COMC Randomness - Patches Galore!

Does Patches Galore like the stuffed animal version of the Bond girl?  I kind of think it does.

Anyways, I mentioned a while ago that I found an excellent Pedro Martinez patch hidden among other Pedro jersey cards on COMC.  I recently had that and a bunch of other stuff shipped my way, so I wanted to show off the random stuff, which was like a third of the package.  I swear my PC gets less and less focused by the day...but in a lot of good ways so all is well!

First we have the lovely Pedro, now without the COMC watermark since it's my scan:

The patch is fantastic in person - this is easily a top 10 card in my collection now for me.  The Expos one I used to own was awesome, but I think this replaces it quite well.

After getting that patch, I wondered what other star patches I could find on the cheap.  I mostly came up empty, but I did find this excellent Greg Maddux for a few bucks more than the Pedro:

Maddux and Pedro are the guys I consider to be the two best pitchers of my childhood, so it's awesome having a patch of Mad Dog too!

I also grabbed a patch of former PC focus Dewon Brazelton:

I used to have several patches of the guy...now just this one.  I like that it's three colors, and that it's shared with a bat piece of the late Joe Kennedy (RIP).

Speaking of batting pieces, I decided to grab some hitter cards too.  So first I grabbed this amazing 4 color patch of Vladimir Guerrero:

Easily one of the best pure hitters of the 90's-00's.

And then I started looking at Fred McGriff cards, another former PC, and had this dual league HR championship card catch my eye:

McGriff was the first guy to lead both leagues in homers in his career (I know it's been tied since by at least Mark McGwire), and I always found that to be a really cool fact.  So I like that that's highlighted on this card.

All those cards were fairly cheap, but I then decided I wanted to get a spiffy McGriff auto.  So for like $13, this one became mine:

I love that it's on card, I love that it's Braves, and I think in general it's just a really slick card.  Not bad for $12.

While I was on a roll, I decided to finally splurge on a David Ortiz "Arias" rookie card:

I love the old Wave of the Future concept, and as a Sox fan this was a necessary add at some point in my collecting history.  What better time than now?

And weirdly kind of mirroring the above color scheme is my final baseball card of the purchase, a Bowman First Year Joey Gathright:

I have always liked base steals and Joey Gathright was definitely one of those.  This card was dirt cheap for COMC (like 37 cents shipped I think) and I love the way it all comes together.

So that was it for baseball, but then I started thinking about kick returners.  I kind of think of many kick returners in the same way I think of base stealers - there are a few guys who return/steal and make a big difference elsewhere too, but by and large both positions are dominated by speedy guys who only play special teams/are platoon players or backups.  So it's cool when an NFL team finds a guy like Jermaine Lewis, who (briefly) could do it all.  I grabbed two pretty cool cards of his:

The first is almost entirely for the photo - I love Lewis evading all those Broncos at once, especially since the Broncos are wearing their old uniforms.  The bottom card I bought because it looks cool and is #'d (/999), but also because the back mentioned the 2000 Super Bowl between the Giants and Ravens.  That's the one where Ron Dixon made it 17-7 with a kick return touchdown, but Lewis then answered with a kick return touchdown of his own on the ensuing kickoff to make it 24-7 and essentially end the Giants day.

Certainly one of the most thrilling responses to a touchdown that I have ever seen.

I seem to add a lot of Ravens thanks to their early 00's heroics (even though, as a Pats and Browns fan, I should hate them).  So I also added this neat two color jumbo jersey of Troy Smith:

Smith fits that scrambly hybrid mold that describes a lot of my QB collections, so that's most of why I always wanted to grab a card of his.

Similarly, I always thought it'd be cool to have a patch card of former Cowboy QB Quincy Carter.  Got one now:

Nice little two color patch of the Cowboys blue and white.

My most recent patch was a similar two color, this of former Browns TE Ben Watson:

Watson is the man, and made one of the best tackles you'll ever see in your life several years back:

So it's cool to have a patch of his as well.

Last but not least, we have the lone basketball card I picked up in this lot.  I don't grab a lot of basketball autos, but when I do, they belong to guys who tweeted at me on twitter back when I had an account to promote the GSNHOF:

Pops and Chansi Stuckey remain the only two guys who ever recognized their existence on a GSNHOF ballot, but it didn't do much good as both guys were eliminated on Ballot 5.  I still appreciated it though, and so they'll always have a small place in my PC!