Seasons Greetings from Oren

A timely big bundle of cards that is finally revealed a few months later. 

 

'Tis the season (*checks calendar*)... oops, it's March! Well, as the sun breaks are starting to increase and daylight savings is in full effect, let's check out a fantastic batch of stuff from super generous trader Oren.

For one reason or another, Dylan Carlson seems to have settled into a role as fourth outfielder after arriving in the dreaded 2020 season with much hype. Assuming some semblance of health, Gold Glove-winning infielder Tommy Edman is the anointed starting center fielder (?), but I felt like the outfield had the best overall balance with Carlson in center over the last couple of seasons. That's not to knock what Edman has done in the outfield, as I feel like he could probably capably hold down any position on the field. I'd just prefer Carlson in center for now, at least since Harrison Bader was sold off.

I had never seen one of these white bordered 2020 Topps Heritage cards. In fact, I had completely forgotten that they existed. I think my scanner gave the red printing more of a pinkish glow than it really has, but this is still pretty striking.

I'm a sucker for a black bordered refractor. I also really like the rare black bordered flagship cards a lot, especially during the days when they shared a bit of sparkly magic with the much more attainable gold parallels.

Matty Mo is looking pretty formidable on this busy Donruss Leather & Lumber design. I feel like this brand is one that Panini has unleashed rather sparingly since acquiring the DLP portfolio (though how they didn't retain the L part of that conglomerate is a story I've long forgotten about.)

Here's a young, beardless Jason Motte who was still trying to be a catcher, in a weird photo that makes it look like he was trying to look like he wasn't just caught doing something weird in the locker room. Is that even a locker room? What's going on in the background?

It felt like it took Rob Kaminsky forever to make it to the Cardinals major league team since he was drafted in 2013, and it really did. It was only in his second stint with the club in 2020 when they were keeping an active stable of, I don't know, like 45 pitchers because at any given time a third of them were getting sick. This was all in an attempt to salvage what ended up being a 60 game season. Let's just pretend none of this ever happened, at least in baseball.

I wish this was still a time when a Hall of Fame election meant a serious boost to card values, but if you take even a slight glance at any Scott Rolen cards on the market you'll see that is sadly not the case. Of course, that means all the more for me. People would still rather throw money at some young prospects who may or may not pay off big someday. (They won't.)

Next up is a pair of Cards cards from the much delayed 2021 Topps Chrome Platinum... something, something. I kind of nodded off before I could complete my thought here.

These cards look nice, but yet another variation on the first full scale Topps baseball card set was not perhaps the most original thing that they could have thought of. I do prefer these (and their parallels) to the 2022 set, which likewise happened to be released a year late. The 2022 set looks very off, like most of the photos were AI generated or enhanced.

It's not all just Cardinals here, although that would certainly be nice enough. Thanks to Oren, I was fortunate to add another numbered card to one of my very favorite player collections.

CJ Elleby was a solid Pac-12 (RIP) player, but it didn't seem like he was cut out for the NBA. He's still just 23, but it doesn't seem like he's up to much at the moment.

The Blazers have been a sad mess for the past few seasons. Elleby probably won't evoke many feelings of nostalgia for this specific era, unfortunately.

I will get nostalgic about the Jusuf Nurkic days, however. Like many a Blazers center before him, he eventually became a scapegoat for fans' negative feelings about the direction of the whole team, but this is a guy who went out and did his often thankless job night in and night out in an NBA era that isn't really built around big men like him anymore. He's doing fine in Phoenix.

Noah Vonleh was a lottery pick who played for a lot of NBA teams in his near-decade long career. He's with the Shanghai Sharks these days which is basically a meme, even though he's still just 28.

There were even football cards on offer. Today was apparently some sort of NFL free agency day as my phone kept blowing up with Eagles notifications. They were busy! 

This is just a good looking card. It's probably the green. Blount is an Eagle here but a Duck first, so he goes into the Ducks collection.

I wanted to like Nelson Agholor, especially after the Eagles wisely moved him to the slot and started taking advantage of his speed more than his pass catching ability, but... I don't know, never trust a guy from USC, I guess.

