Mostly Football

Cards from the other sport from @forgotaboutblay as the new season looms. 

 

The annual uptick in football talk seems to go hand in hand with back to school commercials and other reminders that summer's time is numbered. None of these things are my favorite things. I do end up getting pretty excited when my favorite teams from the other sport finally take the field, even though it interferes with the stretch run of the baseball season. Long time trading pal Dennis from the Too Many blogs sent over a batch of mostly football stuff back in the spring, and I'm finally getting around to sharing it here.

 

The bulk of the package was Eagles and (pro) Ducks cards. Wrighster was one of a series of talented pass catching tight ends to come through during the Mike Bellotti era, something the current squad could certainly use more of. These days Wrighster is being a sports analyst and opinion-haver on various platforms.

Haloti Ngata was an absolute legend at UO and had a stellar pro career as well. It's great to pick up one of his rookie cards here.

Duce Staley was one of my Donovan McNabb/Andy Reid era favorites for the Philly team.

This guy was an Olympic skier as well as a football player. The Eagles took a flyer on him, but it didn't work out.

Baskett was one of a long line of Eagles receivers that were heavily scrutinized during his time in Philadelphia. Outside of the short Terrell Owens experiment, Donovan McNabb never really had anyone to throw to in his time there, so it's spoken. These days if you Google Baskett's name, football is very far down the list of things mentioned about him.

Dennis included three (!) Ducks "hits" so to speak, but I'm just going to show off the basketball one since I'll want to save something for the football season. Cook led a 31-win Ducks team to the Elite Eight and has played professionally ever since, mostly in various European leagues.

This lot was not completely devoid of baseball cards, as I also found this signed Todd Worrell card from one of the old drug/variety store Fleer box sets of the '80s. It's super cool to have this and all of the cards in this package.

Rainy Tuesday Miscellany

On Friday I did a "Buy It Now" purchase on eBay that was a lucky find and really probably the biggest no-brainer online purchase I've ever made. 800 80's oddball Cardinals cards for 19.99 and free shipping. Did I really need another box of baseball cards taking up space in my small apartment? That's probably not the best question to ask right now. But this was right up my alley. And the cards came today, and I got not one but two (!) 660 count boxes of Cardinals cards and stickers, absolutely none from a regular old base set. And while I got my fair share of doubles (hello, other Cardinals team collectors!), this ended up being a whole lot better than advertised. Though, now I seem to have about 10 Cardinals team sets worth of 1988 Starting Lineup Talking Baseball, whatever that is (I can't seem to remember.) Now I have a Chef Boyardee card. This was definitely my favorite card in the entire lot. Just check out Todd's mustache and wonder how often SpaghettiOs got stuck in it. (Actually, I think that was a Franco-American product.) (And on another note: I had no idea Chef Boyardee was a real person.)

This card came from the era of the National League's ill-fated brief experiment with the Designated Hitter rule, apparently.

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Congrats to the Tampa Bay Rays. Check that, my Tampa Bay Rays! We are officially finished with Ozzie Guillen face time for the season.

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I got my football prize package from the Cardboard Junkie himself on Friday. Unfortunately, I'm too upset about the Ducks, the Eagles and the American game of football in general to talk about the loot I received at the moment. But what in the world is the story with this card? It has some crazy hole in it. And that's very odd considering it comes from a set that calls itself Pinnacle Mint Condition.

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With tonight comes the first preseason game of the season for the Portland Trail Blazers. For this occasion, I am going to do something I haven't done in 15 years. You can read all about it at A Pack A Day. Be afraid, be slightly afraid...