2016 eBay purchase: a drought I thought would never end!

Welcome to those of you who came over here from TMV this afternoon.  If you read that post you saw some sweet PC additions to my Lou Whitaker collection as part of a 13-card purchase from eBayer BurbankSportsCards.  In that post I mentioned that the impetus of that buy was some help to my favorite PC--that of Rich Hill.  It actually all started with one specific card, and I'll show it off in just a minute.

It's a card I've been chasing for quite a while, and while it wasn't as long as the Cubs' World Series drought, sometimes it felt like it.  Have you ever seen literally one copy of a card you need on eBay, but it's owned by a seller that never, ever, ever changes their ridiculously inflated asking price?  And by "ever" I'm talking years.  Sure, they even make it a Buy It Now auction, though you can't fathom why since they never accept any offers.

That's the situation I found myself in last Friday when I finally found a second copy of that card from the aforementioned seller, and that led to even more good fortune to the tune of 13 total cards.  Six of those are featured in the Whitaker post on TMV, and the other seven, comprising four players, are right here:

Rich Hill 2008 Upper Deck Documentary Gold (#1855)

Rich Hill 2008 Upper Deck Heroes Light Blue (#21/49)

Rich Hill 2009 O-Pee-Chee Black

The UD Documentary and O-Pee-Chee parallels are all well and good--I certainly needed them.  The Documentary set has been a bit of a thorn in my side since there's so freaking many cards and each has one of those Gold parallels.  And the OPC is a card I could have had for a while at this price if I was so inclined, but at least it's another mark off the checklist.

But the big winner here is the Heroes card.  I've long been working on Hill's run--28 cards--from this very cool product, and I even have most of his hits out of it.  But the Light Blue parallel, numbered to an ostensibly reasonable 49, had eluded my grasp until now because an eBay seller has wanted $10 plus shipping.  For years.  Forget that.  Luckily Burbank came along and wanted just $2 for it.  SOLD.  With this pickup I need just three from the set:  the Purple parallel (#d /25), plus the Jersey/Autograph Emerald and Purple Autograph (each /5).  Hopefully they won't take as long for me to get as this one.

By the way, a bit more celebration is in order for the NLCS game 3 winner today:  these additions put me at exactly 250 of his non-1/1 issues!  That gives me 267 overall, and I can claim ownership of about 2/3 of his cards to-date, which at present I number at 369.  I'm happy to see that that number keeps growing as Hill's returned to relevance.

Joining Rich were cards of three other players:

Steve Howe 1993 Upper Deck Gold Hologram

These pesky cards, likely familiar to at least some of you, came as part of one complete set per 15-set case of this product.  Lame parallels are bad enough but it's even worse when the only difference is a minute detail on the back of the card.  Anyway, this was the last of Howe's run I needed through 1993, and I'm short just three of his 81 cards:  '94 Stadium Club Team First Day Issue, and '96 Leaf Signature Silver and Gold autos.  Not bad!

Scott Kamieniecki 1997 Ultra Gold Medallion

Here's another card I could have had for a while but left until this purchase since I never found a better price.  It's been a while since I added a new Kamieniecki to his PC, and I'm happy to land another card from one of my favorite products, 1997 Ultra.  The Gold and Platinum Medallion cards each feature the same photo which happens to be different than the one used for the base card, though I think the latter actually has the cooler photo.  As far as this set goes, though, you can't go wrong!  As with Howe, I just need three of Scott's 90 cards to complete his collection:  '94 Collector's Choice Gold Signature, and '98 Pacific Online Web Cards and Winners.

Brian Simmons 1999 Fleer Tradition Millennium and Warning Track

Last up is former White Sox OF Brian Simmons, a guy you don't see very often around here since he only has 35 cards for me to chase.  With this pair I'm close to 2/3 of that run with 23.  Both are parallels from Fleer's pretty solid 1999 Tradition product.  Their flagship set looked pretty good in 1998 and '99, though I still prefer the very cool card stock they used in 1996-97 and 2000.  Here they made good use of a stamp for a significant event or achievement, in this case Brian's MLB debut.  The Millennium version is unnumbered but limited to 5000 copies as part of a special boxed set that features a stamp for the year 2000.  Warning Track parallels were one-per-pack, and these more common versions changed the foil color to red, including the set name's stamp in the lower-right corner.  That just leaves me to chase the extremely rare Starting Nine card, numbered to--you guessed it--nine copies!