Well, we've reached the end of the scans, but there is so much more. What all can you spot in this photo? There is some amazing stuff!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 5: Now What?

How will the Ducks respond to a historic loss?

At some point during last Saturday's debacle, I told my girlfriend that there was a good chance that this game marked the end of an era of Ducks football, as in the last time the school's football program would be relevant to the national sports discussion. I'm ashamed to say that I sounded like a sportswriter. My girlfriend, who could not care less about the Ducks except that she generally wants to be happy (or not mad), thought I was being overly dramatic. Of course, the final score would show Oregon losers by 42 points and countless numbers of articles the next day would echo my thought in the heat of the moment. All things must pass, nothing lasts forever, etc. The Ducks' goose is cooked.

Continuing with a theme from the previous week's post, I once again was incredibly wrong in my analysis. This time out, I predicted a low scoring game. It turned out that it was only Oregon that had trouble finding the end zone, something we haven't really been able to say since the fateful Blount Punch game of 2009. The defense had the consistency of Brie and the offense had the potency of Miller Lite. The quarterbacks were awful in different ways. Byron Marshall, who had barely been utilized this season aside from in the return game, went down with what seems to be a serious and possibly season ending leg injury.

Well, I've beaten up enough on the Ducks. Tonight they go on the road for the first time in conference play against Colorado, a team that has been awful since they joined the Pac-12. Despite the injury concerns, everything is lined up for a feel good, "back on track" type of game for a team that hasn't had a lot of those moments yet. The season may one-third over at this point, but Oregon can still make progress this week and tally a win. Clearly, nothing about last week changed my feelings that this was all leading up to a 6-6 season, but it doesn't have to be that way. The Utah loss could be an ugly footnote or the harbringer of doom. Let's hope it's not the latter.

In better times, Mariota's last home start in Eugene was a fun romp vs. the Colorado Buffaloes that I got to witness in person.

Game time is 7:00 PM with national coverage on ESPN. Go Ducks!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 9: California Bound

The valley's gonna cure your every ill.

Oregon travels south to the Bay Area for their first ever visit to Levi's Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers as well as a college football team known as the California Golden Bears. While it's nowhere near the Berkeley campus, and there's a World Series game going in town, well... someone's bound to be around to watch this game, right? I mean, it's Friday night! Friday night football! Oh, er, I thought this night was usually reserved for the high school kids.

Last week's shellacking of the Huskies at the hands of the Ducks (11 straight) set right a lot of concerns about this Ducks team and put them back in the conversation for people that like to speculate on the sorts of things that won't be decided until December. Unfortunately, it ultimately comes down to this whole four team "playoff" selection committee. I'm not sure these guys will actually get anything right, and I'm afraid I'll actually be missing the days of the BCS reign of terror. Yikes.

After a 1-11 season that saw the Bears barely eke out a single win over the Portland State Vikings, clearly on par with one of the worst all-time seasons by any Pac-12 school ever, Cal has turned things around in a really weird way. They just barely beat conference doormats Washington State and Colorado in a myriad of Hail Marys and other desperate late game pass attempts. They kept things close against a surprising Arizona team and an underachieving UCLA team. And they, uh, beat Northwestern. They have the ability to score a lot, and Oregon's defense is still a work in progress. Given the advances that the Ducks have made since their first loss of the season a few weeks ago, however, I don't expect this to be too hotly contested.

Cal did not make this one interesting last year.

Game time is 7:00 PDT with national TV coverage on Fox Sports 1. Go Ducks!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 13: War Were Declared

With its national title hopes all but dashed, Oregon will attempt to take out their frustrations on their chief rivals today in the 116th rendition of the Civil War. All season I have written about how I get nervous about every game the Ducks play, but after last week's shocking disappointment, I am no longer nervous. I'm just annoyed. I am hopeful that Oregon can beat up on their worthy opponent, the Beavers, who have lost the last four meetings.

Oregon State is usually very successful in this rivalry when they play on their own turf. The Beavers also have a vastly improved defense from previous seasons and seem to have corrected their offensive woes after starting QB Sean Mannion's return to the lineup. In the last two meetings in Corvallis, however, Oregon has scored 102 points while the Beavers have tallied 58.

