Bad Wax

The most exciting aspect for me during the All Star Game festivities isn’t the Home Run Contest, or the Celebrity All Star Game, or the All Star game itself, it’s the Futures Game. Since it’s inception in 1999, this has been a major talent pool. Almost every superstar who was in the inors since 1999 played in this game.  Here are just a few names:

• Rick Ankiel - 1999
• Josh Beckett - 2000
• Lance Berkman - 1999
• Joe Blanton - 2004
• Ryan Braun - 2006
• Jay Bruce - 2007
• Mark Beurhle - 2000
• Pat Burrell - 1999
• Miguel Cabrerra - 2001 and 2002
• Robinson Cano - 2003 and 2004
• Joba Chamberlain - 2007
• Carl Crawford - 2002
• Stephen Drew - 2006
• Prince Fielder - 2004
• Bill Hall - 2002
• Josh Hamilton - 2000
• Rich Harden - 2003
• JJ Hardy - 2003
• Felix Hernandez - 2004
• Ryan Howard - 2003
• Bobby Jenks - 2005
• Evan Longoria - 2007
• Russell Martin - 2005
• Victor Martinez - 2002
• Mark Mulder - 1999
• Hunter Pence - 2006
• Hanley Ramirez - 2005
• Fancisco Rodriguez - 2002
• CC Sabathia - 2000
• Ben Sheets - 2000
• Grady Sizemore - 2003
• Alfonso Soriano - 1999
• Troy Toluwitzki - 2006
• BJ Upton - 2004 and 2005
• Justin Upton - 2007
• Chase Utley - 2001
• Kevin Youkilis - 2003
• David Wright - 2004
• Barry Zito - 2000

U.S. Roster

Pitchers:

• Brett Anderson - Oakland Athletics - AA - 9-4/4.14/1.16
• Jake Arrieta - Baltimore Orioles - A+ - 5-4/3.02/1.15
• Trevor Cahill - Oakland Athletics - AA - 5-4/2.78/0.95
• Will Inman - San Diego Padres - AA - 8-4/3.18/1.22
• Kevin Jepsen - Los Angeles Angels - AAA - 2-1/1.42/1.26/11 saves
• Ryan Mattheus - Colorado Rockies - AA - 2-2/2.97/1.27/12 saves
• Kevin Pucetas - San Francisco Giants - A+ - 7-0/2.72/1.14
• Clayton Richard - Chicago White Sox - AAA - 5-0/2.53/0.75
• Jess Todd - St. Louis Cardinals - AA - 2-2/1.56/0.85
• Casey Weathers - Colorado Rockies - AA - 1-0/2.51/1.24/1 save

Catchers:

• Bryan Anderson - St. Louis Cardinals - AAA - 0.344/1/21
• Lou Marson - Philadelphia Phillies - AA - 0.331/4/41
• Taylor Teagarden - Texas Rangers - AAA - 0.353/5/14

Infielders:

• Chris Davis - Texas Rangers - AAA - 0.333/23/73
• Jason Donald - Philadelphia Phillies - AA - 0.298/10/42
• Chris Getz - Chicago White Sox - AAA - 0.309/6/33
• Mat Gamel - Milwaukee Brewers - AA - 0.381/15/75
• Matt LaPorta - Milwaukee Brewers (currently on the Indians) - AA - 0.291/20/66
• Cliff Pennington - Oakland Athletics - AAA - 0.270/1/26
• Chris Valaika - Cincinnati Reds - AA - 0.312/12/53

Outfielders:

• Dexter Fowler - Colorado Rockies - AA - 0.321/7/49/15
• Greg Golson - Philadelphia Phillies - A - 0.299/7/36/17
• Andrew McCutchen - Pittsburgh Pirates - AAA - 0.280/8/33/23
• Nate Schierholtz - San Francisco Giants - AAA - 0.290/11/51/9
• Denard Span - Minnesota Twins - AAA - 0.340/3/14/15

Tomorrow I will put up the roster for the World team.  The best hitters on this team are probably Gamel, LaPorta, and Davis.  The best pitchers are Cahill, Jepsen and Richard.  Should be fun to see what they can do at Yankee stadium against a very tough World team.

