It is finished!

It happened everyone...I finally found the Dolphins quad needed to finish my 2002 Pacific Heads Up Quads set.  It was actually a little bit ago, and thanks to an Ebay Saved Search for "Dolphins Quad."  That routinely brought up nothing month after month, but finally one day a $15 BIN was posted.  I could not hit that purchase button fast enough!

I'll post a reflection on the collection in a few days, but for this post we'll just focus on the card in question.  So for the last time with this set (Unless I decide to go back and cover the cards I missed), let's do a round of who wins the card.

Oronde Gadsden had a pretty short NFL career (1995-2003, but he only really played 1998-2003), but I remember him very fondly as formidable threat whenever he faced the Patriots.  It's kind of cool to review his path to the Dolphins.  He went to the Cowboys as an undrafted guy, then to the Steelers, and then to the World League.  That might've been it had he now starred in 1997 in the AFL for the Portland Forest Dragons.  As a WR/LB, he won rookie of the year with 93 receptions for 1,335 yards and 37 touchdowns across 14 games.  That'll get you noticed by NFL scouts!  He followed that up with four pretty consistent WR seasons (Between 48 and 56 receptions, between 674 and 803 yards) before finishing with two injury plagued years and calling it a career.  One cool note about Gadsden - he caught Dan Marino's final touchdown pass.

Jay Fiedler is a name I always misspell (I also often misspell misspell).  I actually had a saved search at one point that included Fiedler since he's one of the more well known guys on this card and had it spelled Fielder (Like Cecil), so maybe that's part of why it took so long to find this card.  Oops!

Fiedler was undrafted by the Eagles in 1994, and served as a backup for 1994 and 1995.  He then was out of the league, but like Gadsden showed his talents in another league to get back to the NFL.  He wasn't very good for the Amsterdam Admirals - 2:8 TD:INT ratio, 42% completion percentage - but the Vikings liked what they saw and made him a backup QB in 1998.  The Jaguars did the same in 1999, before the Dolphins signed him to battle Damon Huard for the right to succeed Dan Marino.  And Fiedler won!  He was decent as a starter, always throwing a few too many picks but with some rushing ability.  The Dolphins defense was incredible at the time, so Fiedler won a lot of games too, and is actually the last Dolphins QB to win a playoff game way back in 2000.  After a few years of diminishing returns and QB battles, Fiedler moved on to the Jets as a backup for a year and called it a career a few years later in 2008.

Travis Minor had some hubbub coming out of college. as I suppose many Florida State skill players did in the early 00s.  It was enough to earn him a third round selection by the Dolphins in 2001, where he could develop his skills behind lead back Lamar Smith.  He showed off pretty decent skills as a rookie in a third down back/change of pace role, including 4.8 yards per carry and 29 receptions.  A season later the Dolphins added Ricky Williams though, and so Minor was never really able to climb out of his initial role.  He did start four games in 2004 while Ricky Williams was suspended, but otherwise was a career backup over his 6 Dolphin and 2 Rams seasons.  

Zach Thomas is the name you know on this card, and for good reason, as he was finally elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year.  Surprisingly picked in the fifth round in 1996 (And as the Dolphins 2nd LB pick after LaCurtis Jones), Thomas quickly rose up the Dolphins ranks and made a name for himself.  As a rookie, he unseated veteran MLB and off and on NFL head coach Jack Del Rio for the starting spot and never looked back.  Thomas is currently fifth all time in solo tackles, and was named to seven Pro Bowls and five 1st Team All Pro squads.  He finished his career with a single Cowboys season, but will always be remembered as one of the best Dolphins of all time.

So who wins the card?  I have very fond memories of Oronde Gadsden, but anyone winning this card over Zach Thomas would be criminal.  The man's a Hall of Famer after all!

Cards from a few old friends

Now that I'm back to dabbling in the card world again, I've heard from a few of you guys regarding potential trades, which has been awesome!  Thought I'd share a few of my recent ones here.

The first one comes from Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life!  He and I must've traded a zillion times back in the day, and we also had a nice setup for a minute where he'd send me bulk he didn't need, I'd send it to COMC to sell in lots, and we'd all reap the rewards.  Those were the days!

He reached out with a few Topps Jose Lopez I needed, and I was very happy to add them to the collection.  They are 2006 Topps, 2008 Topps, and then a 2010 Topps Opening Day:

Trades like these are always helpful because I tend to chase parallels and/or numbered cards first when collecting a guy, so the base cards often end up being gaps in my PCs.  So it's nice to add three wants in one quick trade!

