The Prolonged Death of the Rookie Card: A Somber Essay

Here is an old custom card, because people tend to like posts with pictures in them

To quote a disgraced comedian in a comedy sketch about sectional couches, "this is going to be long."

By now, enough of a big deal has been made of the Astros' Yordan Alvarez not having a Topps card in 2019, his Rookie-of-the-Year-winning season. To briefly sum up the argument, the fact that someone who debuted in June being held off for a set that caps a checklist in mid-July, solely because they want to overproduce his rookies the following year, is the kind of capitalist thinking that gave us Disney+ giving us the Mighty Ducks sequels before coughing up the original.

It'd be too much to just say 'why overexpose Pete Alonso in every set and not do the same thing to Alvarez because he came up later', but ranting doesn't work on its own. So I did some research. I went back and looked at every year's Rookie of the Years, and their Topps cards, or lack thereof. It was illuminating.

This voyage eventually turned into a fascinating look back at the emasculation of the 'rookie card'. Starting in 2006, Topps defined the term a bit more closely, and tried to gauge players that would make their debuts during the season as rookies in flagship, while filling Update with players they missed that had made debuts. Around 2015, the flagship rookies just became 'guys that debuted really late last year that'll probably be in the mix this year', and Update rookies just became 'guys that debuted during the year'. And that's devolved even further to what we have now, where a lot of Update rookies are people that were forecast to make big splashes in April or May (Jon Duplantier! Elvis Luciano!), and occasional bullseyes (PETE ALONSO), while completely negating rookies that debuted later who actually had substantial rookie years, like...Yordan Alvarez.

The last ROY to not have their own rookie card in a flagship/update set is Bobby Crosby, who was on a combo rookie card in 2004 with Rich Harden. This was also the case for both 2002 Rookies of the Year. This also illuminates Topps' strategy from 1999 until 2005, which was to predict, as much as they can, the rookies that would succeed during the year, and give them combination rookie cards in flagship and, if they were lucky, solo base cards in Update.

So, really, the last player to not have a Topps flagship/Update card of their own in the year they won the Rookie of the Year is Jason Jennings, the Rockies strikeout artist who won the award in 2002. However, it's interesting to note that Jennings had cards in Topps Total that year, as well as Topps 206, and plenty of Fleer and Upper Deck products.

A few signs of the times here:

• Topps produces a card of a rookie in supplemental sets, but not in Flagship. Nowadays, this doesn't exactly happen this specific way. True, players like Max Muncy will be featured in subsets, but not with their own base card, in sets like Update. And yes, players will be featured in different uniforms in inserts than they will be on base cards (Josh Donaldson or Andrew McCutchen in this year's flagship is a good example). But Topps not including a player in flagship but including them in an extraneous set like Gallery? Rare, but unheard of. Even the rookies in a set like Gallery, like Lewis Brinson in 2017, manage to wind up in Update anyway. The checklists are congruent. But in 2002, they weren't.
• Other companies produce rookie cards of a player when you don't. This sort of thing happens to Topps all the time- they have a wider view of the rookie class than other card makers, especially 2000s Upper Deck and 2010s Panini. But for Upper Deck and Fleer flagship to have a player when Topps flagship doesn't? Very curious. And it's not a licensing thing, where someone's signed an exclusive contract with a company that isn't Topps, like Matt Wieters until 2015 or Ichiro from 2013 to 2014. Topps could have made a 2002 Topps card of Jason Jennings. They just...didn't. Which is alarming. 
• Jason Jennings didn't exactly leap onto the scene in 2002. He'd been sitting in the Rockies' farm system for a few years, and was touted to make a gradual splash in 2002. It's not like Jennings' come-up caught Topps off-guard. It certainly didn't catch Fleer or UD off guard. You can say the same thing about Yordan Alvarez this year- Alvarez was a winning DH prospect, the Astros had no options at DH, Alvarez started the season in AAA. Topps has done math like this before, but to completely miscalculate like this, perhaps deliberately, is appalling. 

From then back, you get more mixtures, like players showing up on multi-person cards, or in prospect subsets, or in Major League Debut sets, to showing up in the low-seeded Traded set (hello Cal!), to eventually...the practice of not beating printing schedules and releasing the rookie's card the following year, like Eddie Murray not getting his rookie card until 1978. 

So Topps has lapped themselves, deliberately. Instead of not having the time and feasible means to produce a Yordan Alvarez card, they've completely put off releasing a card of him in 2019 so that they can overproduce his cards in 2020, and pepper every single set with rookie-logo emblazoned Yordan Alvarez cards, even if the point is very moot and he is no longer a rookie. 

Topps flagship rookie cards have ceased to mean anything other than an obligation. You can find a Yordan Alvarez rookie that Topps has produced, but in a set like Pro Debut, Heritage Minor Leagues, or Bowman. Those are the rookies that mean something, and...most of the time, most of them aren't even worth anything because they don't all count as actual rookie cards because Topps produces so many of them, both in quantity and in variety. 

Last week, I pulled a card of Casey Mize, the Tigers' premier prospect, out of a pack of Heritage Minor Leagues. It's not my first Mize card, as he had a card in Pro Debut. It's not the first-ever Mize card, as he had cards in last year's Bowman Draft, as well as Bowman Best and Panini products. It will not be the last Mize issue as a minor leaguer, as Mize will be in Pro Debut and HML, and Bowman, until he makes his Tigers debut. 

