Anthony Thomas Jersey Card

Yes, I am one of those: I'm boycotting the NFL this year.

Not because players are kneeling, mind you, but for the opposite reason: because NFL owners colluded to blacklist the player who started the movement, Colin Kaepernick, while signing much lesser quarterbacks to expensive long-term contracts, leaving him unemployed.

Case in point:

Brian Hoyer, San Francisco 49ers (2 years, $12M). Currently sitting on the bench.

Nick Foles, Philadelphia Eagles (2 years, $11M). Backup with injury issues.

Josh McCown, New York Jets (one-year, $6M). Too good for a bad team, and tends to make costly mistakes.

Landry Jones, Pittsburgh Steelers (2 years, $4.4M). One of the better backups in the league.

Matt Barkley, 49ers (2 years, $4M). Didn't even make the team after training camp.

Mark Sanchez, Chicago Bears (one year, $2M). Third-string QB.

Geno Smith, New York Giants (one year, $1.2M). I can't believe this guy can still find work, he still believes he can start games.

Josh Johnson, Giants (two years, $1.02M). Failed to make the team.

E.J. Manuel, Oakland Raiders (one year, $800K). Interim starter after Derek Carr's injury.

Kellen Moore, Dallas Cowboys (one year, $775K). Now on practice squad.

Aaron Murray, Los Angeles Rams (one year, $615K). Released in the summer.

Chase Daniels, New Orleans Saints (one year, $900K paid by Saints, $4.1M paid by Eagles). Backup.

Case Keenum, Minnesota Vikings (one year, $2M, plus incentives). Getting the job done.

David Fales, Miami Dolphins. Apparently, a 27-year-old guy with two career complete passes is better than Kaepernick when your two starters (Ryan Tannehill and Jay Cutler) go down.

T.J. Yates, Buffalo Bills (one year). With too many QBs at the Bills' training camp, he became one of four when he was placed on injured reserve following a concussion. He reached a settlement with the team and has been released.

Matt McGloin, Eagles (one year). Failed to make the team.

Blaine Gabbert, Arizona Cardinals. Doing well.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (one year, $3M). Consistently inconsistent.

Austin Davis, Seattle Seahawks (one year, league minimum). A terrible quarterback.

And, of course, Mike Glendon, of Da Bears (3 years, $45M). Jesus.

That's not the worst decision the Bears ever took, though, but that's a story for another day. Today, I'll focus on a player who was fine with the team, terrible elsewhere, and could/should have been exceptional, Anthony Thomas.

Thomas was given the nickname "A-Train" when playing for the University of Michigan Wolverines, by sportscaster Brent Musburger, making his name as one of 1997's Big Ten Top Freshmen on an undefeated Wolverines team.

He followed that by leading the team in rushing for three consecutive years with 893 yards in 1998, 1297 yards in 1999, and 1733 yards in 2000, the latter of which remains the second-highest single-season total in Michigan history. That year, he had nine games in which he rushed for over 100 yards. His 4772 career rushing years set a school record (which has since been surpassed by Mike Hart).

He was therefore perhaps a steal when the Bears selected him in the second round (38th overall) in 2001, an impression he added to when he won the Offensive Rookie Of The Year award helping Chicago to an NFC Central championship.

He had two more decent seasons (721 rushing yards in 2002 and 1,024 rushing yards in 2003) before being surpassed by Thomas Jones, then made his way to the Cowboys, Saints and Bills, never truly finding a home or a role worthy of his past. Not everyone was a fan, though, even of his days in Chicago.

It's therefore fitting that I feature him wearing the Bears' classic black (home) uniform, with the jersey insert version of card #110 from Topps' 2001 Bowman's Best set:

It's a nice foil card that includes a matching jersey swatch from the NFL Rookie Premier event. It,s numbered 789/999.

Carl Pavano Autographed Card

It was essentially a no-win for Carl Pavano, one of three players who were sent to the Montréal Expos (with Tony Amas Jr.) in the trade that sent Pedro Martinez to the Boston Red Sox to break the Curse Of The Bambino.

Pavano even took on Martinez' #45 uniform, which makes him the third to wear that number in my Expos Numbers Project with card #481 from Topps' 2001 Series 1 (50th Anniversary) set:

It shows him wearing the Expos' grey (away) uniform, and he signed it in liquid-ink pen on one of the last Expos games at the Stade Olympique in September 2004, while he was with the Florida Marlins.

Pavano stood at 6'5" and weighed 230 pounds, which gave him a good sinker-ball and fast sliders. He had an up-and-down career that saw him as the lead starter of some pitching rotations (good for some 200 innings per summer) but also had some down years following injuries, and his salary history reads like a bad dot-com shares value chart from the late 90s, hovering back and forth between $3M per year to 5 to 1.9 to 8.5...

And it wasn't just "regular pitching injuries" like the elbow tendinitis in his rookie season in Montréal, or the bone fragments in his elbow in his sophomore campaign, tendinitis in a rotator cuff, back problems, a humerus fracture, Tommy John surgery, more bone chips in his elbow...

