Anyone Else Feeling It?

EXTREME NEGATIVITY WARNING!!

(at least it's extreme)
**disclaimer: this post was written while working the overnight shift, with a terrible head cold. any opinions or statements contained in this post are those of a snot clogged brain, and don't necessarily represent the views normally expressed by the great bearded one**

image courtesy of nataliedee.com

Are you feeling it? No, not the flow. I know, I know... it's circular, but that's not the feeling of which I speak. No gentle readers, I am referring to the boredom and lack of motivation brought about by the number of LAME baseball releases in the past month or so.

They haven't all been bad, but when Goodwin is the cream of the autumn crop, the result is a lot more money in my wallet, and a lot less posting about great new sets. Specifically, I am talking about Ticket to Stardom and Ballpark Collection, but these aren't the only culprits. Chrome is great, Chrome is awesome, but when you've been looking at the same designs since March, Chrome also gets old in a hurry, no matter how shiny it is.

I've been sitting here for the past hour, after typing those first 2 paragraphs, trying to figure out how to not make this post about taking the card companies to task for some of the sets they release. I don't want to be that guy. There are already quite a few of those guys , and while good points are often made, they just end up sounding pessimistic and angry.

This isn't about the card companies producing crap. It COULD be, but we, as collectors continue to buy this stuff, and the companies wouldn't bother making it if we weren't buying it, right? What this is about is my collective collecting interests starting to shift as my opinions change. I think I've got a pretty good idea of why these feelings are starting to surface, but it's complicated. I think the #1 reason is that it seems there are at least 50 sets released per year, and about half of them feature the same photos, maybe with a slight change. Along with these 50 releases comes numerous parallels jam packed into each one, most of which are the same damn card, with a different color frame or background. Being a player/team collector, this annoys the piss out of me. Is it really necessary to have that many sets and that many parallels? It absolutely kills me that I have to have a card simply because there's an Oriole on it, no matter how ugly/boring that card may be.

Another reason I take issue with the multitude of sets released each year is the half-assed effort that goes into some of them. I think both Ticket to Boredom and Ballpark are prime examples. Ticket to Stardom essentially rips off a base set design used by Fleer Authentix, and one of it's primary draws is supposed to be ticket stub relics. The relics COULD have been cool, if the team of the player featured actually matched the ticket inserted into the card. I have seen numerous instances where this simply is not the case, and that is laziness to the 1000th power, especially for a product carrying a per box price tag of $85. This brings us to Upper Deck's Ballpark Collection, which while an improvement over last year's set, is still a pretty poor effort. The focus is clearly on game used "memorabilia", which is something I don't necessarily have a problem with. What I do have a problem with is throwing jersey swatches of 6 or 8 random players onto a card, add a fairly high serial number, and then charging $160/box for it. There are ZERO patch cards, and every autograph I've seen so far is on a sticker. $160/box?!?!? Are you freaking kidding me?

The only real argument here is which product is worse?

Releases like these make me contemplate becoming strictly a vintage collector. Somehow, it's much easier to appreciate a card (especially a base card) when there were only 1 or 2 produced of that particular player for that particular year. Besides, how cool would it be to build every Orioles team set from '54-'83? Can you even name a single iconic card that does not feature an autograph or patch or swatch of jockstrap produced after 1993? I can't. Jeter's rookie card is the last one that comes to my mind.

What do you guys think? Am I just crying over spilled milk, and being a whiny bitch, or are there too many crappy sets released these days? I'm not the first or the last card blogger to breach this topic, and I sure as hell won't be the last. Would you be happier with 5-10 well designed, well produced sets a year, or do you like being able to choose from a wider variety of products?

I want to end this with something positive. Are you ready for Turk-Off 2? That's right, Motherscratcher and I are going at it again, and this time with a proper product, the 2006 flavor of Topps Turkey Red.

Stay tuned!

I debated even posting this, because it really is nothing more than an angry rant, but this is my blog, and is one of the only places where I can really force feed my opinions to people. If you think I'm being an asshole, or have missed the proverbial boat, please feel free to let me know.

2009 Spectrum Box Break

I'm not going to apologize for referring to this product as "Rectum" in the past (creative, I know). The base set is pretty ugly, and if it weren't for the chance to pull a Burt Reynolds auto, I wouldn't even of bought this box. It was part of the combo special I got from DA, which also included a Sweet Spot Classic tin, and a box of Timeline.

Pretty much, I should have just wiped my behind with the money I spent on these boxes. I generally feel that way after the initial thrill of breaking the box wears off.

