1991-92 NHL Pro Set

I got so many packages the past 2 months that I cannot process all of it. Usually the US seller I get cards from send me a bonus pack. I understand the incentive to buy more but I like it none the same.

Well, one of the bonus packs was this 1991-92 NHL Pro Set French Edition!

French was like the second language here in Portugal back when the people emigrated mainly to France (and we are near, we only have Spain between us). With all this crisis we are living now many people are emigrating again but nowadays is English that works as a second language.

So I'm in the team English-as-second-language and truly cannot speak French for living. I can read and understand but please don't ask me to talk because it all comes out with a strange English accent.

But I still appreciate the sellers gesture.

And here are the cards I got.

Gary Roberts @CGY - This must be my favourite card from the pack and probably from all NHL cards I have. Roberts is pushing some (I think!) Flyers' player and it seems he is doing on purpose so he can have all the card only or him. 'Get out of my card!'

Mike Vernon @CGY - "He is a two-time Stanley Cup champion, with the Flames in 1989 and the Red Wings in 1997"

Jari Kurri @LA - No photoshop (un)happiness so Jari has his Kings card with a photo wearing Oilers uniform. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001.

Curt Giles @MIN - North Stars has similar colours to Wilds so it seems is a Minnesota thing. Curt "had a portion of his left ring finger amputated on March 24, 1986 in order to compete in the 1986 Stanley Cup playoffs. The finger had a tumor in the bone and forced him to miss the end of the 1985-86 regular-season". That's a bigggggg ouch!!!

Stéphane Lebeau @MTL -  He won a Stanley Cup in 1993 with the Canadiens. So this is his card from previous-winner-year.

Denis Savard @MTL - Denis was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2000. That makes this my second HOF player card in the pack.

Gary Nylund @NYI - He was the first NHL player to change teams via free agency.

Bernie Nicholls @NYR - He is on the team 1'000-points-player.

Ron Hextall @PHI - One of his records is having the most career goals by a goaltender, including playoffs – 2. I wish I could see goaltenders going for penalties more often. We see sometimes that happening also in football. And Portugal had one happy example of that back in UEFA Euro2004 against England.

Alexei Gusarov @QBC - I love Nordics' logo. I confess I didn't know nothing about this team before collecting cards. So I like getting all Quebec cards as possible. And Alexei has a good career resumé: he "is a member of the Triple Gold Club, having won the 1989 IIHF World Championship, the 1996 Stanley Cup, and the Olympic gold medal in 1988."

Paul MacDermid @WIN - The Jets returned last season so I know them.

Tomas Sandstrom ASG - Tomas was named to the 1985 NHL All-Rookie Team. And to the All-Star team in 1991-92 season.

Andy Moog ASG - Moog is No.14 in the NHL goaltenders with 300 wins list.

Rick Tocchet ASG - In '92 Rick scored 19 points in 14 playoff games, helping the Penguins win Stanley Cup champions again.

The last card is from a convention. I'm not sure if it's from the draft or not. It's a checklist card.

And speaking of Penguins the card I save for the last is the only Pittsburgh player I got.

Kevin Stevens @PIT - At this time this uniform was the regular, nowadays is the retro one alongside the blue one. Kevin was the LW in the Lemieux line and won two Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992.


Now I'll go a try to get some help from my fellow dictionary.


Note: all additional info via wikipedia

Card Chase - 2008 Tristar Projections

Lets get one more pack from the Card Chase box. To be precise this time is not 1, not 2 but 3 packs.

The most modern packs I got from the box are precisely these 3.

I got two 'normal' packs and a 'High # Series' pack. Lets see what I got from the first two 'normal' packs.

 1st pack:

#78 Sean Doolittle - Drafted by Oakland and "He served as a relief pitcher for the A's, earning his first career save on July 21, 2012 against the New York Yankees" (info from wikipedia)
#97 Glenn Austin Gallagher - Drafted by Dodgers and still playing in Minors. He has a good BA but LAD are full of stars so I don't know if can be called to ML next year.
#132 Andrew McCutchen - Drafted by Pittsburgh and we all know the rest. Here is a teen Andrew photo quite nice. Shorter hair looks better.

As you can see there is a shift mistake on the stats. I was in doubt to which they forgot to shift, if it was the stats name or the values. As you can see ahead on the high numbered cards it was corrected and the stats name are correctly position and the values were the shift-missing-error.