In 20 years, someone is going to find a Mize rookie card, one of the DOZENS I just delineated, and think it's worth something, and because it's not the complete, city-upon-a-hill rookie card that Topps produced before all the other ones, it won't be worth anything at all. Even if Mize does make it. Topps has now made its own rules as to which cards are 'real' rookie cards, and yet have continued to produce subsequent rookie cards that follow those rules, but are not the supreme, actual 'rookie card'.

This does not make sense to me because I'm not wealthy.

In summation, rookie cards don't mean anything anymore. Game used cards don't mean anything either. Collect the way you want to, not because of added value or stuff that might make money, but because if a million dollar company can control the exact way you collect cards, they've won.

I promise my next post will be a lot happier and have a lot more pictures.

On Mental Health, Baseball Cards, and Holding On

Right. In honor of the drought in between playoff games, let's get serious.

I've been blogging for ten years, going on eleven. When I got into writing this blog, I was 13. And I'll admit it was very odd for a little while to be a young kid interacting with a lot of older collectors. Cause, you know, a kid's perspective can only get you so far, and you only know so much about the world when you're a kid.

I'm 23 now. I feel as though I'm still one of the younger members of this community (though I've seen people my age, like Drew from drewscards, come and go), but I definitely know a lot more about how the world works. Since starting the blog, I've graduated from high school and college, started my first professional job, and come to terms with my own anxiety and depression. Now, one year post-college, and in arguably the toughest stage of my life, it's been harder to keep everything stable. This is the first time in my life where I'm bowling without bumpers, in a sense- I've been on a track for most of my life, and now I'm figuring things out on my own, though still living at home, and it's a lot tougher.

I'd like to say that collecting cards helps, but...I look at where everything is now, and I compare it to where it was when I started collecting in 2007. And I ask myself, very plainly- would I start collecting if I got into it now, rather than in '07? And look, say what you want about the 2007 Topps flagship design, or gimmicked rookies or whatever, but there was more variety then, and there was more risk-taking then, than there is in current baseball card products. Now everything feels more homogenized, safer, and less genuine.

I'm not saying I'm done collecting. Far from it. It's one of the safest addictions a person can have, and it's still one of the few constants in my life. But, I'll admit that with current cardboard, it gets harder and harder to find things to write about, or something solid to say. I contemplated doing a post this year about how broken Update Series is, but that's a post I've written before. I don't wanna go in circles with the blog.

Perhaps there's more to say about older cards? I might do more Nostalgic Box Breaks in the future, but even then it takes energy to label every photo and space the posts out so they get the right traffic.

But, in a year when I've seen good friends alienate each other, and in a year when I've tried very hard to keep optimistic while working a job that's clearly not my end goal, it's very hard to just be satisfied doing the same custom posts, or breaking the same uninspired boxes of current Topps products.

There's a point to this, I swear to God.


In case nobody's told you this before, it's not a sign of weakness to ask for help. In any capacity. I struggled with this for years, because of some weird, misplaced pride kind of thing, and I still struggle, but...I'm learning. I see a therapist, as one does. I've been working with the guy for a few years, and it's one of those things where my old one left the practice so this one got assigned to me, and it's still a little fresh, but...he understands. He works with a lot of people who deal with a lot of other things, and as someone with a high-functioning neurological disorder, I'm probably a bit of a relief for him. Not to gloat or anything.

Anyway, we're talking today. And he asks me what I do to relax. And I bring up the fact that most of my house is lined with baseball cards, and I collect those and organize them. And as I bring up something else, he holds up a finger. "Hold on."

And he went to get a large, shoebox-type thing, and I'm already going "you're kidding me."

Don't worry, the whole box wasn't baseball cards. I can guess that some of the other people he works with need tactile enforcement or something like that, because the box had a disorganized mess of trading cards. But not like Pokemon or anything current. This was stuff my therapist must have grown up with. Old Batman cards, or picture cards, or one or two basketball stickers, or a rare Michael Jordan Hanes oddball set that came out in the 2000s. And he leafed through, saying "I think there's a few baseball ones in here."

There were.

Yeah. I had a similar reaction.

Of all places to find 1972 Topps cards, you don't expect to find them in a therapist's office. There were only a few baseball ones in there, and they were all 1972 Topps. I clarified, and asked if he actually meant that I should take them, and he said 'of course'.

Better in someone's collection than sitting in a box to be handled by people that don't appreciate them, I guess.

Looking through all these, I noticed how...atypical, ironically, these cards were, especially as specimens of the 1972 set. This one, for instance, is the only team-photo card from this set that isn't a posed shot, due to stadium concern issues I believe. I can only imagine people looking through this box unfamiliar with baseball, looking at the floating heads of the 1971 Chicago Cubs looking back at them, including Joe Pepitone, Billy Williams, Ken Holtzman, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks.

Perhaps this was the point. Perhaps these cards weren't meant to be normal cards, or base models of anything. Perhaps they were meant to spark interest in people who were doing their best to grasp concepts.

The rest of these cards were all from the infamous Boyhood Photos subset from 1972. Which I also found interesting. Maybe they were thrown in because younger clients could see something tactile, something about growth. See this young kid in a button up? One day he turned into a 4-time 20-game winner and World Series hero. It can happen to you too.

