a little tired of the Jeter gimmicks

Topps released a few gimmicks cards in the 2009 Topps Heritage High Series, and, after doing some search online, admitting it too.

There are six variations in the high-numbered Heritage, including a Derek Jeter card that has a Boston Red Sox logo on it.

Unless you want to start bleeding from your eyes, I suggest you stop reading this post as the photo of the Jeter card is at the bottom.

These cards are selling for close to $200 on eBay. There is no way to know just how short print these are, but from what I've read, it's super rare. In addition to the Jeter, there a Dustin Pedroia with a Yankees logo, Albert Pujols 1960 rookie design, Pedro Martinez black and white photo, Alex Rios black and white, and Neftali Feliz black and white. (Click on the links for eBay auctions of the cards)

This isn't the first time Topps has done the gimmicky thing and with Derek Jeter.

In 2007, the company created a Jeter card with a President George W. Bush photoshopped into the background. Initially, the card was selling like a regular Jeter card, but once word got out on this, the prices sky rocketed for this card.

Finally, when the world came back to reality, the card has settled into normal price ranges. It's not as short print as expected. I actually bought one of re-packed package for $5 that had 2007 Topps in there about a month ago. I got that card in it, which makes either the third or fourth one I have picked up.

Did you know?

Did you know that BC Sports is open for business?

In April, Marie reported that BC Sports filed for bankruptcy and would close its stores, which are based on the East Coast.

At the time, we were pretty upset to learn the news. Marie worked at one store and I frequently shopped in another. Despite the higher prices, we still bought cards because of its reward program where you earned a point for every $1 you spent. Every time you accumulated $250, you got a $25 gift certificate good toward memorabilia at the end of the year.

Maybe the math isn't there, but we liked it.

Turns out, BC Sports has reopened some of its stores based in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

They have been open since August, which I find unbelievable for a number of reasons.

1. As a frequent who was part of their reward program, I was never contacted about the stores re-opening. One would think that they would want to reach their customer base to prevent what happened earlier this year.

No email. No silly post card in the mail. I haven't even heard anything on sports radio and I listen to the local station nearly every day.

2 (which is also bigger than 1). BC Sports still has not paid its employees (at least the ones that worked in NY) from when they were laid off in April. Marie and other former BC Sports employees are still waiting for their last paycheck to clear.

Those who received direct deposit, never got it. And one of Marie's friends attempted to cash a check and it bounced.

However, if that wasn't bad enough and since I'm a sucker for punishment, I went into BC Sports on Monday to see what was going on.

I checked the shelves, they definitely have product. A lot of the hockey trading cards are on sale. Some baseball is on sale, but they are still overpriced. However, I don't see Topps 206 or Unique, the newest products on the market.

I ask the man working behind the counter if they have any Topps Unique.

He proceeds to look through the shelves, checking every sport because he has no idea what Topps Unique is. He finally tells me no. I said, you don't have 206 either. Those are the newest products.

He does the dumb stare at the wall again and finally tells me no.

Me: What's the newest baseball you have?
Him: We have Updates and Highlights.
Me: I don't really like that one.
Him: We have Bowman (as he shrugs).
Me: Ah. Thanks for looking.

It was a simple conversation, but I was annoyed leaving because the person working the store didn't know anything about cards. The former employees (and I don't know if they are still there) knew about cards. We could have long conversations about breaking boxes and they were fun to talk to.

However, on Monday the guy behind the counter was only interested in talking to some girls walking by the store rather than helping me.

Great times. I guess I'm sticking to eBay and the rest of the Internet for my cards.

Topps reaching out

Topps is holding three eTopps chats this month in an effort to reach out to customers.

The press release says, "we will update members on the current state of the business as well as share our thoughts on how to improve moving forward."

These are for the customers and they will accomodate the first 100 callers for each chat.

Here's the schedule:
Wednesday 12/16/09 3:00-4:30PM
Tuesday 12/22/09 12:00-1:30PM
Thursday 12/24/09 9:00-10:30AM
(All times are EST)

Call-in information is as follows:
Dial 1-800-504-8071
Access code: 4795664

I smashed the retail odds to bits.

