This time of year is my favorite for many reasons: my birthday's in May, the weather heats up, and baseball gets a monopoly for a bit, to name a few. It's also one of those times I can expect a super generous package from Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store after his yearly visit to Toronto's Sports Card Expo. He previously sent me some cards in May before that event, then managed to stuff another mailer with some very nice goodies not long after.
Here's the damage--prepare to be impressed!
Of course I'm excited that my least favorite sport is over with for a few more months, but that doesn't mean I wasn't happy to get some new additions for my basketball collection. On the left is a Trey Burke from a 2013 set produced, I believe, for that year's National Convention. The first half of the multi-sport offering is filled with vets while the second includes that year's rookies, numbered to 499 like the one you see above.
Joining him is THJ's base from 2013-14 SP Authentic. Of course I love the college shot used on one of UD's typically solid designs.
Along for the ride came this sweet pair of Cazzie Russell autographs from a couple Panini brands. 2012-13's Past and Present Elusive Ink is seen on the left while the right one is from 2014-15 Totally Certified Competitor Autographs and is numbered 46/99. Those of you who are signature purists will likely prefer the difficult-to-scan foil card on your right with its on-card auto while the P&P card carries a sticker. As for me I think they're both extremely cool (despite obviously using the same photo!) since they star one of the most important cagers to come out of Ann Arbor. I also enjoy that Cazzie is once again in the lead in my basketball PC with 13 hits, eclipsing former #1 Darius Morris by one.
Football makes a cameo appearance thanks to Doug breaking one of my favorite yearly products from that sport, 2018 Score. The low price, clean design, and college photos make the Wolverine cards a must-have for me even if I no longer tend to build the set myself.
In addition to vets Devin Funchess (who set career highs in pretty much every stat last season) and second-year guy Jabrill Peppers, he managed to hit one of my player collections in Tom Brady and help my football RC project with my first of big man Mo Hurst's first-years. The first-round talent DT fell all the way down to the fifth thanks to fear of a heart condition that seemed to have been assuaged by multiple doctors. Oh well, Oakland's gain, I guess!
When it came to the sport on the ice it was another "Hockey Mikes" kind of day, even if this first scan doesn't give you that impression. It does lead off with sniper Cammalleri on a beautiful OPC Platinum Rainbow parallel at least. Plenty of other friendly faces follow, plus Doug threw in a new-to-me base of young star Zach Werenski, which is exciting since he's not exactly cheap to collect right now!
The rest of the base/inserts hit three of my hockey player collections, two of which I recently scanned. Up first is Wolverwing Dylan Larkin on a super shiny Upper Deck/Tim Horton's joint venture from 2016-17. It looks as great as their Timbits are tasty! Next is former Hobey-winner and national champ Brendan Morrison taking us all the way back to 2001-02 Upper Deck MVP and my freshman year in Ann Arbor. Finally there's a nice pair of superstar college goalie Marty Turco on cards from 2009-10 UD/McDonald's and 2010-11 Between The Pipes (with the Blackhawks!). We'll see him again before this post is done....
And now it's time for a plethora of hockey hits!:
Hockey Mike hit numbers one and two are this pair of Cammalleris, jerseys from 2007-08 Fleer Hot Prospects Hot Materials and 2016-17 Upper Deck Game Jerseys. It's amazing to me how long he's been playing, as the stretch between when these were produced proves. I now have 15 different hits of the winger who was most recently with the Oilers.
I didn't post these in this order on purpose--you all know I'm very strict about going straight alphabetical--but yeah, here's your other two hockey Mikes! Former Red Wing Knuble is on the left out of a product you could tell was Zenith without needing a closer look. Throwing it back to one of my all-time favorite baseball inserts it's from the 2010-11 and called Mozaics Materials, and features cameos from his former Caps teammates Eric Fehr and Alex Ovechkin, who I was happy to see finally get his Cup the other day. That's just my fifth hit of Knuble, by the way.
Moving on to an even rarer player to find in my hockey PC we have Mike #3, former Leaf/Canadien Komisarek on the very cool multi-swatch 2009-10 Black Diamond Jerseys Quad. The two-year Wolverine is pictured with Montreal but listed with Toronto, his second-to-last NHL destination (a stint in Carolina marked the end of his career). I really like getting multiple jersey pieces like this, especially with a bit of variety thanks to the Canadiens red. I mentioned that Komisarek was relatively hard to find in my collection, and the fact that this is just my third hit of his is proof!
This foursome is also great. Doug is largely, if not entirely, responsible for my collection of seven very nice hits of Vegas D-man Jon Merrill, five of which are now of the auto/relic variety. The other two are a plain ol' autograph and a plate, so it's one of the stronger collections in the group! This 2013-14 Select jersey auto RC (#195/199) obviously fits in very nicely.
I decided to make it a point to get some nice cards of recent Michigan stars like former Blackhawks draftee Tyler Motte--who had a fantastic junior year in Ann Arbor--and then Doug went ahead and chipped in an autograph (my first) and jersey in this very package. The former is from 2016-17 SP Game Used and is a Blue parallel of his auto/RC. I like his signature which includes his jersey number here. The jersey, from 2016-17 Upper Deck's Rookie Materials, is my second such card and it looks great as well, giving me three cool hits of Motte all of a sudden!
Last up is probably my favorite Michigan hockey player to collect, the previously-seen Turco. Doug's been my main accomplice as I've accumulated 36 hits of the two-time college champ goalie who's in no danger of losing his crown as king of my hockey collection. Even so he still managed to surprise me with a new type of relic card; while I have something like 22 jerseys and even a stick piece, this is the first time I've owned a piece of a goalie's trapper glove. It's a fun first and great way to close out the hockey portion.
That covers all the sports but we're not quite done yet because Doug wasn't quite done with the surprises. Among the piles of great new additions was the first lady to join one of my hit collections, in this case "Other Sports, etc.":
Janet Guthrie is 80 years old this year and can look back fondly on a solid auto racing career highlighted by being the first female to drive in both the Indy and Daytona 500 races, plus being inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. So what's her relevance here? Doug was keen enough to realize that she's also a Michigan alum, in fact an aerospace engineer, if you already weren't impressed. So naturally he nabbed this 2007 Press Pass Legends Blue autograph (#376/385), making her just the fourth member of the "Etc. Club" and first woman on a hit in my collection. I hope to be able to add to that number, especially with multiple softball and ice skating stars to hail from my school, not to mention those from other sports.
Once again, Doug, I'm not worthy of such a crazy great bunch of stuff that I really enjoyed, but I'm hard at work putting together some cards to thank you for the great effort you always put in!
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