Collecting...when your team...SUCKS

 

I’m gonna come right out and say it.

            I’m going to tell you something that you already know.

            …collecting SUCKS…when your team SUCKS.

            Okay…maybe it doesn’t suck.

            But it’s not as fun.

            For those of you who read these posts regularly (when this blog is, in fact, regular), you know that I’m a lifelong Pirates fan. Being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan almost defines “long suffering” at least in terms of sports fandom. The Pirates were 71-91 this year. They were 76-86 in 2024, and 76-86 in 2023. In the years that I’ve been what I’ll call…an active Pirates fan…the team has had exactly 8 winning seasons.

            In 45 years.

            Pretty Pathetic for the team of THIS guy: 

            What made collecting the 2025 Pirates such a sad task is that it just feels like promises unfulfilled at this point. This is year six of a rebuild. YEAR SIX. Most professional teams that aren’t the Pittsburgh Pirates usually see the fruits of their labor by now. A playoff team. Handfuls of that developing young talent getting voted to all-star games and winning awards.

            The Pirates fired their manager in May.

            They traded away an unfulfilled piece of their future at the All-Star Break. 

            The young talent failed to develop. 

            The team’s best player regressed and is now on the wrong side of 30. 

            I guess there’s still good ol’ Cutch. 

            …for now.

            Am a missing anyone?

            Oh…right…this guy. 

            I like Paul Skenes. How can you not? He’s an exciting overpowering pitcher. He seems like an alright dude too. But the Pirates didn’t develop Paul Skenes. That kid came to them as a gift. Fully formed. Almost no time in their wretched minor league system. No time for Skenes to regress like most of the Pirates prospects, who have watched themselves slip further and further and, in a lot of cases, even off Baseball’s top 100 prospect lists.

            God have mercy on Mr. Konnor Griffin and his stats should he get to the major leagues under this current regime.

            And as for Paul Skenes…any reasonable fan has to know that he’ll be pitching in New York or L.A. before the Pirates even gets close to sniff the playoff again.

            Provided they ever do.

            So…what does that mean for me as a collector?

            It means there’s nothing and no one to collect on the Big League team.

            And nothing and no one to really collect in the minors.

            Now, you’re probably reading this and saying to yourself…this guy is a Pirates baseball card collector: Shouldn’t he be used to all of this losing?

            Yes…and…no…

            I’ve been a Pirates fan for 45 years…but I’ve only been a collector for about ½ of that time. I was six when I got into cards in 1980. I had no clue what the Pirates record was back then. For the record it was 83-79. When I started paying attention in 1984/85, yeah, the teams were bad.

            I’ll admit I did have my personal favorites. 

The Pirates were bad. But the culture of losing wasn’t there the way it is now. In 1984 the Pirates were only five seasons removed from their last World Series win. Only a few years removed from a decade that they dominated…minus the goddamned Reds and their Big Red machine.

This guy had only retired a few years back.

 The Pirates were bad but the expectation wasn’t that they’d stay bad. And they didn’t. By 1987 the Buccos were on their way back toward greatness. They were on their way to being a great ballclub. The Pirates that I really collected as a kid were these guys.

            All-Stars.

            Cy Young Award winners.

            MVPs.

            Division Champions.

            Promises fulfilled.

            Unless you count the playoffs…

            When I got back into collecting in 2019, rebuilding into a winner was the trajectory that the Pittsburgh Pirates were once again on. Damn the decades of losing. By 2020’s pandemic season the Pirates had a new manager, a new General Manager, and they were going to build the club back into a winner.

            At least that’s what they said.

            What they always say.

            But the proof is in the tasting of the pudding.

            The owner is cheap and is bad at hiring.

            The clown of a GM is still employed despite the following:

            And the Pirates are a long way from winning anything.

            I’m stuck with all of these Ke’Bryan Hayes cards.

            Even Topps doesn’t care.

            Here’s the Pirates checklist for 2025 Update:

            So, what have I been collecting this year?