 Fregosi's better known for being the piece that got Nolan Ryan out of Queens. I honestly think he should be better known for this card. We need more cards with accordions on them. Get Flansburgh & Linnell to do a designer-set like Christie Brinkley and VJ Lovero did, and have 'em all carry accordions.

Maybe my therapist was trying to convey to people that some people don't change completely. Look at Wilbur Wood. By 1972, I imagine he was no longer a master fisherman, and I imagine he had a different sense of pants fashion, but he still has the same face. He's still the same person, no matter what exteriors, or interiors, have changed. 

Willie Horton falls into the category of 'team hero that never gets enough credit outside of his one city'. That city is Detroit, and they love him there, as he's a Tiger HOFer, and I believe his number might have been retired. But you don't see many sportswriters talking about Willie Horton these days.

Sometimes you just find your circles, I guess. You look for the people that love you and want to hear from you. Horton's is Detroit. The blogosphere might be mine.

You wouldn't think it, but these cards aren't in the worst condition, either. Granted, some are kinda bent, and some corners are kinda dinged, but compared to other more loved cards I've seen (there was a 75 mini in this box with a HUGE tear through its middle), they're fine. With 45+ year old cards, you take what you can, and if these were lying in a vintage dollar box at a card show, I'd certainly pick them up. Especially considering how rarely I see these subset cards, or just Sal Bando cards in general.

There were a few draws in this, as if I cared about those. Like Joe Torre's snazzy little suit here. Not sure what aged worse, the suit or the sideburns. Of course, the story is clear from '72- Torre bobs around for a few more years, becomes a player-manager with the Mets, gets bit managing jobs here and there, then gets the Yankees gig and becomes a Hall of Famer by winning 4 titles in 6 seasons.

A lesson I could take from that? Not every great opportunity happens early in life. Frank Langella has the story of seeing a fortune teller when he was in his 20s, and the fortune teller saying that he'd achieve his greatest success late in life, and Langella admitting "I thought she meant 40". True success comes to those who are patient, and those who are determined to achieve it themselves. I realize I might have to wait a little longer for my success, but...I'll be here for a while, I reckon.

This was the shock to me. It made sense, but it was a shock.

It made sense because it wasn't the first time I'd seen a Stargell vintage card in the wild. Years ago, looking through my friend's brother's binders, mostly from 2000, 2001, that era...I looked into one and I saw what was clearly a Willie Stargell 1966 Topps issue, which probably came from his Cleveland-sports-loving father. It seemed odd that someone so junk-wax based would just have one vintage HOFer in there.

It also made sense because another therapist I'd had at this practice, who'd also since retired, was a Pittsburgh Pirates lifer, and told me about first-hand memories of the 1960 team, and going back to meet members of the team for the 50th anniversary and meeting Bill Mazeroski and everybody. And talked about Three Rivers Stadium, especially in comparison to PNC Park.

So of course Willie Stargell was hiding amidst these other cards, waiting for someone who'd appreciate him. Which is an odd concept- Stargell, one of the nicest players to walk the fields, waiting for appreciation.

I also find it weird that, out of all of these, Stargell's old photo is the only one where he's holding a bat, in full baseball regalia. Yes, Bando's got a glove, but his is static. This is, while posed, an active shot of a future legend in action. Sometimes ability like that can be apparent from the beginning.


I don't know how many fingerprints are on these cards, or how long they've been in a therapist's office, or if the other people who'd seen those cards are any better or any happier than they were before, but...it's not my place to wonder that. All I can control is where I go from here, and how I cope with this...admittedly dormant stage of my life.

Things aren't going to get much easier, especially as I work towards getting a job in my field, but...the bottom line is I know when to ask for help, and I know when to tell someone how I'm feeling. Not because someone will see me as vulnerable, but because someone will see me as human. And I can't help but be human.


Once the World Series ends, I'm gonna try to do more basic posts about cards. Nostalgic Box Breaks, card prompts, custom subsets, or just...looking at some cards, and talking about them. I wanna write more clear, thought-out stuff on the blog, rather than just saying 'hey, here's some pictures and mediocre analysis, have at 'em'.

A post I intend on writing soon is another one involving anxiety, about the general anxiety behind trading through the mail. If you liked this one, you'll probably enjoy that one as well.

If you've made it this far, not just in this post but also from when you started reading my blog in general, thank you. I really appreciate it. I hope you like where I'm going with the blog next.

Charlie Blackmon vs. Statistics

Stats are weird, man.

Yes, that's how I'm starting what might me one of my more thought-out posts of the year so far. With something that might be a Lebowski-ism.

I'm not one of those guys that's studied Bill James, and gone into detail about mathematical possibilities and sabermetric outcomes and such, but...I have seen Moneyball. It is a great movie. I didn't understand it all, but I really liked it.

We're living in an era of baseball where the most important statistic is not batting average, or ERA, or home runs...but WAR. Wins Above Replacement. A statistic that seems simple to any mathematician or general manager, but...still baffles a lot of modern baseball fans. People will go 'wait, I don't understand, this player's only batting .260 with 3 home runs, why does he have a 1.3 WAR?', not accounting for fielding percentages, contact hitting, and on-base percentage (to use the immortal line from Moneyball, "does he get on base?").

The average baseball fan accounts more for power-hitting than he does for fielding...which is the exact opposite of the average baseball statistician, who argues that fielding is half the equation, and any overpowered batting number must be complemented by a fielding number, regardless of whether or not that fielding number is atrocious.

