Thank You 2024 Topps Chrome

 

I was going to go to the 2024 National.

            I had selected the days off at work nearly a year before it.

            I had plans.

            I was either going to book a hotel room and fly into Cleveland, or else I was going to kill two birds with one stone, fly into Pittsburgh and visit family, and then take a day trip to Cleveland to go to my first National Sports Card Collectors Show.

            I repeat…I was going to go to the 2024 National.

            It was some time around February of this year, when I found myself in bed, unable to get out of it because of anxiety and fear, turned to my side, and just watching the only true snowfall we had from my bedroom window, that I knew I wasn’t going to spend the money on a hotel room, a flight, to Cleveland or Pittsburgh, that there’d be no strolling from vendor to vendor, spending the money I’d set aside for cards that I’ve been wanting since I got back into collecting five years ago.

            There’d be none of that.

            I wasn’t going to the National.

            Instead, I’ve spent the better part of 2024 falling down, climbing out of and falling back down again, into the pit of some of the worst anxiety I’ve had in my life.

            I had such high hopes for 2024 too.

            I was turning 50.

            The poetry gods had blessed me in December 2023 and January 2024 with some of the best poems I’d written in a long time.

            I finished a novella and it was going to come out on a press.

            I dusted off the Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukoski and was going to have a good old nostalgia trip.

            I was going to go to The National.

            But then February happened.

            Around the middle of July, when I certainly KNEW, I wasn’t going to the National, a bit of that good ol’ FOMO began to creep in. My wife was going that same weekend on her annual “girls weekend,” and I was going to be stuck at home, by my own devices, of course. I made New York City plans. I was going to walk bridges. I was going to finally find where the notorious Five Points area of New York was located. I was going to see some writer’s homes and eat a shit ton of pizza, doing some classic NYC pizza tourism.

            I was going to buy myself some cards to try and quell that FOMO feeling.

            But what?

            I don’t buy much new product outside of Topps base. We have some sports cards shops in Gotham, but they weren’t going to have those cards that I was certain to find at the National. But I had to get something to make up for missing out. And I had that money saved. I was in one of those “climbing back up” periods to this year’s anxiety world tour. What was I going to get to scratch this sports card itch, one, to be quite frank, I wasn’t scratching at very often this year.

            Then I saw this and said why not?

            I’d never bought Chrome in pack form before. I’d bought singles. I wasn’t a massive chrome fan. But I liked the 2024 base design. I knew that Topps had put rookie cards of some of the players they’d screwed us out of in Series 2. I had that saved money. I wasn’t going to the National. I figured why in the hell not.

            And ripping Chrome was…underwhelming?

            I mean it was fun…sort of.

            Ripping packs is fun...if you don’t pay too much attention to the cost.

            If you aren’t in it for the inserts.

            I got the assorted bells and whistles.

            I got some of the big rookies.

            I even pulled this.

            The Langford alone should've been worth the price of admission, right?

            And yet…

            And yet.

            I wasn’t at the National. I wasn’t strolling around from vendor to vendor, maybe meeting other people in The Hobby. I wasn’t looking at Clemente and Aaron cards that I want to add to my collection. I wasn’t looking at vintage cards of common players I’d read about. I wasn’t hemming and hawing over spending too much on one, JUST ONE, Mantle card from his playing days. Instead, I was sitting alone in a Brooklyn apartment absolutely underwhelmed by what I’d bought, made that I’d spent the money on it, and angry that I hadn’t spent the money on going to the National.

            And I didn’t buy anything sports card related for almost two months.

            So, why is this blog post entitled Thank You 2024 Topps Chrome? It’s not Topps Chrome’s fault that I had the reaction I did. It’s a good product. Do I think it’s over-priced? Sure. But that’s not only for me to decide. I entitled this blog post Thank You 2024 Topps Chrome because buying that product, opening it, and feeling like I never wanted to collect another baseball card again…it actually helped me start to remember why I got back into this wonderful Hobby, what I actually valued as a collector, and how I want to go about collecting going forward.

            And how I missed this blog and writing about cards.

            So, I went online and bought some stuff I’d been interested in getting.

            Not the Clemente and Aaron cards, or a blessed Mantle from his playing days.

            Not even anything really expensive and it’s stuff that might be a head scratcher to some of you.

            But I’m excited.

            And I hope to share the stuff here and some upcoming blog posts.

            September 2024 is actually the 5^th anniversary of me coming back to The Hobby.

            I plan on celebrating.

            So, thank you 2024 Topps Chrome for helping me realize this.

            And hopefully I’ll see some of you in Chicago next July.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!