Blazers & Ginters

Both kinds. 

Reader KO Rob found the blog and recently signed up for the Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club (still accepting all comers!) While I'm still in the process of squirreling away some goodies for Rob, I thought I'd take a look at some stuff he sent my way.

The package was a nice selection of old-school (and middle-school?) Trail Blazers cards, including some Metal cards of some of my mid-'90s faves. The Blazers have had their share of misfortune, mostly on the injury front, but one of the saddest dreams is thinking of what may have happened if Sabas had arrived when he was drafted ('80s) and not when the Cold War was sufficiently thawed.

The Blazers sold the farm to get Kiki, who was a prolific scorer but not much else. Injuries made him a liability on defense, and Clyde Drexler's emergence as first banana probably hastened his departure as much as anything else.

It may be a little loved, but here's an honest to goodness Walton card from the championship season. Nice! Now I have to figure out what to do with this oversized card. I'm not so good at storing these sorts of things. Maybe I can stick them between some books on the bookshelf.

Rob also sent over a healthy stack from last year's Allen & Ginter baseball set. Of all the inserts I received, I thought I'd pick out the former David Arias out of the bunch as I'm in more of a baseball mood than anything else.

I'll end it with this card from the base set. Jonah Keri is one of my favorite baseball writers. Aside from his unbridled love of all things Expos, Keri writes a weekly series of articles called The 30 during the MLB season that you should definitely check out if you're interested in what's going on with the league. It started off over at the sadly defunct Grantland and now appears on SI.com if I'm not mistaken. Or, at least it would, if the season was still going on. Sad.

September's Loot

Another funderful box from @thelootlocker - Yep, Cubs again.

It'd been a couple of months since my last Loot Locker purchase, so I figure I'd show off all of the goods this time. In addition to the usual cache of supplies (and candy/gum!), the hobby packs were distributed as follows:

- 2016 Bowman Chrome
- 2016 Panini Diamond Kings
- 2016 Panini Donruss Optic (x2)

2016 Bowman Chrome

First guy out of the box is a single-A guy that I'd never heard of. He just turned 20. Awwwww.

Another Prospect, which means this isn't the Alcantara I've actually heard of.

This is a 1:3 pack insert. All of these Scouts cards are refractors.

The Twins have stockpiled a fair bit of talent, but the Byron Buxton jet still hasn't taken off.

 And there's Eric Hosmer.

2016 Panini Diamond Kings

It's Thor.

The Red Sox went away quietly this postseason, which wasn't something I was necessarily expecting. Cleveland had the better record, but usually when Boston has a good year you can't seem to get rid of them.

These cards look nicer with the old timey players, I have to say.

Second KC player of the box.

I've managed to acquire most of the Cardinals from this set, but I hadn't delved into the inserts and parallels. This framed card is really nice and is almost a direct bite on the style of 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces, not that I'm complaining.

This was also a nice get! Maybe the logo on Lou's helmet fell off?

 Here's another one of those young Twins.

 And finally, here's Luis Severino, who had a rough go of it as a starter this year.

2016 Panini Donruss Optic (Pack 1)

The first card was of a player not allowed here on the blog. He played for the Cardinals in 2015 and some team paid a ton of money for him.

This is a "Holo", Panini's new word for Refractor (what happened to Prizm?) much like their word for Chrome is "Optic". Numbered 15/25. I bet Pirates people like these colors.

Also a Holo. Also a Cub.

The Diamond Kings cards look alright. I'mjustgonnaignorethefactthattheyscrewedupthetextontheback ofthecardssobadlythattheyareacompleteeyesoretolookat. Shameful.

2016 Panini Donruss Optic (Pack 2)

Beltre is a fun player.

Today was Big Papi's final game. That's all I've got to say, really.

This one's a Holo and a Rated Rookie. Before Panini brought back the Donruss name, I had entertained the idea of finding a shirt with the classic Rated Rookie logo on it, but... nah. It'd probably look better on a kid, anyway.

Why is there a weird yellow cloud growing out of Dozier's head?

Everything is up for grab except the Cardinals cards.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 6: Streak on the Line

It's Oregon vs. Washington time with the Ducks at their lowest point in decades. 

It took all the enthusiasm I could muster up to not post a lazy GIF of a burning dumpster and calling this post good. After back-to-back close losses where Oregon seemingly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, they were downright dreadful last week against Washington State. True, the Cougars were playing at home and have a heavy passing attack that plays right along with Oregon's weaknesses. This game was a beatdown and didn't feel nearly as close as the 18 point final margin suggested.

