Sunday, January 9, 2022

2022 Card Show #1 Recap

I wasn't planning on attending a card show yesterday, but I had some time and so my youngest and I made our way to this card show in Glendale, Arizona. It's about 25 minutes away. I touted the Pokemon cards to my youngest, but he actually spent more time looking at sports cards than Pokemon cards.


I went to this show in December. There were less dealers there this time. We got there about 10 am. It wasn't very crowded. In fact, I overheard a couple of the dealers talking about how slow the show was. We only stayed for about 30 minutes, so maybe it picked up later. 

Almost everything was ultra-modern. The one dealer normally at this show with some vintage wasn't there. I seems like many of the new "dealers" are collectors who are trying to justify what they are spending. One of the dealers even mentioned to me that his wife told him he needed to clear some space. This particular dealer had a 1984 Fleer Update Kirby Puckett rookie card for $150 and a Roger Clemens from the same set for $125 that I considered, but I ultimately passed. 

The dealer next to the one with the Puckett and Clemens had my son reach into a duffle bag and pick a free grab bag. It had about a dozen 1993 Leaf cards. My son opened it up and right then and there and went through each card. The best card was this Tim Salmon card.


This would have been a decent card back in 1993 as Salmon would win the American League Rookie of the Year award. I have a binder for Salmon cards since he and I went to the same high school; although he graduated about a decade before I did. 

We spent a few minutes looking through some cards a $1 or 6/$5 box and saw a My House basketball card. I mentioned to my son that I wanted the Devin Booker version of that card, so we set out looking for that card in a $5 box that the same dealer had. We found one and so I took it ($5) plus three $1 cards and asked the dealer if he would take $7 for it. He countered with $5 as long he (pointing to my son) gets some. Deal. I mean, they have to go to someone when I die. 

Here is the Booker, 2020-21 Donruss Optic My House! insert card.



There is a story behind why I wanted this specific card. Back in 2017 Russell Westbrook was in pursuit of the single season triple-double record. He was tied with Oscar Robertson at 41, when the Oklahoma City Thunder came to Phoenix to play the Suns on April 7th with just 4 games left in the season. Westbrook got double digit points and rebounds and just needed assists to get sole possession of the record. 

Some fans in the arena started cheering for Thunder player after Westbrook would pass them the ball, hoping they would witness history. Devin Booker took offense to the cheers fans cheering for the opposing team and screamed at the fans "This is my house!" 

My oldest son and I were at the game. We were not cheering for Westbrook. We were cheering for Booker and the Suns. Booker scored 37 points in the Suns 120-99 victory over the Thunder.

Westbrook would end with 23 points, 12 rebounds, and 8 assists. He would break the record his next game, on April 9th against the Denver Nuggets, with just two games left in the season. 42 is still the current single season triple-double record. 

I saw this card at a show a couple of months back and it caught my eye because I remembered Booker actually saying "This is my house!" at that particular game. I don't collect a lot of basketball cards, but this is a card that is meaningful to me, so I was happy to add it to my collection.

Here are the other 3 cards I got from the same dealer, that he essentially just threw in.

There were a bunch of Topps Holiday cards in the box from a couple different years. I picked up a couple since I never got any in the wild.



I never bought, nor will I ever probably buy any Bowman Platinum packs or boxes, so grabbing this Jazz Chisholm rookie card seemed like a good thing to do. 


Looking back I don't even know why I grabbed these. I am supposed to be reducing the size of my collection. Adding these 4 cards means I need to get rid of at least 4 cards. Comment below with an athlete that went to your same high school, your favorite holiday tradition, the last time you built a snowman or your favorite Jazz artist and I'll pick someone, or maybe a few people, to send a PWE with some cards so that I can reduce my overall collection size. 

15 comments:

  1. Looks like a good day. Best part to me was the time you spent with your son, and the friendliness of the dealers toward him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, we had a good time. It will be interesting to see if he will want to go with me again. He collects Pokemon cards and loves sports, but just doesn't really have any interest in sports cards.

      Delete
  2. Love card shows, but they certainly aren't good for reducing collection size! The only pro athlete that went to my high school was Randy Myers, the relief pitcher.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just need to step up my game as far as getting rid of cards I don't want to make sure I get rid of more than I add. Randy Myers had a nice career.

      Delete
  3. That My House insert looks cool. Reminds me of something we would have seen from the 90's. It's even cooler that you and your son were at a game when Booker said those two words.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I love cards like that where I have a real connection. There aren't a ton of them. Probably more now than ever with the Topps Now cards, but still.

      Delete
  4. Cool Booker story.

    Kenny Roberts Jr. went to my high school. We were on the same J.V. basketball team. He was a big deal in motorcycle racing for a while, though not the legend his father was.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wasn't familiar with them, but I looked up the Roberts racing family. Pretty impressive!

      Delete
  5. Eric Lauer, current Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher, graduated from the same high school that I did. He was drafted by the Padres out of Kent State, where he was the national collegiate pitcher of the year during his junior season. Ryan Feierabend, who was drafted and played for the Mariners, also graduated from the same high school that I did. His sister in law and I graduated together.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Always fun when there is a current player that you have any type of connection to.

      Delete
  6. I can't imagine a card show without vintage. Sounds a bit sad. I probably wouldn't last more than 30 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Salmon was my favorite Angels player til Trout came along...seems fishy I know haha. Favorite Jazz player? I'm biased...my brother has made a good name for himself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That does seem a bit fishy. Apologize if I should know, but who is your brother?

      Delete
  8. Here is the cutoff for some free cards.

    ReplyDelete