He's a Shoebox Legend

About a month ago, I was spending time reading some of the blogs in my blogroll. As an aside, I tend to read most of the blog posts I see posted. Sometimes I miss a few from being wrapped up in whatever I'm doing one night, but I try to read them all. But I don't always comment. I should, but I don't. 

That day about a month ago, though, I saw a post on Shoebox Legends about how Shane almost had his 1982 Topps set complete but for a couple of cards. I told Shane that I probably could help him.

I will, too. I'm way behind on packages getting sent out, but I will.

Shane was kind enough to send me a ton of Brewers in a padded envelope long before I could get him anything. 

At first, though, I was confused because the buffer cards Shane sent to me were Stadium Club Hockey cards. I even recognized one of the players' names -- Mike Modano, the Dallas Stars great. Having received the package on a Saturday meant that I had been in full tailgate mode for the Georgia football game, so I fired off an e-mail to Shane to make sure that he had sent me the correct package.

That was before I had gotten past the hockey players.  

Now, Shane sent me a bunch of cards. Many of them are duplicates of cards I have, which is not a bad thing to me since I'm always looking for condition upgrades.  I'm not going to post everything, but safe to say that there were at least 40 Brewers in the package.  But, here are the highlights of what was lying beneath the hockey sticks.

 There were several Ryan Braun cards in the package. I am guessing that Upper Deck made that card before Braun changed his position from 3B to LF, because otherwise that card doesn't make all that much sense.

Not that cards always have to make sense.

It's Rickie Weeks appreciation week here at Off Hiatus. Unless he re-signs with the Brewers, in which case we'll do it all over again next year.  

This was one of four of those Target parallels from 2013 that Shane included:

That Aoki card always makes me smile. He is so happy to be scoring that run and being shown homeplate. I hope that the Royals go a long way in the playoffs, though it will be tough to overcome both the Angels and Ned Yost.

A lot of the cards that Shane sent to me were condition upgrades. But there were also a few other surprises:

That Carlos Villanueva -- whose facial hair at times has channeled Rollie Fingers -- is a card I needed, as is that Narveson parallel and the Richie Sexson card in the lower left hand corner.  I probably need the Sheffield too, though I'd never admit it. 

Kinkade never played for the Brewers. He was traded to the New York Mets in 1998 for Bill Pulsipher. Kinkade was the proverbial journeyman -- going from the Mets to the Orioles (with Melvin Mora and Leslie Brea for Mike Bordick), to the Dodgers to the Hanshin Tigers in Japan to the Indians to the Marlins to the Cubs to the Yankees to the Mariners before he retired from Triple-A Tacoma at the age of 35 in 2008.   

Shane also threw in some unopened packs for me to rip into.  

I wasn't expecting O-Pee-Chee hockey minis. Opening a pack and seeing these guys brought back some great memories of Sega Hockey in college. I liked playing as the Sabres because Alexander Mogilny was ridiculously fast, and Pat Lafontaine never had a concussion. Christian Ruuttu was one of the backup centers on that team. 

Of course, with Hall of Famers Mark Messier, Mario Lemieux, Mark Howe, Paul Coffey and Doug Gilmour all in these two little packs of 5 cards, those were two great packs.

Apropos of the Hockey Hall of Fame, here's a photo I took when I was in Toronto in 2008:

In honor of his announcing that he is "99.9% sure" that he is retiring, it's former Brewer and then Blue Jay Lyle Oooooooooverbay at the plate. I went to Toronto for our Memorial Day weekend, which there is called "the weekend after the 3-day weekend for Victoria Day".  I stayed at the hotel at Rogers Centre, and I watched the Blue Jays and Royals square off. On Friday night, I watched from the hotel bar. On Saturday, it was from the seat from which I took this picture and after, in the morning, I visited the Hockey Hall of Fame.  On Sunday, I watched from the Hard Rock Cafe there. All in all, it was a good weekend.

Okay, back to the cards.

The final fun part of the package from the Shoebox Legend was an unopened pack of 1993 Pinnacle!

It came with 27 cards in it, but I scanned only 18 of them, including one Brewer, Jim Gantner:

I like Pinnacle's attempt at predicting the future with the "Team 2001" insert of Chuck Knoblauch. Also, that Larkin Legends card is pretty interesting -- it says Gary Sheffield idolized Barry Larkin.  I guess that was before Sheffield started idolizing himself.

Shane, I thank you greatly for the memories of college and of my trip to Toronto, the Pinnacle pack, and all the great Brewers!