Bad Wax

Bowman, home of the rookie card.  I think this is a nice follow up to my last post about rookies.  I remember this set coming out because there was so much hype around the pack’s claim.  Topps guarenteed that the 1998 Bowman set would be worth a minimum of $125.  That is a hell of a claim.  When I first saw this pack, I figured they set it so there were lots of short print cards thus jacking up the price artificially.   Well looks like their claim fell a little short since I can get this on eBay for $10.  Some other funny things on this pack include Garciaparra, Rolen and Grieve autographs and an international card in every pack.  I tried to find a picture of the pack but couldn’t, I might have a scanner by next month so just have to bear it until then.  If you have a picture of it email it to me at superbadwax@yahoo.com.

With 10 cards and you know a good chunk are rookies, I am expecting some fairly good cards in this pack, either that or I will be validated as to my rant about rookie cards. The big cards to look for in this set would be the Rollins and Ordonez rookie cards looking to run about 5 dollars each. So let’s rip shall we?

1. Jimmy Rollins – SS – Phillies – 181 – Wow, top card, what about that? Here is one of those examples though, Jimmy is a budding superstar in this league.  He may not be as potent as Henderson was in his prime, but who wouldn’t want his numbers on thier team? Statistically even better than Jeter in some respects. Last year’s MVP is no fluke and in all honesty he could become a 40/40 guy. I think he’d be happy being a 30/30 guy though.  Why is his card only worth 5 dollars?

2. Mark Kotsay – OF -Marlins – 218 – A 300 hitter with 20 home runs in AA on this card, should we send him to the HOF? Well we know what happens to Kotsay he turns into a 15 HR / 10 SB / 0.290 hitter. So your average 3rd OF on any team.  Since this is his rookie card I wonder how much was worth in 1998?

3. Nathan Haynes – OF – A’s – 177 – Old Nate finally cracked the bigs in 2007 with the Dodgers.  He looks like a typical AAAA type player, very good in the AAA, crap in the majors.  In a side note he had more stolen bases than hits as a high school senior 18 vs. 17, that has to be a misprint 17 hits in his senior season and this guy was a 1st round pick? Shortest season ever? 

4. AJ Hinch – C – A’s – 216 – Classic case of not living up to the hype.  He’s actually retired now, retired in 2004, he just was never the hitter they thought he was going to be.  His did you know was that he was drafted 3 times all three times in the 3rd round or higher.

5. Jason Brester – P – Giants – 173 – Retired in 2000, never getting out of AA.  I don’t know much about him other than his picture looks like he is trying to teach the cameraman how to throw a curveball.  Looked like he was a power pitcher who got injured and never regained his fastball.

6. Ryan Minor – 3B – Orioles – 107 – Trivia alert, he played for Ripken, the day the streak ended. He was being groomed for 3B, just struck out too much and never really panned out.  On a nice note he was voted most desirable male by an Oklahom City radio station.  So he has that going for him.  Which is good since he’s out of baseball now.

7. Checklist 2 of 2 – I hate checklists!!! Why should that count against my 10?

8. Dan Serafini – P – Twins – 163 – Former first round pick, still floating around the majors as a spot starter, but not really a semi-star even.  The good news is he attends Stanford University during the off-season, so at least he has something to fall back on.

9. Scott Rolen – 3B – Phillies – 2 – I hope at some point he ends up on the Red Sox so I can really pour my hatred into him.  For now I can just put him right below Schilling as my public enemy number 2.  My hatred of him came when he spured me for an autograph, because he said I was too old. I was 25, apparently Scott thinks autograph seekers should be no older than 7.

10. Heath Murray – P – Padres – 102 – Retired in 2002 after spending 4 years in the bigs mainly as a spot starter middle reliever.  There was some hope though back in 1998, he beat Greg Maddux in his first start.  He can always tell his grandkids about that I guess.

11. Vinny Castilla – 3B – Rockies – 62 – How can you not like Vinny, I can’t think of a nicer guy in baseball, plus the guy mashed the ball and revived his career in Colorado. I think any current young third baseman should try to become like VInny.  Just a fun guy to watch.

