Good Show, Robert.

       Last week, I came back from my mailbox with a mystery jiffy pack from Robert of $30 a Week Habit, one of my favorite blogs and most frequent trading partners.  I had sent him a small PWE in April, but nothing that could expect a girthy padded envelope.  Here is what awaited me inside:

Shiny Saints! Shiny Saints everywhere.  And just to break up the chromium and die cut madness, a Martin Brodeur of recent vintage that I did not have.  He went a perfect 8 for 8 in cards I did not have and he certainly satiated my need for shiny football cards for the time being.

Seems Robert went a little crazy at a card show and shared his madness with me.  Thanks Robert!

If you clicked on his link above, you will notice that he is currently on hiatus and the vague and sudden nature of that last post has me a little concerned.  I hope all is well in Habitland, Robert, and if it isn't that things get better soon.

Football '14 Week 15: Tradition.

       Every family has their own quirky holiday traditions about hiding and finding things.  For some, it is the Elf on the Shelf, for others, it is the Mensch on the Bench, however, we have a different spin on this idea around here...


Here, we do Brees in the Booze.  I find this a much more appropriate alternative.  You find him in the liquor cabinet, do a shot, and then hang him on the tree.  Who Dat!

***

It is very simple for the Saints tonight: win.  If they win out, they take the division and host a playoff game.  The Bears have been mailing it in for weeks, and yet I fear this game will be a non-stop heart attack derpfest and by midnight this evening, it is very likely I will have emptied that bottle of rum. 

Football '14 Week 5: October (No) Surprise.

       I want to apologize to all five of you who look forward to my weekly football posts.  The awful things that have been swirling around the NFL this year combined with the beyond awful way the league has reacted to them has made my stomach turn and left me unable to enjoy football very much.  Now that the calender has turned to October, as usual, the NFL will start inundating us with their pink regalia.

I find it in poor taste that the league pays such lips service to something as important as breast cancer and then goes out of its way to profit off of it without actually giving much to charity.  This year they are "toning down" the pink to try to lay low until all the bad pub dies down and they can go back to being the money-making juggernaut they usually are.

Now, if the NFL had any gumption or dignity, after all the Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Ray McDonald, Adrian Peterson (isn't it sad that I have to list so many and could keep going) stories, they would have switched off the pink this year and made it purple for domestic violence awareness, which also has its "month" in October... 

But sadly, there is no shady charity for the NFL to exploit and then profit from on colorized memorabilia, so that would never happen.

Mail Call: Weekend Wives and Dives.

      Some weekends lend themselves to heavy blogging and some don't.  This weekend's unbelievably beautiful weather obviously was not one of them.  I spent time outside and even spent enjoyable time with my family. *gasp!*  On Saturday, though, a pile of envelopes with some eclectic contents was sitting on the table:

Inside you have a bevy of football cards from all over the map, from commons to cards for my 527's to nifty manu-patch cards of Drew Brees.  Also there is a wonderful oddball, a 1971 Bazooka card, a set that has slipped through my fingers for some time.  Best part of that card?  I picked it up for nothing on Listia.  The last two cards are wonderful in their own personal way.  Penny Hardaway is one of the all time "what if" players in NBA history, sure, but why did I pick up this particular card?  Well, while surfing the aforementioned Listia, I ran into this card and it reminded me of a girl I dated from Memphis and her father's soul food restaurant.  Turns out, back when Penny was in college, after games they would all go to this joint.  Her father, who was quite a character, had all sorts of memorabilia on the walls and would ramble on and on about that team and how good Penny was. He'd also feed us just the most amazing food you have ever imagined: fried pork tenderloin, mac & cheese, collard greens.  Simply amazing.  Now, I hadn't thought of that particular little anecdote in years, decades even.  But that one card brought it all back...the smells, the stories, the hero worship, and the food (oh the food).  If that isn't why we collect these silly cards, what is?  The other card there is one from one of the terrible Batman movies featuring Drew Barrymore.  I have been in love with her since I was 6 years old and saw her in E.T.  Needless to say, I think of her all the time and don't need reminding, but it's nice to have her in cardboard form too. 

****

If you kids get bored with the same old cards, head over to View From the Skybox and get your filthy mitts on some new ones via his latest contest which is pretty nifty if you ask me.

Football '13 Week 18: Wild Card.