A lot of the readers of my blog are about my age.  Children of the early to late 70s, and early 80s.  One of my all time favorite movie trilogies is Back to the Future staring Michael J Fox.   In 1989 they released the 2nd installment of the movie and in it Fox’s character, Marty McFly wears these futuristic high top Nikes.  A video of them can be seen below:

I definitely don’t have my pulse set to trends in America, but I guess, ever since that movie came out people have been itching for a pair of sneakers just like them.  There is something neat about power laces, I will freely admit that.  But I don’t remember thinking to myself, I gotta have those sneakers.  I guess however, there is a sector of the world that yearns for items like those.  So it was revealed a few months ago that Nike would produce an extremely limited edition production of those shoes.  I’m thinking, cool, power laces!  So the other day Nike unveils them using Kobe Bryant as their pitchman.  They even bring him out in a DeLorean:

And he begins to model the new Nike Hyper Dunks. Better known as the Air McFly.  But guess what, they only made 350 of them.  First off, I’m thinking that’s a load of crap.  They wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of making the sneaker, putting it production, and bringing in Kobe Bryant to model it if they weren’t going to make these en mass.

So I bet you are wondering what they look like?  Surely they have the power laces and they light up like the movie, right? Wrong, they look like any other Nike Air high top.  Here is a good picture of them below, next to what the shoe looked like in the movie:

I would like to think that if Nike was going to do this, they have done it right.  At least make it look like the original.  Instead they made another version of an Air Nike.  Since I couldn’t find how much they were going for initially, I would have to guess anywhere from $200-$300.  But don’t worry, if you didn’t get your pair, you can get them on eBay where they are going for close to $1500 a pair.  They are a pair of shoes people!  WTF? Get some power laces and then ask for $1500 - $2000.  In the mean time you have a limited edition pair of sneakers. Oooooooooooooo.  People are morons.  These will be in mass production in 3 months and then all the idiots that shelled out thousands for the shoe will feel great when in a year’s time they’ll be on the Marshall’s shelves for $50.

Where: Lakewood Blue Claws First Energy Park

When: Sunday June 29, 2008

Why Jim Rice?: This is probably one of the best Hall of Fame debates of all time.  Never have two players been so close but so far in making the Hall of Fame like Jim Rice and Andre Dawson.  First off let me assure you that I absolutely hate the Boston Red Sox as a team.  That being said, I can respect certain players from the history of the Franchise.  Such as Rice, Fisk, Yaz and Dewey.  You don’t have to look up those player’s stats because you know they are good.  In the last 20 years a significant weight has been put on statistics in baseball when electing to the Hall of Fame.

When thinking of whether or not a player deserves to be in the Hall, I ask myself, were there years where this player dominated the game.  If the answer is yes, he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.  If no, if he was great for 2-3 seasons, then no he doesn’t deserve that honor.  In the case of Jim Rice, look at his stats as compared to the other players stats from that generation and it will be evident that in the years 1975 - 1986 he was one of the dominant players in the league.  Take away an injury year in 1980 in which he stats were average, that is still 11 solid seasons.  Here are some of the awards:

1 MVP - 1978

Top 5 in MVP voting  - 6 times (1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1983 and 1986)

ROY runner up 1975 (lost to Fred Lynn who he shared almost identical stats with)

8 time All Star

2 time Silver Slugger

Here are his career stats:

0.298 batting average, 2452 hits, 382 home runs, 1451 RBIs

Of the 10 players who are closest to him statistically 4 are Hall of Fame members:

Orlando Cepeda (1), Duke Snider (3), Billy Williams (6), and Willie Stargell (10).

So to wrap this up, if Baby Bull can get in and Jim has almost the same exact stats (0.297/2351/379/1365) why is Jim Rice not in the Hall?  Was he not a team leader? No he led all those mid 70’s to mid 80s teams.  Was he not one of the most dangerous hitters in that era?  No he was one of the worst guys you could face. So what is holding him back?  Why can’t he get the required votes for Hall entry?  Will he have to wait for the Veteran’s Committee? I don’t have the answers to those questions, I wish I did.  The only thing I can tell you, is that there is a 4 hour line to get his autograph and he’ll stay to sign ever single one of their items.  One thing is for certain, he was definitely loved by many fans.

