Happy 2014, or, out with the old and in with the Blue!

I took care of recapping 2013 and my main 2014 expectations over on the other blog, but decided I had some good stuff to cover here as well.

But first, a celebration is in order as today is this here blog's second birthday!

Two years ago today I posted some crap, and here we are, 319 posts later.  I don't think I make too much of a secret that this is my favorite of the two blogs as my Michigan fandom trumps all else, even though it means a smaller audience than TMV.  Doesn't matter to me, though, I still have tons of fun posting here!

Ok, onwards to...looking backwards.

2013:

Last year was a mixed bag for Michigan.  The football team stumbled to a 7-6 finish and has a lot of work to do on playcalling and much, much more.  The hockey team missed the NCAAs for the first time in pretty much forever.  Still, UM basketball Cinderella-ed itself to a fairly close loss in the final, giving Wolverines fans plenty to cheer about!

Things were much rosier when it came to my collection.  As I said on TMV today, I've still got a ton of stuff I need to scan and post in terms of 2013 purchases, but I still met every one of my Michigan PC goals easily:

• Baseball:  200 (actual as of 1/1:  243)
• Football:  750 (759)
• Unique football PC subjects:  100 (124)
• Hockey:  75 (112)
• Overall:  1100 (1139)

I also put a ton of work into existing and brand new player collections, mostly from baseball.  I'm currently collecting 28 former Wolverines, and of those, I'm working on pursuing 20 to completion--at least, my definition of completion.  I'm also excited to announce right now that at least three more players will join that count before long.  You can hit the Player Collections link to see who's there right now, and if you haven't already, take a gander at the "Many More Michigan Men" posts I've written up for most of the new guys; from those players, Barry Larkin (who's actually an existing collection, but whatever) remains, and I'll get to him very soon.

Thanks to focusing an increased amount of attention on those collections this year (and a bit less on hits from the other sports), I managed to complete Matt Miller's non-1/1s, and as I teased on TMV, I actually managed to score the remaining cards for a couple other guys, which I'll be posting soon.

Meanwhile, the following PCs are now at 50% or above:  Jason Christian, Jake Fox, Chris Getz, Rich Hill, Bobby Korecky, Ryan LaMarre, Rick Leach, David Parrish, Zach Putnam, J.J. Putz, Clayton Richard, Bobby Scales, and Geoff Zahn.

Some of my favorite 2013 additions from all PCs included:

The cards that allowed me to complete these three nameplates

This '08 Triple Threads White Whale auto, my second of Hill

This beautiful Jim Abbott manupatch auto

This Barry Larkin 8x10 courtesy of Play at the Plate

These Absolute Memorabilia Signing Bonus plaques of Anthony Thomas and David Terrell (which I still need to hang!)

This sick triple UM CB relic from Enough Already!

And my first of (hopefully) many Denard Michigan uni autos

Meanwhile, on the trade front, I received new stuff from 25 different trade packages.  A crazy TEN of those came from one person:  crazy Canadian card connoisseur Doug from Sports Cards From the Dollar Store!  Thank you once again to everyone who contributed to my collection last year, and I look forward to dealing with many of you (and more!) in 2014.

2014:

So what's in store for this year?  Milestones and projects, baby.  Among the things I can look forward to in 2014, I'll likely see the following:

• My 250th Michigan Baseball hit, and very likely #300
• My 100th Rich Hill hit, which, just to reiterate, would be ONE HUNDRED HITS OF RICH HILL
• My 800th football hit and beyond
• Football milestones reached, such as
• 70:  Jake Long
• 50:  Mike Hart
• 40:  Adrian Arrington, Jason Avant, Mario Manningham
• 30:  Leon Hall
• 20:  Brandon Graham and David Harris
• 150 hockey hits and beyond (hell, probably 200, unless Doug runs out of money to ship cards)
• 1200 all-sport hits and counting
• Several player collections completed

And here's what I'll be working on all year:

• Those player collections.  As always, my #1 priority is Rich Hill, but as those are getting tougher to find, I'll spread the love to the rest of the group

• Nameplates.  I've got a few others in the works and can't wait to show them off when they're done.

• Michigan TK Legacy M Go Blue autos.  It's a large set but I'm up for the task of adding so many new names to my collection.  In fact, I scored a bunch in late December that I'm looking forward to posting as soon as I can get to them.

And of course I'll be doing the usual random collecting and trading like the rest of the known world.  Please join me in making 2014 a happy BLUE year!