It should be assumed from this day forward that if I have left my house, I have probably returned with some baseball cards of some sort- trade, Target, eBay, etc. Well this time (and most other times) it was a Target kind of day. Over the past two days I have opened an embarrassing number of retail packs simply because I have been having fun with them and getting some decent hits.

I am not going to shout myself out here by saying how many but it was more than 10 packs, less than 25 and more fun than the stupid box of Unique which I will grumble, snarl, and complain about later once I am over it.

In the meantime you can continue to view my ridiculous obsession with Topps T206. I bought a heap of packs, and I was going to ration them so spread the fun out so I started with 6 packs. In the first 6 packs I got 2 crazy cards, defying all odds of retail and my own personal luck.

Here were the hits:

Jonathan Van Every Auto

And holy schnikeys!! Albert Pujols Old Mill game used jersey. Which I had to do a triple take to make sure I was really seeing what I was seeing. I was smiling and practically dancing after opening this.

There were also these cards in the first few packs:


Cycle /99 Bates, and Old Mill Fielder

NNO SP A-Rod

At this point I was ready to return the unopened packs because really, I didn't think anything else could possible come out of the rest after hitting 2 "box hits" and a bunch of SP's. However, as I was opening these packs I was talking to Flash on G-mail and the following conversation took place:

" Marie: its ok

9:16 PM i opened 2 more packs.
AIR
me: see
Marie: i should return the rest
me: you really want to open air on your bday?
what if there's a nno pujols?
Marie: sigh
fine. i shall keep them.
9:17 PM me: sucker
didn't take much to convince you
9:18 PM you write your blog?
Marie: no ive been studying the spinal cord"

Did I really think anything was in those last packs? Absolutely not, but I am a sucker for taking a chance on luck. Here is what was in the rest of the packs, I am only showing the hits and the mini's from all packs opened.

Really?!!!! What in the name of Pete happened here?! Unreal. I seriously should just stop buying these now because it is not going to get any better than this. Talk about a crazy prediction by Flash.

Mini Polar Bear Cervelli. Go Italy.

Boatload of mini cards.

For anyone debating on buying hobby packs, don't bother it really didn't make any difference in either my or Sooz's pack breaks. I may have very close to a complete set of these cards, and I thought about going for it but since I am still 29 cards short of my OPC venture and like 6,000 short on YSL I can't take on anything else. I love T206 and retract any former complaints.

I love my Albert Pujols Old Mill game used jersey that was pulled from a RETAIL pack at Target. Take that "stated odds".

I knew this day was coming

When I started collecting Jamie Hoffman's cards two years ago, I just knew that one day he would become a Yankee.

Today, is that day. The Yankees picked him up in the Rule 5 draft.

The reality is about two years ago, I had this idea that I could be a prospector. I would look around and find a real sleeper. I am spending money on Jose Tabata cards, but he wasn't a sleeper. He was a Yankees prospect who went crazy and was recently named an Arizona Fall player of the year or something.

Still, I thought I could find someone good and latched on to Jamie Hoffman for about a week. I ended up with two xfractor, a refractor and two chrome cards of Hoffman's 2006 Bowman


Last year, he hit .278 with 10 homers and 71 RBIs in double-A.

This season, he split time and hit .291 in double- and triple-A with 10 homers and 64 RBIs. In 14 games with the Dodgers, he hit just .182 with a homer, two doubles and seven RBIs.

Hoffman is 25.

Happy Birthday to my worst best friend ever

Today is Dec. 10 and it's Marie's birthday ... I think.

Oh yeah, it definitely is. I just wanted to say happy birthday to Marie. I got her, oh wait, she didn't get the present yet.

I'll let her show you what I got, although, she does know part of gift. I won't say she tried outbidding me on the item on eBay and then got angry when she didn't win only to feel better when she learned later that I won the card.

But I won't say she didn't either.




P.S. I have no idea who Landon is.

Topps 206: Retail vs. Hobby

I bought nine packs of retail 206 and eight packs of hobby at The Back Stop (the home of Dr. Wax). After looking through the packs, there are some notable differences.

