Sports Card Tour 2018 - Anaheim

For the past month or so, I've been trying to think of a unique way to discuss some of my recent sports card purchases. I came up with a few different topics, and even named a couple of them, but my ideas were fairly bland. I wanted to do something that would be fun to write and (hopefully) fun to read, but how could I write about all of my new cards in a way that appeals to readers who might not collect that specific set, sport, or player?

The answer was staring me in the face every time I looked through my collection. All of my commons binders and most of my "hits" boxes are sorted alphabetically by city-which makes it easy to pull out cards of teams in the same city. And so, this President's Day weekend, I'm kicking off The Collector's Sports Card Tour 2018.

This will give me a chance to share some of my cards, while also adding some research and personal anecdotes. Since these posts will cover all four major sports (no disrespect to soccer-but I don't have any soccer cards anyway) and various types of sports cards, hopefully there will be something for everyone in this series. I considered starting the tour close to home, then 'traveling' to the nearest cities-but I think it's easier for everyone if we go alphabetically. And so the tour begins in Anaheim. 

Anaheim's two pro sports teams are the Angels* and the Ducks. Each team has won a championship; the Angels in 2002 and the Ducks in 2006-07. I was thrilled that the Angels came back to beat Barry Bonds and the Giants in the World Series, and I was even more thrilled that my Devils beat the then-Mighty Ducks in the 2002-03 Stanley Cup Final.

*don't get me started on that "Los Angeles" bs. 

Ducks teammates Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya were elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame together last year, and this year Vladimir Guerrero will become the first player to be enshrined in Cooperstown as an Angel. He won't be the last...

New Jersey native Mike Trout is by far the best athlete in Anaheim, and the best player in all of baseball. The Angels made some significant moves to surround him with a playoff-caliber team so that his prime years aren't wasted.

I pulled this Bowman Chrome RC from a blaster box I purchased during a Dave & Adam's Black Friday sale. The BGS grading fee might have cost more than the box did. This is my best Trout card by far.  I had an autographed blue refractor prospect card. I bought it before he reached the majors. I sold it before he became a baseball god. I don't want to talk about it.

My best Ducks cards are probably these two Black Diamond RCs of franchise stalwarts Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. I was in college when this set was released, and for some reason I wanted to have every top rookie card in gem mint condition. Getzlaf was the last addition; I had a BGS 9 as a placeholder and finally upgraded about two years ago.

I have four Albert Pujols relic cards in my collection, more than any player I don't actively collect. Three of them cost $5 or less; the only exception was this Topps Strata card. The swatch comes from a jersey worn by Pujols in a May 25, 2015 game against the Padres (he went 1 for 5 with an RBI.)

This Shea Theodore jersey card is the only Ducks relic I have. Theodore was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights prior to the expansion draft, which is partially why I bought this card. It's a low-numbered card with a 3-color swatch, and it only cost $1.36 on COMC. That said, the swatch is from a jersey worn by Thedoore in a rookie photo shoot. Ugh.. tell me again why Topps doesn't have an NHL license?

I have 25 Angels "hits" (RC's, inserts, parallels) in my baseball box. Eventually I'll scan or list all of these either here or on the Trading Card Database. Here are a few of my favorites:

Mike O'Keefe was a legend at my high school's crosstown rival Notre Dame. He was a power-hitting first baseman who had some success in the low minors but stalled in AA. He played a handful of AAA games as a 27 year-old, but ended his career that season in the Independent league.

My hockey card "hits" and my star player (base card) boxes are the only cards I haven't sorted alphabetically by team, so I'm just going to pick out three Ducks cards I like:

The Gibson was a COMC purchase; I love color-matching refractors

There are 94 Angels cards in my baseball binder. Here's a cross-section page:

I could do the same for the Ducks, but when we get to cities with 4 or more teams it will be far too much work to scan a binder page for each. So I'm only going to do one team per city -- and I'll defer to baseball in most cases since that's the most popular sport among the card collecting blogosphere.

Final thoughts...

In college I had a huge crush on a girl named Angela, and every time I saw the outside of Angel Stadium I thought of her. I don't really think of her anymore, but I remain convinced that Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, & co. play their home games in Angela Stadium.

Favorite Angels player: Trout, duh.

Favorite Ducks player: Charlie Conway? Julie Gaffney? Goldberg? 

Just kidding. It's Adam Henrique.

Angels card I'd like to own: Assuming Shohei Othani rookie cards are out of my price range, I'll go with the 1972 Topps Billy Cowan card (aka the king of Dime Box Nick's Frankenset)

Ducks card I'd like to own: An Adam Henrique base card, perhaps from the night he returned to the Rock as a visiting player.

this better be in UD2

Next tour stop: Atlanta. Hope you enjoy this series. Thanks for reading!


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