A Double-Mustache Timeout with Skip Jutze

You know, I've never seen a better version of the double-mustache than Skip Jutze's double-mustache.

Habit Kicked

Thanks to everyone who's emailed and helped me kick the habit! I have to wrap up the trading for the next few days. No new traders, please. Existing traders will be sent cards in the next week.

Cedar Rapids Floods Ravage Art Pennington's House, Negro League Shrine

See the Dugout Central piece.

Art Pennington's MySpace page, with instructions on how to help.

Swatch Shirt Video

(Thanks for the tip, Chris)

Some Things I'd Like To See Happen

Besides 0/0 cards of rejected card art, here are a few things I'd like to see happen:

• Swatch Shirts How many more years of game-used shirts and pants cards do we need before there are more of them than regular cards? I'm guessing we're two or three years away, so in three or four years I'd like to see an artistic-minded individual crack open a whole lot of swatch cards and sew together a shirt, or a handkerchief, or a pair of socks. The artist will need at least 2,000-3000 swatch cards to make this work (and that's a conservative estimate). Think of how cool that would look. What kind of value do you think something like that would hold?

• Ozzie Smith Home Run History insert set The Hall of Famer smacked just 28 career home runs, so that would be a fairly manageable insert set, plus it would be a little tongue-in-cheek reference to the gargantuan, soul-crushing Bonds, Rodriguez, and Mantle HRH sets it followed.

• O-Pee-Chee Heritage Baseball Who do I need to talk to for this to happen? I know I'm on record as saying that this year's Topps Heritage should be the last one for the brand, and I stand by that. But OPC Heritage? That's entirely different. I guess Upper Deck owns the OPC rights now, so it's to them I say: we need OPC Heritage '71.

• A National Sports Card Show in New York City Especially this year, with the All-Star Game in Yankee Stadium, the National definitely should have been in New York City. The city's got the space (Javits Center), it's a transportation hub, it's Topps' hometown, and it will be the center of the baseball universe this season. It's an obvious choice.

• The Return of Topps Posters Fold 'em up, shove 'em in packs at random. The original 1967 insert had 32 subjects, a number that could be met easily. Here's my checklist on who to include:

1. Vladimir Guerrero, Angels
2. David Ortiz, Red Sox
3. Brian Roberts, Orioles
4. Roy Halladay, Blue Jays
5. Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
6. Carl Crawford, Rays
7. Ichiro, Mariners
8. Michael Young, Rangers
9. Nick Swisher, White Sox
10. C.C. Sabathia, Indians
11. Magglio Ordonez, Tigers
12. Joe Mauer, Twins
13. Alex Gordon, Royals
14. Rich Harden, A's
15. Kosuke Fukudome, Cubs
16. Ken Griffey Jr., Reds
17. Albert Pujols, Cardinals
18. Rafael Furcal, Dodgers
19. Johan Santana, Mets
20. Jake Peavy, Padres
21. Lance Berkman, Astros
22. Chipper Jones, Braves
23. Ryan Howard, Phillies
24. Hanley Ramirez, Marlins
25. Prince Fielder, Brewers
26. Barry Zito, Giants
27. Jason Bay, Pirates
28. Matt Holliday, Rockies
29. Brandon Webb, Diamondbacks
30. Ryan Zimmerman, Nationals
31. Evan Longoria, Rays
32. Jay Bruce, Reds

1967 Topps Posters visual checklist

A Day Too Nice For Sorting Baseball Cards, And Yet...

Sun's shining, there's not much wind besides a faint breeze, birds are chirping, traffic's light, neighborhood kids are quiet––it's a glorious day. And I'd be out there, too, if I weren't sorting baseball cards. Instead I've got Langhorne Slim and The 1900s pumping on the stereo, a glass of ice water and 150,000 of my closest friends spread out in messy stacks on the dining room table.

Here are some highlights:


I got this Doug Flutie in a box of CFL cards I bought in 1991. Not quite sure why I bought CFL cards, let alone a whole box of them, but I'm glad I have this card of Flutie. By the way, if you live in the Boston area, the service road to the Framingham 14 movie theater complex is called 'Flutie Pass,' making it officially the greatest name for a road in the history of mankind.


What exactly is the purpose of having so many different parallel versions of this set (1952 Style Topps Basketball)? The blue ones look okay, but these gold ones are really bad. This one's numbered 13/25. I think it would be awesome for Topps or UD to make a 0/0 set. Since the set would have no cards in it, it would be the world's rarest. Or maybe to be more practical, the set could be won through a redemption card, consisting of rejected card art. That might be kind of cool, actually.


When I went to pick this card up it bent itself into an origami swan. That's not true, but I count eight creases, like an aged palm. This is my kind of card.


If the NHL ever decides to plop a team down in Quebec City again, I would recommend a team consisting of Muppets. I know I'd go to at least two games, maybe three if they could convince an over-the-hill Eric Lindros to coach. I smell reality-show gold if this gets the green light.

