I haven't really gotten into the blog-posting groove yet here in the first half of 2026, but hey, just finally got the "we're packing your order" email from COMC, so I should have plenty of blog fodder on the way soon.
But for today, here are 3 various eBay pickups to show off.
I've probably got a couple thousand cards in my Guys From Granite minicollection, but this is my first Gal from Granite card. Also pretty sure it's my first MMA autograph. Juliana "Killer" Miller blipped on my radar earlier this year as a pro athlete who attended the same high school as me, and I was happy to discover she had some Leaf cards out there.
This one is #'d 4/6, but of course Leaf does the shtick where they put out a ton of parallels, most of which are low-numbered, so not even a 1/1 is all that big of a deal considering there are a bunch of 1/1s. But yeah, I'm happy with this purple refractor I ended up landing for a good price. Looks like Juliana's record is currently 4-4-0. Wishing her the best of luck with her career of hitting and kicking.
Ladies Night continues with the lovely Ms. Sign Here. Whoops, no, that's model/actress/artist Wrenna Monet and this card was sacrificed as an example to show her where to sign her stack of cards, and somehow it didn't end up in the trash, but rather in my card collection.
And the backside. From a quick googling, she's got a lot more tattoos now. I'm still tentatively planning to build my "Sign Here" minicollection to
9 cards, then I'll stick a fork in it and call it good at a page's
worth. This is my 8th such card, so the hunt continues, but the
conclusion could come any day now.
Speaking of penultimate cards...
Baby Bo here nearly finishes off my 2005 Topps Pristine Legends frankenset. Funny that Bo originally suited up as catcher in his youth. The Yankees drafted him in the second round of the 1982 draft before he accepted a football scholarship to Auburn instead. Think about that alternate reality where Bo Jackson skipped college football and instead became famous as the Yankees backstop. LOL
I'm building the 140-card set in non-base form.. which means the bulk of my set is refractors, plus several Gold refractors, which are all /65 with a "die cut" deckle edge. Reminiscent of vintage OPC, I could do without the rough edges of the Golds, but whatever. This one has some extra wear at the top, but I'm just happy to be done chasing this card. (The regular refractors of The Early Years subset are numbered to a scant /25, so the Golds are nearly three times as obtainable there, whereas for the rest of the set, the Golds are the tougher parallel.) Now I'm down to one pricey hurdle at the finish line, another Early Years card. That last need also happens to be the last card in the set's checklist, so maybe I'll start a blog series where I slowly feature my Pristine Legends frankenset a few cards at a time, and hopefully I'll have landed that final card by the time I get to the end.
Time for the annual niche post for myself checking in with players who attended the same high school as me.
The man of the year here as far as my collection is concerned is Trenton Brooks. After making his MLB debut with San Fransisco in 2024, in 2025 he became the first non-Giles brother to have played for the GHHS Eagles and then go on to achieve that childhood dream of playing for their hometown MLB squad (The San Diego Padres in this instance). Big congrats to Trenton for that! He's a good kid with whom I had a lovely TTM autograph success with years back. So happy for him.
But the bad news is his hot bat in Triple-A got doused by major league pitching, and he didn't find his groove at the plate in San Diego, coming up short in multiple high-leverage situations, and ultimately getting cut from the squad after batting .146 through 25 games. Ouch. Hopefully he gets another shot in 2026. [Update: He'll play overseas next year, having recently signed with the Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization (article). Wishing him the best in the KBO!]
But regardless of what happens with the rest of his career, he got Topps cards! I don't bother with current cards much today, as I keep plenty busy enough chasing refractors from 20+ years ago, but when a kid from my high school gets included in a national baseball card release, I get sucked into the Topps-But-Really-Fanatics world of collecting brand new cards.
So of course there's stuff to complain about (crap, so many parallels!) but also fun stuff to chase (wee, so many parallels!). The last time a Guy From Granite got a Topps card (or Bowman or Panini for that matter) was back in 2018 when Travis Taijeron had an rookie autograph in Chrome Update, but no base card. Semi deja vu, this summer when Trenton Brooks popped up in 2025 Topps Chrome with a rookie auto but no base card. Unfortunately for me, he's pictured as a SF Giant. But that didn't deter me from going after the rainbow.
