The baseball card song

Like a lot of kids when I was young

I was buying baseball cards and bubble gum

A diehard fan of big league ball

I'd read the stats and collect them all

I didn't put mine between bicycle spokes

Or leave them at home unattended with my folks

I vowed to save them and keep till I got old

Never tossed, never sold

Flipping, collecting, saving, trading

Waiting, hoping, dreaming, praying

Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Bowman, big league on display

I'm so glad my mom and dad didn't throw mine away

Soon, I discovered cars and girls

Punk rock and booze, the whole wide world

I was short on space but remember what I said

The cards stayed locked up under my bed

Late at night out on the Sunset Strip

I'd do my best to be cool and hip

I'd go home and let down my guard

Put my guitar away and check out all my cards

Flipping, trading, collecting, saving

Waiting, hoping, dreaming, praying

Keeping them around till the later days

I'm so glad my mom and dad didn't throw mine away

Flash forward about fifteen years later

I ran into some big stock trader

He said baseball cards are a great growth item

Yours are top notch, I'd like to buy them

I said I couldn't take any money for them

He said how about some shares of a startup I'm in?

The stock went through the roof, against all bets

And now I own the New York Mets!

Flipping, collecting, trading, saving

Waiting, hoping, dreaming, praying

Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Bowman, big league on display

I'm so glad my mom and dad didn't throw mine away

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We card collectors finally have an anthem!

The Baseball Project (a great band whose autographs appear on the Hostess Fidrych above) put out their third album a few months ago. One of the tracks is titled "The Baseball Card Song", and I thought it'd be fun to share the lyrics through, well...baseball cards.

Here's the tune in all its glory.

By the way, here's another awesome little clip my dad found the other day, featuring the members of The Baseball Project taking a stroll through a card shop.

Cue the Ryne Duren references.

Turning the tables on a pack searcher

Recent events have me wondering if we may have a deranged pack searcher on the loose here in the 'burbs.

Only later did I realize that the contents of a warped Series 2 rack pack I bought from my local Target could well have been the result of searching. The same may be true of a few other damaged rack packs I've bought over the last year or so. The events of last weekend further aroused my suspicions.

My dad and I took a little stroll through the Target card aisle on Friday. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. Maybe a hanger of A&G, if they had one. A quick search through the shelves came up empty. Or so it seemed.

Right as I was about to walk away, my trained dime box eagle eyes noticed an A&G hanger suspiciously tucked behind another box on display, further buried by a few random loose packs on top of it.

I'm just theorizing here, but I think someone may have wanted to hide that thing away for themselves. Quite possibly because they searched through it beforehand. It looked way too structured to be accidental.

I saw an opportunity and took it. I snatched the hanger from beneath the rubble, and my dad was nice enough to get it for me as a little celebratory back-to-school gift.

About fifteen minutes later, I saw why Mr. Pack Searcher wanted it all to himself.

Bonus Mini Pack:

#26 Fergie Jenkins, Mini Gold Border
#257 Adrian Beltre, Mini Gold Border
#255 Andre Rienzo, Mini Gold Border

If I didn't have bad luck with these types of retail-exclusive parallels, I'd have no luck at all.

That is, until Friday. In a shocking revelation, I pulled a few exclusives of guys I actually collect. I'm usually stuck with middling Rays or Twins players that sit in my trade stack for years on end.

Not this time. I needed the Beltre, really needed the Fergie (enough to let out an audible WOW after pulling it), and I already have a good home in mind for the Rienzo.

I could tell things were looking up from the start.

Pack #1:

#245 Matt Harvey

I needed the first card in the first pack, which is also a grand departure from what usually happens with most of my retail breaks.

#147 Mark McGwire

I'm going to be honest here.

This card scared the ever-loving bejesus out of me.

Once I was able to calm down a bit (after a good ten minutes or so), I had to come to grips with the fact that a major figure from my youth is now being included in A&G as a premier "retired" player.

I'm starting to feel old at 22.


#315 Brandon Phillips SP

#FOY-9 Astrodome, Fields of Yore insert

The second WOW card of the hanger, after the Fergie mini.

