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!

 

           

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!