I did pretty well, not counting 1/1s, all I'm missing are the true orange /25, both black /10s, and both red /5s. And the purposefully-damaged-in-the-mail card I alluded to in a post a while back was his black & white mini diamond parallel (unnumbered but somewhat tough, only available in "Hobby Delight" boxes of 2025 Topps Chrome), which I intend to upgrade at some point. At least one printing plate sold more than I was going to pay (and from China-- I shy away from international sellers these days, even excluding non-US sellers from most of my ebay searches now), so this isn't likely to ever get to 100%, but I'll keep an eye out (haven't seen the superfractor pop up yet) and try to fill out the rainbow as much as possible but won't overpay for the sake of it.
I was a little worried Trenton wouldn't get a base rookie card, but was glad to see him pop up on the 2025 Topps Update checklist as a member of the Padres. So now there's another rainbow for me to chase, and it's a card of my favorite team now, hitting that sweet "double bullseye" for me. And since this one is a non-auto (and since he didn't generate much rookie hype), this project shouldn't get too pricey. But I'm sure there are a bunch of dumb 1/1s in there that some seller will be tempted to list at a ridiculous price.
I broke my rule of not joining breaks by joining a 5-case player break
that doesn't ship base, only parallels/variations. What did 5 cases net
me? Just one single basic-bitch rainbow foil parallel, estimated value
of a buck or two. And it arrived with a surface mark, so I'll
probably want to upgrade it sometime. So yep, that reconfirms with me
that I shouldn't waste my time/money in breaks.
But I've since been able to pick up a bunch of singles towards the rainbow, often for just 2 or 3 bucks a pop, though I've cracked double digits once or twice.
I'm still actively adding cards to this rainbow, so I'll have to do an update once I plateau with it.
While I'm undoubtedly a fan of shiny cards, my favorite of the bunch is probably the vintage stock parallel, with its de-foiled retro redesign.
I checked the photo on Getty, and turns out it's taken from his first (only) MLB home run, so that's kinda cool.
There's also a "golden mirror" variation with a pre-game photo, but it's a dumb edited photo from his Giants days, pretending to be a Padres card, so I haven't gone after it too hard yet, but I imagine I'll snag one eventually. [Update: yep, it's in the mail.]
But wait! There's now a 3rd Trenton Brooks Topps card on the market-- another auto-only offering. 2025 Topps Chrome Update has another rookie auto-- this one technically his "rookie debut" card with that date in small print on the front. So the bad news there is he's back in his Giants duds, and the ugly City Connect uniform at that, so I probably won't chase after it too hard-- none secured yet-- but I'm sure I'll pick up a few here and there. [Update: I've got a couple in-hand now, with another on the way.]
Again, expect an update on these three Trenton Brooks rainbows sometime in 2026 once the dust settles.
This might be my last gasp at modern cards for a while. I doubt Trenton will get additional mainstream cards, but who knows. As far as other active guys who went to Granite Hills, looks like Dillan Shrum called it a career after stalling out a couple years in AA and not seeing action in 2025. Best of luck to him in his post-ballplayer life.
Hey, writing this post alerted me to a 2025 draftee! Sweet, a new Guy From Granite to potentially add to my collection. Austin Smith is the latest former Eagle to turn pro, getting drafted in the 10th round by Toronto this past spring. Doesn't look like he has any cards yet, but I'll try to keep an eye out. That could be tricky because there's a different guy named Austin (N.) Smith who got cards in 2015, plus another active guy also named Austin (B.) Smith. Those guys are both pitchers, though.
The guy on my radar is outfielder Austin A. Smith, who held his own in Florida State League A-ball in 23 games after batting .353 in his last season at USD. Let's hope he's able to succeed Trenton Brooks as the next guy from my high school to crack the bigs.
