Water water everywhere...

Not long after my last post, I got a message on Facebook from Damir Haramina.  My cards had finally arrived to him in Croatia... ten weeks after I had mailed them, and with severe water damage.

Amazingly this isn't the first time I've had this happen: my mailing to Dali a few years ago came back to me looking like it had chosen to swim its way from Bosnia to the US. Fortunately I had extras on Haramina so I remailed (this time with some plastic protection around them) and received them back this past weekend. One more down for the 1990-91 set!

I've also gone back to working on the (unsigned) outdoor sets I need. I bought a bunch on SportLots, so I'm down to just needing these to finish them off...

2016-17 Aficionado
24 Marquinhos

2018 Prizm World Cup
1 Lionel Messi
5 Gonzalo Higuain
10 Paulo Dybala
13 Eden Hazard
25 Neymar Jr.
31 Marcelo
36 Casemiro
38 James Rodriguez
54 Mohamed Salah
63 Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
74 Paul Pogba
78 Hugo Lloris
79 Kingsley Coman
89 Jonas Hector
93 Leroy Sane
96 Mesut Ozil
127 Javier Hernandez
154 Cristiano Ronaldo
155 Andre Silva
185 Aleksandar Mitrovic
197 Andres Iniesta
202 Isco
229 Luka Modric
231 Mateo Kovacic
235 Emil Forsberg
242 Breel Embolo

2018-19 Donruss
40 Leroy Sane

2018-19 Donruss Dominator
D-7 Harry Kane

2018-19 Donruss Elite Series
ES-1 Lionel Messi

2018-19 Donruss Legends Series
LS-5 Diego Maradona
LS-6 Pele

2018-19 Donruss Magicians
M-10 Otavio

2018-19 Donruss Out Of This World
OW-9 Kylian Mbappe

2018-19 Donruss Optic
11 Paulo Dybala
18 Thomas Muller
22 Mats Hummels
24 Manuel Neuer
37 Sergio Aguero
38 Gabriel Jesus
47 Saul Niguez
52 Edinson Cavani
53 Kylian Mbappe
54 Angel DiMaria
66 Christian Pulisic
81 Youri Tielemans
92 Giovani Lo Celso
105 Roberto Firmino
120 Christian Eriksen
132 Kylian Mbappe
133 Paul Pogba
139 Toni Kroos
140 Julian Draxler
154 Memphis Depay
191 Kai Havertz

Oof, yeah, so there are some big names I still need in there. Prizm Messi, Neymar, Dybala, Coman, Pogba, and Ronaldo; the Optic Mbappe pair and Havertz; OOTW Mbappe... It'll probably take some good trading or a couple hundred dollars cash to land them all.

On the positive side, I have several big doubles I could hopefully trade (multiple copies of most of the Donruss base Rated Rookies, for example, and several of the base Mbappe).

A Five Year Retrospective

Five years ago today, the first two successes of this project came to my inbox, officially kicking off the project.  I had always figured I'd just see how far I could get in it all. With several foreign players returning to their home countries, several more deceased, and countless others who may just not want to be bothered, I figured that completing this would be a hell of a trick. Furthermore, while indoor soccer has some devoted fans, the number of signed copies of these cards (or even unsigned copies) can't possibly rival many baseball, football, basketball, and hockey card sets, limiting trading opportunities. I thought maybe I'd get to 75% completion across the entire thing, ever.

Five years in, I'm past that 75% mark. Granted, I hit that three years in, but still, that's more than I figured I'd get to. I'm closing in on 85% completion, and that's even after adding in the 1992-93 NPSL set on a whim because I was able to get most of it for a reasonable price. I'm over that 85% mark on just the MISL sets.

I've reached out to several via Facebook with varying degrees of success. Shane Schwab and Mark Kerlin came back successfully. Tony Csiszar and Damir Haramina did not. My attempt to mail to David Byrne was RTSed thanks to South Africa postal restrictions during COVID-19; I'll try again once they're back to semi-normal operations. People who never responded include Carl Valentine, Erik Rasmussen, Russ Prince, Paul Peschisolido, Dennis Mepham, Doug Kriska, Waad Hirmez, Bobby Joe Esposito, and Brian Enge.

For the most part, it's starting to dry up. There are several that I've tried without success, some of those multiple times.  Check out the breakdown year by year:

2015: 88 mailed, 62 successes

2016: 98 mailed, 68 successes

2017: 59 mailed, 40 successes

2018: 6 mailed, 5 successes

2019: 28 mailed, 11 successes

2020: 5 mailed, 2 successes

There's not a whole lot more I can do without some help via trades, 50/50s, or some in-person luck. A lot of it is that these multi-player cards are absolute killers (I know I can get some of them; I'm just afraid of getting one signed by all but one, mailing it to the last guy... and never seeing it again). I'm hoping that this Indoor Soccer Alumni group that's on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere might be able to help me out.

