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.

Blazers Post: Playoff Bound

Thanks to a Phoenix loss earlier today, the Blazers are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2003. According to basketball-reference.com, Portland has the number 1 rated offense in the entire NBA and they've been flat out dominating in the past four games. Around this time of year I've had no problem switching to Baseball Mode because it's been so long since the Blazers have been in the playoffs, but this year I'll have to deal with managing the two for awhile. Hopefully it's a long while.

I skipped a week of posting because, after a ridiculously brutal schedule this season, Portland finally got a breather and only played 5 games in the last 2 weeks. The Blazers had won 4 straight going into tonight's game after a tough home OT loss against Philly.

The Blazers are now at 48 wins on the season, which means there are only 2 cards left out of the box of 50 that I picked up at a game at the beginning of the season. I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel as far as what cards are left to scan, but there's one in particular that I saved for either the 50th victory or a playoff-clincher, whichever came first.

About the cards:

• Rod Strickland was already on his way out, as evidenced by the "Traded to Washington" tag across the front. His trade would usher in the Rasheed Wallace era. Strickland was the focal point of the offense for a time in the mid-90s, but I don't think anyone ever refers to a "Rod Strickland era."
• I'm always clamoring for the Blazers to pick up a Mark Bryant type of player, someone who does a lot of dirty work and occasionally knocks the ball in the hoop or knocks an opposing player to the floor. Michael Ruffin could have been that guy, I suppose, but it seems like the guy forgot how to play basketball during all his time off. At least, that's how I have judged him in his garbage time minutes.
• I honestly don't remember what the difference was between a "Member's Choice" Stadium Club card and a regular one.

• The Sabonis card is incredible! The blue sky background is actually some sort of translucent plastic or film. Every time I've gone to a card show in the past six months or so I've found some sort of ridiculous technology that some company tried that makes me spontaneously want to laugh and throw up. On the back, you can see that they reversed the photo, but tried to "fix" it by altering the uniform number. Nothing else looks right about the photo, though. Sometimes I just sit here and mesmerize myself by flipping the card over and over again.
  

Bonus: Playoff time! This was a particularly epic series, as always with Phoenix. Buck Williams is about to make future major KJ drop the ball through the sheer power of his deadly goggle gaze while Terry Porter looks on and decides to stay out of the confrontation.

Token Weekly Blazers Post: Road Warriors Again

The Blazers played an incredible 5 road games in the past 7 days and did a solid job, going 3-2 on the week. They're in the stretch run now, and there's not a whole lot to talk about so I'm going to keep things brief this week. Portland suffered a jet-lagged loss to a very talented and tough-at-home Atlanta team in a game that tipped off at 10:00 AM Portland time on Sunday. They followed it up with wins over Memphis and Indiana, a short-handed overtime loss to Cleveland (who has the NBA's best overall record and has only lost once at home all season) and rebounded with a win over Milwaukee to cap off the trip.

The injuries have been a big issue. Oden returned ahead of the "revised" schedule, coming back in the Indiana game. However, Portland lost both Lamarcus Aldridge and Nicolas Batum late in the game and played without two of their starters against the Cavs. Aldridge came back last night, but Batum has not returned to action. There's only 12 games left, and the Blazers have a great shot at exceeding 50 victories this season. However, because they're in the West, the P-word still is not a certainty.

About the cards:

• I'm not sure what Supreme Court is supposed to mean, but you'd like to think that Drexler is sticking it to the hated Jazz. I wonder if Mark Eaton has a website.
• Kersey's Stadium Club card is just another reminder that the Clippers are bad. Then and now. Bad, bad bad.
• Next week (or possibly the week after) I have an extremely awesome Arvydas Sabonis card to scan. This week's card is just regular awesome.
  

Bonus: I've been really lazy with the bonuses lately. I have a lot of awesome Blazers stuff that I have neglected to scan. Here's a pocket schedule from more than 20 years ago. Terry Porter guarding Michael Jordan - good stuff. I'm starting to hate Jordan a little bit less with time when I consider the ridiculous antics of some of today's stars like LeBron James and Kevin Garnett. Just shut up and play the game.

Token Weekly Blazers Post: Halfway Home (Almost)

It's been another week in Blazerland, or Rip City as the people like to say. The Blazers finished off a 2-2 road trip with an overtime loss in Charlotte last night. I will keep my comments brief this week because I only was able to watch one of the four games due to work and life getting in the way.

