If You Build It, They Will Come

 I sat down today ready to dive into 2022-23 Bowman University.  I wanted to review last years set, look into the numbers and see if I could guess who might be on the checklist this year.  But the more I dug, the more I realized it just isn't feasible.   This is what I'm thinking.  Since the checklists are comprised of college students not being represented by a single entity, each player has to make their own deal with Topps.  I think that some NIL groups make it easier to get a team as a whole, but don't quote me on that.  Regardless, it does shape how Topps can build their checklist. Last years set was interesting to review as it had future NBA players such as Chet Holmgren, Keegan Murray and Walker Kessler, but missed out on 4 of the top 6 draft picks (Paulo Banchero, Jabari Smith, Jaden Ivey and Bennedict Mathurin).   I don't know the reasons, so I can only speculate.  Topps was not owned by Fanatics at the time, thus was not t...

So, this may be the first in a few posts, but let me tell you where my brain started. We can assume that there are certain players that are collected more than others.  You are more likely to run into a Aaron Judge or Ronald Acuna collector than a Ryan Jeffers or John Means collector.  Fair?  I also run the assumption that I will find more Yankees collectors than Padres, but this one I a bit more dubious on.  While Yankees have the most fans, I imagine the confines of living in New York hurt collecting at scale, much less so than a collector in Missouri collecting Royals. If I dig into the numbers on TCDB, will I see a larger number of wants for specific teams, players, sets, or other things?  Will it be statistically significant?  Will this be to hard to do manually? Well, I started this idea with grand hopes, only to find that I need to invest some time into learning how to code a bot to scour the website for the data rather than me digging into myself, b...

Topps Update is here, and there are a ton of rookies that everyone is chasing.  Witt, Rodriguez and Torkelson are the top names and you probably thought of a few more as well.  Well, here on this blog we chase the Iowa Connections and there are two in Topps Update (so far...I may have missed something).   I didn't see any Field of Dreams cards, so they will probably show up in 2023 #US5 Jason Krizan - Waterloo Bucks #US72 Derek Hill - Des Moines With update there are 20 versions, with Purple maybe yet to come. Not Going to Happen Platinum /1 Printing Plate Black /1 Printing Plate Cyan /1 Printing Plate Magenta /1 Printing Plate Yellow /1  Not Likely to Happen Black /71 Father's Day Powder Blue /50 Independence Day /76 Memorial Day Camo /25 Mother's Day Hot Pink /50 Vintage Stock /99 Maybe? Green Foilboard /499 Advanced Stats /300 Orange Foilboard /299 Red Foilboard /199 I can do this! Base Gold /2022 Gold Foil Rainbow Foil Royal Blue

So I managed to eventually find some 2022 Topps Series 1 in the wild, but was unable to find a single Franco base in any of my purchases.  No worries, life goes on. Now Series 2 has arrived, and the hunt begins again.  There are four Iowa Connections in this set.  They are: #411 Dane Dunning - Waterloo Bucks #500 Eloy Jimenez - Field of Dreams Game And the short prints... #466b Ryne Sandberg - Iowa Cubs Manager #565b Ozzie Smith - Clarinda A's In Series 1, there are 21 versions of each card (I missed Purple in my earlier post).  I count 18 currently for Series 2, with Memorial Day Camo, Vintage Stock and Advanced Stats not currently listed in TCDB. Not Going to Happen Platinum /1 Printing Plate Black /1 Printing Plate Cyan /1 Printing Plate Magenta /1 Printing Plate Yellow /1  Not Likely to Happen Black /71 Father's Day Powder Blue /50 Independence Day /76 Mother's Day Hot Pink /50 Maybe? Green Foilboard /499 Orange Foilboard /299 Red Foilboard /199 I can d...

