It's time to talks for It's time for the show. You hear this song
on the radio? Better fast? Let me get that potograph. Sports Talk
Radio starting now. What is up everybody? And welcome episode. What numbers
it? Yeah, one ninety seven of Let me if that potograph as always
were live here on YouTube as well as you'll be hearing us on the Pocklaves
as well later on today. My name, of course is Drew d h
and joined me my awesome co host, mister Scott Rappaport. What's update?
What's going on? Drew? I'm asleep's all messed up. It's it's a
weird week, man, it is definitely a weird week. We're recording Friday
instead of Wednesday, and you know, every it's my fault. Long beach,
California, long trip, red Eye. Just yeah, now exactly,
And of course, yeah, I gotta leave straight from here. I gotta
saw a huge soccer tournament this weekend. I got games four and gotta be
field set up and all that kind of stuff. So nice thing is it's
a home tournament for us, so I don't have to go that far five
minutes five minutes of my house. But if that's what I'm looking forward to
about the next Collecticon. This one was in Long Beach, next one's in
Charlotte. So yeah, why yeah? Yeah, I mean you're still like
two hours from Charlotte, aren't you? Our hour and fifteen minutes? Oh
okay, that's not bad. That's I mean, that's drivable every day.
It depends on traffic. You know, it could be an hour and a
half, but normally not our fifteen minutes. Okay, that's not bad.
You're you're not that far from generally maybe what forty five minutes from Mooresville then
where you know what's his name that Panthers players house blew up? Yeah?
Yeah, I mean that dude, that's just crazy and tragic. But aside
from crazy and tragic. Yeah, So last week, Iowa Dave Iowa Underscore
Dave on Instagram, you know, host another podcasts. He's got a blog
that he posts out there. It's a great blog. And he decided that
he was going to listen to sixty two podcast episodes from Decoration Yeah in a
week, yeah, which is like dedicating over eight hours a day. Two
I'm assuming he two xed them. I would. Well, he said there
was some that he won and a half x, but there were some that
he didn't. Okay, so it's you know, but it's still that's a
lot of time, man, Like I thought, it was absolutely insane,
even if it's still over four hours a day. I mean, I know.
But then then he want to step further. He took notes on every
episode and he put those and he decided afterwards he got done the writing article
about it, and he put his notes on every show at the end of
the article, and he didn't rank them or anything like that. He just
put him in the order in which he listened to the show. The notes
on ours is number forty four, if you guys want to be down there
and listen to that. But there's a lot of other good podcasts are out
there that you know, they listened to as well. But in his detailed
article he brought up four points. We were the only podcasts that were mentioned
period in the in the main of the article. You know, you sent
me a screenshot over and it was amazing. So I just want to read
this really quick because this was awesome. And he listened to the episode where
we talked about Wander Franco. I'm a couple of weeks ago. That was
during that week, no exactly, So point number four we need to talk
about Wander Franco. Early last week news broke that Franco might have had an
illegal relationship with the minor left his team, the Tampay Rays. Well,
the story dominated not just the hobby cycle, but the larger sports news cycle.
The hobby podcast let Me Get That Potograph, hosted by Drew Herndon and
Scott Rapport, taught a masterclass and how to handle news like that or like
this professionally and delicately. They spent a decent amount of time first discussing the
allegations and the reporting that others have done, and they sourced everything what's known,
what isn't known, and then once they once that was all laid out,
they shared informed opinions. Then finally, and they briefly and tastefully discussed
the potential effects on Franco's card market Take a bow, lgtp on. Fortunately,
that's not how we as a hobby handled it collectively. Other attempts at
coverage not all, but some range from paraphrasing crap from Twitter to gleaning whatever
might have been said during a thirty second drive by ESPN. Yeah. Worst
of all, was this all too common approach? Oh yeah, Hey,
if the allegations are true, wanders disgusting and should get punched in the face
and thrown in jail. So let's talk about why prospecting is hard. If
we want to be taken seriously as a hobby or as content creators, we
need to follow lgtp's example when it comes to sensitive and potentially criminal topics.
Perspective, sources, patients, tact yes, exactly be measured. Of course,
we should also talk about Franco's card market. There's a place for that.
But let's remember for ust to be human. So I just want to
point it out. It's it's my little pattern in the back for ourselves.
First off, yes, incredibly nice comments like thank you, yeah, and
that was great. He did initially leave my name out of that, ye,
but he was you know, I reached out to him, you know,
and I follow him on Instagram. I actually followed him on Instagram,
and then he reached out to me and apologize for not putting it in there.
He's like, I tried to find you know, everybody associated with it.
It's like, all right, cool, not a big deal, but
you know, he want up correcting it later and then it's awesome, So
props a day for that appreciating that correction. But no, no, I
wanted to. I thought that that was really cool that he that he saw
that, because I want I want to talk about that episode for a second,
because whenever stuff like that happens, it's never fun to talk about.
And when you're doing a podcast that's about collecting, to try and take something
like that and still cover the collecting side, it's a difficult thing to do.
You know, it's not easy because obviously there's five million things more important
than his card market and exactly we talked before. We don't talk and prep
much before the show. We talked about how we wanted to handle it,
how we wanted to move through it. You know, I'm glad that other
people can see that, because that's what we always try and do, is
be as sensitive as we can with it, but still cover what we're here
to do. Because you can turn on ESPN or eight hundred other shows and
hear all of the details that you want to hear, in all the speculation
you want to hear, We're going to cover tell you what we know,
Like he said, I'm glad he knows is sourced everything. That's the key
recording out there, source your shit, you know. I'm just glad other
people can see it because it's a delicate That was one of the more uncomfortable
things I've recorded on this show in a long time. I was not looking
forward to that segment, and I'm normally looking forward to any segment we do.
