$1 Michael Jordan baseball card finds x2

Jordan is the iconic professional athlete of my time and while his dalliance with professional baseball seemed to be a novelty - Upper Deck tried to ensure a little crossover appeal [not that he needed it] for the sporting icon, inserting an MJ batting practice card [SP1] into 1991 Upper Deck packs.

Jordan would step away from the NBA to play one season of minor league baseball in 1994 and while there were other licensed Jordan minor league cards - his Upper Deck baseball cards always looked the best, even as the one time Chicago White Sox farmhand hit only .202 with 3 home runs in 436 official at-bats.

2017 Topps Heritage Minors pack breaks

Pack one
#165 Sean Reid-Foley
#155 Thomas Szapucki
#18 Ryan Helsley

#203 Nick Gordon - SP
#71 Anfernee Grier
#161 Josh Staumont
#156 Matt Thaiss
#44 Shed Long

Pack two
#131 Braxton Garrett

#1 Amed Rosario
#167 Francisco Rios
#65 Nick Williams
Make Your Pro Debut code / info card
#151 Keegan Akin
#30 Greg Allen
#24 Eric Lauer

Pack three
#127 Jorge Ona
#83 Ryan Mountcastle
#115 Kyle Funkhouser
Make Your Pro Debut code / info card
#186 Nick Neidert
#34 Logan Shore

#126 Keibert Ruiz
#7 Jazz Chisholm

Pack four 
#165 Sean Reid-Foley
#155 Thomas Szapucki
#18 Ryan Helsley
#220 Victor Robles - SP

#156 Matt Thaiss
#44 Shed Long
#132 Tomas Nido
#27 Meibrys Viloria

Loose card finds - the mini collections

I had some time to rummage through an out of town card shop's '15 for $1' boxes - I'm not going through anything but loose nickel and dime cards, but I'd like to think 'the hunt' means different things to different collectors and there are still distinctions I keep in mind as build my piles of loose cardboard.

Going through random monster boxes of cards can be a free for all and there maybe opportunities to be 'freelance' a bit more and grab completely random cards - that still end up fitting whatever criteria I have in my head as far as mini-collections.

Instead of buying a repack of some sort outright from a big box store, I get to sort of dictate the content of the cards I want to take home - I ended up with 120 assorted cards for $8 and change [tax], many of which are just are just squirreled away as 'card depth.'

Awesome action
2016 Topps Opening Day Superstar Celebrations Michael Brantley #SC-9
2012 Topps Chrome refractors Carl Crawford #29

2016 Topps Opening Day Superstar Celebrations Brian Dozier #SC-11 - more like Glen Perkins’ card with Dozier in the background.
1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond Greg Gagne #79
1998 Topps Chris Gomez #117

1994 Upper Deck Scott Leius #322
2016 Topps Stadium Club Willie McCovey #18 - I have this card among my collection of other McCovey cards, but I can add this particular copy to my awesome action collection.
1994 Upper Deck Mike Moore #316
2004 Topps Chrome Mike Piazza #31
1998 Topps Kevin Polcovich #79 - this card features a cameo by Larry Walker and I thought I could add it to my 'bonus babies' mini-collection, but I had a copy of it already.
1998 Topps Marlins Win World Series #283 - feat. Edgar Renteria

1996 Upper Deck SP Alex Rodriguez #171 - wearing the Jay Buhner Fan Club t-shirt
1991 Topps Stadium Club Sammy Sosa #6 - a whimsy, more innocent Sosa wearing a throwback uniform; I had this card in my 'retro uniforms' mini-collection already, so this goes into my awesome action mini-collection.
2011 Topps Chrome refractor Rickie Weeks #147
2014 Topps Stadium Club Jayson Werth #52

2016 Donruss Optic Yannick Ngakoue #150 - football

2011 Press Pass Head of the Class Kyle Busch #82 - auto racing

Awesome outfield
2012 Topps Chrome refractors Melky Cabrera #134
2002 Fleer Jacque Jones #260
2012 Topps Chrome Kirk Nieuwenhuis #192

Beyond the glory
2011 Panini Americana Matinee Legends James Dean #1

Bloodlines
2016-17 Donruss Gary Payton II #198

Bonus Babies
1994 Upper Deck Joey Cora #371 - on the reverse, Rickey Henderson

1994-95 Topps George Lynch #20 - Chris Mullin and Chris Webber

Hats-off
1992 Stadium Club Members Only Dave Eiland #14
1994 Bowman Frank Thomas #18

