NFL Showdown

Fellow (non) blogger Jim and I have started to play NFL Showdown 2002. Jim has the full set while I'm missing most of the foils from the 2002 set. However, neither of us have ever played the game. We both always played MLB Showdown. I have a few extra booster boxes of the 2002 game, so James and I opened one and drafted teams. 18 packs, each pack we'd pick a player until the pack was over...repeat the process 18 times.



After we drafted the teams, we created the teams using the 5,500 point rule. Honestly, I don't have a rule book so I have no idea how many points and how many players you need to play the game. We both had pretty average teams with no more than 3 foils per team.



Within the first half it started to drizzle so we quit playing for the day. We picked up where we left off the next day...this time moved into the garage so we couldn't get rained on. I ended up winning the first game thanks to Steve McNair's QB skills....rest in peace dogg.

We both are pretty big nerds and enjoyed drafting teams more than playing the game...so we drafted again out of the remaining 18 packs. This time I had Brett Favre as my QB because for some god-awful reason Elvis Grbac is 700+ points. Our second game was eventually called due to a rain storm. This time the power went out so we were stuck in a garage with no power for 30 minutes. Play resumed and thanks to Super human John Parrella and his 4 sacks, I picked up another victory 10-7.

My only defensive lapse was thanks to 20 pointer Kwame Lassiter. He was called on to scan on a play route and ended up nearly breaking the scanner. Thanks Kwame.



And yeah, that's a 99 yard gain.

If you like football, you'd probably enjoy playing this game. Just make sure you use the play scanner from the 2003 year...it's the only one that works. If you really enjoyed the 2001 NFL Season, this game will be the best purchase you ever spent money on.

NBA Jerseys

I always have been around sports items. My dad got me hooked when I was younger. Throughout my life I've collected sports memorabilia. And not just cards or autographed items....I'm talking goofy stuff. For instance, at the 2001 National, I bought 6 boxes of MLB Showdown and 2 Beanie Baby Bears of....Preston Wilson and Carlos Beltran. I wasted money on that. I don't even have a rationale for the purchase of those two bears. In all honesty, I don't think there is a logical explanation.

However, one of my favorite things growing up were NBA Champion Jerseys. All the kids in elementary had to have a jersey to be cool. My first one was Michael Jordan. The second Champion jersey I bought was Jason Kidd (Mavs). Third and final for a long time was reversible Penny Hardaway (Magic). Those would be the three jerseys I had throughout my childhood.

During high school I'd go to thrift stores to buy clothes and come across the Jerseys. I loved going through them and laughing at some of the names. Usually it was a Lakers Nick Van Exel. I'll always kick myself for not buying the USA Dream Team Mark Price though. I ended up adding Jalen Rose (Nuggets), Damon Stoudamire (Raptors), and most recently a Sand Knit T-Wolves of Tyrone Corbin.

My ultimate goal would be to have the largest NBA Champion Jersey collection. However, three of my most prized possessions would be to own Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc, and Dino Radja. Ebay lists Kukoc quite a bit. I've never seen a Radja listed. Petrovic has tons of knockoffs....until this hit today:



BIN: $99.99.

That's a lot of money. My favorite player and the jersey is my size. And to top all that off, the guy who listed it lives 20 minutes away from me. At the bottom of the auction he lists his photobucket account. This guy has done what I want to ultimately do. And holy shit, it's awesome. Check it out for sure.

I contacted him about how he got all the jerseys and where he found them at. I always ask at thrift stores if they have jerseys and one man told me "I get these requests in daily from people". I was pretty shocked to hear that I have competition around the Cleveland area...and I think I just found my main competitor.

I tip my hat to this guy.

What's Better Than the NBA Draft?

This video.



If you don't want to watch the whole video, just load it until 3:35 and watch the next 10 seconds. Drazen>God.

One Week Later...

A week ago I posted about the Beckett interview featuring the guy who won the auction for the Strasburg Superfractor. Words like "dream card" "great investment" and "collector" were tossed around.

Now for many of us, we realize the complete absurdity for someone to spend so much money on an unproven rookie pitcher. To the remaining population that does not care or collect about Sports Cards, $16,000 is a huge purchase...on anything. When the term Sports Cards is tossed into the conversation the reaction is "what the hell?"

I personally think the best part of that whole interview was the fact that the man who bought the card is an accountant. Dude, you just wasted $16,000 on a cardboard picture. There is no way you can re-coup that money. If he used his practice in everyday life he would have stayed away thanks to the term "depreciation"....or simply, "this card is not worth a new car". And I would venture to guess that any accountant does their homework before a purchase is made...right?

