At the Trade Deadline 50: Secret Santa Delivery from Plaschke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle

In a bit of a twist, Greg Zakwin of the blog Plaschke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle and I were assigned as each other's Secret Santas in the Bob Walk the Plank gift exchange organized by Matthew Scott. I received a big stack of cardboard in the mail from Greg, touching on many of my collecting interests.

As with most very large trade packages, I just scanned many of the highlights from the bunch. It's Christmas Eve as I write this, and there are family events to participate in. There are some big names here, but I think my favorite card of this bunch is actually the 1975 SSPC card of Roger Craig. He is pictured on the front as a coach for the Astros, but on the back he is listed in his new position as a coach with the Padres. As a player, he was on three World Series-winning teams and also lost the first game in Mets history. I've been meaning to pick up some more of those SSPC cards, but as with many of my hobby aspirations, I haven't really got around to it yet.

Other sports were well-represented in the package, as well as non-sports, like NASCAR (lol!). Von Miller is the cornerstone of the Denver Broncos right now, a team that is clinging to playoff hopes at the moment. I think that to get in, they have to win tough games against Kansas City and Oakland and hope that Miami loses to New England next week and that Pittsburgh beats Baltimore this week. Basically, the defending Super Bowl champions need to take care of business, and they need some help elsewhere to get into the postseason tournament.

It's always nice when I get some Yao Ming cardboard in my hands. He was a great player, but his career happened when I was out of collecting, so I have very little of his cardboard. There were plenty of Rockets from several eras in the package. How charmed was Robert Horry's career? He has seven NBA Championships with three teams, more rings than greats like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Shaquille O'Neal.

Here's some horizontal cards, with some Broncos wearing college uniforms and a Max Scherzer/Bartolo Colon sighting. I still haven't been able to decide on a favorite card of 2016 for P-Town Tom's contest yet, but I think Colon's Topps NOW Home Run card is in the running.

These are cards for TV shows that are very popular, but that I have never watched. I pretty much checked out of watching television a decade or so ago. I will watch a movie from time to time, and I watch sports occasionally, but I can't remember the last TV series I watched for more than an episode or two. Ron Swanson, however, has been the subject of enough memes that I have a pretty good handle on the character. I think he is the official mascot of Greg's blog. Archer is something I'm only vaguely aware of, mostly due to reading about Greg's pursuit of the set and its sketch cards.

This is a terrible picture, but this is a 1967 Coke cap of Harmon Killebrew. It looks better in person. Killebrew was from a town not far from the town I spent my teen years in, and is probably one of the few positive things that have ever come out of that place.

This Rashad Evans card hails from 2010 Topps UFC, and is the Onyx parallel numbered # 067 / 188. Evans had a pretty good run to start his UFC career, but appears to be on the downside of things now, losing 4 of his last 6 fights.

Jay Cutler spent a couple of seasons as the Broncos' starter at quarterback. He had plenty of talent, but attitude questions and injuries (and interceptions) have made him a polarizing figure in Denver and then in Chicago. His trade to the Bears led to the Kyle Orton era in Denver, which eventually led to Tebowmania, which was a bright spot after many years of less-than-exciting football. I am pretty sure that this is my first Jay Cutler relic. It comes from 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces.

This card could cause a lot of contention in my household. For some reason my eldest son decided that he hates the Broncos and loves the Bengals. Seeing both teams together on one card could totally blow his mind. Terrell Davis helped the Broncos win a couple of Super Bowls and racked up plenty of awards in an injury-shortened career. His inclusion in this TD Threats relic set is somewhat questionable, as the main stat highlighted is the number of touchdowns each player scored in 2001. Corey Dillon scored 13 TD's, while T.D. scored 0 TD's in an injury-plagued year. But this is a cool card in spite of that, as it is pretty rare for me to make an addition to my Denver Broncos collection.

This is probably my favorite card of the package, as I don't think I had a Clyde Drexler relic in my collection yet, and he played a role in helping the Rockets win their 1995 Championship, reuniting with his college teammate Hakeem Olajuwon. The relic is contained in that basketball die-cut window, and this is just a good-looking Championship Material relic card from 2009-10 Topps Basketball.

This was a fun package to open, and I was very happy to add some cards to player collections that I often neglect, especially the relic cards for players I didn't have relics for. I'm glad that I decided to participate in the Secret Santa project. It was fun to shop for my person, and it was fun to receive a surprise package in the mail. Thank you to Greg Zakwin for the cards and Matthew Scott for organizing the exchange!

Breaking it Down 20: Cards from Cards on Cards

Cards on Cards recently held a box break featuring one box of 2014 Topps Mini Baseball. Unfortunately, the break faced some difficulties as he was the victim of some holiday mail theft and lost the original box for the break as well as some of the trade packages used as payment for the break. My outbound package was one of the ones that disappeared before arriving at his home. It contained a full Cardinals team set of Gold parallels from 2014 Archives, which I had acquired in my quest to complete the full Gold set. He was able to acquire another box for the break, and I finally got around to building a return package for him, which should be arriving at his new secret address in the next couple of days.

My team for the break was the Toronto Blue Jays, and I came away with one of the rarer hits in the set, a Black parallel of Moises Sierra. These cards are limited to 5 copies each, with this one being numbered # 5 / 5. Sierra spent a couple of years with the Blue Jays, but was selected off waivers by the White Sox in May 2014 and then selected off waivers from them by the Royals after the season was over. That's all I know about him. I also got a stack of base Blue Jays, which look like their counterparts in the eponymous Topps base set, only smaller.

Also included in the package were a number of cards featuring my favorite NBA team, the Houston Rockets. I believe this was part of his Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club, which is something we'd corresponded about but a trade had never actually occurred. I sent a few Clyde Drexler cards his way in my recent package, and I have more to send once I compare the rest of my collection to his Zistle list. I believe these two Hakeem Olajuwon cards were new additions to my Dream PC.

Yao Ming was set up to be a superstar for the Rockets, but nagging injuries prevented him from ever really getting things going. I don't have many cards from this era, as I got out of card collecting right around the time Hakeem went to the Raptors and then retired. It's a shame that the Ming/McGrady-era Rockets never lived up to their potential. 

That Craig Ehlo card makes me laugh. Shane Battier was Daryl Morey's poster child for whatever the basketball name for sabermetrics is. Then Battier went off to the Heat and got himself a couple of Championship rings. I included the other cards in these scans because I liked the designs or the pictures on them.

Here are a few Tracy McGrady cards I selected to scan from the stacks. McGrady is working on a new business idea, recently spent some time playing independent league baseball (he retired after the league's all-star game), and still thinks he has what it takes to make an NBA comeback.

Alongside a few more Ming highlights I've got some Rockets from the more recent iterations of the team. Chandler Parsons was briefly my favorite Rocket, but he followed the money and went to play for Dallas. That in itself isn't all that bad, but he keeps Tweeting and making references to how well he gets along with Mark Cuban, the Mavericks' owner. Maybe Mark Cuban runs his ship that way, but I don't like the idea of the players getting all comfy with the team owner. James Harden and his beard are pretty famous, but he and Dwight Howard came off as pretty arrogant during the team's offseason last year. I wonder if that attitude pushed away potential additions that could have helped the team. The current version of the team is pretty darn good, but they get beaten consistently by other good teams and I don't see them going far in the playoffs unless they get hot at the right moment.

It took me a while to get this post scanned and written up, but I really appreciated this package, especially with all the stress and confusion that Cards on Cards went through to get this group break done.