Just sign here

This is one of those rare pieces that can is beneficial to collectors AND dealers, although it is quite obviously written for the casual collector who happens to run into a player or former player in public or attends a signing.  Whether you're looking to add a signed ball or two to the shelf in your "(Insert name of favorite team here) room" or hoarding them for a potential goldmine down the road, there is care and maintenance involved just as any other hobby........

How to take care of an autographed baseball

"What If?" x 29

We all know how this movie will end, but in the meantime, Beckett Media's folks had a little "Fun With Photoshop" day and came up with "cards" for a certain free agent shortstop currently invoved in a contract soap opera with the team we all know he'll end up with when all is said and done.
Am I the only one who thinks the Photoshopping makes him appear to have a freakishly large head in most of these other unis?
TOTALLY FAKE BASEBALL CARDS: 29 Derek Jeters you won’t see in 2011 … and one you just might
XFRPVT4U3RE5

 

The Boss

I can't begin to imagine how Yankee fans are feeling as I write this. First Bob Sheppard, and now George Steinbrenner......on the day of the All-Star Game no less. As a lifelong Atlanta Braves fan, I certainly know what it's like to lose someone you grew up with w/ the passing of Skip Caray. Still not even close to being the same listening to a radio call of the game or a TV broadcast.

I've never been a Yankee fan (thanks in no small part to the 1996 and 1999 World Series), but my heart goes out to each and every one that is today. No matter how you felt about The Boss or his way of doing business, you couldn't help but respect him wanting to win and doing whatever it took financially to do so. Very few figures in sports, or any business, are irreplaceable, but we lost one today. Steinbrenner was one of the first owners to become as big or bigger than the team he owned, and THE first to gain that status via hands-on ownership. Those who have followed (Mark Cuban, Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder, etc.) are all just lame impostors, and two of those three have produced nowhere near the results on the field.

Here's an excellent tribute from Bill Nack from ESPN.com........Rest In Peace, Boss.

More Mainstream Love for Allen & Ginter

Perhaps the "Strasburg Effect" is as responsible for this as anything else, but baseball cards seem to be getting an awful lot of mainstream media attention these days. First, there was this piece on A&G from ESPN.com. Now this.........

The Bristol Press: Allen & Ginter offers variety in baseball set

As the only card company Major League Baseball brought to the dance these days, Topps has to be loving the current Renaissance........and hoping it lasts.

Before & After (& Back To Before)......Armando Galarraga

Ebay often provides the ultimate roller coaster ride of memorabilia value for players who suddenly find themselves in the spotlight for all the right or wrong reasons.

Our spotlight today is on Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga, artist of Major League Baseball's greatest "perfect game that wasn't actually a perfect game" on June 2nd. A look at his 2008 Bowman Sterling Autographed rookie card is a perfect example of how fleeting some moments can be in the ebb and flow of card values. Hours before the blown call heard around the world, the card could be had for just over $3.oo (a little over $6.0o w/ shipping). Several hours later, impulse buyers caused a 483% spike in the value of that same card!! Not quite 2 weeks removed from the moment, and following a far more pedestrian outing in his next start, we're pretty much back where we started.

Moral here? If you happen to be in front of the TV on any given night and hear that sports history is in the making, scour through that card collection, put everything you've got with the face of the player involved on eBay (1 day auction would be recommended in this case), and don't worry about your indirect involvement in someone else's buyer's remorse a week later :-)

The madness continues.....

With 2 pretty dominant major league starts behind him now, Stephen Strasburg continues to bring the sports card collecting hobby attention unseen since the arrival of the recently retired Ken Griffey, Jr. 21 years ago.

The first major cash-in on the rarities of all things Strasburg came on May 29 with the $16,000+ haul on a 2010 Bowman Strasburg "superfractor".....a true 1/1. Now the other major Strasburg treasure, the 2010 Bowman Red 1/1 autographed card, has been found and can be yours on eBay......for a small fee that can be negotiated.

