The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame

Super Bowl Sunday - Let's Go Pats!

2012-02-05T11:20:00.002-05:00

Well the day is finally upon us, and it features a rematch of this:

Not super exciting for everyone, but as a Pats fan I couldn't be more psyched. It's winnable too! All we need is a nice dose of this:

A heaping helping of dominating hits like this:
And hopefully big plays such as this from #87:

Add 'em all together, and all Pats fans will be feeling like this tomorrow:
So let's go Patriots!

New IceCats Part 2: Ballot Stuffing, Mosquitoes, and BJ's

2012-02-01T06:30:00.002-05:00

As promised a few days ago, here are the other three players I picked up the other day to add to my 97-98 IceCats team progress. Semi interesting stories for 2 of the 3 guys, and the 3rd card is pretty rare so I'm especially happy to have it too!

The first player is a guy some of you may have heard of before, but not for his time with the IceCats. His name is Rory Fitzpatrick, and his Topps Finest card is well protected!

Now Fitzpatrick had a decent career, with 18 seasons of hockey split across the OHL, AHL, IHL, and NHL (287 games there). What Fitzpatrick became well known for, however, was his 2006-07 season with the Vancouver Canucks. The season itself was one of Fitzpatrick's personal bests, including 7 points, a +12 +/- in 58 games. But it became immortalized that year thanks to a 22 year old fan named Steve Schmid who started a "Vote for Rory" campaign for the All Star Game. Seizing the opportunity from the NHL to vote as many times as one wanted, Schmid created videos and t-shirts and got all sorts of people to join him in the fight to get Fitzpatrick written in to the All Star Game. One such video included this "attack" on Nicklas Lidstrom, which is pretty funny:

When preliminary results were announced that year, Fitzpatrick was 2nd in the vote for a defenseman starting spot, and people were stunned. Some folks thought it was awesome - Fitzpatrick was scrappy as heck and this vote rewarded an unsung guy (he had 0 points at the time in 18 games) for putting in the hours on the game he loved. Other folks, including Wayne Gretzky, thought the idea was a crock that tarnished the game and took the spot away from more deserving guys.

When the votes were finally tallied up, Fitzpatrick finished 3rd behind Niklas Lidstrom and Scott Niedermayer, much to the chagrin of many fans. Fitzpatrick was only 23,000 votes behind Lidstrom, which led many to believe that the NHL altered the final vote to ensure Lidstrom would beat Fitzpatrick. Regardless of the reasoning for the third place finish, it meant no All Star Game for Fitzpatrick, as only the top two defensemen are guaranteed appearances with the rest of the roster filled out by the league. So unfortunately Fitzpatrick had to watch the game from home like many players (And to add further insult to injury, #1 vote getter Scott Niedermayer didn't even play in the game).

But alas, Fitzpatrick still got a good story out of it to go along with his solid career. That long career actually included 4 seasons with the IceCats, including 30 points, 111 penalty minutes and a -3 +/- rating over 62 games in 1997-98. Due likely to those solid contributions , Fitzpatrick is another one of the Cats who I still remember today, and I was happy to see that he had some good times after leaving the minor leagues.

The next card belongs to Erich Goldmann, and mentions his turn of the century time with the Essen Mosquitoes of the German Hockey League:

Now first of all, that's an awesome team name - who ever thought of mosquitoes as a macsot? And their logo is even better:
Sadly, the Mosquitoes were only around the German League for 3 seasons before falling into debt. They existed for a while before and after in lesser leagues, but I guess they just didn't have the capital to stay in a big league for a long time. Which is a shame, because that logo is just way too cool!

Goldmann was with the Mosquitoes for their 2nd and 3rd (final) years of existence. More importantly to me though, he was with the Cats in 97-98! And it actually shows up on his card, which is fantastic:

His card actually acts as a decent snapshot of Goldmann's stateside career, which included 3 97-98 games with the ECHL Dayton Bombers, one season with the IceCats, and stops with 2 other AHL teams and 3 IHL teams. It also included one game in the 99-00 season with the Ottawa Senators, representing Goldmann's lone experience at the NHL level. The next season Goldmann was back in the DEL with the Mosquitoes, and Goldmann never made it back to America, retiring in 2007-08 after 8 years in Germany.

His IceCats stats included 2 assists, 40 PIM, and a -9 +/- in 31 games. Nothing superb, but Goldmann was still a solid 3rd line defenseman for those 97-98 Cats.

The final card of this post belongs to Billy-Jay Johnston, who is better known as BJ Johnston in most places. With only 5 cards, I figured it would be nearly impossible to find one of Johnston's cards. But an OHL team issue was available on Beckett, and now it's mine!

The 67's got their name from 1967, which was the first year of their existence. In case you were wondering, because i know I was!

Johnston actually lit it up when he was with the 67's, scoring 55 points in just 47 games. He continued this success the following year with the Baton Rogue Kingfish, with 49 points in 61 games. He then played 3 stat-less games with the IceCats before two more productive seasons with the Kingfish and a decent 15 game stint with the 1999-00 Flint Generals. And then Johnston was out of hockey - bizarre since he was very productive at ECHL and OHL levels, but not unexpected given the way minor league careers go across all sports.

