Speaker 1: All right, Happy Saturday, everybody. Good morning, hobby friends. Welcome
to Hobby Hotline. This is episode three nineteen of Hobby Hotline.
I'm your host, Logan Ward, and with me today is
first of all, hobby Icon mister Steegum himself, Chris Harris.
Speaker 2: I'm a hobby Icon.
Speaker 3: Really you are, You're a hobby I caon.
Speaker 2: No, I never heard anybody refer to me. I'm honored.
Speaker 3: It's good to see you.
Speaker 1: And of course, uh, the man who needs no introduction,
the han solo of the Hobby mister Uncle rich Klein.
Speaker 4: How you doing so three nineteen? We would leave the
National League in batting average.
Speaker 3: Yes we would. And uh, happy Roshashana.
Speaker 4: By the way, the shaatvaswall are Jewish friends for are listening.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure that we've got Rex and Crew on
the big screen, So shout out to those guys, and uh,
I guess before we really get started, I do want
to say one thing that our thoughts and prayers are
with the people that were affected by Hurricane Helene. That
was just a devastating storm and I cannot imagine what
these people are going through.
Speaker 3: But our thoughts and prayers go out to them.
Speaker 4: Indeed very destructive storm. I mean when you read the
when you read the data about it, forty like trillion
gallons of water some just number that's like in you know,
just mind boggling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to see how it lifted up structures and
breached dams and all the things that it did, it
is You're right, it's mind boggling to think of what
happened and how all that happened.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just terrible. I'll say that.
Speaker 2: You know, when you think hurricane in North Carolina, you
usually think the outer Banks and Cape Fear and Wilmington
in that area, and not the mountains of Asheville. So yeah, well,
we're living in a new world thanks to global warming,
and unfortunately, some of these big storms that dump a
lot of rain in places that aren't exactly built to
handle it are going to become a little more common.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I saw last night on the news
they were showing a map of the probabilities of being
flooded in North Carolina and Ashville and up in that
area was like one percent, and they said people just
didn't have flood insurance and it was just apocalyptic, you know,
it was unbelievable. All right, So I guess we can
get started with the show this morning. I guess the
first thing that we want to talk about. I guess
it's the big elephant in the room is unfortunately we
lost Pete Rose this week, and I kind of want
to talk about Pete Rose and his hobby legacy, his cards.
You know, is he going to get in the Hall
of Fame?
Speaker 3: You think?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: I guess I'll put it to you Chris first, what
do you think about you know, Pete Rose's hobby legacy
and you know, have you ever had any interactions with
him anything like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the sixty three sixty three Tops rookie
card was really the first big rookie card in the
hobby when rookie cards started to become a thing in
the late seventies. And it was also the first really
nastly counterfeited card out there. I mean, there's still a
lot of card of a counterfeit sixty three tops Pete
Rose cards out there. Yeah, that card really kicked off
the rookie mania. I don't know if that's the word
of the hobby in the late seventies, and we haven't
looked back since.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember, you know, in the late seventies how
big of a card that was. And of course that's when,
like you said, the rookie card craze was going on,
and that's when all the hype for the Mickey Mantle
rookie card started. And I do remember all that and
that sixty three tops is a great card.
Speaker 3: So rich, What are your memories of Pete Rose?
Speaker 4: Well, one thing about Pete Rose. Pete Rose is this
generation's Bob Feller. He constantly did public appearances. If he
wasn't doing the show, he was signing in Las Vegas
almost every day, and because so many people travel Las Vegas,
a lot of people got to meet him. And one
of my friends, Joey Casey, would be a lot of
times the person who sat with him in Las Vegas,
and he had nothing but good things to say. How
Pete interacted with his pants. Pete did a show last weekend,
you know, and it was part of or five I
think there were five people from the Big Red Machine,
Dave Concepcion, George Foster, Tony Perez, and Ken Griffy seen
you were all at the show. And there's a photo
that I'm taking together and you see Rose in a wheelchair,
but he's literally seeing fans until the day he passed.
And Pete Rose, just like Bob Feller, Bob Feller's role
in life after all that was to be Bob Feller.
Pete Rose was Pete Rose, and he you know, would
cost money to see him, yes, but he understood the
fans who loved him loved him. And there's two distinct things.
There's the Pete Rose is a player who's who's all,
who's a first ballot Hall of Famer, no questions asked.
And there's Pete Rose and the manager who technically never
bet against the Reds, but he didn't bet them to
win every game. And if you're a smart booky and
you're the one he's booking at and you don't hear
Pete Rose betting to win that game, you lay off
money that you think the Reds will lose that game.
And that's really the problem with the Pete Rose gambling saga.
And what makes it difficult today is major League Baseball,
and not just Major League Baseball, but all the other
sports are so intertwined now with DraftKings and all these
draft gambling places that those didn't exist in those days,
there were very strict rules. Now there may be strict
rules for the players, but the leagues are taking so
much money for gambling. It's like, hey, what you did
was wrong then, how is it wrong now? And that's
where I have real sympathy for Pete Rose in the
Hall of Fame because what he did was wrong in
nineteen eighty eight, but is it really still wrong in
twenty twenty four?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree with that. You know, everybody's become
really relaxed on gambling now. It's so pervasive. It's everywhere
I see. I get so and he adds on my
phone all the time for hey, bet, MGM, bet, ESPN,
bet whoever. And uh, you know, I think that if
they it happened now, would be you know, a different
They look at it differently with Pete Rose, for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, Rich mentioned that Pete never bet on the
Reds to lose. He always bet on them to win.
