Token Weekly Blazers Post

The Blazers went 2-1 this past week, which was probably more notable for the burgeoning Darius Miles controversy (didn't we get rid of that guy a long time ago?) and less for what Portland did on the court. This is a franchise that has had plenty of off-court things to discuss over the years, but hopefully the focus will return to actual basketball very soon. Portland struggled once again without Brandon Roy against the Lakers last Sunday in L.A., but it was not a game anyone expected them to win. I was able to attend Wednesday's home game against Detroit, which was also quite a struggle, but the Blazers ended up pulling it out thanks to late surge thanks to rookie Jerryd Bayless and a game deciding shot by the much-maligned Travis Outlaw. It's nice to see Bayless, a high draft choice this past summer, finally get some playing time after getting very familiar with the bench.

Brandon Roy returned on Saturday night and so, it seemed, did the Blazers offense to give the Blazers a 113-100 victory and a 2-1 week overall. Golden State doesn't play a whole lot of defense or bother rebounding, however, but it was nice to see Portland beat someone who had dogged them earlier this season. Next up is a four game road trip, starting in Chicago on Monday and finishing in Charlotte on Saturday.

About the cards:

• The Blazers dedicated the season to the late Kevin Duckworth and wear a stripe with his number (#00) on their jerseys this season. What can you say about Skybox's premier edition of basketball cards? Nothing, of course, that doesn't begin or end with the word awesome.
• Walter Davis finished his career with a short stint with the Blazers at the end of the ill-fated 1990-91 season where they won 63 games only to be bounced by the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. What happened to the Hoops brand, anyway? It seems like they were the Pro Set of the NBA. I know that by their fourth release (1992-93) they had been acquired by Skybox, but I was surprised to see that they were long gone.
  

Bonus: I picked up this Jermaine O'Neal rookie card in a large 5 cent box at a card show yesterday. I got stacks of the cheap stuff of the Cardinals variety as well and will feature some of that in a later post. Yes, a baseball post, in fact... I still do those from time to time.

3 More High Series Packs

I went to Target on Saturday with two ideas in mind from the cards display. One was to get more Heritage cards, because my newly created 2008 Heritage binder is very sadly empty. The other was to buy a repack box for no sane reason. I ended up buying three packs of the "High" stuff and no repack junk, although I did grab a few other things from the $1.59 bin.

Pack 1:
680 - George Sherrill
501 - John Danks
638 - Jose Arredondo (RC) (Arredondo doesn't get the "Topps News" treatment that most of the rookie cards got in this set. I can live with that, I guess. Perhaps he was just not a "Rookie Star of 2008.")
614 - Russell Branyan (See Pack 2, last post about this stuff.)
665 - Texas Rangers (Ditto.)

FB9 - Carlos Delgado Flashbacks (I suppose the insert makes up for the dupes.)
UH265 - Tony Abreu
UH148 - David Wright All-Stars

Pack 2:

571 - Gerald Laird (Laird was in his !!6th!! season in the majors in 2008, so how exactly is he a Rookie Star? Night Owl mentioned this odd card awhile back, but I had to see it for myself I guess.)
608 - Ben Francisco
606 - Brian Moehler
566 - Bryan LaHair (RC) (Another non-Star rookie)
539 - Kelly Shoppach

RP8 - Carlos Gonzalez Rookie Performers (I have no idea who he is, but I'm glad he rescued this pack.)
UH253 - Josh Johnson
UH1 - Kosuke Fukudome (RC) (Who will end up having the better MLB career? Fukudome, Jerome Walton or Dwight Smith?)

Pack 3:

547 - Jay Bruce (RC)
645 - Masahide Kobayashi (RC)
671 - Chris Davis (RC) (Back-to-back-to-back rookies, although the Hot Dog Eating Last Name Guy is 34 years old.)
549 - Jeremy Sowers
537 - Toronto Blue Jays

TN9 - Early Winn / Jake Peavy Then & Now
UH130 - Mike Cameron
UH264 - David Ortiz All-Stars

No Cardinals, no SPs and not even a black back card to speak of. At least I got an insert in every pack. I bet I won't be able to keep that streak alive much longer.

Token Weekly Blazers Post: Ouch!

Brandon Roy has been out with an injured hamstring. Suddenly, everything up is down and vice versa. The Blazers beat a team they had no business beating (Boston) and then lost to a team they should have handled given a decent lead and a Tyson Chandler ejection. What's going on with the Celtics right now, anyway? Boston has lost 4 of its last 6 after an amazing 27-2 start. The Blazers can't wait for Roy to come back, as putting Rudy Fernandez (vote him!) into the starting lineup has created a bit of a scoring void in the second unit.

About the card:

• You can't go wrong with the goggles and the workman attitude Buck Williams brought to the court. Hoops kind of recycled the 1991-92 design with the set the following year and made it slightly better, but not a lot better.
  

Bonus: This Damon Stoudamire Fleer Authentix card was part of the 12 Days giveaway I received from TribeCards. There were 12 Blazers cards in all, none of which I owned. This is similar to another Authentix card I posted about awhile back. Cards with perforations are pretty intriguing to me for some reason.