Head coach Mark Helfrich might be coaching for his job today, and it would seem that he's feeling the heat. Reports earlier in the week indicated that true freshman Justin Herbert would be getting the start today, while later reports have suggested that he's sharing practice reps with current starter Dakota Prukop. A wishy-washy quarterback situation is pretty much the worst situation on all accounts, so if we start seeing QBs alternating possessions today or anything of that nature, you can pretty much consider this season a lost cause. Herbert may well be the future while Prukop is a transfer with only a handful of games left. Prukop had just one terrible game in a Ducks uniform, however. It just happened to be the most recent game.

It's not all doom and gloom in Eugene, however. Oregon owns a 12-game winning streak over their hated rival to the North. And hey, the weather is supposed to be nice, so there's that. Of course, this is the #5 Washington Huskies that have come to town, fresh off a colossal win over Stanford. Kenny Wheaton isn't going to score today (except in our hearts and minds) and Keith Lewis isn't going to be dancing on the W (which would be weird, anyway, considering the game is at Autzen.) But this collection of Ducks will try to keep the streak alive, which didn't even include those former players, no matter how long the odds.

It's the game that started the streak (2004). Let's not end this.

Game time is 4:30 PDT with national coverage on FOX. Go Ducks!

I Don't Learn, You Don't Listen

Starting things I can't finish again. 

The Topps Heritage line has been around for 16 years now, which is more years than I've put into seriously collecting cards, and twice as many years as this blog has been around. You would think that I would be smarter by now and had gotten more selective with my interests considering how often I wind up purchasing cards these days. I still can't resist Heritage and I still can't resist a good old fashioned "traded set", so there I was at the card show last month, plunking down $15 on a shiny new blaster. 2016 Topps Heritage High Number Baseball, here we come! Someone please remind me that I still haven't finished any of these sets ever.

Before I write anything further, I just want to point out the obvious - these cards aren't for trade. I'm ripping all of the fun out of this post and showing off cards for a set I make a rather poor attempt at collecting. I plan on keeping these. There are other posts where I show off stuff I don't want, but this isn't one of them.

Let's see who fails the test.

Jose Berrios. Cool, cool... who are you? I have to admit that the AL Central is almost invisible to me, for reasons I can't really explain. Actually, that's not quite true. I think the AL East is force fed down our collective throats by the media, and the AL West has a team in my local TV market (not to mention all the late start times.) But the Central is kind of a blurry mystery at times, especially when you're talking young players. I'm fully expecting the Twins to make the playoffs in 2018, though. Topps likes to short print a bunch of stars in the 500 card regular Heritage set, but they toss in a bunch of sometimes desirable rookies to short print in the short 225 update set. I have a feeling this year's crop won't quite stand up to last year's, which included Carlos Correa and Kris "Hall of Fame" Bryant.

Here's Berrios again, on a Rookie Performers insert. This year's design has sort of a carnival look to it.

My first Cardinal of the box is one of my... less... than faves? I complained about Broxton all season long, and then 90% of the pitching staff fell apart and he went and had a competent September, so what do I know?

I have no idea what to do with Heritage minis, which come serial numbered to 100. I don't think I'm quite collecting them per se, but I have one or two others somewhere and I haven't gotten around to putting them up for trade. I had to look up C.J. Wilson, who I actually had no idea was still in the game. As it turns out, he didn't throw a single pitch this season, which makes him exactly wrong for a set like this. I don't know what Topps was thinking.

Worst buddy comedy ever. This is a "Combo Card" insert, but could easily be mistaken for just another base card, which is exactly what I did when I first opened the pack it came in.

Topps flips the whole "Then & Now" staple of their Heritage set on its head with these inserts, but aside from the "clever" name it doesn't really make sense. Here's their 1094th Kershaw insert, with some sort of patriotic ribbon design on the side and bottom.

No, Dallas Keuchel's beard was the real award winner.

Here's one for the Dept. of Weird Cards to Look at in Fifteen Years.

Not all of the SPs are rookies, as the former Notre Dame wide receiver sneaked in here. I believe Samardzija made it into both the regular and "high numbers" version of the past two Heritage sets if I'm not mistaken.