Angry Chris left some harsh words on another post.  So I decided to take on the card industries. Well sort of . . . To be honest, I want them to crank out set after set, box after box of high priced crap.  And I want the Joe collectors to go out and buy $100 box after $100 box of wax and list their sweet mojo.  I love pack searchers who go out and find the best packs at Walmart and after 60 seconds of looking at the hit list it on eBay.  Do you want to know why?

Because eBay is the only market for our hobby.  Dealers don’t know it yet but they can’t beat the prices on eBay.  Some dealers just work exclusively though eBay (they are the ones who get it). But go to a show and try to haggle, it just doesn’t work.  That’s why I stopped going to shows, they are a rip off, plus they have the gall to charge you just to enter, eBay doesn’t charge me to enter their site and look.  Every card show I went to up until the last one in May had been getting smaller and smaller. While the entry fee went up each time.

I love packsearchers, if you are dumb enough to buy the “hot packs” on eBay you deserved to get ripped off.  I also enjoy buying their game used and autographs for a dollar more than they paid and I didn’t have to look like a loser sorting through the wax at Target and Walmart.  I used to hate packsearchers, but when you start seeing videos like this, it’s hard to feel bad for kids since they are doing it too.

Topps and Upper Deck - Quit your gimmicks.  Go back to the basics and offer autographs of all the players, not just rookies and super stars.  Sometimes I want an autographs of regular players.  Guys like Mike Loretta or maybe someone like Carlos Pena.  You’ve been getting away with this crap for years.  Throwing swarms and swarms of signed rookie cards at us, you do it because the price per signing is cheap.  Why pay a Jason Marquis 2-3 bucks a signature when you can get some AAA schmuck 50 cents a signing, then guarantee 2 crap autographs a pack.

For me I am just going to do what I keep doing.  I like collecting older wax and mainly Topps base sets. I love autographed and game used cards.  I have lots of superstar’s autographs Mantle, Mays, Clemente, Aaron, Rose, DiMaggio . . . what I don;t have are the players no one cares about anymore.  The guys that make up the other 20-23 roster spots on a baseball team.  Guys that no one remembers anymore like Jim Rice and Gorman Thomas.  Maybe a signed Lee Smith card or Bobby Grich.  Would you say no to a Paul Konerko or Pat Burell autograph because they aren’t the hot rookies?  Or maybe you would say no to a Zach Duke or Brian Bannister card?  I think about all the players that I would love to get thier signed cards.  The non rookies and the non superstars.  Why can’t Topps and Upper Deck get those cards?  I bet people would feel better about guaranteed hits if they got players who actually are in the majors.

I don’t think there is much the bloggers out there can do about the industry except vent.  What you can do is stop buying the new boxes, stop going after unproven rookies who will never become superstars (johnny Cueto).  Collect what makes you happy, stop throwing away money at guaranteed hits.  Go on eBay and get your own guaranteed hits, the ones that make you happy to be collecting cards.

Let the card companies do what they do, let Joe Collector go out and blow his cash on crap.  Just sit back and buy his crap on eBay, make him feel ashamed for blowing hundred on boxes and getting $20 in return. Collect your Zach Dukes and Jason Bays and be happy. Just collect the things you like, stop blaming the card companies and Beckett, and rejoice in what you win on eBay after all isn’t that what this hobby is all about? Person tastes?  Enjoy the rest of your weekend and stop outbidding me on cheap autographs.

In the world of baseball card collecting are there two more sweeter words than Rookie Card?  Even growing up in the mid to late 80s, the words rookie card meant finding a undiscovered talent.  Holding on to that card because if he got good, it would mean dollar signs.  Nowadays it’s called prospecting.  Finding the rookie cards of undiscovered talent at a low price and when they make it big, selling off those cards to make a huge profit.  The investors dream buy low (maybe a dollar or two a card), then sell high (50-100 dollars per card).  Sounds so easy, so can’t miss, so how come we can’t do it anymore?

Baseball card manufacturers figured this out between the 1986 and 1987 seasons.  Guys like Jose Canseco, Will Clark, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Wally Joyner were murdering the ball.  Putting up numbers that weren’t seen before by rookies.  So what did they do?  They started to make the rookie card the centerpiece of their product.  They first brought back the Topps Rookie All-Star gold cup and the Future Stars cards.  In 1988 they included the USA baseball team cards in the update, in 1989 we had the 1st round draft pick cards.  The thing was, these cards were still worthless until the player did something.