I'll finish this post with the back of Johnston's card, which could explain some of the reasoning behind Johnston's short career. As the card back says, Johnston was an "overager" in the OHl, as his excellent 1996 season came at the age of 21. While this isn't exactly ancient, it was old for that league, which could mean Johnston was sort of a "quad-A" player in baseball terms, excelling at the minors especially on his 3rd and 4th go around, but without the skills to cut it at the AHL/NHL level. Since he was never given any opportunities above 3 games with the 1997-98 IceCats, we'll never truly know what Johnston could have done. But he ended up with 5 sports cards to his name in the end, so hopefully that was pretty exciting for him!

New IceCats Part 1: My Own Custom and Scratch!

2012-01-30T06:30:00.008-05:00

I really want to complete a set this year, since it's been over a year since I last did just that. So after my Dad helped my IceCats team set out at Christmas and left me with only 6 more cards for completion, I decided to finally make headway and buy up everything I could. I went ahead and purchased 4 cards from 2 locations, and you'll one of those purchases below. I also FINALLY created a custom card for Dennis Wright, the only Cat with 0 career cards. So now only Allan Sirois remains in my quest for '97-'98 IceCat completion! Until one of those shows up, I'll enjoy these next two posts for getting me that close!

First I'll show off the custom. Now as many of you know, I'm not a custom maker. I'm actually a pretty sloppy drawer, don't really plan stuff out, and I hate pulling out a ruler to ensure my lines are straight. All that said, I'm pretty happy with the front of the card. Wright has no images online so instead I just made the IceCat logo with Wright's name and position at the bottom:
The writing is crooked, but eh...too be expected since I didn't plan it well. I mostly just cared about the logo and the 7 hills of Worcester, and I think those look pretty decent. I decided not to color it in since I don't really have any IceCat green in my house at the moment.

The back is where the custom really loses steam. I definitely should have used a ruler! It is more legible in person though:
See? Kind of looks like a 5 year old made it. But eh, I'm satisfied...I'll just stay impressed with the job I did on the logo!

Now on to the card produced by an actual card company! This one was purchased all by itself from an Ebay seller, and features the Mascot represented by the IceCat logo. His name is Scratch, and here he's featured with "Pounce," who must've joined the Cats in the early 00's after I stopped going to games.
For nostalgia sake, here's two videos of Scratch in action. In the second video he starts dancing around the 30 second mark.

And even better, here's the IceCat goal horn. Heard the horn A LOT when I went to games. I especially love the roar in the beginning.

As awesome as Scratch was, I also like the IceCats who actually played the game of hockey, so I'll show off the cards from my second purchase in a few days!

GSNHOF Nominee - Bum-Ho Lee

2012-01-28T06:30:00.002-05:00

It's time to finally add the last name to Ballot 7 of the GSNHOF, and so we'll end it with a blast.

Ew, not that kind of blast. Except...well...that kind of relates. As today's nominee is none other than WBC South Korean hero Bum-Ho Lee*:

Lee played 10 years in the KBO league with the Hanwha Eagles, contributing a .268 average, 177 homeruns, and terrific defense at SS and 3B. All that was well and good, but he didn't really made his mark until 2009, when his 9th inning hit with two outs tied the Championship game against Japan and sent the game to extras (Korea would, however, eventually lose). His hit looked a little something like this:

As good as that hit was, that's not even the most memorable part of the event. Because, you see, Joe Morgan got pretty excited about Lee's hit - so excited that he exclaimed "He just ripped it through the hole" upon a second look.

Which means he implied that Bum-Ho Lee ripped it through the hole. You just can't make that stuff up.

* I should add that I always read this guy's name as Bum. Ho. Lee. Which was funny, but didn't put me in stitches. Then one day, far later than I wish to admit, I pieced it all together and now read it as Bum. Hole. Hilarity everytime.

A New Seneca Joins the Ranks!

2012-01-26T06:30:00.002-05:00

Did you guys know you could get refunds of your store credit on COMC? Not in every situation, but if you buy credit (say $10) and only use $6 of that credit, within 30 days you can get the remainder (here $4) refunded to your paypal without COMC taking any fees out. Neat, right?

I did just that in the case of this card. It's /25, which I used to pay up to $20 for when I was making Seneca waves. I've wised up (Janet Weiss) and now know it's better to wait for the cheap stuff to shake out. So when I saw this on COMC for just $5 (it's a $25 BV card), I knew it had to be mine.

I added $10 credit, offered $3 for the card, offer was accepted and the card was mine for just $6 (that COMC bulk shipping of $6...but I figured I would've paid more than $6 for this on Ebay so I didn't care!).

It arrived about a week ago. Nice card, similar to the others in its parallel set, but with an "O's" in the bottom right:
The awesome thing about this card and the X's I already have is that they're both numbered 23/25. Doesn't make the card a 1/1 or anything - just is nice for my collection since the print runs match!