And some people might be thinking to themselves, well, how
exactly is that a bad thing he's betting on him
to win? Well, he basically ruined the careers of Mario
Sodo and Jose Rio by over using them. And if
you don't know who Mario Sodo was. He was one
of the best starting pitchers of the early eighties. And
then Pete Rose becomes the manager and he throws them
out there every four days on four days rest. He
was never the pitcher saying starting pitcher. Again, you look
at also some of the ways he used his bullpen
on games that we know he bet on. He would
throw like John Franco, who was his closer, and pitch
him in the seventh and have him pitch the last
two and a third inning and he almost Yeah, he
almost ruined his career too. So yes, betting on your
own team does lead to negative externalities to some of
your other players, and that is a bad thing. So
one other thing that I wanted to bring up with
Pete Rose is that, and this is something that really
has gone under the radar this year, is that earlier
this year, Tops made I believe, the first officially licensed
card of Pete Rose in like thirty plus years, in
this year's Bowman set. And I think one of the
reasons why people didn't notice that is that it was
short printed to such a degree that nobody could really
find it. It was all part of that first Bowman
Chrome retro card thing that they did with I think
they did it with Babe Ruth and Johnny Bench last year,
and this year they had one for Pete and I
want to say Carl Yastremsky, And there are actually outstanding
autograph redemptions for Pete Rose cards from Tops this year
and I don't know if they've been fulfilled yet or
if they ever will be, so yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: In two thousand and one there was an Upper Deck
set where they had redemptions for Willie Starvill signed cards.
Willie Stargel literally passed like the day before the new
Pirate Stadium opened, and so that's another redemption that can
never exist. And that happens every once in a while,
I believe. And sometimes you signed the cards and then
they get released after you passed. There was a ninety
four with Don Drysdale, one of these you know, major
company mail away things and Don Drysdale as signed cards,
and I think there's a ninety seven Top Stars card
of Richie Ashburn and I think he passed before he
could sign the card. So every once in a while
you get these situations and that puts a card company
to behind too. You don't have the cards and you're
not getting those cards either. And if you pull that card,
how do you make it up to the person who
kind of wanted to, you know, skipping everything else. If
I pulled a Pete Rose Sign card, I kind of
want a Pete ro Sign card. Forget whether you know
where he's right now, but you want the card you
actually pulled. So what's your replacement going to be? That
actually happened to me. And I've told the story with
a Twins card for Mike Mustaks. That was twenty ten
Tops Chrome I pulled out of a Chrome update. I
pulled out of a box when I was doing box
reviews for Sports Collectors Daily. Eventually Tops sent me a
replacement car Oscar Tavaris after he died in the after
he died in a car crash. I mean, there was
thank goodness. Actually at the time, I was active on
the Beckett message boards and there was somebody who actually
collected every Oscar toa Veris card and was happy to
get that card in trade. But other than that, where
was I going with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know that was like that was a case where
am I going with the card you just sent me? Fortunately,
in my case, since it really didn't cust me anything.
It was like, okay, fine, and I got something out
of it. But other people might not have had quite
the same singing reception to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, looking at some of the comments here, a lot
of people are okay with Pete Rose getting it into
the Hall of Fame. I personally think he should be
in the Hall of Fame. Let me read something from
Wikipedia real quick, just talking about Pete Rose.
Speaker 3: It says Rose was a switch hitter.
Speaker 1: In his Major League baseball's all time leader in hits
with two hundred and fifty six games played three five
hundred and sixty two at bats fourteen thousand and fifty
three singles three two hundred and fifteen and outs ten thousand,
three hundred and twenty eight. He won three World Series,
three batting titles, one MVP, two Gold Gloves, and was
Rookie of the Year in nineteen sixty three. He made
seventeen All Star appearances in an unequaled five positions second base,
left fielder, right fielder, third baseman, and first baseman, and
he won his two Gold Gloves in sixty nine to seventy.
Speaker 2: So he was.
Speaker 1: People don't really realize I think sometimes what a heck
of a player.
Speaker 3: He really was.
Speaker 4: He's also the first person to ever play five hundred
and more games at five different positions.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's amazing. He had an amazing career. He
has all the credentials for the Hall of Fame, no doubt.
But you know, since you know, I heard a lot
of people over the year say they're probably not going
to let him in until he passes.
Speaker 3: So now that he's passed, do you think that the
committee's going to go? Okay?
Speaker 1: You know, he never got to see himself being Hall
of Fame, but now we'll put him in the Hall
of Fame.
Speaker 3: What do you think about that?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, he has to be reinstated by
the commissioner.
Speaker 4: It's also a permanent band, not a lifetime not a
lifetime band. I actually looking at our friend both Spencer
Thompson's one Million Cubs Project post. I have the person
I really have the most sympathy on that list is
Joe Jackson. Joe was known for not being as smart.
You know, he didn't have an education. There was one
hundred years ago. He may have not understood all the
ramifications the way other people did. And so I have
sympathy for Joe Jackson, you know, Yeah, he might have
more sympathy more than a Bonds or Maguire or Clemens
that had pretty good knowledge of what you know, if
they were putting things into their body, they knew what
they were doing. Joe Jackson I have more sympathy more
than any of the other people mentioned. Yes, And I
think if anybody goes in, he goes in first, then
then you then once he goes in, and then you
can start thinking about other people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I think.
Speaker 2: If Pete does go in, though, you do have to
mention on his plaque he was just he bet on
that he bet on baseball.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think you also have to mention for
Pete Rose. Not only that, but you know, it's how
does he get in because a lot of the players
don't want a lot of the people on the Veterans
Committee dunk want him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that he's I don't think he's eligible to
be elected by the Writers because it's been too long.
So it's going to way past the Writers. It's only
going to have to be a Veterans Committee. And to
get twelve out of sixteen on that committee is especially
when they're Yeah, a lot of those guys, guys that
he played with, you know, they they've they've already said no.
So it could very well be a while. It could
be long after we're gone that he gets in.
Speaker 3: So yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, and by the way, I want to say, I
see Rex has us up on the big screen, So
thank you. Rexs always yes, And I'm just curious since
we have Rex here and he's got a very very active,
very good stores, has he seen any increase this week
in cells? Have people asked him for Pete Rose cards?
Has he seen any sales? Has he done anything you
know for selling Pete Rose carts?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, make a comment there, Rex and let us know,
or you can call into the show. As a matter
of fact, I probably need to put a link up
for people who want to try to call into the show.
Speaker 3: Do that real quick.
