2015 trade package #28: (blue) Brie Bros 4 Life!

As I said on TMV tonight, it's been far too long since I traded with Greg Z. of Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle.  Fortunately for both of us we didn't let another year tick away without swapping cards.  And I just happen to be showing off cards from my partner in admiration of actress Alison Brie on the beauty's birthday!  That's enough excuse to post pictures of her associated with the color blue:

Ok, so onto the cards relevant to the blog you're reading right now:

We'll start with seven cards of PC pitcher Jim Abbott.  The last six all capture him during some part of his pitching motion while the first, his '89 Topps RC, didn't get the memo, but it's cool since it's a Michigan uni card.  Retired 2B Chris Getz joins in the fun with an excellent pair of double play shots that probably could have been even better if done horizontally.

With Hall of Fame voting to be announced very soon (hopefully with Ken Griffey Jr. earning 100% of the vote), here's a shoutout to a guy that's already been enshrined, SS Barry Larkin, highlighted by his '87 Fleer RC.

One basketball and football player made it into the package--Juwan Howard and former #1 overall pick Jake Long (hey, I have three autographed versions of that Long!).

Now here's where the contents really took off.  Mr. Z was able to hit two of my favorite older player collections with some really, really interesting stuff.

First up:  Bill Freehan:

The set from whence this card came may be recognizable to some of you, especially those who at least dabble in vintage and/or oddball.  Before Sportflix (and Sportflics) there was 1970 Kellogg's, a very cool looking hologram-type set.

Next, from the same year, is Bill's 1970 Topps Booklet.  I'm not going to get to it today, but I'll likely scan each page to show off in a future post.

And my biggest addition, literally, is Freehan's 1964 Topps Giants card.  Oversize is the name of the game here, and this is just an amazing piece.  I also made sure to scan the back, which is done in a newspaper story style instead of your standard card back:

These three make excellent additions to one of my oldest PCs and are much, much appreciated.

Staying with vintage but changing sports we move on to Red Berenson:

Either Greg guessed or he consulted my checklist, but either way I definitely needed Red's 1968-69 Topps base card, which is now the oldest of the old man's cards in my collection.  What a great photo of Berenson as a much younger man paired up with a cool background.

As with Freehan I also got an interesting oversized oddball.  I hadn't seen this set before so I had to do a quick bit of digging, but I found out this English/French issue comes from 1970-71 Dad's Cookies.  Red had just scored 33 goals on the heels of a career-high 35-goal effort the year before ('68-'69), and he never actually cracked 30 again in his career.

These are some amazing cards for both players, and I'm curious, Greg--did you find those at your LCS?

Anyway, thanks for another great trade, and let's get some more going in 2016, BB4L!