Anyone Else Feeling It?

EXTREME NEGATIVITY WARNING!!

(at least it's extreme)
**disclaimer: this post was written while working the overnight shift, with a terrible head cold. any opinions or statements contained in this post are those of a snot clogged brain, and don't necessarily represent the views normally expressed by the great bearded one**

image courtesy of nataliedee.com

Are you feeling it? No, not the flow. I know, I know... it's circular, but that's not the feeling of which I speak. No gentle readers, I am referring to the boredom and lack of motivation brought about by the number of LAME baseball releases in the past month or so.

They haven't all been bad, but when Goodwin is the cream of the autumn crop, the result is a lot more money in my wallet, and a lot less posting about great new sets. Specifically, I am talking about Ticket to Stardom and Ballpark Collection, but these aren't the only culprits. Chrome is great, Chrome is awesome, but when you've been looking at the same designs since March, Chrome also gets old in a hurry, no matter how shiny it is.

I've been sitting here for the past hour, after typing those first 2 paragraphs, trying to figure out how to not make this post about taking the card companies to task for some of the sets they release. I don't want to be that guy. There are already quite a few of those guys , and while good points are often made, they just end up sounding pessimistic and angry.

This isn't about the card companies producing crap. It COULD be, but we, as collectors continue to buy this stuff, and the companies wouldn't bother making it if we weren't buying it, right? What this is about is my collective collecting interests starting to shift as my opinions change. I think I've got a pretty good idea of why these feelings are starting to surface, but it's complicated. I think the #1 reason is that it seems there are at least 50 sets released per year, and about half of them feature the same photos, maybe with a slight change. Along with these 50 releases comes numerous parallels jam packed into each one, most of which are the same damn card, with a different color frame or background. Being a player/team collector, this annoys the piss out of me. Is it really necessary to have that many sets and that many parallels? It absolutely kills me that I have to have a card simply because there's an Oriole on it, no matter how ugly/boring that card may be.

Another reason I take issue with the multitude of sets released each year is the half-assed effort that goes into some of them. I think both Ticket to Boredom and Ballpark are prime examples. Ticket to Stardom essentially rips off a base set design used by Fleer Authentix, and one of it's primary draws is supposed to be ticket stub relics. The relics COULD have been cool, if the team of the player featured actually matched the ticket inserted into the card. I have seen numerous instances where this simply is not the case, and that is laziness to the 1000th power, especially for a product carrying a per box price tag of $85. This brings us to Upper Deck's Ballpark Collection, which while an improvement over last year's set, is still a pretty poor effort. The focus is clearly on game used "memorabilia", which is something I don't necessarily have a problem with. What I do have a problem with is throwing jersey swatches of 6 or 8 random players onto a card, add a fairly high serial number, and then charging $160/box for it. There are ZERO patch cards, and every autograph I've seen so far is on a sticker. $160/box?!?!? Are you freaking kidding me?

The only real argument here is which product is worse?

Releases like these make me contemplate becoming strictly a vintage collector. Somehow, it's much easier to appreciate a card (especially a base card) when there were only 1 or 2 produced of that particular player for that particular year. Besides, how cool would it be to build every Orioles team set from '54-'83? Can you even name a single iconic card that does not feature an autograph or patch or swatch of jockstrap produced after 1993? I can't. Jeter's rookie card is the last one that comes to my mind.

What do you guys think? Am I just crying over spilled milk, and being a whiny bitch, or are there too many crappy sets released these days? I'm not the first or the last card blogger to breach this topic, and I sure as hell won't be the last. Would you be happier with 5-10 well designed, well produced sets a year, or do you like being able to choose from a wider variety of products?

I want to end this with something positive. Are you ready for Turk-Off 2? That's right, Motherscratcher and I are going at it again, and this time with a proper product, the 2006 flavor of Topps Turkey Red.

Stay tuned!

I debated even posting this, because it really is nothing more than an angry rant, but this is my blog, and is one of the only places where I can really force feed my opinions to people. If you think I'm being an asshole, or have missed the proverbial boat, please feel free to let me know.