Watch Ken Burns Baseball!!!

You need to see Ken Burns documentary on Baseball. I know many of you may have done this years ago. I didn't realize how long I had let pass until I finally got around to seeing it. Now, with Netflix and Blockbuster Total Access so prevalent, there is really no excuse anymore. I had never actually seen it in a video store for rent before, but once I looked it up on-line on Blockbuster there it was. It is absolutely tremendous, and will increase most people's baseball knowledge tenfold. My entire life I have known who Honus Wagner was, but had I ever seen him play? Did I know he was so bowlegged it looked like he could barely walk? Did I know an old Honus Wagner showed up a young Ty Cobb by out playing him in a World Series? Nope. Do your self a favor, watch it, or watch it again.

Another $.99 Find

I don't know how you guys feel about e-bay. I have liked it, and I have hated it. I have bought and sold, been disappointed and pleasantly surprised. I've gotten cards in conditions I would have never sold, and I have gotten surprisingly gradable cards I am surprised people have sold. All in all, you never really know what you are going to get. Sometimes I feel things are just simply overpriced on there, and then moments later I will think that e-bay is killing card values and ruining the hobby. Don't get me wrong, I am not in this just for the money. I don't need a book to tell me what cards are valuable so I can like just them. However, with the prices that we are paying for these products there needs to be some tangible value in them to justify the cost. If packs were transparent, and we could select what we wanted to purchase at a set price, then we could say that cards simply have the value placed on them by their owners. In e-bay we have basically that. However, most people still enjoy the mystery of opening the pack. The chance there might be something special inside. The excitement of the unknown. Packs are our slot machines, and even slot machines are regulated to ensure there is some value coming out of them.

So that brings me to my 99 cent find on e-bay. To me this card holds much more value, but there is a balance there. The balance is what amount am I willing to part with to have it, versus what inherent value I place on the card. I have no problem saying that I would probably part with no more then $5 for the card. Yet once in my collection it obtains a sentimental value of no less then $30. Why you ask? For one, I consider myself a Maybin fan. Second, I enjoy jersey cards. To me they add a personal touch that simply a piece of cardboard with a photo cannot achieve. Third, I Love jersey cards in which the jersey in question can be identified. Now there are lots of ways the companies get around this. Rather then the All-Star Jersey, its the event worn all-star jersey...etc. So in this case I don't know for sure that this jersey card is really the one worn in the photo, but when they are the same color, and they claim to be, I like to take the optimists approach and believe. I believe that this is the next logical step in g/u apparel. It will simply not be enough anymore to say something is game worn. We are going to need pieces of those jerseys when that shut-out, three HR, game 7's, actually occurred. For rookies, the debut game worn jerseys are going to be huge. Plus it can give people some real good reasons to go after second year stuff of the hot rookies, which is always good for the companies and the hobby.

Another example of one of my identifiable game worn cards

The Great Fan-Fest Card Give-Away!!!

Well, although I have yet to receive a comment on my blog, my site tracker tells me people are reading it, or at least looking at it. It seems nowadays with the internet there is no card that you really can't find a picture of if you really want to see it. However, for those who might have missed it, I thought I would put up THE card which got me back in the hobby and writing this blog.

It's a beauty aint it? I really do love the design of these All Star Game cards in this years topps. Would have been nice if it was the base design for this years release wouldn't it?

Well.... in a shameless self promotion I have decided to offer those readers, who would be kind enough to leave a comment, a chance at an Official 2007 MLB All Star Game Fan Fest card at absolutly no cost to them!! All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog between today, and the 15th of February, and I will put all the names of those who commented in a hat and randomly draw a winner to receive the card. I will then e-mail the winner for their mailing address (U.S. only please).
I can not currently say which card I will select, but I can say that it will come from this Upper Deck All Star Set, it will be a rookie, and the more comments I receive the better player it will be. I will need a minimum of 10 different people to comment to make it worth it, so, if you would like a cool card you could only get at the All Star Game, and you don't mind taking a second to comment, then Good Luck you just might win!!

Nothing Beats an Ichiro Pokemon Card!!

Big thanks go out to Topps and Bowman for issuing this Ichiro Pokemon card. I can't wait to play it against some cocky little kid at the local dork shop. My Ichiro slaps your Pikachu into left for a base hit, then he steals second and scores on a lazy bloop hit to center! Take that you little yellow rat-cat-hamster looking thing!!