How cool is Bowman not to count the checklist against me.  Kudos for that one! I have to say I have always liked how the Bowman card looked back then.  They came a long way since there crappy 1989 issue.  I’d like to think I would have tried to collect the set back then, but it would have been a lie.  I do wonder what the card prices were on this set in 1998, so if anyone saves Becketts from back then let me know.  Here are my ratings:

Cost of pack – $2.50 – 2.0 stars – Price was jacked up because of the $125 claim and the fact there were tons of rookies in the set.

Cards in pack – 10 – 4.5 stars – This was pretty repectable for the year we are talking about.  The fact they didn’t include the checklist as one of the 10 made me add a full star to my rating.

Stars in Pack – 3 – 1.5 stars – Rolen, Rollins, and Castilla, the Rollins card really was outstanding to get, I have to admit I’m a little psyched about that one!

Value of pack – around 6 dollars – 3.5 stars – Would have been cooler to get Ordonez and Rollins in the same pack but I’ll take it.

Desing of Card – 4.0 stars – Like I said, I like this design.  The autograph is off to the side so it’s very clear.  The pictures are profiles instead of action shots.  I miss those, in this day and age, I can get an action shot anytime I want to on ESPN.  I want to see what the player looks like.  Here is a picture of the Rollins card:

Overall we’re looking at 3.1 stars, one of the better packs I have opened so far.  I have a couple more of these packs, so we can see if I can get the Ordonez.  That would be very cool.  Also some of these cards I’m going to be giving away so stay tuned.

Over the last several days, I have been trying to figure out one thing about the baseball and sports cards industry.  Why are we so enamored with the rookie card? I mean when you think about it, if you had to choose between Johan Santana and Phil Hughes for your team, who would you take?  Don’t tell me your going to take Hughes for his potential. You’ll take Santana every time, if not you are just plain dumb.  So why is Hughes card worth so much more?  Is it potential? It is not merited on past performance, since he has very little.  It has always been this way, ever since the 80s.

If you look at any set in the price book now, it’s not the superstars you see worth the most money, it’s the rookies.  It didn’t used to be this way, it wasn’t this way until around 1987 -1988 when Kevin Elster, Gregg Jefferies, Al Lieter, Kevin Seitzer, ect . . . came along.  Here’s my problem, why would any rookie card be worth more than a superstar?  Roy Halladay, and I pick him, because although he is a fantastic baseball player, he is worthless in the realm of card collecting. Meanwhile Jacoby Ellsbury for the Red Sox has a 100 dollar rookie card.  Why is that? He may become a good player, but at a 100 dollars, he should be a future HOFer.  In reality he is more likey to have a career like Mike Cameron or Matt Lawton, than to become a Rickey Henderson.  Why are these rookies expected to live up to reputations that they may never achieve?

A perfect example is Alex Gordon of the Royals.  He came in and supposed to be the next Miguel Cabrera, the savior of the Royals organization.  I bet he would kill to have a Vinny Castilla or Scott Rolen career, instead they want Schmidt.  It’s unrealistic for these players to become superstars.  It’s a 1 in 50 shot.  Name me the last rookie that lived up to his hype? Puljos maybe and who before him? A-Rod? Jeter? Meanwhile hundreds of rookies have come and gone.  Had cards woth 10-20 bucks now just commons.  How many of Topps ‘52 rookie set this year will become superstars? 1 or maybe 2?  But the card companies sell you on “investments”, hoping that you will rip through pack after pack for the short print rookie.  How foolish we all look for collecting Devon White cards or Wally Joyner cards or even Jose Canseco.  Thinking we had millions of potential dollars in cards when it’s really just a bag of cardboard.

 I like collecting cards now because I understand this and I’m not looking for the next Bonds, Santana, or A-Rod. No, instead I like the base sets.  The cards no one wants.  Why do I want them?  Because these are your proven players.  These are your veterans. If I wanted rookies, I’d collect minor league cards.  I applaud the people who collect one player or even a team collector, I despise the rookie mongers. So when you think about what you are collecting, think if I had a team and had to choose between a solid veteran player and a rookie, choose the vet because he deserves it.

