When Barney Eats a Cheerleader

The Raptors mascot is getting kind of popular with his craziness.

Click here to see him eat a cheerleader.

Card of the Day: 1975-76 Topps Portland Trail Blazers Team Checklist

This is now, by far, the oldest Trail Blazers card I own. The back states who 8 of the players are and I think I figured out the rest.

#10 is Phil Lumpkin who spent his rookie year with the Blazers after being drafted in the second round out of Miami University. He was traded to Phoenix Suns for the 1975-76 season and was waived the year after. He did have a card in this set as a Phoenix Sun.

#19 is Lenny Wilkens. He retired after the 1974-75 season and did not have a card in this set.

#27 is John Johnson who only played 9 games in 1975 for Portland before he was traded to the Cavs for Steve Hawes.

#4 is Greg Smith near the end of his career. He was waived on 11/7/75 after just one game played that season, his final NBA game.

I believe the coach was Jack McCloskey. Which one of the two pictured was him, I don't know.

By the way, Big Contest Tomorrow!!

Mascot Gone Willy Nilly!

I want that job!

Pack Break: 2009-10 Panini Adrenalyne XL Basketball

These are new to me. I haven't even heard of them before! Wal-mart had a box of these out for 98 cents a pack! What are they? They appear to be Panini's version of Topps Attax, but for basketball. In my 5 seconds of research, it appears they've just released at least 3 other Adrenalyne soccer sets for a couple of European soccer leagues and the upcoming World Cup. And for all I know, there might be more. Bowling maybe?

There's 6 cards in the pack and that's it. The only info I could find was on the back of the box which had something about an album and playing mat. I imagine there are starter kits or something out there but Wal-mart didn't have anything else.

Just like with Topps Attax (I've only seen baseball), there are three numbers on the front which are probably used to play against your opponent's card. Offense, defense and.. star power?

Isn't that uniform sweet? I've seen the Spurs with their's too. Kinda dumb though because the english uniforms don't say The Mavs or The Spurs on them. I've also seen the Seattle Mariners with their Marineros uniforms which I found out were for a Latin appreciation day.

I like that they put rookies in the set. I don't thing Topps Attax had any rookies.

All the card backs look the same with just an activation code which must mean you could play other 9 year old kids online.

50¢ Drexler

Man, I have been so out of it lately. I've meaning to post some Drexlers for the last week and a half, but have been avoiding it because even a five card post can take forever whilst mobile blogging. I've been dreading it! I don't want to dread blogging, so I'm going to try more little blog bursts, like this one! Here. Have a card..


2008-09 Upper Deck Lineage #14 Clyde Drexler

This Lineage set brings back so many good memories of ripping foil when I was 10 years old. The 1991-92 Upper Deck basketball debut cards really seemed extra special when compared to the hoops and skybox sets out at the time.

I picked this one up with some others from sportlots.com for 50¢.

Card of the Day: 1991-92 Skybox #326 Dominique Wilkins / Kevin Willis GQ

Nothing says 1991 like 1991-92 Skybox Basketball. Here's Dominique Wilkins and Kevin Willis showing off their rad stylin' skills. Kevin must know what he's doing because the suit he's wearing was made by his own clothing company, Willis and Walker, which he is focusing on now after his retirement.

Bill Walton Trifecta

Here's a few Bill Walton cards I picked out of the dollar cards at Hoopla Sports Cards in SW Portland. I don't particularly like Bill Walton. In fact I'd prefer muting the TV when he's commentating an NBA game. But his cards just draw me in because he represents the 1970's for the local favorite sports club in these parts. My Blazer collection has to be close to 300 cards now, and I only have 5 Waltons.

Card of the Day: 2007-08 Upper Deck Chronology #63 Lionel Hollins

While searching on eBay for Trail Blazer cards that I must have, this one really hit hard. This has to be one of the best looking autograph cards I have ever seen! A framed black and white vintage photo of Lionel Hollins signed, on card, with a blue fine-tip sharpie! It cost me $1.30 + $2 s&h.

Lionel was a member of the 1976-77 NBA Champion Blazers team, a 1977 All-Star and has recently had his #14 retired by the Trail Blazers. He is currently the head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies.

2009-10 Topps Basketball..."!"? or "?"?

It's about time for me to start thinking about which basketball set I want to collect this year. I just came across a preview of the upcoming set, which is due on August 27. All in all, it looks great. Good base card design. All the numbered parallels including gold, black, printing plates, chrome, chrome refractor, chrome gold, chrome super-fractor, plus relic cards and autographs.. and then.. legendary laundry tags. Yes, laundry tags! [snicker] This could be your next big hit!

[ha!!!]