       A couple of times this year, I posted very early on Sunday morning going on and on about how the Saints were going to destroy that week's opponent.  That was a poor choice of blurbs as both times the Saints ingloriously lost on the road to lesser foes.  So I learned my lesson for the playoffs and decided to hold off any pregame braggadocio and let the games take their course.  This course of action worked well as the Saints beat the (hated) Eagles in Philadelphia for the first road playoff victory in team history.  Sticking it to the awful Philly fans was just a bonus. 

In celebration of the Wild Card victory, let's look at a couple of player pages with a different player stuck in as a, um, wild card.

Here is a page of Superstar Jimmy Graham with a Chrome Kenny Stills rookie card in the lower right.  Stills showed great promise as a fifth round pick this year. 

This is a page of unsung receiver Marques Colston.

There are some great inserts on this page and in the lower right, a rookie card of Nick Toon.  Sadly, Nick got hurt before last season and has not returned.  I am rooting for him not just because he is the son of Jets great Al Toon but because he has one of the great simple wonderful names in recent memory.

OK, that whole idea is a little silly, so let's just look at some cards instead.  I grabbed the first two fancy cards on top of my Saints pile and scanned them for your enjoyment.

The first one is a manu-patch of Drew Brees from the Super Bowl season.  Those last two things way overcome that first one.  The second is a great autographed patch rookie card of Kenny Stills.  I believe that swatch is from the '8' from the TV numbers on the shoulder.  That or Kenny is a much smaller guy than we are lead to believe.

Oh, and look, a team set.  I always liked this design and Topps used it across the sports that year.  I think it actually works better for football than it did for baseball.

In case you were wondering, these are from 2010 Topps...

...and we all know what happened that year...

Next stop Seattle.  Revenge is a dish best served piping hot.

Football '13 Week 4: Thank God It's Monday.

       I worked 12 hours today.  Needless to say, I am exhausted; Mondays can be so cruel.  I have showered, put on my pajamas and laid down on my couch.  I truly believe the goal of any work day, no matter what your profession, is to be able to appropriately take off your pants.  Plus, I get the rare treat this evening of being able to watch my Saints on Monday Night Football.  This makes today much much better.

I have no idea where I got that page of cards, but they are pretty cool.  They are the usual raised embossed Action Packed kind of cards.  These get extra cool bonus points for being all gold and shiny.

I am too tired to write a coherent post, so let's just look at some Drew Brees cards:

Oh, my mother is in the Superdome this evening, part of her usual autumn sojourn down to New Orleans.   Lucky her.  She called me half an hour ago to taunt me.

These are some pretty random cards and I am in no condition to try and make sense of them.

This page features Dan Marino, legendary quarterback of the Saints opponent tonight, the Miami Dolphins.  Both teams are undefeated and playing very well - some would say over their head.  Hopefully, the sound and fury of the 'dome on Monday night will make the Dolphins drown.  Wow. That mixed metaphor went nowhere.  I think I will order some dinner and just watch the game before I murder the English language in cold blood.

Football '13 Week 1: OK, I'm Ready Now...

       I've had my big ass breakfast at Slim Goodie's Diner on Magazine Street.  I have my Drew Brees jersey and my silly construction helmet on - I made this one from a vintage '40's helmet, it's not one of those store bought things.  I got my tickets and my game face on.  I can now say without a doubt, I am ready for some football!

Who Dat!

Football Week 17: Wintry Mix.

       It has snowed here in northern New Jersey three times this week.  This amount alone triples the snow days we had last year (i.e., the infamous Halloween storm); it was even a White Christmas around here.  It is a pity, though, that is is not supposed to snow today, because today is the final regular season Sunday and snow is football's natural habitat.

I have a niche collection of football cards featuring pictures in the snow, presented here so you can take in all the furious flurry glory:

You see here some usual suspects: New England, Buffalo, New York.  Seeing Barry Sanders in the snow is odd, since he spent his home games in a dome.  And while Brett Favre belongs in the snow, seeing Drew Brees (as a Charger no less) in the white stuff is a trip. And while I am not a card identifying sleuth like some, that 2011 Tom Brady card has a picture that is probably from the December 12, 2010 game vs. the Bears. 

I am surprised, really, that card companies don't use more snow pictures, since they look 100x more awesome than regular action pictures.