My best advice for anyone holding anything Strasburg and looking to make money is SELL NOW!!! As anyone who discovered the hobby in the 80's and 90's can tell you......holding onto rookie cards has its ebbs and flows as value goes, and most collectors don't make their living on Wall Street for a reason :-)

The house of (sports) cards (and memorabilia) begins to fall.....

And sadly, it comes as no surprise. The first step in what will most likely be the end for Upper Deck began today. As someone who has been on the short end of the economic stick, the human toll is what saddens me as much as the collapse of the Rolls-Royce of sports card companies since 1989. Shedding 1/4 to 1/3 of your staff not only disrupts lives, it cheapens the product you continue to put out. Not sure how many more companies will have to die before corporate boardrooms finally figure that out.

As much as I enjoy the hobby, I value a man or woman's livelihood even more. These folks will all land on their feet, but it's painful to watch as both a hobbyist and man with compassion for those who work hard and still get dealt a blow like this.

If it makes the now ex-Upper Deck employees feel any better, theirs isn't the only industry whose cheese has been moved over the past few years.

To those who lost their jobs in this latest senseless act by a brain dead CEO, THANK YOU for putting out a superb product across multiple sports for the past 20 years. We'll always have the Griffey rookie and the memories. And our thoughts and prayers are with you as you begin the next career chapter.

They do NOT put their pants on the same way....

Have you ever heard someone try to knock a celebrity or athlete down a few notches from their pedestal and try to "normalize" them by saying, "He (or she) puts his (or her) pants on the same way I do?" These days the internet seems to exist solely for the purpose of proving them wrong. There's TMZ, thousands of celebrity gossip blogs, a site dedicated to the best and worst celebrity restaurant tippers, and my personal favorite, the "Backstage Pass" page from thesmokinggun.com. Seriously, 80's hair metal band Poison, A CASE of condoms? For ONE stop on the tour?

Turns out Major League Baseball players have as many strange contractual demands as other celebrities. Just substitute condoms and brown M&M's backstage for a bulldozer and an apartment complex in Memphis.

Further proof that celebrities do not put their pants on the same as you and I. They have it written into their contracts and riders to have someone do it for 'em.

Weird baseball contract clauses

Uh oh

The news continues to get worse for Upper Deck. Their problems have been well-documented, from lawsuits to settlements to losing both the Major League Baseball AND NFL licenses.

Now, according to the New York Times, they're also running out of money and haven't paid Major League Baseball players for autograph deals. It's becoming more and more impossible every day to envision a scenario under which the company will be able to survive. A merger or buyout might be possible, but short of that, the beginning of the end is underway.

It's sad for me as a collector and fan of their work from their initial 1989 baseball set to see this happen to a company that set the gold standard for the hobby. It's even more disappointing to see this play out the same way that killed many other companies in the past decade beginning with Enron.......shady leadership at the top, lots of great employees loyal to the company seeing their lives disrupted by layoffs in an ailing economy, and a CEO who was playing the fiddle while Rome was burning and will walk away with millions nonetheless.

As a radio guy by trade, Upper Deck reminds me of a station that launches in a market to try and take down the #1 station. If they succeed, which is rare, it's a testament to their people and their expertise. If they fail, at worst you hope they've at least made the #1 station earn it by shoring up their weaknesses and becoming a better station. Hopefully Upper Deck has raised the stakes and made Topps, Panini, and the others bring their "A" game, which makes the customers the winner.

Down, and now very possibly out......

Recently, I talked about Upper Deck's recent woes involving the loss of their license with Major League Baseball and the subsequent lawsuits filed when they brazenly released several 2010 sets complete with team logos and uniforms. At the time, I truly felt like the company would be OK as long as they were somehow able to keep a license with the NFL and the NFLPA. Things seemed to headed in that direction when the NFLPA marketing arm announced a 2-year renewal of Upper Deck's license through 2011.

