Author Archives: Matthew Lug - Page 29

Straight to the Nuts: The $63 Question

Posted by on 20 November 2012 Comments Off on Straight to the Nuts: The $63 Question

In which I once more impersonate a journalist but fail to dumb things down enough

As soon as the regular season wrapped up for the Mets (sometime back in July), all anyone could look forward to was Opening Day 2013 (and Dickey’s 20th win and subsequent Cy Young award, but those don’t fit the narrative).  It was another lost season and the fans were left without a reason to cheer on their favorite team at Citi Field (other than the whole “favorite team” thing).  It would take some major moves by the Wilpons to convince the fans to turn out in 2013 (like, um, cough-selltheteam-cough).  With the team disappointing and no relief in sight, attendance projections were looking bleak.

And then the Mets released pricing information for Opening Day.

Few will forget where they were when they saw that the “cheap” seats were going for $63.  $63!  That’s like dinner for two at Bertucci’s!  Movie tickets and concessions for a family of four!  That $63 only gets you in the door, it doesn’t cover transportation/parking, food, souvenirs, or the 15 beers it takes some people to survive the Mets experience.  The horror.

You know, I can kind of see why people would be upset.  $63 for nosebleed seats for a game against the Padres when a good chunk of the lineup hasn’t been set and could be filled with prospects who aren’t ready or cheap free agents who would be better off retiring isn’t exactly a bargain.  Move up to better seats and things look even worse.  I remember a time when the team was good and upper deck seats were $5, so $63 sounds insane.  But we’re talking about Opening Day.

Opening Day is like a playoff game that every team gets to host.  It’s not just a game, it’s an event.  Growing up well outside the NYC metro area (but still inside the NYC media area), seeing an Opening Day game in person seemed about as likely as winning the lottery without buying a ticket.  The fact that we never even considered trying to go to an Opening Day game (or really any game) might have something to do with that.  Opening Day seemed to be the realm of the rich and famous, celebrities, trust fund kids, trophy wives/girlfriends, etc.  The upper deck is reserved for hedge fund interns, stock traders, classical musicians, and retired sports mascots.  Us normal folks have to settle for watching on television.  Or these days some stupid app on our smartphones.

$63 is still a lot of money for a baseball game, so I would probably pass even if I could walk to the stadium.  But I can’t walk to the stadium.  In fact, it costs me somewhere upwards of $100 just to get to the point where they scan your ticket, search your bag, and give you a pat-down just to be friendly.  Add $63 (or more) to that, plus concessions, and we’re talking Cirque du Soleil money.  (Note to self: work in more Las Vegas references next year.)  Now factor in travel time (8 hours by car and 4 by train if I go with the option that doesn’t cost me anything for lodging) and time taken off from work and we’re getting up there in cost.  At that point, it feels like the team owes me money for taking the trouble to get there.  So yeah, $63 ain’t happening.

But this isn’t about me.  Let’s face it, the Mets aren’t going to make money paying me to go to games (nice work if you can get it…) and I’m not the kind of customer they’re catering to, even if I do spend a ton of money in the team store on the rare (one) occasion that I’m there (mostly because they don’t bother putting pins up for sale on the web site, damn stingy corporate idiots).  The Mets need to put butts in seats, not just on Opening Day but on 80 other days as well.  They’re banking on people seeing the insane single-game ticket prices and opting to go with a multi-game package of some sort, which will inevitably result in the other tickets going unused because of poor planning or disinterest on the part of the customer (the only sure bet in the world of sales and marketing).  If the “Hey, it’s a much better deal if you buy tickets to a whole bunch of other games too!” approach doesn’t work, they’ll discount the remaining tickets at some point down the road, advertising incredibly discounted prices that are probably still higher than 2012’s prices (not that anyone can remember what they paid for something a few months ago).  If the plan works and they do sell a bunch of packages, then they’ve boosted attendance numbers for other games without really cutting prices.  Genius!