And that is where Charlie Blackmon comes into play.

Charlie Blackmon has remained one of the most consistent and likable hitters in the game, regardless of the fact that most of his work is done in a hitter's park. He can hit for contact, he can hit home runs, and he's never had a truly awful season.

...but according to stats, his 2018 was atrocious. Now, looking at it from one dimension, it doesn't seem so bad: he batted .291 with 29 home runs and a league-leading 119 runs scored. That's a solid season right there, especially for a pennant-contender like the 2018 Rockies.

On the WAR equation charts, his Runs Batting figure was a 14. Not as good as his 44 from 2017, but not bad. His Runs FIELDING figure on the other hand...was -28. Because he is a very slow outfielder, and not a very accurate outfielder. And because...he plays most of his games in a hitter's park, all the balls are coming his way and he can't always run to get there.

...which is a problem.

I'd like to tell you his 2019 WAR splits are better, but...not by much. He's currently got a zero Runs Batting, which is odd for a guy with a .287 average, and a -1 Runs Fielding. So...not a lot going on there, even if we are talking about a perennial all-star power-hitting team hero.

Hell, it doesn't even work for David Dahl either. Dahl's batting .315, he's doing great...and he has a -3 Runs Fielding variable. So THAT's screwing him over. At this point, I'm legitimately not sure if it's player skill or just the outfield in Coors Field in general that's dooming these two players. Because they're both great. Seriously. And these numbers, which are widely listened to in this sport, are stopping them from greatness.

Now granted, they're not the most important numbers in Denver right now (those would be 15 and 18, and also #28), but they're the ones that stood out for me.

And if you do think that stats like these are ruining the game, and that players like Charlie Blackmon should be allowed to get higher acclaim despite bad fielding numbers...well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Coming Tonight- Okay, that was a weighty, educated post. So tonight, let's talk about the Orioles.

It's Impolite to say 'Bunt': Why Topps Bunt is the Wrong Future of Collecting

I pulled this in one of my packs of 2016 Topps yesterday. It appalled me for a few reasons.

1. If people are saying the photoshop jobs are obvious in the 16T flagship, then they should get a load of these, especially the Correa insert. No effort to dial it back.
2. This brings forward an especially horrifying notion, one I'm going to talk about in this post.

2016 Topps has been criticized by literally everyone on the blogosphere, and for good reason. One of the most frequent criticisms is that the base design looks WAY too simple. Like, smog notwithstanding, it's just an MLB crawl and some shiny. There's not a ton to it.

And, as some people have pointed out, there's a reason toward this. Topps has realized that their business is coming less from people buying actual, physical packs of their products (you know, the way it should be), and is coming more from people using their digital app, Topps Bunt. So, in order to remedy this new direction of sales, Topps has made their base design simple enough that it can be reproduced for Bunt. Matter of fact, 2016 Topps is the first Topps Baseball Card set designed for the sole purpose...of NOT being collected as baseball cards.

It's painstakingly obvious. The lack of foil. The lack of originality. The zooming in of all of the photos. The even-more-boring inserts. The indistinguishable parallels. Topps has mass-produced and collated this set merely as an afterthought, knowing that they're only doing it for the older generation. Topps, who were so focused on attracting the younger demographic five years ago, through physical cards, have given up entirely, and have gone to just winning over that demographic by becoming something they very clearly are not.

Oh, sure. I talk so much shit about Topps Bunt, how it's detrimental to old-school collectors, and how it's ruining how Topps produces its cards. But I haven't even talked about how the app is from the inside, how it works, what it does. So I'm certainly one to talk.

(Clears Throat)

I was an avid user of Topps Bunt for approximately one month. I joined around January 2015, and deleted the app sometime around the middle of February 2015. I wanted to see what the fuss was about, so to speak.

Topps Bunt nearly derailed my savings account and damn near ended my blogging career. So yes, I am one to talk. And talk I will. Until my lungs freaking burst.



Like I said, I joined in January 2015, during the offseason. I had no choice but to start accumulating as many packs as I could, but there was no easy way about it. In-app credit was generated on a day-to-day basis, with a special bonus every Wednesday, and that was no way keep nabbing packs regularly. So, more in-app credit could be purchased with actual money. Now, Topps got this from other apps, I assume, as Temple Run or Angry Birds would sell things like hints, or more saves, or little extra items, for a couple actual dollars. But they weren't things that were invaluable to the game, like...all of the cards you were supposed to collect.

If Topps wanted people to actually collect the set without breaking the bank, they would go for the 1970's route, and put 20 or 30 cards into a 99 cent pack, or put 12 cards into a 3 dollar pack with parallels in it. But the Topps people, obviously, are not fools. They know that kids aren't buying physical packs, and they want money. So what they do here, which is genius and infuriating, is they stock packs at 5,000 coins, or 10,000 coins, or even 15 or 25,000, which is the equivalent of 25 bucks, so that the only way that kids can keep collecting the ultra-rare inserts is if they constantly have to borrow from their mom or dad's debit card, and keep feeding money into the cash cow that is Topps Bunt.

