It's that time again

 

This past fall and part of the winter, I decided to do as I mostly always do, which is skip the football season entirely and obsess over baseball past while looking forward to the future. Sadly, the Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t give me much to look forward to in 2025…so the rest of the MLB will have to do.

            One thing I am excited about is 2025 Topps. I really and truly like the front and back designs and this picture is going to do absolutely nothing to prove way.

            If you’ve seen the cards on videos or in person you know that the colored portions of the borders have foil vibe to them. Something that didn’t really show in photographs. Topps is getting crafty. Last year it was neon. This year it’s bring on the foil. The cards are sharp and crisp, and my only complaint is that it’s not 1990 and we don’t get close up shots of the players just the as always in-action shots.

            Speaking of 1990. If you can believe it, it’s been 35 years since 1990. Thirty-five years since The Simpsons and thirty-five years since Brandon and Brenda Walsh moved from Minnesota to that famous 90210 zip code.

            And thirty-five years since Topps debut this design.

            Boy, this 1990 base design took me back to being a kid. A teen really. Sixteen in 1990. By the summer of that year, I had my driver’s license and there were no more bumming rides from my old man to card shows and flea markets and LCS shops in the malls. Now, there was just him not letting me borrow the car or complaining about me not filling the tank. I always liked the 1990 design. That flashy it’s the 90’s now front, and that taxi cab driver art deco back to the card. The two should’ve been a conflict of interest but they always worked out well together.

            And they look nice as inserts.

            I bought a jumbo box. No, I’m not going back on my word and hand collating sets…not with how many doubles Topps puts in their boxes now.

            (It’s even worse this year)

            (Don’t believe me, go and watch some people open boxes on YouTube)

            But I did want to open some wax. I can’t help but get a thrill out of it still.

            And as always you get your standard bells and whistles.

            The Call to the Hall are cards are bit boring.

            But I can’t complain about the ones I got.

            Got the standard game used (maybe game used) stitch of ballplayer cloth.

            The Ripken is numbered to 50.

            The other inserts veer toward the blah side to me, but I’m always a fan of season highlight inserts.

            Speaking of season highlights. I usually blow off League Leader cards, but 2025’s are sharp.

            My lone gold card.

            And I got no complaints about the autograph card. Baseball economics have dampened the Dodgers for me, but I always love that early 80s era of Los Angeles baseball when Garvey was still playing well, and Fernando-Mania was everywhere.

            When I got back into The Hobby in 2019, Vlady Jr. and Yordan Alvarez were all the rage. For that reason, I do try and get as many of their cards as I can.

            This year’s base models are both bangers.

            Then there are those guys I had high hopes for who’ve kind of fallen off the radar but are still in my PC for sentimental reasons too.

            I usually latch onto one rookie person season. Jhonkensy “Big Christmas” Noel was that guy for me in 2024. So, I was pretty happy that his rookie card wasn’t missing out of the box, like the Dylan Crews rookie was.

            Overall, it was a decent rip. Kind of glad I eliminated the burden of set building. In a strange way it actually made opening packs more fun. I’ve said it here before, but because cards cost what they do I felt compelled to build sets when that wasn’t natural of me as a collector. I don’t feel that way anymore.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

           

           

A Thief's Journal

 

It was never my intention to turn to a life of crime.

            I’d always been a good kid. Or I at least tried to be. I did okay in school. I was good to my parents. I was a good and honest friend. I ate everything on my plate and went to bed on time...mostly.

            I loved my pet dog.

            I’m not sure where I went wrong.

            I guess you could say my life of crime started with this baseball card.

            You see, back when I was a kid, I’m talking little kid here, age six or seven, Ed Ott was my favorite Pittsburgh Pirate. Okay, Willie Stargell was my favorite Pittsburgh Pirate. But Willie was Pops. You couldn’t NOT love Willie Stargell. But Ed Ott was my 2^nd favorite, which, behind Stargell, made him my de facto, favorite Pirate.

            That all started when I pull this card (not the original one) out of my very first pack of baseball cards.

            Flash forwards a year later, and my family has moved an hour plus away from Pittsburgh to a town called Wellsburg, West Virginia. In an instant I went from city mouse to country mouse. I went from a neighborhood full of kids to my brother and I being almost the only kids in our neighborhood. There was one kid named Kurt who was my brother’s age, and another kid named Donny…who was twelve. A good five years older than me.

            Donny reluctantly let me pal around with him when none of his friends were around. His house was the first house where I’d ever seen a video game system. Or that cool electric football game. Donny had boxes full of baseball cards, and his bedroom is subsequently where my life of crime began.

            It happened when, you guessed it, I stole this card from Donny.

            I didn’t mean to.

            It just happened.

            Donny left his bedroom to use the bathroom, and the 1981 Ed Ott somehow ended up hidden underneath my clammy leg, where I’d been sitting cross-legged on Donny’s floor. Another trip to bathroom later by Donny, and the 1981 Topps Ed Ott card had made it safely into the pocket of my shorts, later to join the collection of 1981 cards that I’d been building at home.

            It wasn’t a proud moment for me.

            But Donny had so many 1981 Topps cards he wouldn’t miss an Ed Ott?

            Besides, Ed Ott was my favorite Pirate and not Donny’s.

            Of course, there’s a sad irony to being a seven-year-old kid with a favorite player on your favorite team. And that’s being a seven-year-old kid who recognizes players on cards more than he does on TV or scorecards. Ed Ott wasn’t even playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1981. He’d been traded that April to the California Angels with Mickey Mahler for first baseman Jason Thompson.

            And behind the plate in Pittsburgh, there was a new sherif in town.

            Sadly, 1981 was Ed Ott’s last year in Major League Baseball. He spent the 1982 season injured. The 1983 season mostly injured. And after a stint with the Angels PCL AAA team Edmonton in 1984, Ed Ott was out of baseball. At least as a player. He’s coached in the pros, the independent league and something called the Canadian-American Association of Professional Baseball.

            And, sadly, Ed Ott passed away on March 3, 2024.

            RIP OTTER.

            As for me, my life of crime last throughout the 1980s. A random, opened pack of 1983 Fleer from the RevCo Drug Store. A Super Powers D.C. Comics Robin doll from Hills department store. Couch change whenever I could get my hands on it. Handfuls of chips from someone else’s bag.

            That kind of stuff.

            But it all started that summer of 1981 in Donny’s bedroom.

            Thankfully I've been on the straight and narrow for years now.

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!