Here you have more New England (obviously another from that aforementioned Bears game), some Cleveland and Pittsburgh, and an awesome shot of a Giant stuffing a Bronco in Denver.  You also have another Brett Favre, and it makes sense that I have two of him in the snow, but I also have two cards of Steve McNair in the snow, and since he played his home games mostly in Houston and Tennessee, I find that a little weird. These are all the snow cards I own; if you have one you would like to donate or trade me, don't hesitate to let me know. 

My football watching will be slightly muted today.  The Saints have been out of it for a couple of weeks now, and seeing them beating up on a Panthers team that never cared this season is not high on my list of priorities.  It is good news that they locked up Sean Payton for the next 5 years, so we won't have another off-season soap opera.  I look forward to the Saints reloading next year for a wonderful eff-you season.

The Giants, on the other hand, have a slight chance to make the playoffs.  How slight?  Well, this slight (click on it, I'll wait).  The Giants have to win (which has been quite a trick lately) and then the Vikings, Bears, and Cowboys all have to lose.  While all of these circumstances are not impossible, all of them coming together at the same time is unlikely.  So it will likely be a very somber playoff time here.  If the Giants make the dance, I will be rooting for them, if not, I will pick a team to root for next week - yes I plan on doing this through the Super Bowl - and jump on the bandwagon with both feet.  Until then, I think I'll go outside and throw some snowballs at children and on coming cars.

Football Week 2: Target Practice.

    I am a large man.  Two main reasons have made this reality happen.  Reason number one is genetics - 23 pairs of chromosomes have conspired to make me 6'4", make my shoulders incredibly broad, and give me size 13 feet.  Sadly, those same chromosomes did not give me much speed or grace to utilize that 99th percentile size.  Reason number two is snacks.  Oh lord, I do so love junk food.  Genetics may have given me height and length, but Ben & Jerry, Hershey's, and Hostess have given me girth.  Oh sure, I have tried to give up these things and exercise and what not, but besides being a large man, I am also a lazy man with very low impulse control.  So I don't fight it much anymore.  I am content to buy 3XL shirts and 44 waist pants and be done with it.

       I consider myself a connoisseur of snacks, so much so that some of my friends call me the Snack King.  I like to be on the cutting edge of sugary confections and salty conveniences.  So when I saw this post on Buzzfeed last week combining two of my weaknesses, I made it my mission to have them in hand and report whether their Frankenstein's monster of tastes was a hit or miss.  So I have been to every Target in a 20 mile radius at least three times each in the last week and alas, no luck.  No Candy Corn Oreos for me.  It is this kind of obsession that has kept my sports card collection both a curse and a blessing.  And as you can imagine, that aforementioned lack of impulse control in Target was going to eventually lead me to buying new stuff.  So, once again, it became a "why fight it" moment and at my last stop yesterday, I gave in and bought a couple things in the trading card aisle:

On the left is a 2012 Topps Football box promising me 72 cards and 16 rookies.  On the right is a repack that caught my eye because it had Drew Brees on top.  Having just sorted out my Saints cards, I was 98% certain that I did not have that particular Brees card, and besides, I needed something to distract me from the fact that I had spent the last week searching - in vain - for friggin' cookies.  So that repack promising me "Extreme Value" an "unopened pack" and "1 Helmet Card" (whatever that is) found its way into my hands as well.

Let's look at that unopened pack first:

Oh repacks, you promise so much and deliver so little.  If you do not recognize that right away, that is 1990 Fleer, one of the most overproduced of the overproduction era.  Like every other kid back then, I opened a fuckton of this stuff (it's an industry term).  One thing I never noticed on the wrapper before is the offer for a 1990 Fleer Football Collector's Pin.  I wonder if there was a run on these things or if there is a warehouse somewhere in Philly with a million of these things still inside.

Let's do a quick Pack a Day/A Pack to Be Named Later run down of these:

The 1990 Fleer design is not too terrible.  Nice use of team colors and a mutant Lombardi Trophy-esque looking football on front.  You got a Bruce and a Bubba and a couple of Whites. 

These six round out the 15 total cards from the pack:

Here you have the wrong Eddie Murray, Sterling Sharpe (he is considered the "quiet" Sharpe brother), and a dude I never heard of before, but he is a Saint, so I will give him a shout out...Hi Buford Jordan!  I will leave that gray space there as an indicator of the small section of my soul that has been stolen by opening this pack.