            I’ve been putting team sets together from doubles for other teams that I follow. I’ve been putting the base set together, despite my protestations at the way Topps collates packs under the Fanatics regime. I’ve been buying older players. If I’ve been buying Pirates cards at all; they’ve been older Pirates as well.

            There also hasn’t been much products. Or not AS much. We’re in October and there’s still no Stadium Club. No Allen & Ginter. No Archives.

            And that’s okay.

            Not buying cards and saving money not buying players from a team that doesn’t seem to care about its fans…

…that can be considered being a smart collector too.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

           

 

                       

My First Card Show...Kinda....

I did it.

            I finally did it.

            It took 6 years.

            And a lot of stops and starts.

            But I finally did it.

            I attended my first sports card show since returning to collecting the September of 2019. It wasn’t a huge card show. But it was a good size. Maybe fifty vendors. Maybe more. The show was held at one of the local Catholic schools. In their gym or in whatever extra rooms they build onto churches and Catholic schools for social gatherings, or mass exorcisms, or whatever it is that Catholics do these days.

            I’m a lapsed Catholic and am not currently up on the goings on.

            But there was a card show.

            They’ve actually been doing them quarterly, but this is the first time that I had off of work when one was being held.  First thing: I forgot how overwhelming it can be when you first enter a card show. The room size. The buzz of other collectors milling about. All of the tables and showcases laid out in long rows.

            Yeah.

            I could feel a little bit of anxiety mixing in with the excitement.

            I kind of began walking up and down the rows aimlessly. Like a zombie maybe.  Yes, yes, I can acknowledge that there are cards. And people selling cards. And collector’s haggling over cards. Sifting through bins of cards. Talking about cards.

            But I felt kind of out of body at first.

            Like what am I doing here?

            What’s collecting?

            Wait…I collect!

            Where’s my list?

            That’s right…I made a list. A wish list. Something to ground me when I got to the card show so that I didn’t aimlessly wander rows like a zombie or alien observing an ancient ritual on earth.

            So much for the list.

            It was a dealer selling older cards where I finally found some semblance of balance. He had cards from the 1950s into the 1980s, all arranged by year, all in those flexi-sleeves, and all with the prices clearly marked on them.

            I got these guys from him.

            The 1964 McCovey was a nice surprise find.

            I kind of casually collect Willie McCovey cards. Which mostly has meant that if I find one at a flea market for a good price, I’ll get it.

            I also managed to stick with older cards. It’s not that I didn’t want newer cards but newer cards are way more readily accessible to me. Plus, a lot of the newer card dealers were dealing in graded cards. That’s not to say all of them did. But anything that I wanted that was newer was graded. I don’t do graded cards. I’m not against graded cards. Not at all. It’s just not a facet of collecting that I’m interested in.

            But I was interested in these guys at .50 cents a pop.

            And another dealer had this legendary guy right in my wheelhouse.

            Maybe you'd buy that 1975 card for Keith Hernandez.

            But I bought it for Phil “scrap iron” Garner.

            Made a small addition to the budding Lou Brock and Rod Carew collections as well.

            Oh, Captain, my Captain....I finally have some of your rookie cards

            And I did buy one big ticket item.

            The dealer who sold this to me must’ve been under the assumption that I was at the card show to buy and then sell. Or do we call this flipping? He said, well, I hope you get a good deal for it somewhere. I said…are you kidding? I’m keeping this.

      All in all, I had a great time. I forgot how fun card shows can be. It was nice to be around other collectors. Made me miss the collecting community that politicians and tech bro wankers have split up online into several social media outlets.

            I even had some card show spillover into the next day when I found these at a street festival in my neighborhood.

    

            I'm a sucker for massive Junk Wax sets

           Oh…and about that list.

            Here it is.

            I used it and didn’t use it.

            Maybe I’ll keep it for next time.

            Or maybe I’ll do as another collector advised me….to just wing it…and see where the show takes me.

            Anyway….

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!