Inking it up
1995 Topps Stadium Club Frank Thomas #400

Pitchers hitting
1993 Upper Deck Bill Swift #118 - on the reverse image

Retro uniforms
2002 Fleer Edgardo Alfonzo #158
1994 Upper Deck Tom Henke #367
2012 Topps Chrome refractors Jason Vargas #218

Shades
1993 Topps Stadium Club Mariano Duncan #276

Tools of ignorance
2012 Topps Chrome refractors Alex Avila #131

1992 Stadium Club Members Only Gary Carter #9
1993 Topps Stadium Club Geno Petralli #232

Featured autograph - Fred McGriff

I found a card for McGriff in the '15 for $1' box at a card shop I visited and was able to get him to sign it for me - the autograph doesn't resemble his 'sit down' autographs but he can sign any way he wants to after hitting 493 home runs in the big leagues.

Featured autograph - Victor Robles

Unfortunately I don't get to see him, but after making his MLB debut this past season, the 20-year old top prospect is set to join the Mesa Solar Sox in the Arizona Fall League - I picked this certified autograph card because Robles is a 'fresh face' to me and I wanted something inked up by him.

FWIW, the sticker autographs ['E R B'] Panini has used for the cards they've made for Robles look different than any other autographs [looks more like 'dismissive' but a little more 'legible' scribble] he has signed for either Topps or Onyx - that sort of gives me pause, but I'll chalk it to the idea Robles is a youngster who was signing autographs as a teenager just a couple of years ago and his penmanship [or lack of it] stick out like a sore thumb.

1978 TCMA Stars of the 60's I finds

I was out in Arizona on vacation for a week and at an outlet mall near the University of Phoenix Stadium, I stumbled upon a one stop 'pop culture' shop that had comics, sports memorabilia, etc - the setup looked kind of like a swap meet of sorts and I actually saw they had a trading card 'section' with some showcases, assorted junk wax era / junk boxes, etc.

I saw what looked to be a tub / bin of assorted sports cards and started casually going through them - I'm a guy who can be entertained by rummaging through all this miscellaneous cardboard collecting dust, though I wasn't sure if I'd find anything of interest or if something was going to bite me back.

There were cards still individually priced from 20-25 years ago and I didn't want to ask about any junk cards with no prices] - I spent $2 on what looked to be 1978 TCMA The 1960's San Francisco Giants / California Angels team sets [in loose team set bags].

The Giants 'set' had a Masanori Murakami card on the back and figured picking up the 'set' for the individual Murakami card wasn't the worst buy for a dollar - I'm vaguely aware of TCMA sets but compared to mainstream, original Topps releases, the TCMA produced cards have less appeal to me as strictly collector issues.

After the fact, I looked up a checklist and discovered the Giants 'set' was missing the biggest name [Willie Mays #280] and also another notable [Orlando Cepeda #50] - not a big deal since Murakami was the card I really wanted.

The Angels set [complete unlike the Giants one] looked like it had the remains of a dead insect, but I took the cards out of the team set bag and cleaned the excess debris off with my shirt - the cards looked fine afterwards and after paying for the cards, threw the team set bag away.

TTM autograph received: Paulo Orlando

I sent a request to the Kansas City Royals outfielder in April and got my card back signed this month - a longtime minor leaguer from Brazil, Orlando has spent parts of the past three seasons in the big leagues, though he got hurt and played in only 39 games in 2017.

2017 Bowman Platinum fat pack breaks

I hadn't seen these Walmart exclusive cards all year long and I assumed the display box put out in the card section with a set number of fat packs, value boxes and collector's boxes - were either wiped out as soon as they were stocked on the shelvesor just never made it to the few Walmarts I kept hitting up.

People who looked to resell on eBay saw Bowman Platinum as the equivalent of 2017 Bowman Mega Boxes available at Target - especially when the Mega Boxes were pulled due to some undisclosed 'snafu' and were hard to find.

Bowman Platinum are nice looking cards because they are shiny and modern but not quite the definitive product collectors chase year after year - however the Aaron Judge / Cody Bellinger rookie hype drove current year products to new heights as far as demand.

On a random Walmart stop, I finally saw a couple of loose packs - people may have moved on already, but I still hadn't seen this year's cards up close, so I had to get the two lousy packs in my grubby hands.

