Gavins from Dennis

My buddy Dennis of the blog Too Many Verlanders surprised me with a nice mailer of cards this past week. The majority were guys named Gavin, so this post will also function as an abbreviated "pro athletes named Gavin" annual update for 2024, though last year I said I wouldn't continue doing it since there are a lot of Gavins out there now compared to when I started paying attention to the 2 or 3 there were ten years ago.

Gavin Williams' stats this season haven't been that great following his strong debut last year, though injuries have played a part. Cleveland secured a playoff spot, so hopefully Gavin gets a chance to shine in October. Cool bunch of cards here with a 1st Bowman refractor, insert Topps RC, and a couple Panini relic RCs.

Gavin Lux has set his career high for games played this season, and I think he had a hot streak going for a while, though overall his numbers are still around replacement level. Suiting up for the juggernaut Dodgers, he's likely to play plenty of postseason baseball. While I of course hope my Padres pull it out, Ohtani is having a season for the ages and it wouldn't surprise anyone if they just kept rolling.

Dennis didn't send me any Gavin Stone cards, but he's another Gavin on the Dodgers to mention. He pitched well this year, highlighted by a complete game shutout, though manager Dave Roberts recently said he's very unlikely to pitch again this year due to shoulder discomfort. Bummer.

Like with Lux, Gavin Sheets has gotten a lot of playing time this year and hasn't quite had the breakout his team had been hoping for. The sad-sack White Sox and their lame owner are having an historically bad season, so there's no 2024 postseason experience awaiting this Gavin. 

Always love a "cracked ice" parallel or whatever they're calling them these days.

Gavin Cross had a strong year for KC's AA team, knocking 15 dingers with 30 stolen bases in 101 games. Wishing him the best of luck cracking the bigs in the next year or two.

There are several other Gavins in the minors today, too many for me to want to cover here, but best of luck to all of them making the show. Turns out my local-ish minor league team, the Hillsboro Hops, had a pair of Gavins on their roster this season. I should have maybe tried to see a game and perhaps gotten autoGavs of those guys, but alas. I didn't see any in-person baseball this year, sad to say, not even the local collegiate summer league Portland Pickles. Oh well, maybe next year.

My biggest football PC gets a couple cards larger thanks to this pair. Since the late Gavin Escobar, there haven't been any NFL Gavin cards released, as far as I can tell. There was one Gavin (Gavin Heslop) who played 3 games for the Seahawks in 2021 but didn't seem to get any cards out of it.

And here's a Gavin Cecchini auto, plus cards from his brother Garin, who I sorta also passively collect. lol

And some non-Gavin content from Dennis to round things out. There was actually a little stack of '92 Leaf black gold, but only Brady Anderson was a need. Believe it or not, I'm only a dozen cards short of the finish line there.

Thanks a lot, Dennis! Cool stuff. I'll do my best to scrape together a decent return for you soon.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Keepers From Rod

Well jeez I got distracted and meant to whip up this post last month, but yeah let's quickly bust out some incoming highlights. 

The big lot of cards from Rod last month helped me add many new cards to my PCs of active players, especially current and recent Padres.

Six player stacks here, including 2024 Topps team set variations for all except Soto because of course he's not with San Diego any longer. The superfluous shiny parallel is kinda cool, though.

Jackson Merrill has San Diego feeling good about the future. He might have a shot at the ROY if Paul Skenes doesn't have too many more quality starts down the stretch.

Bobby Witt, Jr. is another young stud I don't have much from, so it's great to add an early card of his.

And while my Jose Altuve PC has been largely neglected since the Astros cheating scandal, I was still stoked to find a nice card of his within the boxes.. the variation on the right.

It's my first of those "Golden Mirror" variations I've been hearing about for a while. Pretty cool.

There were plenty more cards I could feature from that lot, but I might have to call it good here or maybe do a follow-up post with more later. The other few hundred cards are still in sorting triage of "non-active keepers", "decent cards for trade", and "for cardart". But then Rod stopped by last weekend for another handoff...

Only 1 standard-sized card this time-- the Dylan Cease no-hitter Topps Now card (sweet!)-- but some other cool stuff like unused tickets from the 1984 postseason (wow!) and a set of 1974 McDonald's disc-cards in the original plastic display ball case (!!!).

Here's a neat bit of Padres randomness: A letter from Jerry Coleman to a guy named Mike apologizing for losing the stuff he sent in to be signed.

I had a couple Tim Flannery cardart things for Rod so he didn't leave empty-handed. He helped further encourage my creativity with cards by giving me some fancy paper to work with and a rotary cutter tool that's already come in handy. 

Thanks again to Rod for the cool stuff, and have a great weekend, everybody.