The new printer has been working out pretty well other than sometimes having trouble getting on the Wi-Fi without turning it off-and-then-on-again. I owed return card packages to blogging buds Johnny and Bob, and I don't have much in the way of real cards available that they'd want, so my first priority with the new printer was to finish some customs to send their way (again).
Back in 2022, I made a 9-card custom set called Bubble Gum Baseball featuring bubble-blowing photos of ballplayers. I had whipped up a "2nd series" with a new design in the middle of 2024, but my home printer at the time wouldn't cooperate, so here in 2025 I got to do the thing like real card manufacturers and not actually put out a product until the next year, kinda like how Topps (Fanatics) typically puts out those Chrome Anniversary sets a year late.
But yeah, here's a second page of bubble customs:
I retained the Bubble Gum Baseball logo and '73 Topps position silhouette from the 1st series for continuity. However, I decided to go all-horizontal and full-bleed this time. I admit the gumball design is not my best work, but it's fine. When it comes time to make a 3rd group of these, I'll most likely go back to a vertical design with borders.
The backs each feature a write-up paragraph, typically with added
context for the front photograph (e.g. that was Joey Votto's final game
in Cincinnati). Tiny text, but zoom in if you like.
The print run on this set is currently just 3: Bob, John, and one for me. But I could print more if anybody wants to make a trade offer involving any.
But wait, there's more!
I also made some All-Time Braves customs for Johnny in the style of cards put out by TCMA in 1986. I tried to think of notable Braves who don't have (m)any Braves cards out there. I love stuff like "short term stops" and other familiar person in unfamiliar uniform pictures.
I remember as a new collector getting a card or two in this design from a Sears catalog "collector kit" repack, circa Christmas 1990, so I've got a soft spot for it. Chances are I do more of these, and for more teams, because they're fun for me to whip up.
The backs mimic the real TCMA cards and similar to the bubble customs feature a write-up with more context.
I made a couple extras of each of the above All Time customs for trade bait and trade package thrown-ins, so if you'd like any, just let me know. Shameless link to my wantlist.
And one last new custom to show off today, but this one is really just for me. Two of my "under the radar" PC guys happen to be in camp with the Padres this spring as non-roster invitees fighting for a bench spot. I've got my fingers crossed that at least one of them makes the club.. hopefully both! But regardless how it shakes out, I at least wanted to get the moment documented in my card collection.
Trenton Brooks is a guy who went to the same high school as me, and Gavin Sheets shares my first name. I've been following/collecting both dudes for years, so it's cool to have them suiting up for my favorite team this spring. For the custom, I modified a 1986 Fleer rookie prospects template I had from years back. I plan to print out a copy for each PC.
Trenton would be just the third Guy From Granite to play for his hometown Padres, with the Giles brothers being the other two. And Mr. Sheets would be the first guy named Gavin to play for San Diego. Good luck, fellas!
It's been a while since Baseball Card Breakdown has had back-to-back posts, but I was happy to learn this morning that Trenton Brooks got called up and made his MLB debut last night for the Giants, inspiring this quick post.
Trenton becomes the ninth grad from Granite Hills High School to make the show.
I got a nice TTM return from him way back in 2016, signing my GHHS custom, graciously accepting the couple additional copies as my gift to him, throwing in a bonus signed card from his college days, and jotting a friendly little note for me on the back of the envelope. Glad he kept grinding and was able to reach that vaunted level of professional baseball that so many dream of. Hopefully he makes the most of his opportunity and is able to stick on the big league roster.
As a card collector, I'm now on high alert for some mainstream cards of him. It's a double-edged sword because while I would love to add some fresh cards to my Guys From Granite subcollection, I like the place I'm at hobby-wise these days where I don't have to pay too much attention to Fanatics and the good and bad and drama and bullshit of modern cards, instead having fun chasing refractors from the aughts, building Topps sets from the 70s, and cardartin' with the glorious junk wax era.
As a 28-year old rookie not expected to see a ton of action, Trenton likely won't be hyped too hard in the hobby-- he never got a prospect card from Bowman or Panini-- but hopefully he gets a RC in a major product. (It's a bummer that all Travis Taijeron got from his MLB experience in 2017 was one Topps Now card followed by an autograph in Topps Chrome.. no standard RC.) ...We'll see what happens.
