Trade Bait 2 Draft Results from The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame

Some of my fellow drafters have already shown off their new cards, so I felt like I was too far behind.  Time to correct that.  This is the sequel to The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame's very successful and creative first trade bait draft in which I also participated.  My results from that original draft can be seen here.  Not one to be outdone, Tim (aka spastikmooss) added 3 slots to the 2nd draft and a LOT of "hits".  I had pick #4 out of 9 in the odd rounds and #6 in the evens.  I did pretty well for myself in both cards for myself and cards for future trades.  Let's take a gander at what I got in this rare occurrence of the sequel surpassing the original.

THE AUTOS

Not the biggest names ever because autos aren't really my thing, but they are still cool to an extent.  The Mitch Maier I chose simply because he was the best photo in 2011 Topps Series 2.  The Quan Cosby I chose because of his VERY awkward draft day interview with Bill Cosby on ESPN.  He didn't get drafted and Bill Cosby fell asleep.  It was so damn funny and sad at the same time.  The Jaguar I picked because of his name.  It looks unfinished like maybe the doctor filling out his birth certificate forgot to put the last letter or two in his last name.  Weird reason to pick up a card...SURE, but I am weird as you will soon discover.

FOOTBALL RELICS

Following Tim's 2 drafts I have ended up with 3 different Cleveland Browns quarterback jersey cards.  The Derek Anderson and Charlie Frye here and the Tim Couch I got last time.  It has caused the birth of a new collection.  The Cleveland Browns Sampler Platter.  I want 1 (and only 1) jersey card of as many Browns as I can get, starting with quarterbacks.  I have a Brady Quinn coming from Spiegel on our next trade.  I am not a Browns fan at all (Go Bears), but I think the orange and/or brown swatches would look cool in a binder.  The Glen Coffee I picked because it is cool.  The picture of him is on acetate to go with the dual red swatches.

FRED McGRIFF RELICS

There was an abundance of Fred McGriff, Baseball Superstar because Tim had recently decided to stop collecting him and trade off his 1,500 or so Crime Dogs.  My 1st selection in the draft was the Diamond Kings bat card in the center.  It is #'d to 100 and honestly I probably reached by a round or two since autos went first, but I wanted it so I grabbed it.  My favorite card of the group is the 2001 SP Bound for the Hall Game Bat.  I may try to put this entire set together.  Unfortunately, it is looking like McGriff won't make the Hall which is just a shame because he was one of the most consistent power hitters of the 1990s. 

OTHER BASEBALL RELICS

My 2nd pick in the draft was the Andruw Jones shown above.  It is a game used baseball with stitching.  If it isn't the coolest relic I own (no that's this one), it is way up there.  I have no idea why I picked the Crede card (and I picked it pretty high too).  I'm sure I had a reason, maybe the numbering to 75 or a possible trade, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it was.  Oh well, it's still a nice looking card with a cool pinstripe.

SERIALLY NUMBERED CARDS

I did pretty good with serially numbered cards this time.  My favorite of the group is probably the Steve Sparks gold refractor, not for the player but for the set.  And he was a decent knuckleball pitcher.  The Red Schoolfriend (I tried to spell check and this is what Microsoft thought I wanted to say so I left it) is from 2006 Ultimate I believe and is a base card.    The Albert Belle is #'d to 100 and is one of the Artist's Proofs that Pinnacle put in almost every set they ever made.  The Samuel is #'d to 99 and was a late round bargain for me.  I didn't even look at the other sports lists until I was completely out of baseball ideas.

ROCKIES CARDS

The pickings for my team were fairly slim since I got almost everything Colorado Tim had last time.  There were 4 Rockies that I had my eye on and I ended up with 3 of them.  The one I missed out on was a 1998 Hamburger Helper Larry Walker card, but no worries what I got was still cool.  Well the 97 Circa Vinny Castilla isn't cool, it's ugly but it does get me 1 closer to finishing off that team set.  The 1995 Joe Girardi Leaf Limited is cool, it has a late 2000s high-end set quality and look to it.  Coolest of all is this 1998 Collector's Choice Stick-Ums Larry Walker.  If you haven't seen the set it is very thin and the "card" is basically a colorform of sorts.  This Card is Cool.

