2011 Topps Allen and Ginter #159 Shawn Michaels

In honor of his return to WWE television last night, we take a look at The Heartbreak Kid's "baseball" card from last years Allen and Ginter set. What I love about Ginter and Goodwin and Champs, etc. are all of the cards of the non main sport personalities. This card has HBK in the classic sleeveless flannel with the cowboy hat on looking like the complete badass he is. While he was never the crossover star of some of his contemporaries, Michaels will go down as one of the great in ring and on mic workers in the history of the wrestling business. I am looking forward to him reffing this years Wrestlemania match between HHH and The Undertaker.

Pack Rip #1 - 2012 National Hockey Card Day 2 Packs

Product: 2012 Upper Deck National Hockey Card Day
Cost: Free with purchase
Qty: 2 Packs
Cards per pack: 5
Location: Sports Dome Kenosha, WI

I ran to the local hobby shop on Saturday to pick up a box to ship some cards and ended up picking up a couple packs to rip for the hell of it. Much to my surprise, I also received these two packs for free, since 2-11-2012 was national hockey card day. Now I knew this, but I also didn't have any idea that my local shop was participating. This was a nice little gesture by Upper Deck and it definately will cause me to buy some more of their products.

Pack 1 - There are 5 cards per pack and taking a look at the checklist there are 15 cards in the set. After a little research I found out that there are actually 16 cards in the set as there is a Tim Thomas card that is number 16. Out of the 5 cards in the first pack I have actually heard of 4 of the guys, which is pretty good for me since I haven't bought modern hockey cards in probably 20 years and I only follow the sport enough to know how the Blackhawks are doing and they I get pretty rapid around playoff time as well.

#4 - Pekka Rinne - I only know of this guy because of the great NHL 10 game from EA Sports. I have scored against him multiple times.

#1 - Gabriel Landeskog - No idea who this guy is. Reading the back of his card tells me he was the #2 pick in the draft this year, so he should be a superstar soon right?

#13 - Mike Modano - One of the few old school guys in this set. I remember being excited to pull his rookie card way back in the day.

#7 - Ryan Kesler - Yeah, fuck this guy. He plays for the Canucks, 'nuff said.

#8 - Patrick Kane - Yessss. I pulled the one Blackhawks card in the set. Kane and Toews are the future of the franchise, hopefully they can pull out of this awful funk they are in.

Pack #2 - Well collation isn't going to be strong in these packs since there are only 16 cards. Out of the 5 cards in this pack, 4 of them were duplicates, at least one of them was Patrick Kane again which will go into the Blackhawks collection.

#14 - Brett Hull - This was the only non double I pulled. I'll take it since he is another one of the guys I used to collect 20 something years ago.

All and all this was a fun rip and it was made even more fun by the fact it was free. Maybe more companies should do things like this to try and build the hobby back up.

Mailday #2 - Matt Forte and Brian Urlacher Ebay Finds

I opened the mail yesterday and had this package waiting for me which I had completely forgot about buying. Up first are 5 Matt Forte cards 4 of them are 2011 Topps Platinum Refractors an done of the them is a 2009 Prestige base card. I have never much been a fan of refractors, but these are sweet, especially the green one. To make them even better, Forte is wearing the Monsters of the Midway throwback jersey on the card. Since I haven't been active in the hobby much for the past several years these are my first Forte cards. I picked them up for a total of $0.05 too, so for just over a penny apiece, I can't complain.

I also picked up two Brian Urlacher refractors from 2011 Topps Platinum set. One of them is a normal refractor and the other is a refractor on super thick card stock. I am not sure why they made them different, but they are both nice additions to the Bears collection.

Figure Fridays #2 - Kevin Von Erich Mattel Legends Series 6

Today's installment of Figure Fridays brings us Kevin Von Erich, the only living member of the Von Erich family (note, I know that the children of the Von Erichs are still alive, but I am speaking only about the 5 or 6 that wrestled in the 80's). I will always remember Kevin as the first wrestler I ever watched that competed barefoot and as the smaller yet more athletic of the two Von Erich's I was most fond of.
My best memories of Kevin in the ring are the match where he took an unprotected back of the head chair shot from Chris Adams that busted him up pretty bad and I believe gave him a concussion in real life. Video can be viewed here. I also remember after one of his matches he won a car and the Dynamic Duo (Geno Hernandez and Chris Adams) smashed it pretty good. I wish I could find old video of that, but I can't seem to pull anything up on Youtube.