I'd be hard-pressed to be more productive in one purchase than this these days, so I'm very happy with the results.

Next up will be a trade package from a very familiar blogger.

2015 trade package #13: My Sports Obsession enables my PC obsession

I'm behind on posting, which means I'm even more behind on trade packages!

Here's a great one from fellow TMMer Jeff of My Sports Obsession.  Jeff let me know he was gonna send me some stuff for my PCs, and he sure wasn't kidding about that!  Check these out:

Barry Larkin 2003 MLB Showdown

I had just one other MLB Showdown card of Larkin before Jeff sent this one my way, and now I've doubled my collection thanks to this base from 2003.  It's my 276th different Larkin card, which is awesome.

Hal Morris 1990 Albany Yankees All Decade Best

Moving on to Larkin's old Reds teammate Hal Morris, here's a cool oddball/minor league card, #105 in his collection.  Hal's another pretty good Yankees prospect that got away, likely to the chagrin of Frank Costanza.

Michael O'Neill 2014 Bowman Chrome Mini Factory Set, 2014 Bowman Chrome Prospects Series 2 Green Refractor (#40/75), Purple Refractor (#112/150), and Refractor (#393/500)

Here's where a lot of the PC help came in handy:  Jeff sent my four Michael O'Neill cards from 2014 Bowman Chrome products.  The first hails from the Mini Factory Set while the others are all rainbow Refractors from the "regular" version.  O'Neill has a crazy count of 42 cards between the various products and I now have six...oof that's a long way to go!  Thanks to Mr. Laws, though, I'm now over 25% of O'Neill's current run at 22/83.

J.J. Putz 2001 Royal Rookies Futures auto (#1967/6995)

J.J. Putz 2007 Topps Co-Signers Bronze (with Felix) (#023/275)

J.J. Putz 2014 Topps Target Red Border

Today's other multi-card player is pitcher J.J. Putz, who retired last year.  First, Jeff flipped me a Royal Rookies auto I was surprised I didn't have until I realized the one I own is from 2000 instead, plus I have the base version of the card.  I can't believe Putz had to sign almost 7000 of those!  That's my 16th Putz hit and 11th auto as well.

Next is another parallel from the '07 Topps Co-Signers set along with Felix Hernandez.  Of the 12 versions I now own a third of them, and I'll probably add more if the prices ever come back to reality since some of them aren't that hard to find.

Finally, speaking of Topps and its parallel-happy nature, here's the retail-exclusive Target Red card from last year's flagship set.  My progress on the flagship/Mini rainbow now stands at 8/18.

As for J.J.'s overall count, I have 189/327 of his regular run, four 1/1s, and five "others" (including the Royal Rookies cards referenced above) for a grand total of 198.  It's almost milestone time!

Brian Simmons 1999 Bowman Chrome Gold

Finally, Jeff added on to one of my more obscure PCs, former White Sox prospect Brian Simmons.  Since Jeff's a fan of the lame South Siders I do appreciate that he sent this my way.  I'm not quite sure why Topps decided to produce this parallel that year since the only difference is the signature appearing in gold, but that's Topps for you.  More importantly it bumps up my Simmons tally to 21/35 or exactly 60%!

Thanks again for all the useful cards, Jeff, and it's always fun trading with you!  Readers, please follow Jeff's collecting exploits at the following locations (besides occasionally on this here blog):

• My Sports Obsession
• My Personal Collections
• My Baseball Card Obsession

2014 COMC purchases: Murray, O'Neill, and Simmons

My last group of baseball PC guys this time focuses on three pretty familiar players:

Heath Murray 1994 Stadium Club Draft Picks First Day Issue

First up is former Padre Heath Murray.  I only have one card of him to show off, but since he appears on just 30 overall, that's not too much of a surprise.  What I managed to find this time was a First Day Issue parallel of Heath's '94 Stadium Club Draft Picks card.  The standalone set did indeed get its own First Day Issue cards as well as the similar Members Only parallel, from which I still lack Murray's card.  Even a solitary addition is productive for his PC as I now own 22 of his 30 issues, good for almost 75%!

