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 ...

 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 jus...

 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 c...

 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 or...

 So I post a couple of weeks ago that I was starting to play around with TCdb.  I've been a loyal Beckett user for years now, and have become more down on it lately.  For collectors like me, it seems that TCdb has gathered a pretty decent sized following and positive reviews.  But how will it work for this collection?  Here's what I found. TCdb Pros Cost You can't complain about the cost (free!).   Its like some of the other big services I use for my collecting, mainly wikipedia and [sport name]-reference.com in that they provide so much information but I just don't know how they do it well.   The Checklists The database is very comparable to Beckett.  Beckett does have some cards that TCdb doesn't have, and visa-versa.  Notable for this blog, Beckett does not list the 2017 Panini Iowa set, and TCdb doesn't have all the Iowa Hawkeye Football team sets from the late 80's, early 90's.   Rankings! After I enter in my card for...

 So while my flat rate box was a bit of a dud on the Iowa Connection side, I did ok on my Fuzzy Iowa Connections.  Fuzzy Connections (FC) are typically players who played for one of the minor league teams in Iowa.  As of today, I try to collect at least one card from each of these players. There are three levels for the FC card: 1. Have - I have a card of the player, and the card has nothing that relates to their Iowa Connection.  Here are two from this box.  Jorge Perez played in the Quad Cities in 2013 and 2015.  Gaither Bumgardner played for Burlington in 2015. 2. Good - I have a card of the player and it mentions their Iowa Connection.  As you can see on the backs of these two cards, Ryan Yarbrough played for Clinton in 2015 and Kyle Barraclough played for the Quad Cities in 2012.   Come on Topps, it sure looks like he's putting out a fire by...well we'll say hose. 3. Perfect - This is a card with the player in their Iowa Connection jerse...

  Profile Keaton McKinney was a pitcher from Ankeny who was drafted by the Mets in the 28th round of the 2014 MLB Draft*.   Keaton opted for college**, and he attended Arkansas for three years before retiring with arm issues. * Mitch Keller was taken in the 2nd round this year ** Apparently he had a high asking price and slipped this far.  We always applaud those who bet on themselves, but sometimes it doesn't work out as you intend.  I hope he has found a nice career now.  Heck, he might even be doing better than bouncing around the minor for a while. Personal Notes So Leaf put out these 2013 Perfect Game cards, and I'm not totally sure who the market is for them.  Well, me obviously as I needed this McKinney, but its got to be focused on prospectors.  But it takes years before you know if these guys hit, and the payoff seems pretty bleak.  The top player may be Jack Flaherty, and his card will cost you $4.00.  Even his auto is only $50...

 I'm a child of the 80s and 90s, and when you collected cards during that time, you probably had a Beckett magazine.  (Or Tuff Stuff, but really that was the Go-Bots to Beckett's Transformers).  You'd look through the articles to see what cool cards were coming out, read the back for the card shows in your area, and flip through the prices to see what cards were going up in price, and which had the dreaded down arrow.  There would always be a month where the community had collectively given up on a prospect and his cards went spiraling downward, think Ryan Leaf. Well, once I got back into collecting in my adult years, I naturally led my way back to Beckett, and have built up a pretty substantial Organize. All my wants and all my trade bait in one place.  I still didn't do pricing, because that was pretty expensive, so I'd use the free organize and then I'd use the print magazines for prices.  Because besides current year cards, most cards are generally pret...

 So like most of you, I missed going to card shows in 2020.  Being able to dig through dime boxes and pulling random cards that someone thought of as worthless that is priceless to my collection is just awesome.  But like so much, COVID took it, and I was left scrambling. Well, off to Target to pick up some boxes....except there are none there.  Hobby boxes have skyrocketed as collectors chase those high priced signatures.  Where could I find cards? For my birthday, my brother sent me a flat rate box with my gift.  But it didn't fill the box, so he just filled it with a bunch of cards he didn't want anymore. I loved digging through those, as I found a bunch of stuff for my collection. So then, I found out that you can just buy boxes like this on eBay (of course).  A wide variety of cards can be found.  Baseball, football and basketball cover most of them.  Some are just a mix of whatever, some are boxes of "I just opened a ton of Bowman, so h...

Even more last minute roster changes, as Taylor Rogers gets the call and makes it to the festivities one hour and 22 minutes later (Rogers lives in Colorado).  Joining Rogers is Andrew Kittridge from the Rays Name, Team, Year(s) Taylor Rogers, Cedar Rapids, 2013  (New!) Andrew Kittridge, Clinton, 2012  (New!) Whit Merrifield, Burlington, 2010 Taijuan Walker, Clinton, 2011 Salvador Perez, Burlington, 2009 Mike Trout, Cedar Rapids, 2009/2010 Teoscar Hernández, Quad Cities, 2013 Carlos Correa, Quad Cities, 2013 Jared Walsh, Burlington, 2016 Lance Lynn, Quad Cities, 2008 Kris Bryant, Iowa, 2014/2015/2018 Max Muncy, Burlington, 2012 Kyle Schwarber, Iowa, 2015/2017 Chris Taylor, Clinton, 2012 Josh Hader, Quad Cities, 2013 Craig Kimbrel, Iowa, 2019