Cardinals! Blazers! Football Guys!

Three PWEs from @collec_sport run the gamut of the big three sports. 

 

I'm back from an unplanned layoff... nah, let's just call it a short period of inactivity for the blog. I hadn't intended to take the entire holiday week off, but that's how things played out. I may have had a different title for this post if life had gone differently (I'm Thankful for PWEs?) Tonight I'm taking a look at three envelopes of the plain and white kind sent from The Coffee Card Guy (aka Sport Card Collectors aka Cards Over Coffee.) These were some seriously loaded envelopes as you'll see shortly.

If 2019 was a lost season for Jordan Hicks, 2020 was... well, it was kind of lost for everyone. Hicks was one of the first names to officially opt out of the season, but he was unlikely to pitch regardless of his status considering the combination of factors including his young age, his incredible velocity, and his long road to recovery from Tommy John surgery. I sincerely hope we're talking about him a lot in coming springtime, because he was fun to watch.

I do not have many (if any?) gold Chrome refractors, so it was really cool to land this Marcell Ozuna version from the 2018 Topps Chrome Update set. I haven't heard anything about there being a Chrome Update set for 2020, but considering how underwhelming the regular Update set is, that's probably for the best.

It's Big City time! I actually really like the way these Stat Line parallels scan, compared to some card that have a primarily foil finish.

Closing out the run of Cardinals cards is this Trevor Rosenthal gold parallel from 2015 Topps, the last year that Topps truly created a gold bordered parallel. These parallels have looked pretty unimpressive lately.
 

Each envelope had a theme, and the second one featured Trail Blazers cards. I really like some of the basketball designs that Panini used in the years where they were still figuring things out before they settled in to the mess that they are today. (Granted, it's a mess that clearly makes them tons and tons of cash.)

LaMarcus Aldridge went full Beast Mode in the first two games of the 2014 NBA Playoffs opening round, setting a tone for the Blazers to pull off their first series win in fourteen years. I owned the card from Game 2 of that series against the Rockets and now have a copy of Game 1. Even if we hate how Aldridge left the team, Blazers fans will always have fond memories of him for this.

Ah, more Aldridge. I think I said my piece already. Moving on...

It's back to one of the present stars of the team with this CJ McCollum "Lord" parallel from the 2016-17 Panini Excalibur set. It wasn't too long ago that you could find stuff from this set cheaply, including repack packs. Now, of course, you can't find anything basketball card-related cheaply anymore. (If you can, please tell me about it... and don't tell anyone else! Shh!)

This is a nice card of Sabas, one of my all-time favorites. It's a blue parallel from the 2017-18 Donruss Optic set (powered by Panini!)

Last up is the envelope from the Eagles/football guys envelope. De'Anthony Thomas was never an Eagle, of course, but he is a big part of my Oregon Ducks collection. In case you wondered about my football collecting hierarchy, it goes something like this: 

Oregon Ducks cards ---> Oregon Ducks alums in pro football uniforms ---> pineapple on pizza* ---> certain Eagles cards ---> getting run over by a bus ---> Michael Vick Eagles cards

I'm actually finally organizing my Eagles cards and adding them to my collection on TCDB, so I will have an updated Eagles trading page here shortly. I'm going to keep all of the cards in boxes, though, but at least they will be in some sort of order with the dupes filtered out. Speaking of dupes, let me know if someone out there wants any of my excess Eagles cards. I really don't have room for a lot of football cards in my life.

And speaking of uninspiring Topps gold parallels (I did... really, I did!), these football gold parallels from 2014 are sort of oddly colored. They strike me as more of a yellow/beige than a true gold. Both of these numbered cards are of players (Ertz and Foles) from the Super Bowl winning team, though, so that's a big positive for me. Again, watch this space for more on my NFL collecting quirks if you're interested.

If you had asked me who led the Eagles in rushing in 2018, I would have said, "who?" And if you had said "Jordan Howard", I would have said, "oh, that's weird, I forgot about him." But you would have been wrong, because he didn't lead the Eagles in rushing in 2018. He led the Bears in rushing that year. And now I still don't know who led the Eagles in rushing in 2018. It probably wasn't Darren Sproles because he was a myth.