 I can't resist the corn cards...I mean other than the fact that Topps keeps putting them in their products (yay!), makes them short-printed (um...) and then they are super expensive and I get none of them (wah!).  (Stated odds: Base SSP - 1:3,614 packs) No matter, I will still add them to my want list.  Which brings me to 2022 Topps Gypsy Queen, with two Iowa Connections plus the 10 Field of Dreams short prints. #11 Dane Dunning - Waterloo Bucks #65 Zach McKinstry - Waterloo Bucks #6 Aaron Judge - Field of Dreams Game #9 Giancarlo Stanton - Field of Dreams Game #144 D.J. LeMahieu - Field of Dreams Game #155 Jose Abreu - Field of Dreams Game #163 Eloy Jimenez - Field of Dreams Game #174 Luis Robert - Field of Dreams Game #180 Andrew Vaughn - Field of Dreams Game #202 Brett Gardner - Field of Dreams Game #248 Joey Gallo - Field of Dreams Game #280 Tim Anderson - Field of Dreams Game

Well, I finally caved.  Unable to find 2022 Topps in the wild, I purchased two blaster boxes from Target.com and the defeat was complete.  "But why?!" thinks the loyal reader, wondering why purchasing two boxes of cards at not jacked up rates from the ease of my home is defeat?   Well, part of my collecting joy is the journey, not always the destination.  I love to go to card shows and dig through boxes of cards to find that one weird card I've never thought I have.  I'd love to have found these boxes in the wild and have a fun story about it, but sometime you can't complain that you had success in the way you weren't expecting. Speaking of the boxes, I know you are all wandering if I francoly pulled the card everyone is looking for, and yes I can successfully say that I pulled the Mitch Keller base Topps card.  It was in in my third pack, and life can continue a bit longer now.   All joking aside, I did not pull the Franco RC, but did find t...

 Listen, I'm also done talking about 2022 Topps Series One.  Everyone has posted their hits ... except me who has still yet to find a pack/box in the wild yet.  However, I keep finding Iowa Connections to this set and I can't let all 5 of my blog follower miss out on the important details. To recap, Mitch Keller is the only solid Iowa Connection in the main checklist.  4 players from the White Sox and Yankees have short print versions with Iowa Corn as the backdrop.  Now, I have discovered an Iowa Corn cameo card: Craig Kimbrel in action card during the Field of dreams game last year.  That is definately the Field of Dreams field there.  Scanning the rest of the Yankees and White Sox cards in the set, I do not see any others, but this will be something to track in Series Two. Now when adding a player, its always interesting to see how many parallels there are.  In the 80s there would be two versions: Base and Tiffany.  1991 you added Desert S...

 I've spent the last week being inundated with pictures of everyone's hauls from their Series One breaks, and I regret to say that I have yet to see anyone post their Mitch Keller pulls, which means he must be one heck of a hard pull.  Not like that Frank Wander guy, everyone seems to have pulled him.  Must be overproduced.  I have yet to find a box, but to be fair I've only been out once since they came out so I'm not surprised.  Hopefully today will be the day.  Along with the Mitch Keller hunt, I discovered that Iowa is represented in the SP cards in the set this year.  Sometimes Bob Feller will show up as a SP, but not this year.  This year Topps has cards of its most famous children, its corn.   These are obviously taken from the White Sox / Yankees game last year, because there are the baseball players in the way of the corn.  It looks like they go for about $30 on eBay currently, with Judge being closer to $50.  Seems like a ...

 This week is the official start of the 2022 MLB season with the drop of Topps Series One.  There is 330 cards in the base set, probably a bunch of SPs and SSPs that will become apparent soon.  Its always exciting to get the new Topps set because it always holds so much promise.  Rookie cards of players you haven't seen on cardboard yet, players on new teams, etc.  However, this year the common refrain online has been complaints about the weak checklist for Series One.  The complaint is that there is only one player to chase.  From what I can tell looking at the base checklist, I agree with this sentiment. THERE IS ONLY ONE IOWA CONNECTION AND HIS NAME IS MITCH KELLER! Now I know I've only seen the base and clear checklists, and perhaps Bob Feller (a often seen Topps staple) will be in an insert set or as a SP.  I doubt that we see any others until Series Two. The best Iowa Connections options for Series 2 are: Michael Wacha Nick Allgeyer Erik Swa...

 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 ...