Congrats to the Brewers on their first ever NL championship (and their second league title) I'm not a Dodger hater by any means, but it's great the see the Brew Crew finally break through. I'm rooting for Cleveland in the AL (mostly for Jose Ramirez) but I'd be fine with Tampa winning that series.
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Last weekend I visited my mom in Connecticut. She was fine Friday night and early Saturday but even the slightest movements are so difficult that she wails and whimpers in pain. She has medication that dulls the pain somewhat, and she is mostly comfortable when she isn't trying to move. But everything - answering the phone, holding a cup of water, petting her dog, turning to one side on the couch - is hard for her. And her short term memory is fading as well. It's tough to witness and tough to think about.
I probably should not have left her to do my own thing three times in two days, but she insisted. In reverse order - I walked around the mall Sunday morning; got there at 10am but it didn't open until 11. Hit the GameStop for card supplies and accidentally got a free pack of 500-count sleeves. I put two packs on the counter but the kid at the counter only charged me for one. :)
Also picked up a bunch of Asian snacks and out of market candy/soda things. Oh, and hand soap from Bath & Body works. None of it was necessary, I just needed to get out of the house and clear my head.
Saturday night I went out to dinner with my best friend - who had a DJ gig that night and wanted me to come watch him at Goth night (and meet his girlfriend) I would have liked to, but I couldn't leave Mom alone all night in her condition. I was already pushing it that day.
We hadn't picked a place and just kinda drove around to the end of a very busy road loaded with shops and restaurants. We pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall with a takeout pizza place and a fancy looking restaurant, checked the meus of places we'd passed, and decided to go to the one right in front of us.
I was quite familiar with that strip mall as I'd just been there a few hours prior.
My goal for this LCS visit was to scour the monster boxes by year (starting with the 1970s) and find as many Red Sox singles in Ex condition as possible. At a quarter per card I could afford to pick up some non-Sox as well. Stars and Hall of Famers were nearly non-existent, the cards were not at all in numerical order, and the condition was about what you'd expect for 50+ year old cards that have been tossed around in giant boxes dozens of times. Yet I managed to find a few interesting singles:
The '71 Tom Grieve was one of the oldest cards I had as a kid. I've wanted a '73 Fred Norman for a while; that empty stadium in San Diego tells you why they nearly moved to Washington DC a year later. I have a buyback of the '73 Phil Gagliano, now I have an (unstamped) original.
Not long after reading Tom's blog post about acquiring multiple copies of memorable Angels cards, I doubled up on some posed shots by the old Anaheim Stadium sign. The Billy Cowan in particular is fantastic; I would have picked up two more copies but they were not in decent shape. Darrell Evans looked to be in acceptable condition until I got it home. Should have looked closer I guess.
I would have liked to bring home more '75 Topps singles but the borders were off-center on about 90% of them. Great set, but man does it flare up my OCD. The '76 Biff barely has a bottom border but I didn't mind. Amos Otis is about as good a player as you'll find in these commons boxes.
Some '77s here. Not much to say about 'em except that they were in better shape than previous years.
1978 was the last year I took time going through; after that I grabbed a box and quickly thumbed through one row before moving on. There were a handful of O-Pee-Chee singles mixed in; mostly in poor shape but I found a couple notable cards. The last year with its own monster box was 1986; I upgraded a couple cards for my set, found this OPC Graig Nettles, and moved on to a box called "90-93 inserts & misc"
Then I skimmed through more recent singles. I always liked the 2011 Topps/Chrome Braun, the retro uniform in particular. Banks and Bieber are nice ones, too.
2020s commons boxes yielded some interesting stuff. I picked up a few cards of (future Red Sox?) Randy Arozarena, a neat Denzel Clarke, and a Trevor Hoffman bat rack card in addition to another Adley.
Allen & Ginter isn't really my jam but there were some nice looking quarter cards and I had room in the budget(and my storage boxes.) Not pictured: two 2025 Topps Heritage high numbers I managed to find. JB's doesn't seem to care about card numbers, and I've been able to pick up a couple pricey SPs at common card prices. Unfortunately I've still got about 70 more to go. Probably a pointless pursuit.
Once I rounded up all the singles I could find in two hours' worth of searching I picked up some supplies and placed everything on the counter before taking one thorough lap around the store. This was certain to be my last visit of the year, and if I really follow through on that retirement promise/threat, it would be my last visit ever.