Michael O'Neill 2013 Elite Extra Edition Aspirations (#022/200)

O'Neill, who you may recall is a recent Yankees OF draftee, makes an increasingly common appearance here today with three new 2013 inserts.  First up is this cool die-cut (unsigned) parallel of his auto card from that year's EEE set.  Aspirations cards keep the same red color scheme as the base/autos and are numbered to 200.  As usual, I'm a fan of the Elite design and fun array of parallels.

Michael O'Neill 2013 Elite Extra Edition Bloodlines (with Paul O'Neill)

Because former Yankee Paul is Michael's uncle they were naturally paired on this Bloodlines insert, which also features the likes of Carl Yastrzemski and Ivan Rodriguez.  I never cared for the whiny, annoying elder O'Neill, but I'm sure he's the kind of guy you like when he's on your team.  This is a cool idea for a double-sided insert and executed well by Panini.

Michael O'Neill 2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks Prizms

Speaking of that brand, my final O'Neill from today hails from another Panini set, this time Prizm Perennial Draft Picks.  This Prizm parallel is clearly a ripoff of Topps' Refractors, but I guess if you call it something different there's nothing to get sued about!  I already have the base card, but I still need a few more inserts from the set, including a pair numbered to just 10.  While I work on those, today's trio bumps O'Neill's PC up to 8/40 for an even 20%, at least until he appears on more cards.

Brian Simmons 1998 Best Autographs Signature Series auto

Former (a WHILE ago former) White Sox OF prospect Brian Simmons comprises the bulk of today's post with six new additions.  First is this 1998 Team Best auto, which doesn't go towards his PC checklist since it's a minor league card, but it's still a fun addition, and it makes him player #23 in my baseball PC.  This is his only hit but at least it's an autograph, and an interesting signature at that.

Brian Simmons 1998 SP Top Prospects

Simmons was included in Upper Deck's '98 SP Top Prospects set, and I'm glad since it's definitely a very nice set to look at.  The photo UD selected does make me laugh a bit since he's being interviewed for a local news station and has a comically enormous earpiece in his left ear.  Ah, 1990s technology....  Anyway, the Birmingham Barons logo is also a nice highlight.

Brian Simmons 1998 SP Top Prospects President's Edition (#04/10)

Along with the base card from the set I was able to knock off this doozy, a parallel hand-numbered to 10 on the back, which made me decide to include it as part of the scan.  COMC also had a couple copies of this die-cut card without the numbering available separately, but I decided to go with what I consider the "real thing" here.  The gold-ish border and die-cutting make for a pretty cool card.

Brian Simmons 1999 Crown Royale

If this doesn't scream "1990s Pacific" I don't know what does, although in this case I don't mean that in a bad way.  The Crown design resulted in some interesting sets like this one from '99, and you can still see some influences from these earlier versions these days.

Brian Simmons 1999 Crown Royale Limited (#40/99)

Pacific was known for their parallels, and in general I think they were reasonably easy to spot, if not positively identify, but this one doesn't really fall into that category, at least not from the front.  The tip-off is a small red stamp above the "Rookie" designation towards the bottom-right of the card.  The back also features fuzzy digitally-printed serial-numbering (whar stamping, whar?), in this case out of 99.  I still need to track down the Opening Day parallel, numbered to 72 for some reason.

Brian Simmons 1999 Fleer Brilliants Blue

Lastly today we have this beautiful Blue parallel of Brian's 1999 Fleer Brilliants base card.  As poorly as the reflective silver base cards scan, I think Fleer should have gone with blue from the get-go, but then again I probably wouldn't have produced this set in the first place.  Gold (/99) and 24-Karat Gold (/24, of course) parallels wait in the wings.

The five new supercollection cards bump Simmons' PC up to a new total of 20/35, jumping yet another PC guy over the 50% mark to my great satisfaction.  Hopefully I'll have more of him to show off before much longer.

As usual, this was a very productive COMC haul when it came to my Michigan player collections, and I'll look to keep that momentum going whenever I next throw some money down on my favorite card-acquisition site.  Stay tuned for the final post in this series, covering football hits, shortly!

2014 Sportlots purchase #3: ACTUAL sports guy B. Simmons

I'm back with even more Sportlots baseball PC pickups I nabbed while completing my latest round of football sets courtesy of one of the best sites for both!  I've got three posts worth of scores from that site before I get to my latest COMC haul.

