Sports Fan Gifts Blog

When Michael Vick joined the Atlanta Falcons in 2001, everyone asked the same two questions: How good can he be, and how good will he be? Nearly a decade later, with Michael now the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, those questions remained unanswered.

An outstanding athlete, Vick began attracting scouts while playing high school football in Virginia.  He spent two seasons as quarterback for Virginia Tech and carried the team to the 2000 BCS national title game.  Tech lost to Florida State 46-29, but the game confirmed Vick’s dazzling talents and made him a hot prospect for the pros.

The Atlanta Falcons made him the first pick of the 2001 NFL draft, making Vick the first African American quarterback to be taken first overall.  Vick played sparingly in 2001, but went to the Pro Bowl in 2002, 2004, and 2005.  In 2004 he agreed to a 10-year contract with the Falcons worth $ 130 million. Vick’s strong arm, foot speed, and amazing improvisational skills made him a crowd favorite and one of the NFL’s most promising players.  In 2005 he led all NFL quarterbacks in rushing yards (597) and rushing touchdowns (6), while leading Atlanta to the NFC championship game.

Vick’s career took a dive in 2007 after police investigating a dog-fighting ring found 30 dogs and evidence of dogfights at a Virginia home owned by Vick.  Initially he said he wasn’t involved, but after his associates agreed to testify against him, he said he would plead guilty.  In December 2007 Vick was sentenced to 23 months for his involvement.  After Vick announced his intention to plead guilty, the NFL suspended him indefinitely without pay.

After he was released from jail in 2009, Vick received a conditional okay to rejoin the NFL.  He signed the next month with the Philadelphia Eagles. On September 21, 2010 Eagles coach Andy Reid named Vick the Eagles starting quarterback.  On November 15 2010 in a Monday Night football match up against the Washington Redskins, Vick had the game of his life. He passed for 333 yards and four touchdowns, while also rushing for an additional 8o yards and two touchdowns.  All of this led to a 59-28 victory for the Eagles.  Vick finished the season passing for 3,018 yards, rushing for 676 yards, and scored a total of 30 touchdowns.

Since returning to the game Michael Vick has established himself as one of the leagues top quarterbacks.  He is now set to make 2011 his best season yet.

Professional basketball player, Olympic athlete, businessman, and actor.  All of these can be used to describe Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player to ever play the game.  Michael dominated the sport from the mid 1980’s to the late 1990’s.  He led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships as well as winning the league MVP 5 times.

Jordan enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1981 and soon became an important member of the school’s basketball team. His team won the NCAA Division I championships in 1982 with Jordan scoring the final basket needed to defeat Georgetown University. He was also singled out as the NCAA College Player of the Year in 1983 and in 1984. During the summer of 1984, Jordan made his first appearance in the Olympics as a member of the U.S. basketball team, which won the gold at the games held in Los Angeles. Later Jordan helped the United States bring home the gold at the 1992 Olympic games in Barcelona, Spain.

Jordan left college after his junior year to join the NBA. Drafted by the Chicago Bulls, he soon proved himself on the court. He helped the team make it to the playoffs and scored an average of 28.2 points per game that season. For his efforts, Jordan received the NBA Rookie of the Year Award and was selected for the All-Star Game.

By the late 1980s, the Chicago Bulls was quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with, and Jordan was an instrumental part of the team’s success. The Bulls made it to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1990 and won their first NBA championship the following year by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers. A rising NBA superstar, Jordan became known for his power and agility on the court as well as for his leadership abilities. He eventually landed several endorsement deals with such companies as Nike, which further pushed him into the spotlight.

After the 1992 season Jordan shocked the basketball world by announcing his retirement from the sport, saying that he wanted to follow his dream as a kid and become a professional baseball player. He played for a minor league team, the Birmingham Barons, as an outfielder for a year.

In March 1995, however, Jordan returned to the basketball court. He rejoined the Chicago Bulls and helped them win the championship against the Seattle Sonics. That same year, Jordan made a big splash in another arena—film—as the star of Space Jam (1996). The film mixed live action and animation and paired Jordan with cartoon legends Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck on screen. The next season Jordan came back even stronger, averaging 30.4 points per game. Starting all 82 games that season, he helped the team finish the regular season with 72 wins and clinch a win in the NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz. The two teams faced each other again for the championships in 1998, and Jordan helped the Bulls beat them for the second year in a row.

Retiring after the 1997-1998 season, Jordan did not stray from the sport for too long. He joined the Washington Wizards as a part owner and as president of basketball operations. In the fall of 2001, Jordan relinquished these roles to return the court once more. He played for the Wizards for two seasons before hanging up his jersey for good in 2003. Since retiring Jordan has become the majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, making him the first ex-player to become a majority owner of a league franchise and was inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame.