Pack one
#49 Giancarlo Stanton
#41 Andrew McCutchen
#66 Craig Kimbrel
#40 Jon Lester
#72 Alex Reyes
#62 Reynaldo Lopez

#RR-AJ Aaron Judge - Rookie Radar insert

#TP-BR Blake Rutherford - Exclusive Prospect card
#TP-ZC Zack Collins
#TP-AK Alex Krilloff
#TP-VR Victor Robles

#TP-JJO Jahmai Jones

Pack two
#51 Matt Strahm
#24 Trevor Story
#10 Aledmys Diaz
#48 Freddie Freeman
#15 Gregory Polanco
#53 Nolan Arenado
#RR-JC Jharel Cotton - Rookie Radar insert
#TP-JJ Joe Jimenez - Exclusive Prospect card
#TP-RR Raudy Read
#TP-FW Forrest Whitley
#TP-KT Kyle Tucker
#TP-MKO Michael Kopech

TTM autographs received: Mike Krukow

The longtime broadcaster for the San Francisco Giants signed my cards in several months - Krukow's career in the booth with partner Duane Kuiper and dealing with a condition called IBM is detailed in-depth in this ESPN story I stumbled upon through Krukow's page on Wikipedia.

TTM autographs received: David West

The former big league lefty signed my cards in several months - he had his best run in parts of 4 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, where he appeared in 122 games and struck out 217 batters in 251.2 innings.

I guess I knew of him as a rank-and-file guy who pitched through the junk wax era - so he was someone whose cards seemed to always kind of 'just there' through the masses of random baseball cards produced from 1986-1992.

TTM autographs received: Greg Harris

The former MLB pitcher signed my cards in a couple of weeks - besides having a 15 year career, Harris' most notable big league quirk was being able to pitch with both arms.

TTM autographs received: Xavier Hernandez

The former big league reliever signed my cards in about 10 days - rather than just being some sort of chicken scratch scrawl, I like how his autograph is a little more distinctive.

TTM autographs received: Byung-Ho Park

The Korean slugger signed my three cards in black Sharpie in about a couple of weeks - I'd seen successes with him through the past year and wanted to send my cards off before the minor league season ended.

Despite considerable success back in Korea, Park has languished in the United States, posting underwhelming numbers - if the Minnesota Twins cut ties with Park, who knows if he ever gets another opportunity to play for a big league team.

Justin Upton and Brandon Phillips

After sweeping the Oakland Athletics to salvage a homestand that had them fall short against the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros - the Angels picked up couple of veterans for the team's September push to get into the Wild Card game.

While Angels lost speedy outfielder Cameron Maybin to the Astros - picking up Upton gives the Angels the middle of the order bat to complement Mike Trout.

Phillips should give the Angels a boost at second base for the last month of the season - he's simply an immediate upgrade over the likes of Kaleb Cowart and Cliff Pennington, still putting up the solid, dependable batting numbers with some athleticism left after playing in 16 seasons in the big leagues.

Ugh, yuck...something smells like Pujols

Go figure, the Angels are right there in the chase for an American League Wild Card spot [68-65, 1 game behind the Minnesota Twins] and while Mike Trout has recently been mired in a slump on his own - it's hard to watch another rally killing ground ball hit by Albert Pujols to the left side of the infield while he can barely run it out to first base.

Unfortunately, Pujols isn't going anywhere, but it would be nice to see him come up clutch with the bat over the last month of the season - Pujols has proven to be a 'money player' before, but his turn in the lineup has just a black hole of suck.

At times I feel like the old man that he is, still grinding it out, like the good pro that he is - but I can only take so much out of his recent performance and from fan to player, Pujols needs to put up numbers fast.

TTM autographs received: Chili Davis

Davis signed my two trading cards in black Sharpie in about 12 days c/o The Boston Red Sox, where he is the hitting coach - on SCN, it looks like successful responses are spotty at best but I must have seen a posted success on another collector's Instagram account and figured to try and get a couple of my loose Angels cards signed.

I was thinking I might not get my cards back or if I did, it would be one of those situations - where my SASE randomly shows up out of nowhere after a couple of years.

TTM autograph received: Mark Whiten

The former MLB outfielder personalized and signed my trading card in about 4 weeks - Whiten's most memorable big league game was when he slugged four home runs against the Cincinnati Reds in 1993.

TTM autographs received: John Schuerholz

The longtime general manager and president of the Atlanta Braves signed my two cards in blue Sharpie in about 10 days - I saw that the 2017 Hall of Fame inductee was a pretty good signer TTM, but since I didn't have anything in particular to send him, I figured why not send him a couple of 'generic' team cards.

I like the fact both cards came back with nice, bold autographs with 'HOF 2017' inscriptions - Schuerholz also briefly responded to my letter asking about whether he had to huddle up with the on-field manager and pitching coach to sell a pitcher on being a reliever as opposed to a starting pitcher.

"Yes we did," Schuerholz wrote. "Psychology is a worthy and valuable tool."