Seventh heaven

Today mark's one year since last New Year's Day, when I watched as Michigan Football ended a disappointing season with a bowl loss to South Carolina, then got over it and posted a bunch of new Mario Manninghams from Sportlots.  That means it's been seven whole years since I spun off this here blog from the original Too Many Grandersons!

I think the calendar rolling over deserves a quick recap of Michigan sports and my collection progress from 2018.

The football team went 10-3 with those 10 straight victories coming after a season-opening loss to CFP semi-finalist Notre Dame.  The Wolverines avenged 2017 losses against Wisconsin, MSU, and Penn State thanks to newfound offensive success that can largely be attributed to transfer QB Shea Patterson.  Unfortunately the team wilted in a beatdown in Columbus, then looked just as flat in the Peach Bowl loss to Florida.  Questions abound for the 2019 team, but lots of returning starters and an outstanding recruiting class could portend good things.

The hockey team, meanwhile, enjoyed a bit more success, losing the conference tourney to Ohio State before edging Northeastern and bombing BU in their NCAA tourney regional, heading to yet another Frozen Four.  Their season ended there with a 4-3 loss to Notre Dame, but it was a vast improvement over the previous year.  Super talented D Quinn Hughes was a big part of that, and I'm anxious to see what he can do this year before heading off to the NHL.

Finally, Michigan Basketball was the toast of Ann Arbor in 2017-18 thanks to a very good regular season that gave way to a conference tourney title that included double-digit wins over Michigan State and Purdue.  In fact, John Beilein's squad swept the Spartans, including another 10-point win in East Lansing.  After an early February loss to Northwestern his guys won 14 straight, only seeing the streak end in the March Madness final against Villanova.  That included the incredible scene immortalized above when a Jordan Poole prayer lifted Michigan to a crazy one-point, buzzer-beating victory over Houston, not to mention a win against the tournament's Cinderella, Loyola-Chicago.

Beilein continues to reward the patience of the athletic department and fans; to add to his already impressive resume of two finals appearances with Michigan, his team went undefeated in this season's 13 non-conference games, two of which were North Carolina and revenge against Villanova.  Who knows what great things April could bring this season?

As for my Michigan PCs, things were less roller coaster and more like a well-oiled machine.  I had 15 trade packages to show off, some of which were actually TMM-specific, so that was great.  The year was a productive one in getting more player collections put together and posted, with more good things on the way this year.  And I hit a big milestone with--what else?--a Mario Manningham card, my 2000th hit from my alma mater.  Besides those heavy hitters I added lots of other cardboard (and more) to those collections, and that also looks to be a trend I'll be able to continue in the new year.

Here's hoping things get even better for Michigan and that 2019 is a happy BLUE year!

Happy New Year and blog birthday! Featuring Too Many Manninghams from Sportlots

Well the season didn't end the way I hoped:  Michigan, up 16 points, made too many mistakes against a South Carolina team that switched roles with the Wolverines in the second half.  Just like five years ago this campaign ends with a heartbreaking bowl loss and a negative outlook towards next season...for now.

But you won't see any insipid hot takes over here.  Over the last couple years I've learned to let disappointment and negativity go when it comes to sports, and I feel better as a result even when things don't go my teams' way.  Instead I'm proud of what this team did and I eagerly await the 2018 season and what it could bring.

Speaking of 2018, today is the sixth anniversary of this here blog, one I started because my collecting interests skew heavily towards my alma mater.  Six years later it looks like a good decision: TMM is at about 100 fewer posts than TMV, and the latter had about a 16-month head start!  Happily I feel like I've found a nice balance by shifting my Michigan-related baseball PCs to the senior blog while this one mostly features football and the other big sports.

So in honor of another college football season in the books, another year of this here blog's existence, and a certain "Super" namesake, here's a bunch of Mario Manninghams from Sportlots (but not too many!):

The first scan starts off on a high note with a pair of Michigan uni cards from 2008 Press Pass and 2010 Sweet Spot.  I bought a box of Sweet Spot way back when it came out but never finished the set, but fortunately I've since added a few of the Wolverines from the nice looking product.

The other 2010 entrant is card #2 in the group, a base from Prestige on a design I don't care for as much as I usually do.

Then we have six appearances from 2011, leaning heavily towards Panini brands.  First up is the forgettable Adrenalyn XL, a weird game-type set that's just not that great.  After that we get a much better trio in Certified, Donruss Elite, and Finest before finishing up with Panini's Gridiron Gear and Prestige once again.