Except there’s a downside to this approach.  If you’re not interested in getting a ticket plan or package and just want to get a ticket to Opening Day without spending a fortune, your only option is to wait until March and hope for some discounts.  Now how many people will bother to check back in four months after the team essentially says “Sorry, but we aren’t interested in your business” to them?  By March, people will have moved on to something else and won’t be buying tickets to Opening Day or any other day.  The Mets may have a solid plan financially, but it fails on psychology.  You use the event atmosphere to get people’s attention and then sell them on making the games a regular part of their entertainment habits.  To do this, the cost and risk barriers need to be sufficiently low, otherwise something else will take priority and most of them will not give you a second look.  Multi-game packages are too much risk and $63 for nosebleed seats is too much cost.  You may drive people to check out some Cyclones games instead with this approach, but that’s not going to put butts in seats at Citi (unless they do something like Futures at Fenway there, which they really should if they aren’t because Futures at Fenway is awesome, especially when all the New York teams win).

As for me, I’m sure as hell not paying $63 for a ticket to any regular season game and I can’t justify buying a multi-game package, so that just leaves the group rate from a certain controversial t-shirt magnate, with pricing yet to be announced. Even if that price turns out to be reasonable, it’s a tossup as to whether I go and there’s not really anything the Mets can do to change that. [Update: Pricing was revealed to be $95 for outfield seats with a t-shirt included. 900 tickets sold out in 24 hours. Looks like there’s a market for higher prices if additional value is provided.]

Well look at this, I just got an e-mail from the New Hampshire Fisher Cats advertising a special with 10 ticket vouchers and a $25 gift card for $75.  Not only are the Fisher Cats local to me, but they also play the Binghamton Mets three times in 2013, all on weekends.  What was that about Opening Day tickets again?  Oh well, couldn’t have been that important, maybe next year.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Museum Collection

Posted by on 18 November 2012 2 comments

Pretty and loaded, but not very deep

If the name Museum Collection sounds familiar, you might be remembering last years amazing framed autograph cards from 2011 Topps Marquee.  This year, Museum Collection is the name of the product, with more framed autos and a few interesting changes.  This time around, multi-player cards and booklets are plentiful, as are 1/1s and Jumbo Lumber bat cards (in addition to the occasional bat card in the regular jumbo relic set).  The cards look better than ever, which may not mean much in a product with only one prior release, but it is still worth noting.  Marquee looked good, Museum Collection looks great.

Base Set

Wait, there’s a base set?  Oh, right, here’s something an eBay seller threw in as a freebie with one of the Primary Pieces Four Player Relics:

Nice try, but wrong team.  Oh well.  I’m sure if I take long enough to get this review out I’ll get a hold of a proper Met to use here.

Procrastination has its rewards

Even though these are base cards, they are still as thick as everything else in this product.  Player selection is limited though; only David Wright and Nolan Ryan made the cut.  Tom Seaver would have made more sense, but he only shows up in the Canvas Collection art card set (which are his only individual cards in this entire product, all others are with three other players).

All base cards have a version with no serial number and four serial numbered variants with print runs of 299, 199, 99, and 1, while Canvas Collection cards also have parallel versions numbered to 10.  Not bad for what is essentially filler in this product.

Game-Used and Autographs

This is what people are really after in Museum Collection.  Last year, 2011 Topps Marquee set the bar pretty high, getting my award for 2011 Mets Game-Used Product of the Year.  So is 2012 Topps Museum Collection up to the challenge?  Yes and no.

Yes, the variety of Mets cards is much improved from last year’s product, which lacked any Mets triple relic cards and had several other Metsless variant sets.  Museum Collection has a Met in every major insert category except, sadly, Framed Autographs (Archival Autographs Dual and Cut Autographs are also without Mets, but those are fairly minor in comparison).  This year’s product features Mets with autographs, large jerseys and bats (both alone and in two-player booklets), autographed single, double, triple, and quad memorabilia cards, and quad relics (featuring one or four players).  And that’s just for David Wright.