I did not want to talk about that, and I'm glad that,
you know, it showed through on the airwaves at least to one person.
Well, it brings up the point that I made a couple of weeks ago.
I don't see us as content creators. I mean, although we do
create content, I don't see us is that. I don't see us as
you know, talking, you know, just out there to get clicks and
things like that. I see us more from a journalistic aspect of things,
and and also an opinion aspect of things as well, because we do give
our opinions on things, and part of that, even with even with opinion
writing and opinion broadcasting, there's an aspect of journalism that has to be done,
you know, that includes sources, That includes handling things professionally, that
includes you know, when we do speculate on things, we do say,
hey, we are speculating here. You know, this is just a guess.
And we've got a couple of stories coming up later today where we better
believe we are going to be doing some speculating. But it just goes to
that point. I am glad, just like you are, that somebody sees
you know that you know, we're trying to we're trying to bring a sense
of professionalism to what we do. And you know, you've got experience as
a you know, as a beat writer, you know for the Panthers back
of the day, and you know journalism background. I've got background radio production,
you know, business and all that I suff and I know that.
Look, look, you can't you can't not source. You know, you
can't try to steal. You can't try to steal stuff and try to make
it your own what it actually belongs to body else. Yeah, and this
is not gonna fly. No, And you can't also all go out there
just making accusations exactly, and and speculations because it's a look, it's a
great way to get yourself in trouble. Oh yeah, yeah, there's other
shows that are out there that do that and look, every once in a
while he gets one right, but nine times, I mean nine times out
of time, it's completely wrong. And frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't been
sued a million times, I know, but it is what it is.
Yeah, but yeah, thank you. I would Dave for that. It's
a really great article and absolutely lot of really good podcasts. So if you
do enjoy content in the hobby, I do highly recommend checking out his his
article. Again, if you want to search form on socials, IOWA underscore
Dave, you'll easily find him. He'll be following or someone you know.
We'll be following him and it'll be easy to find. Before we move on
to our first big topic, I do want to say one thing. I
want to give a big shout out and you know, my condolences to the
rotun To family. I'm actually very close with the rotun To family. Most
of you know him as Bray Wyatt, who passed away recently. I actually
grew up my stepdad did a lot of work with his family. I knew
his father. I got to actually play with Bray Wyatt and his brothers when
they were kids. Uh got pictures of those my mom's frantically looking for now.
But we knew that family a little a little bit. Got to meet
up with him at a recent WWW event a couple of years ago before he
left the first time. Wonderful, wonderful guy. So I know a lot
of people are hurting from that because he was a favorite of a lot of
people. So if you are a wrestling fan, and or even if you
just knew who he was, my condolences to those people. It's been a
rough week for a lot of people with stuff like that. He was a
very influential person. So yeah, now just curious was he Is he related
to Jonathan Rotundo from Rodo Brakes, I know, real last name, and
I'm like, quite honest, I don't know. I don't I think so,
but it's quite possible. His father was the legendary IRS from back in
the day, the tax accountant wrestler that everyone remembers. He had a really
good stint and an xt as. They named him Husky Harris, and he
somehow passed that name all the way and was able to survive that and become
very Wyatt, who became the fiend who's sitting right here, who became just
this crazy, out of control dude. But he was a visionary and very
very different kind of this generation's Undertaker almost. That's kind of what he was
being built up as, even got the seal of approval from Undertaker. He
was headed for really big things and tragically life cut short at thirty six due
to a heart condition triggered by COVID. So yeah, rough one right there.
But didn't want to spend too much time on I just wanted to say
condolences to the Rotunda family. As you know, we have a couple of
family ties to him, So hit me a little tough this week. But
yeah, let's move on now. Man. We got we got a bunch
of pretty crazy topics. The hobbies absolutely just out of control right now,
absolutely out of control. Let's dive into it, man, Panini, break
god, this one is this one is a very much self inflicted wound.
Oh, this is a thousand percent self inflicted This is ridiculous. This is
like, was beyond ridiculous. I mean this, this actually goes back to
the you know, talking about the article and sourcing your material. Yes,
because it seems that Panini settled a lawsuit that Wildcard brought to them twenty five
million dollars because one of the inserts and what year was it? Was it
twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty they brought it back, and then it
was in the twenty twenty one product also, and then it came out on
their NFT line as well as a special inserts set and in certified. Yeah,
well they've everywhere. They've basically completely ripped off a hard design that Wildcard
had used back in the nineties, not even not not even just a little
bit, No, not even like remotely all right, up ripped and back
front and back back's almost worse than the freaking front. Like the back was
enough to get him immediately, Like when I saw this, I looked,
I was like, maybe the backcar right. Nope, well, same same
way they numbered the cards everything. I don't understand this at all. They
just paid Wildcard more than Wildcard, the original company, Triplela Incorporated with Yes,
they're known by They just paid them more money than they ever dreamed of
making as a company. Yeah, because they because they knew, you know,
he knew that if it went to trial, that it was going to
wind up costing him a hell of a lot more. And honestly, I
think it was a smart decision to settle it. It was a very smart
decision because they don't need negative court decisions and their favorite going again exactly now
it's still look, it's still gonna be negative. But here's the thing here,
here's what we don't know. We don't know who the product designer was
that decided to put this together. And I guarantee you that there's no way
that like they independently thought about that design and thought it up on their own,
because it is literally if you look at the front, you look at
the back, every single design element. Now that the card we're talking about
certified football. It is the stats smashers insert. Now, not only that,
not only is the front and back identical, they took the stat smash
er insert logo. They didn't even change it, like like you could have
changed like it's a it's a broken up letters, weird looking with a little
like boom like from a comic book logo, like a boom background behind it.
