General Forum

As I sit in my baseball room on a Monday afternoon, enjoying the never ending task of organizing my collection, finishing trades, etc., I've been thinking about a few things.

1.  I really appreaciate all the TCDB members who package trades so securely with painter's tape.  My orders from eBay and SportsLots, not so much.  I have one SportsLots dealer who I love buying from, but it's a major chore to get the cards out of the packaging, with all the packing tape he uses.  I've come close to destroying cards just getting them out of the package.  That happens alot with eBay and SportsLots.

2.  I appreciate those who decline trade proposals promptly.  I'd much rather have a quick decline than having it sit out there for weeks with no response, even though the member is active each day.

3.  The Curtis Terry phenomena.  This one really has me puzzled.  Terry was signed by the Texas Rangers in 2015, and released by them in Nov. 2021.  His MLB batting record for Texas was 4 hits (two singles, two doubles), in 45 at bats, with one RBI, for a .089 average.  The Twins signed him in late Nov. 2021 for some depth in their minor leagues.  After all the top prospects need someone to play with to fill out the teams.  There was virtually no chance he would ever play for the Twins. Actually, the Twins released him in August of 2022.  Despite all this, he has 750 major league cards produced in a Twins uniform, a team he will never play for, in nearly 50 2022 sets. He appears in both Panini/Donruss and Topps.  I wonder how and why both companies picked him. The Orioles signed him a couple of weeks ago, and he is currently batting 1 for 12 (.083) in spring games.   I do not say all this to demean Curtis Terry.  He has done what I could only dream of doing -- he's played in the major leagues.  He's the envy of many people for doing that.  I'm just curious how the selection process for cards goes.  Many better known Twins don't appear in those sets, but he does.

Replying to point 3. Those statistics show why base cards today are totally junk. That is a ridiculous amount of cards for someone to have done nothing. It is also part of the reason why I have almost stopped collecting anything new. My joy comes from collecting prior to this new century. It is more simple for me (at 55 years young). I can still be a set builder and collect players from when sports meant more to me.

The nice thing is the hobby has a piece for everyone. We all just need to find our piece.

Also about point 3. I never even heard of the man until LCS boxes had a lot of his stuff. I was genuinely confused on the push they gave him. I don't use painters tape, but what i use it comes off easy and doesn't destroy top loaders.

Wow! I'd never heard of the guy so I looked him up and that's a lot of attention to a 13th rounder who's not had any success in the bigs. I looked up Todd Van Poppel as a comparison - he came in as a 14th overall selection by Oakland with higher hype and expectations, yet he only has 245 cards total for his career.

Sportzcommish:  Yes it is strange.  I have been working on the 2022 Panini Mosaic Twins set today.  The set was produced after spring training because Carlos Correa is in the set and he signed during spring training. There are 10 Twins cards.  No Jose Miranda or Royce Lewis, their two top prospects, no Gio Urshela, Gary Sanchez, Tyler Duffy, Sonny Gray, Bailey Ober, Griffin Jax, Trevor Larnach, Miguel  Sano, Nick Gordon, and I'm sure several more I'm not thinking of.  Yet Curtis Terry is in the set.  They are all proven major leaguers or top of the line prospects.  Strange indeed!

I would also like to know the selection part of players being added to sets. I was searching for a player on day and found one that had over 6000 cards and I was like why or how. 

top 10 in Baseball  Hate to be a PC collector for these.

Rank

Name

Total Cards

1.Albert Pujols 26,0462.

Ken Griffey Jr.23,7993.

Alex Rodriguez 23,3074.

Cal Ripken Jr. 22,8265.

Derek Jeter 21,8176 .

Mike Trout 21,0867.

Miguel Cabrera 20,4208

Ichiro Suzuki 19,8379

Nolan Ryan 17,80210

Chipper Jones17,697

Thank goodness none if those are mine. I think Big Papi is my biggest at ~13k. Only reason I havent updated my WL with his cards is because, well, 13k...

As for point 3, well of 22 was a RC for him they Topps is going to push as many out as they can regardless of actual prospect status. You know there are those out there chasing them down...

As for point 1, pretty sure I know which seller you refer to with the packing tape. Workout right there.

For hockey I am surprised that Patrick Roy has the most cards.  I thought that it would have been Wayne Gretzky.  Below are the only three hockey players with over 10,000 cards issued.  As expected Tom Brady has the most cards issued with 19,550.

1.  Patrick Roy 11,332

2.  Wayne Gretzky 10,532

3.  Mario Lemieux 10,429

Wow! My top guy is Nolan Ryan with a whopping 177