Anyway, on to the figure. Kevin comes with red trunks and barefoot like we would expect him also wearing his Texas ring jacket that he wore almost all of the time. The detail on the figure is great like you expect from the Legends line, and again Mattel doesn't dissapoint. My only complaint is that I wish he was wearing the yellow trunks. My memories of Kevin from my childhood he was always in the yellow trunks. His right had comes with the claw post and the left hand is a tightly clenched fist. Another great figure and one that I am happy to have in my collection.

Mailday #1 - Couple rookies, couple vintage

I recently picked up a small lot of singles off of the Bay. I got a pretty good deal on these as I picked up the whole lot with shipping for just a tad over Ten bucks.
First up we have a 1985 Fleer Kirby Puckett rookie card. This goes into my 80's rookie collection and is a card I have never owned. Card has sharp corners and edges and the only real flaw is the centering is off both left to right and top to bottom. I love this card too because Kirby looks so much different than the chubby guy everyone fell in love with later in his career.

Next up is a 1978 Topps Walter Payton. Walter looks pissed here. He must have just fumbled. A 1977 Walter Payton second year card. Card is in pretty rough shape with beat up edges and corners, but it's still a great card. I love the little "1,000 Yarder" graphic on the bottom.

1975 Pete Rose. Everyone loves the 75 Set and and Pete's just a bad ass. Is it me or does it look like he's holding a mini bat in this picture. It just looks small to me.

I love the horrible throwing poses they put the quarterbacks in for the 1970 Topps set. Nothing different for good ole' cantankerous Francis...The guy was a great quarterback, now he just seems to be a bitter old man.

And last but not least the punky qb himself, Mr. McMahon...Always wanted this card and finally got it, and it set me back a whole $0.99...This goes into my Bears collection as well as my rookies of the 80's.

Blue 22 on the comeback route

So while going through my daily readings of sports news, I cought an article yesterday that said Mark Prior was going to try and make one more comeback. I don't need to go into detail about all of the well documented setbacks that Prior has had since his breakout 18-6 season in 2003. As a die hard Cubs fan, until they win the World Series, that will always go down as the most enjoyable baseball season I have ever had the chance to watch.


Prior will always go down as one of my favorite players to watch. His dominace when he was healthy was a thing of beauty. I know it's an unlikely pipe dream, but it would sure be nice if Theo would invite him to spring training so he could end his career with the Cubs. I mean, you know you would get him on the cheap and the boys in blue are in a so called "rebuilding" year as it is anyway, and we all know he couldn't be any worse that trotting Rodrigo Lopez's dead ass out to the mound

Figure Friday #1 - Kerry Von Erich - WWE Legends Series 6

This is the first installment of Figure Friday, the one segment on this blog that will be devoted to a different figure each week. This is also the first real post on the blog, so if anyone happens to come across this a read it, please take it easy on me.

Our first featured figure is the WWE Legends Series 6 Kerry Von Erich figure. This is the "one" that lit my collecting fire again. When I looked at the back of the Texas Tornado box and seen they were making this figure, it became my obsession to find this beast. While I never actually found it, my wife did, and thats one more reason she is fucking awesome.

Kerry was my idol growing up. Watching classic WCCW wrestling on ESPN at 3:00 PM every day was a staple for me back in 1988 and 1989, and Kerry was the man in that promotion. He was the big muscled Texas version of Hulk Hogan/Jerry Lawler/Ric Flair, etc...When he won the title from Ric Flair at The David Von Erich Memorial, the raw emotion of him winning the belt coupled with the recent death of David was one of those moments that makes professional wrestling great. Sure, it's scripted and fake as hell, but it still tells a great story. Unfortunately, drugs and depression got the best of Kerry and he killed himself on February 18, 1993 by way of gunshot to the chest. The Kerry figure depicts him in all of his glory during the mid to late 80's.

The detail of this figure is awesome. Kerry comes with his Blue Robe on that I believe he wore in his 1982 2 out of 3 Falls match against Ric Flair. It might not be the exact one, but I know for sure he wore a blue robe with the white tights and the white boots with the long athletic socks. Simple and to the point, nothing flashy as that just wasn't the way the business was back then.

I love the detail of the long socks. How fuckin' cool is that.

Kerry comes with his right hand in the claw position as that was his finishing move back in the day. His finisher changed to the discus punch when he came to the WWF, but we will address that when we go over the Texas Tornado figure.

I have to say that I am loving the detail that Mattel puts into these "Legends" figures as well as their "Elite Collection" figures. Next week we will take a look at Kerry's brother Kevin.