I'd seem glimpses of this year's "Fields of Yore" inserts on other blogs, but this was my first time seeing one in-person. As great as the blogs are, the feeling of holding a card in my hand cannot be matched by anything on the internet.

Aside from maybe the Wrigley Field one, the Astrodome would probably be the insert I'd most want to pull from this series.

One of my favorite baseball quotes is Dick Allen's famous "If a horse won't eat it, I don't want to play on it" quip. He was, of course, talking about the Astrodome and its artificial turf. Part of me wishes the Astros still played there today.

Either way, I'm making it an unofficial goal of mine to have this insert set completed by the end of the year.

#WNE-2 Michelangelo, Where Nature Ends insert

I've never been much for visual art, but this was a refreshing pull because of my general love for history.

A general love for minis also helped.


#214 Carli Lloyd

Pack #2:

#220 Josh Hamilton

Needed the first card of the second pack.

Two-for-two.

#132 Ted Williams

WOW card #3.

Though "Teddy Ballgame" has a slight ding in the bottom-right corner (perhaps another piece of pack searching evidence), this is a genuine masterpiece on the part of Topps.

I know I've seen this image on a few other cards, but something about it seems to work perfectly with A&G.

Also, as a bit of a sidebar, I highly recommend reading John Updike's short story "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" on Williams' last game at Fenway.

Maybe I'm biased because I'm a huge Updike fan, but you'll have a tough time finding a better piece of baseball literature.


#346 Ivan Nova SP

#WC-12 Brussells, Belgium, World's Capitals insert

I don't have any plans to chase this series, but I thought this was worth a scan nonetheless.


#110 Jeremy Hellickson, Mini

#166 Mike Napoli

No beard, Topps?

Pack #3:

#56 Jason Heyward

There it is.

Three-for-three.

I can't remember ever having such good luck with first cards in packs.

#PP-NR Nolan Ryan, Pastime's Pastimes insert

Another awesome insert need.

Mr. Ryan also has a ding in the top-left corner, but that's because I dropped him on the kitchen floor when I got home on Friday afternoon. Clumsiness and baseball cards don't mix, kids.

Topps, by the way, lists Ryan's pastime as "Team Executive". Because I guess that's a hobby now.

Some people golf for fun.

Some are MLB executives in their spare time.

#82 Jackie Robinson, Mini A&G Back

By now, this rack pack had already cemented itself as one of the better breaks in recent memory.

That was before this Jackie Robinson mini fell out about halfway through the final pack. Another WOW card, for sure.

I know I might get mad at Topps for including the same handful of retired players in every set, but I long ago accepted the fact that I don't have a limit when it comes to Jackie Robinson. I'm happy for anything and everything I can get.

Keep churning them out, Topps.

I'll keep buying 'em.

#AGA-JO Jordan Oliver, Mini Framed Autograph

Last, but certainly not least, WOW card #5.

I have pulled exactly one other autograph or relic in almost a decade of buying A&G retail. And that was a Brent Morel autograph back in 2011.

This isn't your run-of-the-mill Brent Morel. This is Jordan Oliver, a college wrestler who is one of a few non-baseball subjects in this year's A&G autograph checklist.

Though it was definitely an exciting pull, I'll probably end up selling it. I'm sure it'll recoup the cost of these packs, and then some.

Maybe I'll treat my dad to an album or two with the money, considering he's the one who bought me this gem of a hanger in the first place.


#211 Mark Roth

I'm not sure hangers get any better than that one.

The vast majority of my pulls were needs, and I even scored a card that might net me a few extra bucks in the process. What more could I ask for?

If any pack searchers are reading this, please feel free to keep putting these big time hangers aside.

I'll be sure to keep showing you what you missed.

Marketing Topps

I often wonder where the hobby will be, say, twenty years from now.

If the vast majority of collectors are already in their forties or fifties, then the average hobbyist will probably look a lot like Hugh Duffy there by 2034.

While there's nothing wrong with a rise in the age demographics, it does raise the question of where cards will be if future generations don't have much interest in them.