When I first saw the pack, I thought, here we go again another Upper Deck product. What I dislike about this set or any set that promotes the chase cards through the set name is that it’s unfair to the consumer. When you see the name SP Authentic, images of jersey and bat cards dance through your head. Truth is very few of the packs actually contain the cards, and every time I open a pack I get kind of depressed when I don’t see a materials card.  I can’t be alone on this one. Here is what the pack looks like:

In side we get 5 cards, which is right about what I have come to expect from Upper Deck.  With a base set of 90 cards then another 90 short print cards, 5 cards per back puts you at a minimum of 18 packs for a set.  With set’s going for $4.00 on ebay, it’s kind of a rip-off, I’m glad I snagged this one in the dollar bin. Here are the 5 cards:

1. Curt Shilling – P -Diamondblacks – 61 – I have nothing but venom for Curt Schilling.  He is pompous, conceited, played for teams I hate, and although has denied using steroid, he is high on my list of possible users.  He is a great pitcher, but as long as he pitches for the Sox, I don’t care for him.

2. Roger Clemens – P – Yankees – 43 – Here is another pitcher that has scorned me.  I liked Roger a lot back in the late 80s and early 90s, I mean who didn’t?  I even didn’t mind when he come to the Big Apple, probably because he fell in bad grace with Red Sox fans.  Don’t let anything fool you about the Rocket, he doesn’t care what team he pitches for, he is a hired gun and has no allegiance to any team.

3. Eric Munson – 3B – Tigers – 31 – What happened to this guy?  He was a super prospect, last year I saw him in AAA.  He just never really panned out and is an excellent reason why this hobby has gotten out of hand with rookie cards.  I remember some of his cards going to 10 – 15 bucks in 1999 / 2000.  Now they aren’t worth the cards they are printed on.  SP Authentic has him in their base set (90 best players), that’s insane, he was hyped up and spit out, just like Alex Gordon is going to be.

4. Bernie Williams – OF – Yankees – 40 – My favorite Yankee, even more than Jeter.  Bernie just wanted to play ball, and he loved being a Yankee.  Probably one of the most down to earth guys you’ll ever meet, got him to sign a ball for me his 3rd year in the bigs.  He was one of those Yankees I wished would never retire.  He put up the same numbers year in and year out and was always counted on and came up big in the playoffs.

5. Matt Lawton – OF – Indians – 13 – He was your 15 HRs / 15 SBs guy, that is always available in your fantasy league, because he is just a 4th outfielder in a 3rd outfielder’s body.  He lucked out and played on some bad teams, where he was able to slide into that 3rd outfielder role, even if he didn’t deserve it.  Not sure what he’s doing in this base set, but I guess SP had it’s reasons.

So overall I think the set is very blah.  You would figure, this year being it’s 10th anniversary, they would jazz up the set.  But in the end, it’s just another UD product that the put lots of silver and gold writing on and hope you don’t realize they are duping you. So with my already sullied self about to rate these, look out!

Price per pack – $5.00 – 0.0 stars – UD should be ashamed of themselves a dollar a card, seriously? Come on, let’s not take ourselves too seriously.

Cards in pack – 5 – 2.0 stars – Higher than I initially thought I would rate it, but 5 out of 90 isn’t a bad pack to set ratio.  What is bad is the value of the set being $4.00.

Stars in Pack – 3 – 3.0 stars – I may not like them but they are stars of the baseball card industry, 3 in the pack gets you 3 stars.

Value of pack – $0.20 – 1.0 star – They should be worth a dollar a card, but it’s more like 4 cents a card.  Hard to believe. The industry needs to take a good look at their products again and figure out, whether we really need more sets like SP Authentic.

Design of card – 1.5 stars -  I have to really knock UD here, the design is so tired.  Doesn’t it look like they use the same template on every set.  Other than the Goudey set I can’t figure out why they keep the sameoverall design for most of their sets. Here is a typical card in the set.

Like I said, very little imagination done as far as the design and this is a short print card. Overall we get a 1.5 star rating on this pack. To be honest I’m glad I’m done with it as, I really detest this set.  OK now that the bitter is done, maybe we can find a set I will like.

I have another mystery pack to give out. This time I need a hockey fan. The second person to email me at superbadwax@yahoo.com gets the pack.