So we fast forward to 1999, I got back into the hobby after a long break (since 1991) and started to notice that in each year, it was the rookie cards that were worth just as much as veteran cards.  They still had done nothing to prove their worth, but they were being collected as prospects with the potential to become stars. Now let’s look where we currently are.  If you go through the sets (not only baseball, but basketball, hockey and football).  It’s all about the rookie card.  They are the card that is short printed, refracted, autographed, game used, ect. . . The player may not have even gotten his first at bat or delivered his first pitch, and his card may be worth hundreds. Some rare versions of a card may be worth thousands.

The question I find myself asking over and over is why? In 2004 the number one draft pick was Matt Bush.  He was a high school player from San Diego who was drafted by the Padres.  His autographed 2004 Bowman Chrome card was the card to get.  I remember seeing it for $100 at one point.  A sure fire, can’t miss, super prospect. The prospectors were going crazy picking these up.  So how did he do (since it’s now 4 years since he was drafted)? His stats were 0.219/3/70/19 with 158 hits. That wouldn’t be a horrible first year stat line.  Unfortunately those were his career minor league numbers.  He retired last year having never made it to the pros.  The card is actually still worth an absurd $30 according to Beckett.

More recently we can look at Luke Hochevar, drafted by the Royals in 2006 as the first overall pick.  Unlike Matt Bush Luke actually made it to the pros in 2007.  However, being he was a former number one overall pick, his card must be worth hundreds . . . right?  Well, things haven’t gone to well for Luke this season, first off he plays for the Royals which is strike one.  His overall stats this year are 4-5/4.86/1.55.  Those numbers aren’t too impressive.  But don’t tell Rookie Card Fanboy that! He shelled out $100 for Luke’s autographed card in 2006 and he’s just biding his time until Luke breaks out and becomes the next Johan Santana.

The point of this rant is simple.  These prospects can’t live up to what their card is worth.  For every Jay Bruce, there is a Rob Deer, or maybe a Cameron Maybin.  The uber prospect that never lived up to the hype. How can they?  Their cards are worth more than Alex Rodriguez’s, but they will never be as good as he is, so why do the lemmings blindly put their money in these cards?  Is it going to get worse?  Will veteran’s cards ever be worth more?  I don’t know, maybe someday the market might correct itself, but until then what do we do?  I guess just sit back and wait for them to fail right?  Seems a bit sadistic to me.

Maybe someday I will understand this hobby and why people blindly follow Beckett, but until then I’ll just keep swooping up these failed prospect’s autographs for a dollar and think what if?

In a perfect world, my wife would be a sports fan. It is not a perfect world and my wife is more a hockey fan than any other sport. Well I’m not into hockey cards, but I thought it would be fun to collect them with my wife. So what I decided to do was to try and find a hcokey set to collect. One with no short print rookie cards. I know what you’re thinking . . . good luck. True enough that of the 10 major hockey releases from last year, only one has what I would call a perfect set. One where you can get veterans and rookies and there are no short prints.

Over the past few days, I have been going over all the releases for baseball football and hockey. What I’ve noticed is that only the entry level sets allow the collector to pursue a set without short print cards. To illustrate what I mean, let’s take a look at the Topps baseball set from this year. It has everything you expect to find in a set, veterans, rookies, leaders, the works. What’s wrong with that? Nothing! It’s the way a set should be.

Let’s face it, Topps, Upper Deck, Donruss, Beckett, et al . . . they all want you to believe that their product is an investment. So the best investments (so we’ve been told) is the rookie card, so why not short the market of these cards and make people buy more boxes/cases in order to complete sets. Here’s the thing though, cards are not and should not considered to be investments. At a minimum 95% of the product you buy (either retail or hobby) will not even be worth the amount paid for the pack/box/case. So what drives us to continually try to beat the odds?

If you have purchased a box of Upper Deck Series 2, you’ll notice when you get your big hits, that it will mostly be rookies and USA baseball cards (amatuers no less). This is because the companies have numbers they want to hit and it is far cheaper to put in these cards than it is to put in autographs of established players and superstars. Yet we continue to buy them box after box. Could you imagine plunking down 60 bucks on a box of Bowman and pulling autographs of scouts? Are you kidding me? That’s not a gimmick, that’s just plain cheesy. Why the heck would I want an autograph of a scout?