Now, replace mom and dad's account with a newly bolstered debit account, that I was saving for textbooks, and replace a 10-12 year old kid with a 19 year old kid who hadn't realized anything was wrong yet, and you have the makings of a disaster.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I had developed a small-scale gambling addiction. I would feed money into my Bunt account, at the promise of being 'with the times' and ripping digital packs just to have the latest insert sets completed, and then keep trading the rarer ones away for newer stuff, while keeping the autographs I would pull (on occasion) ultra-safe and locked. This process kept going on. I'd stomach the younger (or even older) kids who would ridicule me for "not knowing how to trade", even when I was trading my unwanted goods for their unwanted goods, which was, by Webster's definition, exactly what a trade means. I just kept going, kept getting more cards, and keeping in the bubble.

The problem was I didn't have time for many other things around that time. My blogging around that February slipped (just as bad as this February, only this February my excuses are "there was nothing worth blogging about" and "class fatigue"), because I had no real interest in writing, or picking myself out of BuntWorld. I collected some physical Topps, and I loved the 2015 set, but part of me was secretly wondering what it would look like in the Bunt app.

I honestly forget what caused me to delete the app, but I imagine it was a sudden realization of what it had done to me (and, more importantly, my bank account). I had allowed Bunt to scrounge itself into my brain and stay lodged their until I had no choice but to claw it out from the inside.



The main problem with Topps Bunt is that there's no moderation. There's no limit. A person can feed a lot of money into the app every day, and get more cards for themselves everyday, because there is nothing stopping them. There are packs available to buy everyday, with new and exciting bonus packs appearing at some times, and special, more expensive packs showing up randomly.

In real, physical life, there is a limit to how much Topps cards you can buy, because getting Topps cards involves going to a card shop, or a Target, and getting some cards, in moderation, and paying for them at the register. Topps Bunt didn't have that. There wasn't a register to pay for everything at once. You just pay whenever you want something, and there was nothing to stop you from wanting to buy the packs, because there was no geographical difficulty to getting more packs every day.

If I went to Target every day and bought $50 dollars worth of baseball cards, not only would it render me bankrupt very quickly, but there would be a social stigma about it. Because eventually someone would see me going to Target every day, and getting a lot of cards, and comment about it. In some semi-concerned-but-mostly-observant way, someone would say 'this isn't the first time I've seen you here', or 'welcome back', or 'that's a lot of baseball cards for one week'.

There's no social stigma in Topps Bunt because there are not other people around you when you buy packs. Nobody else in Topps Bunt can see how much you spend, how many coins you have. No one is there to stigmatize you for what you are doing except, eventually, you. And you don't realize it until you have to pull yourself away from the picture for a second, examine everything, and realize how wrong this is. Which is what I did.

Part of the problem is that I've never gambled, or had anything like this, so I didn't know going in that I needed to control what I put in. But, if I remember correctly, there is no disclaimer ANYWHERE in Topps Bunt that says 'remember to spend responsibly', or 'you should probably control how much money you put in.' Because anything that would end in Topps getting less money is bad for Topps.

So, in a way, Topps is promoting gambling, for their own personal gain, without a real care for what happens to people who put too much money into the app, especially if they're young kids spending their parents' money. They do not put thought into this, which is a horrible thing to grasp.

That somebody could go 'Yes, people are losing money, yes, kids are being conditioned to gamble at a young age, but on the plus side, we're finally winning the child demographic, so what's there to worry about?' This breaks my heart.



All of this in mind, Topps is restructuring their organization so that it's more geared toward things like Topps Bunt, and less towards actual, physical packs of Topps, which uses moderation, and is a lot safer for younger kids to get into than Topps Bunt. And yet Topps doesn't understand that it's got the exact wrong priorities, and that putting more emphasis on Topps Bunt is a mistake unless Bunt is restructured to be less of a cash cow and more of a direct simulation of actually buying packs of cards.

Topps Bunt cannot be 'the future of collecting', as Topps is leading us to believe, because if so, the next generations of card collectors are going to learn the lesson I learned eventually, and not want to collect cards at all, be it digital or physical. If this process, the one that I succumbed to, keeps going on unaddressed, Topps is going to lose a ton of prospective collectors, future and current, physical and digital.

They damn near lost me as a customer, and it took some overwhelming response from a grand majority of their products last year to keep me buying. But Topps needs to seriously rethink its priorities, or at least do something about this problem as soon as possible. I know it took me a year to report on this, but I wanted to wait until it would be relevant. It's relevant now, because Topps wants you to believe that Topps Bunt is the future.

Well, if that's the future, I think I'd be better off living in the past.

Things Mark Loretta Could Be Pointing To:

The Story So Far: Mark Loretta is in the middle of a photo shoot at Spring Training, 2002. Suddenly, and without warning, Mark is distracted by something in the sky, out of the frame of the photo. He points toward this unidentified object in complete awe.

This much is absolutely certain. We here at Mint Condition have begun to formulate what exactly Mark Loretta could be pointing at. We've come up with the following possibilities:

• A jet carrying the other members of the 2002 Milwaukee Brewers, confused as to why Mark has gotten there a week early to just take pictures..
• Loretta, who'd had a stake in Topps the previous year (according to one of our interns, Chad), was pointing out to the Topps people where the logo should go for the 2002 design. His idea lost out, sadly, to puke and ribbons.
• Richie Sexson on the opposite side of the field doing the exact same pointing gesture, pissing off his respective camera crew as well.
• Where his gear should go, directed towards the imaginary Green Bay spring training bike crew that Loretta seems to think applies to baseball as well.
• The rough vicinity of Mark's lone Hall of Fame ballot voter.
• A seagull
• A blimp, broadcasting the phrase "GO BACK TO YOUR OLD UNIFORMS!"
• A rare member of the early 2000's Brewers who wasn't an over-30 home run machine.
• Cheese.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger parachuting down, covered in debris, in the middle of filming his new movie "Hard Brewed".
• The starting roster of the 2001 Milwaukee Bucks
• Eric Young trying to escape, and a serious of coaches with nets trying to stop him.
• More foil.
• The corner of the card (the intern who thought of that has since been sacked).
• Superman mocking Mark's goofy pose.
• The recently dropped Times Square New Year's Ball, which had somehow made its way out of New York and was now hurtling towards Spring Training.
• The meteor that will fall from the sky and give Mark the ability to be a borderline serious hitter for the next seven seasons.
• Bubba Franks.
• A careening Miller truck.
• Fifth place.