Speaker 1: And while I'm doing that, I've had some pretty good
interactions with Pete Rose over the years. Every time that
I ever met him personally, he was very cordial, very nice.
Speaker 3: You know, he signed autographs and you know, no problem.
Speaker 1: But I will say that I remember when I was
a kid, we went to Riverfront Stadium in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3: And this is during Hank Aaron's home run chase. Right.
Speaker 1: He was you know, in like the seven tens or
whatever when we were there, but we were sitting out
in left field. Pete Rose was out in left field,
and me and my cousin we were relentless. We kept
yelling at Pete Rose to turn around and look at
us and stuff. And we kept yelling at him the
whole time, and he was ignoring us. And then finally, uh,
he turned around and he pumped his fist at us
and like yeah, and uh for you know, a thirteen
year old kid. I mean, we were it was we
were over the moon.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: It was one of the greatest things ever. So that
that was really cool. In fact, I've got let me
show you real quick. I've got my uh my ticket
from that from that actually from that that game. If
I can find it real quick on the thing here,
I'll show you guys real quick. I got my p
s A ticket encapsulated and that's the actual ticket that
I had from that from that game where we were
at and I think, uh, Hank Aaron, he almost hit
a home run that day.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: It hit the yellow stripe on top of the left
field fence, and we thought we were going to see
a home run that day, but we did, and it
was like it would have been like, I think, seven
hundred and eleven home run. So but that that was
really cool. I'll never never forget that. That's that's a
memory that I've got etched for life.
Speaker 4: You realize, if Aaron hit a home run that day,
baseball history would have been changed because instead of entering
the seventy four season with seven hundred and thirteen homers,
he would have had seven hundred and fourteen and the
homer he had an opening day would have would have
broken the record, not the one he had off al
Downing on the Monday night baseball game NBC.
Speaker 1: Carried and I remember that night. I was sitting downstairs
with my dad watching that game and it was one
of the craziest things ever. We had some friends that
lived We lived in Louisville at the time, and that's
why we were big Red Machine fans. But we had
some friends that had lived in Louisville and they moved
to Atlanta and in the background we saw them running
on the field they were down actually hit that game.
Speaker 3: So it was amazing.
Speaker 4: Well that that you know, that was one of the
first times where people ran onto the field, and the
first time because it happened a lot the sixty nine
World Series. At the end of sixteen nine World Series,
the Mets fans over Ranshay Stadium. But these two kids
run onto the field and if an Aaron is seriously
concerned that they're going to do something, thank goodness. All
they wanted to do was just congratulate him. But with
all the hate mail and all the threat death threats
and everything Aaron went through during the season, his reaction
was quite understandable about these two guys getting onto the
field and running with him. They didn't know. But as
I said, thankfully, it was minor. You know, it was
literally a minor inconvenience and not something that could have
been much worse. I mean, thirty five years later, Tom Gimboa,
coaching for the White Sox, got assaulted while coaching at
first base by a couple guys who a father son
combo who ran onto the field. So you never know,
and no matter how good your security is, and we
can there's a lot of hobby a lot there's a
lot of the hobby news this week has unfortunately been
around thefts and that then, but you never know what's
gonna happen.
Speaker 3: No, that's that's very true.
Speaker 1: It looks like Rex says that he said people asking
about Pete Rose cards and Memoravidy this week, but they
haven't had a huge spike in sales. Of course, he
does have a ton of autos out there. I remember
going buying a blaster box to get his auto at Target,
So that should tell you how many autos he's got
out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, Brian graysons he had no he could not be
on a licensed baseball card. There was a Brian Gray.
I believe Pete Rose product in the eighties. I believe
a company called ASA, which was one of these companies
all related to the Ronado Glasso Group and the TCMA group,
and they're all kind of sort of into related. They
had a Pete Rose set I believe in nineteen eighty five.
A lot of there are Pete Rose specific sets out
there too. I think that eighty five set had one
hundred and twenty cards. I'm pretty sure the leaf set
is sixty or ninety cards or something.
Speaker 2: Didn't tops make like a box set of Pete Rose.
Speaker 4: That's the one I'm I think think that's the one.
I think you're right. Yeah, but I think there's an
ASA set to. It's just there's enough. There's enough Pete
Rose cards out there.
Speaker 3: Yes, there are plenty.
Speaker 1: In fact, speaking of Pete Rose cards, I have to
say I'm gonna show a couple of my favorite Pete
Rose cards. My favorite card that I like is the
nineteen seventy two Tops Pete Row.
Speaker 3: I love that card.
Speaker 1: I just loved the pos I love the design. I
just think it's a great card. And of course everybody,
I think everybody loves seventy five tops. That was a
great year. So those are some of my favorite cards.
Do you have any favorite cards?
Speaker 2: Chris Well, I'm more partial to his time with the
Phillies because that's I I was six years old when
the Phillies won the World Series in nineteen eighty. And
you know, the Phillies were a good team in the
late seventies, but they kept bombing out in the League
Championship series. So they went out and got a ringer.
They went out and got Pete Rose, and finally, after
ninety seven years on a World Series that was only.
Speaker 4: The second time they were in the World Series. I
think in the third time in the century nineteen fifteen
and nineteen, so that's only the third time, you know,
during the World Series era they were even in the
World Series. And then they show up again in eighty three.
And one of the big things in eighty three is
Rose got benched for a day to put in Tony Perez,
who was even older than he was. Yeah, I mean,
you know, it's like it was a big thing. I
remember it became okay, you're benching Rose, You're benching Rose. Well,
as a baseball move, it was probably the right thing,
but in terms of doing, you know, creating unnecessary distraction,
it probably wasn't. One couple of things. One card I'm
always been partial to on the Pete Rose is a
sixty four card. It's his first card by himself, you know,
in a major manufacturer. Plus it has the top all
Star logo, the all Star rookie logo on it. It's
actually a freely attractive card. And then Chris is talking
about the Phillies well, and Chris should know what his
first Phillies card is.
Speaker 2: Seventy nine Burger King correct, not the regular Tops correct.