No, the player selection is extremely limited, with David Wright representing the Mets in every game-used set and single Archival Autographs, Gary Carter and Dwight Gooden (plus Tom Seaver on the quad player relics and Nolan Ryan on his Archival Autographs cards) representing retired Mets, and Dillon Gee representing the young players.  Jose Reyes is also featured as a Met on a lot of cards, while Ike Davis makes his 2012 game-used debut on a dual Jumbo Lumber relic booklet card with Wright.  Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Beltran, and Heath Bell round out the roster with former Mets shown in other uniforms (plus a Warren Spahn Cut Autograph 1/1).  It’s not a terrible list, but it is a bit light on players who are actually, you know, on the team.  This is likely a consequence of moving it from a fall release to a spring release, but that really only explains Reyes.  Is there nobody else on the Mets worth including?  For comparison, there are 14 Yankees in the Momentous Material Jumbo Relic set alone; even the Pirates have four in that set compared to three for the Mets and eight total players shown as Mets in all of Museum Collection.

Overall, it’s not a bad mix.  Between all of the different insert sets and parallels, it adds up to over 100 autographed and/or game-used cards of current or former Mets players.  David Wright accounts for all or part of 28 of those and Jose Reyes adds 14 more.  Once you remove the cards of players not shown as Mets, that leaves you with just 26 other Mets cards to split between Seaver, Ryan, Carter, Gooden, and Gee.  The field thins out very fast in this product.

On the positive side, the few players we do get bring a lot of new material.  Reyes, superfluous as he may be at this point, has his first blue jerseys in Museum Collection.  I’m hoping for some large orange jerseys in next year’s product; blue and orange (even if it is from the Marlins) would look great side-by-side.  Reyes’s quad jerseys also include swatches with orange or blue piping, another first (piping has become more common in recent years after apparently being stripped off prior to cutting in the early days of game-used).  Dillon Gee also has his first blue jersey cards, with patch and piping variants, and David Wright got in on the piping party with a few variants of his quad jersey cards.  Carter’s pinstripe jerseys are the first I’ve seen of the narrow variant of the printed zigzag stripe, calling into question everything I thought I knew about that stripe’s history, and Gooden has some great-looking dual pinstripe jersey cards.  Finally, Carlos Beltran’s large jerseys were all a very off-white, indicating that they are from his Giants uniform.  I would have preferred the orange swatches that some other Giants players got, but this is still good enough to call it a confirmed Giants colored jersey, the first in my collection.

Here’s the full list of Mets-related items you can pull from boxes of 2012 Topps Museum Collection (each box contains one autograph, one autographed relic, one jumbo relic, and one quad relic):

Archival Autographs

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

These are the base autographs in this product but are all limited-production on-card autographs of star players.

Archival Autographs Dual

Numbered to 15

Non-Mets: Willie Mays (with Hank Aaron)

Talk about a holy grail.  This may be one of the best dual autographs since the Mickey Mantle / Ken Griffey Jr. card back in the ’90s.  Expect to pay just shy of $1,000 if you want to pick one up.

Framed Autographs

Gold: Numbered to 15
Silver: Numbered to 10
Black: Numbered to 5

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

This year’s Framed Autographs get a three-tier parallel that brings their total production run even with the lesser Archival Autographs.  I’ll assume that these look just as good as last year’s, but you really need to see them in person to fully appreciate them.

Cut Autographs

Numbered to 1

Non-Mets: Warren Spahn

Cut signature, 1/1, Hall of Famer not known for his time with the Mets.

Momentous Material Jumbo Relics

Silver: Numbered to 50
Gold: Numbered to 35
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 10
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Duke Snider

I have to say, I really like the changes they made from last year’s Titanic Threads.  While the size of the material is down a bit, the big square piece has much better presence and allows for a big player photo next to it.  Pinstripe and colored swatches look great, too bad Wright is stuck with an old gray piece.  We don’t get enough large jerseys these days, so get these while you can.

Momentous Material Jumbo Patch Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Only Wright and Reyes get the patch treatment, but they are some really outstanding patches.  At 5 apiece, don’t expect to have an easy time finding them.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright (with Evan Longoria), Jose Reyes (with Jimmy Rollins)
Non-Mets: Duke Snider (with Matt Kemp)

I don’t mind the inclusion of Longoria because a. prior to his injury, he was one of the best players in the game and b. he plays in a completely different division.  The Reyes-Rollins booklet on the other hand features the shortstops of two NL East division rivals.  And Ruben Tejada isn’t given a single game-used card anywhere.  Otherwise, I love the idea of booklet cards as long as they don’t go nuts with it like Panini did with their infinie booklet cards.  Two is plenty.

