Luck of the Draw

I'm getting crushed--crushed--at work, and found out yesterday that I need to hit the road for business tomorrow and Thursday before coming back for meetings all day Friday, all while I have a major report due for a client in three weeks that will literally require all of my available working hours between now and then. So, short post it is.

I was pretty lucky with a couple of finds at the National, which just proves that persistence pays off. (I was equivalently lucky in a couple eBay finds recently, which I'll highlight in a separate post). As for my favorite:

2006 Topps Heritage #95 Justin Verlander Chrome (#/1957)

This came from a memorabilia dealer at the national who had a small box of cards on the size of her booth, divided by player. She told me upfront: "see if there's anything you like in there, everything is under $1 and most of it is twenty-five cents." So I browsed--most of the cards were base cards or inserts that I already had or didn't much care for collecting--and then I pulled this out. It's a Heritage Chrome, something I actually collect, of Justin Verlander in his Rookie Year. I handed it over, told her that this was the only card that I was really interested in and she gave it a glance before saying, without hesitation, "$0.25."

Sold.

Considering that the cheapest you can hope to ever find a single like this online is $.99 plus shipping, I was pretty happy with the take-away. Add-in that this was Verlander's rookie year (Enjoy number 59, rook!), from a set that I actually collect, and this was as good of a bargain as anyone could ever hope for, small potatoes be damned.

The Grand Scheme Feels Like A Giant

The Little GuysI don't know if you're one to peruse the comments around here, but if you were you may have noticed this snippet:

I like the tiny ones the best. I enjoy holding them between my thumb and forefinger and pretending that I am a giant.

That was my wife's partial response to the Anniversary note. Of course, these tiny cards were at the forefront of her mind, because I've recently been blessed with a constant flow of A&G Minis in the mailbox. I decided I needed to backfill some collections, and 2006 and 2007 mini cards were high on the list. When all was said and done I had 22 new minis to call my own. Here's a taste:

I'm this close to being completely caught up with those sets.

The Big Guy A few weeks ago when Ernie Harwell passed the Tigers held a brief ceremony before the game. They also provided fans with a commemorative card--the specifics of which were very unclear when it was announced. Well, my family was at the game, saved one of the cards and sent it my way, where it arrived yesterday. Thanks Dad! I feel like this would look very nice in an understated frame.





For the record, this is roughly cabinet card size. It's pretty big.

The Empire Strikes Back This blog's arch nemesis has struck again, this time infuriating a professional, grizzled blogger to the point of italicizing his frustration for extra emphasis The offending paragraph:

Once upon a time it was Michigan State that got into all the trouble. It was East Lansing where there were stability problems. …

Michigan State is now the regional example for how a Big Ten athletic program should be run. There was a bad mess with November's dormitory fracas. But between Mark Dantonio's reconstructed football program and Tom Izzo's spotless work in making MSU basketball an elite and ongoing force, MSU has become the Michigan of 20 and 30 years ago, while Michigan has taken MSU's unenviable place as the campus where too much bad sports news originates.

...and the italics:

"Fracas"? The number of kids kicked off the team reached double digits! It was the second consecutive year a large group of Michigan State football players descended upon a group of innocent bystanders and heard the lamentation of the women! Just the most recent incident has outstripped the entire Rodriguez era when it comes to player arrests… by a factor of five! Dantonio was directly responsible for the second incident because he let Glenn Winston walk out of jail and directly on to a practice field! This is brushed off in a single sentence!

This is MGoBlog, the blog by which all blogs should balance their blog-scales for awesomeness. The offending writer is none other than everybody's favorite...

Lynn Henning.

Topps Series 2 Series 2 is out and I'm excited. There really seems to be some good stuff in there. Also, not so good stuff:





These are all basically the same card. One is cool. Ten(!) is lame. Dial it down Topps, you've already ruined a good idea.

Also lame: the fact that Justin Verlander (2006) and Rick Porcello (2009) are featured in the "Cards Your Mother Threw Out" insert set. No she didn't. There is no reason that anything after 1980 should be included in this set, much less cards that are less than 5 years old. Another decent idea that went way, way too far.

There's good stuff too, but I'm still wrapping my head around the whole set. I hope to have cards trickle into my possession over the next week or so so that I can give a more complete evaluation.

Misc. I thought, since it's been a long time since a Grand Scheme, that I'd have a lot to say. Not so much, I guess. In links, how about funding a good cause by buying this wrong on many levels Kirk Gibson Kansas City Royals Card? Come on. Do us all a favor.

Obaks and Throwbacks

This isn't a checklist in the way many of the other Tiger galleries are, but this 2009 Obak Fu-Te Ni is the only Tiger card in the Obak set. Since I wrote about it below, I didn't feel like there was a reason to write another gallery about it.