On to the highlights of the other cards in the repack:

I like repacks because they are all over the place.  That first card (starting in the upper left) is a Bjorn Nittmo World League card.  Wow.  Those of you who are insomniacs like me will recognize that name from Late Night with David Letterman.  Then you have two extremes in design, the 2011 Rookies and Stars, which uses white space and lines, and the 1995 Fleer, which looks like a painter's palette threw up.  After that, there is a NY Giant, a 1986 Topps Cowboy, and a TO Bowman card from 2000.  I point out that Bowman card because that red and yellow was part of the design; they did not use team colors.  But with the 49ers, that design looks sharp.  On the bottom there are two Score sets from the early 90's.  That 1992 design couldn't look more 90's unless Tiffani Amber Thiessen was on it too.  Then you have Tim Brown.  Tim Brown had a hell of a football career, but in my college circle of friends, Tim Brown has a different meaning.  We used to have Super Techmo Bowl tournaments in the dorms and my friend Kevin would take the Raiders for the "Tim Brown play" which was just him running straight down field and the quarterback would throw it up to him.   You knew Kevin was playing because he would bellow at the top of his lungs "TIM BROWN!!!" throw the ball and just put down the controller.  Years later, although he will probably make the Hall of Fame, all I ever think of when I hear his name is Super Techmo Bowl and the late night screams of my insane, deranged roommate. 

Moving on, group two includes that promised Helmet Card.  It is a card with a thick plastic helmet embedded in it.  It is neither autographed nor serial numbered.  But boy, is it thick.

Running through these.  That Neil O'Donnell Collector's Edge Card is serial numbered 048237.  I hope it's scarcity will help put my grandchildren through college.  Natrone Means is the recipient of one of the best Chris Berman nicknames of all time.  Insufferable as he is, every once in a while he drops one that never gets old and Natrone "Re-fried" Means is one of them.  In that second row, you have a 1988 Topps John Elway, a 1982 Topps Joe Theismann; a couple of near vintage cards that are nice to find in a repack.  Also in that row is Terrell Suggs, who matriculated from Ball So Hard University.  That last row has another Giant (Mark Collins), one of those despicable rookie poses of a despicable player (Desean Jackson), and last but not least, a checklist card from 1996 Pinnacle Summit.  There is no indication, front or back, of what player that is.  Anyone recognize him?  I don't.

Last page of the repack.  Promise:

I am not a Jets fan, but I think D'Brickashaw Ferguson has one of the best names ever.  I got not one but two of his prerookie cards in here.  I also got one of poor Mark Sanchez, who despite last week's fine performance, will still have Tebow breathing down his neck all season.  That second row has "Cadillac" Williams - bad player, great nickname.  Also there is Bubby Brister, who's parents must have known he would be a backup quarterback because no one has ever had a better backup quarterback name.  That last row has yet another UD fake rookie card thing, one of those fantastic old school Action Packed cards which are thick and weird, and say what you want about the 1990 Pro Set, the most über-overproduced set of all time, a lot of the photos were fantastic and that Carl Banks card is no exception.

OK, let's dive into that box of 2012 Topps Football.  Basically, that box is a jumbo pack.  It is even packed inside like one, using cellophane instead of a proper wrapper:

At least it was nested nicely inside of the box so nothing got damaged.  One thing I have noticed about recent blasters is that packs are loose inside and all sorts of dings and creases abound from that.

Let's take a look at what I got:

Right off the bat, I like the design.  It is unique to football, not a riff on the baseball design, which is always a plus.  I don't know why, but the bottom graphic looks like an outtake from a Spiderman logo design brainstorming session.  The photo is nice and big and for the most part, they are pretty sharp.  I am a huge fan of the Chargers' powder blue unis, so it is nice to see those.  It is also nice to see a kicker actually kicking on a card.  I also am glad I got a Gronk card, but it would have been more appropriate if the picture had captured him mid-spike.  Or coming out of the hotel room of a porn star.  Either one.

Let's look at some of those 16 rookies I was promised:

After one week, Robert Griffin III has been anointed.  One week.  Never mind that he was facing the Saints defense or that, you know, it is only one damn week.  OK, I am still bitter, let's move on.  I also got Russell Wilson, who shocked everybody by winning the Seattle QB battle.  Most of the rest of the guys I have barely heard of, though Brandon Boykin has a great alliterate name.  The last row has Darren Sproles, my lone Saints card in the whole pack, Jason Pierre-Paul, a name with three first names, and Cam Newton, whom the Saints take on this afternoon.  Hopefully, they will acquit themselves a little better against him than they did RG3.