No, there was also the bruised buttocks, the Porsche crash, and the snow-shoveling accident that ruptured his spleen and nearly killed him.

That doesn't mean we should forget his 2003 World Series win with the Marlins (against the New York Yankees), nor his 2004 All-Star Game nod, nor the time he led the American League while playing for the Minnesota Twins in both complete games (7) and shutouts (2).

It's just that he didn't meet the expectations that had been set upon him. Unfairly.

Ken Griffey Sr Game-Used Bat Card

Ken Griffey was an exceptional baseball in his own right: All-Star Game MVP (1980), three-time All-Star, and two-time World Series champion.

And here's some perspective: he was an All-Star despite playing on the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds team that dominated the National League from 1970 to 1979 and included Hall Of Famers Pete Rose (well, former HoFer, but still the MLB's all-time hits leader), Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Pérez, and was supported by Dave Concepción, George Foster, and César Gerónimo.

Their starting fielders were known as the Great Eight. With the All-Star Game being what it is and needing to represent all teams, it was difficult to pick more than three players of a single team at once, so the fact that Griffey Sr. made the cut three times was a testament of how good he was.

He will tell you, however, that his greatest achievement was playing alongside his son, Ken Griffey Jr. with the Seattle Mariners in 1990 and 1991, to finish off his career; they were the first father-and-son duo to suit up as teammates. He also claims Junior was the best player he ever played with, and that only the great Willie Mays can compare to him.

Which seems about right, to be honest. Like Barry Bonds, he had it all and made use of all his DNA-given abilities, but unlike Bonds, Junior played clean.

By the age of 25, Junior had already surpassed his old man's career home run total of 152, clearly on his way to the Hall.

Here's a Game-Used Bat card of Ken Griffey Sr.'s, B-KG from Upper Deck's 2001 Decade 1970s set:

It shows him wearing the Reds' white (home) uniform. It contains a very thin slice of bat, and a very pale one at that.

Jose Vidro Autographed Card

It's September, which means hockey and football training camps are starting and baseball is ending its season. Back when the Montréal Expos existed, it was often the time of year when the Atlanta Braves would give their final push to relegate my hometown team to its role of perennial playoff-absentee.

The 2000s weren't pretty for the Expos, but there were a few pleasant occurrences, such as Jose Vidro batting for over .300 - which he did for five straight seasons, representing the team at the All-Star Game in 2000, 2002 and 2003.

Not just that, but in 2000, he had a .375 batting average going into the Summer Classic, leading the Majors. It was a terrific season for him, as he ended up finishing seventh in the National League in BA (.330), second in hits (200), and third in doubles (51), setting career highs for home runs (24) and RBIs (97).

He also won the Sliver Slugger Award as the best-hitting second baseman in the NL in 2003. He also had a decent arm for an infielder, throwing outs at home plate and first base regularly.

He ended his career with one great (.314, 78 runs) and one extremely painful (.234) season with the Seattle Mariners, after suiting up for the first two seasons of the Washington Nationals, who traded him for two prospects in the most Expos-like deal they could muster up.

He is the best possible representative of uniform #3 in my Expos Numbers Project, with card #45 of the 2001 Bowman set, by Topps, which he signed in blue sharpie around 2002-2004, on top of a fac-simile autograph printed on the card:

It shows him wearing the team's final (grey) away uniform, batting right-handed (he was a switch hitter).

Eléni (Lane Brody) Autographed CD

Lane Brody has been an active songwriter since 1982, and has been nominated for an Oscar (1984, for Over You) and an Emmy (the theme song to The Yellow Rose, which she co-wrote and sang with Johnny Lee and became a #1 country hit).

She had started single jingles in tons of radio TV ads, for brands such as McDonald's, 7Up, Juicy Fruit, and Beatrice Foods for their 1984 Olympics run (''You've known us all along!''), and made her way back to TV by guest-starring in Taxi, then in Heart Of The City.

I corresponded with her briefly before and at the turn of the millennium, and she was kind enough to send me autographed items once in a while. I came across this promo-version of her self-released 2001 album Familiar Places (through her self-owned label Records Records) while unpacking today; the album's original artwork was this:

She released that album under the name Eléni, which is the Greek root for the names Helen, Ellen, Elaine, and Lynn. The album mentions it was her given (birth) name, but her Wikipedia page instead says she came into this world as Lynn Voorlas, and is also known as Lynn Nilles. Then again, she always has been rather mysterious.

Another thing she always has been is an amazing musical talent with a rich voice. She transcends styles, though she has kind of gone back to country after flirts with jazz, traditional pop and Big Band-type songs. I expect a couple more quality releases from her in the future.

Two Marshall Faulk Jersey Cards

One jersey card of one of the best running backs in NFL history is pretty cool; two identical ones rocks hard. That's what I got when I purchased an unusually large cello pack of Upper Deck's 2001 Pros & Prospects football cards, only to find the same Marshall Faulk Game Jersey card, complete with dark blue swatch, the only difference being one has tears in the seams (see the card on the right) and the other one is mint. The 2011 Hall of Famer must have gotten in a few tussles in that game...

