Friday, October 27, 2023

Grandes Nachos (and More!) from the Third Floor

Even though I haven't been very active on the blog and I put my trading on hiatus, I've still got a few cards from my fellow bloggers delivered into my mailbox.

First, I have some cards from Tom at The Angels in Order. He ran a giveaway a few weeks ago that I'm just now getting around to displaying. I claimed both of these Rangers oddballs with the thought of giving them away to my Rangers baseball team next year. I didn't realize that they were oversized until they arrived. Now seems like a really opportune time to lead with some Texas Rangers, as they play in Game 1 of the World Series tonight. However, I'm wearing a D-backs hat as I write this. I may be in a very, very small minority, but this is the exact World Series that I wanted as soon as my Cubbies were eliminated from contention in late September. I didn't think there was any chance I'd see it happen, but I'll be with my two Arizona fan sons, cheering on the Diamondbacks.


These cards technically came via a TCDB trade before I shut down my trading for the year. But they were a trade with TCDB user Madding, AKA Kerry, AKA Cards on Cards. Here we have a few ROYs and ASG MVPs, a pair of All-Star project cards, and some set help for my 2014 Donruss, 2013 Opening Day, 2022 Opening Day, and Opening Day Bomb Squad builds. Joey Bart kills off my 2022 OD set, in fact.
 
Earlier this week, I came home to a surprise bubble mailer. I wasn't expecting it at all, but Dennis from Too Many Verlanders sent me a good-sized package of BYU Cougars and Chicago Cubs that he had been picking up for me. Man, card bloggers are some of the best people out there!

Here is an entire page worth of John Becks, including some relics and an auto! The SAGE Write Stuff insert is kind of interesting. On the back is a handwriting analysis of his signature. I don't know how accurate it is, but it was interesting to see. I assume there is an autograph version of this card as well, but I've never come across it.

More Cougars here. I love the shiny, serial-numbered Luke Staley and the acetate Steve Young. Great stuff here.

Bridging from the football cards Dennis sent to the baseball cards, we have a couple of oversized items. I remember having some Fleer Gameday football cards and even completing a set of NBA Jam Session cards, but I never realized that Fleer also made a tall Extra Bases set during the same time period. Steve Buechele is my introduction to that set.


Dennis also included some pretty cool Cubs cards. A couple of acetate stars, a few serial numbers, an auto, a relic, two A&G mini parallels (black border and A&G back) of Rich Hill, a cool Topps coin of Jerome Walton, and Ian Happ sliding into the snow are among the goodies. I learned that I previously had no cards of Sergio Mitre, Jon Leicester, Scott Eyre, and Blaise Ilsey, though they all spent time in the Majors with the Cubs and some even had pretty long careers.


Elliptical Man from The View from the Third Floor had a fun series/contest in which readers tried to guess who he had included in his page for each NFL team. I would have loved to participate more, but I'm still having a weird Blogger issue that doesn't allow me to comment on most things. Apparently, I guessed his Houston Texans page pretty well and he rewarded me with a PWE of NFLers in their college unis. Five of these cards are dupes for me. Anybody want to take a guess which five?


Finally, these are cards from a PWE I just received yesterday. Chris, AKA Nachos Grande, posted about the passing of his friend and custom-card maker Ryan. As a tribute, Chris is spreading the Custom A&G love. When I got the cards yesterday, I was surprised that--even though I never had any interaction with Ryan--I already had three of his customs in my collection and had never known where they came from. There are some fun ones here.


Included in the envelope was a touching tribute Chris wrote. He mentioned that Ryan had even created some parallels and serial-numbered version of his cards. The David Price I received was one of them--a custom Bazooka A&G back numbered 9/25. Thank you, Chris. I think you've done a wonderful job in his memory.

A big thanks to Tom, Kerry, Dennis, Elliptical Man, and Nachos Grande. After years of blogging, I should have realized that even though I hit the pause button in trading, bloggers would still find a way to slip a little something into my mailbox. You are all awesome people!

Monday, September 25, 2023

Rookie of the Year Spotlight: Wil Myers

 

Some of the collections I have been working on over the years are starting to get filled out and my goals are being reached. As a result, I'm starting to slow down a little when it comes to acquiring many cards for some of my mini-collections. Now that the collection is feeling more and more complete, I wanted to start showcasing the cards I have, player by player.