Well now I come back after a vacation and find out the guy has put the card back up for sale. So much for that dream card. In all honesty, I am laughing at this whole ordeal and at insane some people are with impulse purchases. And don't tell me winning that card was not, I will not believe it. But yeah, good luck with selling that card for anywhere near what you paid for it, especially with the Red Parallel Auto on the market (doubling your total in price lol) and the fact that Bowman Chrome is coming out in a few months.

Simply put, you should have just bought your Rookie Roberto Clemente like you always wanted and saved yourself nearly $15,000.

Homer Collector Interviewed by Homer Writer

h/t Beckett Blog:

Read it here.

I feel bad for the guy. You purchased a card for 16,000 dollars. And consider it as an investment...in this current collecting climate? In all honesty, there is no way he did his research into past hyped cards (Alex Gordon, Joba). And he is an accountant, lol.

Mr. Power goes on to mention how he got into collecting and used to collect Clemente, however lamenting the fact that he never did purchase Roberto's rookie. Maybe instead of purchasing the Strasburg you should purchase the Clemente instead. Then again, with the purchase of the Superfractor, he did get his "dream card". Yikes.

If I could get one card as my dream card, it'd be this card.

MLB Showdown: 2000 Promotional Cards

I've covered this game before in this post. These cards pictured were prizes given away in MLB Showdown Leagues. All cards shown below are from the 2000 MLB Showdown set. To receive these promotional cards, or promo cards managers who had the best overall record or ranked as the best team in certain stat categories (HR, RBI, Pitching Wins).

I actually never participated in the Showdown Leagues in 2000. All of these came through trades or purchases from Ebay.

In 2000, there were 3 seperate Promo Sets:
Home Run Hitters (14 Cards)
Future Stars (13 Cards)
Diamond Stars (22 Cards)



I miss having Manny on the Tribe. Complete offensive monster at the plate. His last at bat at Jacobs Field before leaving for Free Agency, a homer. Salt in the wound.



My childhood officially ended when Griffey retired earlier this month. I can try to relive it by playing Ken Griffey Presents MLB for Super Nintendo, or play Showdown with this card.



A highly rated prospect in 1999 who quickly flamed out. The Future Star cards were essentially rookie cards that tried to lure sporting card collector's into purchasing MLB Showdown.



Warren Morris. MLB Showdown's Base Set was 462 cards. That leaves a lot of space for scrub guys to make the set. At 13 cards the Future Stars set really didn't give a lot of leverage for scrubs. Somehow Morris made the set. Either way, he's a Showdown legend, and Future Star forever.



Cleveland legend and current first base coach for the Tribe. This card was an odd one. As mentioned before, the Showdown Base Set was massive. However, Sandy didn't have a card. In fact, before purchasing a lot of promos off Ebay, I had no idea this card existed. In the 2000 Pennant Run expansion Alomar was given a card, with the exact same stats as this card.



I love this photo. The Crime Dog was a favorite of mine growing up too. Shame he never got to 500 Home Runs.

World Cup Predictions

4 years of waiting and it's finally here. The best time of the year, World Cup 2010. I'm a huge soccer/football fan and contemplated taking a month off of my work to watch it (seriously). Not many of the sporting card blogs talk about soccer as much as I do, so I've offered up my predictions for this year's World Cup. My two surprise picks in this WC are Uruguay and Serbia. Comments, predictions, questions about the game, post below.

group a- Mexico, Uruguay
group b- Argentina, Greece
group c- England, USA
group d- Germany, Serbia
group e- Netherlands, Japan
group f- Italy, Paraguay
group g- Brazil, Ivory Coast
group h- Spain, Honduras

Second Round
1 Mexico beat Greece
2 Serbia beat England
3 Netherlands beat Paraguay
4 Brazil beat Honduras
5 Uruguay beat Argentina
6 Germany beat USA
7 Italy beat Japan
8 Spain beat Ivory Coast

Quarters
Serbia beats Mexico
Brazil beats Netherlands
Germany beats Uruguay
Spain beat Italy

Semis
Brazil beats Serbia
Spain beats Germany

Final
Spain beats Brazil

Golden Boot
Fernando Torres (Spain)

Bowman 2010

After reading about the Bowman craze, seeing Strasburg prices on Ebay (Base included), and not having bought a single sports card since July of last year (Toni Kukoc!) I decided I'd break the streak.

I intended on buying maybe 2-3 blasters from Target. Target does not carry any 2010 cards except for Opening Day. I will never purchase anything called Opening Day again after buying a box of the stuff in 2001. I leave and now it's on to Wal-Mart.

Apparently Wal-Mart moved their card section because it was now filled with batteries. About to leave I spot the new card area and find zero blasters. They instead have a huge rack of retail packs and two Jumbo packs. I decide on purchasing the two Jumbos and a few handfuls of Retail.

Back into the fire:


After opening plenty of packs and not hitting the Strasburg cash cow, I noticed a few things. First, I pulled a bunch of Indians, including 3 Sizemores.