Kenjon Barner was actually an Eagle for several seasons, but this holds a loftier place in my collection because it's a Ducks card. In fact, it's a Ducks card featuring a throwback uniform from the '90s, giving it several more cool points. Cool points are all that matters in cards. They're way more important to me than "slabs" and "grades" and "pop" and all that nonsense.

I may seem pretty ambivalent about Eagles cards at times, but I definitely need to get my hands on all of the The Champ Is Here inserts from that Super Bowl winning team. That was a fun team and a fun game.

Cards from The Collector

These cards are some true gems. 

There's just a handful of hours remaining before the big NCAA tournament (you know the one) gets started. If you're a huge procrastinator like myself, take this as your final reminder and get yourself signed up and pickin'.

Chris, The Collector, sent along some cards late last year, including this Dillon Brooks rookie card that I thought I'd use for good luck (Ducks) for the tournament.

He's not my favorite Blazer or anything, mostly because of how he left the team. Still, this is a fantastic looking LaMarcus Aldridge card, and it's numbered to just 49.

Here's a parallel DeFo for my Ducks football collection. Nice!

Chris upped the Hamm Count by one. I still need more Hamm(s).

This is from a 1979 TCMA release that I had never seen before. It's the "Baseball History Series", and the unnamed player on the front is Eddie Kazak. It lists his team as the Detroit Tigers on the back, but he never played for them. Strange.

This is one of those flagship Topps inserts that seems too nice and smooth to be dropped into a pack, but it was probably a hobby pack at least. No retail for this snob.

Finally, here's a literal touchdown machine in Royce Freeman, who is the all-time Pac-12 leader in TDs. And yards. And lots of other stuff.

Panininess

Some Blazers, a Wizard and a Duck walk into a blog...

At some point this week the power went out in my place and I have been too busy to figure out why my scanner and PC were no longer on speaking terms. A few cables were unplugged and then replugged and here we are with some more cards on the blog, this time thanks to Sportscards From The Dollar Store. Buckstorecards is one of the few blogs that I follow that truly goes for all four major North American sports which makes for an interesting read. It's not quite baseball season yet, though it's really close, so I feel comfortable if my usual baseball-to-non-baseball ratio is a bit off right now.

LaMarcus is truly Our Hero. This is a surprisingly nice looking serial numbered (to 299) card.

Say what you will about Panini, but they do make a nice Prizm card when they have their licenses all in order. I've been hearing chatter about fake patches and other unseemly things in their products lately, however. That's not cool.

It's former Duck Dion Jordan! This is one of those Panini cards that you can download an app for and view some additional content in lieu of printed stats on the back or something.

Finally, buckstorecards took me up to 555 Ozzies, thanks to a couple of 1983 O-Pee-Chee album stickers that I needed. They look just like the Topps stickers of the same year, but have different printing on the back to indicate their Canadian-ness. Of course, all of these stickers were actually printed in Italy by our good friends Panini. Viva Italia!

Cards from Across the Border: The Red & The Black

New Blazers cards from buckstorecards.

My oft-neglected Blazers collection has had a bit of a facelift done on it recently. I'm current with my binders (now 3 of them!) and if I can just get around to working on the want lists, it'll be like I'm a real card collector or something. The latest additions to my collection came from Sportscards From The Dollar Store, who sent over what I believe may be the entire 2014-15 NBA Hoops team set along with a bunch of inserts and parallels. (So many parallels.)

Here's what the base cards look like. I'll forgo my usual embargo on all things Lakers on this blog because Kaman is one of the good guys now, and he has the logo (if not the jersey) to show for it.

Picture Perfect is, I'm guessing, an insert. It's a nice looking card at any rate, even if Damian Lillard is doing his best to look super serious here.

These Road to the Finals inserts are pretty slick as they capture actual moments in the playoffs, like this one. If you watched any playoff basketball last year, you're probably familiar with the 0.9 play. You may have even seen it on the ESPYs. This incredible shot sent the Blazers on to face the Spurs in the next round, where they'd be humbled by an efficient champion-to-be.

More Lillard. I probably should've found some different players to scan, huh?

One last Dame card, commemorating his achievement in last year's All-Star Weekend where he participated in every single event they could come up with. I think he even did some valet work. Also, did you know that there's a Smoothie King Center? I didn't.

Here's a refractory parallel of second year guard CJ McCollum's base card. It's numbered to 399. Panini uses this foil numbers, not the crappy ink blots that Topps has been known to fancy in recent years.