One such collection is my Rookie of the Year collection. I love collecting players who have won the award as the top newcomer in each league. This wasn't born of hot rookie hype and the desire to prospect. Rather, I became fascinated thinking about the careers of guys like Eric Karros, Jerome Walton, and Tim Salmon, who experienced varying degrees of success but may not have become superstars. I thought it would be fun to have a collection that chronicles the individual career journeys of rookie stars--whether they burned bright and flamed out quickly, regressed to the mean, or wended their way to Cooperstown.
 
My goal has been to fill a binder page for each player who won the award in my lifetime and to fill a row for older players. I may expand that later as I expand my vintage collection. The ultimate goal of my binder is to show a card from every different uniform the player wore, from fresh-faced rookie to grizzled vet. This series is to commemorate each Rookie of the Year's career and show my collection of their cards. I placed all of the past winners into random.org and got my order. Today we highlight

Wil Myers

 
Myers debuted with Tampa Bay on June 18, 2023, going 0-4 against the Red Sox. By the end of the year, he had appeared in 88 games, slashing .293/.354/.478. His OPS+ was 130 in his rookie season--the highest it has ever been up to this point in time. He was solid in right field, too, committing no errors in 142 chances. He won the AL Rookie of the Year with 23 of 30 first place votes. Jose Iglesias picked up 5 votes, and Chris Archer and Dan Straily both garnered one vote each.

The next year, Myers dropped off significantly. His 2014 OPS+ was nearly cut in half, falling to 77. It was his last season in Tampa. In the offseason, he was dealt to San Diego in a massive three-team trade. Among other things, Joe Ross was shipped from San Diego to Washington, which sent Steven Souza to Tampa Bay. A prospect by the name of Trea Turner went from San Diego to Washington.
 
 
He found some power in 2016, blasting 28 home runs--his first time hitting more than 13 in a season. He received his sole All-Star nod for the Padres that year. His best season was 2020, when he posted a .959 OPS and received his only MVP votes in a shortened season. He spent eight seasons in San Diego, mostly at 1st base. During that time, he hit .254/.330/.451 and averaged about 17 home runs. After the 2022 season, he signed with Cincinnati as a free agent. He lasted only 37 games as a Red; he was released in June of this season after batting an abysmal .189.

Since he's now nearly 33 years old and unemployed, we can probably assume his career is about over. He played in the Majors for 11 years, finishing with a career slash line of .252/326/.427, 156 homers, and 533 RBI. He proved to be a fairly versatile defender, playing every defensive position except catcher and shortstop and even pitched 3.2 innings. He appeared in one All-Star game.
 

My Myers collection was complete until this year. Now I lack a Reds card of him. I really like the cards in my collection. The 2018 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor is nice, but I think my favorite Myers card is the 2014 Bowman Platinum Cutting Edge Stars (1st card in the middle row, first picture).

Friday, September 8, 2023

Fantasy Football Kickoff 2023

Another football season is here! While my Cubbies are in the thick of a division race with the Brewers, football is officially beginning. This is just one of the reasons that September is one of my favorite months every year.

The season kicked off last night, but I'm still saying that I'm not late with this post because I didn't have any fantasy players with my main team playing in the game. My annual NFL kickoff post is to present my work league fantasy team.

Without further ado, here are the 2023 Myopic Chihuahuas. All cards shown are cards in my collection.

QB: Lamar Jackson, Baltimore

This was the most I've ever spent on a QB, but since I missed out on some of my top WR targets early in the draft, I had a little extra cash and decided I should target a potentially high-scoring QB. I think Lamar could be huge this year.

 


RB1: Josh Jacobs, Las Vegas

Just a couple of weeks ago, I didn't think I would touch Jacobs with a 10-foot pole. But then he ended his holdout and I think he's ready roll for another big year. He was the lowest of my acceptable RB1 targets, but my competitors priced me out of the top guys I was really targeting. So I picked him and turned my eye to filling out a quality roster at discount prices after everybody else broke their budgets on the studs.

RB2: Dameon Pierce, Houston

This doesn't excite me too much. I haven't seen enough from Pierce yet to fully trust that he will be a big fantasy scorer. But the Texans are kind of void of talent, and with a rookie starting at QB, they have to give the ball to somebody. Hopefully Pierce can pull the volume to make him high-end RB2.

