Fifteens

 

This whole thing goes back to devotion. The whole story. The whole blog. Everything. If no one was devoted then none of this happens. 

My grandfather was devoted to this hobby. Devoted is one word. Obsessed. This is a man who prospected in the 1980s and stockpiled copies of XRCs of people he thought was going to make it. Hundreds of 1987 Topps Mark McGwires. Hundreds of 1987 Topps Traded Benito Santiago. Dozens of Jeff Musselmans, Kevin Seitzers, John Smileys. Even if he was wrong he was going to be devoted to being wrong. And all of that goes back to his childhood, picking up the original 40s Bowman square cards. Taking home premier issues of players like Bob Lemon, Snuffy Stirnweiss, and, yes, Yogi Berra. If he didn't have that Berra as the centerpiece of his collection he wouldn't keep chasing the dragon. He did this with coins as well. And we found out that the coins were worth...something, but not an enormous amount. A lot like the Berra 48. But that's never getting sold.

It's been over fifteen years since my grandfather passed. One of the reasons I started this blog is him. Because if he were still kicking he'd be giving me ideas on a daily basis for posts. 

I think a lot about how I constantly strive to fit into communities I find. I had a lot of experience being the weird outsider to a lot of social groups I'd encountered [and yes, I do realize that I still fall into this category in the blogosphere], and I learned that I needed to affix myself to the expected behaviors by watching how people around me acted and sort of modeling that. Once you know what the expectation is it's easier to meld yourself to it. To this day I'm doing this. The difference is that now I know at what point it's alright to do my own thing. 

When I first discovered the baseball card blogosphere in 2008, I spent many mornings just inputting information and accumulating as much knowledge of the people, the expectations, the formatting, the audience. At this point the top blogs were Wax Heaven, The Baseball Card Blog, Cardboard Junkie, A Cardboard Problem, Stale Gum, Thorzul Will Rule and, though a newer blog by that point, Night Owl Cards. I got a sense of how they write, how they used pictures, how they talked about current products and older products, when they talked about themselves. More importantly, how they used humor- this was 2008, around the time that Topps was relying on gimmicks and short printed cards to set themselves apart from their competitors, and the public outcry in reaction to these was, at times, more entertaining than the cards themselves. 

I say this because I wouldn't be doing this blog had it not been for all of these people who've influenced me. Chris, Dayf, Mario, Bill, Marck, James, Drew, Nick, Sooz, Greg, Ryan, other Chris. Countless others. A lot of whom I still talk to on Twitter or Bluesky. Many of which have stopped writing. I just wanted to be like you guys. 13-year-old me just seeing these guys embroiled in my own hobby, posting pictures of stuff they've accumulated just by making social bonds, it seemed like a leveling up. And it's nice to be even a small part of a group forged by people like that.

I started this blog 15 years ago today. When I think of the number 15, I think of Thurman Munson. My dad's all-time favorite player. He was a first baseman but he wanted to hit like Munson. Got his heart broken 45 years ago. I felt some heartbreak when Roy Halladay passed but you can't even compare this. Munson was the Yankees in the 70s. There's a reason people still talk about him, make cards of him, bring him up as a Hall of Fame possibility, because he was the central force behind those great Yankee teams, and a .300-hitting catcher in an era where that still meant something. 

My dad got to watch Munson in 3 straight World Series' when he was a kid. And then I grew up to see Derek Jeter in the World Series for 4 straight years. My dad collected Munson cards. I collected Jeter cards, and Munson ones as well. My collection is the accumulation of three generations of collectors doing their own thing. Which explains the extent.

When I started the blog, I had no idea what I was going to write about. Maybe go to card shows and post what I got. Maybe open packs and post the results. Maybe talk about baseball things. In 15 years, the blog has just become me posting custom cards on a bi-daily basis and choosing those moments to talk about baseball things and hopefully have decent analysis. There's a lot of bloggers who pack more quality into sporadic posts, whereas I go for 2 posts a day and hope that at least one of them is good. 

