2023 Topps Update...Wow?

 

2023 Topps Update is…meh.

            There.

            That’s the entire blog post.

            I don’t do this for almost two months, and that’s all I have to say.

            I suppose I can get into the whole Topps/Fanatics reducing the number of packs in a Hobby Box from 24 to 20 and reducing the number of cards in a pack from 14 to 12, even though they’d initially promoted the box as 24 and 14. But, if you pay attention in Hobby circles…that’s old news…that’s an old complaint.

            Still…Topps/Fanatics didn’t really try and hide what they were doing.

            A collector on Twitter told me that Topps always puts cardboard at the bottom of Hobby boxes. I’ve kept my Hobby boxes since 2019…there’s no cardboard at the bottom. Of any box. From any series. I don’t remember pulling out cardboard and discarding it. From any box. From any series. I’m guessing this is going to be the norm now. Collector outrage won’t matter to a corporation. This isn’t 1986. This isn’t New Coke.

            I was hemming and hawing over buying Update at all. The only reason I bought a box when I did was because I was on vacation in Philadelphia, I made it a point to visit an LCS, and with vacation money in my pocket I wanted to buy from a local shop instead of online. And it was inevitable that I was going to get Update, despite my hemming and hawing. I like base sets, building base sets. And while Update has its own sequence and series and isn’t part of the base set technically; it sure makes it known that the Rookie cards inside of it are official rookie cards. So, the product is tied to base, whether a collector like me likes it or not. This isn’t 1986. There aren’t any XRC cards here.

            And there are a few key rookies.

            There are certainly enough Rookie Debut cards to go around.

            Two “hot” takes. I’m apathetic toward pitcher rookie cards…unless said pitcher is in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform. And there are A LOT of rookie cards of pitchers in Update. Yes, there is some of the stodgy collector bias in me: none of these guys will reach 300 wins; none of these guys will throw more than 2 complete games a year; none of these guys will throw more than six innings a game. Old, stodgy collector/fan opinions. But…and this is a more sinister take…most of these guys will end up hurt and spending an extended time on the IL.

            Walker Buehler anyone?

            Casey Mize?

            Stephen Strasburg?

            Who, incidentally, most likely had his last Topps card in 2023 Update.

            I’m not picking on Stephen Strasburg. The man played 13 seasons. He collected 113 wins. From 2012 to 2019 he was one of baseball’s more imposing pitchers. The man is a WS MVP. But I just think of the career that could’ve been. The careers of pitchers that are going down the same route. Throwing 100 miles an hour is…awesome? But it also shortens careers and makes it hard to get excited about a pitcher.

            “hot” take number two. And I think I’ve stated this here before…I hate the Rookie Debut cards.

I find them to be some of the most useless cards that Topps produces. A beyond blatant attempt to suck the last bit of juice out of the season’s rookie card bonanza. But someone must like them because Topps produces a shit ton of them.  In the Update box I opened, 34 of the cards were Rookie Update cards.

In lowering the number of packs/cards per pack, Topps/Fanatics did make it clear that they weren’t short-changing collectors out of insert cards. No, there would still be plenty of bells and whistles to go around this October. And I guess that’s true.

Here are the bells and whistle cards that I pulled from my Hobby box of Update.

I did better on Pirates inserts than I usually do…which is to say, I hardly get Pirates inserts.

A bad year for me to get some Wander stuff.

And although it’s a stupid checklist card, I WILL be adding that 20/25 to my Pete Alonso PC.

Overall…meh. And actually kind of a letdown. The four less packs and less cards in packs meant that after opening and collating the cards, I still need 113 cards to complete the Update set. That’s ridiculous to me when, in past years, I’d maybe need 15-20 cards after opening a box. I don’t know if Topps/Fanatics is going to continue with less packs/cards in boxes, but, if they do, it is going to really change how I collect. I don’t think I’ll be hand-collating base sets anymore. I don’t want to spend that kind of money buying sealed product to do so, especially if I’m going to be doing the same thing with Heritage. I’ll just buy the set when it comes out, collect singles, and ignore putting Update together.

** sorry I've been irregular with the posts...a lot of fiction and poetry writing, and not much card buying since the trip to Buffalo. I am going to keep this blog alive, though. Probably not every week, and probably only when I feel I have something to say.***

thank you all for reading!