You could have even changed up the points on it a little. Nah,
just straight up took the logo off of the card. Like I don't
get this. How how this passed? And you know nobody noticed is beyond
me. Well, I mean, you've got to leave team that looks through
this stuff too. I mean, and we were talking. I mean they've
got good legal representation at least the top, but apparently the legal team in
charge of looking at cards is just I when I saw this, this blew
my mind. Like yeah, Also, it was filed in February. It
was very quiet, but it's been out there since February. They didn't just
settle it. It was set to go to court this week, actually on
Thursday, but they did settle it. But man, this one is just
this is just ridiculous. This card is a straight up one thousand percent Yeah,
identical reprint of this card, but just certified instead of wild card.
The back is identical. They moved the Panini logo down where the NFLPA logo
is, but other than that, the cards are literally the same. So
I have questions, because I have always got questions. Yeah, So who
was the designer that, you know, decided to phone it in and instead
of coming up with something brand new, you know, decided just to rip
off the wild card design? Are they still employed ran? Yeah? Or
here's a big or because we're talking about a product that came out in twenty
twenty. Were they one of the people that wound up over at Fanatics?
Well, that's what I'm wondering. Yeah, that was my first question because
I know people now that are in the product development arena at Panini and multiple
people in there, and I know that that division has been almost completely changed
since the Mint when a lot of people that's when all of these new hires
went to product development. So it would not surprise me one bit if that
person wasn't employe at Fanatics. Now, once again, as we mentioned earlier,
that's speculation, yes, and that's why I said I have a I
have a question. That's why you know, I didn't state it as a
fact as it as a question. What do they I mean, what are
they gonna do? But now here's the here's another question. If that particular
product designer is one of the guys that or girls that moved over to Fanatics,
what does Fanatics do right? If Fanatics retain them or you know,
and if they retain them, you better believe that they you know, they're
people are going to check every single thing that they do to make sure that
there's no you know, even down to like the littlest pixel designs you have
to or are they gonna say, yeah, you screwed up or because again,
this lawsuit was found in February. Yeah, and it was quiet.
I'm wondering if this was like maybe this was like the one person from the
product development team that didn't go over to Fanatics or you know, maybe and
honestly, it could be somebody that left Panini a long time ago for very
right. Yeah, and you know it is somewhere else. Maybe they're a
wild Card. Who knows, maybe they went to wild Card as a product
designer and say, hey, I stole this design. You should you know.
And again, I like, there's no evidence to say that that's the
case, but you know, they could literally be anywhere. They could be
out of that, they could be out of the hobby. You know,
they could be can do a design for somebody else. But I'm curious to
know what happened to the designer. Yeah, because look, this is just
straight up laziness. No, yeah, this isn't. There's no way you
can look at this card and point to one thing and say no that you
know this, this shouldn't or this is different. Like it's a blatant,
straight up one thousand percent for rip off. Now you're already you know,
Fanatics needs to be And I thought about this when all these people from Panini
went to Fanatics. I was like, I wonder if we see some of
the same problems that we're going to contend that we saw, you know at
Pannini and with the new Maryland Soccer release, you're missing serial numbers on tons
of cards. Now that they just so happened to buy a printed company note
you know that did the same bullshit the last couple of years. You're seeing
problems like that. I'm wondering, you know, they might need to take
a look at some of the people on their team that they hired there,
you know what I mean, this person could be employed there. But yeah,
but I don't think Merlin isn't as you Merlin is the same product designers
that have been working on it since twenty No, not, the product is
miners in Maryland. I'm just using that as an example of the issues that
they're having, you know, like they are having a lot of issues right
now with products that are coming out. Well, they've had issues with products
that have been coming out of the Italian print shop for years, dating dating
all the way back to the twenty release, well, dating back to like
twenty twenty when Formula one Chrome came out, right, that was their first
master release from that. From that, Yeah, and that just that was
anything serial numbered. You know, all the cards were damaged. Yeah,
you know they did the little the little arm that pushes the card into the
you know, into the stack of gos into the Yeah, exactly it did.
Wasn't calibrated, right, Everything that could have gone wrong from that situation
did go wrong. And they've slowly been fixing those things. Yeah. And
then look, we've seen we've seen other products with tops missing serial numbers too.
There, and we've we've seen some like there's a TOPS Chrome really it's
the top score or Bollman Chronic where certain parallels. Yeah, there's there's a
certain player that has a parallel. It's like I think it's like the Blue
pair where every card has the same serial number to one fifty. Now there's
still actually not just Jim. It affected like seven or eight players and five
or six serial numbers, and then it was all the same thing. They
all had like one oh two out of one fifty or something, every single
one oh right Now there's still only one hundred and fifty of them, right,
but there's not like one out of one fifty two out of one fifty
three. Yeah, it's just yeah, I mean that look, those are
those are things that should have been caught. Yeah, but it's yeah,
So I'm curious as to what happens with this now this Fanatics. Now,
I understand Pannini's settling to avoid I mean, you don't, like I said
earlier, you don't want any negative you know, court decisions coming down in
your favor when you're trying to fight off a giant like Fanatics and ys like
this. But a settlement is still going to be obviously public record, it's
still gonna be in the system in a way that this was settled. So
do you think Fanatics, you know, uses this in a way or does
this hurt Panini in their other lawsuits that they have, because I actually don't.
I don't think it does, because this is the settlement. Is Panini
taking responsibility for it. I'm saying, look, guys, we're sorry,
we plucked up. Yeah, we fucked up, we missed it. Here's
a payment to take care of that. We're not going to wait for a
you know, for a judge or a jury to tell us that we have
to pay you. And they probably told Wildcard privately what happened to that designer
of you know and Jed. Look, you know, guys were we apologize
profusely. Here's money, which is well, I think that's twenty five million
dollars is well above what Panini made, you know, in profit on their
card. So god, yeah, you know, on that on that subset.