Today features just one player because I landed so many new cards of him, so it made sense to give him his own post.  That player is former Chicago White Sox prospect Brian Simmons, to whom you were introduced in this post when I finally realized he used to play for the Wolverines!

I had only started with four cards, so it's not a huge surprise that I had lots of luck finding many I needed, especially since he was a common player during a time when there was simply an explosion of sets.  Without further ado, here's a bunch of new cards of a B. Simmons that actually has something to do with sports instead of talking about crappy TV and his goofy family and friends:

Brian Simmons 1999 Bowman

Brian Simmons 1999 Bowman Chrome

Brian Simmons 1999 Bowman Chrome International

Brian Simmons 1999 Bowman Chrome Refractor

Brian Simmons 1999 Bowman International

Time to start a new rainbow!  Simmons has nine cards between Bowman/Chrome for 1999, so I'm already more than halfway done with this one.  Of the four remaining, three are serial-numbered, but I don't think it'll be horrible tracking them down.

1999 Bowman is a solid set with a pretty good design whose biggest flaw is the huge borders and other elements that detract from the amount of space the photo gets.  Other than that, the chrome-ified version looks great as usual, and the Refractor is easily the best of the group.  The International parallel is pretty good as well, with (hard-to-scan) backgrounds that highlight the player's home state, in this case Pennsylvania since it's nearly impossible to see.

Two of the remainders I have to track down are Refractors, so I look forward to showing those off when I get them!

Brian Simmons 1999 Fleer Brilliants

Keeping the hard-to-scan ball rolling is this somewhat forgettable Fleer release from 1999.  Playing off the set's name, it's very reflective, which means the scanner makes it look extremely dark.  There are three parallels to chase:  Blue, Gold (#d /99) and 24-Karat Gold (/24).  It may be tricky tracking down the latter, but I don't expect too much trouble.

Brian Simmons 1999 Fleer Tradition

To paraphrase Abe Simpson, "Now THERE's a product you could set your watch to."  As I've mentioned, this isn't my all-time favorite Fleer set (still 1997, if you're wondering), but I enjoy how it's sort of a budget set while not really feeling low-end.  The photography and design are great, and I love the stamps that commemorate significant events (such as an MLB debut) without needing an extra subset.

By the way, this set has three parallels of its own:  Warning Track, Millennium (#d /5000), and the ultra-rare Starting Nine, for which just nine copies exist.  Yikes!

Brian Simmons 1999 SkyBox Thunder Rant

I'm still on record that I don't care for this ugly-ass set (I own the base card), and the parallels don't make it look any better, including this un-numbered version with its disgusting purple foil.  Rave (#d /150) and Super Rave 25 wait in the wings to further turn my stomach.

Brian Simmons 1999 Sports Illustrated (with Johnson and Wilson)

One of Fleer's better entries in the late 90s, Sports Illustrated featured some great photography (no surprise) on a thick glossy design.  And just like some of my favorite older Topps cards, it includes multi-player prospect cards!  Joining Simmons here are catcher Mark Johnson and his fantastic goatee, and SS Craig Wilson.  

The Sox took Johnson 26th overall in 1994 (ahead of Jay Payton, Troy Glaus, and others), and he managed to play in parts of eight seasons, which isn't bad.  Meanwhile, THIS Craig Wilson is not to be confused with the guy that played for the Pirates in the 2000s, and was a 1992 13th-rounder that made his debut in 1998, causing Fleer to throw him on this card for some reason.

Brian Simmons 1999 Upper Deck Victory

At times I lump sets like Victory, Collector's Choice/UD Choice, and MVP all together because they all kind of went for that lower-end, kid-friendly feel.  Still, I'd consider Victory a bit of a step up from those design-wise.  Also, it's decently large at 470 cards.

Simmons didn't make the cut for the Ultimate Victory checklist, which was sort of the Chrome version for Upper Deck, but that makes sense since this isn't even a RC.  Really, I'm just happy with how this one turned out--a very nice swinging shot on a simple design.

Brian Simmons 2000 Fleer Impact

This set is about as forgettable as '99 Fleer Brilliants, but doesn't even have the courtesy to look nice.  The photography is fine, but man is that an ugly design overlaid on it.  Like the Victory card above, this one fortunately doesn't have a parallel for me to chase, and it's one of just three cards on which Simmons was included in 2000.  That number includes this 2000 UD base card and its Exclusives Silver parallel (#d to 100).

