From Hated to Hero

     I like Matthew Tkachuk. A lot. The NHL star plays for the Florida Panthers, and was hated by pretty much everybody I talk to hockey about. I guess he has a reputation as a bit of a jerk, but I wouldn't know because I'm new to hockey this year.

    And those friends who I said hated Tkachuk? They love him now. I don't know if other Tkachuk haters feel the same way or not.

    If you weren't paying attention to the Four Nations Faceoff (and I know I wasn't), I guess the fans in Canada booed when the U.S. National Anthem played, and this ticked off the USA team. Withing the first nine seconds of the game, there were three brawls. And the first one happened as soon as the puck dropped; a duel between Matty Tkachuk and Canada's Brandon Hagel.

    My first thought is 'Come on guys, y'all both play for my fantasy team. GET ALONG!' I think I was the only person who felt that way.

    Upon watching all three fights, they almost seemed staged, as if the whole thing was planned well in advance. I can't say I know for sure what happened, but mayhem sure broke loose.

    Anyway, now my friends who previously couldn't stand Matthew Tkachuk (or his brother Brady, who was in the second brawl) now regard them as heroes. It's really interesting. If any of y'all saw the game or the fights, what do y'all make of it?

    USA ended up besting Canada 3-1, and has punched its ticket into the finals. This is REALLY interesting. I won't watch any of the games unless I can get the finals for free, but will pay attention to who wins them.

    Well shoot, I just kinda wanted to throw this post out there. I'm glad my guy is getting some well-deserved respect, even if he is a pain in the hindquarters at times. I'll be back on Tuesday (posted Sunday night) with a few cards for a post. It will actually be part one of a countdown I planned on doing in January. I'm really excited to get that going. Have a great night, and catch y'all in the next post!

The First Card Shop Trip of 2025

     Due to some forseeable expenses coming up this year, I'm not really going to be able to spend as much money on cards. That doesn't mean that I'm going to hit the card shop less than usual -- I'm just going to have to spend less money there.

    The first of my trips to the LCS in 2025 came a couple days ago, on the eleventh. While I didn't spend as much money there as I may usually have, this wasn't really due to expenses; there were errands to be run, which limited time to pick through boxes and really look at cards.

    I had a few objectives with the card store trip, these being a couple birthday gifts. Once presents were through, then I could have some real fun picking through boxes for a few minutes before continuing the rest of the errands on the agenda.

    By now I'm probably boring y'all to death, so I'll just get down to the cards acquired (not including the birthday gifts, of course).

    The quarter boxes did well, yielding some chrome and a few refractors. Could you not tell that I like shiny? The Woodruff is my favorite card in the small stack. If I had more time to spend, I probably would have liked to sit down and find some more goodies, but as they say, tempus fugit.

    Another Merrill for my PC, in the form of a Bowman Chrome rookie. This card was in the dollar box; it may have been a little bit much, but whatever. It's great to get another Merrill pickup, and it's a goal of mine to come away with another Merrill card with each visit to the card store. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get the card out of its penny sleeve yet (which is why the image is blurred), and don't want to damage the actual card.

    This card made me the most happy of them all. I didn't actually buy the card - in fact, it had been sitting on a shelf since my last birthday, which was forever ago. I've been waiting to post it on the blog until I got the proper protection for it, which was found with this trip to the LCS. The card is from the 2024 Topps -  Postseason Performance Relic Gold set (thank you TCDB), and is numbered 16/25. I considered getting it graded, but opted not to. The grading process costs too much money, and the card probably wouldn't get an amazing grade, having been pulled from a hanger box from Amazon. Nonetheless, it remains a favorite in my collection.

    I got the pack of Comic Ball cards for 50 cents. I liked the 1990 Comic Ball set I received for Christmas a year or two back, so it was worth less than a dollar to pick up this 12-card pack from the 1992 set. 

         

    I love the use of major-leaguers on these cards -- Ken Griffey Jr. and Jim Abbott are visible on these ones. These are always fun cards to have. However, there were three dupes in this pack (cards 22, 128, and 134) which I am happy to give away to whoever wants to claim one in the comments.

    And, as promised, I finished out the trip with a pack of hockey cards (Upper Deck MVP). My collection has gotten a few nice little boosts these past few weeks, and I was hoping to get a few more here. The pack wasn't opened until the night before the publication of this post.