Defending the X

Updates here from Cards on Cards central have been sparse. I'm in the midst of a two week vacation and thus have been avoiding my computer as much as possible. I'm still checking e-mails fairly regularly, so if we have potential trades going (or if you want to trade) feel free to keep in touch. I also mailed out four more packages yesterday with another four or five still left to send, so if you're expecting something from me (or maybe even if you aren't) then keep an eye on your mailbox.

Upper Deck X is basically the bane of every card collector's existence, but there's a reason I bought more packs of this after Erin gave me my first one for my birthday. The reason is this (retail) pack.

65 - Pedro Martinez
79 - Jason Bay

48 - Alex Gordon Die Cut (I have a tendency to remove the "hanging chads." Whether or not that devalues the cards, I have no idea. It just bugs me. What happened to Alex Gordon, anyway? Is he the next George Brett or Kevin Seitzer? Don't you hate it when players are proclaimed the Next Anything?)

X4-AP - Albert Pujols Xponential 4 (This card is just stunningly awesome. I don't really know what else to say about it.)

5068 - Dave Winfield Yankee Stadium Legacy (I don't hate these cards. Maybe I'd be annoyed if they were inserted into Topps products and replaced cards I'm trying to collect like Heritage and A&G.)

76 - Ryan Howard (The MLB Network is on the air! Unfortunately, a lot of what they are showing this weekend seems to be the 2008 World Series, which isn't exactly a distant memory. I wish I had been able to watch more of Don Larsen's perfect game, but I didn't really want to put my girlfriend through a heavy dose of '50s Yankees footage.)

Anyway, yes, I know the set sucks. However, it's $1.99 and it's amusing. Sometimes amusing is more important to me than eye-pleasing.

Good Luck Ducks: Holiday Bowl Edition

It seems like it's been about three months since the last Oregon football game. Finally, the interesting part of the bowl season starts today with the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. Oregon will be facing the Oklahoma State Cowboys, which have always amused me considering that they wear primarily orange (and some black and white) and the go by OSU. Oregon State is trying to be "OS" now, though, so maybe they're working towards ending the confusion.

I picked up a trio of 2006 Fleer rookies for $1 at a card show last month featuring Ducks players in Ducks uniforms after being drafted by their respective NFL teams. Interestingly enough, these players were the three key players on the last Oregon team to play in the Holiday Bowl, a low-scoring, nailbiting loss to Oklahoma.

Many are predicting a high-scoring affair as both Oregon and Oklahoma State tend to put a lot of points on the board. The Holiday Bowl also has a reputation for being very high scoring and competitive year in and year out. Of course, this is what everyone was saying three years ago when the Ducks and the Sooners combined for 31 points. All three of the players are still with the teams that drafted them. Clemens should have and likely would have been the starter for the Jets after they parted ways with Chad Pennington, but then that Favre guy stepped in and ruined everything, including the Jets season. All he did was lead the league in interceptions and lose to Pennington's Dolphins to get knocked out of the playoffs. Ngata and Williams have made some impact for Baltimore, although Demetrius only played in 6 games this year so I'm guessing he got injured at some point.

Whoa, there! Look who crashed the party. It's the Original Whizzinator himself. This oddly-shaped card was the partridge in a (cardboard) pear tree in my 12 Days of Christmas gift from Tribecards. He was an amazing player in his time at UO, but not the brightest guy as is well-documented.

I'm not sure what the point of all of this is, but... Go Ducks! I'm hoping for an entertaining game, zero airport arrests, and best of all: a Ducks victory to cap off a 10-win season.

Token Weekly Blazers Post: 2-2

Portland finished a 2-2 week last week with a 102-89 victory over the Raptors that Brandon Roy just plain took over and made everyone else look silly. It's hard to know what to make of this past week, however. It was disappointing - mostly the loss on Christmas night to Dallas. That was the big stunner, to me. I think they are better than that team. It wasn't too surprising that the Blazers lost one of the back-to-back Denver games. It's always tough to win two in a situation like that. I still think Portland has a good chance at winning the division title when all is said and done, and it's nice to see them in there and competing with Denver and Utah, but some of the problems that have plagued the Blazers this season still seem to exist.

Some things that need immediate attention with this team:

• Perimeter defense. Ouch. It can be really bad at times. Sure, their opponents will live by the three as much as they die by it, just like the Blazers when they shoot too many threes, but it seems like everyone they play has no trouble getting open looks.
• Switching on defense. Sensing a theme here? There's a lot that is lacking on the defensive side. Players keep getting caught up in terrible mismatches. I am tired of seeing Lamarcus Aldridge guarding point guards. I am also tired of seeing Steve Blake getting posted up by another team's big man. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about basketball to be able to say exactly what is causing this, but whatever it is it needs to stop.
• Three-point shot reliance. I've ranted about this already. It makes the Blazers look like a college team at times, and they don't have the luxury of the shorter distance to cope with. I cringe every time I see someone passing up an open 15-foot jumper for a three-point look.