Doing the math (which I can manage without a 911 call!), today's 11, along with my original four, give me a new Simmons PC total of 15.  He's got a run of 35 cards from his playing days, so I'm almost halfway there, which isn't bad considering I recently started collecting him.

Stay tuned for a couple more Sportlots pickup posts shortly!

New player collection: Brian Simmons

This just happened to me for the second time--I've started another Michigan Baseball PC without even knowing it!  The last time it happened, it was Jason Christian, a couple years ago.  THIS time I was digging around on eBay and randomly searched for "Michigan Wolverines" in the baseball category since a few sellers note colleges in their titles.  To my surprise, a new player popped up:  Brian Simmons.  I looked him up on baseball-reference and confirmed he was indeed a Wolverine!

A Pennsylvania native, Brian was the White Sox's second round pick in 1995, right after future MLBers Sean Casey and Brett Tomko went back-to-back, and a few picks after the Royals took some kid named Carlos Beltran.  This was after being picked by Baltimore in the 35th back in 1992 but opting to head to Ann Arbor instead.  In his three college seasons he put up pretty good numbers over 160+ games, including a .317 AVG with 13 HR and 45 RBI in '95.  It's also nice to see that he managed to complete his B.S. in chemistry, according to his LinkedIn page.

Brian's early pro stats showed that his decent power wasn't a fluke, then proved that again during a five-game cameo his 1998 rookie season when he homered from both sides of the plate in a late September win over the Royals (a game won by fellow Wolverine Jim Abbott!).  The OF didn't fare as well in 54 MLB games the following year, though at least his AAA numbers looked promising.  Unfortunately, his career took a turn for the worse during spring training in 2000 when he went out for the year after rupturing his Achilles.  He recovered enough to be included in the January, 2001 deal with Toronto that brought David Wells to the South Side, but his 60-game numbers with the Blue Jays that year were awful, and he then bounced around several AAA and Independent teams before retiring after 2004; according to LinkedIn he now works for a company that sells medical devices.

Still, despite his very brief career, he managed to appear on 35 cards, and thanks to the fact that I really ramped up collecting in the late 90s, I actually already have four of those, meaning I had another PC started without even knowing it!  Here they are:

Brian Simmons 1998 Fleer Tradition Update RC

This card hails from the '98 Fleer Update boxed set that's more famous for J.D. Drew's RC.  It's one of Fleer's solid designs that suffers from being an inevitable step down from the high water mark '97 set.  Still, I give it good marks for photography, full-bleed photos, and stamps that denote things like a player being a rookie.

Brian Simmons 1999 SkyBox Thunder

'99 Skybox Thunder is a very weird set for me.  Despite despising the design (and the weird writing on the backs), I completed the set because I had so much of it to start with, and that was the case because I somehow won a free box of it from Beckett years ago when I was a subscriber.  Anyway, Simmons was part of it, and therefore I have his base card, though I still need the ridiculous "Rant" and "Rave" parallels, the latter of which is numbered to 150.

Brian Simmons 1999 Upper Deck

I swear I recall a blogger referring to this as the "salad tongs" set recently, but I can't find that post, so if you're responsible for that, feel free to claim your kudos in the comments!  Weird borders aside, this isn't a bad set, and it's one of many UD issues I completed years ago.

Brian Simmons 2000 Upper Deck

Finally, here's Brian's UD base card from the follow-up to the '99 set, and there's an obvious improvement here.  It's one of three Simmons cards from his final year of appearing on them, with the others being Fleer Impact and UD Exclusives Silver (#d to 100).  Because his run stops with 2000, he doesn't appear on any Blue Jays cards, which makes sense given his stats with them.

So how did this former Wolverine with MLB cards slip by me?  I don't know, but I think the REAL question is how another Michigan baseballer drafted by The ChiSox eluded the attention of my Pale Hose fan colleague.  Well?  Explain yourself, Jeff!  In all seriousness, I expect he's got a few Simmons pieces in his team sets, meaning his PC of the guy is likely already a few steps ahead of mine.  Follow along with my pursuit of his run with this spreadsheet and Picasa album.

Stay tuned pretty soon (whatever "soon" means on this blog) for a brand spanking new trade post!