    I was surprised that I recognized more than half the names on the cards. Most notably was Brent Burns, who was once described to me as 'Santa Claus without teeth.' The other big name for me was Thatcher Demko. I think the design and coloration of the cards goes really well with the sport they represent. This was a nice eight-card addition to my still slowly progressing hockey collection.

    That'll wrap up the entirity of the first LCS visit of the new year! The whole deal cost me $10, which I'm more than happy to pay with my new card budget. 

    It was crowded in the store, which is good because I like to see small businesses succeed. It looks like they'll be expanding pretty soon, which is awesome.

    Thank y'all for reading, have a great start to the week, and happy collecting!

I've Been Attacked by Sharks!

     No, I wasn't swimming in the Pacific Ocean; or the Atlantic. No, I was getting a PWE from Fuji. I opened it on January 2nd (much too cold to be swimming). 

    

    Things are starting well with a 2019 Topps Jacob deGrom card. I really hope that he has a healthy 2025 season, so the Rangers can make another playoff run. I think they'll be in trouble if Deggy can't stay healthy (pardon the odd nickname). Fun fact: 2019 was the year I started collecting baseball cards. I had some before, but that year really got me started.

    Fuji gives me a boost to my recently-started hockey collection by adding 17 cards from my favorite team (and an 18th of a guy who played for my favorite team). He added in a bunch of OPCs as well, which is great. 
    Fuji informed me that Pat Falloon was the early 1990s version of my favorite player, Macklin Celebrini. Falloon was the first player to be drafted by the Sharks, in 1992. He was drafted second overall in San Jose's maiden season.

    I really like the backs of the O-Pee-Chee cards. The color scheme is perfect. I also like Paul Fenton's facial expression -- also perfect, as if the puck is flying at his face at 120 mph.

    I don't know very much about hockey, but my hockey-fanatic friends started a fantasy hockey league and needed an extra player; and they played fantasy baseball with us, so why not? Since fantasy started I've been paying attention to the Sharks and Macklin Celebrini (who I just traded for), and learning more about the game, which is just so fun to watch. While I can't say the team (neither mine nor San Jose's) is doing all too well, Macklin has been just fine.

    Thank you for the cards Fuji! deGrom will go into my PC, and maybe Falloon will find himself in the PC in the near future (depending on how many of his cards I can get my hands on).

    Thank you all for reading, have a great start to the week and stay warm out there, and happy collecting!

There's Nothing Like In-Person Trading

      Personally, as a card collector one of my favorite things to do is trade cards, usually helping to build up two collections  Also, whenever my friend John (Adventures of a Baseball Card Collector) pays a visit, my collection gets smaller (but better, so don't you worry). This past Saturday I spent some time trading with him, and acquired a rather interesting bunch of cards. 

    It's been my procrastinated goal for a while now to start collecting a few hockey cards, and John helped me take my first eight baby steps into a minor collection. I only intend to collect a few hundred hockey cards, but I tend to veer off my collective plan more often than not. These few cards made for a nice little start, as I'm really into the designs of the cards. These include 2016-2017 Upper Deck Artifacts, 2016-2017 Upper Deck Series 2, 2013-2014 Upper Deck Series 2, and of course, the 2013-2014 Panini Prizm. The only guy I previously knew in this small pile is Noah Hanfin, who I briefly had on my fantasy hockey team a few weeks ago. I hope my local card shop can aid me in my hockey card endeavors. I'll need to take a look next time I'm over there.

   

   I traded for this card purely because of the hilarious pink jersey. Laga played parts of nine seasons in the majors (1982-1990),  with the Cardinals, Tigers and Giants. In 188 games, the first baseman batted .199 with 16 home runs.

    These two cards came in the same trade, which also included the next card. I added another un-owned Ripken to my personal collection in the form of Studio '91, which I think was a decent design. The addition of the Craig Kimbrel was nice too. He looks so young in the picture! 2014 Topps Upper Class is a design that I really like. The red and gold mix really well with this card. The corners are a little roughed up on the card, as well as a small crease on the upper right side, but it didn't take much to get the card, so I don't mind. I hope Craig Kimbrel can clean things up in 2025, but he'll be 37 and coming off his worst season (5.33 ERA), so he may be done as a closer in the majors.