With 9 men on the list, my high school can now boast a full "page worth" of Major Leaguers, so I pulled out some cards for a group picture:
Nice, right? In hindsight I'd use a Brian Giles card from his younger days with the Indians, but I had already put the cards away by the time I came to that conclusion, so oh well. Maybe I'll redo it once Trenton gets a real rookie card, replacing the minor league issue here.
Now the wait begins to see who will be the player to take the school into double digits. I believe there's only one other active guy from Granite in the minors currently: Dillan Shrum, a big-swinging first baseman with the Royals' AA squad. Best of luck to him and all the other young ballplayers who passed through the halls of Granite Hills working towards that goal.
Congrats again to Trenton Brooks on his MLB debut and thanks for stopping by.
Dang, looks like I let a month go by without a post here. This'll be a rambling post to catch up.
- --o
I got a great holiday/b-day mailing from Dennis at Too Many Verlanders a few days ago.
Leading off with a pair of kicked-up reprints, both needs from sets I'm hoping to complete before my collecting career wraps (aka death). The Pudge is only my 3rd out of the 1993 Upper Deck 5th Anniversary insert set that's 15 cards deep, so I've got a ways to go. I proudly had that original Ivan RC as a kid, so this black-bordered remix hits a little extra hard.
As one of the more plentiful hits in 2001 Topps Archives Reserve, the Paul Blair auto is one I had been eyeing for years waiting for just the right deal, so how perfect was for it to just show up from a hobby bud. My ARMS (Archives Reserve Master Set) now sits at an even 74% complete.
Dennis ensured the mailing had a strong dose of yuletide cheer, tossing it this pair of shiny ornament cards.
Also plenty of Gavins included, including some deluxe Lux and a big fuzzy swatch once worn by the late Gavin Escobar.
(BTW, it doesn't look like I'll get to my annual "Gavins in Baseball" post this year.. There are too many of them now!)
Thank you, Dennis! Much appreciated.
- - -o
Bob at Best Bubble again hit me with another terrific batch of cards.
There were a couple ladies on cardboard that I forgot to snap a pic of, but the star of the show were these 1972 Topps needs. Still chugging along there thanks to fine folks such as Bob. Thank you again, sir!
- - - -o
Here's something else that just arrived.
Jon from Penny Sleeves surprised me with a motherload of glowing beanies (1999 Ty Beanie Babies IV - Glow in the Dark Stickers). The stack contained at least one of 24 of the set's 25 stickers, plus several dupes (glowing dupes being keepers for me because I love them that damn much). And the one not included (Clubby) was one of the few I already had (..from a trade with Jon earlier in the year). Very happy to have completed the set now. Thanks so much, Jon!
- - - --o
I think that catches me up with incoming cards to tip my cap about.
My wife managed to drag my lazy ass out of the house this past weekend. It was a showing of the Muppet Christmas Carol with the score performed live by the Oregon Symphony. Hard to believe, but it was my first concert since early 2020, before covid hit.
- - - -o
I recently had to retire this old car CDR of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs. I don't drive a lot these days, but have a rotation of a dozen discs or so in there to listen to. After about 25 years in action, it's started skipping pretty bad on "Stairway" thanks to the outer edge of the CDR getting worn down. I lost most of my old school car cdrs in a flood-type situation a decade ago, but this Zep best-of was one of the few that survived that ordeal. Farewell, old friend.
- - --o
A few years back, I did a post listing 10 whales of mine, and I'm excited to finally land another one off that hallowed list. (Though it's not anything that would excite most collectors.) Behold:
Chris D. Jones here was the second player from my high school to crack the majors. Sadly, he didn't get any cards from his brief MLB career, with this rare postcard being his lone collectable representation in a big league uniform. (I did, however, make a Giants custom that had a lovely TTM success.) I'm not exactly sure if this is the 1985 original or the 1987 rerelease.. but regardless, this is the first example I've ever seen, thanks to somebody breaking up a big collection of Astros postcards on ebay. So yeah, that was perhaps the top whale for my Guys From Granite collection. A nice hobby win for me to close out the year on!
