A Rare Romanian Giant

Some of the toughest cards to get a hold of today are inserts from the late 90's, especially when it comes to basketball releases. Maybe the baseball ones are similarly difficult, but that's not a sandbox I play in. In the late 90's I was all basketball, all the time. But I was also a teenager, and relegated to the cheap sets like your basic Fleer, Topps, Collector's Choice, and the occasional pack of Upper Deck. Things like SPx, Flair, Finest, and Chrome were out of my league. Many of the cards I coveted during that time have increased to the point where I still can't afford them, a fact that has largely stalled out my main player collection, Hakeem Olajuwon. The other 90's guys I collect weren't ever popular enough to warrant inclusion in many insert or premium set checklists, but I occasionally dig up a neat card featuring them. That is the case with today's bit of cardboard.

When it comes to basketball I've always enjoyed the extremes, focusing much of my collecting energy on the tallest and shortest players in the league. I don't know if the lumbering giant has any place in the hyper-athletic NBA of today, but in the 90's you had Shawn Bradley, Manute Bol, and Gheorghe Muresan all playing basketball at 7'6" or taller. Yao Ming kept the torch alive into the 2000's.

Ming had the best overall game of the group, with the others showing weaknesses and never reaching the superstar status he did. Muresan is my personal favorite of the bunch, probably because of his unibrow. He also probably had the best overall game between him, Bol, and Bradley. What he didn't have was longevity, as injuries shortened his career. Bol played for 10 seasons, Bradley played for 12, and Muresan only played in 6 (and the last two of those barely counted as playing). Both Bradley and Bol had better blocked shot averages, but Muresan had slightly better numbers in other categories. His peak year was probably '95-'96, with averages of 14.5 PTS, 9.6 REB, and 2.3 BLK in 29.5 minutes per game. Bradley's peak year was probably one year later, in '96-'97, with averages of 13.2 PTS, 8.4 REB, and 3.4 BLK in 31.3 minutes per game. It's hard to pinpoint a top season for Bol. He led the league in blocks per game a couple of times, but never averaged more than 4 PTS or 6 REB per game. Anyway, I was a fan of all those guys. I don't know if the NBA has a place for guys like them anymore. Serge Ibaka puts up similar statlines today, but he's a 6'10" power forward.

Getting to the actual card in the post, this is a '96-'97 Flair Showcase Legacy Collection parallel. Flair Showcase was a multi-tiered nightmare of a set, with a bunch of variations that I can't explain very well. I would link to the Cardboard Connection page on it, but apparently the owner of that website ran into some legal issues and much of the site has been taken down. What I do recall is that this was the first serially-numbered basketball parallel, which makes it kind of a big deal. These parallels are sparkly and shiny and this one is numbered # 098 / 150. Each player actually has three different cards in the set, with parallels of each one. In the upper left of the card back, you can see the designation Row 0. There were also Row 1 and Row 2 variations with identical checklists but different photos. Within each Row there were further breaks in the checklist, with different card numbers having variable rarity. All of the Legacy Collection parallels were numbered # / 150, though, so you were equally likely to pull any of them. It's just the base cards that have differing rarities. I tracked down this one for my Gheorghe Muresan player collection. I am pretty happy that I found it. If you want to try tracking down one of your own, you can hope for it to pop up on eBay, or you can buy a box of '96-'97 Flair Showcase for around $800. Legacy Collection cards average one per box, so you could hit a $1000 card like Kobe Bryant or a $12 card like Gheorghe Muresan.

John Soukup Hits Me With One of the Coolest Surprise Packages Ever!

Early last week I showed off a Princess Leia sketch card by John Soukup that I had purchased from the artist himself on eBay. In addition to posting about the card here, I sent him a message to say thanks and let him know that I am a fan of his work. I try to do that when I get convention sketches done or when I acquire sketch cards that I enjoy, so the artist knows I appreciate the work they put into what they do. He responded to my message and thanked me for my support. Then a few days later a box showed up on my doorstep with his return address on it, full of fun stuff. First is the non-card stuff.

In Soviet Russia, arts patronize you!

That plush Yoda over there on the left says a few phrases from the Star Wars films. I tried to hold on to the A-Team Van Hot Wheels car for myself, but my kids whined and cried so much that I finally gave in and gave them all three cars. Maybe when they get tired of them I will steal it back. The book on the bottom is a music magazine featuring his art on the cover and an interview with more art inside.