Happy Collecting! 

           

           

I Get to Be That Guy !!!!

 

I like think back to when I was a young collector.

            When buying a pack of cards was the apex of conspicuous consumption. When my cards were almost as important as my family and friends. Maybe, more so? I kid. I think. Being an adult collector is nice. But it gets mixed in there with work, health, death and taxes. Although it is a decent stress reliever. It’s nice at times to think back on the kid who led a relatively stress-free childhood. The kid racing down mall hallways to get to the card shop first. The kid whose pockets were on fire the minute he stepped into a drug store or a card show.

            When I was that kid, I always had a jonesing for older cards. Vintage in the current parlance of our times. Cards from the 50s and 60s. It was always my hope then, when deemed old enough, that my old man would bestow upon me an old collection of cards that he’d been keeping in boxes for years, for just the right time. Sadly, that didn’t happen. My old man’s cards, few as they apparently were, went to that sickening age-old tradition…of putting them in bicycle spokes?

            Imagine this…spinning around in bicycle spokes.

            Also, to my old man…cards were silly.

            A waste of money.

            Coin collecting was where it was at for him.

            To each there own.

            At least I was able to cage some smokes off of him.

            Okay, I’d tell myself, back then. If not the old man, then…an uncle. Yes, yes! An uncle. I had two uncles. Of course, one was my dad’s brother, whom I rarely saw. The other was my mom’s brother, whom I saw at least few times a year. Good ol’ Uncle Bud. Maybe Uncle Bud had cards. I used to feel him out. Ask about them. Talk about players and designs. But, like my old man, any cards that Uncle Bud kept, also went to flipping or spinning around goddamned bicycle wheels. Also, he had two sons of his own. I might’ve been the oldest nephew. But I was third on the pecking order, if any cards were found.

            Again…this…in tire spokes.

            My wife’s family has had it rough the past few years.

            Her father died in March 2021.

            Her mom, my mother-in-law, passed away in July of this year.

            She (mostly) and me have had to go up to Buffalo to help settle all the affairs (money and insurance and the like) and handle, along with my wife’s two sisters, the sad and sometimes overwhelming job, of cleaning out their apartment. On one of the trips that my wife made alone, she called me out of the blue, and began asking me if I knew these baseball and football players. Being an avid sports fan, a collector, a drunkard, and a guy who can’t do much beyond 7 P.M. but blearily watch sports on his cell phone, of course I knew the players that she was talking about.

            But inquiring minds wanted to know why she was asking?

            Apparently my ten-year-old nephew was now into sports card collecting. He had stacks of cards everywhere in a room where ten-year-olds hold court and are small kings of their castle. He had cards in binders. He talked value. He had friends selling cards online. Suddenly, a spot of excitement burst in me, outside of all of the sadness we’d been dealing with. My nephew? A collector? A ten-year-old collecting cards? I knew that kids still did collect, Pokemon and shit, right? But I’d never been in such close proximity to a child collector. To me, a child collector was like spotting a unicorn.

            All of the sudden my childhood flashed before me.

            Friends with their own stacks of cards.

            Kids carrying binders like they were stock portfolios.

            My old man.

            My Uncle Bud.

            Them desecrating a card like this in bicycle spokes.

            How I always wanted that older collector to bestow upon me some older cards.

            Then I realized…I GET TO BE THAT GUY!!!

            I asked my wife to get me a list of players that my nephew collected.

            She texted me this.

            

            A list. A player’s list. A kid’s sports card wish list! At least the Football part....i deleted the baseball one and can no longer find it on my phone.

            I knew we were going up to Buffalo in August for the dreaded task of cleaning out my in-law’s apartment. The least I could do was give the kid some cards. Now, I get it that the players on the list aren’t very old. They aren’t Clemente, Aaron, Mays. Or even my junk wax heroes like Bo Jackson or Barry Bonds. But to a ten-year-old, a card from 2018 or 2019 can feel kind of old. Also, he’s a novice. He starts getting further in further into the sport and, oh, boy, do I have the junk wax to push upon him.

            I spent the few weeks before going up to Buffalo, sifting through all of the boxes of overflow cards that I had taking up ½ a room in our space-deprived Brooklyn Apartment. Though I hope to one-day give my nephew some cards of some big guns, most of the players he’s into right now, are players that I couldn’t wait to give away.