About the cards:

• The Clyde Drexler card is from, I believe, the first year that Topps brought Stadium Club over to basketball. I'm not positive about this, though, but I just am not picturing the original 1991 design on a basketball card. This is a nice shot of Drexler going to the hoop against two defenders from the hated Jazz at Memorial Coliseum. There's been talk of demolishing the Coliseum and putting a new AAA baseball stadium in its place if Portland is able to land an MLS expansion team. I'm not against MLS or anything, but I hate the idea of baseball leaving the 18th St area.
• Jermaine O'Neal went at it with Greg Oden in the win over the Raptors and Oden seemed to come out victorious for the most part. It was probably Oden's most productive offensive game so far and is hopefully a sign that he will go off on opposing centers that are smaller than him. The card comes from a set called UD Choice, which I'm guessing is similar to a 90's baseball set Upper Deck would put out called Collector's Choice, a budget set aimed at kids, I guess?
  

Bonus: Well, here's Channing Frye's awful looking Chrome card from last season. Frye is on the cover of a local weekly paper which usually reserves its cover stories for the latest local Scandal of the Week. This week, the scandal is that Frye is a great guy but might not be a Blazer much longer. It's tough, because he is an entertaining guy that has his own blog (which is actually good!) and seems to have embraced Portland, the city, perhaps more than any player the team has ever imported. Unfortunately, he's not playing a ton and he doesn't offer a lot in the department that is lacking the most - defense.

5 on the 5: Meineke Car Care 2008 Topps Heritage High Series Presented by Five-Dollar Footlongs at Subway (Eat Fresh)

As much as I have a fondness for year-end/update/traded sets that goes back to my youth, I feel like everything about this set is a scam. The player selection is bad. Topps didn't even throw in a bunch of all-star type filler cards in this edition as they included those things in the first edition (and short-printed them all, of course.) I admit, I was pretty excited when I first heard that this was coming out, and I am a willing participant in the scam as I have bought packs and will continue to buy them. But I feel like I am forced to. I made a decision awhile ago to collect the 2008 Topps Heritage set and this is a continuation of that set. They didn't go the Updates & Highlights route of starting over at card #1 and including a UH prefix or any of that. It picks up where the last one left off. How satisfied would I be with a "complete" set that stopped at card #500 when I know that cards #501 through #720 are lurking out there somewhere? Not very. And don't get me started on the inclusion of U&H cards in these packs. I want my 2 Heritage cards back. Does Topps think that they are somehow promoting U&H by putting them in these packs? Would any Heritage buyer honestly consider buying a Topps base product solely because of this? Conversely, would a Topps base collector suddenly decide to collect Heritage High Series because they are able to get a pack of 2 cards for 2.99 with 6 Heritage cards as a bonus? The only explanation that makes any sense to me is if this was a way to get around the MLB product limit, where each brand can only have a certain number of sets per year.

Anyway, I have a tendency to buy things in fives for some reason, if I'm not just going to pick up one or two packs. Here are five packs of this stuff that I complained about a lot but will still collect.

Pack 1:
644 - Andy Sonnanstine

503 - Johnny Cueto (RC)
554 - Vicente Padilla
579 - Jose Guillen Black Back
546 - Milwaukee Brewers
696 - Mark Sweeney (SP) (He started his career for the Cardinals, but I have no recollection of him. He also played for the Padres four separate times. This card has dayf's favorite cartoon two-fingered salute on the back.)
UH127 - Michael Young / Derek Jeter Classic Combos
UH204 - Franquelis Osoria

Pack 2:
576 - Mike Lamb
527 - Rob Quinlan
516 - Salomon Torres
614 - Russell Branyan (Are there any Cardinals cards of Russell Branyan? I guess I need to find this out. He made a couple of starts and a bunch of pinch-hit appearances for the doomed 2007 team.)
665 - Texas Rangers

C239 - Chase Headley Chrome 0420/1959
UH70 - George Sherrill (Among the many blunders Bill Bavasi made with Seattle was letting this guy get away.)
UH57 - Ramon Castro

Pack 3:
663 - Mark Ellis
577 - Ben Zobrist
509 - Marcus Thames

595 - Clayton Kershaw Black Back
531 - Ryan Doumit Black Back

RP1 - Clayton Kershaw Rookie Performers (Does this look familiar? Kershaw looks a bit like Orel Hershiser here.)
UH307 - Greg Norton
UH264 - David Ortiz All-Star

Pack 4:

558 - Adam Kennedy (We're stuck with Kennedy this year and Kennedy is stuck with us. He was neither traded nor is a rookie, but is just cruddy enough to be in this set instead of the first edition.)
646 - Marco Scutaro
533 - Jonny Gomes (The "cartoon" on the back says that Gomes is a heart attack survivor. Yikes!)
666 - Jason Michaels
622 - John Baker

FB3 - Jon Lester Flashbacks
UH115 - Mike Lamb
UH228 - Joe Blanton

Pack 5:
684 - Jo-Jo Reyes
568 - Damion Easley
521 - Angel Pagan
617 - Gregorio Petit (RC)
563 - Doug Mientkiewicz Black Back
641 - Omar Infante
UH235 - Eddie Guardado

UH240 - Clayton Kershaw (RC) (Yup. Still looks like Hershiser.)

I didn't even bother with the gum. I've been warned.