Two years ago for my birthday, which is today, I went to NXL Mid Atlantic Major and spent the day with Dynasty in their pits. I got to meet a few old souls from the OG days much like myself; like Ryan Greenspan and Marcello Margott. Oliver Lang came out of retirement for the event with Dynasty. They won back to back World Cups.

Paintball has been a part of my life since I was eight years old or so, and even now that I’m 36 I still get the itch to get out there and “sling ropes” now and then.

Not the flashiest of cards, but one of my favorites. Went to the National last year looking for one, but all the vendors I spoke to that had cards from that class and era of players said they had either sold it already or didn’t have one — eventually found one on eBay, ironically from the next town over from mine.

Grew up mirroring my game off of Kendall when I played until they changed the rules for defensive catchers. Great positional player and even a decent hitter. Three for four in his MLB Debut with 2 RBI. Derek Jeter was also in the same class.

I’ve never had any Optic in my collection because it was either too hard for me to find without paying way above MSRP or because I simply couldn’t find it. Buddy who owns a local card store happened to have a case so I rolled the dice, and well.. here we are.