#131 Jeff Marquez - Picked by Yankees and was involved in the Nick Swisher trade with White Sox. Right now has a Minor contract with Colorado.
#141 Luis Castillo - Drafted by the Nationals and plays in Minors. Don't think he will make it to the ML.
#47 Jason Place - Drafted by Boston and have played for 5 years in the Minors.
#199 Brad Bergesen - Drafted by the Orioles is a Pitcher in the ML since 2009. Injuries made his life hard and now he's with D-Backs.
#167 Hank Conger (refractor) - Drafted by Angels and was between the Minors and Majors. I think I have his Topps RC somewhere. I like this refractor a lot! Look at that rainbow glow.

 Now on the 2nd pack:

#184 Collin Balester - Drafted by the Expos and played up/down for the Nationals until be traded to Detroit where he found himself again playing in the Minors.
#43 Jarrod Parker - Drafted by Arizona right from the High School but was traded last year to Oakland in the Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow traded.
#51 Matt Wieters - Drafted by Orioles and is now giving some trouble to my Yankees as Baltimore Catcher.
#89 Wilmer Font - Signed by Texas and plays in the Minors.
#105 Brandon Hicks (refractor) - Drafted by the Braves but now plays for the A's. Other nice refractor.
#134 David Pauley - Drafted by Padres but started his ML career with Boston. Since then played for Mariners, Tigers, Angels and Blue Jays. Is back to Seattle system but with a Minors contract.
#71 Jhoulys Chacin - Signed by Colorado and I have his Topps RC too. and yes, I can say his name right.

#13 David Robertson - Drafted by my Yankees and is my favourite Pitcher in the team. I was hopping to see him become the future Closer for New York. But he still need to work a bit more. But I treasure each Robertson card because it's hard to find one. At least for me. I think I only have 1 or 2 cards of him besides this one.

And finally the high numbered pack:

#333 Jose Capellan - Signed by the Red Sox and I couldn't find much thing about him. I saw him in the ESPN webpage wearing a SF cap so he might be with Giants now.
#225 Jose Gil - Drafted by Yankees and only has Minor League experience.
#207 Van Pope - Drafted by Atlanta and in 2007 was rated by Baseball America as the No. 5 prospect in the Braves organization. None the same he was released.
#302 Josue Calzado - Drafted by Yankees and is still in the Minors with a 4year-BA of .252.
#366 Graham Taylor - Drafted by Florida (now Miami) and already played in ML. His wiki page says he's best known for his baserunning skills. He is a Pitcher.

The so called High # Series brought me only Minor leaguers. The first two packs were pretty cool thou with McCutchen and Robertson being the highlights.

About the cards design I might say I like it but I truly don't get why some players have full photo and others are limited to the half-top card leaving a lot of white on the bottom.

I saw the auto-cards and understand the white bottom space if the autograph is there. Otherwise it's a waste of blank space.

Panini 2012/2013 Liga Portuguêsa

I was a bit curious why Panini hadn't yet started selling the new stickers and album for the 2012/2013 season for Portuguese football league.

I was wishing it was because they were really improving the collection for this year.

I said 'wishing'.

But they really don't care about my wishes and so they have done the same all over again.

I like the cover main colour. It's my team's colour so I like it.

And if we count that Rúben Amorim is on loan from SLBenfica on Braga so we may say that we have two SLBenfica players on the cover! Even if I don't understand that away Braga uniform being green.

Love to see Salvio wearing the SLBenfica uniform again. Great player.

The stickers cases follow the colour.

And we have those packs with 10 stickers cases again.

From those 4 stickers examples I could see that there is no chrome sticker for the teams logo. I only see those chrome stickers on the UEFA Champions sticker collection. At least SLBenfica is there.

Then the players photo look always the same. And there is no states on the sticker it self. Only players' vital info.

Here is one page from my team. And even if the album and stickers were edited a bit later than usual they didn't updated the last transfers made on the deadline. That's why we still have Javi Garcia wearing the most beautiful uniform ever.

The only one thing that made me take a second look was the insert sticker of 'Top Stars'. I think I can call it that. It only appeared a couple of years ago in Panini football stickers.

This is how I wished all the album stickers were! I'm tired of all the ID photo kind. I want to see the players in action. Would love to see a flying goalkeeper sticker. Lovely.


So...Panini...I'm not making this year album again. And won't make UEFA Champions League too. From now on will only make FIFA World Cup albums. And that's only because we get stickers for the majority of countries around the globe.

Card Chase Box - 1994 Select

Keeping the dig of my Card Chase box here it is one more pack. This time is a 1994 Select 12 card pack.

I don't know why but the pack colours make me think of Hawaii so I imagined the cards picturing players playing ball on the beach and diving for the catch on the sand.

Why not? If there is the normal football which is played in grass, then there is the indoor too and also beach football. Lets try play baseball on the beach too.

This was just me rambling.

Now the cards!

I grouped the rookies cards. Select call them '1994 Rookie Prospects' so I'm not sure if this really may count as their truly rookie cards like it stands for us now.

