'Tis the Season for Trades and Contest Updates

Recapping a mega card package and an embarrassing contest update. And yes, it's about that time! 

 

Before I get into the cards (probably why you're here) from Too Many Verlanders, it's time to fess up to a major blunder. I always spend time whining about people who enter my contests and fail to complete certain requirements, especially filling out their entire brackets or actually filling out their game predictions. Well, guess what? That was me this year. While the college football contest doesn't require you to lock in all of your picks before the first game starts like the basketball one does, apparently I screwed something up because none of my picks actually saved. I also didn't bother to go and check on this until the better part of a week had passed since the contest began. Fortunately, it really doesn't matter what my picks actually are because I'm the one hosting the thing, but I still feel very stupid about it. It also means I have basically zero rooting interest in any of these football games outside of the ones that are legitimately important to me (i.e. the Duck-based ones.)

In any case, with a week down and twelve games already completed, Ginko-5 is currently at the top of the table, although many others are in very close pursuit in looking at everyone's maximum possible points. Everyone's records look really good right now, which makes it all the more embarrassing that I'm not really taking part this year. Although it's still fairly early, it already seems likely that this could come down to the championship game about a month from now.

It's high time to check out some cards. Dennis sent over a bunch of stuff from a bunch of sports teams that I follow, and I made no real attempt to organize these by squad or player. First up is a "gold minted" parallel of The Yadier Molina from the dearly departed Topps Fire brand (okay, well, maybe just "departed".)

The Honeyman was a recent Cardinals draft pick (2023), and his name is very close to Honeypot, which makes me chuckle.

I'm still getting used to the whole idea of current college players having trading cards (aside from the stuff they used to give away for free for people heading into the stadium back in the day), but I definitely like it. I've never bought fully into collecting NFL cards, but I could see myself buying blasters of college football cards if they ever came up with a decent set at an affordable price point. (Sage brand cards are too dollar store for me, and the Topps stuff seems too expensive... it would be nice to have a middle ground.)

A.J. Brown could just about put the whole Eagles squad on his back and drag them to the Super Bowl as long as they could find someone who would consistently throw it to him.

Speaking of that guy, well, it really sucks that Jalen Hurts got hurt today. I hope he will be back soon, but it's hard to tell with concussions. Yikes.

Here's Hurts again, apparently scoring on Brown's former team.

Rookie year Smitty!

This is a very classy Matt Carpenter jersey card. I hope that Carpenter's 2024 season isn't his last in MLB. I know that the Cards are not into spending money anymore with dwindling attendance in a league that is now basically just a few major market teams and a couple dozen bottom feeders, but I would love to see him hanging around the clubhouse in some capacity. There's no way he wouldn't take a minimum salary deal, right?

I know that this group of cards is kind of all over the place and not very well organized. This card is... well, I'm not really sure what this is. It's not a jersey swatch or anything, but it claims to be an "official 2004 NBA Draft Ticket" which is... what is that, exactly? Is it supposed to be a cut up piece of an actual paper ticket that someone would have used to gain entry to the draft, which was probably free? And it does say "VIP" on it, which is kind of fancy. Anyway, Sebastian Telfair always seemed like the floor as far as what Scoot Henderson could be, and I'm hoping he will greatly surpass those fears. He could definitely use a better head coach right about now, because Chauncey Billups is dreadful to put it mildly.

Baseball had Sweet Spot, which made Sweet Shot Upper Deck's NBA equivalent. A signature on a basketball swatch definitely pops.

Dennis sent me two of these David Kopp Bowman signatures. This one is the refractor version. I didn't scan the base version, but it looks remarkably similar. Kopp topped out his playing career at AAA, but he's spent most of this decade as a coach at the University of Florida.

It's our second Pauly D jersey card of the post. This one has a much more interesting design than the rather plain white looking "full-sized" relics of past Allen & Ginter sets. It also comes with a Victory Blue jersey bit.

I didn't buy a lot of 1992 Score packs, but I do remember how difficult it was to get any of these The Franchise inserts. I believe this is the last one of these Musial inserts I needed for the set. To be fair, I apparently didn't buy much of anything from the 1992 season. It was a weird downturn in my early collecting days. I came back briefly in force the following year as the 1993 Upper Deck set was amazing and had all kinds of cool inserts to drool over. And then I stopped for more than a decade.