So I think that the I think it was you know, like I
said, I think it was a good move, and I don't think it's
I don't think it's gonna hurt him with any of the lawsuits. You know.
One thing I did know, you know, it went to the trustee
of Triple A Wildcard, the original company. Wild Card is back. But
from my understanding when I spoke with the people at Wildcard in person two years
ago at the National and Atlantic City when they were doing their debut relaunch,
and we talked about it on this show after the National, that I thought
that was a father's son deal from the original owners. So I don't know
if possibly it was one of the original owners and this trustee someone else.
So I don't know if the company that's out now as Wildcard is are the
people that actually got this settlement or not. But and I'm not saying,
like I said, they've probably made more than the Wildcard name has even since
it's resurgent two ever made with this one card right here. Yeah, and
I'm not I'm not sure about that either whether or not the the trustee is
the original owner, you know, or if it's the current owner, or
if it's a situation like with Leaf where they had buying yeah, you know,
where they bought the name. I'm not entirely sure what its structure is,
but it would make sense that it would, you know, the settlement
would wind up going to the original owner because yeah, it went to the
trustee a triple A. I don't know who that was. And that was
a because again, that design was done during the original iteration of the company
back in the nineties. They were released in I believe the originals were ninety
two to ninety four, okay, wild Card Football. They were only in
there for a couple of years, just like Certified brought them back as a
case hit or a case hit in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, Certified
Football wild Cards originals were around ninety two to ninety four, okay, And
I'm curious as to what's going to happen with the now that it's out there
and it's well known, because again, when the lawsuit was initially fouled,
nobody really knew about it. It was done quietly. It was also fouled
under trip La, so no one saw its name. Put two and two
together, like yeah, and yeah, that makes sense. But I'm curious
as to what's going to happen to those card values now for the Panini versions,
because it's something that anything scandalous, it always it always winds up popping
the value on it. So I kind of wish I had known about this,
like two three weeks ago, I started to start picking a couple of
those up. It obviously secondary market sales and all that kind of stuff that
has nothing to do with because Pennini doesn't make any money on that. That
obviously right, that kind of money doesn't isn't part of the lawsuit or anything
like that. But another one just to go down in history. It would
actually be really cool to get a you know, an original and a Panini
yeah off, you know, just to keep side by side. Now,
see if you get to twenty twenty one, they actually change the design up
some they changed They kept this like I was saying before, they kept the
similar elements, but tweaked it enough so it's a completely different looking car.
Now. The backs they tweaked a little bit, But the nineteen twenty twenty
ones are the ones that are straight up identical, and looking at them now,
at least the new ones that are listed, they're selling decent. They're
not, you know, anything super expensive or anything. But if you look
right now, the amount that have sold in the last day is quite impressive
to what's been sold in the past. Yeah, the attention is coming on
them a little bit. And one of the certified Peyton's got a best offer
of over fifty bucks and Joe Burrow sold today for ninety. It looks like
so, you know, it looks like that. I have a feeling that
these are going to be some cards that you're going to see graded a little
bit more. Yeah, the eventually one of those, like you said,
like, I always think back to the Rodman that had Jordan in it from
content few years back. That card still today now granted that that was a
rare instance that they actually did go back and pull the card from packs,
so all of the second and third runs didn't have the Rodman in it.
Only the first run did and not many times do they do that nowadays or
do they catch it in time before those runs are done. But this kind
of reminds me of a card like that which has a very big, you
know cult following back around the job. A rent card with eight hundred different
celebrities in the background. I think you and me are in there somewhere is
the Mark the Mark Jackson with Menendez brothers, and they're gonna actually more value
now than they did before. The one that I'm actually surprised doesn't carry a
massive premium, especially from that set. Actually I don't even because I got
a hat set on topic same year as the Mark Jackson was the Sam Vincent
Yeah, that has Michael Jordan's. The only card that has Michael Jordan were
number twelve, Yeah, and that was due to his jersey being stolen for
the game and having to wear a back of jersey and stuff like that.
But that I'm actually surprised that the Jordan collectors don't go nuts for me neither.
No, I will say there's a lot that gets submitted for grading.
At least they're gem meant because I process a ton of those cards that that's
one of probably after the Jordan and the Mark Jackson. That's probably the third
highest one that I get from that set that subbed or at least that I've
processed the millions and millions that I've done. So people do. But yeah,
I'm surprised it doesn't get it more love than it than the other cards.
Yeah, and they said, look the PSA ten self for a decent
amount. I picked up a PSA nine for like twenty bucks just because I
wanted one in my collection and I didn't have a card, So right,
you know, it just it makes it makes it nice. So but yeah,
so we'll follow keep you updated on the Panini lawsuit. But Panini's settling
twenty five million dollars with Wild Card or Triple A Incorporated's trustee over twenty twenty
twenty twenty one certified stats Smasher's case hit inserts and thank you to everybody watching
live on YouTube. Make sure drop your questions and comments down below. We
will get to him at the end of the show today. But Scott,
we were talking about speculation early. Oh, yeah, and this entire your
next segment is pure speculation. The entire thing maculation. So I was going
through the tops Chrome cards that I have because I wanted to pull I'd already
pulled the Otani's there, already pulled the Acunias, right, but the MVP
race in the National League is heating up a little bit more, so I
wanted to go through and pull out the Freddie Freeman's, the Matt Olsen's,
the mookie Bets. And I noticed something. Yeah, I'm glad you did
now. So I did a case at the National I've done probably ten blasters
in addition to that, and the blasters are hit or miss because again,
you're not doing quantity, You're limited number of packs things like that, and
I'm not talking about refractors. I'm strictly talking about base I noticed something.
