If You Build It, They Will Come

 With the news last week that Fanatics was going to be taking over the sports card scene in a few years, everyone jumped online with their reactions.  My reaction at the time was similar to what I was seeing from a majority of people.  Sadness over the end of an era, worry that change will make things worse, and anger that money is at the root of this all. The most positive reactions to the news was, "Let's wait and see."  I didn't see anyone posting why they thought that Fanatics was going to be good (other than a couple notes on distribution).  I saw a few happy posts that weren't pro Fanatics, rather just reveling in the old power structure in the #thehobby crashing down. You'd think all this sadness would be accompanied by a bunch of posts reminiscing about Topps, but even the scorned lover of baseball was the target of our dismay.  Complaints about distribution, cost, poor design, overuse of vintage designs, and over-reliance on the same players every yea

 Listen, I know this blog is dedicated to the Iowa collector in me, but I do have other collections.  Maybe not as many as Dime Box guy (http://baseballdimebox.blogspot.com/), but enough to be crazy.  So when I bring home a stack from a card show, I'll sort it by sport.  Then I break it down further, which I'll explain using Baseball.  The categories are: 1. Favorite Team : Twins 2. Iowa Players : (i.e. Michael Wacha, Bob Feller, Jeff Clement) 3. Cards to trade 4. Players I watched in the minors (Lived in Omaha so a few Omaha Royals) 5. Random players I collect : i.e. Kenny Lofton, Will Clark, Buster Posey 6. Random sets I collect: Topps Rookie Cup, Hologram sets, Ginter inserts, Diamond Kings 7. Busts Today I'm going to talk about #7, my Bust collection.  I collect RCs of busts.  When I say bust, I mean a player who came into the league super hyped, and just didn't pan out for whatever reason.  So Nathan Peterman would not count because there just wasn't the hype. 

 I'm back from my trip to the National!  You may be thinking, "Wasn't that 2 weeks ago?  I've already consumed all the National content I need.  This is old news!"  You're not wrong, but we tacked on a trip to visit the family afterwards and I have only now reached home. Now comes the time where I finally dig through my finds, my trade bait, and everything else.  I'll categorize, sort and collate them.  I'll update my checklists, and feel that wonderful sense of satisfaction  when I add the 3 new George Kittle cards (yay!) along with 100 or so new cards made since I last update and somehow my overall percentage drops (gah!)  That's why its fun to find cards of older less popular players because there is nowhere but up to go for that %. Anyway, it was a good show this year.  I met my brother there on Thursday and stayed through Sunday morning.  It was nice to hang with him (first time since the pandemic!)  and thousands of our closest friends. There

 Last night Major League Baseball staged a game a the Field of Dreams, located in Dyersville, Iowa.  The field is the original field used in the filming of the movie, "Field of Dreams", starring Kevin Costner.  The was slightly modified (an actual fence was installed to prevent Aaron Judge from crossing over accidently), but the spirit was there. Well, the spirit and $1000 for a ticket.  With limited seating, the ticket was hot.  MLB set up a lottery system for White Sox fans and Iowa residents, but most Iowans had to watch it as Moonlight Graham wanted, on TV between a bunch of commercials. I may sound bitter. I understand the economics of it all, but knowing the history of MLB and Iowa it is OK to be a little jaded.  After all, this is the first game that MLB has let Iowa watch in a while. To those MLB fans, the best way to watch MLB games at home is through MLB.tv.  You can watch your team live or later if your schedule demands.  However, in order to protect the local mark