He wasn't an Eagle for long, and I doubt there are a lot of T.O. jerseys floating around the Philly area, but for a short time it all came together with Owens and McNabb and all of the great talent around them. Until it stopped.

This is one of the more interesting additions to my Randall Cunningham collection, as he appears here (Milhouse voice: "in pog form!") with future Eagle Ricky Watters.

I wouldn't say I slept on 2023 Allen & Ginter, but I made a definite call not to collect it. That doesn't stop me from admiring the game-used memorabilia designs.

This isn't even a card, but it's a really cool mini Cardinals pennant! It has found a home in my home office space.

I remember these fancy looking Legends Memorabilia books (or magazines? book-a-zines?) kicking around the old card shops and malls back in the day. There were also those Ballstreet magazine things that came with cards like these that you were supposed to cut out as well. They were all just as unlicensed as the janky bootleg cards old dudes would try to sell you for a buck or five, like the ones with Bo Jackson or Bart Simpson, or Bo Jackson with Bart Simpson. These just looked more legit because they were fancier and shinier and printed on more expensive paper, I guess. In any case, I love this. Some jerk would have probably charged me at least $5 for this in Portland in my teens, which could have bought me lunch at Wendy's twice!

I haven't tried Googling Legends at all because it seems unsearchable, but I suspect that this brand was also affiliated with a mall store we had in the suburbs of the same name. It's also very possible that someone else had an idea to call a mall store with sports memorabilia "Legends" because it's a pretty common word applied to sports stars of a certain stature.

We're winding down here, but not before we check out the two largest card things in the package. Sidney Wicks was one of the leading scorers of the first era of the Trail Blazers franchise, essentially passing the baton off the Bill Walton who led the team to their first title. He was before my time, of course, but made the All-Star team four times despite never making the playoffs. Typically there's a very anti-non-playoff team bias when it comes to selecting players for these honors now.

The last thing to show off in this impressive collection is another Legends thing. It's not one of their cut-out standard sized cards, though, but a postcard of Stan the Man. I love stuff like this, and if anyone out there has something weird or non-standard that you think might suit my interests, feel free to fire away.

Happy Holidays everyone! Don't forget to make your picks!

Strange Blazers and Weird Cardinals

Interesting cards about from @sanjosefuji including my NBA and MLB teams. 

 

The Chronicles of Fuji brought the strangeness recently! A bubble mailer I received from Fuji back in June included a bunch of unique cards, primarily from my top two favorite pro sports teams. Instead of featuring the usual crop of current team dudes, these cards went way back into the all-time team rosters for some fun (and strange) cards.

Ha Seung-Jin came from an era where his status as a huge basketball man was enough to get him drafted, but he always looked completely out of sorts while on the court. I've looked him up occasionally over the years to see if he ended up having a big career overseas, but there isn't a whole lot of data other than that he was a participant for a lengthy time.

Ah yes, Greg Oden. He certainly qualifies as strange. This is a good looking wood paneled style card, numbered to 50.

Martell Webster is one of several Northwest basketball players who ended up starting a career in hip hop, either as a side gig or a post-playing career thing.

From the other team, Fuji sent stuff from several different years, including a couple of 2004 Topps Total card. This is a classic shot of a first year pro player just waiting for his turn to do something.

Even with the power of the internet at my disposal, I couldn't figure out what this card was at all. It's almost paper thing and lots of info on the back, but the front looks like it was spit out of an '80s dot matrix printer.

It's a super early Yadi card! This is really cool. This is actually a "gold edition" version of his regular Just Minors card. I don't know a whole lot about Just, but they certainly made some weird cards over the years.

The most exciting card of the bunch by far was this Jose DeLeon, my first 1991 Topps Desert Shield card! I've been reading about this gold foil stamped set for nearly thirty years now, but never owned (or even touched) a single copy of something from this set until now. I've gone so far as to have a card or two in my shopping cart at certain websites before, but never quite could pull the trigger.

Lastly, Fuji was one of the latest to help out with my 2020 Turkey Red quest. I knocked off another four from my list today thanks to a recent blaster pickup. Please let me know if you're able to contribute!