Momentous Material Jumbo Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

These have to be some of the most beautiful cards in this product.  Not only is there an autograph and a nice big piece of patch (or, in some unfortunate cases, tag), but most patches are of the premium variety – round sleeve logos or, for Carter, the 25th Anniversary patch.

Momentous Material Jumbo Lumber Relics

Silver: Numbered to 30
Gold: Numbered to 20
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 5
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield

These are just like the regular Momentous Materials Jumbo Relics, only with a round piece of bat instead of a square piece of jersey or bat.  Large bat cards are even harder to find than large jersey cards, so these are a real treat.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Lumber Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Ike Davis, David Wright (with Alex Rodriguez)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (with Harmon Killebrew)

If one is good, two must be better, right?  Wright is once more paired with a third baseman from the AL East (not a bad choice), but the real draw here is the Ike/Wright booklet – this is Ike Davis’s first game-used card in 2012 after a breakout 2011 with lots of jerseys and bats in Topps Marquee and Topps Triple Threads.  Injury and regression hit Davis hard on the field and in the hobby.  It’s still a great card though.

Signature Swatches Dual Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

With these, you get an autograph (sticker of course) and either two swatches of jersey or bat or a jersey swatch and a piece of patch/piping/multicolor jersey.  The variants numbered to 5 include two pieces of patch (if applicable).  David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Signature Swatches Triple Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

Same as the duals only with three swatches and an autograph.  As in the dual version, David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Sadly, this year’s quad relic cards are not an improvement over last year’s.  While having the jersey swatches split to the four corners of the card looks a bit better, there is very little variation between the silver, red, and gold versions.  Every card has three jersey swatches (blue for Reyes, gray or white for Wright) and one swatch with a piece of patch or piping.  As usual, the variants numbered to 5 are all patch swatches.  With a four-tier parallel and four swatches to work with, you would think there could be a bit more variety (some of last year’s went nuts with variations, including what appeared to be a piece of Phillies patch for Beltran, which makes no sense whatsoever).

Primary Pieces Quad Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

The quad relic cards left no room for autographs, so the autographed version is in booklet form.  These are hard to find and highly sought after, but that goes for most of the cards numbered to 10 or less.

Primary Pieces Four-Player Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Jose Reyes (with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez), Jose Reyes (with Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, and Elvis Andrus), Tom Seaver (with Nolan Ryan, Roy Halladay, and C.C. Sabathia)
Non-Mets: Heath Bell (with Brian Wilson, Craig Kimbrel, and Mariano Rivera), Nolan Ryan (listed above)

The four-player version of the Primary Pieces insert set includes some interesting player combinations.  Wright and Reyes appear together with their Yankees counterparts, Seaver makes his only game-used appearance with Nolan Ryan (Seaver’s material is from a Reds jersey while Ryan is shown as an Astros uniform), and Reyes appears again with his future (and now former) teammate Hanley Ramirez.  Heath Bell also has his only game-used cards in this insert set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics Legends

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

The final Primary Pieces insert set featured some of the game’s all-time greats on a slightly different card design.  Carter’s cards contained pieces from a pinstripe jersey (though many pieces did not have stripes) and Mays had a couple of quad bat cards.

And there you have it, the defending Mets Game-Used Product of the Year champion.  Once again, this is clearly the bastard child of 2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade and 2005 SP Legendary Cuts raised by Topps.  With a few more players, this could have been something truly special, instead it’s just pretty damn good.  As with most premium releases, value for the money is a bit of a crap shoot, with some cards selling for less than $10 and others selling for $1000 or more.  I’ll stick with singles on the secondary market over boxes/packs.  Compared to the premium products that followed it in 2012, Museum Collection looks pretty strong.  The variety of players and material is much better than the offerings in Tier One and Five Star and Triple Threads, despite having a better player selection, can’t compete with the quality and availability of the game-used in Museum Collection.  All have their strong points, but I think Museum Collection comes out on top.

