Tony Reid offers his weekly dose of happenings inside Sports Zone, the Central Pennsylvania shop where he works.
It was another fun week at the shop.
Sometime early in the week my buddy and former NFL quarterback Gus Frerotte texted me asking for the address of the store. His son Gabe was traveling from Delaware and headed back home but wanted to stop by and check us out on his way through the area.
Wednesday morning I received a text from Gabe saying he was coming through the area later in the day and asked if I would be at the shop. I was so around, so at 1:00 he stopped by. It was great to see Gabe and great to see his spectacular Ryan Fitzpatrick shirt. When Gabe got there, we FaceTimed Gus and Gunnar to give them an idea of what singles, boxes and packs we had to offer.
If you followed my work here on SC Daily, you may have seen my Q&A with Gus. He’s a serious collector with a great vintage baseball collection and a soft spot for Pittsburgh sports stars. His sons got rejuvenated in the hobby during the pandemic and now the three Frerotte guys are collecting together and in a big way.
Gabe and Gunnar are huge into the Donruss (and Optic) Rated Rookie cards, among other products.
Gabe, with Gus and Gunnar’s assistance, ended up buying some great football products, including some Donruss and Optic in hopes of adding even more Rated Rookies to their ever-growing collection.
Speaking of Donruss football, we got a few cases of the new 2021 blasters in and on Thursday the owner decided to open one or two just for a few new cards and s little bit of a new selection of singles and rookies for our showcases and singles boxes. Well, he definitely got one for the showcase as he pulled a Dan Marino Downtown insert out of the very first blaster box he touched.
He opened a few more but there was nothing quite like that card in any of the rest of the boxes he opened. 
There are very few boxes and packs that I choose to buy and open myself but I couldn’t resist a blaster at that price point and after seeing what Jason pulled, the excitement was pulling me in the direction of opening a few myself. In actuality, I opened two. I was surprised to see a relatively rare Optic Rated Rookie Preview of Ian Book in my first pack. Better yet, it was the Prizm version. I also pulled a decent Trevor Lawrence Revolution insert, a nice Justin Fields Elite Rookies insert and a few solid base rookies including San Francisco 49ers future QB Trey Lance. I was definitely satisfied with the selection and nearly every blaster we opened was well worth the price tag.
2021 Donruss football boxes have been among the hottest products of the last few months.
It was all football all week as I made it to my son’s varsity football game Friday night. They suffered a tough loss but they will be back on the winning track soon. On Saturday, my wife and I (along with 105,000 of our closest friends) traveled to Happy Valley to watch the Penn State Nittany Lions beat the Villanova Wildcats.
I have some really fun things planned early next week, so I will be sure to check in with all the details in my next installment of Shop Talk.