All-Star Eve Trade Post

Hopefully, no one will be pitching though a cloud of "cognac".

Chunter of the Chipp 'n' Dale blog sent me a wonderful bunch of baseball and basketball cards that I'd like to show off as we get ready for tomorrow night's All-Star Game.

I've been coveting this insert card for a long time from last year's set, so I'm really happy to get a copy of my own. Topps really knocked it out of the park (GET IT?!) with these inserts, which really make me wish they'd take a quality-over-quantity approach with some of their inserts in the future.

These '89-style die cut minis, on the other hand, are not so great. It is great seeing cards of Lee Smith in a Cardinals uniform in 2014, though.

I'm sure there are plenty of disgruntled Dodgers fans who think they got robbed with Wainwright getting the starting nod tomorrow over Clayton Kershaw. I can't say I blame them, but I also find it nearly impossible to argue against Wainwright deserving it. After a number of near-misses in past seasons with major awards, Waino gets a little bit of the spotlight tomorrow to reward a stellar first half. As for Kershaw, well, it seems like it would help his cause a bit if his team... say... went ahead and won the pennant sometime. Interestingly enough, the last Cardinals starter to star the All-Star Game was Chris Carpenter in 2005. Before that, I believe you might have to go back to Bob Gibson if I'm not mistaken.

Well, now that I've managed to get that image out of my mind (although I'd be happy for Don Mattingly), let's look at a fantastic relic card of Erin fave Troy Tulowitzki. Tulo has been one of the best players in the game in the first half, so it was cool to see him named captain of one of the Home Run Derby teams. The only problem is that I seem to be growing really tired of the Home Run Derby. Maybe it's too much Chris Berman or maybe it really is just a tired event?

Chunter collects some basketball and he dug up a few jersey cards that were right up my alley. Jerryd Bayless didn't have the biggest run as a Blazer, but he's established himself as a solid combo guard and bench option in the league. D.J. Augustin has bounced around a bit, but he's also an established vet at this point.

This one is right up my alley, as we have both a (former) Blazer and a former Oregon Duck. Ridnour was a fantastic player in college and is about to enter his 12th season in the NBA, this time as a member of the newly rechristened Charlotte Hornets. I was a little confused about the color of Ridnour's jersey swatch, and when I read the back it turns out that while Webster's is supposedly from an NBA game, Ridnour's is from a Rookie Challenge. He was in his 5th season when this card came out, so that tells you that Upper Deck was probably sitting on piles of musty old barely "worn" Ridnour jerseys at this point. Still, it's a great card for my collection for multiple reasons.

Finally, here's a more clearly identified Rookie Challenge jersey, from current Blazer Wesley Matthews. Wes wasn't about to give up his #2 when the Blazers signed Steve Blake last week, never mind that Blake is joining the team for the third time and has worn that number for both of his previous terms with the team.

Cursed

The Portland Trail Blazers are cursed. It's high time that I finally admit this to myself and publicly as well. My sad admission comes on the news that promising young guard Elliot Williams will likely miss the entire season with a torn Achilles tendon. This news actually made me sick to my stomach. He suffered through double knee surgery to miss his rookie season, and finally found himself on the court and making strides last season when he injured his shoulder. An Achilles injury can rob someone of their explosiveness, and is especially worrisome with a player whose best skill is his explosiveness.

Does any of this sound familiar? Greg Oden, the number one pick from now what seems like ages ago, is gone. He may or may not ever play again. He missed his rookie season with a major knee injury and would proceed to find himself on crutches more often than not for the rest of his Blazers career. He supposedly plans on sitting this upcoming season out before making another go at basketball, and if he ever wears an NBA uniform again it almost certainly won't be Portland's.

Yes, the team that drafted Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan and Oden over Durant has a curse, and I don't know what to do about it. I am stuck with this team. I root them on each season and I curse the names of the players like Bill Laimbeer, Vlade Divac, Sean Elliott and Shaquille O'Neal who have bedeviled them in various ways throughout NBA history. I should have been shocked that such a promising young player like Elliot Williams had another season end before it was even close to beginning, but I was just sad. And it's all the more strange that I actually got somewhat excited about new basketball cards hitting the shelf recently. 