I do at least have two nice updates from my last post: as stated above I got my Shane Schwab card back signed. I also had a big flash from the past end up in my mailbox as my mailing out to George Fernandez over a year ago came back to me on August 18, with him signing the last four cards I needed from him. So I went and updated my want list from the last time I posted it.

Overall, I can't say I'm in the home stretch on this, but I'm certainly starting to slow down. Maybe one final Hail Mary push soon. Ray in Baltimore sent me a big list of contact info on some guys, along with some of the unsigned cards I needed. I need to get in gear and try some emailing, I think. I have a new batch of stamps coming this week, so no time like the present to see what I can find.

I'd like to get to 90% overall in the next year. I'm only six away from having the 1987-88 set kicked; let's see if I can finish that one off too.

Back at it again in July!

Good news, better news, and bad-becoming-okay news.

Good news is that I heard from a few more players-- David Byrne, Shane Schwab, and Tony Csiszar and mailed to them along with my sending to Mark Kerlin and Damir Haramina. Still nothing from Brian Enge, B.J. Esposito, Waad Hirmez, Doug Kriska, Dennis Mepham, Paul Peschisolido, Russ Prince, Erik Rasmussen, and Carl Valentine yet.  I also got a list from Ray in Baltimore of a few pages that have some emails for me to try on guys I haven't found on Facebook. I'll be trying those out soon.

Better news: I got Mark Kerlin back the other day, signing both of my cards. So I'm now down to just six left on the 1987-88 set. Still 55 to go on the 1990-91 set though.

Bad news: Byrne just got returned to me today with a yellow RTS-Refused sticker.  I saw on the back though that there was another yellow sticker-- Mail Service Suspended. And sure enough, South Africa has a pretty tough COVID-19 lockdown in place including major limitations on postal service with nothing international coming in or out. 

Okay news: I'm just glad I got my Byrne cards back at least so I can try again later.

By request: an updated Want List

First up, big thanks to Ray in Baltimore for helping me out again with a few unsigned cards that I needed from my previous post.

Over on my YouTube Channel, I had a request from Rob, an avid blog and channel follower and collector of indoor soccer and hockey (and maybe other sports too? I know those two at the least...), asking if I had an updated Want List for this project.  So I may as well just go ahead and post it on up here. I also put in some notes on any recent communications and such, plus any specifics for multi-player cards.

Lastly, I mailed in the latter half of 2019 to Waad Hirmez, Greg Ion, Kia, Dennis Mepham, Omar Gomez, Pasquale Deluca, Jan Goossens, Steve Kinsey, Dali, Dale Ervine, Chris Hundelt, and Chico Borja without success. So, you can figure out the placement of "Tried TTM with no response" on the list below with those guys.