Also, funny I should mention the set, because this card not only completed that set, but also completes a page!
Nice little mix of Playoff's 2003 offerings here, with the Honors cards in the middle. I like the slight differences in patches - the base and the X's are plain blue, the O's is mesh, and the Gems is signed mesh. Variety is the spice of life donchaknow.

A Final Batch of Random - A Truly Random Plastic Baggie

2012-01-24T06:30:00.006-05:00

I think this finally truly finishes my Christmas posts (nearly a month later). It's not a new gift - it's actually a plastic baggie filled with cards and card stuffs from my childhood that my family found around the house. The front card sort of designated it likely my bag, so it went to me. And I think the "pack" is pretty random, so I thought I'd share it here!

First the front card, in bag. It's a Fred McGriff, obviously:
Love that upper cut swing. Let's see what was underneath though - those are the real gems!
Scan one features a nice mix of my collecting childhood. A 1986 Topps, likely won at a baseball card game at Funspot Arcade in New Hampshire. 1986 Topps was, for a long time, as old as baseball cards got to me - remember I didn't really collect until 1994 so man, 1986 was old!

We've also got a few near rookies, which were gold to me as a kid. The top middle is a Limited Jim Thome. The top right in a 1990 Fleer Ken Griffey Jr. in the YELLOWEST CARD PROTECTOR I HAVE EVER SEEN! Best part? The Griffey wasn't sleeved. Typical 11 year old me.

The right middle card is a sport flic card of Errict Rhett, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers RB. I always kind of liked the guy and what kid wouldn't like sport flic?

Finally, the left middle and bottom row all come from Collector's Choice, which was one of the biggest sets I collected as a kid. The left middle is a Bonds card, which is pretty beat up. The bottom middle is a Cal Eldred base card - Eldred was a favorite of mine as a kid so that had to make the bag evidently. The surprise card of the whole bag is the bottom left card though. It's a Ozzie Smith card from the same Bonds subset, but it's marked "World Headquarters Edition." I looked it up on COMC and WOW...that'd be a $30 Book Value card! Not at all what I expected, but a happy find. It's even in pretty good condition despite a slight corner ding - so maybe I was a decent prospector after all as a kid!

None of the rest of the cards are worth anything - but they're still pretty excellent!
The top left excited me most at first - it's a 1995 Topps base card. Checked though...don't need it (aww shucks).

Got a few Topps Opening Day cards here - must've been another pack I opened at some point. Plus some random hockey cards, including some Bruins (CAM NEELY!) and goalie John Vanbiesbrouck. I actually collected hockey goalies along with baseball cards as a kid - I was a huge goalie fan and played a ton of street hockey goalie before moving on to lacrosse in high school. Always a position close to my heart I guess.

The two most random cards above? The racing ones. Both came with die cast cars, as my brothers and I used to collect all those little die cast cards to race around on the floor. Good times!

Keeping with the goalie theme, we have a few hockey stickers from a quarter machine:
These were actually probably my brothers, as I tended to spend my quarters on football and baseball mini helmets. But hey, they were in the bag, so...SCANNED!

The last little lot wins for weirdest of all though:
We've got some advertisements, some Pokemon cards (including a Haunter that was actually printed off the computer - it's not a real card), an Albert Belle sticker card, AND, the coup de grace, a Reese Worthington Backyard Baseball card! If you guys haven't played Backyard Baseball, it is/was awesome, and featured little kids who played baseball alongside cartoon versions of Major League Players. I wasted all sorts of time playing the game and still have a bunch more of the cards that came with the game, so this was an awesome card to find. I may actually, believe it or not, someday create a wantlist for this set. If they even have a card for every person in the game, that is!

And this ends my random baggie of goodness! Now back to more random names!

GSNHOF Nominee - Clint Goocher

2012-01-22T06:30:00.004-05:00

Most people are aware of the word Gooch and its many meanings, so you're all likely aware of the humorous possibilities of Gooch as a last name. However, there are simply too many sports players with the last name Gooch for one player alone to receive that nomination. Add an -er, however, and you'll find two great circumstances surrounding the new word.

First, a Stand By Me reference (A Goocher is BAD luck!):

Second, and most relevant to this blog, a great name - Clint Goocher:

Goocher is funny to say, still carries some of those gross connotations that come with the word Gooch, and references one of the best movies of the 1980's. The full name is also great with the contrast between the ridiculous word Goocher and the very formal Clint. So I'd say it's GSNHOF worthy.

But what of the Goocher himself? Well Clint Goocher was a pitcher in the Diamondbacks system from 2003 to 2008. He made it all the way up to AAA in 2008, but the next year was in Independent Ball and then seems to have left baseball all together. It's hard to find much info on Goocher since then, but it does appear he started a relationship on December 5th of last year, which is something!

So kudos to you Clint Goocher, for your baseball prowess, luck in love, and excellent name. And best of luck to you on Ballot 7 of the GSNHOF!