So I've got like nine or ten o Kunias, nine or ten Otanies that
have come from all the rips. But when I go back through with the
Olsens, the Freeman's, the mookie Bets, the guys that were MVP favorites
to start the year or when Chrome was being yeah, I have like three
mookie bets. I have none like four, Freddie, Well, you haven't
opened the quantity that I've opened, though, I've opened a lot. Though
in a spect look, if I'm opening a case, I think, like
probably I think six or seven of the ten Otani's and Okunias that I've got
came out of the case, right, so it lay. I understand,
you know, the way things pack out and things like that, but you
would you would think that they would be within one or two of each one.
But no, I've got three Mookie Bets. I've got like four Matt
Olson's. Yeah, three Freddie Freeman's. Are they short printed? I absolutely
think they are? And did they knowing like because they get tops announced before
the product came out that hey we're bringing back the MVP promotion. And I
don't know why if they did short print those guys, I don't know why
they didn't short print Otani. I don't. I don't either. I understand
a Kuna, yeah, you know, because again he wasn't an MVP favorite
going into the season and going into when they you know, started doing product
design and printing and things like that. But knowing that they were going to
bring back the MVP buyback program, did they short print the favorites, if
you want my opinion, one thousand percent. Yes, I noticed this after
now I personally haven't opened up case, but I've been around besides someone like
Hugh, like about five other people and watched them open jumbo cases cases.
I've opened well over a case of both Mega's blast Ors, any retail coalation
you can think of, I've literally opened hundreds of those boxes. I have
no Fred Freeman's, no movie bets, and the Mettlesome. I don't have
those cards. They don't exist and I can't find them. And I've seen
multiple other people say the same thing. When you brought this up to me,
I laughed because I was like, I had this conversation literally two weeks
ago with somebody saying that I can't find any of the MVP candidates in base
I one hundred percent think they're short printed. I can't even find them in
retail parallels where I've pulled the multiple Acunas, multiple Otanis, all of that,
in the Sepias, the X fractors or fractors, all of it.
I one hundred percent think that, at least when it comes to the National
League favorites one thousand percent, those guys or either not in the first run
and they're coming out later and they're just going to be an every damn pack
around. But I absolutely think that these maybe not to the extent of being
called a short print, yeah, are they that low? But yes,
I do absolutely think they printed less of those cards than they did the rest
of the base set. Yeah. Well, I mean having it being a
you know, something we're you know, called a short print, you know,
like an image variation or things like that. You know, definitely not
that not that short no, you know, but again, but I do
absolutely think that they were printed less. And is it going to come back
to bite them in the ass if it winds up being Otani and Akunya.
I really hope it's a Kanya and a Kunya. I hope of someone else
that wasn't short printed. I mean, I think a Kunia made a pretty
big statement last night, breaking some records with that and getting and getting married.
Yeah, and getting married a pretty good way to cap off your at
the end of your marriage day, you know, your wedding day, boom
grand slam to win the game. Yeah, that was a hurried That was
a hurried marriage. ESPN did an article about that. They posted that today
and it's a great story. It is. Yeah, nothing illegal, nothing,
you know, no, yeah, no, it's just a feel good
story. Yes, well no, no, no, they I mean they
did get married quickly. So his wife would you know, she was staying
in the country, Yeah, because she had some visa issues, would have
had to go back to Venezuela with you know, and probably take the kids
with and they wouldn't have been with him during the playoff run things like that.
But they've been together for years, they have you know, they've got
two kids together, they've been living here and things like that. She just
would have had to go home for three months, right, and you know
he doesn't want to deal with that, right, I mean, you don't
want to deal with that when you're trying to go through a pennant race too,
you know, take care of exactly. So, you know, and
I fully believe that they intended to get married at some point anyway that In
fact, I think that their wedding scheduled for after the season was over or
next year or something like that. So it's not yeah, it's not like
it was a you know, hey, you need a green card, come
on and I'll marry it. Today, it wasn't like that at all,
but ESPND to great article on that. So I'm curious as to what's gonna
happen with that and whether or not, Yeah, you know, TOPS actually
comes out and says, yeah, we kind of did short you know a
couple of these guys you know, for that, and yeah, I don't
blame them. No I don't either. I don't either. Now, one
thing I am curious about is while we stick to the tops and the tops
chrome, and I think one thing I wanted to talk to him I didn't
even think about till now, and that's the taco fractor. Okay, while
we're talking about the short prints, I want to bring Macko tacos even though
it's Friday, not Tuesday. So someone posted this the other day. All
right, we've seen the taco fractors, we've seen Tops say that you need
to be following along because there's gonna be a major announcement regarding these cards.
Someone pulled one the other day that is a wild card. While we talk
about wild card, Yes, it's literally the taco fractor design with no player
on it. It just says wild card and it's card number three hundred in
the set. Uh yes, it's well considering they only did they only made
two hundred of the two hundred and twenty cards as Taco Frackers. This one
is for some reason, number three hundred. It is it. All it
says on the front is wild card and then on the back it has the
same stuff. It has just like general information about the Taco Fractors set.
And so they haven't released what the bonus is for the Taco Fracktor yet yet.
These cards are selling for an absurd amount of money right now. They
kind of need to announce this ahead of time, I think, all right,
rather en late sooner rather because it is a terrible look. It's card
for selling for a lot of money. If this ends up being not an
awesome, awesome surprise, then a lot of people are really wasting a lot
of money. These cards are selling for absurd amount. All right. Here's
my thought, and I like, I just thought about this. I kind
of put two and two together. You know how they do the Taco bell
promotion usually during the World Series sometimes of playoffs, where you know, swipe
a bag une taco. I'm wondering if it's going to have something to do
with that, where if a specific player steals a base during a given game.