    This was the card I was seeking pretty much from minute one.  I have a soft spot for catchers, and the card looked so good, so it became the top priority in terms of trading. Christopher Wallace was drafted in the 16th round of the 2010 June Amateur Draft. Expecting to get drafted later, this pleasantly surprised him. Wallace played 5 seasons in the minors with the Astros and Indians, including 52 games and parts of three seasons in AAA. Across his minor league career, Wallace batted .270/.341/.445 with 39 home runs and 185 RBI in 315 games. 2015 was his last year of professional baseball, which he spent in the Atlantic League. Wallace batted .257 with 17 home runs in 129 games before calling it quits. 

    And my trading ends with a non-sports card. I was about through with the trades before this one caught my eye. This is card one of the five-card 2005 King Kong - Kong Flocked insert set (thanks for the clarification TCDB). The fur on Kong is....actually furry, which is a nice addition to an already awesome card. I've never seen the movie -- I like to stick to the original Godzilla films with the rubber suits and all that good stuff.

    That was already a great day of trading in my book, but then John dropped a half-dozen vintage Topps on me for no return. It made for a nice little surprise.

    It doesn't matter who the player (or usually even the set) is, I'll always like some vintage baseball cards. Though these cards aren't exactly in the best condition, I still enjoy them. Besides, they were free. The top four are all 1959 Topps, and the bottom two are '61 and '69.

    So ends the acquisitions from John's last visit. I really like getting the oppurtunity to trade cards in-person with people. It's nice to see what the fellow collector has brought along with him, and offers the oppurtunity to trade for cards I otherwise wouldn't -- like the King Kong card. It adds some fun into the day whenever John comes over.

    Thanks for the cards John!  And thank y'all for spending time at Don Cardwell. I hope you enjoyed, have a great start to the week, and happy collecting!

Why am I Even Here? (A Hockey Post)

    Man, I know absolutely nothing about hockey. All I know is that you hit the puck into the goal, and fight like there's no tomorrow. However, when some friends set up a fantasy hockey league a few weeks ago, I decided I'd give it a whirl. I'm afraid I'm not quite paying as much attention to it as fantasy baseball, mostly just putting my players in every day and leaving it at that.

    Just my luck I got twelfth draft position in the twelve-man league, but whatever, we'll make the best out of it. I drafted almost completely out of the pre-draft rankings that were given me.

   

 In the first round (twelfth overall), I drafted this guy: 

    I'm not entirely sure who J.T. Miller is, but he was ranked at pre-season 11 and was the highest ranked guy available, so I grabbed him. I guess he's really good, as he is 100% rostered and scored the most points last season out of anybody on my team. He plays his first game of the season today.

    In the second round and 13th overall pick I got Matthew Tkachuk. Again, I had no idea who this was, but he was pre-season 12. He played his first game (with the Florida Panthers) yesterday, and won 6-4.

    When I was asked by the people of my league which was my favorite hockey team, I used an interesting method to choose. Since the only two hockey players I really knew coming into the season were Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid (this shows just how little I know), I didn't really have a favorite team. So, I pulled up good old Hockey Reference and chose the worst team to be my favorite. This team happened to be the San Jose Sharks, who went 19-54-9 last season.  

    I very briefly looked at which Sharks players I should draft. I ended up drafting Matt Walman, but dropped in favor of what was said to be a better defenseman. However, there was this one hot young rookie, no more than 18 years of age, who I aimed to draft. That man, or kid rather, was no other than.....

    Unfortunately, I couldn't draft Macklin. But if somebody asked me who my favorite hockey player is, I think I would have to go with him. Let the records show that he's my favorite before he becomes a beast. Macklin hasn't played an NHL game yet, but the Sharks will play tomorrow against the Blues. 

    Well, there's my brief hockey history. I own probably about a dozen hockey cards, which cost a dollar or less at a card store, and all from the '90s. I expect to get shellacked in fantasy hockey, since a few of the guys in the league are big-time hockey followers. Oh well though. I'm in it for the fun.

    Y'all have a great rest of the week, and happy collecting! Now I gotta go get my mind back to baseball matters....