- - --o
I don't think I'll be writing a separate Guys From Granite annual update post this year. But I can give you a quick recap since there are only 2 active guys.
Trenton Brooks was having a nice year at AAA Las Vegas before heading to the Giant's AAA team in Sacramento. Fingers crossed 2024 is the year he makes his MLB debut. (Oh man, if he starts getting Topps cards, that means I would have to start collecting [rainbowing?!] modern cards again! Ah jeez!!)
Dillan Shrum had a decent season at AA in the Royals chain. Hope he makes it up to Triple A in '24.
Good luck, Trenton and Dillan! You do Granite Hills proud.
- - --o
Now here's what I've been up to lately on the #cardart front.
Fun craftin' up "junk wax superfractors" for a bit but got bored of gold so now I've been working other colors into the mix too. Neat, right?
Thanks for reading, Happy Holidays, and big thanks again to Dennis, Bob, and Jon for the cards.
I'm back home after a few days in Louisville for my cousin's kid's wedding. She's a friendly, outgoing young lady, so it was a big wedding with pretty much my whole family in attendance.. likely the last non-funeral where we'll ever be all together, honestly. Great seeing everybody again, including my Uncle Ed (my only blood-relative uncle) whom I hadn't seen in 20 years. I didn't really end up with much in the way of interesting photographs to share on the blog like how I did for my Chicago trip over the summer, so no "travelogue" blogpost this time.
Uncle Ed sadly lost his wife Karen last year to cancer. My Aunt Karen was pretty great lady and it's a bummer I didn't get to see her more often. My last interaction with her was mailing a little "get well soon" card/letter. I had vaguely remembered she was related to a former NFL player, and asked her about that in the letter. Here's a snippet from her reply email:
It was the 80s when my cousin Karl Swanke played with Green Bay. I think he played about 11 years. One of the Chicago games we went to, we got to meet Walter Payton and shake his hand.
Another cousin, Karls brother, Rob swanke, played with Denver Broncos for a short time.. maybe one season.
And my nephew, one of my sisters sons, PJ Fleck, played with SF 49ers for a season, maybe 1 game and now he is head football coach at Minnesota university. He loves it and they seem to like him too. So yes football has always been our big interest!!!
That's pretty cool, huh?
Not a lot of cards available from those guys (the legendary Walter Payton notwithstanding, of course), but Karl Swanke has a few oddballs out there, and I've now picked up a couple.
Neat to have cards of a guy I'm kinda related to in my collection now. I like when I've got a personal connection to players I collect, similar to my Guys From Granite subcollection of players who attended the same high school as me, Granite Hills. The rest of this post will look at some new additions there.
My last post mentioned there was another Padrographs PWE waiting for me at home, and here's that card, a signed Brian Giles. The signature gets a little lost in the dark uniform, but still a sweet addition to the PC. Thanks, Rod!
Brian had graduated a few years before I went to Granite, but during my tenure he often worked there as a security guard ("narc", we kids called them) during the minor league offseason.
This isn't a particularly attractive card, but when it popped up, I jumped at the chance to add a unique entry to my Shane Spencer PC. Finding it on TCDB now, I'm pretty sure this is 2022 Topps Spotlight 70 II by Andy Friedman - CMYK 4-Color Test Prints Black #8 Shane Spencer SN1.
I'll have to pick up the base (in color) version of this at some point, and maybe some of the other parallels if they're cheap. I think this only got on my radar because I have a saved eBay search for Shane Spencer 1/1s because I still need the 1/1 from his 2020 Topps Archives autograph to complete that rainbow.
Shane Spencer is the only guy from my high school to win a World Series. I would have been happy with a 1998 rematch this fall, but unfortunately the Padres and Yanks couldn't grab their respective pennants. Guess I'm rooting for the Phillies. I've got decent PCs of Bryce Harper and Rhys Hoskins, so might as well root for them.