Pieces of Shea

Posted by on 19 October 2012 2 comments

How the hobby remembers 45 years of Mets history

On April 17, 1964, the New York Mets finally had a home to call their own.  After spending two years at the Polo Grounds, the Mets began their 45-year stay at Shea Stadium.  It may not have been the fanciest stadium around, but it hosted one All-Star game, four World Series, and a fair number of Hall of Famers.  Unlike the stadium celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, Shea’s era couldn’t go on forever.  In 2008, fans said a final goodbye to the only Mets home many of them had ever known.

A bittersweet part of any stadium demolition (or sometimes even renovation) is the selloff of anything that can be unbolted or torn off.  In the old days, wooden stadium seats would find their way into museums and private collections (and later baseball cards, as seen in this year’s Heritage and Gypsy Queen).  Until its demise, Shea had never been cut up and stuck into cards.  This changed with 2009 Topps Heritage, which featured Shea Stadium memorabilia in its American Heritage Relics insert set.  For the first time ever, fans would be able to buy a tiny piece of their home stadium (if they thought that $100 or more for a plastic seat back was a bit too steep).

The stadium memorabilia of choice in this case was padding from the outfield wall.  The big question though would be who to put on the cards with tiny pieces of blue wall embedded in them.  Mike Piazza had previously appeared on game-used wall cards, but for other stadiums; this of course made no sense because Piazza was a catcher, but that didn’t really matter for these cards.  For Shea though, it wouldn’t do to put the faces of players from other teams alongside the last remnants of the Mets’ former home.  So who would make sense?

Lenny Dykstra immediately comes to mind.  His crashes into the outfield wall earned him the nickname “Nails” (and probably a bit of brain damage), so how could you go wrong with Lenny on an outfield wall card?  Dykstra was flying high as a financial genius at the time, right before filing for bankruptcy and landing in jail on every kind of non-violent felony charge you could imagine (and maybe a few not so non-violent ones).  OK, so we dodged a bullet there

How about the 2000 World Series starting outfield of Benny Agbayani, Jay Payton, and Timo Perez?  Could there be a more unlikely starting outfield in the World Series?  This story would probably play out better if they won that one, but it’s still worth a thought.

You could just go with a big star who played in the outfield at Shea and Willie Mays is about as big as they come.  Despite spending only the very end of his career with the Mets, he is still featured on plenty of cards in blue pinstripes.

There’s always Darryl Strawberry, who still holds several team records (at least until David Wright breaks them).  Or maybe Carlos Beltran, one of the best Mets from the 2008 team.  There are countless stars and fan favorites who could have worked..

Forget all that, there’s only one Mets player who should be on a card with a piece of Shea Stadium’s outfield wall.  The Catch.  For most baseball fans, that phrase is associated with Willie Mays.  To Mets fans though, The Catch is synonymous with Endy Chavez and his picture-perfect home run-robbing catch in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS at Shea, right in the middle of an AIG ad that said “The strength to be there.”  The Catch was such a significant baseball moment that it was even featured in 1 and 1/3 of a second of Fox’s two hour 25th anniversary special this year.  It was just meant to be.

Which is why it never happened.  So who would be deemed worthy of this honor?  Not Mays or Chavez.  Not Dykstra or Strawberry.  Not Benny or Timo.  Not even Beltran.  The winners were Joe Namath, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, President Bill Clinton, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Namath actually played at Shea for most of his career, but what the heck do popes and politicians have to do with the outfield wall at Shea?  Apparently the criteria for selection ended somewhere around “visited the stadium at least once.”  And I guess they couldn’t get the rights to The Beatles.  Worse though is that Endy’s catch, while widely covered in photos, went unrecognized in baseball cards.  Until now (or a few months ago to be precise).