Some things that caught my eye included: unpriced retail boxes of 2021-22 O-Pee-Chee hockey. These were the only unpriced boxes in the hockey section and I have about 1/6 of the set, so I was tempted to pick one up. But even if the boxes were $60 apiece it wouldn't have yielded a complete set, and there isn't a lot of value there. It's very tough to find hockey card collectors on TCDB who 1) have the singles I need, 2) are active traders on the site, and 3) don't mind dealing with Americans.
In the corner across from the hockey cards there was a showcase with autographed memorabilia. I glanced up and noticed a Packers mini-helmet. Assuming it was out of my price range I moved on - but the Super Bowl MVP label caught my eye. For $75 I could have bought a slightly faded Desmond Howard autograph. [should have taken a picture. sorry] Tempting for sure, but I don't really have room for memorabilia. If I do go back there one day I'll reconsider...
JB's had some showcases with single cards scattered throughout the store. One door had mainly vintage singles, and two cards in particular grabbed my attention: a 1952 Bowman Ralph Kiner and a 1953 Bowman Color Eddie Mathews.
I asked for a closer look and the cashier opened the showcase door and handed them to me. The Mathews looked really clean - until I spotted the crease at the bottom right. Probably a good value at $40 regardless, but I passed on it and saved my money for the Miz at the top of this post.
The Kiner card looked good upon inspection. But when I took it out of the top loader I could feel something bumpy.
Yup, there it is. But I bought it anyway because it was $25 rather than $40. Also I had a copy of this card, listed it on eBay, and ended up selling it to our old friend Shane aka former blogger and current YouTuber Shoebox Legends.
All in, I spent about $130 at JB's - and that includes the Miz refractor and a dud of a Mystery pack. I was willing to spend more but the shop would not take my money. They were doing some kid-friendly events like a prize wheel and free packs with purchase. There was also a toy bin with sports-themed toys for kids on the floor. I saw this on my way out - not on my way in. So when I spied bagged Starting Lineup figures from 1988 and 1989 my eyes lit up. Randall Cunningham!! Bernie Kosar!!! Mike Singletary!!!
I dropped the armful of figures on the counter, but before I could ask "How much?" the guy told me they were for kids. The sign was on the other side - Kids box! Take one toy! Free!
Why would a ten year old boy want a 38 year-old action figure of a player he's never heard of? Bruh...
Would have looked great on my SLU shelf..
That's it. I'm never coming back here again! ::Stomps away like a ten-year old::
In other news...
Update has arrived. I won't spoil the results here, except to say a Hobby box and a Jumbo box aren't enough to complete a 350-card set. Good thing I didn't buy that O-Pee-Chee hockey box from JB's huh?
So it looks like Beckett got hit with some nasty ransomware and they are slowly coming back on line. Hopefully they fill all their back orders soon.
Also, speaking of sports card websites that have fallen off hard... COMC is having some kind of Black Friday warm-up sale. I haven't ordered from them in about two years but I decided to check it out on the off chance that they had enough unique cards to make one last final order worthwhile.
The good news is, their shipping times seem to be better. I had six low-end cards in my cart and the ETA was second week of November at a $7.49 shipping charge. But then I added one more card. A $300 graded card:
no, I did not buy this card
The shipping charge went up. I figured with their newish per-card rate and maybe a $1 surcharge for slabbed singles the new shipping charge would be about $9.
Oh you sweet summer child.
The shipping charge for 7 cards - six low-end singles and a $300 Yaz - was over $22!!
Needless to say I did not complete the order and I am not dealing with COMC ever again. I shall take my $300 to JB's Sportscards in Milford, CT this weekend for one last card shop run.*
*there is a small chance I'll shop at the Card Cave in NJ again, but that's an $18 Uber ride each way, so it's not really worthwhile
I've made a lot of progress with set building projects and reorganized my baseball, football, and basketball cards to clear room. Now I've got to fill that extra space with cards!
So this weekend I'm headed home to visit Mom for a couple days (my daughters are staying in Jersey - more on that later) and I should have ample time to sort through all their monster boxes of singles and rows of old and new packs (plus those tantalizing mystery packs) without feeling rushed.
Last time I was at JB's I did a lot of shopping for the 10th Anniversary giveaway. This time, I can focus on finishing sets, filling spaces in my Red Sox binders, and grabbing some random packs. Or a set..
