Baseball and the Blues
After all, that's the name of the blog, ain't it? Well, there are bills as well. However, I'm loathed to speak of that subject, mostly because I see the creditors peeping through the blinds and furiously setting their Robo callers to my phone number.
When covid first reared its despicable face, I decided to retreat back to my childhood for just a bit. The '60s as a kid were a pretty safe time as I remember so why not drop back by for a spell? I was already ensconced in comic books, and have been for years. However, on a trip to my local shop, I spied something I had not seen in at least fifty-plus years. Packs of brand-spanking new baseball cards stared up at me through the glass counter. Something was very wrong though, where I had paid a nickel a pack all those years ago, the price now appeared to be four dollars a pack! Not only that, you got far fewer cards per pack and NO fucking gum. What the fuck?! I caved and bought a pack.
Another big difference between now and then is the sheer number of different cards and sets of cards. Not only in baseball but basketball and football AND hockey as well. There once was 1 set of cards for the season, stretching from early May to early September, probably 500 cards in all. That was it. If you didn't get the first few numbers in the series by early June, you were just plain out of luck.
I cannot believe how many different sets of baseball cards there are right now. Only 2 companies exist at this time, Topps and Panini. In the late '80s, there were at least 6 that I can remember. Those were the days when yuppies first realized you could turn a quick buck investing in old cards. After all, everyone's mom threw 'em out, so with that mindset, the card companies churned out millions of cards to meet the high demand. What resulted was the "Junk Wax" era. These days, complete sets of cards from this time frame are cheap as dirt, think "junk bonds" and the crash of '87 and you'll get the idea.
There is a boatload of guys like me out there who started collecting again due to the same reasons mentioned above. This has resulted in an all-out war between grown men all scrambling to retrieve cards to resell on eBay and other sites. Fast money means cruel tactics. Even the media has begun reporting after the Target chain discontinued sales due to a strong-arming incident at one of their stores where a gun was pulled and the entire area went into lockdown. When the going gets weird, the weird resort to violence. This can also be seen as a commentary on our society as the "Trump Populist" movement gathers steam and barrels through the heartland picking up all sorts of obese cowboys and Lynyrd Skynryd Confederate flag wavers. Myself, I politely step to one side and let the inevitable death juggernaut steam on by. card collecting reminds me of a great time in my life, a time when all that really mattered was what I was going to spend my$.25 allowance on.
All you fucking angry midgets can stay out of the playground!
To wit:
and this is just a small sample of stuff thus far released in 2021
