Bringing Back The Hobby
I asked Eric aka ThoseBackPages to write up a piece for the site. The basic premise I asked him to write about was ideal ways that the card companies could change their products in order to bring people back to collecting. “An Open Letter to the Card Manufactures and MLB” was how I phrased it for him. What I got back was a great look in to the thoughts of someone who is passionate about collecting and the hobby that we involve ourselves in. It’s someone who has been around for quite sometime collecting and evolved as time has gone on, and has some ideas of how the industry could go in the future.
I hope you enjoy this piece by Eric aka ThoseBackPages, for anyone who thought he was just a baseless basher of non-MLB rookies, maybe this will change your mind.
Remember when you bought a pack of cards for the gum? If you do, then odds are you’re over 30 years of age. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, I’m 37. I’ve been a serious baseball card collector on and off for the last 25 years, that’s a pretty long time. I’ve seen players come and go, pan out and just the opposite.
Collecting baseball cards back in the early to mid 80’s meant that you put together the Topps set and possible Donruss and Fleer, if you had the desire and/or funds.It was the thrill of opening pack after pack to track down that Manny Trillo that you needed to finish your set, and beat your friends to the punch, or the thrill of having opened enough wax packs that you knew the sequence that the cards ran just from seeing who started the pack.
Somewhere in the mid 90’s, that all changed. Maybe it was that we were all grown up, maybe it was that the card companies wanted to make more money, hell, maybe it was all that rolled into one. Sure in 1990, Upper Deck rolled out “FIND THE REGGIE”, where they actually inserted “only” 2,500 hand signed Reggie Jackson cards,but when the odds of pulling one were closer to 1:10,000 packs, we didn’t put too much stock into it.
By 2001, collecting rookie cards was all about the rookie card being “autographed”. Albert Pujols and Ichiro were the darlings of the baseball rookie card world in 2001. In 2002, Joe Mauer and David Wright were two more bright stars on the horizon and Bowman Chrome Auto “Fever” was growing rapidly, and has been “the card” to have, if the card you want is an autographed rookie card. Sure Bowman Chrome has faced some challenges, mainly in 2004 with SP and EEE, but those two releases lacked MLB Logos, and eye appeal. That doesn’t mean that they are not popular, just not popular with EVERYONE, especially those collectors that like to see their rookie card picture the team that drafted them.
2008 saw the birth of a new draft picks producer called “Razor”, although new to the baseball card world, they’ve made their mark in the Poker Collectible Card World, as well as some other Non-Sports issues. Although Razor has nothing but good intentions, they lack the ability to use MLB team names or logos, rendering them useless when it comes to satisfying the crowd that wants to see “their guy” on a MLB Rookie Card.
As we enter 2009, the “autographed rookie card” has really lost steam. I realize the financial ramifications of what I’m about to say, it’s time for the hobby world to turn back the clock, and have traditional, non-autographed rookie cards once again. I know that that is somewhat of a stretch to today’s teenage collector, but I cant help remember what it was like as a 15 year old to rip open a wax pack of 1985 topps and see a Dwight Gooden Rookie Card.