Today's other scan begins with one more trio of 2011s:  Panini's Rookies and Stars plus its Longevity base set version (as opposed to the parallel insert) and the usual solid effort from Score.  Down the middle is a Topps run of Prime Retail and its Blue parallel plus the Retail version of Strata (and whatever the hell is supposed to be going on in the background).

A horizontal base from Panini's 2011 Threads is a nice way to end things with a cool design plus one more look at Manningham with the Giants, the team for which he's best known.

These 16 new Manninghams give his PC a new count of 168, once again letting me start this year of collecting on a positive note.  And if you like seeing his cards posted here, just wait until I get to my Black Friday COMC haul, which was very Mario-friendly!  Until then, watch for a few more Sportlots posts over here in addition to the ones I've been running on TMV.  And while you're at it, please keep sending me any Manninghams you have--I just can't get enough!

Too Many Manninghams: this post gets meta!

Yeah, last Saturday's game didn't go my favorite team's way thanks to untimely mistakes and unquestionably incompetent officiating, but at least it was a game worthy of the rivalry.

My disappointment hasn't kept me from doing some work towards posting, though.  While I'm focusing on a couple other projects, I decided it was high time to get this here blog's namesake his own album as I did for Hart, Henne, and Woodson.  I mean, if I don't show you how many Manninghams I have, how are you supposed to determine whether or not I own too many?  (Trick question--the answer is always that I never do)

It was a pretty easy decision for two reasons:  first, I have a pretty nice number of his cards between assorted stuff from trades and purchases, inserts, rookies from that project, and hits--especially the latter, as Super Mario claims fifth place in that collection with 61 as one of just five players to crack the 60-card mark.  And second:  thanks to everything in the previous point, I had fewer than 20 cards of his left to scan.  So this actually didn't involve very much work on my part.

All that led to the creation of Mario's own album, which can be viewed here anytime (and found on my player collections page as well)

Oddly enough, right now his total of 112 cards matches up exactly with Woodson's, though that'll change within a few weeks after my latest COMC order arrives.  Spoiler alert:  while that incoming package doesn't contain too many Manninghams, it does include a lot, along with a bunch of other very exciting Wolverines content, so stay tuned for that!

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!

A bit of housekeeping on a blue Sunday

Well, THAT certainly could have gone a lot better, but it's over and there's still 11 games and a Big Ten title to chase.

Anyway, because I spun this blog off from Too Many Verlanders I've finally got around to separating my player wantlists and player collections so I'd have more stuff organized over here.

On the top bar you'll now see a few new Pages.  The first is my Singles/Players wantlist, most of which was taken from the TMV list (so that's only baseball over there now).  Although it's probably obvious, this is a list of all the Wolverines players I collect, as well as images/links to COMC versions of some singles I'm interested in (and definitely don't have--I keep this list very up-to-date) to give you guys ideas of what I like.

Next is a direct link to my TMV trade bait page since there's no reason to duplicate that.  It's something I need to beef up a bit, but it has pretty much all of my better cards available for trades right now.

After that is Player collections, which is intended to show off the stuff I have of my three current supercollections--Bill Freehan, Rich Hill and Zach Putnam--as posted on Picasa, plus link to my Google Docs checklists of those three guys so you can see what I have (or have incoming) should you decide to send me anything of them.

Finally, I made a separate section for showing off any nameplates and rainbows I've completed.  While I've got a few things in the works, I've only completed the Cazzie Russell nameplate, but that's a perfect place to show it off, no?   Hopefully I'll have more to add to that section soon.

I hope these new pages/links make things more useful for the few of you that check in over here sometimes.  Thanks in advance for anyone that helps me with any of my PCs and projects!

Introducing TMM's very first contest

This blog's been going for more than a month now and I'm very happy with how things have gone.  I certainly feel better having my Michigan stuff split off from TMG since obviously only a small set of my readers were actually checking out those posts.  Also, it's been great to have Jeff on board since he's provided great content in terms of his own Michigan PC stuff and some editorials as well.

Because things seem to be going in the right direction, I though it was about time that I put up this blog's first contest.  I want to be very clear that this isn't a page view/followers grab--it's intended to thank and reward each of you who read this fledgling blog as much as you do.  That's why the only requirement this time is for you to leave a comment on this post.  It can be literally whatever you'd like (with a couple requirements, mentioned below).  