 

 WR1: Garrett Wilson, New York Jets

Wilson looked like a stud last year. This year, he has Aaron Rodgers throwing to him. This is 100% a pick based on a projected breakout. I hope it pays off.


WR2: Amari Cooper, Cleveland

Cooper has been in three uniforms since the one pictured on this card, but I don't own a Browns card of him yet. Rolling with him as my WR1 is scary to me. He has the talent and has produced in the past, but the Browns have a few different weapons and all of them are banking on Deshaun Watson returning to form and looking better than last year. I'm worried about my receiving corps, which feels kind of boom-or-bust, with a fairly high chance for bust.

TE: Darren Waller, New York Giants

Waller has proven in the past that he is effective for quarterbacks who aren't known for big, downfield plays. I'm hoping he's healthy this year and that Daniel Jones will be that QB for him.


FLEX1: Rachaad White, Tampa Bay

Leonard Fournette is gone. Tom Brady is gone. This is another boom/bust player who needs a breakout season.

FLEX2: Christian Watson, Green Bay

Watson showed flashes last year. I think he's ready to be the Packers' WR1. We'll just have to wait and see how well the offense runs with Jordan Love at the helm. You may notice that this is the fourth second-year player in my starting lineup. I actually have four more on my bench. I'm usually not the gambler that relies on lots of young, unproven talent and hopes for an explosion. But you take what the draft gives you, especially in an auction draft. With a 12-team league, I think I got a good collection of talent without overspending on any one player.


DEF: New England

As always, I'll stream defenses. New England gets the first call for me.

Bench:

Brian Robinson, RB, Washington
Jaylen Warren, RB, Pittsburgh
George Pickens, WR, Pittsburgh
Skyy Moore, WR, Kansas City
Puka Nacua, WR, Los Angeles Rams


 As per usual, Yahoo doesn't love my team.

But FantasyPros does.

Once again this year, my work league is the one that I count. New this year, however, is a TCDB league. This one is a new experience: I've never played with a superflex before; I've never had 14 teams in a league before; and I've never played with any sort of buy-in before. The buy-in is cards and everyone involved is a TCDB user. Here is a quick glance at my roster in this league:

QB: Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia
RB1: Tony Pollard, Dallas
RB2: Dameon Pierce, Houston
WR1: Chris Olave, New Orleans
WR2: Chris Godwin, Tampa Bay
WR3: Jahan Dotson, Washington
TE: Evan Engram, Jacksonville
FLEX: Miles Sanders, Carolina
SUPERFLEX: Daniel Jones, New York Giants
DEF: Denver

I honestly think my TCDB team is a bit better than my other league. Fantasy Pros also likes this draft.

Let the games begin! I'm so glad it's football season again!

Monday, August 21, 2023

Card-Buying Hiatus

The Bump and Run household has run into some financial rapids and been bumped around by them this year. Nothing catastrophic, but enough that we've had to take a hard look at our spending. Since April, we've had to replace our garage door, put new tires on both vehicles, had our lawnmower crap out on, then had the one we bought to replace it follow suit, spent a few hundred to fix the ac that went out on the first triple-digit day of summer, and had both my phone and my wife's phone die completely in the same week. My car's check engine light came on; we spent over $700 to fix it, and it ran worse after I picked it up. So we took it back to the shop, where it has now been for 20 days. I don't know what they've done to it, but it's sitting in the parking lot with the hood up because they can't even get it to start now. Depending on the outcome of that situation, I may be looking for a new car, too. So our health is good and I didn't lose my source of income or anything, but we've run into a bunch of emergency-type expenses in the past few months. As a result, we've had to evaluate some other purchases we make. Caught a little tight in the finance department, I've made the decision not to buy any more cards for at least the rest of this year. 

So here are my last purchased cards for the foreseeable future. Actually, I bought this box last fall, but I forgot about it until this summer. I cracked open the box, opened a couple of packs, and let the box get buried in my card room until recently.

2021 Topps Big League--released, as you recall, a month into the 2022 MLB season--wasn't the flashiest, coolest-looking set I've seen, but it's far from the worst. I suspect this is a design that I will forget some day. I'm not chasing the set; I was just looking for a fun break. Here are a few cards that I'll keep for my collection.



Over a few years of buying Big League, I've noticed that Rookie of the Year award winners seem to be plentiful in the set. In this particular set, I think it may be because so many of them won other awards that were featured in the Award Winners subset (Jose Abreu's AL MVP, or Randy Arozarena's and Corey Seager's LCS MVPs, for example). 
 
