What Ben's Thinking About

It's no secret: my interest in collecting sports cards waxes and wanes like the cycles of the moon. But there are certain things about the hobby that pique my interest. Here they are for the week of June 29, 2013. 

1. I just inherited a baseball that my grandfather caught at a Washington Senators game back in 1960, and it got me thinking...Has there ever been a foul ball set? As in, a checklist of relic cards composed entirely of pieces of game-caught foul and home run balls? It could be a fairly interesting set, especially if some of the pieces are historic.

2. The "Umpire Archives" set is one step further to reality — I've created a 100-card checklist consisting of notable major league baseball umpires and NBA, NFL, and NHL referees. Plus a few subsets, including "Ejection Heroes" like Earl Weaver, Bobby Cox, and Rasheed Wallace.

3. It's too bad there hasn't been an all-time team concept set for professional basketball. I'm thinking a 400-or-so card set featuring the 12 best players on each NBA team and 40 players from the ABA. One caveat: Players can only be represented on one team, which would be especially interesting for players who excelled on multiple teams. So Garnett would be on the T-Wolves, Julius Erving on the ABA's NY Nets, and LeBron James probably on the Cleveland Cavaliers, as he was their whole team for seven seasons.

4. I'd like to see other major league baseball teams follow the Chicago Cubs and do team-specific Topps Archives sets as game giveaways.

5. Just wondering if there are any card-collecting nerds out there in the world of professional sports. Every so often you hear about one, be it Pat Neshek of the Minnesota Twins or retired slugger Dmitri Young. Today's young rookies would've been 8 years old anywhere between 1998 and 2002...Were those good years for collecting? My interest hadn't been rekindled at that point. But what I mean is, if those weren't good years for collecting, it would follow that younger players with disposable income wouldn't have as great a nostalgia for baseball cards, but for things like Playstation 2 or something like that instead.

6. I'd love for Topps to put out a "golden ticket" sweepstakes for a trip to the Topps factory. I'm thinking a guided tour, a special set of cards, or a whole sheet of cards or something. As marketing for the sweepstakes, they could do a series of short Web videos where crazy things happen at the Topps factory. I'd watch it, and probably make it past the second episode, which is more than I can say for the weird misguided Sklar brothers Webisodes of "Back on Topps."

7. I have a sneaking suspicion that as long as they have an exclusive license for Major League Baseball, we won't see truly original work from Topps. Oh sure, there will be retro sets like Heritage, Archives, Gypsy Queen, and Allen & Ginter, and sets aimed at all strata and price points. But how about a flagship design that doesn't have a white border? I know, I know, I sound like a broken record. But those one-offs, those weird-o sets that maybe didn't have an obvious demographic (Topps Kids, I'm thinking of you), those were sets that were allowed to push the envelope. If MLB is going to be an exclusively licensed property, at least make the sets worthwhile. 

8. What if Topps did a Jell-O set? Or a cereal-box set? Or tie bags of M&M's into it somehow? I want to see baseball cards push their way into mainstream consumerism again.

9. Am I the only one waiting for a Shorin family member to write a tell-all about the Topps sale back in 2007?

10. Idea for a coffee-table photography book: sports players' outrageous and sublime tattoos.

A Suggestion for Topps

You know, I want to be excited by this. It looks like they even got Marvin from Pulp Fiction. You know, the guy they accidently shoot and have to call Harvey Keitel to mop up the blood. Well, I don't see a credit for Back on Topps on his imdb.com page, but that really looks like him.

I also like the reference to the "cocaine out of a bread truck," though if we remember back to last year, I believe it was a Mr. Softee truck out in Jamaica, Queens, where the driver was selling cocaine on the side. (His trick? Double-cupping the sundaes. Ingenious.)

So yeah, I want to get excited. But you know what would really get me jazzed on this series--and yes, I just said 'jazzed', which hopefully came across in a completely non-sexual way, though now that I've taken the energy to explain probably does come across as sexual--?

I think you know...

That's right: a re-occurring character who either appears in a dream sequence or within the wacky corporate world of Topps HQ who also happens to be on a mini Allen & Ginter card (or 1975 Topps Mini). Or is Lil' Kwame Brown.

This character would best be played by a real-life athlete, with his character name simply his real name with 'Baby' or 'Lil'' in front of it. Like "Baby Rafael Furcal" or "Lil' Dmitri". Actually, that last one's not bad. Get Dmitri Young on the phone to play the Topps egghead archivist (who expounds on his love of gem mint cards and also happens to be trapped on a mini A & G card).

Don't Know What To Make of This

I've been to One Whitehall, and it is not in Los Angeles. Also, the guy from the Sonic commercials did not work there.

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