2015 Justcommons purchase: and Howe!

Not quite a month ago I put up a post announcing that I was collecting trouble pitcher and Michigan alum Steve Howe despite some of my misgivings about chasing a guy with his character flaws.  In the end I decided to go for it, and to the six cards you saw in the above linked post I managed to add another 38 to Howe's collection.  That's obviously a lot so I'll just be showing off the scans without comment (plus most of these sets are pretty recognizable anyway):

These new additions give me a total of 44 of Howe's 82-card run, so I'm already more than halfway there, and he's yet another PC that's crossed the 50% mark.

That's the last of the Justcommons Wolverines this time, but no worries--I have plenty more to show off, including at least one trade package!

2015 Justcommons purchase: just seeing a lot of red

Thanks to a large recent Justcommons purchase, which came out to more than 150 cards total, I was able to beef up some of my PCs quite a bit.  A large chunk of those cards went toward some of the Tigers I collect, plus you'll get to see more stuff from one of my newer Michigan PCs soon, but today I have three players pretty familiar to most of you.  What do they have in common?  Their teams really, really like the color red!

Mike Matheny 2015 Topps Heritage

Here's the Cards' skipper on his 2015 Heritage manager card, and that means I skipped a year because I do have the same issue from the 2013 set.  The former catcher is coming off three straight excellent seasons with one of the most well run organizations in the sport, plus this year's team is off to a nice start itself!  This is my 55th card of Mike.

Hal Morris 1992 Leaf Black Gold

Hal Morris 1995 Stadium Club Super Team World Series

Hal Morris 1995 Upper Deck Predictor League Leaders

I've got a trio of Morris cards today and they're all inserts.  The '92 Leaf Black Gold set has appeared here a few times recently (and will again in just a second), and I still maintain it looks light years better than the blah base set.  Hal is seen making an interesting catch attempt on yet another parallel from '95 Stadium Club, giving me three from that set overall.  And from the same year I found an early example of Upper Deck's Predictor contest/redemption cards.  This one is actually a redemption as part of a complete set from a winning player--though not Morris:  the pictured player had to lead his league in the category at the bottom, in this case batting average.

These three new cards give me a new count of 104 for William Harold Morris.

Chris Sabo 1992 Leaf Black Gold

Chris Sabo 1992 Topps Gold Winners

Chris Sabo 1994 Score Gold Rush

And now we head across the diamond to Hal's former teammate, Chris Sabo.  Spuds also came in with all three cards being inserts this time, though not so much by design as simply what interested me.  All three of those insert sets are covered between the other players in this post and the one I put up on TMV this evening.  Like Morris, Sabo also adds a Leaf Black Gold parallel to his collection.  He then joins TMV subject Kirk Gibson in appearing on two other parallels:  1992 Topps Gold Winners and 1994 Score Gold Rush.  The latter wins the award for best photo in this post since it's clear he's about to barehand that grounder.

I now own 53 different Spuds cards, and his trademark glasses are present in 45 of those (in case anyone was interested).

Stay tuned for more Justcommons cards, some eBay pickups, and a verrrrrrry nice trade post soon!

2015 Justcommons purchase: a Barry lucky 13

I just received a new Justcommons package in the mail yesterday, but today I'm finally finishing up the contents of the most recent one I purchased.  On a day where Jeff also posted some pickups of the former Wolverine shortstop, here's 13 new Barry Larkins!

Barry Larkin 1995 Bowman's Best

Topps' second annual Bowman's Best set doesn't feature my favorite design from the product, but it's still kind of a nice one.  I now own Barry's base cards from the '94, '95, '97, and '99 sets.

Barry Larkin 1996 Pinnacle Starburst

Hooray for 90s Pinnacle inserts!  Dufex parallels are simply the best, whether you call them "Starburst," "Museum Collection," or anything else.  Bonus points for what looks like a flying bat attacking Barry's ass.

Barry Larkin 1996 SPx

Upper Deck's debut SPx product was a fun one, though It was expensive for its time, though, at $3.50 a pack for just one card!  Fast forward almost 20 years and you find lots of them for only a quarter.  To be fair, the '96 versions, featuring thick stock, die-cutting, and holographic images, were towards the high end.  I wonder what kinds of top-shelf products will be this cheap in 20 years?