Alex Rodriguez is the starting third baseman for the New York Yankees. He is one of the most loved and hated athletes in all of professional sports.  Rodriguez and his family moved to his father’s native Dominican Republic when Alex was four, but they later relocated to Miami, Fla. There he became an excellent ballplayer at Westminster Christian High School, and in 1993 the Seattle Mariners selected Rodriguez as the first overall pick in the Major League Baseball draft. He made his debut with the Mariners at age 18, playing shortstop.

Rodriguez’s first successful season came in 1996, when he accumulated a league-best .358 batting average with 36 home runs and 123 runs batted in. Over the next six seasons with the team, he continued to produce outstanding offensive statistics, most notably in 1998, when he became the third player in league history to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season. Before the 2001 season, when Rodriguez was a free agent, the Texas Rangers signed him to a 10-year $252 million contract, the richest contract ever given to an athlete at the time.

With the Rangers, Rodriguez continued to have great offensive seasons. He won Most Valuable Player honors in 2003 with a .298 batting average, 47 home runs, and 118 RBI’s.  After that season he was traded to the New York Yankees for second baseman Alfonso Soriano.  In 2005 he posted a .321 batting average, with 48 home runs and 130 RBI’s, to win his second MVP title. In 2007 he became the youngest player ever to hit 500 career home runs.  That season was his best yet, he batted .314, with 56 home runs, and 154 RBI’s and he was named league MVP for the third time.

In 2009, Rodriguez’s career became forever tainted when he admitted that used various performance –enhancing drugs from 2001-2003.  His preseason revelation was followed by a relatively sub-par regular season that saw Rodriguez fail to hit over 300 home runs and amass 100 RBI’s for the first time since 1997.  However. He overcame his longtime reputation of faltering in the postseason by batting .365 with six home runs and 18 RBI’s during the playoffs, and lead the Yankees to their 27^th World Series championship.

The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in The Bronx, in New York City, New York.  They are a member of Major League Baseball’s American League East Division.  One of the American Leagues eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 1901 as the Baltimore Orioles.  They moved to New York City in 1903 becoming known as the New York Highlanders before being officially being renamed the ” Yankees” in 1913.  From 1923 to 2008, the Yankee’s home ballpark was Yankee Stadium; one of the world’s most famous sport’s venues.  In 2009 they moved into a new building, which is still called Yankee Stadium.

The legendary Yankees Dynasty of the 1920’s and 1930’s won 11 pennants and 8 World Series championships, with players such as Babe Ruth, Earle Combs, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio.  The Yankees continued to achieve success from 1948- 1960, when the club entered another golden age.  Led by players such as Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, and Whitey Ford, they won ten American League pennants and Seven World Series championships, including 5 straight from 1949-53, a major league record.

The period of the 1970s is considered a period of greatness as Businessman George Steinbrenner bought the franchise and hired former Yankee shortstop Billy Martin as manager. The Yankees won three straight pennants from 1976 through 1978, going on to win the World Series in 1977 and 1978.  After a relative dry spell, the franchise returned to dominance in the late 1990s with players such as Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Andy Pettitie, winning the World Series in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and most recently in 2009.

The Yankees have achieved widespread popularity and have a dedicated fan base. Their famous interlocking NY logo is one of the the most recognizable logos in the world.  That is why you see fans all over the world in Yankees Jerseys and hats. Their rivalry with the Boston Red Sox is arguably the fiercest and most historic in North American professional sports. As of 2011 the franchise leads the league in both revenue and titles, with 27 World Series Championships, and 40 American League Pennants.  Throughout its existence the team has had some of the most celebrated players in Major League History.  43 Yankees players and 11 managers have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Mark Messier’s nickname “ The Moose” is a tribute to his size, strength, and determination.  A player renowned all over the world for his leadership abilities and one of the all-time leading NHL scorers.  Messier emerged from the great Edmonton Oilers teams of the 1980s to become a hockey superstar.  He was a powerful skater who combined playmaking skills and a goal scoring touch with the toughness necessary to survive and thrive in the NHL.  Six times his teams sipped from the Stanley Cup and on two occasions Messier took home the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player.

 Like Gordie Howe, Messier is credited with being the most complete player of his generation. He aquired his multidimensional game during a childhood filled with hockey in his hometown of Edmonton.  At the age of four, he was attending his father’s minor league practices.  At age 11, he was a stick boy for the Spruce Grove Mets, in the Alberta Junior Leagues, the team he would star on just five years later.