Retail: six cards at $2.99/pack (.498 cents/card) with one mini and one bronze card
Hobby: nine cards at $5/pack (.555 cents/card) with one mini and one bronze card

There are two autograph or relic cards per hobby box. There are similar odds for retail, but I am not entirely sure what the odds are. The 1/1 Carolina Brights, cut signature books and printing plate are exclusive to hobby. You cannot pull these out of retail.

Everything else is up for grabs.

Here was my break down.
Base cards
Hobby: 54 cards, 2 Mantle checklists. No doubles.
Retail: 35 cards, 1 Mantle checklist. Four doubles.

Bronze
Hobby: 7 cards (Mantle, Bruce, Wang, Burrell, Reimold, Cordero, Perez from TB)
Retail: 8 cards (Munson, Crede, Varitek, Hardy, Bedard, Wang, Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez)




Mini
Hobby: 7 cards all Piedmont (Perez from TB, Ramiro Pena, Foxx, Stewert, Renteria, Uehara, Whitesell)

Retail: 9 cards. 1 Polar Bear (Papelbon), 2 Cycle /99 (Matt Kemp, Victor Martinez), Piedmont (Papelbon, Schafer, Scales, Perry, Cobb, Marquis)

No number variation
Hobby: Alex Rodriguez
Retail: Honus Wagner


Hits
Hobby: Ryan Braun auto
Retail: Elvis Andrus auto redemption

And not one single Derek Jeter card.

Cashing in on Granderson

At 1 a.m., I did a search on eBay for 'Granderson Yankees" just to see what could appear. I found 44 items, most typically cards and signed balls people where people are trying to make a quick buck to get the most out of is the first big deal to go down during the Winter Meetings.

However, I didn't see this coming. Frankly, I'm not sure how this is even possible.

Here is the auction


For argument's sake, let's say this is not a fake signature. Can someone tell me how this ended up on what looks to be a Yankees jersey before Granderson has even signed any papers?

Winter Meetings -Yanks, Tigers, DBacks

Busy week for baseball executives means plenty of people sweating about where their team's free agents will end up. Latest reports from Yankees beat writers seem to indicate that the three-way deal between the Tigers, Diamondbacks, and Yankees is just about complete with a definite answer by 2pm. Yankees would get Curtis Granderson; Tigers would get Scherzer, Schlereth, Austin Jackson, and Phil Coke; DBacks get Ian Kennedy and Edwin Jackson.

I'll let you all know what I think about this when and if it happens later in the day. Just wanted to update those of you that are fans of those teams in case you aren't on Twitter and are at work.

1:51 Update

DBacks said Yankees are not under a 2pm deadline.

At least the Yankees did something right by shipping off Brian Bruney yesterday. Peace out Bruney.

2:08 Update

Deal may not be official until tomorrow so that teams can review all medical records.

2:39 Update

According to Twitter and beatwriters the deal is done. Thanks to Bryan Hoch for reporting it before anyone else.

I lied.

Remember someone saying they weren't really a fan of T206 and weren't going to buy any more of them? Me neither.

So I ended up in Target over the weekend because I was given a gift card even though I was so bored I probably would have gone there anyway. I accidentally bought 11 packs of T206 instead of 10, and rather than put one back I figured I had better keep it in case there was something good in it. I am very impressed with the content of the retail packs as well as the inability of pack searchers being able to distinguish autos and relics, either that or they just haven't been searching packs in my Target.

Check out what was in the retail packs:

For those of you that follow the Mets (sorry to hear it), F-Mart is one of their better prospects despite his rocky look last season. I'm actually rather pleased with pulling an on card auto, and of someone who is supposed to be pretty good, too. That being said, I am willing to trade it.

I can pretty much guarantee this won't be the last of the T206 you see around here. Anyone with a Pujols Bronze, Cycle card, Old Mill, or NNO variant please e-mail me to work something out.

Also, don't forget to participate in this weeks Sunday Question. We want to gather as many of your answers as possible to post this week.