And we finally get to the point of this piece, the 2012 Topps Gypsy Queen Glove Stories card that commemorates The Catch at long last.  It took almost six years, but we finally have a cardboard reminder of one of the best postseason plays in recent history.  If only this could have been combined with the Shea outfield wall cards…

Product Spotlight: Topps Tier 1, Tier One, Tier 1 One, Tier Whatever

Posted by on 2 October 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: Topps Tier 1, Tier One, Tier 1 One, Tier Whatever

Finally, a product that is honest with itself

Look, I don’t buy boxes of premium products.  If I’m going to drop hundreds of dollars on cards, I either want a good number of cards (preferably enough to build a set) or just the premium inserts that I want.  I’m not in this for the gambling, so missing out on a slim chance at a big score is worth it if I can get the cards I want at a reasonable price.  In the case of 2012 Topps Tier One, I spent less than the price of four boxes and got cards that are better than could be expected from four boxes, which is a win in my book.

Base Card

So beautiful

Got ya, there are no base cards!  If there’s one thing that I hate in sports card products, it’s filler.  No, not those blank cards that are used to thicken packs to make it harder to find high-dollar cards by feel.  It’s the base cards in those one-big-ass-hit-per-pack products that seem the most pointless.  I mean, how do you collect base cards when the packs cost $100+ each?  Mix in a few levels of parallels and some inserts to thin things out and you have, at best, some singles you can get a few dollars for because the people who want them aren’t going to drop a few thousand dollars to pull one.  That’s why it was refreshing to see Topps basically say “Look, this is a pure gamble, there’s no collecting to be done here, just a big win or a big loss,” with 2012 Topps Tier One.  Each box contains one pack that in turn contains just three cards, two with autographs and one without (plus a bonus relic in every fourth box).  Based on the Twitter buzz about this product, you would assume that there was a 1/1 bat knob in each pack, but that of course was not to be.  There was still a lot to like about this product, when purchased on the secondary market of course (good advice for any premium product).

Top Shelf Relics / Autographed Relics

If one is boring, three is, um, also boring

Single Relic: Numbered to 399 or 150
Double Relic: Numbered to 50 or less
Triple Relic: Numbered to 25 or less
Autographed Single Relic: Numbered to 99
Autographed Double Relic: Numbered to 25
Autographed Triple Relic: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright (Autographed Relics have not been seen)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (Relics only), Gary Sheffield (Autographed Relics only)

These are the filler relic cards, with even Wright’s triple relic commanding less than $10.  If you pulled one of these as your non-autographed card, well, my condolences.  And stay away from the slot machines.  Like last year’s cards, these are largely forgettable and don’t really get any better with more material.  The usual boring gray jersey swatches don’t help much either.  How long has it been since we’ve seen a pinstripe jersey card from Wright?  Autographed versions may exist for some players, but the checklist doesn’t match up with what has been seen.

Prestigious Patches Relics / Autographed Relics

The thin blue line makes a crappy patch

Relic: Numbered to 10
Autographed Relic: Numbered to 10

Mets: Dwight Gooden, Rickey Henderson (Autographed Relic only), Eddie Murray (Autographed Relic only), David Wright (Autographed Relic only)
Non-Mets: Willie Mays (Relic only), Nolan Ryan (Relic only), Tom Seaver (Relic only), Warren Spahn (Relic only)

A better relic pull would be one of these jumbo relics.  Most of these are patches, but Wright has large pieces of gray jersey with blue piping instead (Topps and I clearly have different definitions of ‘patch’).  Gooden and Murray have nice big Mets patches, which at least explains why Murray is shown as a Met here.  In general, I’m really getting tired of seeing Murray, Henderson, and Ryan shown as Mets, but I’ll allow it if the purpose is to match the material in the card.

Bat Knobs

Numbered to 1

Mets: Gary Carter, Jose Reyes, Tom Seaver
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Duke Snider, Darryl Strawberry

And here’s the real relic draw.  With going rates around $800 for most players, a bat knob pull would make up for a few boxes of garbage.  It is also extremely unlikely (odds are 1 in 204 packs).  Pulls of a lifetime tend to be somewhat rare.  But they sure look nice.