 
Regardless of the reason, this scan illustrates my point. Of the 10 cards in the pack, 5 cards were ROY winners (Lewis 2x, Correa, Seager, and Arozarena). A sixth card, Vlad Jr., fits into my ASG MVP collection. But a Rookie of the Year hot pack!


Each pack contained one orange parallel and one insert. These are the non-base cards I pulled for my collection.

And a few of the inserts that found themselves in my trade boxes. I considered building the Wanted set, but decided against it ultimately.


This box beat the odds for me, too. Twice. First, I pulled an orange auto, which falls at 1:286. There is no guaranteed hit in a box, so beating the odds with any auto is already fun. Then this black foil card, numbered to 15, came out later. The odds of the black foil parallel is 1:485, so there is another fun long-odds card in the box. Both of those are hard enough pulls to make it fun anyway. But when the parallel numbered 5/15 just happens to fit into my collection, that's even better!

Before I pulled the plug on buying cards, I had one more purchase that I needed to make. Since Topps didn't release Opening Day this year, I missed my annual box break/set build. But I didn't want to let this Flagship get away without a set, though. I've been planning to pick up the factory set to commemorate Topps' final [independent] Flagship production. I pre-ordered a set to be my last new cards.

 

I've seen plenty of 2023 Topps around on the blogs, but I hadn't seen any in person until last week. I have to say, I think they look better on a screen than in-hand. I think this is my least favorite Flagship of the 20s. My set came with five foilboard cards. None are too exciting. These are numbered to 426. If I did my math correctly, that means that 56,232 factory sets were produced with this particular extra pack parallel. I'm not sure if there are other parallels available in different factory sets, but I would imagine so.

Along with my purchasing hiatus, I'm going on shipping hiatus, too. I have one stamp left for a PWE trade and when it's gone, I'm taking an online trading break, too. The blog will still live for the time being, however. I have a backlog of trades to post and some research-based and collection display posts to work on still. Hopefully, we'll get to place where we feel the ability to breathe in our discretionary spending again soon, but right now we've had to tighten the belt a little. These buys will have to hold me over for a while.

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

More All-Stars on the List

A week ago today, Major League Baseball played its annual All-Star Game. I've loved this game since I was a kid, but I couldn't watch it this year. We had tournament baseball happening. As a follow up to my last post, both of my boys won their city championships and advanced to compete at the state level. My older boy's team (the one that I was coaching) performed well. We finished second in our group during pool play, but then hit a juggernaut in the first round of the elimination bracket. Our opponent came into the game undefeated and left undefeated. In fact, our 6-1 loss was the closest game they played all year until the state semifinals, and we were the first team to hold them to single digits. They ended up losing in the final four and taking third. So our Pony League season ended in the Sweet 16 of state, if you will. My younger son rolled through the regular season and city championship undefeated, then won every game at the state tournament into the finals. There they met their Waterloo, falling 7-2 in the championship game. My son was a bit disappointed (he really wanted that T-shirt!), overall satisfied with a one-loss season and a second place finish.

My point is, I had one kid playing in one city while another was playing (and I coaching) in another at the time of the All-Star Game. I didn't get to see it. But that doesn't mean it didn't affect my collection.

 


By my count, there were 31 players who made their first All-Star team this year. That means I'll need to track down cards for 28 new players for my All-Time All-Star project. I found these three already in my trader boxes and moved them into my collection. Well, Steele was in my Cubs binder, so I moved one of his cards over to my All-Star project.

And, of course, I always add the All-Star Game MVP to my collection. I only own one card of this year's MVP, Elias Diaz, so his page will take awhile to complete. Welcome to the collection, Elias! And thank you for finally getting the NL a win!

One of the downsides of rarely buying packs anymore is that I don't have many cards of these new guys who are turning into stars. But the chase is on now!

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Allow Me to Introduce You to the Salem Rangers

Growing up, I was always a football guy. I played other sports, including baseball, all throughout my youth, but I lived and breathed football. It was the one that I truly understood all over the field. When I was in high school, I wanted to become a coach. In fact, one of the reasons I became a teacher was that I wanted to coach high school football. Alas, I still have yet to teach a single day in a high school, and I've had no opportunities to coach athletics. 

