Nicklas Grossmann Autograph Card

Nicklas Grossmann was much-maligned with the Philadelphia Flyers, particularly last season. ''Fans'' were putting it on in online forums, and even when he wasn't making mistakes nor taking penalties, he just had some asking ''is he a disaster waiting to happen? When will the floor fallfrom under him?''

He's a former winger turned into a defenseman, and has now just had two consecutive 14-point seasons (including 5 goals in 2014-15), and he just finished with a +8 on the worst defense in the league and an anemic offense as well. But his ''possession statistics'' didn't match up to the rest of the team's, so ''analytics fans'' were angry.

He's not a first-pairing defenseman, that's a given. Ideally, on a contending team, he could be a 15-minute-per-game guy, and  17-minuter, bottom-pairing guy on an average team. You need those types of players to make up a team. But Flyers fans needed a scapegoat, and found him and Andrew MacDonald.

So this summer, GM Ron Hextall ''made a miracle happen'' according to some by trading Grossmann and Chris Pronger's contract to the Phoenix Coyotes for Sam Gagner.

Here's a card of Grossmann's before the spelling of his last name was corrected in North America (it ends with two Ns):

It shows him wearing the Flyers' current/retro white (away) uniform and is from Upper Deck's 2012-13 Artifacts set (card #A-NG of the Autofacts sub-set); it's part of two cards of the same set I found in an old box that I had totally forgotten I had.

Unlike many who criticize him, Grossmann has two World Championship medals, bronze (2009) and silver (2011), acquired while playing with Team Sweden.

Two Steve Rogers Autographed Cards

Of course, I wasn't just going to tease an Expos Numbers Project and let it remain idle; no, as the first post-announcement post, I decided to feature one of the three greatest Montréal Expos pitchers of all time, Steve Rogers.

Sure, Dennis Martinez had a perfect game, and Pedro Martinez won a Cy Young, but they were just as good in at least one other MLB city, whereas Rogers only played in Montréal, and merely had a contending team in front of him in 1981 and 1982, which coincided with some of his best years, though the five-time All-Star (1974, 1978, 1979, 1982 and 1983) was by far one of the few bright spots of those 70s teams.

Statistically, he may have deserved the Cy Young in 1982 when he went 19-8 with a league-leading 2.40 ERA and 4 shutouts. He led the National League with 5 shutouts in both 1979 and 1983, and in complete games with 14 in 1980.

In 393 career starts, he has completed an astounding 129, 37 of them shutouts.

Former manager Dick Williams wasn't too fond of Rogers, often falsely claiming he couldn't handle the pressure of big games, but his playoff statistics speak otherwise, with a 3-1 record overall, but mostly 2 decisive wins over the Philadelphia Phillies and their ace Steve Carlton in 1981, a one-run win and a 3-0 shutout to lead the Expos to the League Championship, in which his 4-1 win as a starter was another proof of his undeniable mastery of the mound; his lone loss, handing out a home run in relief on just two days' rest, remains a heartbreaker in the city's annals as one of the worst coaching decisions of all time, regardless of the sport.

And although I already have Michael Barrett penciled in for #45 of my Expos Numbers Project, Rogers will also take his rightful place in it with these two cards, the first of which, from Topps' 1983 Topps set (#320 in the collection), shows him in the team's red Spring Training garbs:

The second one shows him in the team's classic blue (away) uniform, from Donruss' 1985 Donruss set (with card #219):

Both cards were signed in person in blue sharpie, the Topps one in a charity event in 2013 (''Pitch And Catch Rally''), while the second was at Felipe Alou's induction in the Canadian Baseball Hall Of Fame last month.

When he became eligible for the Hall Of Fame in 1991, he didn't garner a single vote - not one! - and his candidacy was therefore revoked for subsequent years. That's despite a better career ERA than Nolan Ryan, and pitching more innings per season than Sandy Koufax. And completing roughly a third of his games.

I think he'd be in were it not for injuries; two to five extra years, even average ones, would have gotten him in on his fifth or sixth try.

Sean Burke Jersey Card

Sean Burke had been quoted as saying he was interested in becoming an NHL General Manager this summer, but the vacant spots have mostly been filled - apart from the three-headed monster over at Toronto Maple Leafs headquarters, which I'm sure he wanted no part in, having to be the lame duck while Kyle Dubas, Brendan Shanahan and Mike Babcock made the actual personnel calls.

Instead, I have a hunch that he may take over for his current boss when Arizona Coyotes GM Don Maloney inevitably gets canned; sure, Maloney has another assistant who has actual GM experience, but that man is Darcy Regier, who turned the Buffalo Sabres into a joke and cut corners in their scouting and drafting departments large enough that years of futility are still years away from bearing any fruit.