1987-88

36 Dennis Mepham (No response to Facebook message)

38 Pasquale Deluca

48 Poli Garcia

57 Hugo Perez

61 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

88 Steve Kinsey

1988-89

2 Stan Stamenkovic (deceased)

8 Slobo Ilijevski (deceased)

12 Erik Rasmussen (No response to Facebook message)

25 Victor Nogueira 

36 Alan Hinton

48 Frank Rasmussen

60 Slobo Ilijevski (deceased)

62 Billy Ronson (deceased)

65 Carl Valentine (No response to Facebook message)

66 David Byrne (Mailed recently after a Facebook message)

68 Desmond Armstrong 

70 Terry Rowe 

75 Erik Rasmussen (No response to Facebook message)

92 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

95 B.J. Esposito (No response to Facebook message)

97 Joe Papaleo

1989-90

6 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

26 Joe Papaleo 

33 Domenic Mobilio (deceased)

47 Pedro DeBrito (deceased)

66 Greg Ion 

67a Chris Hundelt / Kevin Hundelt ERR

67b Chris Hundelt COR

100 Dennis Mepham (No response to Facebook message)

1990-91

8 Arturo Velazco

9 Damir Haramina (Mailed recently after Facebook message)

18 Mike Reynolds (deceased)

28 Terry Rowe 

29 Gregg Willin

31 Keder

34 Slobo Ilijevski (deceased)

37 Claudio De Oliveira

39 Stan Terlecki (deceased)

47 Dali 

53 Steve Kinsey 

58 Dennis Mepham (No response to Facebook message)

75 Nenad Nikolic (deceased)

78 Ed Anibal

84 Barry Wallace (deceased)

98 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

104 Domenic Mobilio (deceased)

111 Pedro DeBrito (deceased)

114 David Byrne (Mailed recently after Facebook message)

147 Pato Margetic 

150 Greg Ion

159 San Diego Sockers Champions (Need signed by all players)

161 Domenic Mobilio (deceased) / Wes Wade (Need signed by both)

166 Majid Jay

173 Tacoma All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

174 San Diego All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

177 Wichita All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

178 St. Louis All-Stars (Have signed by all except the deceased Ilijevski)

189 Domenic Mobilio (deceased)

202 Haaskivi/Quinn (Have signed by Haaskivi; need Quinn)

204 West Goal (Have signed by Ingram; need Kia and Segota)

205 Byrne/Fernandez (Have signed by Fernandez; mailed recently to Byrne) 

207 Wright/Smith (Need both)

213 Joe Papaleo

216 St. Louis Arena (not sure who to have sign it; perhaps a former team owner)

217 Earl Foreman (deceased)

1991-92

2 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

20 Greg Ion 

37 Keith Weller (deceased)

40 Omar Gomez

41 David Byrne (Mailed recently after Facebook message)

47 Terry Rowe 

56 Domenic Mobilio (deceased)

68 Chris Simon

69 Chris Haywood

79 Pedro DeBrito (deceased)

83 Dali 

84 Marcelo Carrera

95 Carl Valentine (No response to Facebook message)

98 Paul Peschisolido (No response to Facebook message)

113 Rick Snyder

118 Claudio De Oliveira 

140 Gregg Willin 

153 San Diego All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

154 Baltimore All-Stars (Have signed by all but the deceased Mobilio and Ronson )

155 Kansas City All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

158 Wichita (Have signed by all but the deceased Weller)

160 Earl Foreman (deceased)

1991-92 Bonus Inserts

2  Claudio De Oliveira

1992-93

1 Eric Dade

4 Doug Neely

16 Chris Szanto

22 Jimmy Daka

27 Alex Tarnoczi

30 Teddy Krafft

34 Russ Prince (No response to Facebook message)

37 Tony Csiszar (Responded to Facebook message; mailing this week)

39 Zoran Karic

60 Tim Schulz

63 Pedro DeBrito (deceased)

75 Saeed Bakhtiari

80 Diego Mandagaran

82 Jason Putthoff

85 Jim Gabarra

87 Joe Kirk

89 Rene Ortiz

93 Terry Brown

94 Daryl Doran

98 Doug Kriska (No response to Facebook message)

99 Dan O'Keefe

102 Chico Borja

103 Brian Enge (No response to Facebook message)

104 Dale Ervine

107 Kris Peat

109 Kim Roentved

1992-93 Gold Inserts

3 Fahmi El-Shami

4 Zoran Karic

6 Joe Mallia

8 Victor Nogueira

9 Kia

Cleaning up the AWOLs

It's been a year now since the MISL40 event. Almost nine months since I mailed out multiple requests on the same day. Six months since I got any back. Four months since an IP outing. So I figure it's time to clean up a few that are back to being on the Want List again.

In November, I mailed to Bruce Savage and got him back.

In October, I mailed to Waad Hirmez, Greg Ion, Kia, and Dennis Mepham. Never got ANY of them back, and lost among those are the 1990-91 West Goal card (already signed by Ingram and Segota), the 1990-91 Tacoma All-Stars card (already signed by Preki and Schmetzer), and the 1990-91 San Diego All-Stars card (already signed by Segota). My only hope is that I remember seeing a few successes from Kia take over a year from others. My fingers are crossed, but I'm not holding my breath,

In August, I mailed to Mark Karpun and Tim Wittman, and got both back.

In July, I mailed to Bernie James, Dave Hoggan, Bill Crook, Steve Zungul, Dale Mitchell, and Bobo Lucic successfully. And I got nothing back from Chico Borja, George Fernandez, Chris Hundelt (lost the 1989-90 card with the wrong name signed by Kevin), Mark Kerlin, Dale Ervine (lost the 1990-91 Wichita All-Stars card signed by Borja, Moreland, and Fearon), Steve Kinsey, Dalibor Cvitanovic, Jan Goossens, Damir Haramina, Pasquale Deluca, and Omar Gomez.

In May, I got Heinz Wirtz successfully.

So, 2019 was NOT a good year for this project. While yes, I got ten players back, I got no response from fifteen, and even lost nine autographs in the process. Damn, that hurt. So, I figure it's time to reach out and try to contact players directly before just rolling the dice.  Yesterday, I went through Facebook to see what I can find.