FRED McGRIFF CARDS

I picked up a few non-relic cards of Fred McGriff, Baseball Superstar as well.  My favorite is the 1997 Bowman Chrome International parallel.  I am couple of days late, but Happy belated 4th of July.  The 1997 Pinnacle Xpress Swing for the Fences card is some sort of an order form type card and I am not fully aware of what it is at the moment.  I take back back my earlier statement because my favorite of these McGriff cards is the name plate from 1998 Skybox Dugout Axcess.  Man, there were a lot of random replacement "x"s in the 1990s.

ODDBALL CARDS

The first card is a 1994 Action Packed gold card of the late "Macho Man" Randy Savage.  I am always on the lookout for something off the beaten path and a card of the late, great wrestling icon is that.  I was actually carried into the ring by Randy Savage when I was 4 years old in his father's Kentucky promotion before he became famous.  I don't remember it, but my mom still tells the story to this day.  My last pick in the 1st draft was a 1997 Beanie Babies Chocolate the Moose in honor of the host.  This time around I took both a beanie baby and a moose.  1997 Squealer the Pig was my toy fad of this draft.  He looks like a shar pei.  The moose in question is the Mariner Moose from a Seattle Mariners gift pack.

OOPSIES

I titled these cards oopsies because they are replacement choices for an accidental mistake on Tim's list with 2 of my choices.  One was a 1982 Jesse Barfield RC and the other was a Fred McGriff insert that neither Tim nor myself could definitely say existed.  He couldn't find the card and I couldn't even locate the set it was from, so it was probably an amalgam of a couple of cards that made its way to the trade list.  It was an honest mistake and Tim more than made up for it.

The Preston Wilson jersey was not on the trade list or it would've been my 1st pick.  It is my first relic of him that is not weird in some way.  I have two others.  One has the team listed as Rockies, but he is pictured as a Marlin with an obvious Marlin jersey swatch with teal pinstripe.  The other he is pictured as a Rockie with a solid purple swatch, but he is listed as an Astro.  It is nice to have a legit Rockies card of him.  

I picked up 2 of the Rookie Cups I needed from my completed 1992 Topps set.  I have the other 2 I need in my Diamond Giveaway portfolio.  The 1980 Dave Skaggs is now part of my VERY slowly coming together set.  The Dave Concepcion is a glossy 1983 Topps All Star card.  I think you got those by sending in wrappers back then, but I never did so this is new to me.


All in all, even with fewer Rockies for me this time around I think this draft was EXTREMELY successful from Tim (and Dennis sorry to not include you as well).  It's not often nowadays that you can link a credit for an idea to a single individual, but the Trade Bait Draft and all those that have spawned since should credit The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame as their inspiration.

My Spastikmooss Trade Bait Draft Results

Earlier this week Tim (aka Spastikmooss) over at The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame held a draft from his trade bait.  There were six of us that bought in and I gotta say it was a blast for me, a much better time I would've had watching the Oscars that night.  I ended up drawing the 6th and final draft position, which was not really that bad because I still got what I wanted for the most part.  And the best part was since it was a snake draft, I got to pick twice back-to-back and spend a lot more time checking the lists for my next picks.  The first few rounds of the draft were dominated by relics and autos and a few vintage cards.  There weren't any Rockies or anything else that I particularly wanted for myself so I decided to draft for others in the beginning and work out some trades later.

I was undecided on whether to make this a Rockie Trading Post (I didn't really trade for them) or a group break results (nothing was broken aside from Tim's computer) or what, but I think just a simple I got these cards post will work.  Let's see what I got for my minimal $10 purchase shipping included (a whole lotta pics).

My first two picks were these beauties.  My first rounder was this 2003 Upper Deck Headliners Roy Halladay jersey that I got for a trade that is brewing with Julie from Things are Funner Here.  Hopefully she needs/wants it.  My second pick was a 2001 SP Game Bat Milestone Edition Roberto Alomar bat card.  It is currently offered to Jack the Baseball Dad from All Tribe Baseball.

My next two picks are honestly the last two I remember the exact order for and after I got them in I realized how Cleveland heavy my top of the draft was.  First up is a 2002 Gridiron Kings Tim Couch jersey from the Browns numbered 384/400.  It is for trade, but since I collect UK basketball players it wouldn't be completely out of place in my collection either.  Then we have my oldest non-buyback card ever a 1965 Topps Chico Salmon in surprisingly great shape.  I never have collected much vintage, even as a kid I always preferred them no older than me.  This one I am definitely keeping.