Finally, we have the inserts:

A Dan Marino rookie reprint; I always liked that 1984 Topps design.  A few different full bleed shiny cards of Joe Flacco, Dan Fouts and the Patriots receivers that I couldn't care less about (anyone who does, lemme know).  A code card for the latest one of Topps giveaways, that one is available if you want to trade for it as well.  Lastly, there are the Tallboy inserts.  I do not get these at all.  They are based on the 1965 Topps design, which was not the standard 2 ½" x 3 ½" but 2 ½" across and a bizarre 4 11/16 inches tall.  It is one of the all time odd looking sets of all time.  It is a cool design, but the size makes them hard to display and they damage easy.  These inserts are made to the same dimensions as the '65 Topps, but obviously not 4 11/16th inches tall but a little less than 3 ½" and thus much narrower than 2 ½".  All that makes them sort of mini-ish but I wouldn't exactly call them minis.  I cannot decide if I like these or not, but they are certainly different.

Football Week 1: Praise Breesus.

       My autumn Sundays are a marvelous blur of pajamas, fried food, and football.  This morning, practically on cue, the morning was crisp and leaves were on the ground.  It was beautiful.  I have a pot of homemade chili all ready to go and a sixer of Sam Adams Octoberfest to wash it down.  My last post about football was a little, um, harsh, so I will try and keep it a little more positive this time around.  As most of you who read this blog may know, I am a New Orleans Saints fan - if you did not know that or are wondering how someone from New Jersey who lived in Boston for a dozen years becomes a Saints fan, click here.  The player that makes the Saints go is a man by the name of Drew Brees.


       I have a hard time throwing the word "hero" around when talking about sports stars.  Not to sound overly cliche here, but people who run into burning buildings are heroes, not quarterbacks.  But some men ingrain themselves into the community with such altruism and grace that you could consider them at least good role models and one of those rare players is Drew Brees.  The Saints took a chance on him in 2005 when no other team did and Brees has returned the favor by not only doing so much for the city after Hurricane Katrina but also leading the team to a Super Bowl title when most people never thought the team would return to New Orleans, much less succeed. Plus he is a decent fellow, a family man, and even my mom has a crush on him.



I thought about doing 11 cards for football, rather than nine, but it didn't look right, so at least for now, I am doing eight to break it up a little.  This also might be because I haven't organized all my football cards yet and put them into pages.  I'll let you sort that out for yourselves.  These last two scans feature all my shiny inserts and such of Drew Brees.  I especially like the 2007 X-fractor up top, the run of three different 2009 Topps cards, and the mini Allen and Ginter mini with his son.  If you're gonna have your infant on a card, it makes sense to have it on a mini.



And finally, to cover the concept of "team" let's look at one of my favorite Saints cards.  It features the aforementioned Mr. Brees with two of his favorite weapons, the gone-but-not-forgotten Reggie Bush and the velcro-handed Marques Colston. (and just for Night Owl, look at how crooked the back is scanned - the horror!) I do like cards that incorporate different players and game used jerseys, which explains why I love this card so much, but also, take a good look at those jersey pieces.  I think they were going for the shape of a fleur de lis.  I think.  I do like cards that make me laugh, too.

Homemade.

       As I have mentioned before, I have a deep adoration for oddball cards and food issues.  It would seem that a very specific aspect of that particular kind of card has been fodder for some recent debate.  I'd be lying if I didn't often look at other posts and say "me too!" and I am going to do that here, but add a twist at the end.

Here is a page of random unsorted retired players that I have in a binder but have not fully organized nor integrated into the rest of my collection:

I am going to do something that haven't done on this blog (I don't think) and just focus in on three of the cards on that page:

What you see are three old school food issues cut off the sides and/or backs of boxes, all to varying success.  I am pretty sure whoever snipped off that 1976 Hostess Bake McBride sneezed somewhere near the bottom.  How else do you explain the sudden and inexplicable chunk taken out of the lower right corner?  That 1962 Post Felipe Alou has been well loved all around.  It was cut with B+ precision, but then obviously put into the kids' back pocket.  Those are some impressive creases, even by my low standards.  That 1961 Jim Coates is cut rather well, but it is the back thatI find much more interesting...

...I believe that is a baseball rubdown from one of the 1960's oddball sets floating around (someone with a better knowledge of the 60's could help me out on that one), a rather ingenious use of them, by the way, to fill in the empty brown cardboard void.  That is why that random Yankees common has remained in my collection all these years.