The ideal job for him would have been with the Edmonton Oilers, in my opinion. He knows the Western Conference extremely well, having been with the Coyotes in either a coaching or managerial role since 2008. He's also the goaltending coach who ''made'' #1s out of Ilya Bryzgalov, Mike Smith and Devan Dubnyk, and made Chad Johnson (1.21 GAA, .954 save percentage, undefeated in 4 games with 1 shutout), Jason LaBarbera (2.64 GAA and .918 save percentage over 4 seasons), Curtis McElhinney (1.64 GAA and .944 save percentage), Matt Climie (1.88 and .938), and Al Montoya (2.08 and .925) look the part - and the Oilers kind of need an eye for goaltending, and someone who can provide valuable tips.

In today's NHL, Burke is that guy, ahead of even Patrick Roy.

So I guess it's fitting that I feature him as a member of the Phoenix Coyotes, with this card from Pacific's 2000-01 Private Stock Titanium Draft Day set (card #75 of the Authentic Game-Worn Jersey sub-set, mentioning he was drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the second round in 1985):

I'm particularly fond of the back, which specifies that the jersey swatch is from a Coyotes game in 1999-2000; it's also numbered 134/1010.

I've mentioned it before, but Burke was one of my favourite goalies growing up. Roy was the unattainable God, and Burke was the best underdog. Roy may have his (record) three Conn Smythes, and his Vezinas (while Burke has one nomination and three top-10 finishes), but Burke has an Olympic medal (silver, 1992) with Team Canada.

Christopher Gibson Autographed Card

I talked last month about getting mail from an old apartment, and how I had a few pleasant surprises waiting for me there. Now's the time for another, this time from Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Christopher Gibson, who I've seen play in Juniors many times:

It's card #181 from In The Game's 2011-12 Heroes And Prospects set, showing him in the beautiful Chicoutimi Saguenéens blue uniform (which used to look better without the Reebok piping, obviously), in a relaxed/idle position looking at the scoreboard. It's signed in blue sharpie, matching his jersey and equipment.

I hadn't sent him anything since the return I got last year, so my guess is this was purely a gift.

I started following his career in 2010 while he was dominating in the ''Q'', and he has now elevated his game to the point of being one of the AHL's top goalies; he had a 2.44 GAA and .916 save percentage in 12 games in 2013-14 with the Toronto Marlies in a third-stringer role, and had a slightly better 2.42 GAA and .921 save percentage in 45 games (24-17-3) as the starter last season on an awful Marlies team, bad enough that the entire coaching staff lost their jobs this summer.

He still carries the unjustified and unfair ''inconsistent'' tag, so he'll likely have to repeat last year's performance this upcoming season before getting a shot at the Leafs' backup position, but I'm certain he'll prove his doubters wrong once more.

He already has a bronze medal with Team Finland at the 2010 World U-18 Championships and participated in the 2012 World Juniors, so I'm also confident he'll get to represent his country at future World Championships, although for the Olympics roster, he does have perennial Vezina contenders Pekka Rinne and Tuukka Rask well ahead of him on the depth chart.

Billie Jo Powers Autograph Card

I mentioned yesterday that I purchased a complete set of Benchwarmer Father's Day cards (eleven from 2012, one from 2010 and four from 2014). One of those from 2012 was a duplicate to me, because I'd received a similar one as a Redemption Card a year ago:

The only difference is that last year's Billie Jo Powers card I got was signed in purple/pink, while this one was signed in green. It'll join yesterday's Foursome on Ebay.

It would have been nice if BW had included ''new'' cards for 2015, and I wouldn't have been averse to Powers being one of them, as the Pittsburgh native reflects a positive energy that is a welcome change to the usual hard-nosed Steel Town attitude.

Not that she doesn't fight for what she wants: she runs a company with her mom that they built from the ground up, it's just that she seems to hold all the good cards in the deck of Life.

Benchwarmer Autograph Foursome Card

I ordered the Benchwarmers Father's Day set a while ago, and I received it in the mail yesterday, with a couple of bonus cards. This is the first one:

It's a dealer-specific quad-auto ''Thank You'' card meant for dealers as a thanks for conducting business with the brand, and features four on-card signatures in black sharpie or BW regulars Cassandra Lynn, Jennifer Korbin, Michelle Baena, and Paige Peterson, with pictures recycled from previously-released cards.

It's a bizarre card for me, considering I'd previously featured Cassandra Lynn Hensley when she died last year, and because I've met Michelle Baena and have actual in-person cards of hers signed - and there's the fact that I've featured Paige Peterson twice already.

