Drug Use is Life Abuse

Of all the players who could appear on an anti-drug card, Darryl Henley might be one of the worst option

Although to defend it, the reason he's still in jail probably isn't the cocaine trafficking, but the attempt to hire a hit man to take out the judge and a witness in his trial.

At least the back remains honest. He trafficked drugs, he didn't use them.

There you have it!

New 2/14 names

 My latest COMC shipment made its way through the latest postal strike to my place, and as always, it is filled with 2/14 content. Including some new names! Let's meet them!

Dennis @ Too Many Verlanders is pretty good when I send out the Bat-Signal for a card that is on ebay in the US, and that I don't want to pay $20+ shipping for a base card. I knew the odds of getting a team issued Ohio State card was nill, so I just so waited for this to drop to a reasonable price to add it. You'll be seeing a card that wasn't of a Buckeye in a future post that qualified as a Bat-Signal card.

The 2/14 baby among this sticker is Iheb Mbarki, as the other football makes its appearance in this post as well. He's probably the first Tunisian in my collection as well. So, there's also that.

The 2005 Sinon Bulls team set is so obscure, it doesn't even appear at TCDB. But there were enough other Chao Hang Cheng (or Cheng Chao-Hang) cards there for him to make the birthday list, and to find one card of his at COMC.

Finally, not only does Kris Huffman enter the collection, but he also will enter with a complete cardboard history into the collection, as these were the only two cards of his career. Still two more than I have, though!

Kris Huffman was also the hardest of this group to see if they passed the google test, as he matches up with both a winless MMA fighter and an NCAA women's basketball coach that was far more successful with her career.

There you have it!

Random Jays

 It just seems like the perfect time to show off a few random Jays that were sitting in my COMC to-be-posted box. 

Sidearm pitchers like Eichhorn just seem to be made to be included in a Sportflics release.

I'm including the reverse of the card, mainly because there can't be too many write-ups on cards that emphasize how slow a pitcher's pitches are. Plus I can imagine since the quote was from Earl Weaver that several variations of 'fuck' were removed from the sentence.

I'll always love odd ideas for inserts, and an action figure theme, complete with a die-cut portion specifically for the hanger. It is something that almost implies that if you submitted this for grading, you'd get just a picture of a middle finger in return. I'm tempted to try, but am just too cheap.

Ken Huckaby is best known for being the guy Derek Jeter slid head first into and separated his shoulder as a result. But I guess that's better than being known for something that negatively impacted their team at the time.

I had a few choices if I wanted a salute to Lance Parrish's career swan song with the Blue Jays in 1995. A play at the plate during an obvious Spring Training game was the best one. 

I'll end with the only hit of the bunch, also meaning I ended with three straight catchers. Charlie O'Brien's time in Toronto was more notable for his debut of the goalie-style catcher's mask than in-game action, but he was still a pioneer in one portion of the game. That's enough for me!

There you have it!

Tip-off!

 The Raptors start off tonight, in a city that probably considers them to be background noise at this point to the sports scene in the city. But I still realize that this is the perfect day to show off much of the Raptors content that has shown up over the past few months.

I added this to my COMC inventory quite a while ago, back when I considered there zero chance he'd get an actual Raptors card. With his role as a veteran bench guy, I thought this would suffice to salute his time here. And then he showed up in some lower-end sticker dumps last year. Oops.

Sandro Mamukelashvili signed with the Raptors this off-season. I'm thinking he might slip into a lower end release as a Raptor, but this will satisfy my desire to add a card of his to the binder.

Alijah Martin was a 2nd-round pick in the most recent draft. Since he is a rookie, he'll certainly show up somewhere in a Raptors jersey during the season. He looks to spend his time between the big club and the G-League 905.

Speaking of the 905, of course their cards count towards the collection.

Now, some actual Toronto Raptors card. Ulrich Chomche was a second round pick last year. He made into 7 games, and that's the extent of his Raptors career, as he was among the final cuts going into the season. It seems this was an injury situation, so it really follows the recent Christian Koloko story, and the sense that you hope he makes it back to league. 

Jamal Shead's addition puts be a Ja'Kobe Walker away from completing the set from the 2024 Raptors draft class.

I do realize that pursuing the entire Raptors portion of the 2019 Road to the Finals insert set would be a futile endeavor that would do nothing more than drain my wallet, probably to bankruptcy. But at least I've now completed the entire first round portion of it.

Now, it is time to move away from the COMC stuff, and on to the stuff from a group break of Revolution.

I didn't get the complete base set, but seeing as this was only a part case, I wasn't surprised. Plus, I'm guessing the rookie/legend portion are SPd. Still, I did get one. And I'm OK with that. My only surprise is that there weren't any of the City Edition jerseys yet. Fortunately, there's already one with RJ Barrett rocking it sitting in my COMC inventory.

Since I did also get a Fractal parallel of that Walter card.

While I didn't land a base card from the Legends portion, it was made up for with a trio of parallels. There's another Fractal here, but also a Lightning parallel /175, and a Cosmic /99.

