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.