 

But when my boys started playing baseball, I started toying with the idea of coaching them. After my oldest passed through t-ball, I thought, "There's nothing to this t-ball thing. I'll coach the next time around." Two years later, my second son started t-ball and I volunteered to coach his team. I didn't really expect to go much farther than that in baseball coaching, though. My days as a player ended when I was 13, right after my 7th grade year. At that age, with the competition I'd faced and the coaching I'd received, I hadn't really learned much strategy to coaching or practice drills or anything that gave me enough confidence to go and teach others to compete.

 

My oldest son started his Little League years with two outstanding coaches in three years. These were guys who taught the game well, hyped the kids up, and gave them a great experience playing ball. I learned a bit about coaching Little League from them, but I still lacked the confidence to volunteer myself as a head coach. I wanted to help out and get involved, but as the assistant. I resolved to offer to help the moment a coach asked for an assistant, but no one ever needed help. 

Until last year. My second son's coach asked for help, and I jumped on the chance. He was in 5th grade, playing Pinto League (12U). I spent the season helping coach my son's team. Meanwhile, my older son was suffering through an abysmal season. They won only two games and the coaches were kind of a nightmare. They didn't say anything to the kids during games, but berated them when they lost. They offered incentives, then backed out after the boys reached them. So with a season of assistant coach experience under my belt, I decided I was going to coach the Salem Rangers Pony League (14U) team this year. Half of the boys on the team, including my son, had played baseball longer than I had. Almost all of them certainly had received more coaching than I had ever received. But I could learn the Xs and Os and technique along the way. I could handle 7th and 8th graders and give them a good experience. That's what I do for a living, after all. No other parent could/would help out, so I recruited my 22-year-old brother-in-law as my assistant. I think it was good for a young guy like him to get the experience of working with those kids.



We had our ups and downs this year. We hit a particularly bad week when we had six boys all gone for summer camp. It resulted in a loss to a team that only beat us in the entire season and another team we had already beaten mercy-ruling us. Too often, we had players missing and it resulted in a tough city tournament seed. But I knew if we could ever put together a full team, we could compete with anybody.


When it came time for the city tournament, we managed to field a full team--almost. (We still had one person gone--our cleanup hitter). But it was enough. Coming from a low seed--and aided by a forfeit against the undefeated #1 seed (they only had four players show up)--we worked our way through the tournament to the championship game against the city's #2 seed. I told the boys they could beat anybody and they proved me right. We rolled to a 9-2 victory in the championship game to take home the city championship!
 

 

There was one major drawback to winning the championship, however. Both the Pinto and Pony Leagues had their final at the same time. So while I was coaching my oldest as he won his league, I missed my younger son winning his city championship. It was a good night at the ballpark for us. Two boys, two teams, two leagues, two champions. 

I was told that my younger boy made a catch in right field and then gunned the runner out at home to end the top of the final inning and preserve a 4-4 tie. His team walked it off in the bottom half of the inning. Wish I had been there to see that!


I made these cards for each player on my team. I designed a uniform back with each player's stats. This is my own kid's stats. I know, just over the Mendoza line. Unfortunately for him, he hits like his old man. But at least he walks a lot! Next week we play our state tournament. At the conclusion of the tournament, I'm going to give each player their own card and a small lot of Texas Rangers with it. I'm also going to have the boys vote for a team MVP. The chosen MVP gets this:

I'm not sure who the players will choose. Luke, our ace pitcher? Kien, our versatile center fielder/3rd baseman/pitcher who seems to hit nothing but doubles (except for the game when he hit everything else and came up just a home run short of a cycle)? Jaxon, our shortstop with the most power on the team? If I were choosing, I would vote for Jordan. He made some outstanding plays at first, handling line drives and wild throws that saved several games for us. I don't know how much his peers recognized it, but his defense and leadership were difference-makers on the team.

In the past few months, I've made custom cards for my colleagues and work and my Little League team. I realize that probably nobody who has received a card from me cares as much as I do, but that doesn't bother me at all. I've had a blast making them.

Friday, June 30, 2023

Catching Up and Finishing Off

Back in March, I announced that this year would have a focus of putting a bow on some of the collecting projects I've been working on for years. I've fallen way behind in my blogging, so I have a few purchases too share to that end. But first, I would be remiss not to share what a fellow blogger sent me recently. Jon of Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts was kind enough to send this trio my way from one of his giveaways last month.