Of course my favorite autograph card has to be the Rip Master and his Rip Bimbos. What the heck is that all about? I don’t see much investment potential in that. I just makes me sick to see all the money that is spent on inferior product. It’s why I have stopped buying retail or hobby and moved straight to eBay for my autograph and game used cards. It’s been said over and over in the othe baseball card blogs, how the gimmicks are killing the industry. I have an idea for UD and Topps, just put out a gimmick set and get it over with. I mean you already have wacky packs, so why not a complete gimmick set. That way you can keep it out of the product we all love so much.

In the end I don’t care how many subsets a set has because chances are I don’t want them. All I want out of my set are the vets, the rooks, the leaders, managers, and award winners. That’s it, keep your refractors and chrome cards, your gold, black, purple, blue, copper, pink and plaid parallels, and just give me a set with no gimmicks. Hey and while you’re at it, list it for a fair price. After all it is just cardboard and ink we are buying. I hope none my readers out there take these sets seriously, and collect cards for the sake of collecting not for the sake of making a buck, because that my friends is almost impossible to do.

Generally speaking, I do like reviews of products. Since getting back into the hobby and starting to look at all the designs. I have found lots of cool designs and quite a few failed ones. This season’s Topps design is very cool. I like the subway station marquee of the team names. There is also a classic feel to the card as well. An example of a product this year I didn’t like was Upper Deck 08. Mainly because the names were tough to see, and there really isn’t any design to the card. It’s a photo with the name of the player on the card.

The idea of designing a card to me, is that just by once glance at the card, you can tell right away what year it was from. For example let’s take the following cards:

If you have been collecting cards for the past few years and know any of the history of Baseball cards, you should know it’s 1979, 1986, and 2005 Topps.  Very distinct designs, you’d never have to guess from what year it’s from.  Now let’s look at three Upper Deck Designs and you tell me what year it’s from.

I freely admit, it just might be me, but there is no definitive look to any Upper Deck card.  Now I don’t deny that the pictures are outstanding, but there isn’t any immediate feature that grabs my attention to let me know what year it’s from.

The reason I went this route is to compare it to the current reviews at Beckett.  First off, I don’t think you can be objective, when the card companies are sending you the product to review.  To copare to another review guide, do you think Consumer’s Report gets freebies?  Of course not!  They buy the product and review it.  That is how Beckett should be doing this.  Let’s face it the UD product may contain better photography and more memorabilia and autographs, but overall, it’s the same crap being issued year after year.  Beckett, too afraid to bite the hand that feeds them will never ever admit to that.  I have seen on many blogs, the hits Beckett gets are nothing like the ones you’ll get from a typical box.  There are tales of conspiracy between Beckett and Upper Deck, which might very well be true, but I think what Beckett should do is go out and buy a few boxes from some of the dealers that advertise with them and let’s see what they get. Or better yet, get it off eBay.

I read one review of late that gives the product high marks for it’s parallels.  Are you kidding me?  I don’t know about you, but when I get parallels, they make me sick to my stomach.  I don’t care if it is a 1/1, it’s the same damn card as the base only it’s shiney (oooooooo).  Give me a break. Let’s start with 5 stars for a set, if they have more than one parallel, minus 1 star, more than 5 parallels, minus 2 stars.  Then we get to the whole SP rookie card idea.  In my mind, that alone is minus a star and a half.  Why SP rookie cards?  Does that even make sense.  Suppose years from now you have to finish a set who SP rookie cards.  Only the guy you need never made it to the majors and your forced to fork over big bucks for a scrub.

Get the parallels out of the sets, get more game used and autographs into the sets, and stop giving us tons and tons of rookie autos.  I think if a reviewer gets any of that in the box they should immediately pan the set.  Of the 30 reviews I’ve seen in the past months, There wasn’t a single one that didn’t like the product and none with an overall of less than 3 stars.  Come on Beckett, rip UD a new one every once in a while.  It’s not even fun to read the reviews anymore.  I’m curious about how you feel about this.

When I got back into collecting sports cards last year, it was mainly due to two blogs. Ben Henry’s Baseball Card Blog and Mario Alejandro’s Wax Heaven. About a week ago, Ben said on his website that by the end of the year he was going to ramp it down. Yesterday Mario said that by July 1st he would like to scale back also. This is definitely a blow to the blogging universe for cards.