The Blazers are at the 40 game mark of the season. With a win over Milwaukee at home tomorrow night, the Blazers will be on pace to win exactly 50 games this season, which is right where I expected them to be this year. There are some alarming things to note, however. First off, Steve Blake was injured in the 76ers game, Portland's worst loss of the season. He separated his shoulder, which has a 2-4 week recovery process. Secondly, the Blazers have a sub-.500 record against their own conference. No other team in playoff contention in the West can say that.

About the cards:

• "Uncle Cliffy"'s headband looks like it's about to slip down over his eyes at any moment. The graphic design on these '93-'94 Stadium Club cards look like they were at least partially inspired by In Living Color.
• It's too bad about Bonzi Wells. I saw him see some of his first meaningful action in an NBA game in person and from the very start it looked like the Blazers had flat out stolen him from Detroit, the team that drafted him. Maybe they somehow knew he'd eventually play a part in tearing the franchise down. Hey, maybe everyone really does hate the Blazers. Just ask the Memphis Grizzlies!
  

Bonus: Rod from Padrographs very generously sent me this sweet autographed rookie card of one of my all-time favorite Blazers, Arvydas Sabonis along with a stack of Cardinals cards. I'll feature the Cardinals cards in an upcoming post as there are some interesting goodies in there. [Edit: By the way, that is the New Orleans Hornets coach Byron Scott looking on in a Vancouver Grizzlies uniform as Sabas hits a layup. Just so you know...]

Congrats are due to Rudy Fernandez, as he won the fan voting and will be the fourth and final contestant in this year's NBA All-Star Slam Dunk contest. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with. I wish I had a Rudy card. They really need to bring back Franz bread Blazers cards.

TWBP: Home Court Advantage

Home, sweet home. The Blazers finally got to play a string of home games this past week and responded by going 3-0. Granted, the competition wasn't always strong, but Portland actually squeaked by a team they were supposed to blow out (Sacramento) and then obliterated Miami (by 38) and solidly beat New Orleans. The win over the Hornets was the most satisfying win of the week, in a close game that looked like it could easily go either way until Portland went on a 17-0 run that Chris Paul and the gang couldn't hang with.

There is plenty of talk about what the Blazers could do in the trade market, but I am having so much fun watching this team that I really don't understand how a trade, realistically speaking, could improve this team at all. Martell Webster is due back from a preseason injury in a week now, and it's already questionable how they're going to fit him into the rotation.


About the cards:

• Arvydas Sabonis is my second favorite Blazers of all-time. Stupid Cold War politics stood in the way of him coming to the NBA for a long time, and it also prevented Portland from winning several championships in the early 90s. Yes, I said several, and I mean it. He was drafted clear back in 1986, but is seen here on one of his "rookie cards" nearly 10 years later, with a bad back and two bad knees. Still, I loved watching him play, and he was ahead of his time in that he came to the league just before the time when European talent was being imported and appreciated en masse. He also came along too late, as he was nowhere near the player that he was when he was drafted. If you ever get a chance to, watch some highlights of the 1988 Olympics when his Soviet Union team won the gold medal and you'll see what I'm talking about.
• I don't remember a lot about Danny Young aside from his amazing half-court shot in the 1990 NBA Finals that was released just a fraction of a second after the buzzer and ultimately did not count. It could have won the game for the Blazers and shifted momentum in the series. (P.S. I hate Bill Laimbeer.) Speaking of "ahead of the time", the inaugural Skybox set design was crazy at the time, and I still don't think we're quite ready for it.
• I really don't have any fond memories of Tracy Murray. He came from a school I strongly dislike (UCLA), had a stupid haircut (in a time where a lot of haircuts were stupid, but somehow awesome) and did not play any defense whatsoever. He actually played his final NBA games as a Blazers, making the opening night roster in the 2003-04 season as a potential 3-point specialist but not lasting more than a handful of games. This Stadium Club set apparently represented a shift in design from a classy, high-end look to a glossy, IN YOUR FACE mid-90s approach that everything from this era seemed to have.
  

Bonus: This 1978-79 card was part of a 4-card lot of Blazers from this set that I won from eBay years ago and forgot to throw into my Blazers binder. Luke is now an assistant coach for the Blazers and was stricken with pneumonia recently. I only got to see him play in his brief return the Blazers in the late 80's as a backup big man, and on videotape, of course. It'll be nice to see him back on the bench, glaring at everyone again.