Silva The Spider Caught In His Own Web Of Lies

Anderson Silva, once considered among the best fighter pound-for-pound, continues to damage his once sterling reputation with a mockery of a defense.

In January Silva failed not one but two steroid tests (Drostanolone and Androstane) prior to his fight against Nick Diaz at UFC 183, the results were not released until after the fight. In response to the failed tests he was set for a disciplinary hearing, which was yesterday, thus giving him over 6 months since his failed test to prepare his defense. Unfortunately his attorney is apparently Lionel Hutz

Basically here is how the trial played out:

He claimed the reason he failed the test in January because he ingested a blue contaminated sexual-enhancing drug that was given to him by a casual friend from Thailand.

He even brought an “expert” witness named Paul Scott who claimed to have tested the blue contaminated sexual-enhancing drug and found that it contained the anabolic steroid Drostanolone. But for some unknown reason Scott did not bring any documentation nor did he remember even the most basic of information about the substance or how he tested it.

The positive test for Androstane was due to some other contaminated substance he somehow ingested at an unknown time.

When he was questioned on why the dates do not work out, because Drostanolone only remains in the system one week, he changed his story. When asked about why he did not disclose that he had taken the mystery blue liquid on the prefight questionnaire he said it was because of its private nature.

He lawyer closed out his defense with a statement that he had never failed an out-of-competition drug test prior to his January test, he neglected to point out that this was Silva's first out-of-competition drug test so basically now he has failed 100% of all of his drug tests.

 

The Nevada State Athletic Commission ruled that Silva would be suspended one-year, fined $380,000 and his UFC 183 fight results were changed to a No Contest. The UFC has supported this disciplinary judgment.

Now Silva, who is 40 years old, will be suspended until at least early 2016 and has two losses and a NC in his last three fights. He may be done with his Hall of Fame career, which will be tarnished.

Had he just admitted guilt to using the steroids people would probably look at him differently, it would be almost understandable considering he was coming back from a gruesome leg injury and he just wanted to heal properly. I think most fans will look at cheaters with a bad taste in their mouth when they claim innocence as compared to admitting guilt when the proof is so obvious. 

Oh Mark, You Devil!

I came across these Mark Hamill autographs that made me laugh, apparently when he was younger he used to personalize the autographs writing whatever was asked of him. He supposedly got in hot water over the “Largest Bong” inscription (the bottom card) so he stopped doing it.

Now when he does personalized inscriptions they are usually “May the force be with you…” type inscriptions but I did find an “Oh Shit!” card for auction with a $400 BIN. I would love to pick up any one of these but I probably would not pay anything more than $50 for one of his personalized inscription cards.

A Mariners No-Hitter

Today Mariner’s Hisashi Iwakuma threw a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles in Seattle today. This is the fourth no-hitter this season but the first AL no-hitter since teammate Felix Hernandez threw one in 2012 against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Iwakuma’s gem is the fifth no-hitter in Mariner’s history and he is only the second Japanese player to throw one, the other being Hideo Nomo in 1996 and 2001.

Glow It Up!

Yesterday Oregon’s Athletic Department Tweeted a picture of a poster that depicts a silhouetted player in a glow-in-the-dark uniform. So far there is no verification if the team will actually wear a glow-in-the-dark uniform or if this is just a cool poster but if any team does wear a jersey that glows it is definitely Oregon.

It should be noted that Nike, who also makes Oregon’s uniforms, did create glow-in-the-dark shoes for Ohio State so the possibility is there.

This would be a great opportunity to release glow-in-the-dark cards, alas I do not see Panini taking advantage of something like this even though glowing cards are cool. There just are not enough glow-in-the-dark cards available.

Vintage Card Of The Month: 1958 Leaf Cardon Chinese Pirates

This month’s VCoM comes from the 1958 Leaf Cardo Trading Cards release. This is the second ’58 Leaf Cardo card I picked up. This set was a multi-themed release with cars, planes, pirates, cowboys and Presidents. Each theme was what you might consider a subset, they each had their own checklist and designation letters. I picked up this card plus the Captain Kidd card, which I previously posted in March, for $4 shipped.

 

The card is a depiction of Chinese pirates off the coast of Hong Kong boarding a ship and stealing valuables. I am not sure if this is a true story about a specific event or just an illustration of what has happened at some time.

This card is a bit distressed, there are multiple creases on the front and back along with stains on the back of the card. The colors are still bold and the text is legible so over all it is quite nice.

Damaged By My Own Hands

I am not a big fan of modern graded cards, I would rather have a cool card in one of my binders or within the collection that it belongs, I don’t want one slabbed card here and the rest of the collection there.

So far I have broken 6-8 cards out from their encased prison and I have had no problems. Beckett and PSA slabs are pretty simple when cracking the case but today I came across an All-Star Grading case, which is sealed a bit differently. Today I inflicted damage on a poor defenseless Griffey card and I now feel sorrow for my cardboard sin.