Each person will get a maximum of one entry, which will be randomed off in the usual way, and I won't be awarding bonus entries for following, pimping the contest, etc.  All I ask is that when you leave a comment, you do so with an account that links to your email, or that you leave contact info in the comment itself.  As such, I will automatically disqualify all entries made that result in a "no-reply..." address and that do not include contact info in the comment itself.  Good?  Good.

Now that all that is clear, here's what our one winner will receive:

• Austin Powers UD Piece of Hollywood Costume relic (from Sam's recent group break)
• Shaun Alexander 2003 SP Game-Used Edition jersey (which I received by accident from my favorite Blowout seller)
• 2010 Press Pass PE auto of Joe Webb and Jersey of Sean Canfeld (extras from my several breaks of those)
• A complete set of 2011 SAGE HIT low series and Pre-Rookies (I have a few of these from busting lots of those too)
• And finally, something nice of the MLB or NFL team of your choice.  I'll do my best to make it something good like a hit if I can, but please keep in mind I don't have hits of every single team, so if I don't, I'll try to make it some nice inserts or RCs or something.  Please make sure to include your favorite team in your comment

The contest will end one week from today (Sunday) at 11:59 pm EST.  I'll remind you guys during each post this week, then next Monday I'll do a quick randomization and post the winner.  As a reminder, please make sure to leave me some sort of contact info in your comment, and make sure to mention your favorite MLB or NFL team.

Thanks again to everybody who reads and/or follows this blog.  I look forward to providing more Michigan Wolverines-centric comment, along with Jeff, for a long time!

Entries:

• Larry, Mariners
• Hackenbush, Cubs, Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks
• Eric, Royals
• Sam, Astros
• Arpsmith (reader), SF Giants, USC Trojans, SF 49ers
• Brian, Texas Rangers
• Josh, Royals
• Greg, Dodgers, Chargers
• Matt, Cardinals, Rams

Co-author announcement

Wow, two posts in one day.  I'm proud to announce that in just its first day of existence I've already recruited a co-author for this blog:  Jeff of My Sports Obsession.

Jeff is a fellow aficionado of Michigan sports, especially football, and proved his loyalty by making several treks out to Ann Arbor from Indiana for Michigan fan day and several games as well.  Such devotion behind enemy lines (so close to South Bend) is admirable, and I can confirm first hand that he's done a great job of passing Notre Dame hate to his family.

So look forward to some great content from Jeff that may or may not provide a nice break from my constant stream of pro-Michigan propaganda.  I hope he provides an entertaining alternative perspective on Michigan collecting--though having read relevant posts on his blog I don't have any concerns--and that this blog becomes another useful way for him to continue building his own Michigan PC.  An important related note:  he only collects cards of Michigan players in Wolverine uniforms, so keep that in mind.

If you're a like-minded fanatic of the Champions of the West and would also like to contribute in a similar fashion, drop me a comment or email and we'll discuss it as I'd be delighted to have multiple contributors to this here blog, something I've seen work effectively elsewhere, especially the outstanding Mojo Beard.  If you think it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine and want to be a part of TMM, don't be shy!

New year, new blog

The timing just seemed right to kick off a new blog devoted entirely to Michigan sports and my Wolverines PCs:  it's a brand new year, we're just a couple days away from Michigan's Sugar Bowl matchup with the Hokies, and really, ever since I created TMG, a blog ostensibly geared towards baseball, I've focused more on Michigan stuff than anything else.  There's a reason for that:  while baseball is my first love, I've been a lifelong Michigan fan and continue to carry that in my blood since graduating from there in 2005, and I continue to live in Ann Arbor, surrounded be greatness--past, present and future.  Though I've cheered it at the top of my lungs repeatedly, I've never ironically spoken the words "It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine."

If you've been on North Campus you know exactly where this is

So here we are--a blog that I expect to have a much smaller (but hopefully more devoted) audience than my other project, but one that will allow me to be more focused on something I enjoy more without the guilt of alienating fellow collectors and bloggers who understandably skew more towards the more popular baseball side of the hobby.  While I plan many posts centering around my collections from all four major sports, I also intend to provide useful content not directly related to those, such as game previews and recaps, updates on players in the pros, and hobby news pertaining to Michigan players.  I hope this combination of content proves to be entertaining and useful to the few of you who might choose to follow.  In short, my goal is to offer a place where both I and fellow Michigan Men can feel right at home.

Go Blue!