Crowd Pleasers Autographs

Blue: Numbering Varies
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Ike Davis, Ed Kranepool, David Wright
Non-Mets: George Foster

On the autograph side of things, you have several mostly identical insert sets.  Crowd Pleasers are landscape-oriented cards featuring on-card autographs in either blue ink on a white background or White/Silver/Gold ink on a black background.  These are some sharp-looking cards and have ink colors that you don’t really see much anymore now that Sweet Spot is gone.  The player selection is fairly standard but better than most products, with David Wright and Ike Davis representing the current Mets and Ed Kranepool representing retired Mets.  It’s always nice to see more Kranepool, but some more variety would have been welcome.  Luckily, there are plenty more autograph insert sets to work with.

On the Rise Autographs

Blue: Numbering Varies
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Jon Niese
Non-Mets: None

These are essentially the same as Crowd Pleasers, only with portrait orientation.  Jon Niese is the lone Mets representative here.

Top Tier Autographs

Blue: Numbered to 50
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Same as above, more or less.  Of course they throw in Nolan Ryan here as a Met…

Everything Else

Top Shelf Relics Legends

Single Relic: Numbered to 50
Double Relic: Numbered to 15

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Clear Rookie Reprint Autographs

Numbered to 25

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Mays never stops signing autographs apparently.

Double Autographs, Triple Autographs, Cut Signatures, Elevated Ink

Nothing worth noting.

Verdict

There’s some nice stuff here, but it feels awfully redundant sandwiched between Museum Collection and Triple Threads.  It was refreshing for Topps to drop the pretense that anyone is buying these for anything other than the big hits, but what does that say about this product’s identity?  For Mets fans, this product is all about the autographs, but even that is only a draw because of how little variety there’s been in other products.  Outside of Archives, there’s been little to choose from in on-card autographs beyond Wright and Ryan, and even Tier 1 only adds Kranepool, Niese, and Davis (plus some very nice parallel ink colors).  Beef up the autograph offerings in the other products and Tier 1 becomes completely unnecessary.  Next year, Topps should drop the non-base cards from this product and come up with some new ideas.  How about autographs on manufactured material, has anybody done that yet?

2012 Mets Debut Autographs

Posted by on 25 September 2012 Comments Off on 2012 Mets Debut Autographs

Familia and familiar faces

The September call-up tradition usually means a big influx of minor leaguers for the season’s final weeks, with teams getting up to 15 additional players to use as they see fit. For the Mets, this meant calling back most of the players who had been up with the club at some point this season plus two new faces. Jeurys Familia made his much-anticipated debut in relief, a role that most of the experts see him in long-term. Fred Lewis, who spent time with the Giants and the Reds before having a quietly solid season in Buffalo, made his Mets debut in the following inning as a pinch hitter. Everyone else shown here was back up with the big league club at the end of the season except Kirk Nieuwenhuis (AAA DL), Vinny Rottino (claimed off waivers), Rob Johnson (DL), Jack Egbert (AAA DL), Omar Quintanilla (given away to the Orioles), and Garrett Olson (finished the season in Buffalo). And this is the way the season ends.

Andres Torres Ronny Cedeno Ramon Ramirez Jon Rauch
5 April 2012 5 April 2012 5 April 2012 5 April 2012
Frank Francisco Kirk Nieuwenhuis Jordany Valdespin Jeremy Hefner
5 April 2012 7 April 2012 23 April 2012 23 April 2012
Zach Lutz Vinny Rottino Rob Johnson Robert Carson
24 April 2012 4 May 2012 9 May 2012 18 May 2012
Jack Egbert Omar Quintanilla Elvin Ramirez Justin Hampson
28 May 2012 29 May 2012 3 June 2012 25 June 2012
Josh Edgin Matt Harvey Garrett Olson Kelly Shoppach
13 July 2012 26 July 2012 8 August 2012 16 August 2012
Collin McHugh Jeurys Familia Fred Lewis
23 August 2012 4 September 2012 4 September 2012

Previous Entries:

Hello, goodbye

Between offseason acquisitions, injury replacements, and general roster crunch, a lot of players have made their first Mets appearance in 2012 – 16 in the first three months of the season. Of those, most have spent time on the DL, been sent down to the minors, or, in the case of Vinny Rottino, been put on waivers and claimed by the Indians. Jon Rauch has been healthy but became a major scapegoat after getting hit hard in a few games and Kirk Nieuwenhuis earned a call-up when Andres Torres was injured on opening day and has stuck around ever since. Omar Quintanilla is the only other call-up with a chance of sticking long-term, largely because of his lack of options and the Mets’ lack of depth at shortstop. With the Mets still in contention, the looming trade deadline should bring in some new faces by the trade deadline.