Faulk has had a distinguished career as the only player to ever rush for 12,000 yards and catch for 6,000 more; as a matter of fact, only two can claim the combo of 10,000 and 5,000... Add that to 7 Pro Bowls (one Pro Bowl MVP title), 6 All-Pro nominations, 15 different trophies won, a Super Bowl victory, having his jersey number retired by the St. Louis Rams and ending his career as the tenth leading rusher of all time and you have got yourself a unique athlete.

I, for one, look forward to his commentating on NFL games that will be officiated by the best referees in the world for the next 8 years, refs who don't decide to call or not depending on the score, amount of time left, of time of year but instead make the right calls because it's what they saw - not like the NHL.

This card (#MF-J) is valued at roughly $25 (each).

Ken Caminiti Game-Used Bat Card

I pretty much stopped caring about baseball following the players' strike in 1994; that, in itself, turned into hatred for the sport in late 2001 when my hometown Montréal Expos were done being dismantled by then-majority owner Jeffrey Loria and 'sold' to Major League Baseball in one of the shadiest deals in the history of the business world.

But for much of the 80s and half of the 90s, it was a sport I would at times partake in with friends, and one I would go see at least 10 times each summer, despite the Olympic Stadium's not-quite-ideal location.

One guy that always gave my team a lot of trouble was Houston Astros' third baseman Ken Caminiti, and the team we'd always have to beat to win our division and make the playoffs were the Atlanta Braves. This Topps card (card #TTR-KC from the 2001 Topps Traded And Rookies set) combines both headache-and-nightmare inducing entities in just one, with an authentic piece of a game-used baseball bat that he likely used to crush the Expos with.

Caminiti's fate, however, is symptomatic of the rampant corruption of the sport from the 90s onwards and of the little care its owners took in ensuring the players - their product, as it were - remain healthy and receive the medical and psychological help they need.

Like many others named in the 2004 Mitchell Report on steroid use - and countless others who got away with it - Caminiti was a bona fide star player, one of the, say, 3 best players on his team; he would bat for .250, hit over 20 home runs, and had the potential to go .300 with 30 homers.

By 1994, he had already admitted to an alcohol problem (one he would not enter rehab for until 2000, though, for some odd reason). Cocaine use was also an issue. By 1996, he'd added steroids to the mix, but instead of people finding his character had changed, he was praised for his new-found power and he won the National League MVP award, batting .326 with 40 home runs, almost double his previous season's numbers. No one found it strange.

In 2001, he was arrested for possession of cocaine and sentenced to probation. In 2002, in a Sports Illustrated cover story, he admitted to steroid use during his MVP season, and even a few seasons after that (likely the end of 1999, when injuries brought his home run totals down to 13, from 29 the previous year).

In September 2004, he was sentenced to 180 days in prison for having been caught with cocaine again - for the fourth time. On October 5th, he admitted in court to having violated his probation (i.e. been taking coke the whole time), and, five days later, was found dead of a heart failure.

Autopsy results showed coronary artery disease and heart hypertrophy (an enlarged heart, a condition that occurs more and more in the sports world when drugs are involved, someone should look into that) but, more importantly, that it was caused by ''an acute intoxication due to the combined effects of cocaine and opiates'', meaning a drug overdose, resulting from a mix of either cocaine and heroin, or cocaine and a legal form of opiates, maybe Oxycontin.

So, not content in being a star player, Caminiti, already using illegal substances and judgement-impaired, chose to enhance his performance for what turned out to be one magical season, in exchange for dying at age 41 in the Bronx, where he seemingly had no business going.

He and at least 89 other players risked their health under the complicit eye of Major League Baseball, who cared less about taking care of its primary source of revenue than putting asses in the seats, and since inflated statistics meant higher ratings and more revenue, they refused to question the obvious.

It's natural for a professional sports league to have 25 to 40 superstars to sell to their public, but when records are shattered every year by previously unheralded players, and suddenly 200 players have superstar stats, not only is the whole situation questionable, it must also be hell for the league's PR department, who no longer have a clue who to promote and make money off of.

It's too bad guys like Caminiti went this route; he'd had a good career, and it could have been twice as long should he not have risked it for one season. Like Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, he didn't need to enhance hi body's already-impressive capabilities - they were all already All Star Game material. And their cheating undermines the exploits of past baseball greats like Felipe Alou, Tim Raines (despite a short bout of cocaine use), Dennis Martinez (as well), Andre Dawson, Babe Ruth (despite his drunkenness), Ken Griffey Sr, Willie Mays and countless others.

It's a shame, it really is, but you lnow what? Given the way MLB has treated my City and the two million people that went to see the Expos when the going was good, it's also just what it deserves. When you disrespect the fans who pay to see your show, and the players they pay to see, it has to blow up in your face at some point. And I'm glad to see the NFL - a real league with decency rules overseeing an exciting sport - stepped in to steal MLB's TV ratings. Karma's a bitch.