Insane for Favre

Now that product including Favre as a Viking has gone live you figured it would not be to long before the cards started showing up for auction. Amongst the handful of custom created Favre cards comes the opening shot, a 2009 Donruss Threads Brett Favre SP for a starting bid of $9.99 or a BIN of $39.99. The card may be limited to 4,444 (Limited… really?) but this Short Print will even be showing up in Target Blaster Boxes. It should not be to long before we see a tidal wave of Favre Viking cards showing up for auction.

I know collectors want players in their most up to date uniform, but $10 for a base card of Favre? Wait until Week 8 or 9 when his arm starts to fail and his numbers drop dramatically and you will see this card at a buck or two or better yet, wait until February or March when he announces his retirement again and you will probably find neighborhood kids putting the card in to their spokes.

Brandon Marshall Whines His Way in to Time Out

The Denver Broncos have suspended WR Brandon Marshall indefinitely for “exhibiting open acts of insubordination” earlier this week while on the practice field. Essentially, Marshall is acting like a little whiner until he gets his way.

Marshall’s actions began earlier this year following hip surgery in March, since then he has whined that he is not being paid enough and has been demanding to be paid in the range of Larry Fitzgerald and Randy Moss type of money. So basically a 4th Round Pick wants to get paid like a 1st Round Pick. I understand that Marshall has played well over the past 3 seasons and I know that he earned incentives to jump his salary to $2.2 million from the original $535,000 contract, but that brings me to my point… HE SIGNED A CONTRACT!

If a player plays well they want more money, but if they have a poor season I am sure they will refuse to renegotiate for less money. That is the problem with many current players they are never satisfied even though they are the ones who signed the contract in the first place. Instead of playing well and earning a huge contract when he re-signs next year he is attempting to force the Broncos in to either paying him more or trading him. This may end up poorly for Marshall though, the Broncos have just put him in to time out for the Pre-Season and from the rumors I have seen nobody wants to trade for him. Who wants a young Prima Dona that has been arrested more then a dozen times since college and is trying to misbehave his way in to a better contract?

Patch Works

Player: Mike Dunham
Team: Nashville Predators
Set: 2001 Pacific Titanium - Draft Day
Card #: 52
Serial #: 028/113
Description: Pacific actually states that this patch was cut from the sweater worn by Dunham on the opening game of the 2000-01 season. A game held in Japan between the Predators and Penguins.

This was the first patch I ever pulled. At a time when Pacific was putting jersey relics in every pack this was actually the only patch that I pulled from the box. The patch itself is made up of three different levels from the sweater, the jersey, the piping and then some felt like fabric. I like that Pacific can actually list the specific game that the jersey was worn unlike some other manufacturers that state things like "Worn by the player".

As for the player I guess you can say "average" at best. Mike Dunham played for 5 different teams over a 14 year career. He went 141-178-39-5 with a 2.74 GAA. Not the best but clearly not the worst goalie either.

Really... Carlos Delgado even?

The hobby does not need another black eye but here we go anyway. According to a recent report, Carlos Delgado filled a $2.4 million lawsuit against a couple memorabilia dealers. According to the release Delgado signed a contract with 4 men who run a shop on Long Island where the men agreed to sell roughly $400,000 worth of Delgado’s autographed and used memorabilia but instead kept the merchandise for themselves and never paid Delgado for the items.

I understand collecting can be a compulsion but honestly stealing items from a player under the guise of selling the items and under contract no less. This is a situation where these men need to look back and consider if it was worth stealing $400k worth of items from Delgado and in turn end up paying out on a potential $2.4 million lawsuit?

Fond Memories

My son grabbed a couple of packs of WWE Wrestling cards today while we were out and he busted them on the way home. It is fun to watch kids rip packs because they are so excited about each and every card, it is not all about hits and how much they can make on each card, it is collecting at its most purist point.

When we got home he wanted to show me what he got. The first card he pulled out to show me was a Rey Mysterio Allen & Ginters mini. This card took me back to a younger day for me, late 1998 to be exact... well … as exact as I can remember. This was back in the day, single and with disposable income, I took off with some friends to Las Vegas to catch a Monday Night Nitro at the MGM Grand.

After an entertaining evening we left the arena and found ourselves walking side by side with none other then the man himself. He was unmasked, this was at a time when he was never seen without his mask, but the Sun tattoo on his right shoulder and limping on a knee that he injured that night we knew who he was. Rey Mysterio was a nice guy, not what you would expect from a “star” really. He was polite and willing to talk and while I hoped to get an autograph I felt it was an imposition since he was injured and probably wanted to just get back to his room. Really an overall nice guy.

It is funny how a single piece of cardboard can bring back such vivid memories.