He does seem to have an interest in sports and sports cards, so he included a variety of things to hit my player collections, as well as a couple of notable cards that I am saving for the end of the post. First up are three Gheorghe Muresan cards for my 2nd-largest basketball player collection. That '95-'96 Fleer Metal set is something else, especially in-hand. I could look at cards from that set all day. Across the bottom are some cards from Seattle-based teams. I really don't know how to feel about Russell Wilson, Marshawn Lynch, and the rest of the Seahawks. I want to like them and cheer for them, but there is something going on with them that makes me uncomfortable. I haven't thought really hard about it though, so I can't be any more specific than that.

For the prospecting side of things he added a Bowman Chrome autograph of Tyler Pike, who is still pretty young and seems to be a popular mention whenever someone writes an article about the Mariners' next group of rising stars. I guess we'll see how he turns out.

And here is where the package really takes off. These are a couple of vintage cards with a bit of notoriety to their names. On the left is Pedro Borbon's 1970 Topps Rookie Card, and on the right is Billy Martin's 1972 Topps card. Since Borbon is more famous for what's on the back of his card, we'll start with Billy Martin. You'll notice that Martin is slyly extending the middle finger on his left hand, flipping the bird to the photographer or maybe someone in the background. Usually there is a joker on the team that is prone to this kind of stuff, but Martin was the team's Manager! Anyway, his gesture ensures that this card pops up on many of the internet's Top 10 lists for vulgar or silly trading cards. 

Pedro Borbon's card is famous because the back features a cartoon explaining that his hobby is cock fighting, which is legal in his country of origin, the Dominican Republic. It's not so legal here in the United States, though, which probably makes talking about it in the open like that kind of taboo. I guess it would be akin to printing a football card for Michael Vick announcing that his hobby is dog fighting. Borbon isn't someone I'd read up on until now, and his story is a pretty colorful tale. It seems that he had quite a penchant for getting into trouble and biting people and things.

There was some other cool stuff in the package, but those were the highlights. I could really tell that he went out of his way to select just the right mix of stuff for my collections and interests, and that personal touch to me is probably even more neat than physically getting all of this awesome swag. Make sure to check out his art page and also go look at these awesome Star Wars figure sets he's made (make sure to scroll down and see the Hoth set!). I know that he goes by the name Kettle sometimes, too, but I am not cool enough to know how street names/art names work. Maybe he uses 'John Soukup' for his commercial stuff and 'Kettle' for his more personal art. Either way, I am super excited by this surprise package and I will be seeking out more of his stuff soon!

Contested Shots 7: Better Winning through Losing Pt. 2

"How can you fail so hard, RAZ?" - Aristotole, Ancient Talker of Trash

My previous post was about a prize I won for being the last person to appear on a randomized list. This post is about I prize I won for finishing in last place in the March Madness bracket tournament hosted by the Cards on Cards blog. I felt pretty good about my bracket heading into the NCAA tournament (doesn't everyone?), but pretty early on my picks started falling hard and entire sections of my bracket were marked out in red ink (I like to keep manual brackets and mark the game results down by hand as the scores come in). I didn't realize that I had lost until I saw the post announcing the end of the contest. Maybe next year I will be able to redeem myself. In the posts surrounding the contest there were veiled threats that the last-place prize might be a stinker, so I wasn't really sure what to expect when I saw the envelope.

The stacks of cards were book-ended by these Ray Lankford cards from the early 90's, and I half-expected the rest of the cards to be nothing but Portland Trail Blazers cards featuring Rick Adelman and Cliff Robinson. But Ray Lankford was actually hiding a whole stack of cards for my team and player collections, as well as the Aristotle mini that heads this post. Here is a partial review of the cards in the package:

There were a number of Felix Hernandez cards in the package, including a folding stand-up card from Topps Lineage, an Opening Day insert, a Chrome Heritage card from 2015 (it looks like Hernandez has been taking hat-wearing lessons from Fernando Rodney, and the Atlanta Braves are likely to want to fight about it), and a Bowman Chrome Refractor. That's a lot of cool cards, and it's not even all the Hernandez cards from the group.

