I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. So why then do I have this as part of my collection? When I was younger, I liked watching Randall Cunningham play. McNabb reminded me a little of Cunningham. He was quick, dynamic, and could run. He had a great career and I enjoyed watching him compete against my beloved Cowboys. These Upper Deck SPx rookies are pretty cool in hand and feature on-card autographs. They’re very condition sensitive and I had two of them. They both got PSA 10’s and I traded one. While they aren’t super expensive. I’m still holding onto this one for the time being.

Man, growing up in the 1980’s and 1990’s was cool. We were witness to some great QBs - Marino. Montana. Elway. Moon. Aikman. Cunningham. Manning. No one was more prolific of a passing force than Marino. Upper Deck was still in love with hologram technology - sometimes they didn’t work great but sometimes they did. This is an instance where the auto pops off the silver hologram but the colors in sunlight sparkle in hand. These can still be had for a couple hundred, so reasonable by many accounts, but the surface of the hologram is easily scratched!

Yao was amazing to watch. Very fluid for a 7’6” center with soft hands. A defensive presence in the middle with a great shot. In the HOF but his career was much shorter than I had hoped given his chronic foot injuries. Big men like that seldom have very long careers due to their size. Still, he was a dominant big man. I wonder if similar current players (like Zach Edey) would thrive in the NBA of the 1990-2000’s now that the game has evolved into more of a three-and-D style. Or would Yao be as dominant in today’s NBA?