Remember how hard it was to get your hands on cards during the peak of the COVID pandemic? I think the only packs I opened in 2020 were from a blaster of Allen & Ginter my wife ordered for me as a gift.
I've accumulated a couple packs worth of 2020 Topps singles since then, and I might pick up a box or a factory set if I see one because 1) there's room on my baseball wall for a 700-card set.
There's also room for two 350-card sets, though one of those spots is reserved for 2026 Topps Update.
and 2) I have hand-collated (or factory) sets for almost every Topps flagship release from 2010 to 2026. The only years I don't have are 2020 and the godawful 2021 set with the unreadable names and photos from the icky 60-game season.
Cardboard cutout fans! Face masks! Corporate branded tarp! Jose Marmolejos!
If I don't end up finding a lot of cheap singles I can always roll the dice on a flat ratebox from an eBay seller. But as I recall, JB's has loads of boxes full of commons and semistars all the way back to the early 1970s. And they were in pretty good shape, too. Better than most SportLots sellers :/
That's all the trading card news I have for now, so if you dont want to read life updates you can jump off here. I'm not rebranding back to the Pedestrian Writer (I swear) but there is some interesting stuff going on and I don't have Instagram or (god forbid) Twitter to share my musings with random strangers, so here we are...
I'm not sure if any of you noticed but Beckett's entire website has been offline for more than three weeks, with the [possible] exception of accepting grading submissions. This is a major headache for the few remaining customers Becket still has - including me. I submitted a five-card order for grading in early July. It should have been completed in September. I should have these cards in hand.
That's a relief. So I can check the status of my order... right?
LOLno. And contacting customer service does nothing; I sent an email two weeks ago and no one replied They're probably neck-deep in customer complaints.
This is especially frustrating for me as I planned to retire from card collecting at the end of 2026. The five cards I submitted to BGS were likely going to be included in a consignment order I'd planned to send to 4 Sharp Corners. 4SC will consign any slabbed card - and PSA was so backed up that they were not accepting submissions of any kind, except for the express super mega God tier.
This was going to be my last grading submission, and I don't even know if I'll get it before Christmas.
Sigh... at least I didn't order any singles from the Beckett Marketplace.
Ahahaha. Worst. Timing. Ever. Had I waited a day, the site would have been shut down. Had I ordered a day or two earlier, Jim & Steve would have received and possibly even processed my order. But no.. it's stuck in limbo. I have absolutely no idea if I'll ever get the $70 worth of cards I ordered - including all the Topps Tiffany Terry Francona cards, Upper Deck International basketball, and OPC baseball / hockey cards I couldn't find anywhere else. At least my credit card wasn't charged ... I don't think.
It's almost certainly due to PSA buying out Beckett properties - but the fact that there is no information, no way to contact customer service, and no regard for Marketplace customers at all? It's very strange. At best it's a haphazard and poorly communicated refresh for a brand that desperately needed one. At worst it's a sad ending to a once-iconic name in sports card collecting.
Conversely, this Beckett has a very bright future. [even if you aren’t interested in hockey at all check out this kid’s wholesome reaction to being drafted 3rd overall]
I'm holding out hope for another week and then I'm calling whatever number I can find. I want my cards dammit! And lots of other collectors do, too.
This was kind of a short rant so I guess I have a little space for a Red Sox post-mortem.
Really miss having a guy like Beckett take the ball
The Sox were hot stinky garbage and then they fired Alex Cora and they suddenly won a lot. And, because the American League is even stinkier garbage, they earned one of the eighty participation trophies Wild Card spots. Which is cool, I guess. They worked their asses off to get back to the exact same spot they were last year: play-in round road kill for the hated archrival Yankees. Yaaay.
Would it have been better long-term if the Sox lost 90 games and bottomed out like the Blue Jays? I doubt it. John Henry has lost interest either way, so there's no more Cold War Arms Race urgency here. There's a lot of decent to good pieces on the roster but Garret Crochet was hurt and Roman Anthony was hurt* and there's no high end elite-level stars to get us out of the same 'lose to the Yanks before October even starts' trap. Except.. Willson Contreras. That guy's a dawg.