Things are a little bit busy on my end, but I thought I would show off some cards that came in recently that don't normally fit into my "main" collections, but have been very well received.

The first card is the only Obak card that I cared about:

2009 Tristar Obak #7 Fu-Te Ni

Mr. Ni, shown here as a Toledo Mud Hen, is the only Tiger in the whole Obak set. This card came courtesy of the generous Beardy in exchange for me asking politely for it. Maybe he did it because we live in the same city, but I'm guessing that its just because he's a good guy. Thanks Beardy!

The rest of the cards came from Thorzul's Greats of the Game group break. First, the "hit"

2006 Fleer Greats Of The Game #DET-KG Kirk Gibson Jersey

Gibby Game Used? Yes, please.

I had never really seen any cards from this set, so when I opened the package I was pleasantly surprised. Some of my favorites include:

2006 Fleer Greats Of The Game #2 Alan Trammell

Wow, Tram is number two in this set? And number one is who?

2006 Fleer Greats of the Game #1 Al Kaline

Nice!

The Gibby base card features a great photo:

2006 Fleer Greats Of The Game #57 Kirk Gibson

And I can't leave out a couple of Birds:

2006 Fleer Greats Of The Game #63 Mark Fidrych

2006 Fleer Greats Of The Game #DET-MF Mark Fidrych

He played four years with the Tigers and is prominently featured in the set. Four years! I don't know that any other baseball player has ever had that much cultural impact in such a limited amount of time (and even less productive time). Truly an incredible Tiger.

Rounding out my haul were:
#6 Bill Freehan
#44 George Kell
#49 Jack Morris
#DET-DM Denny McLain "Tiger Greats"
#DET-TC Ty Cobb "Tiger Greats"

Excellent stuff across the board! (and yes, I realize that those aren't technically throwbacks, but I don't have any new "throwbacks" so give me a break.)

I'm still playing my perpetual game of catch up, but I assure you that there will be more cards uploaded and checklists updated by the end of the week! (I need to sink my teeth into Ticket to Stardom and Ballpark Collection and just can't bear to, and there are more releases already out or around the corner.)

Pennant Race = Cards In Newspapers!

Well, the Detroit Newspapers at least. Friend of the blog Drizz, who also happens to run an extremely enjoyable blog about everybody's favorite 90's slugger with Totally Cecil--The Cecil Fielder Card Of The (every other) Day or, TCTCFCOT(EO)D as I like to call it, alerted me to new Tigers cards that would be inserted in the Detroit Papers every Tuesday, starting, well, yesterday. Day 1 was Curtis Granderson in the News and Justin Verlander in the Free Press. I'm going to make you click the link to see them, because you should really check out his blog anyway.

With this campaign in full swing, I was reminded of the time the papers last pulled this stunt--during the 2006 World Series run. Of course, I wasn't aware of it at the time, and didn't realize that the cards were 5x7 until I had them in hand, but I do, in fact, have the two Granderson cards from that year, his first full season in the majors. Strangely, I haven't shown them off on here yet, despite the fact that I've had them for at least 6 months. I think that I was trying to figure out what to do with them, or waiting for the right moment to arrive. I'm still not sure about how to store/display them, but I'd consider the moment here.

From the Detroit News:

2006 Detroit News Curtis Granderson

And the Free Press:

2006 Detroit Free Press Curtis Granderson

Now, I must say that these are pretty good offerings by the newspapers, although they fall short of the 2009 Detroit News set, in my opinion. Still, action shot from the Free Press is a nice one and I like the News close up as well. In fact, these are just the type of oddball cards that I tend to love, and I'm only put off by their abnormally large size. If they had an insert sheet of maybe 2 or 4 players with perforated edges or something--like old SI for Kids cards, or even non-perforated like a Box Bottom, then these would be absolutely killer. Call me a slave for conformity (or just someone who has certain OCD tendencies), but that would make me a happy man. As it stands instead, I've got two cool, unique pieces--and hopefully two more for 2009 once the full sets are released!

6 in 30 from the Granderson Binder

At the start of this week, just as I was heading out of town, I realized that I could spare a quick 30 seconds to give Dinged Corners' great 6 in 30 idea a try.

Step one was to figure out which binder to use. I've got a Topps Tigers Binder from 1980-1999 (with some older cards thrown in), another one from 2000-2009, a Topps Gold Binder, and a Misc. sets binder with things like A&G, Heritage and Goudey. My Granderson cards used to share this binder, but as of two weeks ago, they were given their own dedicated binder. Once I thought about it, it seemed like the decision was obvious. So now I give you 6 cards pulled in 30 seconds from my brand new Curtis Granderson binder.