The card is nothing major, a 1991 Front Row #9 blank back that cost under $3 so the pain I feel is pretty minor. Actually the seller sent the wrong card at first (which I already had) and told me to keep it before sending the correct card so I got two cards for the price of one.

The All-Star Grading cases are crimped along the edges so the flathead screwdriver does not fit in flat so to break away the case you need to be very careful to move the tool along the edge and unfortunately I caught the upper right corner on the front of the card and it separated the paper and bent the corner.

I knew this day would come and I was lucky enough it happened where there damage as minimal and the card had a low value.

 

What If? George Brett's Bat

It is known that sometimes one of the card manufacturers does something unexpected with an unusual one-of-a-kind relic. There is the 2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot asterisk autograph and there is the 2000 Pacific Invincible Manny Ramirez Corked Bat relic but what seems to be missing is George Brett’s pine tar bat.

On July 24, 1983 the Yankees and Royals were playing a tight game in New York. George Brett knocked a 2-run homer in the top of the 9^th with two out giving the Royals a 5-4 lead but Yankees manager Billy Martin complained that Brett’s bat had too much pine tar, the umpire (Tim McClelland) agreed and ruled Brett out thus ending the game. A protest was filed by the Royals, which was upheld and the game was replayed on August 18^th from the point of Brett’s homerun. The Royals won 5-4 after some interesting protest, counter-protest and knuckleheaded moves by Billy Martin.

The bat is currently on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame but I had to wonder What If? Upper Deck got a hold of the bat and without fan fair inserted a 1/1 Bat Barrel from the infamous bat in to their 2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot release?

Topps Redemption Filled... But Not In A Satisfying Way

In February 2013 I pulled a 2012 Strata Signatures Clear Cut Auto Relic Bernard Pierce rookie card from a blaster box, pretty cool considering that they are 1:445 retail packs. Pierce wasn’t a huge hit but the Ravens had just won the Super Bowl so there was some interest in him so I was happy. I submitted the redemption and waited, assuming that a backup RB wouldn’t have too long of a wait on the redemption but I was wrong, It has now been 2 years, 5 months and 1 week.

Recently I have been going back and forth on calling Topps’ customer service and requesting a replacement but I really wanted a Clear Cut Auto Relic rookie card, when Topps released them in the 2012 Strata Football release they were a bit of a game changer.

I received a medium sized, well packaged cardboard mailer the other day. I thought it was a set I had purchased from a dealer and because I stopped checking on the redemption status I wasn’t expecting anything from Topps. I didn’t even look at who it was from when I tore in to it. After unwrapping it from the bubble wrap this is what fell in to my awaiting hands.

 

Of course I had to remove it from the Topps top loader because what is the point of having a relic card if you cannot touch the relic and hold the card that was in the hands of whoever signed it. These cards are thick, nearly the depth of an iPhone 6. Now that the acetate cardboard is in my I can finally relax because this was my last redemption with Topps so I can put that to rest.

I want to touch a bit on Bernard Pierce the man.

This guy came in to a decent Ravens team in 2012 and was part of the Super Bowl XLVII winning team. His first season he rushed for 532 yards backing up Ray Rice. In 2013 he was Ray Rice’s backup again and dropped to 436 rushing yards on a Ravens team that went 8-8, by 2014 he had stepped up to the starting role when Rice was suspended and then cut by the team. As the #1 back he had only 366 yards rushing and 13 yards receiving. He had proven that he is definitely not a starter type.

This past March he was pulled over for speeding and was tagged with a DUI to boot, the Ravens cut him that morning. He was claimed off of waivers by the Jaguars the next day where he is currently listed as the #4 RB on the depth chart coming out of the Jags OTA camps.

Considering that he may soon be unemployed it seems conspicuous that he suddenly has time to fulfill his contracts with Panini and Topps, something he has ignored for the past nearly 3 years. I guess being broke and out of work gets someone to reconsider taking a pay day from card companies to sign his name.

Now let me segway from there to a more important fact regarding the character of Mr. Pierce. It has been noted that he is having someone else (multiple people?) sign his autographs for both Topps and Panini. Both companies have refused to respond to the claims, which is something of a concern. When you see that he only has a couple of official autographs in 2013 & 2014, and they are stickers, you know that the companies realize it too. Here are a couple of examples to show the varied signatures that have appeared on his cards:

 

I believe the 2012 Leaf Valiant, 2012 National Treasure and 2012 Strata Jumbo Relic #/15 all to be real. The "B" and "D" in Bernard and "P" in Pierce all appear to be similar plus these are all on-card autographs and rather limited so they were probably signed in front of a company rep.

 

These I believe to be fake with my favorite being the 2012 Finest (first one down) where he apparently forgot his own names and signed it wrong with a "B.B". To add to the obvious "I don't care" attitude of his ghost signers the seller is adding to the humor of this whole situation by listing the card as an eBay 1/1 and asking $99 BIN.

