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.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 7: Getting Back on Track

Oregon hosts Cal after nearly two weeks to think about how their season exploded. 

 

The Stanford loss was rough, to put it mildly. The Ducks lost star running back CJ Verdell for the season after entering the game with yet another key injury (a broken leg for Bennett Williams) and missing their offensive coordinator and play-caller due to a health scare. The complete lack of cohesion showed, and they've really only resembled a top tier football team in one game this season. That being said, they had the game in their pockets with the clock winding down and completely handed it to the Cardinal.

After a timely bye, Oregon is back at home hosting California under the Autzen Stadium lights on a Friday. The Golden Bears have had a rough time of it of late. Coming off of an 8-5 season in 2019, Cal only played 4 games last "season" and has seen their lone win in 2021 come against an FCS team (Sacramento St.) They're led by Justin Wilcox, the former star Ducks defensive back who has coached at a number of schools in the past two decades. Former Ducks QB Bill Musgrave is their offensive coordinator! It's hard to really make sense of what kind of team the Bears are at this point, though, but it's clear that this should be another game where the Ducks outclass their opponent. Should. Should!

The Verdell-less Ducks will attempt to navigate this Friday night special without Kayvon Thibodeaux as well. To add insult to injury (and to further insult), Thiodeaux got hit with a targeting foul late in the game. I absolutely hate the way this rule is handled and I hope they make some significant changes to it after this season. I rarely say anything in praise of the NFL, but they handle dangerous hits so much better in that league. Furthermore, it'll be interesting to see what Anthony Brown has to offer this week. It's been a rough time watching the Ducks play this season and the quarterback's play is where everyone's eyes are focused. Let's hope that he has a big night tonight and can get his (and the team's) season back on track.

Series History: This has been a fairly even series (42-40-2 in favor of Cal) and in many years has been quite a contentious rivalry game. It's been a little bit since it had that kind of feeling, though, but Cal's lone 2020 win did come against the Ducks last season following an Oregon run of ten out of eleven.

Opponent Talk: "Cal football is in a bad place." Yikes.

Oregon took down a 4-1 Cal team in their last trip to Autzen (2019) in a low scoring affair.

Game time is 7:30 PM PDT on ESPN. Go Ducks!

All Four Sports

All that's missing is something from the MLS? 

Doug aka buckstorecards sent along another fun package over the summer that included cards from the four major sports, as he is wont to do. I picked up some more Oregon Ducks football guys (one will be featured in an upcoming post), as well as pro football guys, hockey guys, basketball guys... maybe even a Cardinal?

Hell yes there was a St. Louis Cardinal! This year's Panini Leather & Lumber product was an interesting gamble, and a couple of others fortunes have turned into my fortunes via trades. I bought a discounted blaster myself and it was definitely fun to look at, but didn't end up with one of these cool baseball chunk signatures. Daniel Ponce de Leon's future with the Cardinals still remains a bit unclear, but it seems like he's got the upper hand on a 26(!) man roster spot next season even if we don't know what his role will be yet.

On the pro football side of things, I really like the design and overall look of this Panini Legacy set. Alshon Jeffery may unfortunately be recently known for a huge dropped pass in last year's playoff run, but I still like what he's done with the Eagles overall. He's a big guy and is usually sure-handed. Usually.

Doug always sends over St. Louis Blues cards, none of which I've ever seen before. I just don't usually look at hockey cards. Backes was the longtime ex-Blues player who had the misfortune of being on the wrong side of the improbable Stanley Cup win in St. Louis.

There were Blazers basketball cards as well! Of course there were. This is Jermaine O'Neal in his rookie year (he was 17!) in the SkyBox Z-Force set. This was a set where they forced Z's into the names of all of their inserts. This is a Zebut. It looks like Z-Butt to me.

I decided to scan this one in the sleeve it came in mostly to make fun of Qyntel Woods, who was a mostly ridiculous person who also did something reprehensible (dog fighting... seriously?!) I also want to believe that someone (obviously not Doug) was actually was trying to charge $10 for this card at one point. Sure, it's numbered, but it's uh... Qyntel Woods. I wouldn't normally scan a Qyntel Woods card. In fact, Michael Vick is the reason I stopped watching the Eagles altogether for a few years and I definitely don't want his cards at all.

I started things off with a bang and I'm ending them with a bang, too. Here's a rookie year autograph numbered to 99 of a Ducks star who is logging quality time in the league now. He's in a bit of a time share at his position, but I feel like he's definitely proven himself as an NFL quality talent at this point.

Thanks again to Doug for all of the sports!