Here are a couple cards I was super stoked over. I knew Mike Reinbach had a couple modern "legend" cards from Japan, but years went by searching/waiting for them to be available to purchase from the ol' USA. They finally popped up in separate listings from the same Japanese seller at surprisingly low buy-it-now prices. I snagged them both quickly, not even bothering to combine shipping (which was also cheap). The next day I saw I had a refund from eBay and immediately thought the seller mistakenly listed them so cheap and was backing out. But thankfully, no, they were just kindly partially refunding me a little bit in regards to combined shipping. Very nice of them!
To refresh your memory, Mike Reinbach was the very first guy from my high school to break into the majors, getting a cup of coffee with Baltimore in 1974 before heading overseas for a successful stint with the Hanshin Tigers. His retirement was cut short by a fatal car accident just shy of his 40th birthday.
Other than an "All-Time Orioles" oddball from 1991, these are Reinbach's only post-career cards on the market, the left card from 2013 and the other from 2015. I love how the '15 back includes his career stat lines for both Japan and MLB.
Still a ton of his Calbee playing-days cards left for me to track down, but checking these two modern cards off the list feels great.
Now let's change gears and check in with the guys from my high school who are currently active in the minors...
2022 Guys From Granite Update
Trenton Brooks had a solid year with the Guardians' AAA team. Here's hoping the 27-year old can crack the bigs next year.
Andrew Brown, a pitcher in the Phillies org, lost his entire 2022 season to injury. Bummer. Hope he comes back strong in '23.
Dillan Shrum is a slugging first-baseman who knocked 16 taters for the Royals' high-A team. Best of luck to him progressing up the chain.
Honorable mention: Sean Ross, who got cards in 2016 Leaf Perfect Game (see my 2018 update), is still an active amateur, which kinda surprised me. Put up good numbers at Indiana State and in collegiate summer league this year. Would be cool if he went pro next year, but we'll see.
Ok, that'll do it for this post. Thanks for reading!
My previous post was kind of a downer, with me coming to terms that a card I'd been after for years isn't actually out there.
But in happier hobby happenings for me, another card high on my most wanted list that I had never actually seen anywhere in my several years of searching was finally spotted and secured earlier this month.
I won a listing for the rare 1988 San Diego State Aztecs All-Time Greats 50th Anniversary 22-card set, with this particular set being special because a few of the cards are autographed. Says the seller: "I got this set from the dinner back then which those players were there to sign the cards." Seems to check out and the signatures give no reason to doubt their authenticity. I'd love to someday search the San Diego Union-Tribune archives or something to see if I can find more details of that dinner event.
Funny enough, this Gwynn wasn't the whale I was after, though it becomes a jewel in the crown of my biggest player collection. Mr. Padre's SDSU cards are a subcollection I love adding to, and this one is kicked up heartily by the big, blue autograph. Weirdly sentimental to me, with Tony's signature of the era reminding me of my oldest auto of his, a signed 1989 Score card I traded for from my best friend Doug back in the day. By the time pack-certified autographs were a thing, Tony's signature had devolved a bit. I think the late 80s were the glory days for Tony's john hancock.
Chris Gwynn is also present with a signed solo card plus a combo card with big bro Tony. (Too bad that one didn't get dual signed!)
The backs are solid, with the player's SDSU stats and a bio. No card numbers, tho.
Here are the rest of the signed cards. Mark Grace is cool to see in an Aztec uniform. The late Dave Smith was a prominent closer in the 80s with the Astros (and a teammate of Grace on the Cubs for a couple years in the early 90s), though he's more familiar to me from his stint as the Padres pitching coach. Mark Williamson had some success pitching for the Orioles, 1987-1994.
Bud Black, Al Newman, and Bobby Meacham are familiar names who each got 2 cards for some reason. The respective backs are identical (Again, none of the cards are numbered). I suppose college baseball didn't get much coverage back then compared to today, no doubt limiting the resources available to whoever was tasked with creating the set. All the photos are in black & white, but at least there are some neat shots mixed in there.