Barry Larkin 1997 Bowman Chrome

Here's another product debut that also includes a pretty nice cameo for the time since Dye and teammate Andruw Jones were hot stuff.  So was the '97 Chrome set, buoyed by some white hot rookies like Adrian Beltre, Travis Lee, and Jose Cruz Jr.  I recall dropping my jaw at the prices of packs, boxes, and singles at the time, though I believe I ripped a couple packs.  In my opinion the Chrome set improved on the solid base product, and anyway Chrome almost always looks better!

Barry Larkin 1997 Finest Bronze

In one of those collecting oddities I ended up with the Refractor version of this card first, then picked up the base.  The '97 Finest set is one of my favorites of the product's run as they continued the cool Bronze/Silver/Gold theme from the previous year, and again the design translated well to the Refractor parallels.

Barry Larkin 1998 E-X2001

In keeping with today's themes of new and/or high-end products, here's Larkin's card from Fleer's 1998 E-X2001 set.  These came in packs of two for $4, and I think I may have even busted a box a couple years after it was released (for a much lower price, naturally).  The cards are super high-end with their acetate stock, lots of foil, and whatever that's supposed to be on the left.  Fleer also included some interesting and often low-numbered parallels in this product.

Barry Larkin 1998 Topps Gallery

1998 saw Topps release its third art-heavy Gallery product, and as usual it didn't disappoint.  These baseball canvasses do well to blur the line between card design and art, and this one features a great shot of Barry, presumably after clobbering the ball again.

Barry Larkin 1999 Finest

I skipped a year of Finest with this purchase since I already own Barry's '98 card, and in my opinion the '99 set was a step back in the right direction after the weird design choices of 1998.  Topps was still protecting these cards with their now ubiquitous peels, and at some point I'll probably go through Barry's cards, remove all the protectors I find, and re-scan them since they always look better that way.

Barry Larkin 2002 Diamond Kings

When it comes down to a choice of Gallery vs. Diamond Kings, it can be really hard to choose.  Or is it?  The obvious choice:  both!  The 2002 set is somewhat similar to the design of the following year, but it also has its own thing going for it with the simple white canvas background.  These cards most certainly do justice to the reputation Donruss' Diamond Kings have built over the years.

Barry Larkin 2002 Donruss Originals #97, 187, 296, and 357

Speaking of Donruss, we end today's post with Barry's quartet of cards from that brand's 2002 Originals product.  Donruss kind of did what Topps has done more recently with its Archives product, opting for modern players on past designs instead of straight-up reprints.  For whatever reason they chose the 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1988 designs, though that at least gets you a nice amount of variety.

My largest Michigan Baseball PC increases its lead as Larkin's total jumps to 272.

PCPCs part 5: Mike Ignasiak

Previously:  Jim Paciorek, Gary Wayne, Tom Grieve, Lary Sorensen

I'm back today with the final PCPC player of the series, Brewers RHP Mike Ignasiak.  A Michigan native, Mike went in the 8th round in '88 to the Brewers, and it was in Milwaukee that he played his whole career, in 1991 and then 1993-95.  He was pretty much a reliever over the course of his 79 games, but he did finish with a nice 10-4 record!  He also spent at least some time in the minors every year from the point he signed until retirement in 1995, and interestingly enough he never left the Brewers organization.

Ignasiak appeared on 15 cards between 1992 and 1995, and as he's included in the Promptly Completed PC feature, I can now show off all of them.  Besides his '94 Topps base card I already owned due to having the complete set, I picked up the following 14 cards courtesy of COMC, Justcommons, and Sportlots:

1992 Bowman RC

At least he's not a high-schooler appearing in early-90s-style street clothes, right?  Mike's RC is definitely one of the lesser-known from a set more famous for guys like Piazza and Mo Rivera.

1992 Score RC

We have "scary pitcher face" so how about "shadowy pitcher face"?  This prospect card is a bit awkward with about 1/4 of the background being an ugly purple and the rest being blurry, all with Mike being superimposed over the whole thing.

1992 Topps Debut '91

As I've said before, these Topps Debut sets are kind of fun.  I looked up Mike's first Major League game, an August 22, 1991 matchup against the Blue Jays (remember the Brewers in the A.L.?!).  As it turns out, he picked up a win after Milwaukee starter Don August went just 3.2 innings.  Mike faced nine batters in 2.1 innings, striking out one and allowing a two-run homer to Toronto catcher Greg Myers.  However, the Brew Crew stormed back to the lead with five seventh-inning runs, the bullpen closed things out safely, and Mike had a win in his Major League debut! 