Speaker 4: Seventy nine Regular Tops is a is a Reds card,
and I believe that the OPG card may also say
now with Phillies, but the first card of him in
the Phillies uniform is the Phil is the Burger King card.
Speaker 1: Let me uh, I'm gonna put in uh the link
the show and the chat. So if anybody wants to
call in, feel free to call in and.
Speaker 3: Talk to us.
Speaker 1: We're here to talk about just dobou anything you guys
want to talk about.
Speaker 3: But yeah, uh, I hate I hate seeing that.
Speaker 1: For Pete Rose, I'm like I said, I was a
huge fan when I was kidding him and him and
Johnny Bench were my heroes.
Speaker 3: I love those guys so much.
Speaker 1: I remember getting getting my first Pete Rose card in
seventy one.
Speaker 3: That was that was very special.
Speaker 1: But I have a lot, I have a lot of
fond memories of Pete Rose, especially the one in the
Riverfront Stadium that was that was great.
Speaker 4: I mean when I collected when I first got my
packs in sixty eight, Pete Rose was in that. I
believe was in that series as well. I mean, the
third series of sixty eight is loaded enough and if
memory serves me, and I'll double check that now, Pete
Rose was in that series as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think he might have been.
Speaker 4: He was. Yep, Pete Rose was in that series as well.
So you know that's a loaded series. You have Mantle,
you have a bench Rooky, and you have Pete Rose
in the same series. You know, not even counting people
like Killebrew and Sapida. You talk about a loaded and
yeas was in that series too. Wow, i'd be that
is that is like tops overloaded the third and that's
the first series I actively remember collecting Picked a pretty
good series, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine having an open box of that that third series.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Oh if you had that today. Yeah, I mean you'd
have a Hall of Famer in every pack or it
should be Hall of Fame or what every pack. If
it's like you got a bad pack.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's for sure, all right.
Speaker 4: He brings up a really good point here. If you're
any sort of a full time dealer, you don't really
collect cards, and if you don't really collect cards, everything's
for sale. And the question then becomes with Pete Rose, Hey,
did you start listing cards after he passed or were
you're just or are you selling the inventory you've already
posted for sale, you know, and that that's some a
kind of a moral of the Lemon Roses case. He's
eighty three and had been battling health issues, so it's
a little not like somebody when you know, coming unexpectedly,
so to speak. But that's that's always the moral issue
with cards too. How how much do you take advantage
of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was actually going to bring that up.
Speaker 1: And you see that every time that that a famous
person passes, especially a sports figure with with a lot
of trading cards, you know, you see a lot of
people don't don't put r I Rest in peace whoever.
And they're they're they're they're posting the cards, listing the
cards on eBay or wherever. And I'm on the fence
on that. It's like, you know, that's really not a
great thing to take advantage of of something like that
when somebody passes. I just because I remember, I remember
when Dale Earnhardt passed away in Daytona and the eBay
listings for for I Earned Heart where it just it
went from like forty thousand to one hundred thousand listings
of him. It just really I just thought it was
I just didn't think it was a good thing.
Speaker 3: It's it's just not a good look. That's just my thing.
Speaker 4: I'm reading Bo's comments right now.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Bo, you've got a point. Yeah, I
will give you that.
Speaker 2: Twenty dollars extra for the inscription of death.
Speaker 4: Dy Hey, I still want Hey, if somebody ever posts
a sixty four sign Kenny Hubs for sale, I'd be
very impressed.
Speaker 3: Uh, I don't think it's gonna happen.
Speaker 4: I don't think so either, but still be very impressed.
Speaker 1: But you know, these days, you know there are people
that there are forgerers out there that just don't know.
Speaker 3: They just sign.
Speaker 4: You know what that car actually says in memoriam for
the sixty.
Speaker 3: Four Kenny that I forgot about that.
Speaker 2: You're right.
Speaker 4: Or Jim umbricked with it. It doesn't hit on front,
but it saysn't on the back of that sixty four
cent Jim passed on such and such a date because
he played the last two seasons of his life for
the Houston Cold forty fives with cancer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who is that picture? For the Yankees in two
thousand and six, two thousand and seven, crashed his plane
in Corey Lytle. That's right, and they had a memoriam
card for him that year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, corey't flying either. It scared a lot of people
in New York at the time because he flew in
a place he shouldn't have been flying in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt that. That was very, very sad.
Speaker 1: All right, So, uh, I guess we can go ahead
and move on from Pete Rose. The next thing I
want to talk about real quick, and we can talk
about this quickly is Fanatics has signed Connor Bedard to
an exclusive autograph and memorabilia d you know, here we
go again with Fanatics. Do you guys, what do you
guys think about that?
Speaker 3: Chris? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess you're not getting autographs and Upper deck
and I guess this means Fanatics once in hockey, even
though today Yeah.
Speaker 4: I read through the press release carefully and it's see
and maybe I read it wrong, but it' said autograph memorabilia.
The question is is cards autographed memorabilia or does Upper
Decks still have the right to have connter Bdard sign cards?
And if they do, then that's really no no real impact.
And I thought they had to deal with him signing cards.
So I'm not convinced and I could be wrong. I'm
not convinced that you can't have Connor Bdard signed upper
deck cards. What you won't have, though, is like signed
jersey cards. I suspect you won't have Connor Bdard relic
cards that that is what I'm guessing, but I'm not up.
I tried to read it very carefully to see what
it's set. What it said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was looking at that as well, because at
first it doesn't mention anything about autographs, and then later
on it does. It does mention autograph and I'm like,
I'm not exactly sure how this deal is going to work.
Speaker 4: So that's why I'm curious as to what it's going
to be. And Fanatics may or may not want hockey
because it'll be a while before before upper deck license
goes away. But if you're going to sign a hockey player,
you might as well sign the number one like young player,
considering and he had a really good rookie year despite
his one injury. Yeah, and if it really is memorabilia only,
then he can still sign cards. I mean, he's gonna
have upper deck cards, just like all of the autograph
exclusives Fanatics has for all these NFL quarterbacks this year.
Panini is still going to make cards of the people.