There is really no such thing as an uncool Ichiro card.

The Next Griffey Jr.

Can you imagine being a team on the verge of a championship. A team with great pitching, great hitting, fan support, and ownership willing to spend the money to build a championship. Then imagine that you make a trade to bring in Miguel Freaking Cabrera and Dontrelle Freaking Willis. Personally as a Giant fan I can't imagine that. It just isn't possible. Isn't possible that is unless you are willing to part with CAMERON FREAKING MAYBIN! I just can't tell you how disappointing it is going to be that this guy is going to be nearly invisible in Florida until either the Yankees or Red Sox trade for him. I can't even fathom having a prospect like this guy to look forward too. An 8 day stop in Double A where he hit 4 home runs in 8 days before going to the show. At 19? I respect Detroit for the balls to trade this guy, and I don't deny that they got extreme talent for this guy in return. It just breaks my heart that 1k people a game will see this guy put on a Marlins uniform, instead of the millions that should have been watching him in the playoffs and World Series with Detroit.

Is there some kind of ballot when can sign and pass around to get him off the Marlins? Do you think they would take Dave Roberts, Randy Winn, Ray Durham, and Rich Aurillia for him? On second thought they would probably trade him to us just to keep those guys off the team.

Feels Good

Sometimes it is nice when $1.99 still feels good. For a lot of collectors, just pulling a base card of a good player still produces joy. For others it takes a big hit for any pack or box to be worth it. For myself I can still get pretty happy over pulling a young kid in Orange and Black. Problem is there have not been alot of young kids wearing those colors as of late. So for the price of a pack from the local store, and one heck of alot less then a blaster, I picked up something I just might be able to get excited about down the road. Here is to $1.99 worth of Hope.

"Bowker is a 24-year-old outfield prospect who hit .307 with 22 homers, 90 RBI, 70 runs, three steals, a .363 OBP and a .523 OBP in 522 Double-A at-bats last season. "

Who should return in 2008?

With so many products out there it would behove the Big 2 card companies to look long and hard at which products they chose to bring back, and which to let go bye bye. There is little doubt that certain products go over like a lead balloon, while others that might have had a few bright moments, or years, can tend to wear out and become dated like old moldy bread. Sure the stuff was great when it was fresh, but it just didn't keep. So the question is.... what to keep. In the vain hope that some employees might be looking to us, the baseball card community, for insight, I say we provide what feedback we can. Here are a few ideas I can really get behind.

Bring Back Goudey:

As an "nearly" exclusive Topps collector, there are just a few products I will leave my comfort zone to collect. Hot off the heals of my love for TA&G, I plopped down the cash for a hobby box of this UD product. I have to say, I really like it. That being said the release price of $110 a box was WAY to high. Bring this product back with a $80 tag, and watch it soar off the shelves. It can't be that pricey of a product to make, certainly no more so the TA&G, so don't price out the average collector with the high price tag. Even $90 and you would be more consumer friendly. If you look now you can easily find this product on Dave and Adams for between $80 and $90 now, which makes it a real tempting late season pick up.

Come on Bowman.... Seriously:

I guess this is more of a question then an idea. The question is are we going to honor the Rookie Card logo or not? That is not even the only question. The other is if Bowman will even be honest about their own cards. This First Bowman Card crap is just that.... crap! I have found multiple times already where this logo is fictitiously placed on player's cards who have previous Bowman releases. I for one am in favor of the Rookie Logo, and I would like to see it enforced. One of the reasons this years card sales were as strong as they were is because guys like Lincecum and Joba had their first releases in this years sets. These card companies benefit from the rookie buzz created by guys like Dice-K, Ichiro and Pujols. They need to learn that holding the release of such stars will benefit them greatly in overall sales. Are they seriously that worried about losing market share to Just? As long as other companies can't get the license, there is no need for Upper Deck and Topps to smite themselves by defusing rookie buzz with topps chrome releases 4 years to early. This is Not Cameron Maybin's first Bowman card. Nor is it Adrian Cardenas's in this years Bowman DPP.

Add a Watermaked '08 logo to '52 Rookies:

Pretty soon this is just going to get confusing. If Topps insists in continuing this line, then they are really going to need to differentiate the cards more then just the copywrite logo on the back. It wouldn't kill them to put an '08 on the back of the card or something. Then again an even better idea is to keep the concept, all the rookie eligible players from the given year, and change the design. Anything else just seems lazy.

