If You Build It, They Will Come

 How many times have you heard someone call a player a bust?  Sam Darnold, what a bust of a pick for New York!  Zach Wilson is a bust!  What defines a player as a bust, and why do I care? Zach Wilson: Not a bust...yet I like to collect RCs for famous busts.  Think Ryan Leaf, and all his wonderful RCs.  They were so beloved in 1998 and now are considered trash by many.  I, a kind soul, welcome them to my home where they will be cared for and loved.  Well...as long as they come cheap.  My collection is only made up of card that I have rescued from dime and quarter boxes.  Would I grab a Leaf RC Auto from a dollar box?  Probably, but  that's pushing it.  

You won't find too many famous names on the Iowa Connections Racing checklist.  As you'll see below, Michael Annett, Landon Cassill and Joey Gase have the most cards.  However, Iowa does have a rich racing history, with drag races, dirt tracks and other smaller courses throughout the state.  In the early 2000s, Iowa Speedway was built and has hosted truck races and other lower series races from NASCAR and Indy.  I'm positive I'm missing connections because of this things, and I hope next year I have some exciting additions.  For instance, did you know that Rusty Wallace designed Iowa Speedway?  Well, I'm sure he wasn't the only one, but still.  Does that qualify as an Iowa Connection?  Probably not, but it definitely puts him close enough I should grab a couple of his cards.   As for racing cards this year, I've had a little bit more success.  Actually, pretty good success.  I started the year with 5 total cards, and now have 2...

I have a IFTTT (If this, then that) application that whenever I update the blog, it sends a tweet with a link to it.  Pretty simple, but its bugged me that it doesn't have a picture.  So today I decided to try to fix that, but my next blog isn't scheduled to go until Wednesday, and I don't want to wait that long.  So, I'm going to make a quick post with a few picture of my favorite Iowa Connections and we'll see if it works.  Fingers crossed! David Johnson Kurt Warner Kenny Shedd Acie Earl BJ Armstrong Shonn Greene Seneca Wallace Big E  Grant Wood

 It looks like I made exactly two additions to my Olympian collection this past year.  One Dan Gable card and one Kent Ferguson.  I need to decide if wrestling needs to be its own category.  I have wrestling as a category, but that is for pro wrestling, so I'll just need to notate them separately.   The other adjustments of note are the growth in the number of cards for some of the Olympians, including Caitlyn Jenner, Dan Gable and Terry Brands.  Those changes came in three varieties: New variations on old cards (Jenner, Gable) Old sets added (Brands) New sets (Gabby Douglas) I made sure to mark them as wants on TCDB.  As with other sports like these, I don't have as much in the trade department so I require someone who a) has a Gabby Douglas card b) is looking to trade it, and c) for baseball, football or basketball. So, definitely need to spruce up the trade options and consider using more eBay for these collections.   Name ICDB Have T...

   Full disclosure, I am a Minnesota Vikings fan.  Yes, a year of rooting for them and the Iowa Hawkeye football team has made my heart unable to be donated because of too much stress.  However, I will maintain some integrity with the blog and continue to show who Iowan's should root for in the playoffs, I just might give T.J. Hockenson double points :) Here are the Iowa Connections of the 14 remaining teams.  Three teams tied for the top this year with six connections (Baltimore, Miami, Buffalo).  Cincinnati is threatening to ruin their offseason by only having one connection.  6 - Baltimore :  Mike Devlin  /  Tyler Linderbaum  / Geno Stone / Kristian Welch (Iowa) , Charlie Kolar (ISU), John Harbaugh (Iowa City) 6 - Miami: Steve Ferentz (Iowa),  Darrell Bevell / Tyron McKenzie (ISU),  Elijah Campbell (UNI), Andrew Van Ginkel /  ZaQuandrew White  (Iowa Western) 6 - Buffalo : Ike Boettger /  AJ Epenesa ...

 Let's explore some smaller collections.  TLDR, no collection updates but checklist updates have happened. Tennis Name ICDB Rank Have Total ICDB 2022 Have Total Born Dan Goldie 0 0 1 0 0 1 Sioux City One sticker is all I need!  

 2022 was not a terribly successful year for my soccer collection.  I made exactly one addition to my collection, and it was a card I had already.  Let me explain. This is Celia Jimenez.  She played for Iowa Western and this card is from the NWSL Parkside set.  I had bought a couple of hanger boxes of these and this card was amongst the rest of them, but I never realized that Celia = Celia Jimenez.  Only when I was updating TCDB checklists did I recognize this card and thought, "Wait, I think I have that one!"  This card puts me on the board, and up to 15th place for her.  It is also my only Soccer Iowa Connection card. Marcus Hahnemann 0 0 17 0 0 14 Sioux City Ezra Hendrickson 0 0 5 0 0 5 Drake Celia Jimenez 15 1 19 0 0 9 Iowa Western