Sometimes "PC" stands for "Pretty Cool" instead

While doing some research for a post I was gonna write up today about how Michigan's baseball alumni in MLB did over the course of the season, I started entering the minor leaguers' names into COMC to see if anything came up.  Most of the names were fairly familiar to me, but I wasn't surprised when very few of them turned up anything--I'm lucky to have the likes of Matt Miller, Ryan LaMarre, Zach Putnam and Bobby Scales, really.

However, I took a shot at a recent, but unfamiliar, name, and was pleasantly surprised by the two pages of results I got back.  I headed over to Beckett to see what his print run looked like and discovered that it wasn't bad at all.  And thus, today was born my hitherto unknown Jason Christian PC!

Album (Picasa Web Albums)

Spreadsheet (Google Docs)

There's a few cool things at work here.  First of all, I already have a pair of his cards thanks to my pursuit of 2010 Bowman/Prospects and Chrome Prospects--I have his base regular (above) and Chrome cards:

Second, this might get me back into actually paying attention to the backs of cards since this one actually does briefly highlight his Michigan career:

(I think Topps missed a great opportunity to say "Followed Barry Larkin's career closely while growing up in Cincinnati, then followed his career path to Michigan.")

Next, it gives me another Michigan player to learn about:  Christian was a SS for the Wolverines, then was drafted by Oakland in the 5th round back in 2008 (one of four Michigan players selected that year).  He's now a 3B in the Braves' system after coming over in a trade from the Reds in 2012.

Finally, he created a streak of which I was previously unaware:  thanks to his appearance in 2009 Donruss Elite Extra Edition.  Michigan was represented in EEE for three straight years--2008-2010.  '08 included TMM favorite Zach Putnam, and 2010 featured fellow PCees Ryan LaMarre and Matt Miller.  And of course EEE cards are the best and feature players in college (or high school) unis, which means here you'll see  great shots of Christian playing for Michigan.  I gotta have 'em all!

Beckett tells me he's got a total of 30 cards, including 11 1/1s, which means I really have 19 I'm going to seriously pursue.  Thanks to a little digging, I already have two of those, and lots more are available on COMC (if not elsewhere) for the next time I decide to go hog wild there (unless you guys would like to buy them for me?).  Really, just a couple parallels #d /5 will make this pursuit any kind of challenge, but it'll be fun working on it all the same.

So welcome to the PC, Jason Christian, and thanks for helping me realize that collection (and card backs) can be Pretty Cool!