Today, however, brings a much different story. While Upper Deck's PR shill tried to his best to make it sound like there could be some sort of NFL-related release for 2010, I can't believe the company would touch any sort of pro football product with a 10 foot pole given the baseball legal mess and the millions it cost them.

So now it's down to the NHL and NCAA collegiate cards for Upper Deck in the Sports category. Time will tell if that is enough to sustain the company, but in the short term, things definitely don't look good. Upper Deck and Topps are the two card companies whose name transcends the product they sell and has penetrated the mainstream. At the moment, they seem headed in opposite directions. Topps, under the leadership of former CEO Michael Eisner, has a hot product with Topps Attax, which seems to be having some inital success at luring kids back from collecting mostly non-sports related cards since the boom of the early 90's. Upper Deck might find themselves on a far more dubious list if their losing streak continues.

What a difference a day makes......

....AND a 446 foot moon shot in your first major league at-bat after an entire spring as the most hyped rookie in baseball! How quickly did you rummage through your card collection looking for anything with the name Jason Heyward around 3:30 p.m. Central time yesterday? And how quickly were you able to put what you found on eBay?

Heyward cards were already hot items on eBay, but after the 21st century version "Shot Heard 'Round The World", it will temporarily cost you a premium to grab a high end treasure with his name on it.

On April 4th, the day before the mammoth shot, a 2007 Bowman Sterling autographed Heyward "rookie" card went for just under $100 on eBay. At the moment, 2 more are approaching $150 with about 17 1/2 hours left in the bidding as this blog is being written and could approach $200 or more by the end. And J-Hey Kid Mania didn't stop there. Looks like a jersey or t-shirt could set you back just as much in the short term.

If you have anything Heyward-related and looking for some extra cash, it's definitely time to strike while the iron is hot, and be thankful he didn't strike out while the iron was hot.

The home run didn't only make Heyward cards an eBay sensation, the moment itself is also a YouTube sensation. Who knew? So far the best fan-captured version of it came with the clip below. Enjoy before you head out to empty out the bank account to grab an autographed card or an authentic Heyward jersey.

Down, but not out......

As David Letterman often says, I wouldn't give Upper Deck's troubles to a monkey on a rock. If you're an avid card collector or dealer, their troubles are well-documented. I'm just beginning to plug back into the hobby, but based on the blogs and message board posts of those who have remained close to the hobby over the past decade, I can come to two conclusions about Upper Deck.

First, most collectors seem to be pretty passionate about Upper Deck's product across multiple sports, with a few exceptions. Second, the company's CEO, Richard McWilliam, seems to be portrayed as a incurable egomaniac......a trait you rarely ever see in a big corporate CEO :-)

The past year has been brutal for the company with multiple lawsuits and ultimate settlements costing tens of millions of dollars, but a silver lining seems to be on the horizon.

Just as it appeared Upper Deck might be in danger of losing licensing for producing cards for the second major sport in as many years, the NFL Players Association's marketing arm announced yesterday that they would renew Upper Deck's license for two more years through 2011.

The loss of the Major League Baseball license and subsequent settlement with Topps over the alleged breach of the MLBPA agreement certainly knocked Upper Deck to the canvas, but the fact that football will still be part of the equation is welcome news to those in the hobby.

If this were a heavyweight fight, Upper Deck is still certainly down, but as of yesterday, any cries of "no mas" are definitely premature.

Investment advice or psychobabble?

There are two morals to this story. First and foremost, that Matthew Lesko guy (you know, the one with that stylish sport coat w/ all the question marks on it?) on the infomercials on VH1 @ 3:30 a.m. is right.....apparently the government really will shower money on people for research on anything. Literally. Second, assuming you believe what you're about to read, there's some valuable investment advice here for both card collectors and dealers. The wider the smile, the better their chances of playing long enough and well enough for Cooperstown. SO HOLD ONTO THEIR CARDS! :-) Anyone who actually follows that investment advice probably also took everything Lenny Dykstra ever said to the bank. So there's this.....

It's All in the (Baseball) Cards: The Wider the Smile, The Longer the Life