So far, this is all we've got. If anyone knows anything more practical, other than just 'the sky' because it can't be that simple, let the Mint Condition team know in the comments.

(P.S.- This is the first of what's likely going to be many stream-of-consciousness photo-based posts. I got the idea a few years ago doing a contest from Chris at Nachos Grande, and liked doing posts like those (sort of like What Really Pisses Off Carlos Lee and Mr. Thomas Will Now Take Your Questions), and liked them so much that I wanted to bring them back as a recurring blog feature. Let me know what you think.)

Something That Could Have Happened

You don't often get to hear about the outcomes that just missed being realized.

I mean, sure, every once and a while you think 'oh, A-Rod could have been a Red Sock', or, 'oh, Vida Blue could have been a Yankee', or something like that. And you think about it for a few minutes. And it doesn't really go anywhere, because you can't make an alternate timeline when you know what already happens- the two will end up being similar, or working off each other.

Today, or really yesterday, one of those unrealized outcomes popped out of the wild. Johnny Cueto was supposed to sign with the Diamondbacks last week. The entire organization was trying their absolute hardest to nail him down and give him enough provisions, but at the end of the day, Johnny Cueto decided he didn't want to go there.

This was actually a pretty big deal. The Diamondbacks, up until last season, were completely out of the race, and had nobody except for Paul Goldschmidt worth hanging onto. It also didn't help that their pitching staff had almost completely run dry. This season their infield grew, their outfielders started hitting, and a few pitchers escaped from the rubble and started playing well.

So, for 2016, the D-Backs have a stronger, and youth-driven, team, that could potentially do pretty well.

Now...imagine all they have right now...and imagine Johnny Cueto on the mound for them. How ridiculous would that be?

We're assuming that the Johnny Cueto that would have entered Phoenix would be the hard-throwing, fierce Johnny Cueto from 2008-July 2015 and also parts of October 2015, and not the limp noodle Johnny Cueto from most of the second half of 2015. Yeah, the good Johnny Cueto.

This would have given us a Cueto-Corbin-de la Rosa-Chase Anderson-Robbie Ray/Zack Godley rotation, which, while not perfect whatsoever, could be pretty explosive if Johnny Cueto is heading it off.

So, assuming the season starts, and nobody huge offensively gets injured except possibly Tuffy Gosewisch or Yasmany Tomas or something, these guys could definitely slide into second or first and stay there for most of the season. Their main competitors will probably be the Giants (because 2016 will be an even season) and the Dodgers (because they're the Dodgers), and if nothing substantial happens to that team, and that pitching staff stays ON, they could have potentially clinched a playoff spot.

So yeah. This is the move that could have changed the balance of power in the NL West, and could have brought a playoff run to team that hasn't had one in years. I'm not saying that won't happen, but Johnny Cueto could have been the catalyst to a playoff squad, just like Jon Lester was in Chicago. Johnny Cueto could have been the striker in Arizona. He could have set off a domino effect that could have brought legitimacy to one of the jokes of the NL as of late.

But he said 'no thank you'. And moved on.

And just like that, an alternate reality closed in on itself, and crumpled into the trash bin.



(I fully expect to come back to this post in 2016 when the Diamondbacks succeed/fail/do something. Plus, I really hope I'm not the only blogger who thinks any idea like this is interesting.)

How I wound up with Yogi

This is gonna be a bit of a sentimental post, because I'm gonna talk about two guys that are pretty close to my heart, and as of this morning, both of them have passed.

I don't get a lot of opportunities to talk about my grandfather, and I think that is a shame. I think my grandfather inspired my love for baseball, especially some of the old players, more than anyone else. And, as you're gonna read here, my grandfather, unwittingly, inspired my drive to collect.


In the 1940's, there were no hobby shops. No card collectors. No Topps. In 1948, the Bowman company got the bright idea to start putting little squares of baseball players inside those little penny arcades, so that kids could get a different one every time, and the pastime of picking up little cards of players could be started with the youth. I don't think they sold '48 Bowmans in packs. It had to have been solely from those little toy machines. And you'd get one card for a nickel.

My grandfather had to have been ten or eleven around the time that these came out, and without going into too many details, he found his time out of the house, and searching for these little machines, quite often. For a kid in his situation, without a ton of money, or a ton of hope, getting a card of a New York Yankee could be a great thing.

After a while, my grandfather found myself with a whole collection of these little square cards, mostly from '48 and '49 Bowman. Most people who had cards back then tell me that they'd stick them in the spokes of their bicycle and screw them up pretty well. I don't think my grandfather did that, at least not to the extent of other people.