 In 1979 the Edmonton Oilers selected him as the 48^th overall pick in the NHL’s entry draft.  In his third season in the league he scored 50 goals, which had doubled his total from the year before, and was selected to the NHL’s first All-Star team.  When the Oilers won their first of four Stanley Cups in five years in 1984, Messier, who was playing along side NHL greats such as Wayne Gretzky, Paul Coffey, and Grant Fuhr, was the most valuable player in the playoffs.  Though Gretzky was the dominant offensive player on those teams, Messier was the perfect two way player, he was fast, powerful, and physical, which allowed him to excel at both ends of the ice.

 When Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, Messier was made the Edmonton Captain, though many predicted the Oiler’s success would leave with Gretzky.  In the 1989-90 season though, Messier had a career year, finishing second to the great one in points with 129, and he also won the hart trophy for being the leagues MVP.  That year he dominated in the playoffs to lead his team to the Stanley Cup, his fifth with Edmonton.

 Messier was traded to the New York Rangers prior to the 1991-92 season.  In 1994, Messier was at his very best in the playoffs, engineering one of the great moments in New York sports history.

 The Rangers were down 3-2 to the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference finals.  Messier then publicly guaranteed a game six win.  He followed up on his promise with a legendary performance, scoring a hat trick to bring his team back from elimination and force a seventh game.  Messier and the Rangers dispatched the Devils and then won the cup in another thrilling series against the Vancouver Canucks.  With the championship, the teams first in 54 years, Messier became the first player ever to captain two different teams to Stanley Cup titles.

Following a lock out year in 2004-05, Messier made the decision to call it a career.  Both the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Rangers retired his number 11.  The NHL also decided to create the Mark Messier Trophy, a monthly leadership award.

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Get ready for the 2011 NCAA football season in style with our brand new NCAA 2011 Sideline Coaches Structured Flex Hats.

NCAA 2011 Sideline Coaches Structured Flex Hats
and other College Apparel

Wisconsin Badgers Adidas 2011 Sideline Coaches Structured Flex Hat

Michigan Wolverines Adidas 2011 Sideline Coaches Structured Flex Hat

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Adidas 2011 Sideline Coaches Structured Flex Hat

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In Professional sports, there are few players that are as accomplished as Derek Jeter both on and off the field.  From an early age, Jeter showed that he had all the makings of a baseball great.  In his senior year at Kalamazoo Central High School, he won several national sports awards. He was named the 1992 High School Player of the Year by the American High School Coaches Association, the 1992 Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year, and USA Today’s High School Player of the Year.

After graduating from high school, Jeter was selected by the New York Yankees in the 1992 draft.  In 1994 he was named minor league player of the year by several publications including “The Sporting News” and “ Baseball America”

In 1995, Jeter got his first shot at the major leagues when Yankees shortstop Tony Fernandez was put on the disabled list. Jeter made his debut on May 29 against the Seattle Mariners, where he would record his first major league hit. The next year, in his first full season as a major league baseball player, he batted .314 with 10 home runs. The skilled shortstop also performed well in the infield-his fielding percentage was .969. He helped the Yankees win the World Series against the Atlanta Braves. Jeter won the 1996 American League Rookie of the Year Award for that season.

Jeter has been an outstanding player in the major leagues since his rookie season. He helped the Yankees with more World Series wins in 1998, 1999, and 2000, and 2009. In 2000, Jeter was named Most Valuable Player in the World Series and the All-Star Game. He also received Gold Glove Awards in 2004 and in 2005 for his performance on the field. So far Jeter has a career battling average of .313 and average fielding percentage of .977. He has also joined the ranks of players such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, and Don Mattingly, as one of only 11 captains in Yankees History.  In 2009, Jeter passed Lou Gehrig’s record with this 2,722nd hit — the most in franchise history.  Then on July 8 2011, Jeter became the first player in the Yankees storied history and only the 28^th player in Major League History to reach the 3,000 hit milestone.

Jeter is also a very accomplished person off the field. He has used his celebrity and his prominent position as a sports star to help children. In 1996, he established the Turn 2 Foundation to encourage young people to be healthy and academically successful, to become leaders, and to stay away from drugs and alcohol. The foundation supports and creates programs to achieve these goals.

Below is a ten-question, exclusive interview conducted with Evan Kanter. Kanter is the creator, as well as current owner of Autograph-Cards LLC. The interview ranges from Kanter’s break into the business, and stretches out into what Autograph-Cards LLC have accomplished, and what Kanter hopes Autograph-Cards LLC will do in the future.

Q: Who are your favorite sports teams and players?
A: I am a big fan of New York Sports in general. My rooting interests are the Mets in baseball, the Knicks in basketball, and the Rangers in hockey. As for football, I am both a Giants and a Seahawks fan. If they play each other, I would choose the Seahawks to win.