1993 Fleer Final Edition

"Hey Mike--go sit up on top of that bench-like thing that has you staring into the sun.  Ready?  Who cares!  *click*"

1994 Fleer

Horizontal pitching action shots are great, but I'm not sure why Fleer cropped this photo so oddly, leaving off half of his right leg in favor of...empty space?

1994 Stadium Club, First Day Issue, Golden Rainbow, and Members Only Parallel

Four-card rainbow!  I've had this set come up a few times recently with other players, and I think I've been pretty consistent in preferring the cool "1st Day Issue" stamp to the other parallels.  The "label maker" set probably isn't in my top five designs the set's done, but it's still a pretty good one.

1994 Topps Gold

Topps presents:  "determined pitcher face", now with special gold foil!  As I mentioned, I already had the base version because I own the '94 Topps set, and that's true of a nice number of PC guys now, so I'm really glad I picked it up!

1994 Ultra

According to baseball-reference Mike didn't pitch enough innings to exceed rookie status until the 1994 season, so the "Rookie" label here is accurate.  And this card just happens to feature one of my favorite Ultra designs.

1995 Stadium Club, Members Only Parallel, and Super Team World Series

And finally we come to the card that pretty much started this shopping spree.  As I stated two months ago, seeing Ignasiak's hilarious photo on a Dime Box Nick post reminded me that he was a Wolverine whose print run I wanted to look into.  A bit more research led to me chasing the five collections in this series and the rest is history!  Not a bad way to close out your cardboard career when you're a journeyman reliever with limited MLB exposure.

That's all she wrote for this series, but I still have some Larkins and eBay scores to show off and plenty of other stuff to get to, so watch for those in April.

PCPCs part 4: Lary Sorensen

Previously:  Jim Paciorek, Gary Wayne, Tom Grieve

Today's player is RHP Lary Sorensen, whose oddly-spelled first name was a nod to former Tigers hurler Frank Lary.  As I was doing some more digging for this post I found that Sorensen was the opposite of a role model during and after his playing career, both as part of the cocaine scandal in the 80s (and later), and then as a repeat offender drunk-driver.  I especially have no tolerance for the latter whether or not they avoid killing anyone, so that leads me to two conclusions:  I still have interest in Sorensen as a member of my card collection but not as a person, and I no longer have much of a reason not to collect his fellow idiot Steve Howe, so that may be something I'll pursue in the future.

This is one of those times collecting can pull you in different directions, and it's something I've faced in the past with players that have done incredibly stupid things like Miguel Cabrera and Taylor Lewan.  It's hard to decide whether or not to pursue a collection or dump the player, so I don't envy those that were or are fans of guys like Chad Curtis or Oscar Taveras.

Anyway, that's as dark as I'm willing to get here, so at this point I'll just say that I'm collecting Sorensen as a former Wolverines baseball player but don't condone his actions, and I'll leave it at that.

Lary was drafted by the Brewers in the 8th round in 1976, made the bigs the following year, then was an All-Star in '78 as part of a career-best 18-12 campaign.  He went on to play for six other teams from 1981-88 (with 1986 lost to suspension and a season in the minors):  St. Louis, Cleveland, Oakland, the Chicago Cubs, Montreal, and San Francisco.  Sorensen has 36 total cards spanning the years 1978-1987, and each of those teams is represented except for the Giants.  I already owned his '86 Topps base card due to having the complete set, but since I decided to scan these in nines instead of individually, I decided to include it here as well.

So here's a look at his 36-card run:

1978 Topps RC; 1979 O-Pee Chee; 1979 Topps; 

1980 O-Pee-Chee; 1980 Topps; 1981 Donruss

1981 Fleer; 1981 Topps; 1981 Topps Traded

1982 Donruss; 1982 Fleer; 1982 O-Pee Chee;

1982 Topps; 1982 Topps Traded; 1983 Donruss;

1983 Fleer; 1983 O-Pee-Chee; 1983 Topps

1984 Donruss; 1984 Fleer; 1984 Fleer Update;

1984 O-Pee Chee; 1984 Topps (#286); 1984 Topps (#546, with Mike Hargrove);

1984 Topps Tiffany (#286); 1984 Topps Tiffany (#546, with Mike Hargrove); 1984 Topps Traded

1984 Topps Traded Tiffany; 1985 Donruss; 1985 Fleer;

1985 Fleer Update; 1986 Fleer; 1986 Topps;

1986 Topps Tiffany; 1987 Fleer Update; 1987 Fleer Update Glossy

Sorensen is my 12th completed PC, and I have one player left to show off, plus a nice little stack of Larkins, so watch for those posts soon, probably this week.