Huzzah for niceness! And freebies!

2012-01-20T06:30:00.000-05:00

Gentlemen (and Ladies), it always pays to be nice to people. As if you didn't know that already, here's another instance where that idea proved true (and fruitful!).

As some of you know, I'm pretty active on the Beckett Forums, spouting random nonsense on the regular while gazing at everyone's nice collections. Somewhere in my ramblings I got into a thread about how to find cards online, and I ended up suggesting Photobucket for card searches since Photobucket doesn't often show up in google searches but does have a lot of awesome cards.

Well a Blowout user thanked me for the tip, and then messaged me later that night. Turned out he found a sweet printing plate (Trevor Plouffe of the Minnesota Twins - he's a big collector of the guy) via Photobucket! Problem was, the guy who owned it wasn't on Blowout, but rather the Beckett forums. The guy who messaged me was only on Blowout, but he knew I was on both Blowout AND Beckett, so he wanted to know if I could connect the dots. I did what I could, sent a message the Beckett guy's way, and waited.

A few days later I got a message back saying connect us. A week later the plate was in the Blowout guy's hands. A deal gone well in my eyes, but the Blowout user wasn't done. He wanted to thank me for playing middleman in their deal and asked my favorite team. I said Patriots. 3 days later I also had mail - a Stevan Ridley auto!
Ridley has had one heckuva rookie year for the Pats, and he may be our back of the future should he find continued success. So I'm pretty psyched to have an auto of his, even if it is "just" a Sage Hit card and not one of him in an NFL uniform. I think Ridley has a pretty cool sig - very fancy with all the loops. Here's to hoping his career is as big as his signature, and that he sees many Super Bowl victories as a member of the Patriots!

My Second Patriots 8 x 10 Auto!

2012-01-19T06:30:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to some scanning last week, which means I can post more of the goodies that I've picked up recently. Or at least...semi recently. This goodie came from Christmas:
It's an 8 x 10 auto of former Patriot great Lawyer Milloy. When I was growing up he was probably my favorite guy on the Pats during their pre-Super Bowl years, due to his hard hitting and the lethal combination of him and Ty Law (Lawyer and the Law). He was part of the first Championship winning Pats team, but then a year later he was cut due to salary cap issues despite being a team captain. He's taken it in stride since and had a pretty decent continued career with the Bills, Falcons, and most recently Seahawks. Definitely one of my favorite safeties of all time, so I'm glad to have an auto of his!

On a side note, I have a weird story about Milloy from back in my childhood - I sort of "met" him once. I played lacrosse in high school, and one of my camps was at Bryant College, which also happened to be where the Pats had training camp at the time. So one day we were walking back from a camp session and we happened to walk by the entire Patriots team. We're talking Richard Seymour, Ty Law, Tom Brady (heck yeah!) and wouldn't you know it, Lawyer Milloy. So that in and of itself was pretty excellent.

But to make it crazier...we had a guy at camp whose Dad liked to take pictures of cool stuff. Included in his definition of cool stuff? Lawyer Milloy's baller of a car - some kind of Land Rover in a nice silver color with some sweet rims. So the guy goes to take a picture of the car, and Milloy catches him in the act and gives him a "HEY DON'T YOU TAKE ANY PICTURES OF MY CAR!" Weird...and off putting...but also really really funny. Needless to say, the Dad waited until Milloy left to snap a picture of the car. I know I'd hate to be on Milloy's bad side!

In a Protest of SOPA, this blog is going dark until 1/19

2012-01-17T23:27:00.004-05:00

If you don't know what SOPA is, go to Gizmodo.com and get yourself educated. Long story short - if it passes a lot of our blogs might be affected...so hopefully it doesn't!

Edit: And we're back. Cause this news is awesome!

BTW, Worcester's Jim McGovern? Yeah that was my senator in the way back when!

GSNHOF Nominee - Alamazoo Jennings

2012-01-16T06:30:00.000-05:00

Some of you might have felt let down by the last name added to my list, since Doug Fister is fairly well known and not as obscure as some past great name nominees. So today I thought I'd bring you a player with a shorter, much less recent career - Alamazoo Jennings:
The guy is so obscure that the only image out there even a little related to him comes from a 2010 book. I'd love to read it personally, since the Grays that Alazmazoo belonged to were a one year wonder team much in the same vein as the 1969 Seattle Pilots.

The Grays were a little different though, in that their one year was prior to the turn of the century: 1878. The team went 15-45 in their only year in the National League.

Jennings' contributions to the 1878 Grays? One game played, a 13-2 loss to Cincinnati. It might seem odd that Jennings only received one game to show his worth, but his stats show why one game was plenty enough. Offensively, Jennings went 0-2 with a walk in three at bats. Now if Jennings was a DH that wouldn't be too bad, but Jennings played catcher and added 4 errors and 10 passed balls (a then record which stood for 6 years) to his stat line as well. Not exactly Roy Campanella territory.

But what Jennings lacked in playing prowess, he made up for in Alamazoo Ability. And for that we nominate him to the GSNHOF! Best of luck Mr. Jennings!