They may not have a lot of signatures, even though
we saw some stuff floating around that's in some of
their really expensive sets. There may be like CJ. Stroud
autographs in National Treasures, but they still can make cards
of the people since they have the license with the
Players Association in the league.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what Rex says here, He says the word cards
is missing for reason. If there's a card deal, they
would be saying it loudly. So yeah, I guess this
is just going to be memorabilia. Uh only least at
least for now. We all know how the fanatics machine works.
We were all we've all found that out over the
last couple of years. So yeah, I'm I don't know
how I feel about that. It's just you know, how
much is enough? That that's that's you know with fanatics,
they want everything. I mean, they honestly do it. In
my opinion, they want everything, and I don't I don't
know that that's a good thing for the hobby.
Speaker 4: Well, Gordon, one of my signed cards actually went for
over one hundred dollars recently, one of my sign signed
tops cards. So if it goes up after I die,
somebody there's enough of them out there, somebody may cash
in very nicely, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: I still say we need a rich Box card.
Speaker 4: We should have done one that day. What can I
tell you?
Speaker 3: All Right?
Speaker 1: So, uh, I guess the next thing we probably want
to talk about is, uh, let's see what I've got
on my list here real quick.
Speaker 3: We'll touch on this too.
Speaker 1: There's an upper Deck employee that allegedly has stolen valuable
trading cards from upper Deck. Uh oh, rot Row is right,
So what do you guys think about that? I mean,
there's the price of cards now, I mean they said
that these cards are anywhere from just in the tens
of dollars to you know, the tens of thousands that
this guy stole and are allegedly stole.
Speaker 3: I will say, and I think they said that it's
like right now, they think so.
Speaker 1: Far it's like about one hundred and eighty nine thousand dollars,
because they say it could be as much as maybe
five hundred thousand dollars. I'm not sure if that if
that's true or not. But Chris, what do you think
about that?
Speaker 2: I'm kind of surprised. Well, I think, well, backdoring has
been a problem in the hobby for years now, but
you don't hear much of it that often anymore. I
guess because a lot of the cards are serial numbered,
it would be kind of obvious if card number one,
twenty three of five hundred it is, somehow makes it
onto the market. Card companies have to do it, but
who they got to do a better job vetting their employees, apparently,
because it doesn't seem to me that Upper Deck did
a good job here. Not that I want to blame
the victim.
Speaker 5: Or anie, but uh but uh yeah, yeah, I mean,
you really don't see a lot of these happening that
that often, so I'm kind of surprised that happened to
Upper Deck so well.
Speaker 1: From from what I had read, apparently the room where
they store these cards is there's not a lot of security.
Speaker 3: There's not a lot of cameras, there's not a lot.
Speaker 1: Of I mean, it's just easy to put them in
your pocket and walk out the door. There's nobody checking
it's I mean, I don't know if that's true or not,
but that's that's what I read. If that's the case,
I can see where people would be you know, there's
certain people that would be tempted to do things like
that because you know, desperate people do do desperate things.
So I just I think it's a it's a it's
a bad look and no matter how you look at it,
there's there's so much hobby greed right now. To me,
it's an all time high. And with that, you're going
to have things like this happened you where your thoughts?
Speaker 4: Rich First, this is a downside of all the great
publicity we've had for a lot of the record prices
we've had for cards. People, you know, people who aren't
into the hobby necessarily say, oh money, lots of money.
I can make money and I don't. And there's no
real way to trace a lot of this stuff because
if I remember correctly from the article I read, it
had to do with redemptions. Well, if you don't, if
the autographs are not serial, numbers are not signed, and
you pull redemption and you pull autographed redemption cards, who's
going to know where they came from?
Speaker 1: That's true, But read what Rex says here. He says
he had to get involved recently because one of his
customers was waiting on one to one trap redemption for
over a year. And on the way he did it
starts and he found the card graded by SGC. So
that needs somebody back doored it somewhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, but you know, unfortunately, at least with
that he could say, wait a second, here's here's the
redemption card. And you know, and if he did it
through Rex's then there is a double chain of custody, like, hey,
where's my card?
Speaker 3: You know that's there?
Speaker 4: It is there, it is there, it is there's the answer.
They got the card from David Adams and they got
it into the because there was extra thing. And plus Rex,
being a valued Fanatics customer, could say, you guys don't
do right by my customer. I can spread the word
to all my customers how you screwed up. So that
and so this is actually something showing the power of
store ownership and showing that it's important when you have
a local card store, important to support it. So I'm
a big fan of local card stores. But that's a
reason why. And I also want to say there was
a note about I wish we could remove the note
about Chris Carlin leaving Upper Deck because he did that
because we all know.
Speaker 3: That I actually clicked on that, and I feel bad
for doing that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I want that if we can remove that,
or you know, if we have a wrench to remove that.
I really want that removed. I can. I can give
christ shit about what happened with my upper with my
top sign card, but I'm not. We do not condone that,
and that really kisses me off. Whoever made that comment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just deleted and it's gone. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I've just been going down as I see
the comments come up, I'm not really reading them. I'm
clicking on them and then reading them. And I apologize
for that.
Speaker 4: That's okay, But thank you for deleting that. That one
upsets me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, so yeah, I'm I
don't I just don't know what to say about these steps.
It's going to continue to happen, unfortunately.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately that's just a part of the hobby now, just
because of the value of these cards.
Speaker 4: It's a show in itself. But when we were when
we were prepping our notes for this week, how many
of the stories had to do with Seth Seth the
card shows or thefts from employee or theft, how many
of those notes and granted someone this beat the publicity.