After a while, he'd recognize some of the players. Some of them, like 'Babe' Young or 'Snuffy' Stirnweiss, would fade into obscurity, but there was a Bob Lemon rookie that he held onto, and there were cards of Hank Bauer and Pee-Wee Reese that he'd cherish.

And also, most people from that era didn't hold onto those cards, they let their mothers throw them out when they went to live their own lives. Not my grandfather. He managed to hold onto them, kept them in a place where he knew they'd be, and managed to keep them in his house, especially when my dad came around.


My dad collected cards too. I mean, of course, because how the hell else would I have a blog if he didn't?

My dad had it easier, though. He'd take his bike down to the 7-11 and get a few packs of cards. And he also had it pretty cheap, but he'd get more cards for a tiny bit more money. And he'd take 'em home, look at them, sort them, and occasionally run into his father's room and say 'hey, look who I got!'

We've all been there. We've all felt that.

The difference here is that my grandfather had a trump card. Every once and a while, when my dad would flaunt pulling a Vida Blue, or a Reggie Jackson, or a Goose Gossage, my grandfather would pull something out of a drawer and say 'c'mere', and he'd have, in top-loaders i presume, those '48 and '49 Bowmans, right beside all the coins he'd collected, and there were a ton of them, after those Bowman sets had been long finished.

And as he'd flip through the players that my dad vaguely knew, like Bob Lemon and Pee-Wee Reese, he'd come to the one guy that he KNEW my dad would gasp at.

It was Yogi Berra, from 1948 Bowman. And it was his rookie card.

My dad must have leapt.


Flash forward a few more decades. Now I'm in the picture. I've taken the reins of my father's collection, or at least what I knew of it that existed, and I'm sorting it by team, by year, by position (that one did not go very well. I had a very big pitcher pile). I didn't really have a sense of good or bad players yet, I just liked what looked cool. And then 2007 comes around, and I start buying packs, and I start really getting into it.

Around this time, my grandfather's health is failing. He'd been on a slope for a few years, and things, sadly, weren't looking too good. He was still himself, at times, and he still loved the hell out of seeing me, but a lot had changed.

We found out he had a gigantic cavalcade of cards still in his basement. Some were my dad's. So, one day in July 2007, I'll never forget it, we get there, and there's a whole mess of everything on the dining room table. Wax boxes. Top-loaders. 40-counters. There was a ton of cards there, and because my uncle collected some, he got a few boxes out of it, and the rest would go to us.

And as I was sifting through some of the really good stuff, I got to those top-loaders my dad had seen those years before. He didn't tell me. He didn't tell me the caliber of that kind of stuff. I knew there would be some sort of '48 line, but not who'd be there.

I got past the second Stirnweiss when I saw him.

It was a black-and-white card, but it had a hint of sepia. There he was, swinging his bat, looking at the camera, with a focused expression and a curled brow. He was a baseball legend, and he was staring my through this cardboard portal, through this square that could transcend time.

He was Yogi Berra. And he was mine.


My grandfather died a year later. It was heartbreakingly sad. Even at a young, semi-naive age I was very broken up about it. I spoke at his funeral and everything, and I had this optimistic tone. Like he'd be up there, chatting with Billy Martin and Casey Stengel about the game, or something.

Well, now Yogi's up there with him too. And he must be in joy, my grandfather. I can imagine them going on for hours.

I still have the Yogi card, by the way. I never planned on parting with it, and I don't think I ever will. It's a very important card to me, monetary value aside. Whenever I see that card, I think of my grandfather's young eyes, watching it as it tumbled down the machine and into the hand-slot. I think of his eyes when he realized how much it would mean to me to have it.

As long as I live, I will never forget that.

Meanwhile, in San Diego: A One-Act Play

INT.- Padres Clubhouse, San Diego CA--NIGHT
It's a rainy night in San Diego, and the entire team has been smushed into the clubhouse. This includes all the players, the pitchers, manager Pat Murphy, manager-for-one-game Dave Roberts (who is still with the team for some reason), and GM AJ Preller, who is standing at the front of the room, taking inspiration from the Kevin Costner movie Draft Day, which he probably caught on HBO very recently. He slams a cleat against the board and gets the attention of the group.

PRELLER: Okay...you're probably wondering why I decided to call this meeting.
JOSH JOHNSON (in the back of the room, wearing a full-body cast): ...I'm not.
PRELLER (motioning to Johnson to shut up). Look...it's the last month of the season, we've got a couple weeks to go, and we're nowhere near where everybody thought we'd be.
B.J. UPTON: I mean, I'm not surprised. Like, I wasn't even supposed to be in this cockamamie team.
DEREK NORRIS (raising his hand): I'd like to point out that the one guy that is calling this team cockamamie...first of all, dude, you legally changed your name to Melvin!
BJ (standing up): THAT IS MY NAME, BRO! D'you know how many people in Tampa used to call me Bl--job? That's what they thought it stood for, man!
JAMES SHIELDS: Honestly, even 'Bl--job' is a step up from Melvin. Like, who else, you know, who's still alive, goes by Melvin?
PRELLER (banging cleat again): Would everybody give Melvin a break about his name? I mean, honestly, Melvin. If people are gonna make fun of you, don't give them a choice. They already have your offensive ability to work with.

BJ is visibly unamused, while his brother Justin fist-pumps, and high-fives everyone around him. He even high-fives Wil Myers, who strains whatever he'd just gotten off the DL for.