I think I still like what I do. If anything, it's my way of keeping up with baseball knowledge on a daily basis. I have no trouble talking to people about baseball now, I can pull up players that came out of the woodwork and became great pieces. Admittedly it has less to do with reading the stats off the back of a card and more to do with checking baseball reference dot com and tracking a player's season from the point they burst onto a team's WAR leaderboard. But I can definitely hold my own talking to people about sports. It's odd, because the rest of my interests are more...nerdy and niche. And this is the big popular mainstream work bro thing I'm into. Y'know, baseball's a great unifier. If it helps me fit in, so be it. 

It's wild that I've been doing this for fifteen years. I didn't think I'd make it past 2 or 3. But y'know, if you get into enough of a routine with something you just keep doing it. Especially if it's free.

The only thing is that fifteen years into this blog I've been caught at a really weird time. For collecting, for baseball, for my life. I'm still in between jobs and trying to find work where I can, and that has led to me not buying cards as much in the past year or so. I've found time to save up and get stuff, but it's been less frequent. Cards aren't on the shelves as often when I'm at Target, products are more streamlined than ever, and I'm worried the joy is leaving the hobby for me. I mean, I think it's a universal feeling, but from what I'm getting from all of you, you stick with it because you can't quit at it now. And that's where I think I'm at with collecting. I can't not collect cards. I don't know what I'd be if I stopped. 

To give you an idea of where I'm at, I gave up soda last year. Wasn't doing wonders for my throat, the caffeine isn't great for you anyhow. I used to have one a day in college. But I cut it out last year, and now I average one a month. Soda right now is cheaper than baseball cards, but it's more addictive and more carcinogenic. There hasn't been a case of somebody getting cancer from collecting too many baseball cards, not since they stopped selling them in cigarette cases. It just takes up space and costs too much money and doesn't spark as much joy as it used to. 

I started collecting in 2007, a year where you could get a blaster of Topps that had 10 packs for 10 dollars. Now you pay 20 dollars and get like 7 packs. The CEOs won and the creativity is mostly gone. But I still want to keep collecting. The same reason I keep going for jobs, or keep writing, or keep doing things I love. Because it's gotta get better eventually, right? It has to. Everything has to balance out, swing back down to earth and all. 

I've been seriously thinking about the future of the blog in the last 6 months or so. There were a lot of nights where I hammered out my two posts and thought to myself 'do I have anything left?' Or 'am I doing this just to amuse myself at this point?'. In September, the blog had its highest amount of page views, with over 92,000 in that month. At the same time, you look at the analytics, and most of the blog's views are coming from Singapore and China, meaning I have no idea how many people are reading this blog because they like baseball cards. The bot-ification of the internet has diluted a lot of online areas, especially the blogosphere. I have no idea if analytics actually mean anything anymore. People are reading, yeah, but it's not 2009 anymore. 

Kinda sucks that the peak of the blogosphere was the period where I was 13 or 14 years old and I didn't know how to really do analysis yet, but hey, you live and you learn.

But yeah, I've been mulling it over a lot. That's probably why I haven't posted much since the end of the season. That and I've been working on other projects. But I think I am gonna keep the blog going, keep making customs and all that. Mostly for my own sake but also because I know the blog does have a decent enough readership. And because I'm gonna be kicking myself if I don't get to make customs of, like, Shohei as a Dodger, or Soto as a Yankee or any of that. Or Votto wherever he signs. This is fun for me, it's how I tell the story of a baseball season. As a bonus, other people seem to enjoy it as well. 

Thank you for sticking around these 15 years, and for helping inspire me to keep at it. I hope I can give you some more decent years. I still enjoy writing the blog. I still enjoy making content. It's difficult sometimes with everything that's going on, but this helps me get by. I'll keep it going as long as it continues to do so. 

I've run Mint Condition for 15 years. More than half of my entire life. More than I've consistently done anything else. I wouldn't do something for 15 years if it wasn't at least a little bit worth it. 