Grady, 1st Card Bo Greenwell, and Masterson who pitched a hell of a game tonight against Boston.



These might be my favorite cards out of this whole Bowman set. Growing up and collecting the hell out of these cards brings back some good memories. For me, this is a Top 5 design along with the early 90's Donruss Green and Blue backgrounds and the 1995 Collector's Choice sets. Awesome that I got a Sizemore out of the sub-set.

And then there is this card. Bowman Expectations. I am not entirely sure if the guys they picked for the front of the card were the right choice. Given that the Tribe isn't the best of teams, I suppose Sizemore is the right choice. But the back? Jordan Brown? He did good last year, but if I could pick anyone, it'd be Michael Brantley. Ironically, I love the kind of player that Jordan Brown will eventually pan out to be, but in a Bowman Expectations cards, I just think a 26 year old wouldn't be the best route..especially when the guy he is being compared to is about 2 years older than him.




Another Bowman Expectation I love is the Royals version. Alex Gordon is used. Yikes. I know the guy on the back, Moustakas is supposed to be pretty good, but man in comparison to Gordon, goodluck. Unless Bowman means that his expectation is that he'll be super hyped, have a card released in a set that it shouldn't and then command top dollar in retail packs at Wal-Mart. If that's the case, 2011 will be fun.




The refractors are neat, but nothing I haven't seen before. The Purple refractors are the best looking in my opinion. Here are the guys I got from each:


Serafin reminds me of Dennis Sarfate. And that name alone brings back horrible memories of 2007...thank you $20 SPX pack with the Sarfate auto. Gross.



Also pulled was one blue parallel. The blue isn't that vibrant and makes the card seem cheap.



These all were pulled within the first Jumbo's and about 9 retail packs. So out of Harper, Strasburg, Chapman, and Heyward, I was 0-4. I did like what I was pulling so I wasn't too upset, but let's not kid anyone, I wanted a Strasburg or Harper.

Instead of pulling any of those 4, I got something better. AUTOGRAPHED ERIC BERGER.



Out of all my years of collecting, I have never pulled a Cleveland Indians autographed card in any pack. Eric Berger, congrats on taking that virginity. Add this to the great memories of Sports cards for me. Meh.

Finally, I pulled one of the big 4.

AROLDIS:


And then......


STRASBURG:


Really excited to have pulled this. However, I've mulled over whether or not I want to sell this one or keep it. I've also debated on going back to Wal-Mart and picking up some more Bowman later this week. Also thought about waiting for his start Sunday vs the Tribe to see if he dominates again and the value will go up a bit more.

What would you do?

Stuff My Dad Collects

The idea for this blog series came from the one Twitter, ShitMyDadSays. Basically, this one guy tweets everything his dad says, which usually is some goofy thing about sticking to his old set of ways. It's real funny to read. Also, NBC (or ABC, I forget) picked up his Twitter and are making a show about it. Hey TV Networks, read this blog and then shoot me an email about my impending TV Contract. Alright, here goes.

My dad has collected sporting items since he was little. Being born in the mid 1950's he was gifted with the chance of collecting cards in the golden era of baseball. His friends and himself would go to a small card shop and numerous packs of cards, usually baseball and football. His group of collecting friends would all trade cards to try and finish sets...but usually it ended up them trading all the hated Yankees away for the beloved Cleveland Indians.

The majority of these cards are all in a closet, in my room. I have never used this closet, it's stacked with sports cards and other miscellaneous items from bottom to top.



Here is the closet in all it's glory. There is minimal organization overall. The top shelf are a few boxes and a wax rack holder. Nothing special really. Unless you are into 1994 Classic Sports. Or Space Jam cards and Jurassic Park cards. My dad never collected those, they were mine.



This is the middle or heart of the closet. The majority of cards are here. Anything from 1950's Topps Baseball to 1980's Unopened Hockey Boxes. In the back of the highest row pictured, there's about 16 wax sleeves of cards.



Tired of hockey wax? How about some football:


Here's a little mix of 1980's football and baseball:



What's the best part of these wax boxes? Probably this ad:



Ring Pop. The newest and coolest candy on the market. Why not have one or two when you are opening packs featuring these legends:




For those of you who have seen or played the best game of all time, MLB Showdown, I bet that Jim Palmer photo looks pretty familiar.

Here's a random Cleveland Indians legend:


The man, the myth, the Incaviglia:


Or how about the best bearded man in baseball, Bob Sykes. This is in contention for my favorite card of the year.


The combination of the beard, trucker hat, tight coat, and tighter pants makes this card fantastic.

Or if you are into cellophane wrapped 1980's cards, this one is for you:



There will be plenty more from Stuff My Dad Collects, be sure to check back later.

Welcome back to Attic Insulation.