2006 Upper Deck #174 Curtis Granderson Special F/X Red (#12/50)

This is one of my all-time favorite Granderson cards, because of the close-up, over the shoulder angle on the card. I also really liked the 2006 Upper Deck design, and it was the Tigers' World Series year to boot. The base card had a number of parallel versions of which this was one, and the color-saturated special f/x effect is really neat. I especially like the red stamped serial number. Of course, it is no surprise that I picked this card first out of the binder--it is the basis of my little "Grand Cards" icon after all.

2008 UDX X-CG Curtis Granderson "Xponential"

Oh, I've talked about this card before. It is outstanding. (So good that Upper Deck re-used the picture for 2009 Goudey.)

2008 Topps Finest #FM-CG Curtis Granderson Blue Refractor (#149/299)

I've found myself drawn to Topps Finest recently, as I really like the Granderson card that they've put out. In 2008, the year after Granderson's 20-20-20-20 season, they had a base card, but also this "Finest Moments" insert. This is another of my favorite Granderson shots, and I think that the blue refractor just lets this card shine.

2008 Allen & Ginter #RC11 Curtis Granderson Rip Card (#39/75)

I got this sucker in a trade with Duane from Democratic Roadkill some time back, and absolutely love it. This is A&G taken to the max. It is so good, that I don't even care that there is a huge rip in the back of the card. Not important--look at that front! To quote myself when I wrote about it originally:

It looks the the Union Army was using Granderson to take out Confederates by hitting baseballs into a valley to pick them off one-by-one and he is looking into the distance as his most recent hit approaches its unsuspecting victim.

Yeah it does.

2009 Allen & Ginter Curtis Granderson Silk (#4/10)

A brand new, heretofore unshowcased on this blog card, also from Allen & Ginter. It is silk. It has a shiny, fancy frame. It is numbered to 10 copies and it is undeniably awesome. For no good reason, I think that silk cards are fantastic. I think it is the texture that it adds to the picture--I'm tired of things that are too shiny, I want some gritty authenticity. Certainly, a silk card wouldn't meet that criteria, but I feel like we're only a step away from "Topps Burlap" or "Topps Birch Bark" or something like that (or Topps Canvas, which would really make the most sense). Look at the world's great masterpieces and there is one consistent theme--texture. I'm just saying.

2008 UD Goudey #69 Curtis Granderson Red Back Mini

I was running out of time here, and was actually trying to grab the black mini, which I like better, but I'm missing a light above my desk so it was kind of dark and I mixed up the blue and black in my last second grab. I really do like this card a lot--I think that it is among the best of 2008 Goudey, but I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't muster one or two more binder page flips to see if I liked something from 2009 better, but when I thought about it later, I'm really not sure that I do.

If 06 was 09: First Basemen

With a week before Opening Day, my stomach is twisting and my mind is racing trying to figure out what to expect of the Tigers. Gone are the days of muted expectations, ever since the Tigers' miracle run of 2006 in which they went from Last Place to the World Series. As I attempt to concoct a scenario in which the Tigers do the same thing this season after a crushing 2008, I thought it might be fun to compare the 2006 and the 2009 teams and see how they match up. This will take a number of posts but I'll keep each one short(ish), so let's start with the first basemen.

First Base
2006 Chris Shelton vs. 2009 Miguel Cabrera


Shelton was the Rule 5 pick who stormed out of the gate with a record setting home run streak to start the season. He proceeded to go ice cold after April and was replaced by Sean Casey in the second half.


Casey went on to hit for a respectable average, with no power and no speed, though his defense was an asset throughout the season. He injured himself early in the playoffs only to tear the cover off the ball in the World Series, hitting .529 with 2 homers and 5 RBI.


Miguel Cabrera is among the best offensive players in the game and was they lynchpin of the 2008 blockbuster trade that brought him to Detroit in exchange for the Tigers top two prospects, Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin. He finished in the top 3 in the American League in Home Runs and RBIs in 2008.

In 2005 Shelton was on the team as a backup catcher, so there was no continuity at First Base. In 2008, Cabrera started as a 3rd baseman but was moved to 1st before the All Star Break, he has half a year as starting Tigers first Baseman going into 2009.

So, 2006 or 2009?

Continuity: 2009
Offense: 2009
Defense: 2009 pre-Casey, 2006 with Casey

The Verdict
2009 Easily gets the nod at first base, with one of the game's premier hitters occupying the position. While there may be some defensive liability down the stretch when compared with Sean Casey, the offensive prowess, and acceptable defense more than make up for it.