And then you know, there was somebody who lost the
goudy roof at a phil at the Philly card show. Uh,
then there was I was reading on that fifty four
somebody had his truck stolen on his way to a
show in Canada, and he still had enough to have
a nice inventory, but he lost three quarters of the
inventory that was in his his truck. And the good
news is those two nitwits, and I'm gonna say this
because I can call them nitwitz the two ingites who
stole those cards that Memory Lane shipped to the Best
Western Hotel in Strongsboro, Ohio. They've pleaded guilty and yeah,
ever happens to them at least a week now, say
they admitted it, and they, you know, almost did it right,
but not quite. And how about these professionals who took
the cards at the Dallas card show. None of those
cards have popped up yet, and we suspect they're not
going to pop up. We think they may be out
of it. From what we when I say we from
the people who have even better contacts, they're out of
the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah they could they very well could be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, What's strange about that though, with those guys that
stole the cards from Memory Lane in Strongsville, is they
still haven't recovered two of those cards. One was a
nineteen oh nine Ronilly Walter Johnson in a forty one
playball ted Williams and the guy says he's not going
to tell them where they went fifty eight.
Speaker 4: You know what though, he needs you know, at this point, dude,
you're guilty tell them where they went to. Okay, I
mean you know that this is not whoever ended up
with the cards knew what he was getting or she
knew what he was she was getting, So I should
never be that sexist and knew what they were getting,
and therefore, hey, folks, just get the cards back.
Speaker 1: Well, he's in order to pay like over eighty nine
thousand dollars to Memory Lane. Is restitution is part of
the plea agreement. So he's gonna have to pay what.
Speaker 4: He sold those two cards for because in that case
then then it's a zero sum game plus time in
the slammer.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, at some point, I mean there, if he did
sell those cards, you know, those belong to Memory Lane,
they're going to have to be you know, taken from
the people that got him and giving back the memory lane.
At least that's the way I look at Yeah, that's that.
That's that was a bad deal, all right. So we're
we're we're clicking through the topics. So this is one
that that Chris mentioned and it's the TOPS Aaron Judge
Paul Patrol card, And uh, I think that's it's really neat.
I've got a picture of it somewhere. See here, there
we go. But it looks like that this was on
October second. Tops announced that they were going to have
Aaron Judge Paul Patrol cards in uh twenty twenty four
TOPS update. So when you think about that, Chris, I
think it's pretty neat. I like stuff like that. It's
I know it's gimmicky, but I'm a gimmicky kind of guy.
I just think it's kind of neat.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 2: But you know, Tops is gonna screw this up. I mean,
come on, you know they're gonna make this such a
short print that moms and dads everywhere who have kids
that love Paw Patrol and or who love the New
York Yankees are gonna are gonna go through hundreds and
hundreds of dollars worth of Tops Update wax looking for
this this card and they're never gonna find it. And
you know, I wrote something like this for Hobby News
Daily last year when Tops did the uh the the
Tom Brady baseball card. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 2: I thought it was a great idea. I love the
marketing behind it, and there's a little bit of truth
to the story behind it, because he really was drafted
by the Montreal expos as a catcher. But then they
made it like a one in every two hundred bucks hit.
And I'm thinking, you know, if you're trying to ten
x the hobby right, if you're trying to attract new customer,
you would want that card a little bit more available
than one in every two hundred bucks. I would not
want potential customers to spend hundreds of dollars on TOPS
products and not not find this card and be made
to feel like total schmucks for doing so.
Speaker 3: And I know that we.
Speaker 2: Don't know much about Tops Update or whether this will
be Let's just say Tops has a track record of
doing things like this, making these almost impossible to collect,
such as the Pete Rose Bowman chrome card that I mentioned.
Look I mean, I have a six year old niece
and a four year old nephew that watched Paw Patrol constantly.
They're gonna love this card. The problem is, I don't
think they're gonna be able to ever final.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so. Yeah, it's like what Rex is saying.
Speaker 1: He goes, it's great if they're common cards, but you know,
the product is affordable, and they should they should make
them plentiful. And I agree, you know, have a cool card,
have it to where everybody can get it if they
want it.
Speaker 3: You know, he says, if they make it an SP
it's a failure.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm not saying don't make it an SP I'm making.
I'm saying, make it something that people can realistically collect it.
You know, it doesn't have to be a one in
every two hundred bucks hit like what Tom Brady card was,
or limited to only a couple hundred copies like the
Pete Rose card was. If this is like, I don't know,
one and every every hundred.
Speaker 4: Packs one card set, twenty cards set, so that way
there's some challenge in finishing the but if you just
want one card, it's easy enough to get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's two cards that I've seen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't know how hard. You don't know how
many cards they're doing with Paw Patroled either. I've never
watched this show, so I can't tell you anything about it.
But it depends how how many. And you're right. Even Rex,
who's got the retail store and so I always defer
to him on things like that. He knows what actual
live customers are saying. You know, we're kind of guessing
based on what we read. But Rex deals, you know,
with customer facing issues.
Speaker 2: But Tops also has a history of making cards like this,
cards that get a lot of attention in mainstream media
and are designed to attract non collectors into the hobby,
but then delivering products that make it almost impossible to
find these cards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know the you know that funny face card
they made. You know, I collect crazy cars like that.
Rick knows that I would love to have one of
those cards. But I'm not paying that kind of money
for that card just just to have it as something
to put in a showcase somewhere. I'm just not going
to I'm just not going to do that. I would
like to see cars like that to be a little
bit more available but you know, I get.
Speaker 2: The Jackson Holiday's base card.
Speaker 3: Yeah it should have been I would definitely love to
have that card.
Speaker 2: Well, but when your tops and everything is a nail
and all you have is a hammer, keep coming up
with the same ideas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was. I was reading out there too, uh
on the internet.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was Twitter, I can't remember where I saw
this at, but people were thinking that now that Aaron
Judge is on these Paul Patrol cards, that it's going
to be a curse.
Speaker 3: What do you guys think about that curse?
Speaker 4: So I like true crime shows, So Mookie says, I
should watch an episode of Paw Patrol. So I'll go
looking for an.
Speaker 3: Episode true crime shows.
Speaker 2: There was a funny Saturday Night Live skin a couple
of years ago about Paul Patrol. I'll just leave it at.
Speaker 1: That got you a couple of comments here, Mookie says,
Uncle Rich, Paul Patrol's a show about dogs of soft crimes.
Speaker 3: You would love it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, Rich, you need to definitely need to
check out an episode. Maybe you'll you'll start start streaming
that thing. And uh, who knows what happened. My son
would have loved the cars eight years ago. Yeah, you know,
a little bit too late for some of the kids. Uh,
Rex is saying the fun face car could have been
done better.
Speaker 3: There are several variations.
Speaker 1: Uh, they could have made a base and let the
variations be SP's and SSB. Yes, yes, I think that's
that's spot on. I agree. I would love to have
seen them do that because.
Speaker 2: I hire Rex for tops product development.
Speaker 3: Definitely, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 4: Well, Rex has so much retail experience he understand plus
he owns the story. But he also has worked for
enough retailers. You know, we've talked to him enough that
Rex Lexley understands how to do things, unlike some people
who just sit and have never really dealt with customers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, which, yeah, I know what you're saying, Rich.
So yeah, that's I'm looking forward to seeing that card.
I think it'll be neat. Let me show that picture
of that of that card real quick again. I'm looking
at that top card and I'm thinking he's looking like,
oh no, did I just step in some dog poop?
Speaker 3: He's got this oh no look on his face. Anyway,
I digress.
Speaker 1: So all right, see it's uh, we're about fifty one
minutes into this thing. One last topic I want to
talk about is there's a lot of new releases this week.
You've got like int football, Top, Sapphire Baseball, the Penninian War.
I think that's how you pronounced it basketball. Some of
these are kind of i'll say, reasonably priced. Some of
them are very expensive. Are you guys buying any of
these kind of products?
Speaker 2: Not for me?
Speaker 3: Yea, not for me either.
Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, the next product I'm gonna buy, and
I haven't seen when it's coming out or if it's
coming out, we'll be Heritage High Numbers. And that would
because I don't buy a lot of new stuff. Heritage
High Number maybe and maybe a blaster of Update Tops Update.
Those would be the two things I would I would purchase.
Other than that, I'm not really There's not a lot
of stuff I buy nowadays, so I don't go chasing.
But you know, I like I like base I'll buy
Basic tops one next year I buy Heritage and then
Heritage High Numbers, and then you know, occasionally a dribble
a pack of blaster Box here and there when I
go to Walmart and I'm about to do for a
Walmart trip.
Speaker 2: So with Sapphire Chrome is I already have these cards.
Why do I need to buy them again? Because they're blue?
I mean it's literally the same thing as it's all
seven hundred cards of the top Space set, but they're blue.
Speaker 1: Why, well, they've got to maximize the how much you know,
all the money that.
Speaker 3: They sy right, they got.
Speaker 4: I will also remind you, at least back in the day,
and I don't know if this is still true today,
but you know, when you pay MLB and the Players
Association to produce sets, if you are producing a parallel
set or parallel cards, that does not count against your
total products. So if you produce, at least back in
the day, if you've made a Tiffany set and you
can only produce let's say ten ten products in a year,
well the Tiffany set did not count as a product
towards your ten products because you because it's a parallel
of the set you already produced. If that's true, then
you do that because then you don't have to pay
more licensing money, and that at least again, I'm going
to what was back in the day, and I don't
know what today's contracts are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know that.
Speaker 2: I don't think there are any limits anymore, although there
should be. But I'm just saying, if there will consider
how many products the Tops makes now in baseball, right.
Speaker 4: But how many of them like five eighty two Montgomery Club.
How many of them are you know, the parallel to
the base set, and how many of them are separate issues?
Or you know these Tops now and Tops or Panini
Instant count as products or are they just allowed to
be offshoots so to speak. I mean, I don't know,
as as Chris as you say, we don't know the contracts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't know, even though the whole reason why
they gave Tops the exclusive license in the first place
once to cut down on the number of brands and
different releases. There are more releases now than there were
fifteen years ago, probably, so yeah, whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost weekly that there's a there's a
new baseball release. It seems like, I mean, I know
that's not true, but it seems like it's almost a
weekly occurrence now that And you know, as a NASCAR collector,
I don't know how baseball collectors do it. I mean,
if you are wanting to try to get a base
set of everything, I don't I don't know how you
would even go about doing that with the way.
Speaker 3: The prices are these days. To me, it would, it would.
Speaker 1: It would make me feel like I almost don't want
to collect because it's so overwhelming at that point.
Speaker 4: That's why I pick and shoes what I buy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of the products, especially a lot of
the high end products. I don't even have a base
set anymore to collect. It's just hits, hits, hits, And
to be fair, some of the sets that do have
base sets aren't really worth collecting anyway.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but you know, I know, I know all
you guys are like me, your your old school. We
like to collect sets. I try to collect sets. When
I bust a box of anything. The first thing I'm
doing after I get done busting it is I'm sorting
through it.
Speaker 3: See what cards I say they'll need.
Speaker 1: Maybe trade for some, maybe gold, buy some, whatever, depend
on where you are with it. But that's that's kind
of how I roll. I know, Rich for sure you
roll that way, and Chris does. But it seems like
bass cards, you know, Like when I was at the
National this year, I can't tell you how many stacks
of bass cards I would see just stuck around in
miscellaneous spots like over where they had the tables in
the food court or places like it.
Speaker 3: People just didn't care. They just left them. They didn't
want it.
Speaker 4: But that's been going on since at least the nineteen eighties.
My friends Henry and Hunts who had really a true
neighborhood local cards store in Garfield, New Jersey, when eighty
five tops came out that we were in the New
York area and people wanted the matting, the second year
Matten Week card, or the Dwight Good and Rookies and
all that. If it wasn't a card they wanted, they
left the cards on the counter. Well, about two years
later they cashed them very nicely because there was a
whole bunch of Mark McGuire Olympic cards left behind. That's
been the going on for forty years. Folks.
Speaker 2: You don't think I built my eighty nine upper deck,
ninety leaf and ninety two Bowman sets left behind. You
don't want this card of Mariano Rivera. What was this guy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it looks like he's fifteen years old. He's like
against the lamp post.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like he's on his way to algebra class.
Speaker 4: Ye, who you want a card of him. Yeah, anyway,
we're coming up to the top of the hour. Thank
you for the nice, nice compliment, Mad City.
Speaker 1: Yes, we appreciate that a lot. So closing out the show,
I have I had a few pickups this week. I
don't know if you guys have any pickups that you
want to show or anything like that, But there goes Chris.
He's going he's got something he wants to show. I've
got a few odds and end things I want to
show real quick, because you know this, we are a
hobby show. For those of you who don't know, you
would to look at me right now, you wouldn't think
I was a psyched but I am. A lot of
things have happened, but I'm gonna get back into it.
But one of the cards that I picked up here
recently was this Eddie Merks card from nineteen I believes
nineteen sixty seven. It's a Panini card and I'm actually
trying to collect the entire Eddie Mrk's Master set on
the PSA Set Registry, So that's one of the cards
I picked up.
Speaker 3: Really do enjoy those cards.
Speaker 1: Also, I've got an F one card here. You know
a lot of people think Lewis Hamilton's the goat. Now
Lewis Hamilton is not the goat in my opinion. One
Manuel Fonzio is the goat. And here's a card. I'm
not sure what country this is from. I may say Argentina,
but this is from nineteen fifty seven. It's a Sawda card.
It's one Menuel Fonngio.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Not if you look at the back you can see
so I'm not exactly sure where it's from. I probably
should do a little bit more research. But again that's
another friends.
Speaker 2: Is Florence, Italy and Italians.
Speaker 3: Okay, there you go, there you go. So what have
you got, Chris?
Speaker 2: All right? I went to what is essentially my de
facto LCS, and that's bel Air Sports Cards, bel Air Maryland,
and I was able to finally dust off my ninety
five donrous Elite set with this King Griffy Junior card. Nice,
pretty cool. And there was one card that I found
that I'd never seen before, and Rich, I was wondering
if maybe you can find something about it. It's a
gragmatic cyber action card. It's printed on a very thin
card stock and apparently this was a contest with tough
Stuff for a trip to the ninety eight World Series.
So this is card number five of six. I've I
picked it up because I've never seen it before. So
the website Cyberaction dot com is dead. So anyway, if
anybody's got any information on this card, I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, Chris, I'm looking. Okay, Chris, I'm looking. I
just went to the com See com See site and
it's at the coms. He calls the set nineteen ninety
eight cyber Action Tough Stuff Great World Series Giveaway entry.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. So I guess these were in
copies of Tough Stuff.
Speaker 4: Or you got them through Tough Stuff or something.
Speaker 2: But it's what is cyber action.
Speaker 4: You're asking me. You can go to com sea dot
com and look up I mean, the only ones I see.
I mean, I don't remember the set, but you can
look up in the only.
Speaker 2: Ones I I'm trying to get understand how these courage
were distributed what cyber action anyway?
Speaker 4: Anyway, So, but there were there amount on the on
the Compsy site too. I'm not sure whether it was
at a show, you know, Tough Stuff did shows. I
don't know if they were I don't remember if they
were inserts in the magazine or whether they did it
a tough stuff show, but you can actually go. There
are several copies of at least three or four players
on site on comci dot com. I actually just checked
that just just for the sheer joy of it. I mean,
I'm sure you could check eBay too.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I worked at comm Sea. I figured I checked their
site first, you know, small, small technical detail. Cyber action
is one word, by the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's cool, Chris. Some nice pickups? Rich? Have you
picked up any.
Speaker 4: I've picked up nothing. I did get a nice donation
when I went to Triple Cards at the trade night
the other day, and they give us donations for the
you know ar are not you know our Adot Havreen
Brotherhood charitable efforts, and I get cards nobody else wants.
And it was a big box full of plastic I
don't have them because my friend Raymond took them to
pull the cards out while he's watching football games. But
it was a full box full of cards in plastic sheets.
Thank good. The plastic sheets are in good shape. And
there were mid nineties minor inserts and the common card
based cards of basketball there iron box was basketball and
there were thousands.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: Nothing really for me to keep, but it was nice
looking at those cards, which I didn't have a lot
of familiarity, and they weren't from the overproduced era they
were afterwards. They were from the Midland late nineties.
Speaker 1: It looks like Stuke's was able to pick up some
three more sixty five old London coins.
Speaker 3: I love those coins. Those are pretty cool. There are
nice coins, yes they are.
Speaker 4: I know I identified like ten or fifteen not in PSA slas,
but I know I identified ten or fifteen old London
coins this week.
Speaker 3: Rich. Don't those have the paper inserts? If I'm not mistaken,
I think they do.
Speaker 4: But there's all the Oh they're nice looking things.
Speaker 3: I like those.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he says he's down down to fourteen in
PSA seven or better, So good luck with that.
Speaker 3: That's cool. I'm glad to see stuff like that. All right.
So we are in Hobby Hotline overtime.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say thanks to everybody out
there for spending your Saturday morning with us. Next week
on Hobby Hotline, we will return with more of your
favorite host.
Speaker 4: So I think doctor Beckett is one of the three
hosts next.
Speaker 3: Week yep, so doctor Doctor biobiond. You know, I don't
know that. I can't remember that I've.
Speaker 1: Ever been on a show with Doctor Beckett, so one
of these days, hoping that will happen. Anyway, Happy collected
everybody out there, And uh, I guess for Chris, and next.
Speaker 4: Week is Heroes for Sale, Doctor Beckett and Orlando.
Speaker 2: Okay, one last thing I want to mention. Baseball card
Pedia is currently down for unscheduled maintenance. We're having some
issues with our server.
Speaker 3: So oh that's no fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you see, I would have looked that card up myself, rich,
but my website's down, so.
Speaker 4: I know every website goes through that problem. So no
matter how good it is, something always can go wrong.
Speaker 3: All right, anyway, So Chris, do you have any any
hardy words here?
Speaker 4: Uh? Chris, do Chris, I will say something so you
can say your code, the word you always say to
end the show. So thank you all for watching, thank
you all for your great comments, Thank you all and
Chris
Speaker 2: And keep on rocking in the free world.