Graig Nettles is another appreciated PC addition-- and likely my first time seeing him in an SDSU uniform. Besides the Nettles Brothers, I'm not very familiar with the rest of these guys. I got my degree from SDSU, but don't blanket-collect cards of all ballplayers who went to the same college as me. Guys who went to the same high school as me? Now that's a different story.. and the white whale in question...
Chris Jones is a tricky guy to collect because of all the other players with the same common name. Like myself, he went from Granite Hills High to Grossmont Community College to San Diego State. Our paths differ from there with him getting drafted to play professional baseball and me getting asked to help out at the computer shop my friend was working at. Pictured here with the header/checklist, this is a card that's been among the few cards I search for way more often that is probably healthy, so it's great to finally score it, and I didn't mind at all the fact that the Gwynn Bros autos and other goodies helped elevate the asking price of the set.
My PC of the second Guy From Granite to crack the bigs is nearly complete. What's left to track down? The big one missing is his entry in the 1985 Astros Postcards set (and/or its 1987 re-release). It's the only card-like-thing documenting his brief major league career (besides modern customs). If any of you readers know any bigtime Astros collectors who might have the '85 Astros postcard set (I've already asked Bru), I'd be appreciative of any help locating it-- ideally scoring one for myself, but really even just seeing a picture of Chris Jones' postcard would be nice. Nolan Ryan is the only player from the set that ever pops up anywhere.
And I've seen listed somewhere online a 1989 San Diego State All-Time Greats set that also includes a Chris Jones card, but I'm fairly confident that's just a mislabel of this 1988 set. (Why would they make a 51st Anniversary set a year later? Maybe they did a small run of reprints if anything?) Maybe something will show up in a saved eBay search notification someday, but I'm going to assume the '89 version is a "ghost whale" and won't stress it.
The only other hole in the PC on my radar is the glossy version of his 1984 Tucson Toros Cramer minor league card. I have the regular version, but apparently there's a rare a glossy parallel.. likely a team set handed out at one sparsely-attended Toros game back in '84. Again, I'll keep an eye out for that, but it doesn't interest me much apart from checking it off the list.
I'll close out with a cute pic of Ruby from Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. She was on her best behavior, relatively speaking, and had a huge amount of fun being the center of attention for a packed house. Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving, too.
Five years ago, Johnny Omahen, a guy who went to my high school, had autographs in 2016 Bowman. I went after them and soon completed the rainbow with the exception of the 1/1. That was added to the long list of cards I try to keep an eye out for, and I went about my life.
My patience paid off and that 1/1 finally popped up the other day for a reasonable buy-it-now price. I quickly pounced on it and now the rainbow is fully complete.
These Retail Prospect Autographs are "paper only", meaning no Chrome counterpart to this card. On one hand, that's nice because there are less cards for me to chase, but on the other hand it sucks because there are less cards for me to chase. LOL. I don't mind an occasional excuse to pick up some new refractors, but not this time. There were also no printing plates packed out for these, which always factors in the feasibility of completing a rainbow.
The 1/1 is officially called the "Metallic" parallel (shown here doing the spider-man meme pointing thing with the base version), but that's just a fancy way of saying grey in this instance. It'd be cool if the card was actually printed on metal or at least had some foil shine or something special like that, but nope, the design just features a touch of grey.
There's still an unofficial parallel for me to keep an eye out for: the orange Christmas Card. My copy of the orange parallel is numbered 19/25, but I hope to one day find number 12/25.
Quick bio: After graduating from Granite Hills High School, Omahen attended Cal State San Marcos and was drafted by the Marlins in the 35th round of the 2011 draft. After a rough 2012, the Marlins cut him loose. He then pitched for an independent team in 2013, impressing scouts there and signing with the Diamondbacks. Splitting time between high-A and AA, John had a nice 2015 season, going 13-3 with a 3.07 ERA, prompting the folks at Topps to give him the autograph card in 2016 Bowman. It would stand to be his only major release, though. He made it up to AAA in '16, but struggled and was done after that season.
Granite Hills H.S. gets alluded to on the back, but not namechecked.