And one more autograph to go along with it. I'd already had one of his, but I can't have too many Raptorgraphs!

There you have it!

Montreal Flashbacks

 Just a bunch of Montreal baseball cards today - no particular reason as to why, but there's never really a bad reason to show them off.

Seeing Jackie in a Montreal Royals uniform, and reading about the team he would eventually debut for, makes this pretty easy to find the source for the photo. And it looks like we head off to Havana for it.  That makes this a rare three-country photo thanks to the brochure. 

If it weren't for Fleer Tradition, there would be no cardboard evidence that Todd Zeile ever played for the Expos. Since it was the Update set in 2003, and the regular set in 2004 that were the only cards featuring him there. He'd actually be with the Mets for a repeat performance in 2004, and that got a few more pack-pullable options, such as MLB Showdown and Topps Total.

Not to complain about an Expos appearance post-relocation, but a family-themed card of Tim Raines should probably have him with the Orioles, and also include a photo of him with his son/teammate.

This was probably a case of just going through COMC, looking for the least expensive relic, and adding it to my inventory. If you look carefully, there's a hit of a pinstripe in the upper corner.

Start with a non-Expos card, end with one too. Sure, this Heritage retro card (out of Pro Debut) is a Harrisburg Senators card, but since they were affiliated with the Expos at the time of the era if not the release, this is totally, 100% an Expos card. My binder - my decision.

And there you have it!

Always a Reason

 

This seems like a rather odd card to add into my miscellaneous collection. But I have my reason.

For this one, it is because I found this story amusing.

And it also provides a perfectly logical reason as to why a lot of modern autographs are illegible. Although I would need to see a Darryl Ashmore cut auto to verify this.

There you have it!

Uniformity

Just a whole bunch of alternate uniforms in today's post. I probably would have called this something throwback related, but then there's that Seahawks entry in the lower corner. It makes the bottom of a lot of Seahawks-related worst uniform combo lists. and when you're up against the all-neon color rush uniforms, that says alot.

Other than that, it is nice to see how the other teams' entries evolved, especially on ones like the Eagles and Jets with wildly different color schemes. 

 

There you have it!

Mailbag!

 A small bubbler did show up before the postal strike started, and now it is time to show the contents of the mailer from Dawg Day Cards' Angus.

Jim Kelly is one of a handful of players I'm not thinking "Why were dupes included" when they show up in an envelope. One for the 2/14s, one for the Bills collection is a perfect way to eliminate any need to decide where they end up. 

Last year's Score-A-Treat was very well represented in this mailer. Sure, they're paper thin, but they're still Bills cards. And yes, both the listed-with-pictured-elsewhere Curtis Samuel, and the reverse Stefon Diggs count.

This year's Score-A-Treat was also well represented with these 4 cards, even if only two of them have seen the field for the Bills this regular season. But these cards aren't as thin as the 2024 entries.

Here's a card that at one point came with stickers, something that Panini started several years back. I almost put together a complete set in 19-20 when I tried to put together a sticker set that year. I still might add all the outstanding ones to my wantlist at some point.

Total passes thrown during a regular season game for the Bills by AJ McCarron = Zero. But at least his release probably hastened Josh Allen's starter days in Buffalo.

I've mentioned the greatness of this photo of Khalil Shakir and his escape artist run after the catch for his touchdown during the playoffs before. It's still great on a parallel.

The only numbered parallel. And at least Zay is still in the league, especially after the night he got himself featured on TMZ.

The Bills content ends with this encased entry. This also my first one of those 24K Action Packed cards!

I could jailbreak it, but why would I do this to Thurman?

But the end of the Bills content doesn't end the mailer! I could have held these off for a week until the time came for the Raptors season to actually start, but that post is probably going to be pretty busy as it is, so they get put in here as a closer. 

Thanks for all these goodies ! I'll be sure to throw some Cleveland Browns content into my cart before I hit ship next time over at COMC.

And there you have it!

Resume Fire

 Canada Post has switched from a complete walkout to rotating strikes, meaning that things will take longer, but will arrive eventually. So, send away!

ObCard: Since I really have nowhere else to post it in any sort of logical multi-card posting, here's a card of a Canadian from that quintessential Canadian sport - beach volleyball. 

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 32 - Another Two

 No Chrome Update in this two-pack repack, but some flagship will suffice.

But Chrome Anniversary remains.

The flagship pack opened with a five-pack of horizontal cards - only one of which is a base player card. But at least it does use the layout well enough.

The more common vertical design features a pair of pitchers who have already seen action this post-season for the Blue Jays. Gausman's jersey looks photoshopped, which really seems odd when a player had made appearances for the team in the previous season.

Insert time! The Stars of MLB may be getting very tiresome at this point, but that '88 Votto is a pretty nice little addition to my Cancon collection. And getting an insert for a PC is always enough to make for a good repacked pack.

But there's still more, such as a third post-season starter. Not too bad for a pack that's a few years old to still be providing some mound star power. 

As for the Chrome pack, not the most exciting one. At least there was a shiny entry.

The flagship is the easy winner in this pairing. 

But there you have it!