Ten Years Later...

That...is what I looked like ten years ago. Around the time of February 9th, 2009. When I started writing this blog. 

I was a little young. A little immature. And I just wanted to write. I wanted to be a part of this community I'd wandered onto in order to see photos of 2008 Updates and Highlights. I didn't know how long it would last, or what I'd be doing, but...I just wanted to start it and see how it went. 

I don't think I even thought I could go for ten years, though. It's weird to think about doing one thing consistently for a ten year period. Especially when said period goes from adolescence to post-grad life. That kid has no idea how many card shows he's gonna attend, what college he's gonna go to, who he's gonna fall in love with, how close the Yankees are gonna get to World Series' before being felled by other teams. 

Hell, that kid has no idea he's gonna teach himself photoshop and start a career in graphic design via baseball cards that'll lead to his real-life employment. That'd probably scare the shit out of him.

Still, if younger me saw what I was doing now, what the blog looked like, he's probably dig it. He'd probably complain that I use the word 'shit' too much, but that was a change that came with college, and I still limited myself from using the other big curse word. 

I started writing this blog, really, to honor my grandfather, who died the fall before. He loved the Yankees, and collected the 48 Bowmans that provided the centerpieces of my collection. And my deepest regret is that he never got to see the blog. He would have been giving me post ideas every week. That would have been something.

This is still for him. But more importantly, it's for me. I've been doing this long enough that I've figured out what people want to read, and what they want to see. I'll just keep at that until I run out of things to say, which isn't likely. 

So...really, all that remains is to thank everyone who's been supporting the blog, and everyone who's been reading me ever since the beginning (and if you have, I sincerely apologize). I could not have done this without you, fair readers, and I will continue to do this for you. 

So that was...ten years. Went awful fast, didn't it? Crazy. 

Here's to the next milestone. 

Five Years (What a Surprise)

 

(This post was supposed to be for yesterday. However, I had half the post written, and then I went to watch the Beatles 50th Anniversary thing, and forgot. I'm awful at this remembering thing. But oh well).

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Five Years ago today I was a young, thirteen year old baseball card collector, racking up cards from everywhere and wanting to share it with the world. I had no idea that I'd get into customizing, Stadium Club, or any of the stuff I've immersed myself in now.

The custom above was my first-ever custom, from June 2009, after many failed attempts at blog series'. I figured it'd be nice to put new players in old designs, so I followed a tutorial, threw Derek Jeter into a 81 Topps design, and posted it. Now, honestly, compared to the stuff I've been producing lately, it's really subpar. Like, for example, here was a 1981 custom I made last year:

Better cropped, better photo, better condition, better gradients and filters. I started simply putting more effort in, and pretty soon I made a name for myself as a customizer.

But, as today's the blog's fifth anniversary, I wanted to look back at the five previous years of the blog, and all the things I was talking about back then.

2009: The First Year

You'll see it in my writing, in my customs, and in my content that I clearly had no idea what I was doing. I was a kid, I was too young, and I banked so much on the fact that nobody was reading, so I felt like I had so much freedom. Around the end of the year I got some followers, and a few trade offers, so I was beginning to get big.

A lot of the posts this year are just me trying hard to be funny, or reporting one-sentence long news stories, or something. The content isn't great, and it's cringeworthy by today's standards.

The only thing that stayed constant were the customs. I didn't use too much filter on them, so they're just the straight photos, but in terms of doctoring the original cards, I had the right idea. The ones I did for 'Year by Year' and the postseason are honestly some of the best of that year.

This was also the year that both my teams played each other in the World Series, and I got to go to Yankee Stadium to watch them. It was an okay first year of blogging, but it was nice to be a part of the sphere, and have people like Dayf, Canuck and Night Owl occasionally comment on your posts.

 

2010: Finding the Knack

First of all, that logo. I dunno what I was thinking. I thought it looked pretty cool, and I thought it was a swell enough idea. Some bloggers weren't amused.