SWEEET Custom McFarlanes

2012-01-14T06:30:00.002-05:00

Let me take a break from the posting of excellent names to show you guys a sweet blog I found through the Blowout Forums. The blog is called 4Star Customs and the owner makes excellent custom McFarlane figures for people. Sort of like the many awesome people in the blog community who make custom cards...but with action figures. And the guy's talents fall close to my heart, since he often repaints or re sculpts figures to create figures for guys that McFarlane never would touch in a billion years.

Anyway, feel free to check out his blog if you'd like to see his work - I know I might ask to get one done someday when I have a bit more free cash. But for now I'll just post some of my favorites of his work thusfar. Remember, these are all originals either repainted from other players or re sculpted completely in different cool poses. All photos come courtesy his blog:

Pretty cool, huh? I think it'd be neat to have Lonie Paxton doing snow angels from the 2001 Patriots playoff team. Just something that randomly came to mind.

GSNHOF Nominee - Doug Fister

2012-01-12T06:30:00.002-05:00

Remember this blog's namesake? Well it's coming back! Most card posts require either money (to buy them, to ship trades, etc.) or a decent chunk of time to scan the cards, crop the cards, etc. Posts about great names are very quick, and it's about time Ballot 7 came to an end so that people can finally vote on it! So with that all said, here's the newest name up for GSNHOF consideration - Doug Fister:
Fister is mostly known for his excellent second half last year with the Tigers following a trade from the Seattle Mariners. The guy went 8-1 with a 1.79 ERA in 10 games, and added an excellent start in the ALCS vs. the Rangers along with two decent appearances in the ALDS. Based on that success, Fister is going into 2012 as the Tigers #2 starter behind Justin Verlander.

A few fun facts about Doug Fister (per Wikipedia):
- His favorite player as a child was Cal Ripken Jr.
- One of the guys traded to Seattle when he went to Detroit was Charlie Furbush. Surely Seattle included Furbush to keep their great name ratio appropriate. Or maybe Detroit threw him in to avoid having a Fister next to a Furbush in the clubhouse.
- Fister was drafted by the Yankees originally, but stayed as Fresno State another year before being drafted by the Mariners. Any guy who declines playing for the Yankees is alright with me!
- His stuff isn't regarded as that special, but Fister is successful because he forces them in the zone to put himself in the dominant position. He also throws a lot of strikes ;-)

Welcome to Ballot 7 Mr. Fister, and best of luck in the voting!

The Best of Christmas: Shots of an Epic Man/Bro Cave and My Own Piece of Boston Legend!

2012-01-10T06:30:00.009-05:00

As I wrap up my Christmas gifts, I should probably mention the coolest find of my time home last Christmas. See, my brothers and Dad are all big sports fans too, specifically New England ones, and they've established quite the Bro Cave in our tv room. It's not quite a man cave - my brothers are 21 and 18, and the key piece comes courtesy of my Mom - but it's epic nonetheless. So leading up to my final card acquisitions, I thought I'd show off a few nice pieces.

First a few autographs of Celtics...players...of days gone by. I'd say greats but they're not greats lol.
The top one is an auto of Glen "Big Baby" Davis. I picked this up for my little brother Christmas 2010. The bottom auto was actually a gift for me several Christmases ago, and features an auto of little known Celt but personal fave J.R. Bremer. More importantly, it also features a lurking Tyronn Lue - clearly this photo and sig were meant for me!

Not signed, but very awesome, is a small IceCats portion of the wall. It includes a poster of their mascot, Scratch, a pennant, and a Scratch paw:
Freaking amazing...and brings back lots of memories of being a 11 year old! I still like those crazy weird colors.

Moving into the really awesome pieces - how about some major league soccer? My family are huge soccer fans and my Dad has season tickets to the New England Revolution, which earned him this nice piece. It's a banner signed by all the members of the New England Revolution's 2008 Superliga winning team, in a nice silver sharpie:
The Superliga is an 8 team bracket featuring the 4 best MLS teams and 4 best Primera division teams at the end of the year. It was a pretty big deal that the Revs won it, and it was similarly awesome that my Dad won this banner! There was a raffle for season ticket holders and he ended up being the lucky guy to win the signed banner! A pretty sweet piece which includes Shalrie Joseph, one of my all time favorite Revs. Definitely one of the best pieces in the room.

The best piece of all though comes from a mid 70's Channel 2 auction. Because that's where my Grandfather bought this stick for $100:
Why is it so awesome? Well first of all it's game used by Carol Vadnais, a pretty decent defender for the mid 70's Bruins. Better yet though, it's signed by most of the 1973-74 Bruins, including an all time great:
Can't see the auto there? Well then this is where my Christmas goodies come in. I got two cards of the player with the best auto on that stick:
That's right, BOBBY ORR! Cool, huh? I was just happy to get an awesome playing days card of the guy, whose card back mentions his status as the NHL's best. But seeing the stick for the first time, which I had heard about since I was a kid, was definitely one of the best parts of my holiday.