Here's another from the Short Print Collection. If you stitched together Trevor Story's and Gary Sanchez's seasons to make one big Frankenseason, you would have... um... a really amazing baseball player? Sorry, I probably scanned too many images for this post.

Talented young Pirates pitcher. He was hurt a lot as a prospect. I know him because he's in the other Central division.

This is a good way to end it. It's weird to see Waino in an update type set, but he barely pitched last season, so I guess it makes sense. Not that the C.J. Wilson card will ever make sense, though.

Trevor Delivers

Another multi-sport trade package heads to the NW. 

Things are happening! We get to take a one day breather from six months of baseball before the play-in games begin, followed by weeks of cold hard (literally cold) playoff baseball. For the first time since 2010, my Cardinals will not be a participant. That's okay. I am on the side of those hoping for dramatic changes next year, however.

Basketball is happening, too. Tonight was the first Trail Blazers preseason game, and there's no better time to show off some cards from several sports received recently from football blogger (and Cubs fan... another one?!) Trevor of Bump and Run Football Cards. 

The Cardinals at times this season felt a bit like the team in the Mark McGwire days, where everyone would sit back and wait for the dingers to fly. This year's squad had six players hit 20+ HRs. Last season's had one. There's probably a good balance to be found somewhere. I don't want to go into great detail about what I thought went wrong this season, but I do feel like the 2016 Cardinals forgot how to do a lot of things that are essential to winning baseball. Chicks dig the long ball, though.

Trevor sent me a lot of Ducks cards. I normally save these for Saturdays during the season, but that stash is getting very crowded, so I thought I'd pick a few for this post. Kenjon Barner has found his way into the Eagles lineup more and more this season, and with the team off to a 3-0 start, he seems to have a good chance at sticking around in the post Chip Kelly days.

Darron Thomas led the Ducks to a National Championship game, so he will always have that on his resume. That and what seems to be an ad for Adidas workout gear, I guess? That was a fun team to watch, though!

I was born a generation too late to see Bobby Moore, who later became known as Ahmad Rashad, play for the Ducks. I didn't really pay attention to the NFL in the '80s, so my memories of him as a pro player are pretty much nonexistent. I do remember NBA Inside Stuff, though!

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Fantasy Hoops update: I got more responses than I anticipated. Great! I finally created the league and sent out email invites to the first eight people that expressed interest. I'm missing an email address (hi B Man!) and it's possible that I don't have current email addresses for everyone, so please get in touch if you didn't get an invite and expected one. I'm not sure that everyone who reached out will ultimately sign up, so if I don't fill the 10-slot league I will start looking for those of you who responded after the first nine.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 5: The Crossroads

The Ducks start the first of a back-to-back Washington school sortie, smarting after another close loss. 

Oregon's first conference game last week went about as well as the previous week's matchup with Nebraska. Close, but no cigar. The team chose to rest banged up star running back Royce Freeman due to an injury suffered against Virginia, apparently believing that the Colorado game would be a decent one to sit out. (Or so they say, since Oregon doesn't disclose injury information unless you suffer a horrific season ending injury.) The Ducks got smacked all around the field in the first half but somehow only trailed by 9. A brilliant third quarter saw them leading going into the fourth with all of the confidence in the world, but things went sour and an interception in the end zone on their final drive sealed their fate.

Washington State, under the recent guidance of Mike Leach, has reclaimed its reputation as a deadly passing attack... and not much else. Still, Luke Falk absolutely shredded Oregon last year and there's no reason to suggest he won't do the same this year up in Pullman. The defense looked a bit better last week once they smelled blood in the second half, but Falk and the Bear Raid attack isn't the same as the replacement redshirt freshman quarterback they went up against last week.

There are some things to like about this Oregon team and there are some things not to like. There are some very talented, very skilled players who know the system and there are a bunch of young, green players that (occasionally) wear green. It feels like this team, this season and probably the coaching staff is at a crossroads right now. There's still all the time in the world to get this season back on track, and it doesn't seem like the Pac-12 North will be won by a team with no losses. The conference is too competitive for that. In any case, a win over a NW rival is always a sweet thing, and that's going to be the thing to root for tonight.

Here are some highlights from a previous game in Pullman, WA (2010) in which the Ducks prevailed. I wonder what Joe Giansante is up to these days.
Game time is 6:30 PDT with national coverage on the Pac-12 Network. Go Ducks!