Being a daily blogger (when it’s not your full time job) is a difficult proposition.  Sure the first month you pound out tons of posts and everything is running smoothly.  Then you have to take that first trip and you sweat out how you are going to post while you are away.  You get it done though, then you realize that you are not spending enough time with your significant other, that leads to scaling back to a post a day.  Then you might get sick or get a big project at work, your blog takes a hit and you feel like you are letting down your readers.

I think these two guys are just plain tired. I always felt it would be cool to dedicate one site to a bunch of authors, kind of like what a pack a day was like. You think about all the great blogs about cards and the different views we all have, I think it would be great.  In the end, I think that both Mario and Ben got burned out.  I can definitely see how that happens.  I really want Operation Topps to be an every day post, but sometimes, it’s just too much to put together in a day.  So I’ve cut back on my end, but at least I try and get at a minimum one post a day.

Somehow I think these two Blog giants are going to come back, either in a full or half throttle mentality.  I want to thank both of them for creating a place for all of us card geeks to come to and to air our voices.  If it is truly the last year (or month) for both of them, I wish them both the best of luck and to make a surprise post every once in a while.  Like the card industry, it’s real easy to burn out.  Hopefully, they won’t retire and will continue to post great insight into the collector’s universe, but hey I completely understand if they do. If anyone wants to get involved with a group blog site, where each member can post once a week please get in touch with me at chemgod1000@yahoo.com, maybe we can come up with some sort of e-zine.

Good luck to both Mario and Ben in all their future en devours!

I have always tried to adhere to one major policy when blogging.  Don’t write a post when you are pissed off.  Well, I guess you can scratch that from my list of things I haven’t done, because today is going to be ugly.  I woke up this morning with a migraine, I have a physical today (haven’t eaten since 6:30 last night), and I have more to do at work today than I can possibly finish.  For those of you who don’t understand the difference between a migraine and a head ache, let me try to explain it.  A migraine is just like a headache, but it comes with the added pleasures of nausea, light sensitivity, vertigo, and audio amplification.  Oh and the best part is that it lasts for 18-24 hours.  Basically it’s like sitting 2 feet from a fire while someone is screaming in your ear.

Enough about my problems, let’s get to the new Beckett’s problems.  This may seem petty, but one of the better new sections of Beckett, is the starter set of the month.  Where the powers that be determine what would be a good set to start with if you were coming back into the industry or just starting out.  This could be such a great section, especially for kids looking to figure out where to start their collections.  Instead it has become another advertisement in a sea of them.

First off, lately it seems that every recommendation is from this year’s product.  Usually it’s the current year’s Upper Deck base set.  Now I will tell you, if you are getting back into the hobby after a long break, it’s always good to start off with the base sets, just to see the current players and where the hobby stands as far as inserts.  What I think this section is for though, is to find those low valued products that although may not be worth a lot of money, they look great and are an inexpensive way to get started.  Instead what we end up getting is an advertisement for the newest sets that have come out.

What I don’t understand is that they have actually did it right with their 10 under 10 section.  Where they show you 10 cards of hot players you can get for under 10 dollars.  They don’t necessarily guide you to new product for that one.  To give you an example of what I expect from this set is, say 2000 Upper Deck Ionix.  Many people in the hobby today have no idea what I’m talking about.  But it was a fun set to collect, you can get a box of wax for under $20 and the set for even less.  You get rookies and stars, and even have chances to pull autographs.

Instead I am guided to 2008 Upper Deck, or 2008 Topps Heritage.  I know those sets, I can get them at Target if I wanted to.  Find me something that I’m going to have to go to my hobby shop to get.  Show me something I might have overlooked.  The best thing about blogs today is you get to see product, that you may never get to see.  For example, Ben over at the Baseball Card Blog did countdowns of the sets from the 80s and 90s.  Sets that I never got a chance to see because I was out of the world of collecting.

That’s what I want to see from this section of Beckett.  I want to hear about sets that I might have overlooked. Maybe some great designed cards that never took off (Ionix).  Pacific had some cool sets like the Crown Royale, Revolution and Invincible.  Tristar and Just had some great prospect sets, but they are never listed because people look down on them or in Pacific’s case, they don’t exist anymore.  I want to learn about the hobby, I want to know what I’ve missed these past 8 years. I don’t want advertisements and I don’t want someone telling me that this is a good “investment”.

