic collection of stuff from all four major sports. Yeah, even that sport.

 

 

It's a bit of a strange color clash to see the redbird team on a very green card like this one, which hails from the 2016 Topps Tribute set. I can't say I've seen many high end Topps cards manufactured in the last year or two. I wonder if Topps is still as committed to these products under Fanatics as they once were. I might just be a bit more disengaged with the hobby as a whole these days.

 

 

I really like the canvas feel from the 2008 Triple Threads set. This is a technique that I wish they would do more often, especially if they insist on making cards this chunky.

This is a really nice looking autograph of former Card Stephen Piscotty, who has spent the past couple of seasons in AAA.

(Side note: I'm trying to move from using Chrome primarily as a desktop browser to Firefox, and I'm having a really difficult time formatting these posts. Has anyone else experienced this?)

 

Unlike the Schoendienst card above, this later Triple Threads release just has a smooth card surface, which makes it less exciting to me.

 

This Big Mac card is actually made by Panini (look, no logos!), so it's a bit of an outlier here among its fancy Cardinals companions. It's hard to get excited about anything Panini does these days in the baseball realm, but I've always been a sucker for Chronicles for some weird reason.

I always tend to get Triple Threads and Tribute (and Tier One, for that matter) confused, but this Tribute card from 2010 (blue parallel, I believe) is extra shiny and should stand out in any collection.

From baseball to football we go, with this die-cut Donruss Eagles from 2016.

Dakota Prukop's time at Oregon could be best explained like an answer to a trivia question. He transferred in from Montana State to win the starting job at Oregon, but was replaced after a few games by a freshman named Justin Herbert. I don't think he has many cards, so it was nice to end up with this one.

Jason Maas was best known as Akili Smith's backup at Oregon, but went onto a lengthy career in the CFL as a player and now head coach.

Another Duck (sensing a theme here?), and a very shiny one -- this Kenjon Barner rookie year card is numbered to just 10 copies. Barner can barely even fit on the card here, which is kind of amusing considering that he's not a huge guy.

Buckstorecards is always the best source for me in finding Ducks players who didn't get a lot of cards, with many landing in the CFL like Vernon Adams Jr. A transfer him, Adams was actually the starting quarterback that Prukop replaced and is still going strong in the CFL today, coming off of a career year in 2023.

Just one hoopster to show off today. It's a Bol Bol Revolution!

The Blues haven't quite captured my interest lately as they've not been very good, but it's always fun to get a nice card of a player from the Stanley Cup winning team. Those were good times.

Contest Reminder and More Feathered Friends

Eagles goodies and more from @forgotaboutblay plus a contest reminder. 

 

Do you like filling out brackets? I find that most people enjoy this weird process. Some people spend more time on this than actually watching the games. Everyone likes to come across as smarter than your fellow human, even when it turns out that you're really picking team names out of a hat. If this sounds like you and you also happen to like free sports cards, you should check out our latest March Radness contest!

If you're here to see cards, I've got some good ones for you. Dennis from Too Many Verlanders sent along a really nice Christmas gift that included a bunch of fancy Eagles cards (and more!) Let's check out a few of them.

I have to admit to being pretty excited about Jordan Matthews when he first came to the team. I'm not any kind of NFL talent evaluator, however. I seem to recall him getting off to a decent start, but he eventually found himself out of a job before resurfacing in 2018 as an emergency option for the Eagles.

There's a lot of jersey on this one! I'm not always a big fan of jumbo swatch cards because they tend to minimize the focus of the player, but this one was set up nicely.

Bryce Brown backed up LeSean McCoy for a couple of years. Those days already seem like a lifetime ago. I do like the hashmarks on the card border.

This Jason Avant card probably came from Dennis's stash of Michigan dupes. I doubt I have very many chunks of footballs in my collection.

Marvin McNutt was another Big Ten star, but he didn't make much of an impact at the pro level.

Dennis always manages to find some really cool Oregon Ducks cards, and this Kenjon Barner is certainly no exception. I don't think I've heard of this Quantum brand before, but I can't say that I pay any attention to what Upper Deck is doing since they lost their baseball license many years ago.

 

Last up is actually a basketball card. Due to the nature of NBA cards, at least in the Panini era, I never would have ended up with a Jared Jeffries Trail Blazers card if it wasn't for this Signatures card. Since any given set usually only includes a couple of a team's star players plus their current crop of rookies, role players and end-of-bench types usually end up getting shut out unless they find their way into an autographed checklist. Of course, this is likely due to Panini having a stockpile of signed stickers in their storage facilities. In any case, we got at least part of a photo of Jeffries, who made 38 appearances with Portland in his final NBA season.

Good Luck Ducks: Holiday Bowl Edition

 

The Ducks are back in action, taking on a basketball school in San Diego. 

 

The last we saw of the Oregon Ducks, they were coughing, sputtering and ultimately crapping out just short of the goal line. A solid win over their in-state rivals was turned into a horrifying loss, a turn of events that seemed to play out in slow motion just to torture the fans of the green and yellow.

The Ducks will look to pick up the pieces today. The transfer portal has been predictably busy. Offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham took the head job at Arizona State and has been replaced by UTSA coach and former Louisville quarterback Will Stein. It was assumed (by me, at least!) that Bo Nix had played his last game at Oregon, but he returns not only for the bowl game but also for next season. The new look Ducks will have some of the same tonight, with a talented backfield and an experienced (and hopefully healed) quarterback. They will face a North Carolina team that had a strong season, but seemingly doesn't have the depth of talent that their opponent contains.

Notes and other things:

• The famed basketball school has a top tier passing quarterback in Drake Maye. Could both Maye and Nix be in the mix for Heisman consideration next season? I suppose anything is possible.
• The Holiday Bowl is played at Petco Park in San Diego. I'm always curious to see how the seats are configured in a football game at a baseball stadium. This is one of the few bowl games that isn't owned and operated by ESPN, so it will be interesting to see what the attendance is like. (Attendance is, apparently, not important in most of those lower tier ESPN games.)
• Play-calling will be done by committee for Oregon, apparently, with Stein still getting acclimated. All eyes will be on what they can and will do with Bo Nix.
• Due to opt-outs and transfers, both teams will be short-handed defensively. If I was a betting person (I am not!), I would take the over on this one, whatever that means.
• h/t to Dennis for the excellent Kenjon Barner card!

Game time is 5:00 PM PST on FOX. Go Ducks!