           Think the Joey Vottos and Harrison Baders of the world.

            All in All, I ended up filling a 300-card box of cards for the kid. All in year order. All in player order. All of which he managed to get out of order, in about a minute, while excitedly sifting through them.

            Sigh…ten-year-olds.

            Not only did I get to be the guy to bestow cards upon a young collector, I got to be the guy who got to take a young collector out on a spending spree…at an actual card store! My nephew and I spent an afternoon a Dave & Adam’s Card World, where I was able to spoil him on some football and Champion’s League Soccer cards (his true favorite sport), as well as some Pokemon blah blah blah…I don’t know.

            *brief aside…I know own A soccer card. *

Nephew wanted the experience of opening cards at the Dave & Adam’s “break bar,” where he opened a back of Pokemon cards and got a rare Chandor or Chandar or Chandler Bing…I don’t know these cards…and immediately started screaming, as dozens of dorks (I mean Pokemon collectors) came over to take a look at what he’d ripped out of a $3 pack. The guys at Dave & Adam’s took our picture with the card (which they have yet to post of the site), and we found out said card was worth $90 raw. More if we got it graded.

            Wait…people GRADE Pokemon cards?

            To make the afternoon complete, we also stopped and did the retail thing at a suburban Buffalo Target (God, I love cities that have suburban big box stores with cards), where more Pokemon cards (not the same kind of luck) were bought, and I was able to get my hands on a few of these.

            Then we promptly went back to my in-law’s apartment and ripped all of the packs in a crazed haze, devil be damned if I had the proper storage to get all of my stuff back to Brooklyn, along with the rugs, crock pots, stand-up fans and everything else we were taking back with us. One doesn’t think when one rips cards. One reverts back to thoughtless childhood. And speaking of childhood, my nephew does all of the funny things we did as kids with packs. Rubs them for good luck. Had me rub them for good luck. Wouldn’t let his sister touch them out of fear that she was bad luck. Grabs packs from the bottom of the box.

            That kind of voodoo.

            And the kid really did know the value of what he was opening. To me…meh…that’s a good or bad thing. I know my sister-in-law doesn’t like it. She thinks one should collect the players they like. And this older, wiser collector agrees. I tried to instill that in my nephew, while he combed the Beckett web site, looking up the value of anything that he or I opened. Would I have done the same thing with that access as a kid? Probably. I tried to let him know that value was important, but more important when it’s a player or a Chandor or Chandar of Chandler that you actually care about. But…you can be as thoughtful, altruist and honest a collector as you want. This is still America. Money talks. I don’t like it, but I’m not fooling myself about where I live. And, like I said, he has friends whom are already selling online with their dads.

            So…

            And my nephew even gave me a stack of cards to take back to Brooklyn with me.

            Including this sweet Sauce Gardner card that I’d been coveting from a pack he’d opened.

            I like that I get to BE THAT GUY for now. I like that I’ll get to send my nephew cards in the mail. I like that whenever I visit him in Buffalo, that we can make trips to Dave & Adam’s (and other fine LCS there) regular parts of the visit…at least until he gets older and the money goes to other activities. And I hope my nephew begins to find the value in collecting players that you care about, and not just the players/cards that are worth money. Maybe I can help him along with that process.

            That said, a few days after my wife and I returned home from Brooklyn, THIS arrived for me in the mail.

            No players listed, just value.

            Guess I need to reinforce that lesson a little bit stronger next time.

            And, yes, I’m sending the Pickett card back to the kid…with a few extra goodies.

 

Thanks for Reading! Happy Collecting!

NEXT WEEK: Finally…getting the football cards in order.

 

*Sorry the posts have been sporadic. Lots, good and bad, going on. Finished a new novel and now figuring out what to do with it. Hopefully this blog will be a little bit more on the regular now. Thanks for sticking with it!*

 

PC-ing

 

(I actually wrote this post before the Ramirez/Anderson Donnybrook)

I have to admit something.

            Maybe I’ve admitted this before.

            …sometimes…I still don’t think I know what I’m doing in this hobby.

            At least not since I returned four years ago.

            Sometimes I know what I’m doing.

            Other times, I still collect like I did when I was a kid. 

            I knew what I was doing as a card collector as a kid. Collect Pirates cards. Check. Collect star cards. Check. Try and build sets?