The stakes are high in this game, as they often have been in recent Civil War games. Oregon State has their sights set on a big bowl game after being undefeated for much of the season. The Ducks can still win the Pac-12 North with a win today and a (very possible) Stanford loss to UCLA. I was ready to bet on Oregon State until last week's unpleasantness and I feel strongly that we will see the best that the Ducks have to offer as they try to position themselves firmly in the BCS picture.

65-38. Enough said.

Bonus video! LeGarrette Blount was in the middle of a late game surge that led the Ducks to victory in 2009.

Game time is High Noon (PST) with national coverage on the Pac-12 Network. (Unless you have Direct TV. Because everyone is terrible.) Go Ducks!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 2: Bulldogs on Parade

It really says something about the Ducks when they get off to a 50-3 start, it's only the middle of the second quarter, and no one is really all that surprised. The only suspense that was removed last week was about how well freshman quarterback Marcus Mariota would perform, which turned out to be very well.

Oregon's second and third string players still have something to prove. After the fast start, the reserves put up little fight against an otherwise outmatched Arkansas St. team and will have their work cut out for them again today. If they get into the game early as they did last week, the hope is that they will not surrender more than 30 points this time around.

Fresno State is a team very familiar to Ducks fans, if not the team itself. Oregon is 6-2 lifetime against the Bulldogs, winning the last 6 straight dating back to the '90s. Longtime Fresno State coach Pat Hill is out, replaced by Tim DeRuyter. The Bulldogs beat an FCS team last week in DeRuyter's debut, so it's hard to know much about this year's team at this point. I would expect another Ducks victory in front of the home crowd this week, but I anticipate a few more bumps in the road than last week.


The first overtime in college football history! Fresno State at Oregon, back in 1996.

Game time is 3:30 PDT with "national coverage" on the Pac-12 Network. Go Ducks!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 3:

Last week's game against Tennessee proved to be a bit nerve-wracking from the start. It's always such an emotional roller coaster for a college football fan, although this year I've decided it's probably best to not try and mix pregame caffeine with alcohol during games (best just to stick with the beer.) With baseball, you can usually shrug off a loss because there are 161 games that count just as much, regardless of the opponent or the situation (unless your team happens to be 6 games out with just over a couple of weeks left in the season.) In college football, however, the entire season can change on one single play. National title hopes can sway to just merely hoping your team will be bowl eligible so you can watch them one more time around the holidays.

I'd be lying if I didn't say that the first quarter of the Tennessee game was starting to bring back haunting memories of other recent big games against non-conference opponents that the Ducks have been frustrated in. One needs to look no farther than last year's opening loss against Boise State to show when lofty expectations piled upon a team that is overmatched and just plain isn't ready can doom a football game. Fortunately, after a lengthy lightning delay, the Ducks found their way and proceeded to steamroll the home team. Certainly, Tennessee is no Boise State (it's really funny to actually say that) this season and is expected to be no better than a .500 team, but for awhile there it was looking like the Ducks might be intimidated by a crowd that could have filled nearly two Autzen Stadiums.

Also, nobody got punched. It's really strange that "the punch" isn't mentioned at all on LeGarrette Blount's card, as if there would be no question to the casual observer who actually didn't know just about the only thing Blount is known for these days as to why he only carried the ball 22 times last year after an extremely successful first year with Oregon. Blount was a last minute cut by Tennessee after being undrafted this year, but has caught on with Tampa Bay and may even get a chance to play on Sunday.

Now it's on to Portland State, who the Ducks will face the FCS Vikings for the first time since 2006 when they won 55-12. There isn't a lot to say about this game other than to hope that no one gets hurt. PSU may actually be significantly better than their Week 1 opponent, New Mexico, but they still play at a lower level than the Ducks. Darron Thomas will get another low leverage situation to work on his game before the season begins in earnest with a road game against Arizona State.

Game time is 3:15 PDT at Autzen Stadium with local television coverage on CSN Northwest. It's been soggy in the Willamette Valley and that's not expected to change at all the rest of the weekend.