If you have that Taco fractor one of the five, maybe you get
tacos for a like tacos for a year, the tacos for life from Taco
Bell or something like that, and the wild card one at that point would
become well, it would be ridiculously valuable. Well, there has to be
has to be an insanely short printed card because it's the first one we've seen.
Obviously there's only five. Yeah, we haven't seen we haven't seen taco
fractors of every player in the market yet, so you know, so obviously
there's that. But obviously and obviously if it was hitting a break or something
like that, I guess they'd have to random at off to the entire break,
you know, because it was a wild card or something like that.
But it's very possible that they you know, there's five wild you know,
maybe there's five wild cards. There's five of the two hundred players, and
I'm willing to bet it's going to have something to do with if they steal
a base during the World Series or something like that, then you know,
you get some massive thing from Taco Bell. The question is will that person
have to give up the card in order to receive the prize, or will
they get a like a replacement card with a slightly different design in exchange for
that, or are they gonna like serial It'll put like a little serial number
stamp on it and send it back that says it's been redeemed or something,
you know, something like that. That's That's what I'm curious about. But
I think that I think that's probably going to be what the promotion is.
I could I could see that. I have a feeling now I think about
it. You know, World Series playoff runs, something like that could make
sense. But we'll see. I was curious that I saw the wild card
pop up, and I was like, huh, this kind of throws a
new little wrinkle into the well Fractors set unless they're using the wild card to
replace any player that doesn't have a Taco fractor. All right, sure,
you know, so if one of the rookies, you know that isn't in
Chrome, that doesn't have a Taco Fractor because you know they came up in
August or whatever, and you know they wind up at the plane in the
World Series if they steal a bag, yeah, you know, is that
where the wild card comes into play. Yeah, or does it mean that
the wild card is in play for literally any player period, whether they have
a Taco Fractor or not. And I guess we're gonna have to wait for
Tops to come out with what this is and what the rules are, right,
Yeah, but I think they need to do it sooner than later.
Personally, it's just me. I'm seeing a lot of people spend a lot
of money on these cards. Don't want a whole bunch of people to get
burned by something that could be very underwhelming. I hope it's you know,
I hope it's something worthwhile because these cards are definitely getting act up compared.
I mean, they're selling for more than a lot of other cards, number
to five of players. People are putting a decent amount of money in this
thinking it's going to be something big, So I, you know, I
just hope people are getting their money's worth. Yeah, no, I would
agree, And speaking of money's worth, yes, for those of you listening
on the podcast, we need some of that. So yeah, we'll be
back after this there. Yeah, all right, welcome back, everybody,
Episode one hundred and ninety seven of Let Me Get That podograph. Unless you're
watching on YouTube, then you're watching this really weird segue. But welcome back
everybody on the audio platform. So Scott Man talked about Panini, we talked
about Tops earlier in the show. Now we got a segue a little bit
over to a company we don't talk much about, you know, often,
at least when it comes controversy things like that. But a couple of changes
in the works, and one's a big one. Yep, Brian Gray out
at Leaf. Yes, like literally a couple hours after we released last week's
episode, this happened. Yeah, and nobody is really sure why. Well,
yeah, some people know why. Some people just can't talk about why.
But Leaf put out a release saying Brian has stepped down as CEO of
the company. Supposedly they were looking for you know, they were gonna say
they were gonna announce his replacement. And a couple of days later, yes,
uh, sure enough announced his replacement, Kevin crap what's his last name,
O'Neil, O'Neill. Thank you, Kevin O'Neil. I knew it was
an oh something I just remember, you know, very familiar name. Yeah,
we just talked about him a little while ago when he moved positions from
a southern hobby to Beckett. Yeah, it works with tops before. I
mean, this dude's been as dude's been in the very big positions in the
hobby for a very long time, so it comes. It's a name that
I didn't expect to hear. No, but it's a name that makes sense.
Well, well, it makes sense to me that it's someone that Brian
gret because Brian did hand pick the person to replace him. It would make
sense to me that Brian would pick somebody like Kevin exactly, especially considering Leaf's
ties with Beckett. Yes, you know, they use Beckett for a lot
of their authentication, a lot of their slabbing, you know, for the
products that they you know that aren't buybacks and things like that. They're not
that far from each other office wise, you know, no, exactly,
And and Kevin's a guy that it really has been known in the hobby for
a long time. So that brings up a lot of well questions, Yeah,
you know what's going to happen going forward? You know, is Leaf
going to be making any major changes as far as products, product design?
Are they positioning themselves to I don't know, try to jump in the fray
if you know, for some reason the Penninian fanatics lawsuits, you know,
turn out the way and all of a sudden, these contracts have to go
out for bids and you know, things like that. But then it also
brings up what's gonna happen at Beckett? Yeah, because again they just uh,
you know, they made some changes a couple of weeks ago. Jeremy
Murray is out, yeah as president of the company. I mean, look,
Beckett, you know, took a dive during the pandemic and all that
kind of stuff, and you know, but the realities Jeremy really him and
Steve grad really helped keep that company afloat. Are you kidding me? You
know, they wouldn't be here, you know if it weren't for those two.
Gether I'm just gonna say that that's a dumb escapeboat firing ever year.