I got another Orr card from my Uncle, featuring one of the few guys not on the stick: Phil Esposito:
It's all good he isn't on the stick though, because the above card is epicly awesome. Check out those random portrait shots, especially since they used multiple shots for the same card. Super cool and makes for an excellent card. Sure to be a piece in my cave someday, be it bro or man!

Metal Universe Progress...One Card is Progress Right?

2012-01-08T06:30:00.002-05:00

Christmas post 3 of 4 features the one card I added to my 1997 Metal Universe football set during the holidays. It's simple, but also simply awesome. I call it Jason Dunn...on a dark and stormy night:
Ooo, check out that random raven in the bottom right. Or the creepy branches in front of the full moon. No wonder Dunn is running a slant pattern straight out of that forest!

Christmas Part 2: Football on Baseball

2012-01-06T06:30:00.001-05:00

Man, what a busy new year thusfar. And it's only gonna get crazier - I start student teaching in 11 days! Probably won't post too much during those ten weeks either, as I expect to be pretty busy. So here's another post while I'm still posting!

This one features a guy playing a sport that he's not commonly associated. But the Philadelphia Phillies drafted Ricky Williams in 1995 an an outfielder, and he played in their organization from 1995-98 while attending college as well. He was no great shakes - his highest level was a ball, and his overall average line was .211/.265/.261. But the guy did enough to get featured on a bunch of cards, and naturally that drove me to pick up a card or two of his!

For Christmas I got three!
All three are great, but my absolute favorite has to be the one in the middle:
Hilarious photo - straight cheesin' with a side of awkward. Someday I may start a collection of guys playing the wrong sport, but for now I'll just look at cards like this one and chuckle!

2011's Resolutions Reviewed, and 2012's Resolutons Established

2012-01-01T06:30:00.002-05:00

In 2011, I made 5 goals for myself - 4 at New Year's and one later on. And wow did they end up all over the map:
1. Collect 100 Senecas - SUCCESS
- I was cautious with my estimate here, but I ended up blowing it out of the water, getting 105 more than I figured. That's a pretty good year if I do say so myself!

2. Boost my Duce Staley Supercollection to 10% completion - FAILURE
- I got rid of all supercollections except for Seneca, so obviously this failed. The focus helped though, so this was a good failure.

3. Complete a set - FAILURE
- Slow progress on a few, but nothing finished.

4. Trade more trade bait! - SUCCESS!
- The trade bait draft (and TBD2) were a huge success. I also sold stuff on COMC and on Blowout. Heckuva year for bait. But still much more to go - I have too many cards and not enough room!

5. Find my blogger balance - Sort of a Sucess
- I started posting every other day, and that seemed to help. Lately I've sort of faded though...a lot of that has to do with finishing up a job, preparing for student teaching, and adjusting to a new laptop. So hopefully I'll bounce back and all will be good!

So 2.5/5 - 50% ain't too bad but ain't too good. So now it's time to make new goals - hopefully I'll go 100% this time! Only four this year:

1. Get to 220 distinct Senecas. Only 15, but with pickings getting more slim this could be tricky. Always good to aim low because you never know!

2. Pick up another Seneca Wallace 1/1. I've sort of stalled at three, with only 3 other known in existence that'll be hard to pry. Hopefully I can grab one in 2012, plate or otherwise!

3. Complete a set. Worth a second try, and I'll include subsets like the 1995 Topps League Leaders.

4. Trade/sell more cards! I have a lot of base that still need to go somewhere - I'm hoping I'll move a lot of them for stuff I need. Never hurts to get stuff moving!

And those are my four goals! Hopefully I achieve them all!

Last Post of the Year, Featuring TONS of IceCats!

2011-12-31T06:30:00.006-05:00

I'll probably do a yearly recap at the beginning of next year, but for now I figured I'd start the posting of my Christmas goodies. Gotta start sometime...might as well be during 2011!

This first card is a riot. The player is Matt Smith, a seemingly simple enough name:
But throw him into a Finnish League and on a Finnish card and everything turns awesome:I had no idea what any of the words on the back meant, so I looked them up in google translator. And I found the following:
keho - power
ansiot - earnings
kovuus - hardness (heh heh)
luottamus - confidence
NHL - I'm assuming this one means NHL experience?

The card then gives a rating for each thing and adds it all up for ranking points - 177207 in Smith's case. Totally weird. First, I wonder if earnings is his actual earnings. Second...I wonder what the highest score is for this set. Is there some guy with over 1,000,000 ranking points? Thirdly, what are the characteristics even ranked out of? Is there a maximum for each stat? I have no idea. But regardless...it's an awesome card. Love it.

As for Smith's contributions to the 97-98 IceCats, he had 1 goal, 4 PIM, and a -3 +/- in 4 games after graduating from UMass Amherst. One of the smaller contributions, but hey, he was an IceCat!