Mark Kiefer - I didn't know that Brewers logo but I like it. Mark didn't get much ML time and only played 3 years in MLB. The card says he was a Brewers top Pitching prospect but it seems he didn't make it. He's brother with Steve Kiefer.

Tony Longmire - Seemed like an OF for the future but only played 3 years with Phillies and had few AB. Even if he batted .356 in the last year in 59 games. He suffered from injuries. Could have made it big but maybe bad luck can explain why he didn't.

Gerald Williams - WoW A Yankee prospect! Made ML debut in '94 but was on '96 that he had his highest moment: "On May 1, he set a Yankees team record with 6 hits against Baltimore in a 15 inning game." (info from wikipedia). Can we have something like this in the playoffs? We can use something like this to beat the Orioles!

Mark Acre - For what says in his card it seems he used to dance on the mound to pitch the ball. Those clumsy moves are still present in many pitchers. Chris Sale (love him!) is a great pitcher but he does look like he's disjointing while pitching.

For what I checked I didn't get that good prospects. But I like the card front design. The back makes me read on diagonal and makes my neck hurt.

Now with the veterans.

Barry Bonds - Do I really have to say anything? On '94 he was already with SF and perhaps that's the reason why he's multiplied in a vertigo moment on this card. What is that people!? If the card was to be an holo-card please make it right! Not that...

Graeme Lloyd - I was missing *the* trend already. Here is an other future-Yankee.

Chili Davis - Hummm But the player that stands out in the photo is Hudler. Won 2 WS with Yankees in his last 2 years as a ML player. But I have to deal with the fact I have him in an Angles uniform.

Pete Harnisch - Had his best years with Astros but then an injure might have degraded his career from then on.

Rene Arocha - Playing for STL and SF makes me don't care much about a player and really Arocha didn't have much lucky in both of the teams. He only played in MLB for 5 years.

Chris Sabo - Ohhh the goggles! Nowadays we don't see those anymore which is really a shame! And he really needed them from what I can see in the card back photo. I do the same when I cannot see the bus right in front of me.

Spike Owen - Blast! Got Spike right the year after being in pinstripes! But eventually he got a career high .310 in 82 games for the Angels in '94.

Manuel Lee - My favourite card in the pack thanks to the photo. Jump Lee, jump! I like to see 2B plays immortalized in cards.


Mostly I enjoyed the pack mainly because getting base cards with horizontal design is a first for me. We get some horizontal action but it's not the design in itself. Here is. And we get 3 different photos of each player in this design. The stats on the back are not the best of it because I find it a bit difficult to read.

Other thing I liked is seeing the 'RP' (and there would be a 'CP - Closing Pitchers' as well) as a position to distinguish between the starting Pitchers and bullpen Pitchers.

Nick Markakis - Woman Perspective post

Hello there.

Back to one of my favorite categories: bring light to the women side of baseball players appreciation.

Today I'm going to show my fair play, and even if Baltimore is making my Yankees sweat until the end to win the AL East, I'm talking about Nick Markakis.

After talking about two handsome blonds (they get less blond throughout the years) lets talk about a Latin kind of man.

I have this 2009 Topps UH Propaganda card. I like those cards, have a couple more that might even show in one of this posts...let you think about it ehehe

But talking about this precise card I must say Nick seems like a vampire! Look at those eyes? I see some kind of Cullen's eyes in those. And the hair goes for it too. I'd prefer to see more dark hair you people! He has that south-European look to him.

But make this card a poster and it would 'Serve Proudly' in my teens-wall-covered-in-posters-times.

Next I have this 2011 Topps Series One base card.

Not the best fielding photo to appreciate his handsomeness but I can see his skills in action. He can run and catch. And look gorgeous doing so. So if I would fall from the skies he would run and catch me without much trouble. Like it!!!!!

But here, I'd like to propose some fielding kind of photo.

See Topps? (Since they are the only ones now...) Even if this photo might be from the practice prior to game, I can see Nick better. Beard is well trimmed. Full chest with lots of space to breath (that's useful in a player). And yes...the mouth. Beautiful line moth. And his jaw line? Uhhhhhhhh That's the way to go!

The final card I have of him (yep, I only have 3 cards of Markakis, poor me) is one specimen of this 2012 Topps Heritage base card.

Please Topps, let me choose the photos. If it is a prepared shooting session why not make it look more like this:

This example seems to have a bit of photoshop to it, but if it is only on the background I can let it pass without trouble.

But let me look at Nick posing.

Did I mention the eyes? That horizon-lost-look...

Well, since I don't have more Markakis cards I must end the post with some good photos I found of him on the web.

I don't like orange. Even more because it has some political references in Portugal. But Nick does look awesome in any kind of colours.