Yes, there are far more younger collectors now then the national media would have you believe. Trouble is, not many of them seem to be in it for the long haul. I can speak from experience in saying that I rarely see any college-age collectors at card shows,

I guess what I'm saying is that Topps needs a kick in the behind as far as their marketing department goes. They need to find a way to increase their network of collectors while also keeping the existing ones interested in the hobby.

I'm no expert (although I was a marketing major for a very short period of time a few years ago), but I have a few suggestions.

Because there's no better way to celebrate Labor Day than by telling someone how to do their job better, right?

I can't tell whether Topps is out of touch with the current collector or just chooses not to listen.

If the former is true, then I think doing some market research or issuing some surveys could be beneficial. Maybe I'm missing something, but I never hear about Topps interacting with their customers in any way.

I'd love to tell them that no, I don't want more unnecessary 100-card insert sets in A&G. But, yes, I would like a product other than Flagship with a large base checklist. Keep the insert sets small, and the base sets big.

A few surveys here and there could go a long way.

Topps seems to have lost touch with the fact that trading is one of the foundations of collecting.

I think they recognized that back in 2010 when they launched their "Million Card Giveaway" promotion, which proved to be a million-dollar idea.

I loved redeeming the codes and buying packs in hopes of finding a code and unlocking the cards and looking for other cards I wanted and even fielding all the 1989 Topps Carney Lansford-for-1965 Topps Robin Roberts trade offers I got every other day. I loved it all.

Topps lost sight of how important that promotion was sometime since then. We're subject to stupid "Power Players" codes that are impossible to understand and probably won't result in any real rewards.

Whether it be in-person or online, I think collectors need to interact with one another to stay interested in the hobby. Topps provided an outlet to do so with the "Million Card Giveaway" in 2010.

It seems like a lot longer than four years ago.

It occurred to me today that there aren't any sales when it comes to baseball cards.

Sure, you'll find discounted packs or maybe a discounted blaster or two every now and then, but that's because your local big box store wants them gone. That has nothing to do with Topps.

I vaguely remember Topps putting coupons in blasters last year (or was it the year before?), but they didn't save much money and I don't think I ever used one.

I have a hard time forking over three bucks for a six-card pack of A&G, and that's a product I actually like. No way am I spending three dollars on a meh set like Archives.

If Topps were to launch some sort of buy-two-get-one-free promotion, however, that might just get me to buy a few more packs on a whim. Or perhaps just slash prices in general. Cut out a few of the relics and autographs that jack up the numbers.

No one cares about those anyways when they're buying retail.

I bet Topps likes to think that they cater to kids in today's age.

I mean, those little sticker packs are only ninety-nine cents a pop. And Opening Day can fit into any kid's allowance.

The problem is that Topps seems to equate cheap with being kid-friendly, which is a fallacy. Let's be honest here. Kids aren't buying Opening Day or those sticker thingies. Adults are. And not many of them, at that.

If Topps really wants to break into the kid market, they should look back to their little-remembered Topps Kids release from the early '90s. These cards feature all kinds of wild and kooky designs that were clearly made with little tykes in mind.

Sure, adults might buy some. But I honestly believe kids would, too. I can imagine a little guy begging his mom for the pack of cards with that crazy hypnotic wrapper on the shelf.

You never know which pack of cards will spur a lifelong collector.

The big piece of marketing advice I have for Topps can be summed up in three words.

Advertising. Advertising. Advertising.

The lack of Topps ads is, for lack of a better word, pathetic. I see a commercial for Bowman pop up on MLB Network once every blue moon, and that's pretty much it. When I tell people I collect baseball cards, I get the I didn't know they still made cards response more often than not.

It's no wonder considering the lack of advertising.

I know Topps and other companies do a lot of networking at card shows, which is kind of counterintuitive if you think about it. They're advertising cards to card collectors. We don't need to be sold on cards. You already hooked us years ago.

Get the word out to people who don't collect, Topps. Pony up the money for an ad during prime time TV. Maybe even during the World Series or something. I know it'll be expensive, but I think you'll see a good return on it.

We need to inspire a future generation of collectors, Topps.

What you're doing now isn't cutting it.