Drawing Lines

Are the lines of the hobby becoming blurred in relation to what is considered a sports card? Recently there have been releases that were entirely non-sports related as well as some sports sets containing both base cards and inserts that are not related to sports in any way.

I ask this question because according to the Razor Twitter site they will be releasing the 2009 Razor Poker set within a couple of weeks. Poker may be entertainment to some but by no means is it a “sport” to any.

In the last few years we have seen releases that include actors, presidents, hoaxes, criminals, DNA, insects and pieces from various locations. Don’t get me wrong, I love some of these cards and have picked a number of them, in fact one of my favorite all-time hits was when I pulled a James Cagney jacket swatch from a pack of 2007 Donruss Americana. I do think that Donruss got it right when they created the Americana release, this gives collectors the opportunity to pull some interesting hits but it remains a set for a specific type of collector.

I can only imagine what it would be like to pull a George Washington Cut Signature or a piece of Lincoln’s hair but that is not why I buy Legendary Cuts, I want my hits to be of legendary ball players. I would rather pull a Gehrig Cut Signature or a Cap Anson hair strand. Just my 2 cents.

Custom Card Zone

I had a number of assignments due over the last few days that kept me busy and unable to post. I still am a little short on time but I wanted to put something up, so I am posting card #2 from my “What If?” series. The card is from the 1986 Fleer NBA series, card #57 Michael Jordan. The situation is “What if the Trailblazers drafted Jordan instead of Sam Bowie with the #2 Pick?”

I posted the card at Bad Wax’s Custom Card blog yesterday. If you are interested in viewing some cool custom cards take a look. There are numerous contributors so you get a large variety of cards.

Why Brett?

Brett Favre is back… again! It seems that Favre is going to continue this path to completely destroy his legacy and reputation when he signed a $12 million contract with the Minnesota Vikings this morning. His contract is pending a physical but that is just a formality.

I am sorry but Favre forced the Packers to deal with his yearly retirement talk and when he got called on it he had a fit and forced a trade. Then he started strong for the Jets but ultimately caused their collapse when he insisted on playing injured and once again played the retirement game. Now he had the Vikings on edge until July 28th when he said he was staying retired. But once again he changed his mind after the Vikings had already moved on with their plans at QB.

Don’t get me wrong, I put Favre up there as one of the elite QBs with Marino, Montana, Elway and Young but he is ruining his placement in that echelon with his behavior. Gone are the days of his 3 MVPs and 2 Super Bowls, in their place sits the shell of a man who seems to feel compelled to continue playing even though he is a mere shadow of his former self.

I like Favre, I always saw him as the down-home good guy who played hard but still had a good heart. His appearance in “Something About Mary” seemed to solidify him in that persona. I just wish he would have taken his own cue and retired as a Packer, that just seemed to define who he was but these past few years show a different side of the guy we all loved, a more concerning person who looks to only care about himself. It is like he is trying to prove that he can still play and he will force that on to any team that is willing to sign him. Come January will the retirement talks begin again, maybe next season he will be signing with the Rams, 49ers or even the Texans?

MLB Countdown

There is now less then 8 hours left for teams to sign their draft picks from June’s MLB Draft. It looks to be an insanely busy night for many teams, especially considering that the top 3 picks, Strasburg, Ackley and Tate still have not signed and 10 of the top 15 players have not signed. The sad thing is that of the 13 picks from the First Round remaining to sign, Scott Boras represents 6 of them including the first 3 picks.

You have to wonder how long Boras will hold out to get insane numbers for his players. The Nationals are rumored to have offered Strasburg $12.5 million, topping the previous record of $10.5 million signed by Mark Prior in 2001, yet Boras still has not jumped on the offer. I guess we will have to wait a couple of hours to see how things unfold.

My Mariners are still in negotiations with #2 Pick Dustin Ackley, which from what I have read appear to be moving in the right direction. The team recently signed the #27 Pick SS Nick Franklin. One thing that I would like to point out to Ackley is that 22 years ago the Mariners drafted another hard-hitting left handed outfielder with the #1 Overall Pick and things have worked out quite well for that Future-HOFer. Remember, Safeco Field was built for Griffey; it is a left-hander’s paradise.

Custom Card Zone

Being a Graphic Designer I love art, so when I find available time I enjoy mixing my love of art with my hobby and creating my own cards. I like that as a designer I am free of corporate mandates and the cards I create are of my own design. The downside is that I am limited to images of the players that I can find either on the Internet or in magazines.

A couple of weeks back I was going through my older Topps NFL sets from the 1980s and a thought struck me, what if I made some “What If?” cards. A series of cards based on what if a situation had gone differently. For example, the first card I created was “What if John Elway had signed with the Colts?”

I figured every so often I will post some of the cards that I have created, with some being "What If?" cards and others will be original designs. I have a couple of sets in the works and when they start to come together I will post them too.