            NOPE.

            I guess this blog post is about having a PC, i.e., Personal Collection. I like having a PC, I honestly do. Most of the players I collect are Pirates, or are players associated with the Pirates. Like my recent, and strangely much maligned online, purchases.

            Who knew there was Ed Ott vitriol?

            And why?

            Last post I talked about this guy.

            And now Pittsburgh is barely a blip in his career.

            But I keep his cards anyway.

            Still…what could’ve been had there not been another Pirates trading deadline fire sale.

            Sigh.

            I enjoy collecting players from other teams. Thankfully, the Pirates have a day or so off during the week to rest and put their fans our of their misery, and I use that opportunity to watch some other teams that I’m interested in. This past month of July, the Pirates played two road trips out on the West Coast and, because I’m old and wake up to sling words at 4:45 in the morning, I did not stay up to watch any of their games.

            I watched a lot of Orioles games.

            You know, these two guys.

            I get it now.

            Guess where they’re heading?

            But I watched a lot of Cleveland Guardians games during July as well. I even got to see them come to Pittsburgh and beat-up on the Pirates for three games. I have a strange history with the Cleveland ballclub, in that, I don’t have much in the way of history with them at all. I sometimes think maybe I should. Cleveland is only 2 hours and 10 minutes from Pittsburgh. The Guardians (then Indians) were in the American League, back when the National League and American league met twice during the regular season. They wouldn’t have interfered at all with my Pirates fandom.

            The Indians were pretty bad in the 80s.

            At times, worse than the Pirates.

            Maybe I just didn’t want to root for two crappy teams.

            Maybe the sour taste of the Cleveland Browns infected everything.

            The Cleveland team didn’t even have a player that I liked, until this guy came around.

            In fact, before I even saw a Major League baseball game in Cleveland, I saw a NBA one.

            And I don’t even like basketball.

            But I got to see…HIM.

            I digress.

            So, with my brief respite of all things Pirates in July, I got a chance to sit back and watch a little bit of Cleveland Guardians baseball. And you know what?

            I really like this guy.

            Guess where he ended up.

            In my humble opinion, Jose Ramirez is one of the most underrated players in all of Major League Baseball…unless you live in the fine city of Cleveland, of course, where they know how great he is on a daily basis. At 30-years-old, Ramirez is a four-time all-start and four-time Silver Slugger award winner. He should be in the same conversation without all of the other big deal baseball players us collectors go on and on about. Except Shohei. No one is in the same conversation with Shohei. But I’m certainly more willing to listen to fans and collectors, when the time comes in three or four seasons, start to make the case for Jose Ramirez being a future Hall of Famer.

            They do that with Joey Votto.

            And I fail to see why with that one.

            So, why not Jose?

            Adding someone to your PC; it kind of forces you to look at your PC…especially, if it’s all in one big monster box like mine is for both retired and current players. I wouldn’t even really call this a PC box. There’s maybe a handful of guys in there that I actively collect. But, like when I was a kid, I just sort of lump all of the star cards together. More so now, because, as an adult collector, I don’t really have anyone to trade cards with on the regular. Yes, you probably spied Ronald Acuna Jr. in that box. I think Acuna is a great, exciting player. But he’s a Brave. And there’s no way in hell this 31-year-grudge holding Pirates fan is collecting a goddamned Brave.

            And because card collecting is speculative, while adding Adley, Gunner and Jose to the PC, I found myself removing players who, just a few short years ago, I held some high hopes for.

            Yet I still hold out hope for Jo Adell.

         Point is, Jose Ramirez, Jo Adell, even a Lewin Diaz; sometimes my PC makes me feel like the most hapless collector around. It feels schizophrenic. It makes me wonder why I try and collect anyone other than Pittsburgh Pirates.

            I have them in a separate box, by the way.

            I’m not envious of other collectors and what they PC. I’m actually more in awe of a dedication they have, that I don’t seem to. Those collectors who just collect their team guys. The ones who can throw the Vlady Jr. and Pete Alonso cards in with the junk to focus on their Braves or their Astros. Those single-player super collectors, and the dedication involved there. I’m in awe of those collectors who PC 600-guys and are able to do so diligently, while I’m throwing Kyle Lewis cards in with my commons now.

            Oh God…am I a speculator?

 Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!

This Saturday: I get to be THAT guy