SF25

Sometimes you find just the right card to suit you. That was the case for me today on E-Bay. I am a Barry Bonds fan. I will not apologize for that. I don't care that he is an asshole. I am an asshole too for the most part. I don't even want to be stopped out in public by people I know, why would anyone want to be stopped by people they didn't even know? I duck and hide in fact so they won't see me just so I don't have to talk to them. Kids? Don't have them, don't want them, and don't even think yours are that cute. So if I feel this way, why should I care if a baseball player does? As for the steroids thing, guess what, your favorite player was doing them too.

In May of 2003 my Father told me that his long battle with cancer would be coming to an end. My father was the greatest man that I ever had the privilege to know. His fight was courageous but like all of our heroes death was the one thing he could not overcome. Just one week after he told me, I had tickets for all of us to go to a Giants game together. In that one week my father had gone from looking healthy and good, to looking sickly and needing a wheelchair. But he fought through it to brave the brisk air of the San Francisco Bay. Not so much for himself, but to give me that one last memory I so wanted to share with him. Twins got out to an early lead that night. They were up 3-0 and there was little the Giants could do. Bonds tripled to give the giants their first run of the game. They would tie the game in the 8th. In the 9th Bonds was due up a distant 6th, but with a rally the Giants loaded the bases on a 7 pitch walk by Rich Aurillia. That brought up Barry with nowhere to put him and two outs in the inning. Barry won the game with a walk-off hit in the 9th. My last memory with my Dad is the crack of the ball off Barry's bat, and leaving the game with smiles on our faces as my favorite player, the God Son of his favorite player, won the game with two outs in the 9th.

I tell you that to tell you this. If Barry Bonds took steroids to be a better baseball player.... SO BE IT!!! If my favorite player cared that much to risk his own health to be the best he could possibly on the diamond, who am I to complain for the memories he gave me.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN200306040.shtml

Thanks Barry, We Love you!

Joba!

Well, I promised a breakdown of the boxes from Wednesday, but in the process of sorting through the cards I came across this!

Yeah, kind of an idiot for not knowing I had a Joba Chamberlain reverse negative rookie for two full days, but I don't actually expect to pull cards like this. Of couse it is an error card so the bottom will fall out of the value like a rock, but still, pretty cool pull. I probably still wouldn't know I had it but as I was sorting the cards I had a Joba on top and slid the reverse negative one out from below, once they are side by side they scream out at you. Anyway, the card is up on E-Bay now (I am not a big Error card guy) but if anyone wants to make a trade offer I will always listen. I will try to come up with some want lists soon since I am posting more stuff on line now. I am in the process of my first trade with Chis Harris of Stale Gum, and have found the experience thus far terrific.

Out of the other box of Topps Update, at least I assume it was the other box since I didn't even know I had it, came this.

That beauty is numbered #2/7, of course with 493 other home run relics numered to 7 that is at least 3451 of them. Still Mantle Relic and Joba Chamberlain error, this was a Yankee box all around. Now if I just didn't live in San Francisco.

My Box of Topps 52 Rookies will most likely be my last. If anyone out there just have to have a Jensen Lewis or Joseph Bisenius Autograph rookie card, let me know I have bought two boxes, and got one in each. What are the freaking chances of that!?! Less then pulling a Relic numbered to 7 that is really 3451.

Enough History Already

Sorry for the drawn out history of my return to the hobby. It was all I could think about writing in the beginning, but perhaps something a bit more current is due. Last night was a banner night in the Weasel household. Or as we call it the Weasel Farm. In one glorious afternoon two wondrous packages arrived. The first, 3 boxes of Baseball cards from Dave and Adams Card World. The second... my Ninetendo Wii. What kind of ass gets two things like that in the same day you ask? No I am not rich, no I am not stupid, but yes I am Lucky to have an understanding Wife who allows me to act like a child since we have none. The fact is, the Wii only cost me $200 and a little piece of my soul. In my first ever soiree into the ultra premium world of cards, I worked a full day of overtime to buy a box of Bowman Sterling Football. After heading down to the local card shop, I plopped down a cool $200 on the box. Through the first 5 packs it seemed my 48 hour week was in vain. Then in pack six I saw my Wife pause and stare at a card in slight confusion (we open all the packs together). I could see she was holding a black shinny card, but I couldn't see of who. I asked her to let me see it. It was a beauty. JaMarcus Russell Jersey/Auto Black Refractor #/10. NICE. By far the best card I have ever pulled. Well maybe my Billy Ripken F'face card I got at the mall and then screamed in joy as I showed my Mom how it said F'face. But this was a nice card indeed. I tell you this cause the card is gone now. In what I believed to be a responsible move I decided if I really wanted a Wii, I would have to give up something to get it. So anyway, now I have a Wii, but not a JM Black Refractor. All in all I will get a lot more use out of the Wii.