2010 was the year that I became more of a regular blogger, and did more of the normal blogger stuff. I made trades. I ranted. I took part in a blogger worst-autograph tournament (thanks Drew!)

I also started doing a lot of open ended editorial-type posts, which took on some pretty nice topics, like the uselessness of Bowman,  the addictiveness of ToppsTown,  and the fact that everyone despises my team.

My customs were more improved, as I added more filters and just did more work on them. The quality of my writing improved as well.

By the end, I was talking about heartbreak as a fan of two teams unceremoniously booted from the playoffs within two days. I think that the moodier I got back then, the better my posts were.

Like with last year, some of the best stuff was during Year by Year.

2011: Finding the Sweet Spot

I think that 2011 was the year I really settled into the blogosphere. I had an ill-prepared blog contest, bought and ripped some vintage Stadium Club, had some trades with big time bloggers, and started churning out better posts.

One of the more viewed posts of the year was one about how pretty much every team had its haters, so the Yankees weren't free of blame. It soon became an omnibus of all the bloggers' teams of hatred. Reminds me, I should probably update that post.

I started accumulating some pretty nice fans in 2011. One in particular, a Dodger fan, gave me a lot of ideas for customs, as detailed in this post. That same fan ended up leading me to Brent Lillibridge, the first (and only, that I know of) actual ballplayer to actually like one of my customs. He made a custom of mine his Twitter photo. I will take that to my grave.

I had some nice road trips in 2011, going to Indians, Pirates and Nationals games, as well as staying in Meredith, New Hampshire for a week. Also, I went to the Super Bowl, but that's another story.

I think this was the peak of my popularity before I went back to being a regular fringe blogger like I am now.

2012: The Consistent Year

Overall, in 2012 I think I finally hit my stride, and started writing and customizing the way I do now. I learned to control the filters so that I stopped having so many overdone customs. Also, I had more well-written posts, and more well-formed ideas.

2012 was the year that Archives came back, but basically just as a way of copying my set. I had a very angry rant here about how they were stealing my idea. I also had an angry rant about the 2012 Topps gimmicks, which was even more hate-fueled than the Archives one. I had a lot of emotional posts this year, as you can see.

2012 was my biggest year in terms of customizing, as I produced more customs in 2012 than I did any other year. None were real newsmakers, though the Chipper Jones one is a favorite.

I won a contest over at Thorzul's this year. Honestly, I'm drawing a blank on anything else that happened that year.

2013: Making my Mark

Toward the end of this year I was buying Stadium Club boxes, and customizing football players. I was tussling with Topps and still making great baseball customs. Everything I really wanted to do, in my blogging career, I ended up doing in 2013, so it was really a success in my eyes.

You could argue that it was a lot of the same stuff. Making customs, going to lake George, buying cards, telling the world how awful Topps is. For a month I kept getting boxes of football products from a mysterious contact to rip. I think I ripped more actual hobby boxes of products in 2013 than I did in any other year.

2013 was a great year for me even though it wasn't really too different than the other ones. But it really exemplified how I write more than the other years. I think I'm in in my prime, unless in five more years I become as good a blogger as Night Owl or Dime Boxes or something like that.

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To make a long story short, I never did anything on this blog for popularity, for accolades, for followers. I did it mostly for myself, but also for the rest of the world to see my opinions. And I didn't think it would last this long. I didn't think it would last a month.

I'm just glad it lasted part March 2009, and into February 2014.

Will the blog last ten years? Who's to say? Certainly not me. I have no idea what's going to happen to me a year down the line, let alone five. I'll blog until I'm done, and I'll know when I'm done.

Thanks for sticking with me, by the way. For reading when I had nothing to say. And, thankfully, when I had too much to say. I really appreciate it.

Five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that's all we got...









P.S.- If you were expecting me to pick my favorite custom in all my years of making them, I'll say this-  I'm not one for picking favorites...




....but this one