An Owl On My Shoulder

About two or three weeks ago I read another in a long line of posts about the 2015 Stadium Club set. Again I saw a couple of cards that I thought were very cool. It dawned on me that maybe I should try to collect it. I had a few of the Orioles and a handful of others so I wouldn't be starting off empty.

I gave it some thought, looked at the checklist, and decided to go for it. I determined that I would not worry about inserts or variations and all that sort of thing. I read that the base set comes in various foil colors (SC guys, help me out here) but I can't tell the difference without looking hard at them so I'll just fill slots with whatever foil color I happen to get.

I looked at eBay and started bidding on a few lots, mostly 100 or so card lots, but I kept missing out. So last week I decided to just order a box. Not an hour later I grab my mail and there is a manila envelope from upstate New York courtesy of Night Owl. And damn if it didn't contain a big stack of Stadium Club (among other things). It was a weird but wonderful (and timely) coincidence. That's part of the stack up top.

Collecting a contemporary set is going to be unusual for me but Stadium Club is an unusual set. I'm not going to blog it step by step because by now every card has been posted at some point by someone, probably a dozen times. but I will post a wantlist as soon as I have one.

I'm just going to put up a couple of the cards N.O. sent, ones that I don't remember seeing on the blogs I frequent. I ususually complain about cards where the subject is just 'one of a crowd' in the photo but even with about a dozen birds in this shot Britton remains the focus. Fun photo.

I like this card of Alex Cobb for two reasons. First that 'fauxback' uni is so hideous that it's cool. And for another there is just so much of it! Pajama unis...harumph. Get off my lawn! Neat stirrups though.

But Night Owl didn't limit his envelope to just Stadium Club. He added a fistful of Orioles cards, all of which were new ones for my O's box.

In 1994 Brady Anderson was still evolving from 'skinny' Brady to 'bulky' Brady. He was still a couple of years away from his outlier 50 dinger performance. I'd like to think that 50 homers were due to the fact that MLB jazzed up the ball in hopes of making the game more attractive post-lockout/strike. But I'd also like to believe in the Easter bunny.

Dylan Bundy. He's been the Orioles 'next great hope' for what seems like 10 years. I think I read he's out of options, or nearly so. Welcome to Charm City, Dylan.

Score brand cards....one of my secret fetishes back in the day. I had a zillion Score baseball. But I never saw these. I dug a bit and found out why. These are from a set sold in conjunction with a book at big box book retailers.

Here is what Baseball Card-pedia has to say about these: "1991 Score 100 Rising Stars is a 100-card set issued as a factory set, in a blister pack, with an accompanying book. The sets (with the book) were sold primarily through mass-market chain bookstores with a suggested retail price of $12.95. Each factory set also included six Magic Motion Trivia cards."

I also received a couple of new Cal Ripkens.......

It's impossible to estimate what one player has had the most cards issued for them but if you made a list of guesses I'd sure stick Cal on it.

...and a shiny Kevin Gausman (I have the non-shiny version). Some days on the mound Gausman looks good, some days, well, not as much.

All-in-all it was a great batch of cards that I received from Night Owl. I'm looking forward to getting my Stadium Club set off the ground and this made for a nice start. Thanks again, Greg.

Monday Morning Quarterback #36 Matthew Stafford 2009 Donruss/Score Hot Rookies

In this ongoing series of posts I am going to feature cards from my fantasy football player collection, specifically the 117 quarterbacks I've had on my team's roster since 1980. I have one selected card for each player in my All-Time Flyers binder. Through the years I've tried to use as many different card varieties as possible while holding on to my preference which is: a card issued in a year I owned the player showing him in the proper team uni in a vertical format. Card availability and my whims have had a big impact on that standard as we will see. 

NFL Info: Matthew Stafford was a high school star from North Texas who had a standout career at Georgia. He was the first pick of the 2009 NFL draft and has put up some impressive numbers since walking into the starting line-up on Day One. He was hurt for a couple of months in 2010 but otherwise has been able to hook up with Calvin Johnson to keep the Lions' offense rolling.

Fantasy Impact: I took Matthew Stafford in the 14th round of my leagues' 2009 draft. He was a rookie that season and I didn't use him.

The Card: If I were to pick the worst 'modern' card in my fantasy binder this might be it. Random colors done in large swatches and oversize fonts. Ugh. As bad as the front is...the back is worse. Different random colors and a black-and-white crop of the same photo. I'm not sure why I replaced this with a better card of Stafford. I usually won't replace a card in my fantasy football binder unless it involves taking out a 'homebrew' and inserting a legit card or finding a vertical card to replace a horizontal one (I dislike horizontal cards in my binder). At least this card falls into the 'unique to my binder' and 'from the correct year' conventions that I loosely stick to.

I don't keep up with the 'politics' of card companies so I was thrown a bit by the fact that this card has a 'Score' designation on the front, a Donruss logo on the back and a Panini America copyright line.

Bonus Unrelated Story: The Billy Sims reference on the back reminded me of the fact that many years ago I had a dentist who had Billy Sims as a patient. The dentist said Sims was the biggest 'chicken' he'd ever had in his chair. He said Sims was so nervous that he broke the footrest of the chair by becoming stiff as a board.

