100+ & COUNTING PART III

                                          In my last 2 posts I've shown you my baseball & football collection so far now today I will be focusing on my basketball sets. 

                                       Like football there's more than 1 set of basketball in the binders.

                      My oldest basketball set is the `88/`89 Fleer set which I was able to complete earlier this year. If I go for an older set I am still on the fence in making the `81/`82 Topps set. I just have to continue to get a dealer to get fed up of me asking for his 3200ct box to get my starter going he's asking way too much for this collector to purchase ($299.00 considering there's no stars only commons mainly of the Western teams & 1 row of the Eastern teams).

                                               NO!!!!! Offence to Brian here but..... If you ask me nothing screams out NBA then his warm up outfit. Another reason why I am on the fence in making this set.

                                I have to point out a couple things that most of you my avid readers might like to know a behind the photo stories involving my basketball sets & things featured in the photo. The top shelf you will see the NBA Hoops binder as well the Skybox Premier Binder believe it or not but I was able to rescue these binders to be tossed to the side & ignored. The Hoops one I was able to purchase at 1 my local shops for the right price of $1 & it goes great for my `90/`91 Hoops set since it was originally offered as a wrapper exchange. As for the Skybox binder I was lucky to find this binder not hold the Premier Skybox set that it was advertising but a starter lot of the `94/`95 Upper Deck set. The best part of getting that binder along with that starter lot that I made back in `94/`95 that in 1 of the sleeves was this nice Little gem of a card.

                        Not too Shabby eh!!!!

So I added to my master set (Yes I have all the Varations) in the set & that's the only set that is featured in that binder. Now I can hear the rumblings in your heads bouncing like a basketball.......what's that I saved that for last for a very good reason. 

                               Being a Basketball Manager in High School for 4 years has perks.

                        What your looking at is a signed basketball after my High School renamed the Gymnasium in honor of a player who I like saying was a bench-warmer of the Los Angeles Lakers during the `80`s. This player I don't think did much during his time in the NBA if you ask me he was a 5x NBA Champion (It could have been 6 if some guy named Michael Jordan didn't win in it 1991.) , 3X MVP of the League, 3x MVP of the NBA Finals, 12x All-Star, 2x All-Star MVP. He led our High School to the State Championship back in 1977 (Where he was on the First ever McDonald's All-American Team.) He was teammates with a future Detroit Tigers player named Bruce Fields on the hardwood. He also led Michigan State University to its first NCAA National Championship back in 1979. Then on November 7, 1991 (The Next day walking through the halls of school I was blinded by numerous camera crews from all over the globe getting us students take on the event taken place on the 7th) He announced his 1st retirement from the game of basketball a good 8 months prior to joining the 1992 Olympic Dream Team. During the 1993/1994 Season he coached the last 16 games of the season coaching the Lakers to a very dismal record of 5-11. Who am I talking about if you haven't figured it out yet #32 Earvin Johnson Jr.  I was lucky to get this autograph for being a manager for 4 years thanks to my former Basketball coach Johnny Jones cause I asked him if he could possibly ask Earvin to sign 2 basketballs that were going to be auctioned off during my mothers 40th Class Reunion (She graduated before him in 1966 & I was in the Class of 1993) my old coach would say he wasn't born yesterday he knew 1 of them would be auctioned off as the other well.......considered it as a belated by 3 years of a Graduation gift for me. Total cost for the autograph charge $0.00 like I said it paid to be a manager for 4 years & before you even ask me no I am not selling the ball I am under contract if I sell my ball that 99.99% of what I sell it for goes towards the High School Basketball team. 
                      Last night I had a friend of mine come into my employment place of work & he commented on my blog. He asked me the question about why my Football & Basketball lists are smaller than my other 2 sports. My response to his question was I only had a few sets so if I ever did have any kids they would have a good selection of Barry Sanders cards to enjoy before Barry's retirement if you asked me I think he should had broken Walter Payton's rushing record & not Emmitt Smith & the reason for the basketball sets to feature Michael Jordan even though I grew up watching the Bad Boys of the Detroit Pistons play their game. Watching a game earlier this year I couldn't believe how basketball has changed these days, they  get away with traveling alot or just run & shoot very seldom do you see players drive in to the basket thats one thing that if you were to drive in the lane during the Bad Boys era you might as well be ready to fight. 

               Now my basketball lists & football lists are almost as equal to the baseball & hockey lists the reasoning behind that is 1 my local shops has 3200ct & 5000ct boxes of commons for sale at reasonable prices sure the store owner has taken out all the good cards (even though some still sneak there way in) & I find myself after doing the research on TCDB.com  to see if its a worthy of a set trying to make or not. Lot of people my age collected during the "Junk Wax Era" but once the mid & late `90`s occurred I tell people this collectors would get a box crack it open check to see if they got the hit from the box whether it was an autograph or Game Used piece or both as well the hottest rookies at the time. If they didn't luck out they would put the cards in the 3200ct or 5000ct boxes to only collect dust until someone like me discovered the box & tries to find the missing pieces of the set. I guess that's one of the reasons I like to find stuff like these boxes in hopes that maybe Ill luck out or just maybe if I go out of the area I can find a shop that might do something simular to this & have some of the missing pieces while the boxes I can get here in my area have their missing parts.
                    Unfortunately I haven't started on putting my hockey sets on the shelves yet but when I do be sure that I will do a piece on them & now you can see why I sometimes struggle in finding singles to complete my sets so hopefully now some of you can check your areas to see if ya can get my lists smaller.  So with that said I will leave you with a quote from Rogers Hornsby when it came to signing autographs for kids, " Any Ballplayer who doesn't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American, he's a Communist."