Here we go!

Base cards: there were 64 in this box, and NO DOUBLES! Here are my only 2 Orioles:

Parallels: 3, all of the red variety
David Wright (which scans better than it looks)
Hanley Ramirez
and Erik Bedard

The Jersey: Josh Beckett

The not Burt Reynolds "Celebrity" Auto: Kendra Wilkinson

The Rookie auto that saved this box from being a total waste: Mat Gamel

Overall, I was not very impressed with this box, but I knew what I was going to be getting myself into. There sure are a lot of crap so-called celebrity autos in this set, and I certainly got one. I didn't even know who that chick was until I googled her ass. I was not impressed once I found out. Being on a reality show does not a celebrity make. I would have been much happier with the aforementioned Burt Reynolds, Cheech, Chong, or even Corey Feldman (at least he was in Goonies). Instead I got a glorified pornstar who may or may not have done the inverted mambo with Hugh Hefner. GROSS! I am pretty happy with the Gamel auto. He's already been called up this year, and has had some success early on. From what I hear, he can flat out hit, so let's hope he keeps it up. What's up with Erik Bedard still being featured in an O's jersey? He hasn't played in Baltimore since 2007! This IS a 2009 product, right? Maybe Upper Deck couldn't get an updated photo, since Bedard spends the majority of every season avoiding the media while on the DL.

Oh, and Upper Deck, purple is not really a good color for a base set. If this were My Little Pony, it would have worked well, but this is baseball dammit!

2009 Bowman Rack Pack Break

Stopped by Wally World today on the way home from work (to pick up some coffee, I swear), and felt that overwhelming urge to rip some packs. Nothing really looked too good, but I HAD to get something. I ended up leaving with a rack pack of the much maligned 2009 Bowman.

I know this year's Bowman release has been ripped to shreds so far by the collective collecting community (alliteration), but regardless I had to pick up a pack and see for myself. The main draw of the rack pack is that it promised 3 chrome cards, too bad they are all of dudes I've never heard of, and probably never will hear from again.



This is the base card design for this year's set. I am not a fan, and these are my least favorite of all the cards in this pack. We all know black bordered cards show every imperfection possible, and that's not even the half of it. This design is lame, and boring. Simple can be done right, as evidenced by the prospect cards that are yet to come, but this is just dullsville.

There were 11 base cards in this pack.
Lance Berkman 143
Raul Ibanez 63
Yorvit Gallardo 106
Ryan Howard 14
Daniel Murphy 66
Alexi Casilla 122
Jay Bruce 53
Shane Victorino 159
Felix Hernandez 50
Torii Hunter 30
Aaron Cook 116



Next up are the gold base card parallels. This was the only one in the pack, #135 Chris Young. Still not the best looking card, but the gold instead of the black does help a little.



This is prospect base card design, and is what I was hinting at earlier with a simple design being just fine, if done right. I'm not sure what it is, but other than the black border, I like this design quite a lot. It's plain yes, but not hideous, and I really dig the electric blue border.

There were 3 of these in this pack:
Michael Swinson BP72
Stolmy Pimentel BP6
Zach Moore BP85



There was also 1 gold parallel prospect card, #BP4 Julio Teheran. Once again, the gold helps.



This was the lone WBC card in the pack, and as you can see, the design is very similar to the regular prospect cards, without the semi-transparent white rectangle where the fake auto is found. Not sure why Topps did this, but they did. This is card #BW16, Cheng-Min Peng.



Finally, we have the Chrome Prospect cards. My scanner for some reason hates chrome cards, but loves refractors, so this card doesn't look near as nice in the scan, as it does in person. This is by far my favorite design in this years Bowman release, and it makes me wonder what the other cards would look like sans the terrible black border.

There were 3 chrome cards in this pack:
Michael Pineda BCP17
Patrick Ryan BCP50
Jeremy Farrell BCP28

So yeah, I think overall this is a pretty unspectacular release. Unlike years past, I have never heard of any of these "prospects" and probably will not be buying any more of this product. I do like the design of the prospect cards, especially the Chrome ones that feature a white border, but the checklist must be lacking cause with the exception of a few players that I have seen card of on other blogs, almost all these dudes seem to be unknowns. I'm not a prospector by any means, and probably wouldn't know them anyway, but usually I at least see a few recognizable names. The base set is also pretty ugly, but do people really buy Bowman for the base set anyway?

If you see anything you like, it is most definitely for trade.