SoCal Autograph Odysses

 The third entry of my top ten autographs in each sports takes us to hockey, which for a long time has been my favorite sport. Over the last handful of years I'd probably argue that soccer has actually usurped hockey but it's close. My hockey collection was actually much easier to rank in my opinion even though I have quite an extensive list of autographs in the sport. Let's get started, 10. Anze Kopitar card The Kings are my favorite team of all time. Anze Kopitar is my favorite player of all time. Him making the list was a foregone conclusion. I am listing his Upper Deck card here, but the truth is I actually have two signed Kopitar cards, a signed game model puck, as well as an 8x10. I'll include photos of all of these things for fun. I should probably just list this as the "Kopitar Collection". The Upper Deck card has game worn jersey cuts and is numbered out of 25. 9. Nathan MacKinnon puck One of the biggest stars in hockey over the past decade, Nathan Ma...

 I've not been updating my blog recently as I have been busy so I wanted to catch up on some recent additions I've made.  The first is one of the greatest players of his generation, French and Real Madrid midfielder Zinedine Zidane. This auto is from the set Panini Obsidian and numbered /25.  The second addition is another number auto, this time of Welsh player (as well as Tottenham, Real Madrid, and LAFC) Gareth Bale. This is from the Topps Merlin set and is also numbered, this one being to 50.  Another Tottenham player, Korean forward Heung-Min Son is another auto I picked up. I got this card as a single from my local card shop that had it selling. I like finding autos of cool players while I'm in there. Son is huge in Korea and is one of the better players in the Premier League.  The following card has a bit better of a story behind how it was acquired. My wife and I were out visiting my grandma in the Laughlin, NC and Bullhead, AZ area when I stopped by a lo...

 My lists of my favorite ten autographs I own in each sport continues with football. If you missed the first one in this series, which featured soccer, please make sure to click here.  This list will likely be the second toughest one for me to formulate after baseball, as I have a lot of Hall of Famers in both sports so there will be some tough cuts. When compiling my list, I had to do a lot of juggling but I realized part way through that it was probably going to be extremely quarterback heavy.  A reminder; My list factors in different aspects of how I obtained said item. Anything signed by the athlete in front of me because I got to meet them will likely rank higher than something I purchased for myself. A rookie card would likely rank higher. How hard it is to obtain a specific player's autograph will also factor into the equation as will that athlete's excellence level. The higher esteem they are held within their sport, the higher the player will likely be on my list...

 My top 10 lists are statistically the most viewed posts I ever write, so I decided to do something cool and make top 10 lists of what I think are my best autographs in each of the main sports. I'll cover baseball, football, soccer, hockey, basketball, and the rest of the autographs I have will be under the "others" list. I'm going to start today with soccer. These lists will consist of the autographs I personally think are my best 10 in each sport. The considerations I took into account are player's status among the all time greats, whether the card is numbered, what set the card is from, or where I obtained the item. Without further ado, here are my top 10 soccer autos. 10. Paolo Maldini card 9. Robert Lewandowski card (out of /25) 8. Xavi card (out of 10) 7. Lamine Yamal Rookie Card auto 6. Virgil Van Djik auto mem card (out of /35) 5. Erling Haaland mem auto card 4. David Beckham card 3. Cristiano Ronaldo Cards (x2) 2. Messi signed artwork (out of 100) 1. Pele...

 Technically, I suppose I pulled a redemption before but that was for an expired redemption that expired in 2005 from a hobby box I bought of Topps baseball a couple years ago. It would have been an awesome card to pull at that time because it was a Zack Greinke rookie auto but since it was expired Topps just ended up sending me a care package instead. This time, I pulled a redemption from Panini and it came from a 2024 Rookies and Stars box.  It ended up being Bengals rookie tight end Erick All Jr, numbered /299. Not terrible, I suppose.