Good Luck Ducks, Week 10: Robots and Humans Living Together in Perfect Symmetry

Finally, the robots are our allies. The computers have finally come around to what we humans have known for several weeks now. The Oregon Ducks are the best NCAA Football team in the country. Well, technically they agree, anyway. The Amalgamated Conglomerate of Computer Polling Averages, Incorporated vaulted Oregon up to the #2 position, which was enough to merge its programming with humankind to reach a perfect #1 BCS ranking.

Is it time to relax? For me, as a fan, yes. For the players... ha. It's hardly time to relax. It's Homecoming and it's a rivalry game against the Washington Huskies. The Huskies have struggled mightily once again this season and will be without perennial Heisman Candidate In Theory Jake Locker. Freshman Keith Price has the fun task of trying to hang with Oregon's Starman (think Super Mario Bros.) offense. This feels like a game the Ducks could seriously overlook if I wasn't confident that Chip Kelly brainwashes his players into believing that they're playing the All-Madden All-Star team every week.

Just for tradition's sake, let's take a look at this perfect play... one more time:

That is still, and maybe always will be, the best sports moment I have witnessed in person of all-time. And finally, here's today's card subject going nuts on the Huskies 10 years ago:

Game time is at 12:30 PDT in Eugene with regional TV coverage by ABC. Go Ducks!

Trading with John from TX

I completed a trade recently with a very confused reader named John from Texas. I say "very confused" because he is a Cubs fan who resides in a big state that shouldn't tolerate such things. I kid, of course, and John sent over a few cards in a "hits" for "hits" type of deal, along with the usual stack of Cardinals and set-building needs.

The Cardinals bunch was actually very heavy on a particular player - Albert Pujols. I'm sure that you've heard of him by now. He's good at the baseball. This was one of two serial-numbered parallels from the 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars set. Upper Deck decided to accentuate the Future Stars brand by making sure there were a lot of stars in the card design.

This one is a "First Class Ticket to Topps Town", also known as Topps Town Gold. If you were to enter the code on the back of the card into the ToppsTown website, you would get more loot or something.

Stan the Man and Albert "Don't Call Me El Hombre". That's respect, man.

David Eckstein hit a walk-off home run for the Padres last night and it made me miss the little scamp a bit. Every once in awhile he'd "run into one" as Al Hrabosky might say.

Along with the Cardinals, as mentioned, there were some nice set-building needs. I'm collecting all things Turkey Red, and there were a few from the 2009 insert set including this salty ballplayer.

Oh yes, hits... did I mention hits? Here's a very shiny Chris Carpenter jersey card from 2006 Upper Deck Special F/X. Upper Deck decided to make an extremely glossy version of their base set for some strange reason (a nod to the '80s Topps Tiffany or Fleer Glossy sets perhaps) and this is one of the relics from it. I believe Carp will be on the hill tomorrow night (tonight by the time you read this most likely) so I am wishing him the best of luck.

Finally, John sent over two autographed college prospect cards of running back Maurice Morris. Morris was a junior college transfer who was brilliant in his Ducks career and carved himself a nice niche in the NFL as a durable complementary back.

Morris was a kick returner early in his NFL career before becoming Shaun Alexander's backup and fill-in starter when Alexander started breaking down late in his own career. Detroit signed him last season where it seems he's primarily served the same role.

Thanks again to John. John, let me know if you have a blog or some sort of webpage because I'd love to link to it. By the way, with this trade and others that I have completed lately, I'm pretty much fresh out of interesting cards from the following teams: Cubs, Mets, Rays and Dodgers. I'm still very interested in trading, but my supply of cards from certain teams is starting to dwindle.