More Fun Than a Stack of Commons

Two things going through my mind today:

1. Will the Celtics be smart and offer James Posey a 3-year deal?
2. What's more fun than a stack of commons?

That's right, the Kick The Habit Trade-away is going strong, with new traders welcome. I feel like Carnegie here (though taller and without the bad Homestead karma), dispersing cards to anybody that wants them. So far I've doled out 1,500 cards... and there's plenty more where those came from.

Email me if you feel like trading, and scroll down the page to view my trade requests.

You Have to See This...

I got an email today from a collector, wanting to tell me about his latest eBay purchase. Nothing out of the ordinary about that. Here's where it gets weird:



I'll let him explain it in his own words:

I don't know how I found this auction but it was an auction for a 1991 Topps Chipper Jones graded by Beckett grading... the interesting thing about this card is that on the back of the card is a 1990 Topps football player! It is authentic and was not tampered with but I have never seen anything like this... Take a look at the photos that I have provided and I would be interested in any input you could provide....

I have collected cards for over 20 years and I have never seen this. They must have accidentally put a 1990 Topps Football Sheet with the 1991 Topps Back Sheets... Most likely since football cards were produced later in a given production year and baseball cards were produced sometimes before the year even started there may have been an overlap. So the question is was an entire sheet produced of 136 1991 Topps Cards with 1990 Topps Football Backs?

Here's what I want to know: What did the guys and gals at Beckett Grading Services think when they saw this card? Also, does a wrong back or blank front/back hurt the grade of a given card? Any answers for us, BGS?

Kicking the Habit

When I was growing up I felt different from my friends. You see, I was a collector. Not just of sports cards and other sports stuff, but of books, of postcards, of stamps, pennies, stickers, geodes; pretty much any and everything I could get my hands on. And as I grew older, I felt an internal struggle take hold. Part of me loved being surrounded by my stuff, the more the merrier. But the other half of me was going minimalist, call it the voice of reason. Not wanting to become a hoarder and end up buried alive in a Collier's mansion, I scaled back.

Why I am bringing this up, you ask? Well, I've hit another wave of reason, and I've decided I'm going to scale my collection back. Shocking as it may sound, I'm really going to only try to finish those sets that interest me and trade away the rest. That's right: the rest, as in the remainder of my collection, all 150,000 or so cards of it. Stars, commons, inserts, the whole shebang. It's the logical conclusion to writing The Baseball Card Blog full-time. (Year One: Revel in the re-found love of cards; Year Two: Try to make sense of the current scene; Year Three: Find the right path in collecting/Move on).

Thanks to everyone who traded with me!

Come Back to LA, Shaquille O'Neal, Shaquille O'Neal

• I've never liked Kobe Bryant. His game doesn't really scare me, even when he's in 'untouchable, no man can stop me' mode. You know why? Because he can't take over a game. He doesn't alter the defense of good teams, and he's not especially good in a one-on-one setting. Maybe I've been spoiled from watching Paul Pierce and James Posey defend him, but he's definitely not as good as Michael Jordan. I'd say he's more like Clyde Drexler: he needs a big man in order to win a championship. And in case you haven't noticed, Pau Gasol is not a good stand-in for Hakeem. Or even Shaq. If the Lakers still had O'Neal--performing at any level of dominance--I'd say the Celtics would have their work cut out for them in this series. He's big, lumbering, can't hit free throws, and doesn't have a shot he can hit away from the basket. But he's the perfect complement to a guy like Kobe Bryant, a guy that forces the defense to collapse, leaving Kobe open to hit from the perimeter or attack.

I'm not saying anything new here, that's obvious. But as you watch the rest of the Finals, keep two things in mind:
1. Would Michael Jordan be called for cheap fouls?
2. Would the Celtics have stolen Game 4 if Shaquille O'Neal--at any capacity--had been on the floor for LA?



• Is it just me, or do Clinton and Bush look like reanimated corpses on this card? Seriously, someone should have slipped twenty bucks to one of those goofy Topps graphic artists to add blood dripping down Bush's chin.

Follow Up on Toppstown

After sleeping off jet lag yesterday, I signed up for Toppstown, like I said I would. And I have to say, it's not bad.

Granted, it's geared towards children, and the sound effects are really loud, and there's no way to turn them down without muting the whole computer system, and it's a little hard to navigate, but the graphics are cool and there seems to be a lot to do.

But perhaps the best thing about it is that it's not tied to reality. My character, er avatar, is Dr. Satchel Taco. He's funny looking, kind of like Ed Kranepool on a bad day. I made the team affiliation 'St. Louis' as an homage to Paige's tenure with the Browns, and I plan on trading in ToppsPoints for the ability to jump teams for more money (if the game will offer such an historically-accurate item).