Card Chase Box - 1988 Donruss pack 2

Now on with the second see-one-of-the-cards-1988-Donruss-packs.

Ohhhhh I already have the Winfield card from the other pack...It's up to trade so.

The drawing this time around was a bit better. Will Clark didn't scared me off like Calderon did. Well not Calderon himself but his draw. I think I like better the Upper deck Collector's Choice drawings than Donruss Diamond Kings.

Lets see...two Blue Jays: Jimmy Key who won the first WS for a non-USA team and in the first WS outside USA too in '92. After spending 8 years with Toronto moved to New York for my Yankees (love the trending former/wanna-be NYY player) and won his second WS title in '96; and David Wells also a '92 WS winner and one of the chosen ones by pitching a no-hitter in '98...for whom?...Yes! The Yankees!

I'm starting to think I'll go and do a Topps-photoshop (or gimp) on my cards to all the trending-Yankees-cards I already have.

Then I see a Zane Smith as a Brave, Junior Ortiz as a Pirate, John Kruk as a Padre who drafted him back in '81 and whom I know better from ESPNAmerica shows and finally the Red Sox Bruce Hurst.

Now with the second half of the pack I got 3 puzzle pieces to complete the Stan Musial puzzle. At least I already have some Stan Musial career stats which is better than the grass pieces I got in the previous pack.

Now with the cards.

Mickey Hatcher? I think I saw you before. Yep. An other card up to trade. It seems Dodgers are quite the trend in the blogosphere so...

Tiger Mike Heath warming-up. Also a Yankee by draft but didn't have much playing-time there and only stayed for a year.

Got 2 Phillies: Don Carman and Rick Schu. Don pitches looking down and Schu has that hairiness to him. Yep, I don't have much to say.

And the final three cards are: Dale Mohorcic who I got here in his last times with a Rangers uniform before moving to Yankees; Minnesota Mark Davidson in a bunt-photo-card which I doooooooo like a lot! Make it dusty or bunty and I like it! And if he won the WS back in '87 with Twins it means this photo might be from that winning year. Like it even more!; and finally the Cub Damon Berryhill. The guy back in the photo looks like having an Atomic-Ant helmet.

Card Chase Box - 1988 Donruss pack 1

So lets see which other packs I got from the Card Chase Box. Got two see-one-of-the-cards-1988-Donruss-packs. Lets check the first one.

In the first pack there was Steve Balboni also a Yankee for 2 times (First from '81 to '83 and second from '89 to '90) but I got him precisely in between.

And so I ripped the first pack and the first card I see after the Balboni one is this:

OMG!
I'm ok with drawings but this is just gross...Poor Calderon. I know he was once a Red Sox but he didn't deserve this. Oh well...on with the game.

3 Yankees! Alright! Besides Winfield (since I got his LAA card for '90 Score set I got pretty happy to have Dave wearing a Yankee uniform) I also got Gary Ward a two time All-Star Game player (even if he didn't have the best years as a Yankee) and Ron Guidry one of the Yankees' Captains! One-team-player and Captain for my Yankees and this card is a shinny bright little thing for me. #49 retired.

The other cards I got two Boston players: Clemens and Ellis Burks. The last started and ended his career with Red Sox while the first started as a Red Sox and ended as a Yankee. But I only have Boston cards of him...poor me.

Keeping my trend here comes a Jay Howell card in A's uniform after spending 3 years with Yankees. He also got a WS title with Dodgers in '88.

Next got precisely a Dodger, Mickey Hatcher "most notably, he was Kirk Gibson's replacement for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1988 World Series, batting .368 (7/19) with two home runs and five RBI." (info from wikipedia). It's like those bands with only a #1 hit and nothing else.

To end the first half I was a lucky girl and got Lou Whitaker. And in a great photo!

Now with the second half of the pack I got 3 puzzle pieces to complete the Stan Musial puzzle. It's a 40-something pieces puzzle. Lets see what I got in the next packs.

About the cards got Matt Young in his only year with LA and he pitched an unofficial no-hitter against the Indians. How can it be an unofficial? Was it during umpires lunch time?

Got 3 more Pitchers: Jerry Don Gleaton a RP for six different teams including here in Royals uniform; Todd Worrell, also a RP but with a more significant career including NL Rookie of the year in '86 and 3 All-Star selections; and finally Mark Williamson who have pitched (along with Bob Milacki, Mike Flanagan, and Gregg Olson) a no-hitter against Oakland back in '91. He was also a one-team-player, playing only for Baltimore Orioles.

To end this pack there was a Steve Kiefer with a career BA of .192. Hummm But he was a Yankee in his final year ('89) as a ML player so I might think of it.