But you know, keep going, oh yeah, hands down. But what
happens there because again, Kevin just became CEO a couple of months ago,
I know, I know, are the two companies I mean, like we
didn't hear anything from Beckett about him leaving. No, is he going to
try to do two roles. I have a feeling that that's exactly what's going
on. I have a feeling that the implementation of Leaf into into and that's
where I was going. That's where I was going with it, was are
the two companies going to merge? I have a feeling I'm very very,
very very confident that Southern Hobby, Beckett Leaf all that stuff with Southern Hobby,
especially getting pushed out of Fanatics, like just you know, Fanatics isn't
doing distribution and stuff through them. Eventually they're phasing that stuff out. They
not A lot of people might not know that, but they are with Southern
Hobby, who's one of the bigger distributors besides maybe Peach Tree in the War
in the Country. You know, I see that as Beckett kind of taking
in multiple different roles, taking in probably Southern Hobby in a way, since
they're already basically under the same umbrella. Yeah, kind of see them pulling
Leaf into this portfolio. That's where I see this going. And that's also
a reason that I think probably contributed to Brian not wanting to be there.
Now. I you know, I'm not We're not going to get too much
into Brian's reasoning and the reasoning behind this change. We're gonna focus on the
change. But I do think that I think that this is happening. I
think that Beckett and Leaf are doing some type of partnership, some type of
something, and I think this is the first step towards it. And again
speculation, but you know, at the same time, it makes sense.
Well, like you said, Beckett hasn't said anything about it, and it's
literally one of their CEOs. He's moving over to leave. He was just
brought in there work with Southern Hobby before. Now, I do think we
see a lot of changes at Leaf. I do I think that, you
know, Brian was a very big risk taker. Brian was very loud,
you know, he was very out there. I do think you're gonna see
it a lot different version of Leaf going forward. Now. Whether that's a
good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. And whether that influnces
from Beckett or not, I don't know. But something tells me that putting
him in place there was almost a strategic move to start some type of a
major agreement or partnership with them. As you look at the landscape of the
hobby right now, and everything's kind of getting condensed with Fanatics and a couple
other companies that it's kind of been like you said before, because you know,
they had a down year, They've kind of been left out of everything.
They're kind of a third or fourth thought right now. I think this
is probably going to be one of their ways to I don't know, cause
some commotion, shake it up a little bit and try and do something with
the resources that they have left. Because it doesn't look like any big deal
or anything it's going to be struck with Fanatics or otherwise. I think it
already would have been done. And so I think I think they're looking at
stuff like this and it makes sense. Yeah, no, I would agree.
We'll see what happens with it. Yeah, you know, coming out
So yeah, Brian Gray out at Leaf and you know what was crazy.
He was out like two or three days before. It was like twelfth anniversary
at the company or thirteenth year at the company. It's really weird. Yeah,
But riding off into the sunset at Leave. Now a lot of people
are speculating that Brian Gray is going to Fanatics. I would put a lot
of money against that. Yeah, I would, I would too, knowing
all of my money if I had knowing knowing Brian and you know, so,
I can't see him going to Fanatics mean either, and not after the
conversation I had with him on the phone after I found this news out.
Yeah he was, And honestly, I don't think. I don't think he's
going to end up with one of the major card manufacturers. And however,
however, if he were too, I would actually put my money on upper
Deck me too. Yep, yeah, that would be the one. Any
company would be up there exactly. I can't see him going to Panini,
can't see him going to Fanatics. Upper Deck would be where I would put
my bets. But even that, I still think it's a long shot.
Yeah, my money is on. We're gonna see him in with something new.
I don't think you're done. You're not done zeeing Brian Gray in the
hobby. I can tell you that much. He's not gonna disappear from this
industry whatsoever. I think you're gonna see him come up with something new,
something different. And you know, I think it was just that time,
you know, like I said, Like we said before, a lot of
people know some of the inner workings and everything that was going on, but
Brian Gray out as Leap CEO Kevin O'Neal in, and what the hell does
that mean for Beckett and Leaf? And like, I think at least there's
a partnership coming. Yeah, I think news on that front. Yeah exactly.
Well, well, we'll let you know as soon as we do.
But all right, one final segment before we get out of here. It
is September one, early in the month. Let's take a look at the
release calendar for we got coming up September. Now, see, I didn't.
We decided to do this segment last minute while you pull it up,
So I honestly haven't looked at the really state calendar this month. We'll see.
I like doing it for me. I like doing it when I've already
already got it, pulled it up, had it, you know, I
had it pulled up to the entire show. But I actually like I like
going through when you don't look at it because you get a legit reaction Audia
as to what's excited. You know what's exciting. All right, So coming
out today, we've got Donner's Elite Football. We've got twenty two, twenty
three Pannini Mosaic basketball. Did you say Donners Football today? Yeah, twenty
twenty three Donner's Elite Football. Oh, elite, okay, yeah, Elite,
Donner's Elite. Yeah. I mean it should be called Panini Elite,
but they kept the Donners. Yeah, all right. Also coming out today,
and this one's actually exciting, not sports related, Tops Stranger Things Season
four on the sixth. Next week we've got Spectra Basketball. We also have
tops UEFA Club Competition's finest soccer product, which again that used to be called
Champions League Finest. Now it's club competition and I really hate that they had
to rename that. Let's see what else we got here, uh, twenty
twenty three Immaculate Baseballs. Coming out on the eighth. We've got so Big
one, real big one. September thirteenth, Bowman Chrome Baseball own shelves bringing
up Leaf follows so on the same day, we also have Signature Series Baseball,
as well as Pennyy plates and patches football and something called Pieces of the
Past seven Year Collection Series two. I have no idea what it is,
and it looked at that that's the historical Oh yes, that's right, we'll
skip we'll skip over that one. Twenty one twenty two Upper Premier Hockey What
year twenty one, twenty two? Yeah, sorry, I just like laughing
at it well and signed along the lines with de layed upper Deck also the
same day, twenty one, twenty two Ultimate Collection Hockey and for you wrestling
fans, twenty twenty two Upper Deck a E w Allure, which is nice.