Two responses thus far: Damir Haramina and Mark Kerlin. They're going out into the mail next week.

I also messaged David Byrne, Tony Csiszar, Brian Enge, B.J. Esposito, Waad Hirmez, Doug Kriska, Dennis Mepham, Paul Peschisolido, Russ Prince, Erik Rasmussen, Shane Schwab, and Carl Valentine with no response yet.

I need to find Ed Anibal, Desmond Armstrong, Saeed Bakhtiari, Marcelo Carrera, Eric Dade, Jimmy Daka, Pasquale Deluca, Claudio De Oliveira, Poli Garcia, Omar Gomez, Chris Haywood, Alan Hinton, Kevin Hundelt, Greg Ion, Majid Jay, Keder, Steve Kinsey, Victor Nogueira, Dan O'Keefe, Joe Papaleo, Hugo Perez, Jason Putthoff, Frank Rasmussen, Terry Rowe, Chris Simon, Rick Snyder, Chris Szanto, Alex Tarnoczi, Arturo Velazco, Wes Wade, and Gregg Willin.

And I need to retry Terry Brown, Dali, Daryl Doran, Jim Gabarra, Zoran Karic, Ted Krafft, Diego Mandagaran, Pato Margetic, Doug Neely, Rene Ortiz, Kris Peat, Brian Quinn, Kim Roentved, and Tim Schulz.

Finally, I need a more solid gameplan on finishing off these multi-player cards.

I also need a few unsigned cards again. the 88-89 Waad Hirmez; the 89-90 correct version of Chris Hundelt; the 90-91 George Fernandez ASG MVP; the 91-92 San Diego All-Stars card; and a whole bunch of 1992-93 NPSL cards (Fernandez, Kirk, Borja, Ervine, and most of the gold inserts).

Non-set IP 'graphing

Been pretty slow on the mailing front lately. Since my last post I had a significant couple of car repairs, bought a vintage guitar amp, and had to make a few repairs on it as well. So about $1400 later, it meant my schedule of attending games and even mailing requests has been zero.  I got Bruce Savage back on December 21, but aside from that, nothing received. And nothing sent in ANY sport since my last four went out on January 2.

I did finally manage to get out to a couple games this past weekend to help Ray out with some cards he sent my way. I hadn't been to a single game in Allen since late last season (and that was the lone game I attended that season; the lack of an alumni game has been a killer for me) and hadn't yet gotten out to any games in Mesquite.

Well, I picked a good game to go to for Mesquite. With their starting goalie out with a foot injury and their backup on tour with the US Futsal Team, the Outlaws brought assistant coach and one of the all-time greats, Edilson "Sagu" Xavier out of retirement on an emergency basis. Now age 46, his last pro game was in January 2015, a 9-5 win at Brownsville for the Sidekicks.

Sagu looked like he hadn't lost a step. Aside from a disastrous second quarter, he was 17/19 in goal including a clean sheet in the opening quarter. Outlaws took home a 11-7 victory. Sagu's 177th career win keeps him at 10th all-time in all indoor leagues. Amazingly, this was the first time I ever saw him play in-person.

Indoor soccer's tenth-winningest netminder...

The Outlaws do the same as the Sidekicks with an on-field postgame signing, so I was able to knock out several of the cards that Ray sent down: Rio Ramirez, Mitchell Cardenas, Brenden Lee, Jorge DeLeon, Jay Jay Oteze, and Ramon Nunez, plus a Cody Ellis card that I still had left from the Sidekicks.  Had I thought about it, I would have brought a Sidekicks or Blast logo card for Sagu to sign.  Tatu was also signing on the field afterward. I have several items left for him, but the line near him was always long so I didn't want to hog it with my stuff, so I just got a photo with him. I also ran into Dave and Mark, two 'graphers I hang out with a lot at Sidekicks games.

... and its third-leading point scorer.

Sunday was a trip out to Allen to see the Sidekicks. Kind of the opposite game: Sidekicks led 6-1 late in the second quarter before going on to lose 8-7. Can't even blame Bozas' coaching for this one: he's serving a two game suspension. On a more positive note, I had cards for ten players who were in the Sidekicks' lineup. Signing a pair each were Lipe DeAndrade, Andy Ordonez, Chris Sendejas, Felipe DeSouza, Josh Hernandez, Kristian Quintana, Raul De La Gala, Dario Joya, and Victor Almendariz.

Mesquite and Dallas are both out of playoff contention so my IP 'graphing season is over just as soon as it started.  Meanwhile, I'm hoping to get back to mailing soon. I have a lot of IP baseball outings coming up, but I'll try to fit in whatever I can both timewise and moneywise.