The next up is a 2006 Jay Cutler rookie card.  I am neither a Bronco fan nor a football collector, but I am a HUGE Bears fan and I spotted a rookie of the starting QB and I jumped at it.  The 2008 Upper Deck Goudey Harmon Killebrew is a red back mini that I had spotted on David's (aka Rhubarb Runner) want list over at e rayhahn rayhahn.  I have one card that he wants set aside for him and this one is going to headed to him as well if he still needs it.

 

I also picked up this 2008 Topps Co Signers Scott Kazmir / Matt Garza card #'d 28/150.  I never really understood the whole concept of Co Signers, because to me this is a Scott Kazmir card with an unecessary image of Garza on the front.  If you just saw the back you'd have no idea Garza was even a part of the card.  This card is for trade.

Up next is a 1984 Fun Foods pin of Hall of Famer Rod Carew.  A total of three of these pins went in the draft with the others being George Brett and Rickey Henderson.  After seeing the pin in person, I remembered having a bunch of these when I was eight or nine years old.  They went the way of the rest of my childhood collection, to unknown oblivion, so it now one of The Pins my Momma Threw Out.  I couldn't leave the draft without picking up one of the several cards of Fred McGriff, Baseball Superstar available.  Tim and I share the Crime Dog as our favorite player.

These two were an added bonus to the draftees.  These two 1981 Topps cards were a former bipping to Tim and he sent each of the six of us one copy of each.  I don't know about everyone else, but I actually needed them for my budding 1981 set.  Thank you for the extras and the A's colors were probably my favorite of the '81 set.

Heading into the draft I knew beforehand there were 15 Rockies that I needed from Tim's lists, we all got to pick 25 cards so after the 9th round I knew I needed to start on my Rox.  My favorite of these three is the 1994 Leaf Gold Leaf Rookie Marcus Moore.  I discovered during the draft chat that I had accidentally become a Marcus Moore supercollector since I have pretty much every card ever made of him as a Rockie.

Up next are two players that I had 0 cards of as a Rockie.  I was surprised I didn't have a Kirt Manwaring.  Some of you may be aware that one of my goals this year was to collect one card of every Rockie that ever played a game in the proper uniform.  If you were not aware here is the link for my Mountains to Climb in 2011.  I am at nearly 50% completion with 190/412 total players.  Once I hit the 50% mark or so I will put up a want list for the rest some of which I don't think ever had a Rockie card made.

Two draft pick cards are up next.  Unlike most draft pick cards, both of these guys actually made the majors and had varying degrees of success.  Francis had the greater success of the two before he got brought down by injuries and is currently a member of the Royals.  I hope he has a nice comeback for an up and coming team.

I got a few more cards from the 1997 Circa set, which I have previously identified as perhaps the ugliest set of all time.  My opinion has not changed, although I still want to knock out the Rockies team set.  I have 7/14 Rox before putting this team set out of its misery.

A pair of 1995 cards are up next including the 1995 Fleer set that I consider the second ugliest set of all time.  Just remember some of these horrible mid 90s designs the next time you are upset by the Topps monopoly.  My favorite of my Rockies selections is the 1996 Skybox E-XL Ellis Burks red border.  I have one of these of Jamal Mashburn, but hadn't seen a baseball player until now.  The border is a felt-like material that is very nice.

My final two needed Rockies were more recent.  The 2011 Ubaldo Jimenez base card puts me at 3 for this year's set.  I haven't been pursuing the 2011s very hard at all.  The 2008 Upper Deck X of Troy Tulowitzki is actually quite nice.  I never bought any of this set, but the word around Blogland was it was a very disappointing product.  I sorta like it.

Finally we come to the BEST CARD EVER.  Since I had the last pick of the first round, I knew I would have the honor of picking Mr. Irrelevant.  I searched the lists and came with the perfect card to honor the host of the draft, Spastikmooss.  A 1997 Beanie Babies Chocolate the Moose of course.  I wonder if Kidstuff will give me a discount or sponsorship fee for publicizing their website and fax number (Eh probably not).  I am going to keep this card in a place of honor as a nice remembrance of my Oscar night draft.


Boy, that was a long post, but well worth it.  I definitely think I got my money's worth out of this draft and I hope they catch on with other bloggers.  Check out Tim's site here and trade him some cup and cooler cards.