I picked up a 5-card pack of 2012-13 NBA Hoops to post on APTBNL and also grabbed a jumbo pack because I figured there might be a Blazer inside. It turns out, as you can see, that I did pretty well in that department. I snagged both of the Blazers top draft picks, who up until this point remained relatively uninjured. There's actually talk that the Lillard kid may contend for Rookie of the Year, last won by a certain guy named Brandon Roy that was The Franchise until his knees turn to chalk dust. I am also going to pretend that this Roy player is still retired and never played for anyone but Portland because LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA.

I thought I'd be equitable and show off some non-Blazers cards from the jumbo pack. Here's another awkward studio pose of a rookie from draft day, presumably. The NBA is really going for the retro look this year with the caps and the novelty basketballs. These draft day caps scream 1990, which fits very well with the resuscitation of the NBA Hoops brand. Austin Rivers, I should mention, is the son of former player and current Celtics coach Doc Rivers.

I don't actually know who John Henson is, but he really wants you to know that he belongs in the draft and isn't some dude who happened to be wearing snappy clothing and sneaked in the back door.

One of the only good things about the last abomination of a season was the new Wizards uniforms. They're fantastic. I hope they never change, though I've never been sold on the Wizards name itself.

Booooooooooooo. Karl Malone is the enemy. Every NBA set seems to like to pad its numbers with past stars, but Malone was the only retired player that I got in my jumbo pack.

From one of my least favorite players of years past to one of my least favorites of present day, here's "El Heat" forward LeBron James. I won't own this card long, I can assure you.

As I mentioned last week, I received a bunch of Blazers cards recently from Life and Baseball Cards. I figured since I was already on the subject, I'd show off some of the goods from that portion of the trade.

There's going to be a lot riding on the shoulders of LaMarcus Aldridge now with the Blazers effectively in rebuilding mode. Can Aldridge withstand the possibility of some of his peak years being wasted on a team that doesn't have much hope of making noise in the playoffs, let alone making the playoffs at all? He's already tasted the playoffs twice in his career. I am fearful of him becoming the next Kevin Garnett, who couldn't ever get over the hump with a shallow supporting cast in Minnesota during his prime before moving to Boston to win in his twilight years. I am also fearful of him realizing the situation he is in and wanting out. After all, it seems to be a pretty popular sentiment in the NBA right now.

This is a great card. Rainbow lasers are shooting out of Buck. One of the unfortunate turns of events in Portland is the complete overhaul of the coaching staff, which came as a result of Nate McMillan's firing last season. One of his assistants was Buck Williams, a nice link to fond past memories. It's too bad that they aren't really keeping any of these guys around now under new head coach Terry Stotts.
  

Last season also marked the comeback and the end of Joel Przybilla's career as a Blazer. He probably doesn't have many more meaningful NBA minutes in him, which is weird thing to say about someone who is a gifted professional athlete and four (!) years younger than me. On an unrelated now, I am sad now.

Sergio Rodriguez played in the Olympics? Sergio Rodriguez played in the Olympics!

This man had his own book and movie before he ever set foot on an NBA court. His Wikipedia entry is rather fascinating. I'm not sure why the first sentence in the section on his NBA career is just some random sentence about some stats he accumulated in one game, but who am I to criticize Wikipedia editors?

I'm also fascinated by this Rookie Slam! card. Martell Webster is a good dude. I root for them, even though he plays or most recently has played for a division rival.

Lonestarr included some jersey cards in the Blazers mix, which was a really nice surprise. Here's a pensive looking Greg Oden who at the time had still yet to take the court in a NBA uniform. Yet, he has a "game used" jersey swatch somehow. I feel like Oden made this face a lot.

This jersey design from Panini is kind of a cool concept. It's supposedly an actual piece of the uniform Webster wore during the Blazers Christmas Day game in 2009, when the Blazers beat the Nuggets on national TV. I probably should have saved it for the holiday, though.

And finally, here's a non-Blazer card. Aaron Brooks is a former Oregon Duck, one of the few that is still active (along with Luke Ridnour and Ivan Johnson - I guess?)