Anyway.. these are just two things that have irked me this week. The Packers are godawful, I think I chipped a tooth (or worse, a filling fell out), I signed up for a free trial session at a nearby gym, only to learn that the only day with rain in the forecast for the next month or so... is the day I'd planned to go to the gym. And my reckless positivity was drained even further today. I'm going home to CT next weekend to visit mom, the kids are staying in NJ so I could hang out with my best friend and do single guy stuff for the first time in 25 years... but he can't hang out cause he's got a DJ gig. I kept thinking of things to say to neighbor lady if I saw her and didn't see her. Such a fool's errand.
I didnt have much work to do this afternoon so I left the office a few minutes early - just in time to catch milady just out of reach. She was across the street at a neighbor's house, and just as I turned the corner she headed back to her place. Instead of going back inside through the front door (where I might have caught up to her) she made a beeline for her backyard from the far end. That figures. I didnt wanna see her anyway. All these neighbors directly around her know her and I'm just out of her purview.
So I kept walking and went to the corner store for some Mountain Dew and Monster because fuck it. I decided to go the long way back and pass her house on my way home (as I would have if I were coming home from work) and just as I approached that same corner I saw her -- way down the side street, walking (presumably) her neighbor's dog. Can't Catch Me Now. Nope, and I'm about to stop trying.
Have you ordered anything from the Beckett Marketplace lately (or ever)? Have you ever used their Online Price Guide service?
After a long and eventful week that felt like a month in the best possible way.. I decided to go to the Cranford card show. There's nothing I needed in particular - at least nothing that I would find at this show. So I was really just dollar boxing and browsing for neat stuff. Possibly for the last time.
Here's a card that caught my eye while I was searching through an adjacent seller's dollar boxes. It's the only single card purchase I made all day, and the only time I didn't negotiate a lower price.
I'm building a decent sized Misiorowski PC - which actually started the first time I attended a Cranford show after I picked up four copies of his Topps flagship RC. Now I've got Chrome, Donruss, Finest.. and this RayWave thing. I don't have any Bowman Chrome prospect cards of Miz. Maybe next month.
There was a very popular seller in the corner who had all his boxes labeled "Yankees"; "Yankees and other teams" and "Ohtani". Since it was tough to get anywhere near the other boxes I started with Shohei:
The Archives Ohtani completes my set, and the 2026 Topps base is an upgrade. Love the low-numbered Chrome Platinum parallels. Younger collectors ignore the '70s-'80s greats, but I'd rather have Hall of Famers for $2 than an Anthony Volpe or Dylan Crews any day.
Eventually I was able to get a better look at the "other teams" section and found some more shiny stuff - including another Miz.
Next to this guy there was a table(probably two tables) with monster boxes all over the place. So many that some were placed on the floor in front of the tables. The seller saw my Devils hat and asked me if I collect hockey. I replied in the affirmative. This show has more UFC, WNBA, and NASCAR than NHL, so any hockey at all is like an oasis in the desert.
He pulled out a box from behind the table and placed it on top of other boxes in front of me. There were a couple of Upper Deck Young Guns rookies but none that interested me. A block of Ice and some Parkhurst Champions was enough for me to start a stack:
The color matching Bobby Brink isn't rare or serial numbered but it's a nice one. The Hockey Guy on YouTube is always tempted to say "Bobby Brink of the Boston Bruins" even though he's never played for the B's. It just sounds like he should be a Bruin.
Some Parkhurst Champions including a pair of '52 retro minis that are kinda neat. The Jacob Markstrom patch wasn't a must-have; this card was released before his disappointing stint with the Devils and it's barely a 2-color swatch. But the dealer surprised me after I handed him my whole stack. He singled out this card, and based the price of the whole stack around it. According to his search, the last sale was $23. So he asked $30 for the pile (as you can see by my hand written note.)
That means everything else in the hockey stack was $7. Including these:
The Kyle Connor Black parallel is #d /100.
And these.
And these. I attempted my best poker face when I found the Glo Pee Chee Jack Hughes insert. The dealer knew it was unique "Those are pretty cool, huh?" But I'm guessing he didn't know they were case hits.
$30 for all these cards except the Glo Pee-Chee is fair. $30 with this card included is a steal.
In case you were wondering:
It really does glow in the dark!
The RayWave Miz at the top of this post was next to a very popular table; it took me ten minutes just to get near it. And once I did, I pulled out three huge stacks of cards priced from $1-10. I put back a couple but still ended up with over $320 worth of cards that the dealer sold to me for a flat $200.