My second deal comes courtesy of Blowout, where there's a guy named Jay who has made some deals with me in the past.  Lately he's just been trying to add to my Sam Deduno collection, and he found three base papers to send my way.  Three is significant because it puts me at 102 total cards in the collection - I've finally made it to triple figures of that goofy cup card!

To keep with my recent Deduno VHS theme, here they are with around 100 VHS I recently picked:

A new B/S/T video game store popped up near my work, and when I first wandered in I noticed they had an entire bottom shelf of VHS.  I bought a few my first trip, and then a few weeks later they were BOGO so I bought a bunch more.  About a week ago, the owner reached out to me on Facebook Messenger letting me know that VHS weren't selling well outside of me, so he'd be happy to sell me most of the rest at a nice price.  Sounded good to me, and now I've got some watching to do (Since I've seen about four of the above movies!).

The last recent deal I've made is with Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown.  We used to make a bunch of deals back in the day too, and I've always especially loved his custom cards, as he does some really beautiful work.  This time was no different - check out these incredible Joan Jett customs he made!

I love how he pays tributes to sets of old and there's a cool gloss to the fronts of the cards that really pops in person.  Plus he often has tons of "stats on the back" with these customs, which is any card collector's dream.  I traded for these with the idea of eventually gifting them to my wife's cousin, a guitarist and baseball aficionado who is obsessed with Ms. Jett.  But after seeing these cards in person...we'll see if they leave the collection haha.

It's nice to be back in the trading world!  If you're reading this and feel like trading again as well, feel free to check out my trade bait list to see if anything catches your eye.

Mike James, Genuine Jockey

A few weeks back, I pontificated about the next new Mike James to be added to my collection.  What sport would he play?  So far I had representatives from the four major sports - would I finally find a professional athlete named Mike James outside of those four groups?

Well I finally did it everyone.  We have our 5th sport to be represented by a Mike James - Horse Racing.

Here's the newest Mike James, courtesy of the 1999 Jockey Star set:

I love the simplicity of the set, especially the little horseshoes to the left and right of the name with just a solid headshot to represent the guy.  The back is pretty basic too but gives some wonderful stats, including Mike James' career earnings to date:

5,443 races...that seems like a lot, right?  I mean I guess they can ride 4-5 in a day given the right setup, but dang that seems like quite a few races to me.

What's even crazier is that, upon a Google search, Mike James is still racing TODAY.  It's much less frequently - after all he had temporarily retired in 2005 - but he had one start in 2021 and four starts in 2020 to give him 11,341 for his career.  Crazy numbers for a guy who is now around age 60.  Even wilder?  His Dad was a jockey too until he passed away in a racing accident when James was just 19 months old.  Makes ya wonder how long this James can and will continue to ride.

One more weird note - on Googling an article comes up from 2010 featuring another young jockey named Mike James.  I'm not going to assume he ever gets a card, especially since I can't find any newer articles about the guy, but you never know - maybe I'll have TWO different jockeys in my Mike James collection someday!

Christmas Goodies from Home...including a Deduno!

It's hard to shop for my specific card wants at Christmas, since so many of the things I collect are pretty obscure if they're listed on the internet at all.  So when my Dad asked if I wanted any cardboard for Christmas, I mixed things up a bit this year and asked for cool autos and relics in general, particularly of New England teams since those are the teams of my youth.  I think my Dad did quite well in meeting that ask - so let's see what he ended up finding!

This first picture contains the most Patriots star power from Christmas, including two stars of my youth (McGinest and Brown) and a few from my Dad's youth (Hannah, Parilli, and Cappelletti).  It's definitely great to get some nice autos across various Patriots legends for my collection, and I learned a lot about Babe Parilli from these cards, as I didn't really know much about him prior to Christmas.  I learned a lot about Cappelletti too, as prior to Christmas I just knew him as the guy Adam Vinatieri (And later Stephen Gostkowski) beat for the Patriots scoring record.

Stephon Gilmore is a pretty talented CB who won a Super Bowl with the Patriots, so definitely cool to have an autograph of his even though he's in Indy now.  I always mistakenly call him Steven, but it turns out he has a younger brother whose name really is Steven, which seems confusing as heck.

Then you have N'Keal Harry, who was a 1st round pick of the Patriots a few years ago but never really panned out.  He's in Chicago now and still not doing much but both of these cards look real nice and that enclosed Inscriptions one is especially sexy.  It's nice when busts are in higher end sets because then you can grab some singles from a set that otherwise would be way too pricey.