1992-93 Topps Archives Basketball

You remember these right? Topps had this idea for a set to go back in time and make some rookie cards that they would have made if they were doing basketball in the 80's and early 90's. I loved it. It was the first time I saw an older set's design reused for a different sport and it peaked my interest in retro style cards which I continue to love today w/ Allen & Ginter and Heritage and such. The first retro set I remember was when in 1991, Topps reprinted 1953's set and I pulled my first Hank Aaron.. I was stoked!

So I found a seller on eBay with a bunch of these and I picked up 4 of them, mostly hoping for the Drexler and Jordan. This was the best pack of the 4 and I got both those cards and another Trail Blazer in this one pack! Yes!

Card of the Day: 1992 Franz Bread Trail Blazers #6 Clyde Drexler All-Star Season

These Franz Bread cards were about the only reason I got excited about buying bread when I was growing up. I wish they'd start making these again.

Card of the Day: 2008-09 Topps #147 Brandon Roy

2007-08 Topps Trademark Moves

I'm not too impressed with this set so far.. kinda boring.

Here's what I got:

#10 Tim Duncan
#20 Vince Carter
#21 Kevin Garnett
#26 Gilbert Arenas
#47 Magic Johnson

Pack Stats:

What it cost me: $ 2.99
Beckett NM/MT worth: N/A
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: N/A

1997-98 Skybox Metal Universe Championship Preview

I love this Rasheed Wallace card! I saw him put in a lot of playing time for the Trail Blazers when he was here in Portland. I enjoyed watching him play, as long as the bastard kept his cool and didn't ruin the game for everyone. He led the league in ejections for at least one year, probably more. I also love the Crater Lake National Park scenic foil background in this card.. since I think it's the greatest place I've ever been, and it's right here in Oregon.

Here's what I got:

#2 Chris Mills
#4 Adonal Foyle
#21 Rasheed Wallace
#28 Terrell Brandon
#41 Kevin Garnett
#53 Rod Strickland
#78 Shawn Kemp
#13 Tim Thomas [future champions insert, die cut]

Pack Stats:

What it cost me: $ 2.50
Beckett NM/MT worth: $7.25
Insert odds I beat: 1:18 [future champions insert, die cut]
Most valuable card: Tim Thomas [future champions insert, die cut] @ $3.00

Favorite Card of the Week [1.18.08-1.24.08]

Michael Jordan had always been a pinnacle pull when I was a kid opening my '90-'91 Hoops packs.. and that has never changed and never will. Michael Jordan will always be the best card you can pull out of any past, present or future basketball card pack. It's exciting to see more and more MJ cards come out in current sets, including autographs!

If you think you own this card, you probably don't. The one you most likely have is numbered #282 and worth just a little less than this one. This one is from Fleer's '96-'97 European set which had a few more cards in the mix, making this one numbered #312.

1996-97 Fleer Basketball Series 2 European pack 2

Here's what I got:

#166 Minnesota Timberwolves
#204 Samaki Walker
#212 Terry Mills
#213 Otis Thorpe
#215 B.J. Armstrong
#256 Dontae Jones
#264 Lucious Harris
#291 John Stockton

What it cost me: nothing!
Beckett NM/MT worth: $1.00
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: #291 John Stockton @ $ .30

1996-97 Fleer Basketball Series 2 European

2 of these packs I got got free from someone on Craigslist along with the '92 Pacific football packs I mentioned earlier. I'll crack the first one today. This European set appears to be the same as the regular set except there are a few more cards to this set. Plus I think they released this set in 7 different languages.. these packs being of the English language set.

Here's what I got:

#160 Houston Rockets
#205 David Ham [rookie]
#214 Jerome Williams [rookie]
#254 Allan Houston
#255 Larry Johnson
#312 Michael Jordan [all-star]
#314 Karl Malone [all-star]
#5 Grant Hill [swing shift insert]

Pack Stats:

What it cost me: nothing!
Beckett NM/MT worth: $5.50
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: #312 Michael Jordan [all-star] @ $2.00

Stadium Club's 15th Anniversary

It was nice to see packs of Topps' Stadium Club series for sale again. I've been out of the loop for a long while, but apparently they stopped making this series for some time. And now they're making them again to celebrate 15 years since Stadium Club started. So I bought a pack of the '07-'08 Basketball series. Looks like a great set, I pulled 3 retired veteran cards and two current players. I love the vintage Lakers logo on the back of Elgin Baylor's card. My favorite card would definitely be Magic Johnson's though, since he's the most familiar to me. No inserts this time, but I'm really looking forward to delving into this set some more.

Here's what I got:

#60 Dwight Howard
#75 Randy Foye
#89 Bob Lanier
#93 Magic Johnson
#95 Elgin Baylor

Pack Stats:

What it cost me: $2.99
Beckett NM/MT worth: N/A
Insert odds I beat: none
Most valuable card: N/A