Jose Bautista got a few nice cards in the package, too. That Heritage card is again a shiny Chrome number, the Attax game card is a shiny foil example, and the card featuring him in a Pirates uniform is actually from 2015 Topps that celebrates his first big-league home run in 2006. Ken Griffey, Jr. also made an appearance in the package, and on an insert card to boot!

The horizontal stuff had to be scanned together, so King Felix and Joey Bats make additional appearances in this post along with a cool insert of Bryce Harper losing his helmet in order to show off his hair and a nice Hakeem Olajuwon insert from '94-'95 Fleer Ultra. That card is 20 years old now, which makes me feel a little bit old, since the mid-90's were the heyday of my teenage basketball-collecting life.

The basketball cards in the package focused heavily on my favorite team, the Houston Rockets, while also featuring other players I collect, like Spud Webb there in one of the better basketball card photos out there. Luis Scola had some decent stats for the Rockets, but I can't say I liked him all that much. And for those who are into celebrity gossip, James Harden is supposedly dating Khloe Kardashian. Someone named Amber Rose is super-mad about this because people keep dating her and then bailing to hook up with various Kardashian sisters. I guess Kanye West and Amber Rose were an item before he went off and married Kim Kardashian and James Harden and Amber Rose dated at some point and now he's paired up with Khloe Kardashian. No word on how Farrah Flositt feels about this situation.

Rounding things out are a couple more basketball cards. Otis Thorpe snagged a ring with the Rockets during their first Championship season, and then was involved in the deal that brought Clyde Drexler (back) to Houston for the Rockets' second Championship run. After Hakeem Olajuwon, Gheorghe Muresan is my second-largest basketball player collection. And Spud Webb makes another appearance in this package, with a card from an Upper Deck promotional set distributed by McDonald's. There was plenty more stuff in the package, including more cards, some stickers, some oddball stuff, and even a couple of redemption cards good for coins in the Topps Bunt mobile app.

I have to say that this package was a pretty darn good consolation prize for the dubious honor of making the worst picks out of a few dozen players. I really thought I had done my homework on the bracket this season, and it just blew up on me in every way. This marks the end of my Better Winning through Losing series, although the other day I did wind up in last place on another contest randomization from the Jaybarkerfan's Junk blog. I'm starting to get a bit of a complex about appearing at the bottom of lists.

2014-15 Panini Prizm Red Pulsar Gheorghe Muresan

It's kind of surprising to me that there are still cards being made of Gheorghe Muresan. He was a decent player who had a couple of good seasons, but most of his fame probably comes from his height. At 7' 7" he was one of the tallest players (along with Manute Bol) to play in the NBA. He also starred in a movie and some commercials. Whatever the reason for his lasting appeal (he retired 15 years ago), I am glad that there are still new Muresan cards for me to chase. I don't grab everything that pops up, but I try to snag a few new Muresan cards per year.

This is the 2014-15 Panini Prizm Red Pulsar parallel, numbered # 20 / 25. It was an eBay purchase a couple of months ago. There's quite a bit of red on this card, but it's shiny and pretty cool. Looking at NBA cards made by Panini gives you an idea of how much better the company's baseball products would be with an MLB license. The logos are important.

What eBay Hath Wrought 65: My Giant

At some point during the process of getting my cards ready for sorting and cataloging, I bumped into this set of die-cut Stadium Club cards. Each card has either the team city or team name die-cut into the edge of the card, and once you get both cards for the given team the words fit together to spell out the full team name. I don't know who the other Washington Bullet is who matches up with Gheorghe Muresan, but that doesn't matter much. I wanted this card. I also wanted a Hakeem Olajuwon version of this card, but Topps decided to use Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley to represent the Houston Rockets in this set. Boo!

Also included in this lot were some other Muresan cards. I am not too familiar with Stadium Club and the associated parallels, but a couple of these appear to belong to some sort of parallel set called Members Only. I will have to figure it out eventually when I put my Gheorghe Muresan cards into Zistle. For now it is enough to know that I have four new Muresan cards in my collection.

At the Trade Deadline 16: A Big Box of Bobble From The Prowling Cat

I got a surprise box in the mail the other day. It was a pretty big box, and it came from The Prowling Cat. Here's what was inside:

A Danica Patrick Ignite base card and a blue parallel from the same set. I think this is the 2012 set, but I am not 100% sure on that. I didn't have either of these cards in my collection yet.