I have hundreds of BW and model cards in general that I may get to feature eventually, but this particular compilation card rings weird; that, plus the fact that as a quad-card, I wouldn't know where/how to classify it in my alphabetically-stored binders, so I think this one will go straight to Ebay.

When I feature Benchwarmer cards, I usually write relatively complete summaries of the models' careers, but this being a quad-card, I feel it may be best just to go through it quickly and delve deeper when each one is featured by themselves.

A recap on Cassandra Lynn Hensley: she was Playboy's Playmate Of The Month in February of 2006 and she had a daughter when she died, at the age of 34.

Jennifer Korbin is mostly known as a model, whether in photo shoots or appearances on TV (including on Jimmy Kimmel Live!), but has also tried her hand at horror movies and was a regular and the star of the TV series Lingerie.

Michelle Baena only got into modeling at age 31, and even then, she didn't start out at the top. She participated in swimsuit competitions (finishing anywhere between 4th and 19th), but she caught her big break when Playboy made her Playmate Of The Month for May 2005. Since then, she's graced the cover of over 30 magazines and has been the most sought-after participant at conventions including Comic Con, and has been featured in the Lingerie Bowl.

Paige Peterson, well, she's been off the grid for a while now. Also a Lingerie Bowl alumnus, also a bit of an actress, she can do anything she sets her mind to. I hope she's happy wherever she is.

Martin Biron Swatch Card

Martin Biron retired after a rough start to the 2013-14 season, posting a 7.61 GAA with a .763 save percentage in a couple of games that forced head coach Alain Vigneault to turn to Cam Talbot to back up Henrik Lundqvist.

He had done fine work in the previous three seasons, finishing his parts of four years with the Original Six franchise with a 22-15-3 record, a 2.47 GAA and .908 save percentage, settling into the backup role after fighting for the #1 spot with the Buffalo Sabres and Philadelphia Flyers as well as an unclear 2009-10 with the New York Islanders where he outplayed Dwayne Roloson at times but couldn't sustain the rhythm, and was eventually sent to the AHL's Bridgeport Sound Tigers to make room for Rick DiPietro who had been cleared to play although he was clearly not in game shape.

All told, Biron played in the NHL for 16 seasons, most of them in New York State, save for two and a quarter seasons right across the New Jersey turnpike, for the Flyers. He gave great post-game interviews and had funny moments on-camera when the NHL started allowing color commentators near team benches, which led to his post-career as a TV analyst, mostly for the MSG Network but also part-time with Canadian broadcasters RDS/TSN. Everybody loves him, and he's really fun to listen to, at times overly excited, yet always on point and pertinent.

Here he is wearing the Rangers' classic white (now-away) uniform with a great shot of his mask and piercing blue eyes, from Panini's 2013-14 Titanium set (card #GG-MBI of the Game-Worn Gear sub-set), featuring a game-worn blue swatch:

For some reason, I'll always identify him as a Sabre, despite their sandwiching him between Dominik Hasek and Ryan Miller, but my ''Biron Highlight'' will forever remain his performance in the second round of the 2007-08 playoffs as a Flyer, where he nearly single-highhandedly (with the help of timely R.J. Umberger goals) eliminated the Montréal Canadiens and their prized goalie Carey Price in the midst of the team's centennial celebrations, bringing Price to tears by Game 5. It was poetic injustice to see a local kid eliminate his hometown team so intensely and squarely in what was supposed to be its rebirth and re-positioning into the league's elite.

I won't go overboard and say it was one of the finest displays of goaltending I've ever seen because I've seen Patrick Roy will his way onto four Stanley Cups and three Conn Smythe trophies, and Jean-Sébastien Giguère, Ron Hextall, and Miikka Kiprusoff get their weaker team to the Final by forgetting they could let goals get by them, but as far as amazing performances while coming up short of the Final, Biron's 2008 is only overshadowed by Jaroslav Halak's 2010.

Jakob Silfverberg Autographed Card

Since entering the NHL three seasons ago, Jakob Silfverberg had provided a steady half-point-per-game average while playing sound defensively and projecting the kind of skill level coaches love, with top-six capabilities and great two-way play.

The promise was realized in these past playoffs, as the former second-round pick (39th overall by the Ottawa Senators in 2009) scored 4 goals and added 14 assists for 18 points in 16 postseason games playing alongside Ryan Kesler as the Anaheim Ducks reached the Conference Finals.