This is probably my favorite little lot from this group of cards I got, as I love artificial scarcity in cards and Prime Signatures was full of it!  The Brandon Lloyd /5 stands out here, both because it's so rare and because it's a fun card of a guy you don't picture in a Patriots uniform.  I love all the running bacs here as well, with BenJarvus Green-Ellis being a personal fave of the blog and Vereen and Ridley being cool for being on card autos in a mostly sticker auto set.  And then Brandon Spikes and Jerod Mayo were just ferocious defenders, so it's cool to grab autos of theirs as well.  Mayo's doing great as a coach in New England too, so it's cool his legacy continues to this day.

Now we move on to autos that aren't Patriots.  Some of these I think sellers threw in, while others my Dad thought looked cool or I might like.  I think Surtain stands out in the above image, as he has been a super solid CB since joining the league and I was always a fan of his Dad's work in Miami.  Kenneth Murray was a 1st round pick of the Chargers last year (After a trade with New England) and looks to be a tackling machine in San Diego.  Then Thomas Graham was a 6th round pick of the Bears in 2021 who actually ended up in Cleveland this year.  He's mostly a special teamer, but he's done some good work in spot moments on defense when needed.

My Dad knows I like patch/auto combos, so he got my this pretty cool one of former Titans WR Justin Hunter.  I was collecting a lot harder when he was a rookie in 2013, and remember seeing a lot of Hunter on the blogs/Blowout/etc., so it's neat to finally have a card of his of my own.  He always seemed a decent WR but got no real help from the QB room in Tennessee (With guys like Jake Locker and Charlie Whitehurst...oof).

Last autos of the bunch include two super random guys - Eurndraus Bryant and Dayo Odeyingbo.  Bryant looks to have been an undrafted free agent of the Chargers a few years ago, but I don't think he's in the league anymore.  Odeyingbo is actually a 2021 Colts draft pick, and looks pretty decent this year with 5.5 sacks for a struggling Indy team.  It's always nice to learn a little bit about some random defensive dudes!

Last but not least, we have the Deduno!  And in keeping with recent tradition, I paired him with two VHS I got for Christmas as well - Troll 2 (1990) and Dolls (1986).

The Deduno is the most important part here (LOL), as it brings me to NINETY NINE copies of his Bowman card at this point.  The next Deduno makes 100, so these are exciting times in Deduno collecting!

As for the VHS, you've probably all heard of Troll 2.  It's compared with films like The Room or Miami Connection as something that's just awesomely bad, and I've been meaning to pick up a copy for a long time.  Can't wait to sit down and watch this one with my wife, as she's never seen it.

Dolls is a lot more random, but really really good.  It's part of the Charles Band cinematic universe, who is involved in a lot of my favorite B/C/D movies from the 70's, 80's, and 90's like the Puppetmaster series, Dollman, and Laser Blast.  Dolls is a little different in that it's horror but with a pretty big heart.  The whole "lesson" of the movie is to stay imaginative and in touch with your childlike side, or else these dolls will straight up murder you.  I was pleasantly surprised when I watched it on streaming, and I'm glad to finally own a copy for my VHS collection!

"Maybe hockey or soccer?" - The newest Mike James

In a recent post, Fuji commented on potential new Mike James to my Mike James collection.  The collection is heavily dominated by four guys (Two NBA players, one NFLer, and the 90's MLB pitcher), but I occasionally find other random Mike James throughout history on cardboard.  And today's newest addition is a hockey goalie.  So Fuji called it!

I present...MIKE JAMES!

I dig cards like these from non-traditional local card companies, and the colors on this overall are pretty great.  Plus it's cool they could get sponsorship from a company as big as Kellogg's.  And a grocery store named Ukrop's - which I had never heard of but which is apparently now Martin's since around 2009.  Regional differences are fun!

As for Mike James, he's the second distinct hockey player in my Mike James collection, but the first goalie.  Born in 1968, there's not a lot out there about him aside from his hockey reference page.  That page mentions a few years with the junior college team the King City Dukes, a college career at the University of Western Ontario, and then two years in the ECHL, first with the Roanoke Valley Rebels and then one final season with these Richmond Renegades.  In the one Renegades season, James went 20-17-1 with 4.61 goals allowed per game and a 85.8 save percentage.  So nothing amazing, but good enough to get him immortalized forever on cardboard, which in itself is pretty priceless.  

So kudos to you Mike James for being the newest Mike James in my collection!  What sport will Mike James play next?  Stay tuned to find out!