Monday Morning Quarterback #12 (Tuesday Edition) 2006 Score Vince Young

In this ongoing series of posts I am going to feature cards from my fantasy football player collection, specifically the 117 quarterbacks I've had on my team's roster since 1980. I have one selected card for each player in my All-Time Flyers binder. Through the years I've tried to use as many different card varieties as possible while holding on to my preference which is: a card issued in a year I owned the player showing him in the proper team uni in a vertical format. Card availability and my whims have had a big impact on that standard as we will see. 

NFL Info: It just doesn't seem possible it has been eight years since Vince Young came out of college at Texas with all that incredible hype. If you were not in Houston then you probably won't understand how stupid it became. The Texans had the first pick in the '06 draft and the Vince Young boosters (hometown loyalists plus the way beyond obnoxious UT alums) were screaming to hear his name when the pick was announced. Another, nearly as loud contingent wanted Reggie Bush. Me? As a Texans season ticket holder didn't want either one. I felt Young wasn't a solid NFL prospect and didn't think Bush would help turn the franchise around.

Turns out the Texans surprised us all with the Mario Williams pick. He turned out to be a solid choice and helped the Texans' 'D' improve over time. Young in the mean time was taken 3rd in the draft by the Titans at the urging (order?) of owner Bud Adams, made an early splash with his athletic ability. But the NFL quickly caught up to him thanks to his inability to read defenses or learn a playbook, his inaccurate arm and propensity to leave the pocket. He made two Pro Bowl (other guys bowed out), won enough games to make the playoffs and he even won the offensive R-O-Y award in '06 but that was all a mirage. After five up and down season with the Titans Young has bounced around the league trying to catch on someplace while reportedly going broke. He recently was the property of the Cleveland Browns for about two weeks. As soon as the Brownies drafted Johnny Football it was sayōnara for Young. God help me I'm starting to feel sorry for the guy. I don't know why he hasn't tried to play CFL ball.

Fantasy Angle: I actually drafted Young myself in 2006 with a 10th round pick. He was my third QB and I figured it might be a value pick given his ability to pick-up running yardage. I never played him and at the trade deadline shipped him off for a future draft pick to an owner in a bind at that position.

The Card: This is one of the crappier cards in my fantasy football Frankenset binder. Looks to be one of those rookie camp pictures. The back has lots of white space. They couldn't have had more to say about a player so hyped and coming off a National Championship game? But it is an '06 card which fits the year I had him and I refuse to spend a dime on a better Vince Young card.

A $4 Hockey Hanger Re-pack

From time to time I pick up a hanging 100 card repack at Target. Sometimes I'm pretty happy with the results, thinking that if I had bought a new pack of something with that $4 I'd probably get seven cards I don't want. This isn't one of those times.

I went for the hockey repack the other day. I was suckered in by the Red Sullivan card that was among those showing. This is from something called In The Game with a 2005 copyright date. I love vintage hockey pictures. I wonder if when this was shot back around 1958 they just put up a screen across the ice and set up the photo shoot that way. Sullivan was about done when I was becoming a hockey fan in about 1960 and I have no memories of his playing days but I remember him as Ranger coach in the early '60s. The Rangers were pretty awful in those days, usually battling the Bruins to see which team would finish fifth, miss the playoffs, but relegate the other to sixth. Sullivan coached into the 1970 with Pittsburgh and Washington.

I bought this in the hopes of getting some Rangers and NHL stars knowing full well that they wouldn't be worth the cost of the cardboard they are printed on. I got a few of each. Wide variety of brands and years. When Brian Leetch was starring for the Rangers it wasn't as easy being a long distance fan as it is now. I had to rely on the Hockey News quite a bit.

Lemieux raising the Cup. Whoooopie.

Gretzky as a King.

Like the Gretzky O-Pee-Chee used a crap picture with a floating trophy for this Ray Borque card.

Mike Richter. One of my all time favorites. He was a big part of the Cup winning Rangers of 1995. I doubt I'll see another Cup in my lifetime.

Mike Gartner...

... and Dino Ciccerelli.

Here is an odd bunch of facts tying Gartner and Dino together:

According to Wikipedia...Despite his long impressive career, Gartner never won the Stanley Cup or played in the Cup Finals, never won an NHL award, and was never named to the postseason All-Star Team, being one of the few NHL players with this distinction to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Dino Ciccarelli has likewise never managed any of these accolades, although he made the Cup Finals in 1995.

One time Ranger back-up Corey Hirsch

James Patrick played for the Rangers for a long time. He's one of the best players ever to NOT make an NHL All Star Squad.

I was a goalie once upon a time. I like goalies.

Maaarrrty!! Maaarrty!!

When the Original Six became the Total 12 every kid I knew picked a Western team to root for when they were not playing the Rangers. Mine was the Minnesota North Stars. 

Some of the cards in the pack were nice just because they featured classic NHL team sweaters.

This is easily the ugliest card in the bunch. It hurt my eyes.

THE END