PCPCs part 3: Tom Grieve

Previously:  Jim Paciorek, Gary Wayne

Today's promptly completed (but not posted) PC player is OF Tom Grieve.  As I mentioned briefly in my introductory post, Grieve, the father of Oakland ROY Ben, did attend Michigan (to avoid the draft--the military one, not the baseball one!) though he didn't play ball for the Wolverines.  Still, Michigan Baseball can imply a guy that played his college ball in Ann Arbor, or a guy that went to school here before going on to the Majors, so he counts!

Tom has 16 total cards spanning 1971-1979, and that encompasses most of his career as he was in the bigs in 1970, then from 1972-79, first with the Senators/Rangers, then briefly with the Mets and Cards late in his tenure.  The 1966 #6 overall pick was worth less than 2.0 career WAR, but at least he carved out a decent career for himself, and then his son went on to be an even higher first-rounder!

I had none of those cards previously, so for the first time on this blog, here are all 16 cards in Grieve's PC:

Tom Grieve 1971 O-Pee-Chee RC and Topps RC

Add "Tommy" Grieve to the list of Wolverine baseball players I've acquired from 1971.  That list includes Dave Campbell, Bill Freehan, Elliot Maddox, and Ted Sizemore; I have both OPC and Topps cards for all except Freehan's, whose OPC might be costly in the way Sizemore's was.  By the way, it's more a quirk of scanning that these look as good as they do--in reality they have the usual vintage wear, which is totally fine by me!

1972 Topps

The '72 O-Pee-Chee set was about 250 cards smaller than the Topps version and Grieve only made the cut for the latter set.  That's not entirely unreasonable since Tom spent all of the previous year in the minors before coming up for good.  Still, that makes him the only player out of the group above not to appear in both sets that year.  And more importantly, what the hell is he looking at?

1973 O-Pee-Chee and Topps

Now that's more like it!  The groovy Rangers uni and cool position logo make this a fun card, even if it looks like the photographer posed him staring into the sun or something.

1974 O-Pee-Chee and Topps

These cards along with the '72 Topps above all note on the back that Grieve received a $60k contract from the Senators back in 1966.  I think Alex Rodriguez just made that much staring at himself in the mirror for 10 seconds....

1975 O-Pee-Chee, Topps, and Topps Mini

Ah, one of my favorites:  the 1975 trio.  As you can see, my O-Pee-Chee card is a tad off-centered (or should that be off-centred?) but that doesn't worry me.  I love the phrasing of the trivia question/cartoon on the back:  "Do they play baseball in Alaska?"  (A:  "Yes, semi-pro baseball.")  Who's "they," Topps?  Who's "they?"

1976 O-Pee-Chee and Topps

These are nice to have as they feature Grieve's stats from his career-best season to that point:  118 games, a .276 average, 14 HR, and 61 RBI.  It doesn't appear to be a coincidence that he performed better after getting the most significant playing time in his career.

1977 Topps

Well, here's to consistency, anyway:  none of my PC guys appear in the extremely slimmed-down (and Canadian team-heavy) '77 O-Pee-Chee set.  But Tom--not "Tommy" anymore--got a well-deserved card in the Topps release after his true career year:  149 games, 20 HR, and 81 RBI, all career highs.  1975 and '76 were truly the apex of his playing days because he never even sniffed 100 games after that and averaged under 75 in his nine seasons.

1978 Topps

Sizemore is my only baseball PC guy that made it into '78's O-Pee-Chee set, so Grieve had just one final card picturing him with the Rangers.  He was part of a crazy four-team deal in 1977 that sent him to the Mets, and it involved Atlanta and Pittsburgh and included Bert Blyleven (heading to the Pirates) and Al Oliver (to the Rangers).

1979 O-Pee-Chee and Topps

Tom played 54 games for the '78 Mets and appeared with that team in Topps' '79 product.  Late in '78 he was flipped to St. Louis, for whom he'd play his final nine Major League games, and O-Pee-Chee reflected the change in team while using the same photo (as they did back then).  By the way, these cards also mention Grieve's $60k signing bonus, which might have seemed quaint even then.

And there we have completed PC #11.  Just two more players to go, plus a nice bunch of Larkins, so stay tuned!