Q: How did college work (and possibly major) help prepare you for Autograph-Cards LLC?
A: Autograph-Cards.com was built as a fun website and a hobby before it was ever a company. I used to send away to get autographs from my favorite players and received personal responses fairly regularly. A friend of mine suggested I build a site for my autograph collection since I enjoyed it so much. The collection I had was getting bigger and bigger; and it sounded like a good idea at the time. As it turned out, there were no autographed card websites around in 1999, so I built the site that I wished was around for collecting autographed cards. It was the first site of its kind and had a pretty unique niche with the site looking fairly similar to the way it looks today. Of course the amount of products drastically increased over time, but the overall look and feel stayed consistent with my original design.

I went to Undergraduate college at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ and ended up with a double major in Business Management and Computer Science. Both of these skill sets were obviously beneficial for running Autograph-Cards, LLC. That being said, I learned a lot of the programming for the websites from previous jobs I had as a programmer for building third-party websites for companies. Most of the management training was learned on the job and was a function of trial and error. Most importantly, it was my love of sports that kept me going and has motivated me to continue to work hard every day.

Q: When did you envision creating Autograph-Cards LLC?
A: I only decided to turn the website into an actual company after the end of the first year. Until that point I ran it as a hobby. We did not build Autograph-Sports.com until 2005.

Q: How long did it take to develop all of the company’s websites?
A: Each website took many months to build, test, and add inventory for. As I build newer sites, they continue to take longer and longer to complete. The first two sites took less than 2 months to build each. Our most recent website, Team-Superstore.com took over 6 months to build. The size of the websites and the amount of products they carry continue to grow, so I have to make sure to test thoroughly before launching. Personally, I build websites to not need overhauls later on, so while it does take a while to build the first beta version, the frameworks of each of the sites remain intact since their build dates.

Q: Which website of the five that is under the Autograph-Cards LLC umbrella is most important?
A: I am very satisfied with all of my websites. Each website is built with a purpose and so they are equally important in their own areas of specialty. The one I tend to favor is Team-Superstore.com since it was built most recently and encompasses all different parts of our business by combining everything team related into one website. We are also adding hundreds of new products weekly to this site.

Q: What is the most valuable memorabilia item that Autograph-Cards LLC has ever sold?
A: Exclusively, our format is to work either directly with the athlete, his agent, or directly with the company that brought the athlete in for a signing. All Sports Memorabilia items on our website are 100% guaranteed authentic. For the most part, the focus has been more on current and past MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and NCAA players. That being said, we have sold quite a few high-end pieces including Upper Deck Michael Jordan and Lebron James Jerseys, Championship Team-Signed Helmets, and some really nice Kobe Bryant Memorabilia.

Q: What is the most fun aspect of owning Autograph-Cards LLC?
A: Day-to-day, I enjoy being creative and coming up with a cutting edge feature, program, or website that nobody else had thought of yet. Of course talking about sports all day with tons of sports fans, and meeting famous athletes at signings are fun benefits that I enjoy.

Q: What advice would you give others into looking to break into the sports business world?
A: I often times receive this question more in general about business. I have found 3-month internships to be very suitable at giving initial experience in the industry of your choice. We have had the pleasure to have quite a few interns at Autograph-Cards and I try to help them out as much as I can. I had several internships when I was younger and found the experience I learned to be wonderful and eye opening. It prepared me for the future better than my classes did.

Q: What makes Autograph-Cards LLC stand out above other sports businesses?
A: It is my hope that we stand out, but I believe our customers will be the ones to decide. We have some great people working with us and for us; and I believe they are the biggest reason we are still around after 10 years. Day-to-day, our customer service operation is a primary focus for us and we try to stay connected with our customers as much as possible. Furthermore, we have begun to automate many of the necessary but redundant functions of our company, and that allows us to offer lower prices and to handle things easier from a management perspective.

Since I mold the company in my image, we tend to be a much more entrepreneurial and growth oriented than your average sports company. My continued focus is to innovate and experiment with new ideas. I believe that some of our best ideas have not been thought of yet.

NHL Creeper with Bib and Booties
and other Hockey Apparel

Atlanta Thrashers Creeper with Bib and Booties

Tampa Bay Lightning Team Color Creeper with Bib and Booties

Florida Panthers Creeper with Bib and Booties

Show off your team pride by wearing these NHL Creeper with Bib and Booties. They make this item for all teams.

Make baby a part of the team in this team color creeper complete with bib and booties. Creeper is polyester mesh and has the look and feel of a very soft jersey mesh. Screen print team logo on creeper, and NHL logo on bib.