As far as my John Omahen supercollection, now I'm only missing a stadium giveaway variation of his 2012 minor league card (the one I also have signed). I passed on it years ago because it was a little too expensive (basically the only difference is a "Cone Health" logo added), and now it doesn't seem to be available for sale anywhere.. except for as a team set, but that's a bit pricey (Jose Fernandez is the big name in the set). Oh well, it's not that interesting to me. I'm just happy I was able to complete the Bowman rainbow.
I also have a "yin" to this "yang" by way of Johnny's high school teammate, Travis Taijeron, whose only packed-out MLB card was an auto in 2018 Topps Chrome Update. So, only Chrome autos, opposed to Omahen's only paper autos. My Taijeron auto rainbow is just missing the red (non-wave) /5 and a couple printing plates. I can't find any stats for Travis since 2019, so it's safe to assume his time as a player is behind him. He made the show, though, playing in 26 games for the Mets in 2017, cracking one MLB home run to go along with 170 in the minors.
If TCDB can be trusted, Travis has 41 cards. I'll never have them all because he got Topps cards (Pro Debut and Heritage Minors) in 2012, both with printing plates that I have zero of. But not counting 1/1s, there are only 4 more Taijeron cards I'm missing. Also, I have 18 cards bearing Travis' signature (including a few of my customs), which I gotta assume is the most autos I have by one player, or at least near the top of such a list that might exist if I had my collection better cataloged and could therefore check.
With Travis riding off into the sunset, Granite no longer boasts any active players with MLB service time. Let's look to the minors now and see who could possibly be the next guy from Granite to get the call.
Welp, it won't be Jordan Verdon. He retired just before the start of the 2021 season. A 23rd round draft pick by Detroit in 2018, Jordan finishes his pro career with a .246 batting average and a lone home run in 84 games. Really sucks for guys like him that the 2020 MiLB season was canceled, stalling their attempt at climbing up the ladder. Glad he had the one card released (above), at least, so he can be represented in my collection (Bummer that my TTM attempt from 2019 [using a custom I made] didn't bear fruit). Best of luck in the next chapter of your life, Jordan!
Ooh, here's a new guy I wasn't familiar with until researching this post: Dillan Shrum. Dillan had a nice returning-senior season at University of Nevada in 2021 with an OPS of 1.490 in 35 games. Looks like he signed with the Royals as an undrafted free-agent and played in 17 professional games this season. I'll have to keep my eye on him (and hope he gets cards).
Like Dillan, Trenton Brooks is another guy who attended Nevada after Granite Hills (I think they narrowly missed being amateur teammates by a year). He's in the Cleveland chain, and looks like they moved him to first base from the outfield this year. After spending the first month of the season at AA, Trenton got promoted to AAA Columbus and held his own. Maybe-just-maybe he'll get into some mainstream card sets next year and challenge for a spot on the Guardians' 40-man roster. Good luck, Trenton!
Andrew Brown is another guy from Granite who saw a mid-season promotion this year, making the jump to AA after a strong showing in high-A. The Phillies farmhand seems to have been moved to the pen after being a starter much of his pro career. I'm sure Philadelphia is always hungry for live arms, so there should be solid odds on Andrew becoming the 9th player from our high school to crack the bigs. Fingers crossed for ya, Andrew!
Much of the minor league cards in this post were purchased from Go Sports Cards. They are one of the biggest sellers on eBay for modern minor league cards, though I've found you can usually save money by purchasing from their website. Anyways, for this year's order, I was accidentally sent a Ben Brown (not a Guy From Granite) from the 2021 Jersey Shore Blueclaws set, when I had actually ordered Andrew Brown. Joe, the card shop guy, was very responsive and put the correct card in the mail to me on the next business day. A+ service.
I'm glad Joe let me keep the Ben Brown card. I'm really amused that Ben's birthdate is 9-9-99. And on top of that, he's 6'6" (which upside-down is ,,9,9). (I'll even bet his favorite tv show is Brooklyn 99.) Looks like he missed most of 2021 due to injury. Let's hope he's got more of his 9 lives left and comes back strong in '22.