But those three cards are before my time.  How did I do as a kid when the scissors were allowed out of the drawer (there was a nasty incident in my extreme youth where I played "haircut" with my little sister, thus eternally banning me from using scissors without permission.  Even as an adult I find myself asking permission to use the scissors, rather than asking where they are.  But I digress...)  The following cards have been in my collection for decades and each and every one of them were cut off of their cardboard panels by yours truly:

Not too bad, if I do say so myself.  The top two 1987 Fleer cards are box bottom cards.  The Grote is a 1976 Hostess card that I cut off of a panel I bought at a show in the late 80's.  That one is the only one with some suspect trimming.  It would seem that I had the same issue with a lower corner as the aforementioned Bake McBride card, though quite not to the same extreme.  Perhaps there is something about those cards that just begs for poor trimming.  The 1986 Topps Gooden is also a box bottom card - very sharp.  The other four drakes cards are slightly smaller by nature, not by butcher.  I included that Gooden Glossy All Star card as a visual guide of a standard issue size card (I am also amused that the two pictures on the 1986 Drakes and that card are practically identical).  So, perhaps it is cheap 1970's cardboard that makes for bad card cutting, not over-caffeinated or under-intelligent children.  Oh, and it seems I have doubles of that 1986 Drakes Gooden in the middle, so if you want/need/desire that card, drop me an email. 

So where was this twist I promised?  Well, I have done other things with scissors and baseball cards and  boxes.  First, I like to make binder labels out of them...

I have about a million of those "Topps of the Class" cards laying around, so it made sense to tag my Topps binders with them. Here I do the same thing for a football binder...

I also noticed that the graphics on the boxes were kinda neat, so maybe I could make labels out of them:

I am pretty sure that football label is the first one I consciously made to be a label for my binders.  I also noticed that recent modern binders use a label that is the standard size of a baseball card.  So making binder labels out of card boxes then grew into me finding the best 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 bits on a box and making my own unique cards out of them:

One of the obvious drawbacks of this little art project is they use a lot of Yankees on baseball card boxes.  Luckily, I have Big Papi and Bruce Lee to balance out all that Jeter and A-Rod nastiness.

That middle card there is from a blaster of 2009 OPC, I believe, and it makes for a better ad than any of the advertisement cards Upper Deck put in their packs the last few years.  These cards are also the only time I ever put cards in back-to-back, since the opposite side is either blank cardboard or very abstract bits of the reverse of the box. So what you are seeing here is only two pages:

That middle card is the closest I will ever get to having the Abraham Lincoln DNA card in my collection, but that is certainly good enough for me.  I even got some of the A&G box seal onto that one.  I like to see if I can get odd little bits into the card like that...like the hologram on the Drew Brees card, or the kung-fu dude flying out behind the Ken Griffey card.  The bottom right card is not from a baseball card box, it is actually from a Whiffle Ball display.

Since I so rarely buy any new product, much less entire boxes of new product, I am afraid those last four or five spaces might never get filled in.  I have a bunch of other homemade box cards scattered in my collection, so perhaps I will bring them all together just to have the pages complete.  I thought with all this talk of cutting out cards off of boxes, I would go a little outside the lines and show you what someone with a pair of scissors and a lot of time (and boxes) on his hands could do.

Saints.

     I grew up in northern New Jersey.  Most people have their prejudices and cliches about New Jersey and lemme tell you, they are all true and a thousand times worse.  But my roots aside, growing up anywhere usually locks you in to a certain set of teams to root for.  Given my geographic heritage, it makes sense that I am a New York Mets fan, it certainly makes sense that I am a New Jersey Devils fan, and heck, I am even a erstwhile New York Knicks fan.  So how the hell did I become a New Orleans Saints fan?  A number of factors conspired to make this come to pass.