Other things I like:

• The presentation of the cards. The binder idea is great; I like seeing that there are many cards I don't have, like a visual checklist. It harks back to the Panini sticker book. In fact, I almost wish the visual arrangement mimicked a sticker book. As it is, the black and red scheme is very grown-up and serious; the sticker book visual would bring that down a notch or two.

• The no-pressure trading zone. Back before I didn't give a damn with what I got in a trade, each trade was an opportunity for me to stress out over getting equal value. Trading virtual cards seems like it would be stress-free. I'd have to think that a collector would be able to disassociate him or herself from a virtual card simply because they can't hold it.

• The anonymity. Truthfully, this service isn't about camaraderie with your fellow collectors. It's about building a collection in a no-pressure situation. It's about grooming young collectors into future eTopps buyers.

And it's about a relatively staid company like Topps going electric, I mean, connecting with their core customers (children) in a way that would suggest they know how they think. It's not completely the same promotion that Upper Deck runs with codes on the backs of every card (that lead to cool prizes like actual stickers and cards), but it's a start.

20+4x2-10=?

I bought some packs at a place out on Geary the other day and as I scanned their backs on the bus ride home I got to thinking: what is the purpose, exactly, of the Canadian Skill Question?

Have there really been instances of Topps denying a collector north of the border a card because they failed a math test? Seriously, am I missing something here? Is there something the Topps braintrust knows about Canadian mathematics that the rest of don't?

And it's not like this is a new phenomenon; this type of ridiculous question has been on the backs of packs for years. What I want to know is, who was the guy at Topps who decided that a question like that needed to be on the pack (as if to weed out the intellectually inferior)?

Stuff such as this boggles the mind...


And speaking of odd things, have you ever wondered what the 'M.' stands for in 'M. Night Shyamalan'? Personally, I hope it stands for 'Mortimer.' Gets you thinking, though, doesn't it? Kind of makes me wish professional athletes would adopt this practice:

G. Herman Ruth.
B. Joe Robidioux.
L. Steven Jeltz.

I'm telling you, we're on to something here.

The Year is 3 MGCE (Modern Gimmick Card Era)

I've been thinking about gimmick cards the last few days and about a comment left on a previous post. The comment asked how I could label something both 'tiresome and predictable' and 'fun.' Here's what I meant.

Gimmick cards, when handled individually, are fun. Whether a dopey parody, a card written in Japanese or an obviously doctored photo, it's fun to get a card that's different from the rest of the set.

But then step back and look at the Gimmick Card Era our hobby has fallen into. It's an idea that's now central to the livelihood of the hobby. Every year there's a new handful of cards that don't really have anything to do with the rest of their sets. Their presence feels a little cheap to me. Like maybe the hobby's hit hard times.

It makes me think that maybe companies have lost their focus and are a little too in love with generating publicity. That maybe instead of (or most likely in addition to) resorting to gimmicks a company should invest more in making their product(s) better. By 'better' I really mean 'less sloppy': cutting out unintentional errors, using higher quality photography and greenlighting a more cohesive card design.

By elevating the overall strength of the set, gimmick cards don't have to do too much of the heavy lifting and collectors don't feel as disappointed if/when they don't find one in their pack or box.

To summarize: Gimmick cards: Fun (individually). The Gimmick Era: a tiresome and predictable skein of publicity stunts that hides the true sloppiness of the products involved.



The title of this post refers to the current year in the Gimmick Card Era. I'm torn as to when the era starts, so I've slapped 'Modern' on the front and had it start in 2006.

Mini Interview with Cleveland.com Up Now

Here's a mini interview I did with Cleveland.com.

Here's a Gimmick: Make Your Base Set Better

I'm on the road this week in the Pacific Northwest. So without complete and steady access to a computer, the first thing I did in my brief Internet session today was check out Stale Gum to see what's been on Chris Harris' mind about cards lately. After reading his complete rundown on Topps gimmick cards, I agreed with his assessment: these cards are bullshit.

Sometime last year after Topps rolled out their Derek Jeter "error" card, I warned that Topps should watch out or people would start to wonder about their motive surrounding the sudden appearance of other high-profile "error" cards. Well, patterns have developed. In 2006 we had Alex Gordon. 2007 brought us Jeter. And now for 2008 we're awash in a veritable tidal wave of errors, variations and gimmicks. It's that last word (gimmicks) that's really a slap in the face of the collector.

Maybe the card companies see the gimmick cards as public relations efforts within the base set, or loss leaders (like relic and autographed cards) to help sell packs. I don't know. What I do know is that their presence is tiresome, relentless and completely predictable. But are they fun? Sure, they're fun, but shouldn't the fun be in the base set? Shouldn't every card be fun?

I'm going to re-issue my warning: Card companies Topps and Upper Deck should know better, by now, of falling into the gimmick trap. You need to sell more cards? Make the core of your base set better.