Not all the cards were super crazy weird. Here's a typical Upper Deck release of Libor Zabransky:
Zabransky had a much larger effect on the 97-98 IceCats. In 54 games he had 2 goals and 17 assists, with a -1 +/- rating. He also spent 6 games with the NHL Blues in 97-98, garnering one assist.

This next card is from the same set as my Samy Nassreddine card, and features Tyler Willis:
Willis played 24 games with the Cats in 97-98, with 2 goals and 1 assist. More impressive is the fact he had 140 penalty minutes that year. That's an average of 6 per game, which is kind of ridiculous. Willis's career stats across many minor leagues show a similar pattern - the guy simply got a ton of penalties. Definition of enforcer I guess.

Shayne Toporowki is a guy who I had been waiting on a card for since his only relics and autos come in newer Finnish sets. But it was nice to get a card of his from the 90's, back when he was doing it up stateside:
This card features Toporowski in a Maple Leafs uniform, who he played 3 games with in 96-97. Those were his only three NHL games ever. He was 4th on the 97-98 IceCats in games played though with 73, during which he contributed 9 goals and 21 assists.

Bryce Salvador is one of the most successful post-IceCats, as he is currently a defenseman for the New Jersey Devils many years after his IceCat days. I like this card because it's serial #'d ON THE FRONT, which is always awesome to me:
97-98 was Salvador's first season in the AHL at the age of 21. He contributed 10 points over 46 games and was involved in all 11 playoff games as well. He also was a team leaders +13 in +/-, showing his defensive prowess at an early age.

Mike Prokopec is a guy I remember quite well from his Cats days. Though I should say day, since he was only there for the 97-98 season before moving on.
His 97-98 was solid though, with 21 goals and 25 assists in 62 games. That tied him for 5th in points. He was also third in +/- at +6.

Robert Petrovicky is another guy I remember well, probably because he was one of the IceCats best players in 97-98:
Petrovicky played 208 NHL games and is still playing overseas, but he was definitely at his best in the minors. 97-98 saw Petrovicky accumulate 61 points in 65 games, good for second on the team despite missing 15 games while playing with the NHL Blues. Petrovicky also added 7 points in 10 playoff games.

Nick Naumenko played 71 games with the 97-98 IceCats:
I love this card of his because he was a Cleveland Lumberjack! All throughout my undergrad years my fellow students told me about how cool the Lumberjacks were. They were sort of Cleveland's version of the IceCats, so it's cool Naumenko played for both teams.
Naumenko had 46 points with that 97-98 team, tying him with Prokopec for 5th in points.

One of the best seasons of all these guys came from Bob LaChance:
Another foreign card, and one that might have gotten LaChance's stats wrong:
I don't know what SP means, and I guess Str. probably means strength. But I would then also guess that T means goals and A assists. Only thin is, LaChance has 33 assists, not 43, in 97/98. So...maybe it means something different?

Regardless, LaChance's 48 points in 97-98 were good for 4th on the team. In the playoffs he upped his productivity though, scoring 16 points (including 6 goals) in 11 games to lead the team. Pretty damn good.

We're nearing the end, and this next card is crazy huge. I don't know why it uploaded big, but I think it shows off the black eye well, so I'm keeping it that way!
I've been chasing Justin Hocking's autographed card for a while now, trying to get it for dirt cheap (like $2 delivered Ebay). I've been outbid twice, so I may have to buy it in the $3 range, which is okay I guess but I'm a cheapskate sometimes haha. Anywho, Hocking led the 97-98 IceCats in games with appearances in 79 of 80 games. No wonder I remember the guy! He only scored 17 points in those 79 games, as he was more of a defensive contributor than an offensive guy.

It is neat to have Hocking's Kings card by the way, since the Kings were the only team Hocking ever played with in the NHL. He played one total game with no stats - but hey, that's one more NHL game than I ever played!

Last but not least, Derek Diener, featured on a Peoria Rivermen card:
The Rivermen were actually the IceCats minor league team (who knew AHL teams had minor league teams?), so Diener being on the team makes a lot of sense. In fact, when the IceCats left the league in 2005-06, the Rivermen took their place in the AHL, and the IceCats count as part of their history (sort of like the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns).

As for Diener's 97-98 stats, he had 32 games where he scored 7 points. The next season he spent some games with Peoria before a final 39 games with the Cats in 98-99. Then he was out of hockey forever. But hey, at least he got some cool cards!

And that does it for my new IceCats contributions from Christmas! Have a good New Year's Eve everyone, and I'll see you in 2012!

Hiatus Over! Starting with Some New Senecas!

2011-12-29T06:30:00.000-05:00

I've been back in Indiana for a few days, but with work and the need for a new image cropping program, I hadn't gotten to posting anything yet. But yesterday I had the day off, which gave me time to work out all the kinks and scan all sorts of goodies. So prepare for a ton of posts with new cards of mine, starting with this one!

This one actually comes as a pre-Christmas lot, one I ordered off of Ebay. It should've been at my house at the beginning of December, but the guy had a complicated shipping process (he only ships Saturdays) which was further confounded by him forgetting to ship it two weeks in a row, followed by a package getting sent back to him. Craziness.