Finally, here's yet another parallel (I think there are goldish ones in the set, too. And possibly other colors.) of fan favorite RoLo. This one is sparkly. It's fitting.

So many Parallels, Panini. I don't know what you are thinking.

Drop me a line if you have any extra Blazers and/or if there's an NBA team that you like.

Blazers from a Raptors Fan

And if you're patient, maybe even a baseball card...

Buckstore Cards is one of the few Basketball Card Club members that has responded in kind with some great Blazers cards, and this package was no exception. Portland is trying to right the ship after struggling lately following a hot start to the season. They will certainly be able to make good use of the All-Star Break, though Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge will be participating in the festivities.

This appears to be some sort of 5th anniversary NBA Hoops parallel if I'm not mistaken. I think I have a few cards from this set and I don't recall any of them having this gold stamp. It's nice. Harvey Grant was a bit disappointing in his stint with the Blazers, but it probably wasn't fair to him that he was one of the first significant pieces acquired after they began dismantling the core of the team that had multiple Finals appearances in the early '90s.

Ah, Prizm, the wannabe Chrome set. I must say that it does look a lot better when they actually have a license for this particular sport. J.J. Hickson was a stat machine in his time with the Blazers, but the team is clearly better off with a true center in the post in Robin Lopez, even though he won't wow anyone with his stat line most nights.

There were two really nice Blazers "hits" in this deal, which is nice because I'm sorely lacking in that department. Aldridge is having what is far and away his finest season, as he finally gets to play alongside a true legit center for the first time since the Greg Oden debacle.

Here's a guy that didn't work out. Elliot Williams had some Odenesque luck with his own health. He showed some flash in a couple dozen games in a Blazers uniform but has now moved on to the Sixers bench.

I said you'd get to see a baseball card if you were patient, and I did not disappoint! This is my first pink baseball card of any kind, unless you count the infamous Mike Laga 1987 Topps. Thanks again to Sportscards From the Dollar Store!

Mavericks vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs

The NBA Playoffs are off and running once again. Looking at the current labor situation, it could be awhile before this happens again. Last time the league had a lockout they were able to avoid completely wiping out a season, but it definitely damaged the league financially and resulted in some scheduling craziness for a season. The Blazers are in the playoffs for the third year in a row and are looking to get out of the first round for the first time since the year after that lockout, but will have a tough road to climb against a 3rd seeded Dallas team. I'll post a card for every win the Blazers can pull off in the playoffs this year, not counting these two that I dug up at a card show last weekend.

Predictions? Well, let me tell you a story. Every year I convince myself that the Blazers should beat their opponent, much less that they can beat them, and eventually hopes and expectations are dashed and I stop caring about basketball until the fall. Is this year's team any different? They have improved drastically since acquiring Gerald Wallace. They scrap and hustle and have one of the most valuable players in the league in LaMarcus Aldridge, a deadly shooter as well as one of the best "above the rim" players. Aldridge just kills the Mavs.

However, this team has found bizarre ways to flounder about, lose games they have no business losing, can't shoot three pointers to save their lives (even though they insist on trying.) They failed to win 50 games this year, which is pretty much a benchmark standard for a good NBA team. They are not a deep team any way that you look at it. I'm incredibly amused by all of the national press they've gotten leading up to tonight's opening game, praising their depth. What depth? They are basically 7 1/2 players deep if you count Brandon Roy, who has been relegated to backup PG duties, as that 1/2. No one else on their active roster even belongs on the floor. Aldridge and Wallace will likely play 40-45 minutes a game in this series if they can stay healthy. Of course, they are one injury away from Chris Johnson or... heaven forbid... Luke Babbitt seeing meaningful minutes.

Of course, every time I've written off this team this season, they've turned around and beaten up on teams like the Spurs and the Heat. I'll just go ahead and write them off right now and expect a short series in the Mavericks' favor. Go Blazers!

The Time to Rise Has Been Engaged

LaMarcus is soft.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've heard that exact statement in the past year. For every time I see the man dunk on someone, for every time I see him shoot a dagger through the opponent's eyes with his deadly jump shot and for every time I see him streaking down the court in front of much smaller and supposedly faster players, I want to yell at someone... anyone... who says LaMarcus is soft.

How's your shot?

Have you dunked on anyone lately?