     You should know, I grew up a New York Giants fan.  Joining my other fabulous childhood athletic role models Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry is Lawrence Taylor (what a morality threesome there).  Those Big Blue Wrecking Crew teams of the late 80's and early 90's are still held in high regard with me and my brother.  So what happened?  Well, first of all, I moved to Boston for college in the early 90's, right around the time age and Ray Handley got together to destroy everything that was good about those Giants teams.  Out of sight was out of mind.  Plus, I had so much going on in college that sports, and especially football, was the first thing that got lost in the shuffle.  Also around this time, my mother started dating a new gentleman.  Well, that is not entirely true, he was barely a man, he was a good 20 years her junior.  And while this situation set me and my siblings aback a bit, we eventually accepted and grew to love this man.  It was like having another brother, rather than a step dad.  And he was a huge New Orleans Saints fan.  Huge is actually a very weak word to use here.  Gargantuan perhaps?  I think you get my point.  His passion rubbed off on the rest of the family.  My mother, who grew up in the 1960s and therefore was bound by law to find Joe Namath dreamy, had grown up a New York Jets fan, but her allegiances switched pretty quick.  They used to fly down to New Orleans a couple times a year to enjoy the city and take in a game or two.  In the early aughts, it occurred to them that they could buy season tickets for the price of the two or three games they were buying, so they did that instead.  They were New Orleans Saints season ticket holders living in New Jersey.  Now that is some hardcore fandom.

     Unfortunately, this is where our story takes a tragic turn.  In 2005, the city of New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.  You may have heard about it, it was in all the papers.  Then more tragedy, this time more personal in nature; in early 2006, that man my mother dated, and who was such a wonderful part of my family, suddenly and unexpectedly died of a heart attack at the age of 37.  This threw our entire family into mourning and disarray.  The city my mother loved was destroyed and the man she loved was dead.  She was, needless to say, a tad depressed.  My siblings and I decided it would be a good idea if we did what we could to cheer her up.  We asked her what would help.  She told us it would be nice if we could accompany her to New Orleans for the football games in 2006, as it would be a great tribute for her man and our tourist dollars would help the city.  We agreed.  I volunteered to go to the first game.  I had never been to New Orleans and, truth be told, I had never even to an NFL game (tickets to Giants games were next to impossible to get in my youth).  That first game back at the Superdome in New Orleans is legend.  The atmosphere was electric and it was the rare time a sporting event transcended those bounds and helped heal a whole city.  I was hooked; I became a Saints fan that evening for life.  I became a Saints fan because I love the city.  I became a Saints fan because the team has a great bunch of fans and I wanted to be a part of that. I became a Saints fan out of tribute to a fallen friend.

       Those season tickets are still part of the family, as they have been since 2002.  We all still go down with my mother and watch games.  We were even rewarded with the 2009 team.  I was at the NFC Championship game that year in the Superdome when we beat the Vikings to go to the Super Bowl for the first time.  When the overtime kick went through the uprights, that was the absolute loudest noise I have ever heard.  Most of the NFL gear I own is Saints gear.  I call myself a Saints fan.

      So, when you look at my football card collection, you will find a big hole where you would think the Saints should go.  I have a mess of Giants cards from my youth, but I didn't collect football cards for a long long time.  In the mid to late aughts, I started to gather some Saints cards and a few obligatory pages were created...

Drew Brees:

Deuce McAllister: (probably my all time favorite Saint)

And my usual mishmash of vintage stuff that I found amongst some boxes:


And that was about it. How could I call myself a fan and have less than 40 Saints cards in my collection?  I decided to purchase some lots to augment my collection and in the last year or so, I went a little nuts.  When I was in New Orleans, I went to some shops and bought lots.  When I was in Cooperstown (no, really) I bought a bunch of lots.  I went on eBay and bought a bunch of lots.  As has been mentioned a few times on this blog already, my organization skills are less than stellar and now I have a 3200 count monster box full of unsorted Saints cards.  I am slowly going through them...making team sets, collating them by year, plucking out inserts and cool players for pages, etc.  It has been a slow process, made slower by the fact that I am already neck deep in dealing with shrinking other parts of my collection while growing this one.  But it works out well because when I get tired of getting rid of things, I go through the Saints cards, knowing they are here to stay. 

So far, making actual pages has been hit or miss, as I have found some great cards but no real unifying themes:

Longways inserts:

Shiny Inserts:

Rookie Inserts:

Random Inserts:

Random random inserts:

Wait, those stickers are neat, and here, look at the backs:

Anyone remember those Huddles dolls? Talk about a relic of their time; who knew they had cards too?

Ugh, this is all a work in progress and I have a lot more to do, obviously, and I will keep you posted as it evolves.  I do at least have one page done for certain.  One of the lots I bought on eBay was padded with a boatload of 1990 Action Packed cards, including at least 20 Bobby Heberts:

If anyone needs a dozen of these cards, let me know.  Also, if you have any Saints cards you'd like to get rid of or something fancy to trade, please email me, they will (eventually) find a good home.