Good w is getting the A lure treatment like that. Fifteenth We've got
Leaf Exotic Football Chronicles UFC comes out on the twenty twentieth. Contenders Optic Basketball
from the twenty two twenty three season on the twentieth as well, twenty twenty
two Flawless Football as well on the same day, and let's see here twenty
twenty three Mosaic Football Wow that day as well again. Another twenty twenty three
products, Select Baseball on the twenty second. Also on the twenty second,
going outside of sports, uh, Pokemon Scarlett and Violet one fifty one is
coming out on the twenty second. One of my favorite products of the year
on the twenty second, Allen Ginter Baseball. Yeah, although it's obviously there's
other non baseball in there. Another one I'm excited about on the twenty seventh,
we have tops, Chrome McDonald's All American from the twenty three seasons,
Brownie James Autos. They just pre give those the other day exactly, so
that that one I'm excited to see. And then we've got a bunch of
stuff that's still to be determined on dates. Tops Major League Soccer is supposed
to be coming out, and again I think that was the because they wanted
to get messy in there. We've got some twenty two twenty three season hockey.
It looks like Upper Deck is bringing back Parker's Champions as well as sp
game used in SPX okay, and then twenty twenty three Marvel Upper Deck Marvel
Premiere is another one as well as a Upper Deck Marvel anime. But there's
another Upper Deck one that I saw earlier in the sub early in the list
the ones that I'm most the big month for releases with Allen and Ginter,
I'm praying that they helped me finish my Gaslight Anthem set. That's right here
there you go in. There's only two members left. Come on, guys,
put them in this year, but or at least one this year and
one next year and one next year. Yeah, it's been one every year.
But I'm hoping that they can finish that set because I want to finish
it. But yeah, Alan Ginter, Flawless Contenders, Optic Basketball. It's
a lot of big releases there, man, and MLS. If it comes
out and has messy I mean ship. Yeah. But here's here's gonna this
is gonna be sneaking, This is gonna be big. But all you gaming
guys out there, I believe it's the twenty seventh, twenty seventh Blizzard Upperdecks,
Blizzard Legacy Collection. Yeah, it's coming out and it's gonna have cards
from Diablo, World of Warcraft, StarCraft Overwatch, Warcraft, a bunch of
other gaming cards. And I was looking at the CellSheet on this actually really
cool looking stuff. Not a gaming guy, but I've got a feeling that's
gonna be that's gonna be a huge product. Yeah. Oh it's speaking of
huge products. Also, Disney's Lord Kana is also hitting shelves, retail shelves
this week. It's been out. You've been able to get box this sum
before, but Lord Kana is hitting retail stores this week. However, retail
stores, we're told, and I'm gonna tell you this now, to put
it out, but do not be prepared to put it out again. So
I don't know the multiple printings. I have a feeling if I'm Disney,
I don't see Disney doing anything very limited. So I have a feeling you're
gonna have a million runs of this eventually, but I think they're gonna slow
roll it so it doesn't feel as flooded at once. But Lorcana is out
also, But that's a pretty solid month for releases, man, I mean
Elite football in those football releases, I'm telling you we're gonna and we're gonna
focus a lot next week on football and a couple of sales and some other
stuff that we want to discuss. And being at the season is going to
be kicking off, we'll be focusing a lot on football next week. But
those products like Elite and things like that, you really need to keep an
eye on them, especially for this year, because those maybe, depending on
what happens with you know, the NFLPA laws. Who thinks like that,
those maybe the only products that end up getting released in twenty twenty three.
Yeah, because the injunction that Panini filed was shot down, So so every
now, if you guys didn't know that. As an update, Yes,
the injunction Panini filed to stop this from happening was shot down, so they
are moving forward with the Players Association given the rights to Tops immediately. Panini
is ignored everything and continuing to release products and continuing to try and solicit to
stories and vendors, although no new products have been paid for it yet.
Elite is the last product that hobby shops are anywhere have already pre ordered and
paid for that they're getting. So yeah, I think that maybe why Panini
has said, screw it, let's release this, because they've already got the
money for it, and if they're smart, they'll just put that money aside
just inde well, just in case, you know, they wind up losing
you know, their lawsuit, because that money is going to wind up having
a transfer as well, because they obviously weren't supposed to release any macro stuff.
So keep an eye on that. That that's going to be a very
interesting product to watch this year. Yep, you know, because again that
maybe the only, maybe it's last product. Yeah, but I've got a
feeling if Panini's ignoring it, the TOPS is going to ignore it as well
and start printing cards and now all of a sudden, you're gonna see a
very interesting year. Oh where is it gonna be? A very football?
Is gonna be very interesting on the card side of things, and not one
person on the field is going to have to do anything worthwhile for a lot
of eyes and attention to be on it. Well, that was gonna be
the case anyway, because so many people speculate about all of the you know,
players that are going to make it talk about We'll talk about that next
week though, No on that note, stat I think it's probably a good
time to wrap up this week show. What do you think? I agree?
Good place, good deal. I do want to thank all of our
awesome sponsors of course, Zion Cases, show your Slabs, Slab Strong,
Denver, card shows, stand up displays, card Ladder, Game Time,
Sports Cards and Treasure Hunters. We greatly appreciate all you guys do for the
show. We could not do it without you. Make sure to check out
hobby Hotline. I believe I'm on there next week, but every single Saturday
eleven am on bench Clear Media. Make sure to like and subscribe, follow
the YouTube page, check out all the socials. We're also upping the amount
of content we put on the good old TikTok or so go on over and
follow whatever those are. I don't know what you call it when you put
up the TikTok tack or what it is. So I don't use TikTok.
Iver fished and use TikTok. But you can check ours out. We've got
some really cool stuff on. But yeah, until next week. You guys
know the deal. Keep ripping those packs, pulling those hits, fought damn base