It remains to be seen if he'll become a playoff specialist (à la Justin Williams and Andrew Cogliano) or if he can translate it to the regular season as well, but at age 24, this could very well be his breakout season.

The key player in the trade that sent Bobby Ryan to the Sens, the slick Swede has already represented his country five times, and has three medals to show for it, two silver (2011 World Championships and 2014 Olympics) and a bronze (2010 World Juniors). He has a good decade of fine play ahead of himself to keep adding to his resume.

He's currently a restricted free agent, so I'm bound to feature him again soon enough - or during the season. I have other cards of his with the Sens, but I'd like to add a Ducks one (or two) this year, though I have yet to secure tickets to any Sens or Montréal Canadiens games for the upcoming season.

In the meantime, here he is sporting #33 with Ottawa (and thus earning a spot in my Sens Numbers Project), wearing the Senators' red (home) uniform:

It's card #504 from Panini's 2012-13 Score set (part of the Hot Rookies sub-set, thus making it his official rookie card), which he signed in blue sharpie during his first season, probably during the playoffs, as that's when I saw the most games between the Sens and Habs.

Dave Parker Bat Card

It's summer, and once in a while, someone reminds me that baseball still exists. I no longer care for the ball or its teams, but the larger-than-life heroes it created at the turn of the last century, into the 1950s, then into the 80s and 90s for my time - that's different; you knew watching the never-ending games that someone, somewhere would find magic in what just happened, and would enter it in one of the sport's numerous history books.

70 games without making an error. 51 home runs in a single season. 40 homers and 40 stolen bases. Perfect games. A home run from each side of the plate. Batting for .400. The World Series, which barely qualifies as such because only one team isn't from the U.S., and the first Canadian team appeared in 1968. The Chicago Cubs never winning.

One such character was Dave Parker, the brash, outspoken man who seemed like an egomaniac and always talked about how good he looked, who played balls-out and ran into every catcher he ever played against, and whose turning baseball into a contact sport may have ended up causing his Parkinson's - the incurable disease that has him with a permanently shaking right hand, and causes the man who used to be a loud mouth to now speak slowly and more softly.

He now has a foundation that teaches kids how to play ball as well as about Parkinson's, and many other former Cincinnati Reds are part of it.

On the field, he won World Series titles with the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates and 1989 Oakland A's, a batting title in 1978, played in seven All-Star Games including being named the MVP of the 1979 edition after throwing out Jim Rice at third base and Brian Downing at home plate from the outfield, and contributing one RBI. Baseball's first million-dollar man is still waiting for his entry in the Hall Of Fame, partly because he admitted to cocaine use in 1985.

He attended Courter Tech High School, whee he was both a star right fielder and running back, and it's the running back in him that took over every time a catcher stood between Parker and the plate. Even if it meant breaking his cheekbone, like in a 1978 collision with New York Mets catcher John Stearns that probably also resulted in a concussion.

Speaking of which, on this Century Collection card (#69 in the set, numbered 94/100) from the 2010 Donruss Americana set by Panini, he is shown wearing his high school uniform although the piece of game-used bat is ''guaranteed'' to have been used in a ''professional'' game:

The picture is obviously a crop from a team photo.

Eric Gryba Autograph Card

At the draft, the Edmonton Oilers made a few moves to bolster their line-up immediately, from drafting Connor McDavid first overall to acquiring Cam Talbot from the New York Rangers to trading for the Ottawa Senators' Eric Gryba.

The 6'4'', 220-pound hard-hitting defenseman is probably best remembered for knocking out Lars Eller from the Montréal Canadiens in a playoff game in 2013, as Eller was caught looking at a Raphael Diaz pass rather than his environment; Gryba was suspended for two games for the blindside hit.

The trade now has the Oilers with the following defensemen:
Andrej Sekera - Nikita Nikitin
Justin Schultz - Andrew Ference
Griffin Reinhart - Eric Gryba
Mark Fayne - Oscar Klefbom

It is a bit of an improvement from last season, that's for sure, and Gryba's physical presence was definitely needed.

I'm not sold on coach Todd McLellan, nor a trio of Talbot, Ben Scrivens and Anders Nilsson fighting for net time instead of a true, proven #1 goalie. But I'm willing to watch the show happen.

Here's the silver version of card #A-EG from Panini's 2013-14 Prizm set, showing Gryba in the Sens' white (away) uniform, from the Dual Rookie Class sub-set, obviously from a game in Philadelphia (from the fans sitting behind him):

I'd sent him 4 custom cards, care of the Sens, in August of 2014 and never heard anything back from him, so I guess I'll start showcasing my insert cards. This one is thus the one that will count for my Sens Numbers Project.