Do you ever, say, go 20-and-10 on an NBA team while being the second and sometimes even third option on your team?

What do these people want out of LaMarcus exactly? Do they want him to throw Karl Malone style elbows? Do they want him to simultaneously dunk on and shove his 350 lb. crotch in the opponent's face? Nobody gets away with what Shaquille O'Neal circa 2000 and Karl Malone got away with throughout his career anymore.

Is LaMarcus's game shaped at all by his head coach's style of play? All I see is a very talented player who does what the system asks of him and what his coaches dictate. LaMarcus gets out on a lot of fast breaks when the Blazers decide to run. LaMarcus posts up and dunks on people whenever they put him in the post. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't decide from possession to possession whether or not to post up or stand around the perimeter fully on his own. In fact, it would be tough to argue if there is a more structured and disciplined offense in the league than Nate McMillan's Blazers.

And that, of course, brings me to Nate McMillan. It's not like I hadn't already lost all faith in end-of-season award voting, especially when it comes to baseball. But this is ridiculous. Considering the hundreds of games lost this season due to injury (Greg Oden, Joel Przybilla, Nicolas Batum, Jeff Pendergraph, Rudy Fernandez, Brandon Roy, Brandon Roy again... and I'm sure I've forgotten many) ... well, there was no team in the entire league that was more disadvantaged before even hitting the court than the Portland Trail Blazers in 2009-10. The fact that this cursed team won 50 games and took the 6th seed with a fairly favorable playoff matchup is pretty close to miraculous. When Oden went down, I did not expect this team to make the playoffs, but there were surprises around every corner from there on out.

The Blazers/Suns series is tied up at 1-1 now, and game 3 is tonight at the Rose Garden. At this point, I have no idea when or where I'll be watching it, but I will be rooting hard for L-Train and the Blazers.

Go Blazers!

And, seriously, if Grant Hill goes 10 for 10 again I will burn him to the ground...

Catching Up: The Last Great Tribecards Giveaway

The end of spring training is near! Actual baseball is on the way. In the meantime, I enjoyed a bit of some meaningless Cardinals action on ESPN this morning and I have to say that I'm pretty excited about this season. There are a ton of question marks surrounding this team, but for once the thing I'm worried about the least this season is the offense. Meanwhile, in completely unrelated news, I received the bounty from The Last Great Tribecards Giveaway. I hope everyone who has ever received anything from David has paid their respects by this point. Just because the man has finally given away the excesses of his collection doesn't mean that he won't appreciate some of your Tribe cards sent his way. I've highlighted just a few cards here in a really generous package of Cardinals (and bonus) goodies.

Dmitri Young is one of those guys that has seemingly thousands of rookie cards. He was first noticed by card companies in 1992, yet took quite a few years before he logged regular playing time and was considered a true "rookie" by MLB. By the way, I'm certainly glad that the Cardinals don't use these warmup jerseys anymore. They have red jerseys these days and they don't even them in spring training games because of "tradition".

I really like this set. I really, really want to collect this set. I just can't collect them all, though, you know?

Cards like this were just made for J.D. Drew, I think. I'm not sure what else to say about it other than the obligatory comment about how the scanner doesn't do the card justice in terms of shiny craziness.

Here's a great action shot of Scott Rolen. The Cards could really use the 2004 version of Rolen at 3rd base this year, or even last year's Rolen to be honest. I am hopefully that David Freese will turn out to be the "RBI machine" that a certain hitting coach has hyped him up to be, though.

Speaking of said hitting coaches, I've found that McGwire's son appears on a ton of his Cardinals cards that I've acquired over time. It's pretty hard to hate the guy when he has adorable photo ops like these.

David threw in a couple of treats. There were three strips (I scanned them all together) of some B.A.T. foundation cards from Upper Deck that were apparently produced in 1993. I had never heard of these, but they look pretty amazing especially considering the era they were produced in. I must have mentioned the Yankees at some point in the giveaway, because these weren't the only Yankee prizes.

I spotlighted a couple of Davco cards in the past that I also received from Tribecards. Those were Cardinals cards, and this one is Mickey Mantle himself.

Finally, here was the lone Blazers card in the lot and a really good one as far as I'm concerned. My collection is very light on the current players, so I'm always excited to see an L-Train card.

Thanks again to Tribecards!