There were also several Mariners, Astros, Rockets, and Bullets. As the lone horizontal card, Jeff Weaver got his own scan.

The cards covered a variety of years, brands, and sports. 

Robert Horry and Vernon Maxwell won championships with the Houston Rockets in the 1990s, playing key roles on the team. Nolan Ryan doesn't need any introduction, Mark Portugal has fabulous hair, and Willie Ansley has got quite the posed shot on his card. I wonder what the story is behind that mural?

This bobblehead of Felix Hernandez is the reason the box was so large. This is my first bobblehead of any sports figure, unless you count Andre the Giant as an athlete. It's pretty cool. My two-year-old twins were really intrigued by the bobblehead. I think they were afraid that Felix's head was going to fall off. It was quite the conversation piece all evening.

This package was a great surprise in my mailbox, and I had a lot of fun looking through all the stuff that The Prowling Cat sent my way. Thank you!

What eBay Hath Wrought 37: Gheorghe Muresan Chronology Auto

I got this '07-'08 Upper Deck Chronology autograph of Gheorghe Muresan, which means I have all but one of his non-serial-numbered autograph issues. The one I don't have is the '06-'07 Chronology autograph. I'll have to scan them all someday. I am thinking about going through my player collections and other cards from my younger collecting days so I can show them off and get some blog material. That will take some time, though. One thing I like about this card is the Juwan Howard cameo in the lower left of the photo. A lot of cards isolate the player against a background design, taking away the chance to see them in the context of the game. I think there is room for both kinds of card design, but I do like to see the whole picture more often than not. Background appearances by other players are one of the Easter eggs that make trading cards fun to look at.

The autograph that still eludes me is Muresan's fellow 7'7" NBA player, Manute Bol. He had a few autograph cards issued, but a great many of them are serially-numbered to less than 50, and a large percentage of those are numbered to 10 or less. So there are just a couple cards out there to chase. I guess I could go the easy route and buy the one that's listed on COMC for $40 plus shipping, but that's a pretty high price point for me. I will probably just keep his name in my eBay search list and wait for the right one to show up there.

UPDATED 07 JAN 2014 What eBay Hath Wrought 32: Wait a Manute! (also starring Little Gheorghe?)

I've been wanting a relic card and a certified autograph card from Manute Bol for a while, but the ones from Panini Flawless that were on the market generally fall well outside my price range. Bol died in 2010 of complications from a disease he likely contracted while performing humanitarian work in his native Sudan. I tend to gravitate toward players who stand out somehow from the crowd, and Bol matches that profile by tying with Gheorghe Muresan as the tallest players to play in the NBA. I also enjoy collecting cards of two of the shortest players to play in the NBA, Muggsy Bogues and Spud Webb.

I've pursued a number of his relic cards that have popped up over the last few months, but recently I found this one with a Buy It Now price of under $5. There is another version of this card that is serially-numbered and goes for quite a bit more, but I figured this one would be good enough to get me started. I would really like to get an autographed card to go with it. Bol has a few cards out there, but they don't seem to pop up all that often.

I found this photo of my two favorite players while looking up information for this post. It doesn't have much to do with the Bol card aside from featuring Gheorghe Muresan, who is regarded as being slightly taller than Bol. To put this in perspective, Olajuwon, who looks to be getting his shop blocked by Muresan in this photo, is 7 feet tall. Muresan is a big dude.

07 JAN 2014 Update: I did actually get a Gheorghe Muresan card in the mail the other day. As the co-tallest NBA player ever, he fits perfectly here in this post. It is not a relic card, but it is relatively low-numbered, at # 096 / 100. I don't really know anything about basketball sets past 1998 or so, so I have no clue really how 2009-2010 Playoff Contenders fits into the grand scheme of basketball cards, but this Legendary Contenders insert card is a part of it. Can't say a whole lot for the design, but it is one more notch in the player collection. It might be my first serially-numbered Muresan card, although I do have a couple of autographs which I would categorize as a higher tier of card than something merely numbered, at least until you get way down to the # / 5 and 1 / 1 cards, again depending on the player involved. Any 'legend' in a respective sport should always have an autograph trump a serially-numbered or shiny card.

I'm not necessarily sure that the Bullets made the playoffs while Muresan played for them. If they did it wasn't a very memorable run. It makes him an odd choice for inclusion in a Legendary Contenders set within a product called Playoff Contenders.