Pitchers, Paul Skenes, Football cards and my strange fascination with Eddie Murray post-playing career cards

 

 

I don’t collect pitchers.

            Let me be more specific…I don’t collect pitchers who don’t play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. And I probably shouldn’t even do that, considering how much their current pitching coach seems to be hell bent on ruining these young kids’ careers.

            I present three examples:

            All three of these young pitchers were supposed to be a part of the Pirates future, now they talk about them like after thoughts.

            I used to collect pitchers. Back when I was a kid. The era of complete game, twenty wins, and the potential to have a Hall of Fame career spanning 300 wins. Call me old fashioned but I’m just not that excited by Clayton Kershaw reaching 200 wins at the age of 35, or Max Scherzer reaching 200 wins at the age of 37. And I understand the era we’re in, and probably staying in. It’s all about heat, velocity and spin, and everything else that makes it even more unnatural for the human arm to pitch.

            Hence Tommy John becoming a household name during the baseball season.

            Especially in Pittsburgh where even our catchers are getting Tommy John.

            See you in 2025 Endy.

            And with hitters working on bat speed, launch angles, etc. I get that pitching has to change so that the game remains competitive.

            That said, major league batting averages hovered at .248 last season…a slight improvement over .243 in 2022.

            But you might be able to explain that away with some of the changes made to the game.

            So, no, I don’t collect pitchers.

            I still can’t help myself though…especially when a guy like this comes along.

            College champion. Drafted number one overall, highest ever signing for a prospect. Most likely (if he can keep himself away from Oscar Marin) will be pitching in Pittsburgh come June.

            It’s hard not to get excited over Paul Skenes…even though I did call him “Walking Tommy John” surgery when he was drafted in July.

            I’m sorry.

            It’s hard not to with pitchers these days.

            But maybe Paul Skenes will have a major career in the Big Leagues.

            And us fans can celebrate his 200^th win…at the age of 38.

 

            I also don’t prospect…okay, unless it’s the Pirates.

           Is it just me…or does Eddie Murray have some of the coolest post-playing cards out there?

            I don’t know if I’m attracted to the orange/black combo or what, but every single time I’m on a site buying cards of guys for my PC, I keep ending up buying Eddie Murray cards.  I mean I liked Eddie Murray when I was a kid. I keep cards of his with my Hall of Famer cards. But I wouldn’t say I was a rabid collector. If they keep making cards like his 2023 Archives I will be.

            Or maybe there's just no such thing as a bad Eddie Murray card.

 

Ah, Football cards. What is there for me to say about football cards. I’ll be honest. I dedicate maybe 10%-15% of the Hobby to Football cards. They’re too expensive in my view. You never get enough base cards of regular players. I don’t know what it is about Panini and football cards, but I don’t need cards of retired players in a base card set: 

Looking at you Score and Donruss.

And the card designs are rather…meh.

They seem to look the same year in and year out.

I don’t see the point in buying football cards other than for the players I like and Steelers team sets.

Even that is lackluster.

You have a card for the back-up QB and the dude you picked up from the Vikings.

And you leave out Cam Heyward?

I’m actually looking forward to the Topps/Fanatics behemoth getting the Football license back in the next year or so. Not because I like monopolies. I don’t. If I had it my way Topps would be competing with other licensed companies for ALL sports.

There I go being old again, I guess.

But I honestly believe that Tops/Fanatics will put out a better Football product. At least with base cards they will. They can’t do any worse than what Panini is doing at this point.

Happy Collecting!

            

Heritage High Number and Collecting 2024....I'm back baby!

 

I don’t know what happened this past fall.

                Acute anxiety and the general doldrums are two of the culprits.

                But I just wasn’t feeling it with cards. I wasn’t feeling it as a collector. I felt scattered and all over the place. From October 2023 to this past Saturday, I think I bought a box of 2023 Update (vastly over-rated) and a few Archives singles from Pirates and other players that I collect.

                …and that was it.

                I’ve spent the time trying to figure out what made me turn away, especially considering I was feeling a lot of anxiety in other aspects of my life. I got back into cards in 2019 to help me COPE with my anxiety. Were they no longer working? Had my anxiety gotten that bad again? Or was I being a cheapskate, as I often am. Was there simply no card product out there that I was remotely interested in? Oh, God, was I just one of those dudes who jumped back into the Hobby for a little bit, predating the Covid dudes by just a few months?

                It was a little bit of everything.

                Except the Covid dude part.

                I’m not looking to make a profit with cards.

                I’m looking for enjoyment.

                Why wasn’t I enjoying?

                I didn’t have the answers. But as the year waned, and I started thinking about 2024, the new baseball season, etc.; I started to feel that itch. That Itch to buy cards. That itch to rip packs.

                So, I made my first card purchase of the season.

                Yeah…I know…wow.

                But it was wow enough to me that I spent a Sunday morning ripping packs and collating the High Number set, drinking coffee and listening to Ryan Adams albums. It felt good being back in the room where I store my cards. I’d been in there so infrequently the past so many weeks. Felt good to mess with the collection again. Felt good to think about the kind of collector I really want to be.

                And I’ve narrowed that down to five things

1.       Topps Base and Heritage set building

2.       Pittsburgh Pirates cards and all that entails: team sets, PCs etc.

3.       Pittsburgh Steeler cards and all that entails.

4.       PCs for other players that I collect.

That’s not too far from what I’ve been doing, but I want it to be a focus; especially building Pirates and Steeler player PCs, and team sets for as far back as my honest dollar will go. And I’m going to try and keep this blog regular. At least a couple of times I month.

Anyway…here are the highlights from the two Heritage High Number boxes:

Got a big Oneil Cruz, which I hope symbolizes the big comeback year he’s going to have.

(Realize now I should've put the regular Cruz card next to it...perhaps an image update)

I loath the Atlanta Braves. Have since I was 17 years old. I don’t collect any Braves players from my childhood and teen years, and I don’t collect any of them playing now. Not even Acuna.

But I collect one Brave.

I genuinely love these inserts and might try to get them all.

Got my proverbial “hits”

Apparently, there are card images in reverse, of which Mr. Volpe showed up again.

Ugh…and I did one thing with this year’s Heritage (I’m talking the Low Numbers here) that I haven’t done with the others sets I’m still working on…I put them in binders.

And then Topps did this.

Yep…that’s a few hundred cards I now have to shift.

Overall, I like this year’s Heritage.  I do wish that Topps would stop with the SP cards, considering we’ve reached 1974 when sets were brought out as one and not in series that became scarce because no one bought enough of them at the time. I also wish that Topps would stop treating Heritage High Number as Series 2 and Update. I think most Heritage collectors are doing it for nostalgia purposes, so we’re well-versed in not seeing players in their new uniforms until the following season’s cards. It’s okay to just focus on players you haven’t made cards of yet.

But those are minor complaints.

And I’m glad this malaise or whatever it was with collecting, has kind of burned off of me.

I’m glad I’m not a Covid collector dude.