 

 

 

So now here I am sitting on a cool auto-relic card of a mediocre player who will probably spend 2015 on the Jaguars practice squad with what may or may not be a fake signature. But hey at least Topps fulfilled their end of the deal by sending me the card. What I find funny is that the card says that it was signed in front of a Topps rep, I wonder how that would hold up in court? Though I will say that the "B. P" on my card does look similar to the Pierce autographs that I believe to be real, I may be one of the lucky ones.

Say What?

Topps Triple Threads sets have had some questionable quotes. Some just make you scratch your head trying to figure out the connection with the athlete and then there are some that leave you dumbfounded how they ever made it to the pack out phase.

This 2014 Topps UFC Knockout Ronda Rousey Triple Threads showed up last December. Chris Harris from Stale Gum wrote a post about it after the card sold on Decembers 11^th for $260. The design is definitely set up to fail from the get go.

Just a change in the fabric color that is used and the statement looks like something else.

Since that one has shown up four more copies have sold ranging from $200 to $350. By far the version that sold in December is the most offensive in appearance but Topps did what they could to make sure that once it was seen, it could not be unseen.

The Collector In Me

Last week I received an email from a reader asking me about my collecting history. Things like “How long?”, “What do I look for?”, “Do I have a center piece?’ and “What does collecting mean to me?” I did answer his questions but I decided that maybe I would get something on my blog to kind of open up a bit. 

 

This got me thinking because I have been collecting for decades and why I collect now is very different from why I started buying cards when I was 7 years old

 I started picking up cards in 1979 when I was 7 years old, I wouldn’t say that I was a collector at the time but more just being a kid. My family had just moved to Arizona and I would go up to the local Circle K with friends and we would pick up packs of basketball cards that were at the register. I didn’t have a favorite team or player at the time so we just traded cards for cards we thought looked cool. I still remember pulling a 1979 Topps Jack Sikma so I guess you could say that was the card that started the collector in me.

Over the next few years I would pick up packs here and there. Around this time I started liking the Phoenix Suns and the Seattle Mariners and Seattle Seahawks so I would trade for those teams.

In 1987 the NY Giants won the Super Bowl and they were my dad’s favorite football team so I started picking up 1987 Topps Football rack packs to put together a Giants team set for my dad. I ended up building the entire 1987 Topps football set, my first completed set, and when I presented my dad with the Giants team set he threw the cards in the trash and told me I wasted my money and time and he forbid me from buying sports cards ever again. Needless to say I stopped collecting that day.

In late 1992 when I was 20 years old and living in Seattle a couple of friends got caught up in Shaq mania after he was drafted by the Orlando Magic. They found out that his 1992-93 Stadium Club rookie was the card to get so I went with them to a card shop and ended up purchasing a few packs where I pulled an Alonzo Mourning rookie card. We went back in and I bought a couple of boxes and finally pulled some Shaq rookies which is why I selected that card as my Wallet card.

When the 1993 baseball season rolled around I started working on my Griffey collection when I pulled his card from the 1993 Stadium Club Series 2 before long I made my first major Griffey purchase when I bought a 1989 Upper Deck #1 from my LCS for $40. I lost the 1993 Stadium Club Griffey in "The Purge"  (See the next paragraph) and still have not replaced it.

The next couple of years I went on a major buying spree, running up my credit cards, but by 1997 my marriage was failing and my (now ex) wife took a large portion of my collection and threw it in the trash while I was at work, I call this "The Purge". Afterwards I had no interest in collecting, not to mention my collection was drastically reduced (I figured that she tossed roughly 75% of my Griffey collection away) and I didn’t want to re-purchase cards that I had previously owned, thus was born my collection of Ghost cards.

Between 1997 and 2000 I picked up the occasional pack here or there, at the time my collection was so small that I could easily fit it in to a 5,000-ct box with room to spare. After my son was born in 2000 I began collecting again, this was a fun time because relics and autographs were coming along and with so many different companies the designs were always so unique.

 

Now I focus mainly on my player collections of Ken Griffey Jr., Steve Kerr, Steve Largent and Ryan Bader. I have a secondary player/team collection consisting of Jay Buhner, Randy Couture, Seattle and Phoenix teams plus vintage cards and sketch cards.

 

 

What do I look for?

I look for cards and memorabilia that will fit within my collection, I do not buy anything simply to have it. There were times where I did purchase anything and everything related to Griffey or a favorite team but I like to keep my collection reasonable now so I have to fight the urge to add every action figure of a favorite player or a magazine with Steve Kerr on the cover.


Do I have a center piece?

I have added a number of items to my collection that could easily be considered a centerpiece but the one that has sentimental value to me is my autographed Ken Griffey Jr. bat that my wife gave me for Christmas about 12 years ago. It is a beautiful black Louisville Slugger C271 bat with a strong Griffey signature in silver pen ink.

 

 

What does collecting mean to me?

The reason I collect is because I love sports, growing up I played soccer, football, basketball and ran track. I felt that sports cards and memorabilia was a natural transition for me, I see the athletes on the television and I can hold their cards in my hand while watching. Now that I am a parent I have taught my kids to love sports too, even coaching their soccer teams, so when my son found a fondness for collecting it has bonded us together over something that goes back to my childhood.