I'll scan up some of those for a future post but it would take forever to scan them all. The dealer had to take a few pictures for inventory purposes and there were these pushy kids trying to sell/trade with him while he was spreading out my cards and snapping pics. It's great that kids are still interested in sports cards but they have no manners at all!
Last time I was at this show I bought a bunch of football cards from a guy with $10 for $5 / $20 for $10 prices. But this time there were so many little rugrats elbowing their way through while I was in front of the box that I barely had the patience to pick ten cards.
If I hadn't found the Tyler Booker refractor immediately I would have left. Nothing else here was a must-have but for 50 cents each they're solid. His inventory was a lot better last time.
This particular show is in a very small room and I've found some great cards both times I've gone, but I don't think there's anything else to see. All my current set builds are complete, I've got no more room for current baseball / football / basketball shiny, and there's little to no vintage or graded. I'll just let the kids have their fun from now on. I've got to save up for vintage 'bucket list' items anyhow.
No more news on neighbor lady. I had hoped to see her this morning since it was my last day off before Thanksgiving. I'd seen her come home with her husky around 8 a.m. Friday and hoped she'd be at the park this morning. No such luck. Maybe I'll see her tomorrow if I leave early for work. Oh, and a door to door salesman showed up today. I answered the door, dealt with him, and then he went to our mutual neighbor's house (which is is how I found out they're back from vacation). If I had the guts to ask Neighbor Lady for her number I could have texted her "heads up, aluminum siding salesman headed your way. don't answer the door" .. and then I realized that the last time a random guy knocked on her door ... it was me. Sigh...this sucks.
What’s your favorite shot in sports history? (I know that some significant home runs are called ‘shots’ but for this post I’m sticking with hoops and hockey.. soccer qualifies as well.)
Are you an MJ guy? If so, is the Cleveland shot your fave, or the "final shot" against Utah?
I’m definitely not an MJ guy, so my favorite NBA shots would include the Kawhi Leonard bounce-bounce-swish against Philly - which felt like it was the end of a movie.
The Ray Allen corner 3 against the Spurs is a big one, too. While I liked UConn Ray and Milwaukee / Boston Ray .. I did not like Heatles Ray.
For a long time my favorite was Reggie Miller's destruction of the Knicks, especially when he gave Spike Lee the choke signal. But my new number one is Dame Time ending OKC and then mugging under a pile of teammates.
I don't watch nearly as much college hoops as I used to, but Christian Laettner was an absolutekiller.
Taking big shots (or big swings) in big moments is not as easy as it sounds, even for a pro. You can't be afraid to fail. You have to trust your instincts and believe.
This was exactly what I needed this week. Especially after last week's downer of an episode, when Roy and Keeley got their wires crossed and Beard misread signals from a much younger woman.
[Editor’s note: wait.. did you...?]
...
How about hockey? Lots of iconic shots there, too. Excluding international goals from Paul Henderson, Mike Eruzione, Sidney Crosby, and Jack Hughes, here are a few memorable shots that come to mind:
Steve Yzerman’s rip from the blueline to eliminate the Blues in the 1996 playoffs.
Evgeny Kuznetsov’s eagle eyed shot to finally take down Pittsburgh in 2018, punctuated by the flapping bird celly.
A couple sentimental favorites of mine include Fernando Pisani's overtime shorty vs Carolina and "Henrique… it’s over!" to send the Devils to the final in 2012. Even though they didn't win the ultimate prize, these shots kept their chances alive.
You know who never lacks confidence? Soccer players. Doesn't matter if they're chunky chain smokers or chiseled GreekSwedish gods they just find a way to score regardless of the odds, or the angle, or the stage.
[Editor’s note: bro, did you shoot your shot or not?]
Of course, even the best have been known to fail. As incredible and significant as a perfect shot can be... shooting and missing - especially when you can line up your shot ahead of time - is equally memorable.
[Editor’s note: you blew it.]
No! No. I didn't blow it. I happened to see her coming home with her dog, and I happened to be on my way to Dunkin, so I... asked her if she wanted anything. And she didn't. It's fine. No big deal. It's fine!
[Editor’s note: wait, did you ask her if she wanted anything or did you say ‘can I get you anything’?]
I said. I um.. what’s the difference?
[Editor’s note: it’s a big fuckin difference, mate]
Whatever. She's really fit; maybe she just doesn't fuck with Dunkin because it's garbage.
[Editor’s note: so why were you on your way there?]