I wasn't all too upset though once the cards got to my mailbox. Because this was one helluva package. See, it was a lot of three cards for $10 shipped. The one card I needed is pretty rare and I've seen it cheapest at $30...so already that's a good deal. But add in that the other two cards were upgrades to cards I had and that's even better. Good stuff!

Here's the one I needed. An SP Finite Gold Auto 14/25:
This finishes my Finite set, which consists of two base cards, three jerseys, and two autos. Nice to be completely done with another set!

As for those upgrades, one isn't scanned yet (it's the /1100 SPX base and is slightly better than my version). The other is though, and is WAY better. The SP Auto/Patch /250 I originally owned was a simple blue patch - pretty boring stuff. The new version I have courtesy of this Ebay purchase is a lot more patchtastic:
Two pieces of letters, with the blue jersey backing = nice. The auto is also cleaner on this one than my other one, with no breaks versus two on the one I picked up before. I was hoping to upgrade to a nicer version of this someday, but with limited income it wasn't a big priority. But I didn't expect this as a throw-in with a /25 card I needed! How's that for some good luck?

Christmas Hiatus

2011-12-23T02:04:00.001-05:00

Off til the 26th. See ya later!

In Honor of Seneca's Start Today, I Bright You...Another Slash Type's Jersey Card!

2011-12-18T06:30:00.002-05:00

As many of you know, my attention to athletic college QB's does not only go out to Seneca. It also goes out to guys like Josh Cribbs, Tory Woodbury, Eric Crouch, Kordell Stewart, and any other number of the guys who played QB in college and then discussed switching positions in the Pros. Seneca, like Stewart, stuck with QB. But another one of the guys who switched positions is Woodrow "Woody" Dantzler, a personal favorite of mine thanks to one sweet kick return with the Cowboys way back when.

Turns out he only has four jersey cards. One is almost impossible to find (and has Woody as a Falcon! One of his few non-Cowboys cards). Another is decidedly lame. Still a third is a decent SPX entry. And the last one comes courtesy of Upper Deck. I may someday collect all four, but for now I at least have one, that Upper Deck one, #'d 0047/1500:
Even in hand, those swatches on the right look red to me, not Clemson icky orange. But I think they're cool regardless!

Sneaky New Seneca to Celebrate a Potential Start

2011-12-16T06:30:00.003-05:00

Have ya heard the news? Thanks to James Harrison and an awful Browns medical staff (okay, not that awful, but SOMEONE should have noticed Colt had a concussion), Colt McCoy is likely out for Sunday's game against the Cardinals. That would put...you guessed it...Seneca Wallace in at starting QB. And here's my newest pick up to honor the occasion:
Like the Rookies and Stars /550 card, this card is a parallel where only the first 50/ are autographed. Unlike the Rookies and Stars /550, this card is /700 AND the auto is not a sticker. Instead it hides inside on a giant swatch, just waiting to slide out!
And TADA! That's as far as it slides out, which is out since it then obscures the S and the W, but hey, it still looks super awesome. Especially since the swatch is practically the size of the card. How's that for jumbo, right? And to top it off, silver sharpie is always a nice touch. Touche 2003 Playoff Honors!

Autographs...Big Willie Style!

2011-12-15T23:27:00.002-05:00

When making my Christmas list a while back, I added a few Patriots Autos that I wanted. One I considered adding but took back was Willie McGinest. See, all the BIN's and COMC listings wanted $10-12 for a half decent auto of his. But an Ebay auction could be won for $2.50. So I went that route instead and picked up my own, #'d 664/1160:
Gotta love the old Pro Line autos where the back just says "You have an official auto" and the front is all hand written. Nice auto too, I think it really pops right off the green grass. I'm stoked to finally have a Willie McGinest auto, as he is one of two players (Ben Watson being the other) who followed me from New England to Cleveland when I took on temporary Browns fandom. In fact, he was on the Pats when I really started loving football (mid 90's), including making an appearance in that 96 Packers-Pats Super Bowl, the first major almost championship of my Massachusetts youth. So Willie will always hold a special place in my sports enthusiast heart - nice to finally have a card to commemorate that!

A Post Inspired by the Sewing Machine Guy

2011-12-14T23:36:00.003-05:00

A while back the SMG inspired me to purchase some Seneca Wallace cards. Today he inspires a post. What a guy!

I sent him and Dennis of Too Many Grandersons a sick triple laundry tag card of three Detroit Tigers stars. Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammell, and Jack Morris. It's straight up nuts, here's a link:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290644619545?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Now obviously the price tag is high, but all I noticed was that and the card. SMG added the seller name...beckettmedia.

Past rumors have surfaced about certain high profile places getting loaded boxes, including boxes. One of those rumored places...beckett. Not saying this card was in a loaded box...but if the laundry tag shows a size that fits...

SENECA WALLACE IS IN THE GAME AND I AM WATCHING IT ON TELEVISION

2011-12-08T23:06:00.000-05:00

*DIES*

Carry on