BJ: Hey, why do you have to diss my game?
PRELLER(suddenly jumping onto the desk) : BECAUSE WE'RE IN FOURTH PLACE, *MELVIN!* NOW IS A DIFFERENT TIME!

Preller gets down from the desk seamlessly. A couple people go "oooohhh..."

PRELLER: There is a reason I spent money on all of you guys this winter. Derek, you had a phenomenal season last year. Justin, you nearly brought the Braves back from the dead. Shields, you almost won your team a World Series. But you guys haven't been able to deliver. And I feel like I have to blame it on someone.
JOHNSON: Well, don't blame me, AJ. I've been injured all season, so I couldn't possibly-

Suddenly Josh Johnson falls over in his full body cast and shatters his spine, putting him on the DL for roughly another three seasons.

PRELLER (Reacting to this): ...right. Thanks Josh. Now look...I've fought long and hard about this, but I need to nail one part of this team that's responsible for all of this and I'm going through all of you. And the weakest link is gonna be cleaned the second we hit the offseason. Let me start with the pitching staff.
SHIELDS: With all due respect, boss, it's not us.
PRELLER: That's what I was beginning to get at-
SHIELDS: Look, all of us have a pretty good record. Tyson, you're striking people out, isn't that right?
TYSON ROSS: Damn right, Jim.
SHIELDS: And Drew, you're still striking people out, right?
ANDREW CASHNER: You said it, Jim.
SHIELDS: Hell, even you, Ian Kennedy, are still at least trying to strike people out, regardless of wins.
IAN KENNEDY: Bet your ass, Jim.
ODRISAMER DESPAIGNE: HEY, WHAT ABOUT ME, JI-
Shields (Ignoring Driz): Bottom line is we're doing our jobs pretty damn well, even if we're not winning games.

Josh Johnson tries to get up for an 'AMEN', but topples over again and breaks another part of his body. Somewhere, even Brandon Webb is loving this shit.

PRELLER: So if it's not you guys, it's gotta be run support.
JUSTIN UPTON: Well...not really. I mean, hell, I'm still hitting the heck out of the ball.
GOOD MATT KEMP: I'm with him.
PRELLER: Good Matt Kemp? When did you get here?
GOOD MATT: Oh, sometime after the All Star Break. Look, Aje, I've been doing all I can in the ribbies category, but I'm sorry if it's not amounting to any postseason endeavors. I just have to try harder next year.

Preller holds his jaw open for a moment. Josh Johnson tries to, but his jaw is also broken. 

PRELLER: Man, I missed you, Good Matt Kemp.
YONDER ALONSO: What the hell are you saying? Good Matt Kemp used to hit 30 home runs against us every year.
PRELLER: THAT WAS IN THE BEFORE TIME, YONDY! (beat) Speaking of which, why haven't you been performing this season, Yond?
ALONSO: Oh, I have. I just haven't been hitting home runs.
PRELLER: Wait, so...you guys *have* been hitting?
J-UP: Well, yeah. Just not as much as you guys might have wanted.
ALEXI AMARISTA: I mean, I haven't really been hitting, but...I don't think you guys really hired me for that.
PRELLER: NOBODY CARES, ALEXI. CAN YOU AT LEAST PLAY SHORTSTOP?
AMARISTA: ...I mean, I guess...
PRELLER: Wonderful, Alexi. I love it. You're doing great things.
NORRIS (to Shields): You gonna tell him?
SHIELDS: Nope.

Preller paces around for a few more seconds, still in thought.

PRELLER: I mean could it be the bench?
BRETT WALLACE: (scoffs)
PRELLER: Okay. It's not the bench. So what do we have so far. It can't be the pitching, but they don't have run support...but the offense is working, as is the defense...so that leaves the bullpen-

Craig Kimbrel clears his throat. Preller looks at him, steely-eyed, and returns to his point.

PRELLER: So...what you guys are saying is that you guys are all playing pretty decently?
JUSTIN: With some exceptions, boss.
BJ: Stoppit, Bro. I'm right here.
JUSTIN: Fine, "MELVIN."
NORRIS: Look, we're doing an alright job, not really making any blunders. It's just that the other teams are kind of better than us. you can't really fault us for that, can you Aje?

Preller stops, and a spotlight lands on him. An icy silence goes over the room.

PRELLER: Could it be...that *I* was the thing that was driving this team into fourth? I mean, I had all the best intentions.
BUD BLACK (suddenly entering): All the best men do.
PRELLER (looking to Black): Does this mean it's the end for me, Buddy?
BLACK (putting an arm on Preller's shoulder): Yeah, pretty much. You've got another few weeks to ride it out, but we both know nothing's gonna come of it. So I guess there's only one thing you can do...
PRELLER (frightened suddenly): W-what's that, Bud?
BLACK: Move on, Aje. Move on.

With that, Bud Black pulls a Nationals hat out of his bag, pulls out his cell phone, puts the cap on his head, and leaves the room, triumphantly. Preller stands, alone, in icy silence, in a darkened room, the players still there but frozen. Preller sighs, and goes to leave the room. He turns on the lightswitch in the room, turning the "spotlight" off, and bringing the scene back to action.

PRELLER: You can all leave now. Game tomorrow. (beat) The game that never ends.

With that, Preller leaves the room, leaving the players silent and confused.

BJ: W-what just happened?
NORRIS: Shut up, Melvin.

SCENE