There are no good investments in baseball cards.  If you want to invest go into real estate.  I’m sick of hearing about this investment and that investment when it comes to cards.  The only things I collect are autographs, game used, and Topps base sets. I don’t do it for the money because, there is little to no money to be made. I do it because I love collecting signatures or jerseys.  Someone telling me that a pack of $4 2008 Press Pass, which contain 6 cards and 5 are guaranteed to fail in the NFL is not a good investment. So stop selling it as an investment.  Also I’d love to see Beckett just slam a product that is being advertised in their magazine.  They would never do it, you can’t bite the hand that feeds you.  I’d be willing to pay for more if someone out there would put out a magazine, that actually reviews products and tells you if it sucks or not.  It seems that every review in Beckett is a fluff piece.

I should save that rant for another time though.  Instead, let’s get some feedback on how you feel about this section or any other section of the new Beckett.

Over the past few months, I’ve been reading the new Beckett and my anger has been building up.  Over the next few days, I am going to break down what I hate about what Beckett has become.  The first section I’d like to address is the great pull section.

As the “boxes” of wax have begun to skyrocket, and I quote boxes, because some of these so called boxes are really just one pack, I have noticed that the great pulls section has boasted more and more of these premium items.  I don’t know about you, but my car payment is about $350, I just can’t justify buying a box that costs as much as my car payment.  I can’t even justify half of that.

I realize that the prices have gone up for everything related to the card business.  You have the ink, the card stock, the production prices and the licensing.   You know what, it’s not cheap, I get that.  Look at it from our perspective, a box of UD Black runs about $175 and you get 2 packs of 1 card each.  The average Joe is going to pull two $40 cards. Meaning the average person is going to lose $95 everytime he buys a box.  I don’t get it?  I don’t understand how anyone can want to throw down half a car payment and get about half of their money back on cards.

The last issue was almost all pulls from $200 + packs, to me that is a kick in the jaw!  A great pull is going to Walmart and opening up a pack of cards from a blaster box or a blister pack and hitting a 1 in 15,000 pack hit.  It’s not buying a $90 pack of cards that are guaranteed, an autographed piece of game used, when your odds of hitting it are 1:1 pack.  That is not a great hit.  No pulling a Manny Ramirez World Series autograph from a Topps 2008 series one box bought at Target or Walmart, not that’s a great hit.

Also, and this has been bothering me ever since Beckett added this section years and years ago, why do the pictures have the hobby shop owner in there?  He didn’t get the hit, he might have sold the box, but really he is just a middleman.  To see his happy smiling face, kills me because of two reasons.  He is grinning ear to ear because he now has a customer for life and since that customer is playing with “house money” he is going to spend even more money than he originally wanted to because he is on a baseball pack high.  think about it though if you bought a pack from Manny’s Card Emporium and nailed a Babe Ruth autograph, you tail would be there weekly hoping to get that next high.  So when you see that smiling hobby shop owner’s face, realize the windfall he is going to be getting from this collector in order for them to get thier next baseball card high.

Finally, why in the world would I care about what the people from the Beckett Forum thought about the hit, all I care about is how much the card is worth, the odds in hitting it, the price paid for the box or pack, the guy’s name and address, you know so he can get robbed (dumbest thing ever in my opinion). I could care less what Bob from Sheboygan thinks about the card.  I don’t even care about how many big hits the hobby store has seen.  Make it short and sweet and let’s see the people, not the card. After all their baseball high looks always make me laugh.

Sorry there haven’t been any posts the last 2 days, I’ve had a stomach bug that has had me lurking around the base of the toilet for 2 days.  Finally had some buttered toast this morning and I feel halfway decent.  The weather down here sucks it’s been almost a 100 with 95% humidity for 5 straight days now, with now rain, so I’m sure that had something to do with it.  As far as Operation Topps goes, I will get another review on later today or tomorrow morning.  Also I bought a ton of new autographs over the past few weeks that I can’t wait to share with you, keep in mind these are the 1 cent to 2 dollar variety, but still, not too shabby.  Have a great Sunday and see you all bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday!