Thanks for the ride

Today is my blog's 11th anniversary.

It's also my last post.

I've been thinking about this for some time, but it has become increasingly clear to me over the past year that I need to close this chapter of my collecting life.

I'm a much different person at a very different stage of my life than when I started this little venture, and I've felt myself growing more and more distant from running this blog over the last few years. New cards have come in, and it has started to feel like more of a hassle to scan and show them. This blog has always been a bit more of a show-and-tell, and I've always been fine with that. Some have a lot more to say and frown on 'show and tell', and that's all well and good. But the reason I started this blog was because I didn't really have anyone to show off my new cards and share what I got in the constant flow of bubble mailers stuffed into my Manhattan apartment's small PO box. In a sense, the blog served as critical outlet when I started collecting cards again. No longer did cards just arrive in the mail, get glanced at once, and then stored away in some box. It was a crucial step in my self-help journey to enjoy my '90s inserts just a little bit more.

Life has changed too. I started this blog four apartments ago, three jobs ago, two kids ago, one wife ago. A lot has happened to me over my eleven years on here! The most important years of my life. Marriage. Kids. Homeownership. Job switches and promotions. I was just a young pup when I started this, without obligations other than myself and with a hell of a lot less responsibility. Frankly, life is busier now, despite working 95% of the time from home. Work is more chaotic with a higher stakes role that needs more of my attention. My kids are playing multiple sports and require more rides, more practices, more games, and more of my time. And I choose them. Easy one.

Sure, lots of excuses above. One after another. But in the precious free time I have, scanning and writing a little thoughtless post about cards really isn't what I want to do. It's among the same reasons I no longer care to write TTM letters to strangers. In my free time, I'd rather spend it other ways.

I'm not giving up collecting or put off by the current state of the hobby. Far from it. And I still plan to read the blogs that I most enjoy, as well as hang around on Twitter and on TCDB.

And who knows, maybe I'll be back. Maybe I won't. Perhaps I'll drop in a post down the road if something extradorinaiy happens or if I just want to say hi. But I'm not counting on it.

The blog was a big part of my life for more than a quarter of it, which sounds weird to say. But the time has come to move on and not have the site hang over my head as something that needs to be maintained. I did it for eleven years, and I'll leave the blog turned on and active while it collects dust before Blogger decides one day to no longer keep these tiny sites running, which is bound to happen given Google's lack of investment in the product. 

Lastly, I do genuinely thank you for reading, for trading, for sending unexpected cards, for taking cards off my hands, and for making collecting far more interesting for the past eleven years. It was fun, and I hope you all continue to enjoy collecting the way you want to do it...for you, not for someone else.

As the cranky Upper East Side card shop owner told me back in May of 2011, it's time for The Lost Collector to officially get lost. 

Take care, and thanks for the ride!

Touring Wrigley Field

Last weekend, I was in Chicago. After a few cocktails on Saturday night, I went back to my hotel room and realized that Sunday was a pretty light day for me, and that I should take a ride out to Wrigley Field, just to see the old park. I then had a crazy idea to google whether or not they did ballpark tours, and was happy to find they had a few openings for Sunday tours. I chose the 10am, which would run for a little over an hour. It cost $30.

I snagged an Uber and started the 4-mile, 12-minute drive. I got there about 20 minutes early, and this was the first thing I saw:

The famous sign. I know that for most this might invoke memories of Harry Carey, but for me, it means John Candy, the announcer in Rookie Of The Year. Sorry, I grew up in the 90s.

The only real bummer is that there was a fence and scaffolding around it, as the Cubs are making upgrades to their press box.

I then walked a few feet to the left and took in the Ernie Banks statue.

We had to meet our tour guide in the Cubs team store. Cool to be in there, but nothing for me. Still, I liked looking at some of the awards on display.

The tour started by entering a gate toward left field, right off of the famous Waveland Avenue.

After going through the metal detector, the very first stop was to walk up the steps in left field and take in Wrigley for the first time.

Pretty cool! Obviously bummed to see snow all over the field, but that was expected. Also as expected, the ivy was dormant.

The tour goes through three different clubs within the ballpark. The first was The W Club, where we probably got our longest history lesson of the day. Did you know the Cubs were originally intended to be called the Chickens? I didn't grab a picture for whatever reason, but you can see the Cubs batting cage through a window in the club.

Next stop was the famous(?) 1914 Club. I had never heard of it. It smelled kind of weird. It's a prohibition-style club made to look like it's straight out of The Great Gatsby.

Before heading to the final club, we were given a look around the visitor's clubhouse. I can see why opposing players aren't fond of the amenities. It was basically a high school locker room, and that's after it was recently remodeled. Seems pretty silly to jam 25-member teams plus coaches and personnel into here. I couldn't get a great photo of the full room because a few other tour members were in the picture.

The final club on the tour was the Makers Mark Barrel Room, which was neat. What's also cool is that you can swing open pictures on the wall and peep at the opposing team's batting cage.

The final stop on the tour is the first base dugout and the field! While I enjoyed being there, it wasn't until stepping onto the field that I had an "oh shit" moment.

Like everything else, the dugout is super small and cramped.

The tour lasted about 75 minutes. I hope to go back for a game at some point, but I'm really glad I got out and about and did this.

It was definitely $30 well spent!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

My mom will never read my blog. She has no clue how to turn on the computer, let along go to a web page. However, I just wanted to take the chance to thank her for everything. She drove me to many soccer, basketball and baseball games. She made me many, many home-cooked meals that went under-appreciated. She did my laundry. To this day, I still can't get my socks as soft as she always did.

And she always, always got my me packs of cards. Everytime she went to CVS, she usually came back with a pack for me. If she needed me to watch my sisters while she was out, a pack was always the payment. Straight A's? A few packs. Finishing first in my class in 8th grade? That netted me a box of 1998 Stadium Club baseball cards. In 5th grade we had a Valentine's Day party in my classroom. She was a chaperone, and when she came in with treats for everyone, she gave me a toploader with two cards in it - Fleer rookie cards of Glenn Robinson and Jason Kidd. She went to the card shop that day and somehow picked out those two for me, as they were hot cards at the time. It's things like that I'll never forget.

Thanks for everything, Mom. I kove you! Have a great day!

How Do You Open a Pack of Cards?

Everyone I know opens a pack of cards differently. Some rip it open and shuffle through the cards quickly. Others are more religious about it, carefully tearing the wrapper without catching corners, and going through the cards one by one in the order they are packaged.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I try to carefully open the pack so as to not damage the corners of the cards. I then take a quick peak at the outer boarders of the cards. Does anything stick out? Anything shiny or unusual compared to the others? If so, it just makes the anticipation that much better. I won't shuffle it to the back or save it for last. I'll let the pack flow naturally.

I'll take a look at each player, looking for a brand name or a Yankees logo. But then as the excitement mounts toward that outlier card, I'll shuffle just a little faster until I've finally gotten to the special card. With my luck, it's usually not much, but still, it makes the pack a little more exciting than when nothing different sticks out.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day was always something to look forward to when I was a kid growing up. Not only did we have a party at school and stuff our faces full of candy, but my Mom always made a special dinner. We even had strawberry pink milk with our food!

But best of all, there was always a little gift on our dinner plates. My sisters would get a lip gloss or something else girly, and I would usually get a few packs of cards. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it was a sweet gesture by my mom to make the day even more special.

Tonight I'll be dining out with my girlfriend, but I'm afraid all that will be on my plate is a folded napkin and no cards. I'll always have the memories of Valentine's Day growing up, and one day if I have kids, I hope to put packs of cards on their plates, just like my mom did for me.

My Favorite Card

In the coming days, I'll post more on my Tino Martinez collection. I'd love to list what I have (since I don't even know), and hopefully some bloggers and readers -if I ever have any- will be able to help fill out my collection. I'm nearly certain I own 90% of his base cards, but I'm sure a few slipped through the cracks when I left the hobby.

I wanted to write a short post on my favorite Tino Martinez card. It took me forever to find this card...usually it cost too much on ebay for my liking. Within the last few years, I finally won an auction for it and added it to my collection. I'm not sure what I paid for it, but I doubt it was much more than $10.

Seriously, how cool of a card is this? It's from the 2000 Upper Deck HoloGRFX A Piece of the Series set. I wanted this card as soon as I laid eyes on it. I think the design is great - the red and blue remind me of bunting around the stadium during a World Series game. It's a nice clean layout, minus the four unnecessary pictures of Tino repeating at the bottom of the card. But a chance to get a piece of a game used base? Maybe even the base that Tino manned during the Yankees 1999 World Series title run?! Sign me up.

We've all seen jersey and bat relics, and now even pants and patches and letters. But a piece of a base is definitely different. And it's a fairly generous chunk of base at that. It's not the most valuable Tino card that I own, but it's definitely my favorite. If I ever need a new collecting challenge, maybe I'll try and put this complete set together. It would be a nice change of pace from my usual Tino collection or trading for random Yankee cards for no real rhyme or reason.

The First (and Only) Auto That I've Ever Pulled In A Pack

As I mentioned in my previous posts (all two of them), I have never had great luck with packs of cards. Probably because I buy low end packs and cheap blaster boxes. Once in the mid-90s, I pulled a redemption card for a Collector's Choice Basketball Platinum 30-card Update set, which was cool because it had Magic Johnson in it. Odds were around 1:1000, so I was rightfully pretty pumped at the time.

Other collectors may find this hard to believe, but I have only pulled one, yes one, autographed card in a pack before. And it was in 1999. I have a decent-sized TTM collection - over 200 I'd say, and a few Autos I've bought on ebay. But this is the only one I've ever gotten in a pack. Here is the card I pulled:

Nothing special. A 1999 Upper Deck MVP Chris Gomez. I'm proud to say I still have the card. For a kid who only spent a few dollars on cards at Target, this was a sweet pull. Sure, it wasn't the sexiest name and I'd be luck if it fetched a buck on ebay, but it was cool to actually pull a signed card in a pack.

Now, autos are a lot more mainstream. Some are common. Some are super rare. But even if I never pull another auto from a pack, I'll still remember the drive home from Target when, sitting in my Mom's Chevy Suburban, I pulled my first autographed insert card.

Why The Hobby Passed Me By

When I was growing up, there was nothing better than buying a pack of cards. It was a form of payment or bribery for me. My mom had to run out and need me to watch my little sisters? Sure, for a pack of cards. On a snow day, I’d shovel all the walks on my street for $2 per street. When finished, I’d go straight to the card store and buy a few packs. Some packs even came with a guaranteed insert card! Thanks Fleer Ultra!

I vividly remember gathering enough loose change, hopping on my bike, and riding 10 minutes to the local drugstore to buy a pack. Usually I’d get Collector’s Choice or Topps or a pack of Hoops basketball when I didn’t quite have a full dollar because they usually went for $.89. I wasn’t ever a set builder and I didn’t start my Tino collection until later on. I just enjoyed the cards and maybe getting a new Yankee card or trying to pull those tough inserts…a Collector’s Choice Gold Signature or a You Crash the Game card. Ahh, simple times.

Soon the price of packs started going up…$1.99, $2.99 and it became harder for a kid to collect. Luckily at that time, we installed AOL at my house and I started browsing newsgroup auctions and listings. I dedicated all my $ to my Tino Martinez collection…often I would send $.25 and a SASE for a new Tino I didn’t have. I quickly built up a huge collection – 400-500 cards strong – mostly commons and low end inserts, but I was able to win a few cooler cards…refractors and low end inserts and even an auto. I liked serially numbered cards of him and couldn’t believe I had one of only 2,500 of these cards made! I remember my first individually numbered card – a Tino Martinez/Scott Rolen Leaf Leagues of the Nation card. I probably paid like $12 for it at the time. My biggest regrets (looking back) was trading about $75 worth of Michael Jordan and Ken Griffey Jr cards for a box of 800 Tinos, most of which were stacks of 50 duplicates. But I was 12 years old and didn’t know better. Oops.

So I got older and went to high school and college. I’d still browse ebay every now and then maybe pick up a lot of 30 Tinos without really even knowing what they were, just because they seemed newer and I could add them to my collection. I didn’t follow the new sets, brands or gimmicks. I did notice a lot of the designs were retro or vintage…even Upper Deck which was weird because they had only been around 10 or 12 years at the time. Prices had skyrocketed because of rare cards, relics and autos. It was too hard to keep up. So I was content to just check ebay every few months, pick up a lot of Tinos or maybe a stack of Yankees for TTM purposes.

Then I was at Target last week, and while my girlfriend was shopping for goodies for our Super Bowl party, I ventured to messy card area and picked up a blaster that had a bunch of packs of 2010 Chrome…Topps and Bowman, and a few free refractor card loosely packaged. I bought it. Didn’t pull anything good, but it was still fun. I started reading a bunch of card blogs and couldn’t believe how great some of them were. Humor, wit, intelligent analysis and most importantly, a passion. So I decided to grab a blaster of 2011 Topps, and dedicate myself to at least paying more attention to the hobby. I’ll never be one to buy high end packs or cases on ebay, but I think it’ll be fun to work on my Tino collection, trade with some other collectors to help their collections/want lists, and maybe share some of my past and present experiences. I’ll also have a better forum to document my Topps Yankees Project. Post coming soon.

I’ll continue to iron out the kinks and make the blog a little more user friendly, but for now, bear with me and feel free to reach out and say hello.