The two outside cards were ones that I claimed. But perhaps the best card of them all is the Cracked Ice Cooperstown of Billy Williams that Jon just threw in out of the goodness of his heart.

On to the purchases. I have orders from Sportlots box and COMC that used to try to put bring various projects to an end.
 
These cards from COMC go toward my NFL All-Decade teams. SI for Kids Walter Payton finishes his page on the eighties team, as do Richard Seymour and Joey Porter for their respective pages in the aughts.
 
With these cards from Sportlots, I have filled all but two holes in my All-Decade 2000s binder. I need one each of Alan Faneca and Larry Allen still to finish that project off. The All-Decade 1990s binder project is already complete.

These cards all helped the 1980s All-Decade project. I am so close on this one now. I will never complete a full page of Dave Butz and John Anderson--there just isn't enough in existence to do that. But I am down to just a few Kenny Easley and Nolan Cromwell, along with one Mike Haynes and I'm done with that project.

Sportlots helped me finish off Mo Rivera in my All-Star Games MVP project binders.

Concepcion, Hoyt, Pedro, and Soriano all have completed pages. Ripken was already done, but I wanted the Gallery card. The seller threw in the Donruss as a protector card.

Leon Wagner, at the top of the page, wasn't quite done with this Sportlots order.


But I did finish his page in my COMC order! This scan also features the last cards I needed for Tom Tresh's ROY page (it's the only one of him on the Tigers,  besides an oddball Milton Bradley) and Jack Sanford's page of the same project. I also believe that this is one of only a few cards in existence of Gregg Olson with the Dodgers, so I needed it, too. Sadly, there are couple of teams that Olson suited up for that no card was ever made to document it. There is one card--1996 Hebrew National--of Olson with the Tigers. If I ever find that one, I'll have cards representing Olson with every team that he ever had a card with.

The bottom row of Campaneris, Kaline, and Kessinger are for my All-Time All-Star project.

Miguel Tejada All-Star MVP page=done!


Carl Crawford ASG MVP page=done!

Brian McCann ASG MVP page=done!

Melky Cabrera ASG MVP page=done! The liquorfractor is a nice addition to my collection.

J.D. Drew, Prince Fielder, and Tony Perez pages=done! That Stadium Club J.D. Drew is one of my favorite card images ever.

In case you don't remember, my Rookie of the Year project is to (a) fill up a page and (b) document a Rookie of the Year winner's career by including at least one card for each team he played for. This COMC shipment helped with these ROYs.

And these.
And these. I'm so happy with the variety of teams to help my project--3 teams for Frank Robinson, 3 teams for Ron Hansen, 2 teams each for Tommie Agee, Stan Bahnsen, and Ted Sizemore.

These Rookie of the Year cards came from Sportlots. That finishes off the Jackie Robinson and Butch Metzger portion of the project. It gets me one step closer to finishing Jonathan India--the latest Rookie of the Year winners are mostly the ones I have left. Those and a few active guys who have new teams for me to add, like Jacob deGrom and Justin Verlander.


One of my other projects revolves around the NFL's 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. My goal is one card for each member of this team with the following parameters: the card must be older than me, or a rookie card, or serial-numbered less than 500. All of these cards from my COMC purchase go toward the All-Time Team project.

With these cards, I have filled every page of every ASG MVP except the last three: Shane Bieber (need 3 more), Vlad Jr. (5), and Giancarlo Stanton (10). My ROY project is complete except for the last years' winners (India, Randy Arozarena, Julio Rodriguez, and Michael Harris) and cards of Kyle Lewis, Cody Bellinger, deGrom, Jose Abreu, Wil Myers, and Evan Longoria, and Verlander with the teams they joined this offseason. There are a few old-timer ROYs that I need for a team or two, but some of those cards don't exist. So I'm calling those complete unless I happen upon something that I don't yet know about

My NFL All-Time Team is now 74% complete. My All-Star project (mentioned only briefly in this post) is now at 1375/1939 all-time All-Stars (71%). That number will probably change in about a week and a half, as some first-time All-Stars are bound to be named.

I love completing a set. But my collection to me is about the history I'm telling with my cards. Each of my projects is a different piece of the history of the sport. And as good as it feels to finish off a set, it feels even better seeing these major goals of my entire collection be completed.