On the flip side, before all that developed I had made a purchase on DACW and was waiting for my package to arrive. It did, and I had 2 hobby boxes of Topps Updates & Highlights, and 1 box of Topps '52 rookies to open. The same day the Wii came. Good day, huh? I will break down these boxes with scans a little later, but I will say I was disappointed that my Wife didn't get to find a Poley Walnuts card in her packs, I was really hoping she would as I had not told her about it yet. To this day she still thinks the Jack the Ripper card in the TA&G set was the coolest card ever.

Also when there are about 75 possible autographed cards in a set that comes three to a box, what are the chances of getting two of the same three out of 2 boxes bought from different dealers on opposite coasts?

After the All-Star Game

Once the dam was broke, the cards flowed like wine. It was trouble. Everything was new. Every idea I saw on a card was the first time I had seen it. I got jersey cards of guys like Carlos Beltran and thought I was looking at $50 cards. I mean two jersey hits in a box... the box costs $100 bucks... this guy plays in New York. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!! I got hit and hit hard by Topps Allen & Ginter. I had never seen anything like it. This stuff was SWEET. Sure that first box with the Gagne and Aurillia hits was a little week but man, this stuff had MINI cards in it!!!

One weekend and $1000 latter, I looked at my BJ Upton printing plate, my Hanley Ramirez autographed mini, my Dice-K high number mini rip rookie (yes I got a rip card after buying nearly a full case), and my stack of jersey cards, and thought I had hit the big time. I also felt extremely sick to my stomach over the binging I had just done, without any purging. Total amount spent: over 1k, total amount earned probably less then $500. Aww, truly this is the hobby of kings.

All-Star Fan-Fest 2007

The All-Star Game. In San Francisco. What could be better? Well for all the Barry Bonds haters in the world, I am sure anything would be better. As a long time Giants fan however, I was in heaven. Not the kind of heaven that would permit me to drop a few thousand on a ticket or anything, but enough to join the festivities at Fan-Fest. So I bought my tickets on-line, told my Wife it would be the experience of a life time, hoped in the car and made the hour and a half drive to the City. I hadn't bought a pack of cards in years, probably about ten years to be exact, but I had read on-line that Topps and Upperdeck were going to have pack redemption set up at their booths, and that Tim Lincecum was going to be one of the cards available. Having loved collecting in the past, the thought of an exclusive Lincecum card only available to those at Fan-Fest really got me going. I guess it didn't matter to me that all the cards I still had in screw downs and top loaders were worth less then a tenth of what they were worth when I stored them away. I never really stopped to wonder why my $300 cards were worth $30. All I knew was this was true collecting. I didn't care about the worth of the card, or the rarity, I just wanted that Lincecum card.... for me. That is what this hobby was supposed to be about right? The cards you wanted cause they meant something to YOU. Not the card shop owner, or that nameless person on ebay, but cause you wanted it?

Anyway.... I was excited. We got down to Fan-Fest and made a mad dash to the Topps booth where we were informed that they weren't selling the packs, those needed to be bought from the dealers at the show, but we did need to open them at the Topps booth. So after scouting out a dealer and purchasing some (what I know now was overpriced) packs of Topps Series 2, we returned to the booth were we had to stand behind a guy opening a full box of Heritage and redeeming every five packs for a Mantle card (still the obsession with Mantle?). So after the Mantle guy got his 5 or so redemption cards (for himself I am sure, there is know way he was going to sell those right?) I stepped up with my few packs and went through the motions of opening packs I had no interest in, so I could hand the wrappers over for my prized Lincecum. Then something tragic happened. My Wife discovered opening packs could be FUN! After we got our first Lincecum card it seemed that our mission was accomplished, but the buzz of opening packs hung in the air and there were more cards available for redemption. Here is where the train jumped the track. Rather then buying some more packs and going back and getting my favorite player Barry Bonds one time redemption card, we went back for a second Lincecum so that we could try our luck on ebay, and thus the innocence was lost.