It’s Harvey time!

Back in April, you may have been wondering how many starting pitchers the Mets would have to lose to call up Matt Harvey before August. The answer turns out to be three, with Pelfrey and Gee out for the season and Santana on the DL. As the Mets spiral out of contention, it’s time to see who’s ready for next year. That means we get to see Harvey pitch for the big league club in late July. For a team that was expected to finish in super-last place and trade all of its players with a pulse for a can of nuts with a springing snake in it, a decent first-half run and a couple months of Harvey in the rotation isn’t a bad deal. While he may have exceeded all expectations in his first start (5-1/3IP 0ER 3H 2BB 11K, plus 1-2/3 scoreless innings from fellow 2010 draft pick and July call-up Josh Edgin), it will take a while to see if he will live up to the hype.

From Fenway to Flushing

And then there were two. With Johan Santana out for the season, only Jon Niese and R.A. Dickey have lasted this far in starting rotation. I thought Jeff Kent was supposed to be on Survivor, not the Mets starters… Taking Johan’s slot (initially at least) will be Collin McHugh, who has had a great year so far in Binghamton and Buffalo, despite being overshadowed by Zack Wheeler at both stops. McHugh’s last minor league start before his call-up was at Fenway Park for Futures at Fenway, where he pitched 7 scoreless innings in Buffalo’s 2-0 win over the Pawtucket Red Sox. His next destination would turn out to be another big league park as he was tapped to start at Citi Field the following Thursday, where he went another 7 scoreless innings against the Rockies. Kelly Shoppach made a similar trip by way of the Boston Red Sox. Claimed on waivers and traded for PTBNL Pedro Beato, Shoppach was acquired in an attempt to improve offensive production at catcher. The deal also gives the Mets staff a close look at Shoppach, who will be a free agent at the end of the season and was in their sights last offseason. Shoppach homered for his first hit with the Mets and has been a big part of the team’s recent resurgence.

10 Lee Mazzilli Autograph Cards Every Fan Should Own

Posted by on 24 September 2012 Comments Off on 10 Lee Mazzilli Autograph Cards Every Fan Should Own

Shamelessly pandering to Mets Police

It’s been a rough nine months here at Collect The Mets as I realize just what is involved in scanning and presenting thousands of cards, especially when I keep buying more cards faster than I can process them.  It doesn’t help when I go off on tangents like game recaps.  The content just isn’t going up as fast as I would like and the readership suffers as a result.  The Twitter followership is doing well by comparison, but that’s probably because I don’t tweet often enough to be annoying.

So it wasn’t too much of a shock that I didn’t make the Mets Police Twitter 86 list.  If anything, I probably owe 86% of my Twitter followers to Mets Police.  I knew what I needed to do to get more attention though – more cowbell, er, I mean more Mazzilli.  And so I reached back into my extensive archives to put together this piece.

Longtime readers will know that Lee Mazzilli has been in my autograph collection since the early ’90s, when I met him at an autograph signing in Filene’s.  When certified autograph cards became all the rage, Mazzilli was sadly absent amid all of the Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Davey Johnson, Mookie Wilson, and even Kevin Mitchell autographs.

2003 Sweet Spot Classic

Presumably, there are no more than 25 Mazzilli fans. Otherwise, this could be a problem…

Fans would have to wait until 2003 for the first Lee Mazzilli certified autographs.  Upper Deck finally ended the drought with three Yankee Greats autographs in 2003 Sweet Spot Classic.  This was a three-tier parallel autograph set featuring blue autographs (not numbered), black autographs (numbered to 100 or less), and red autographs (numbered to 25).  Other notable Mets in this insert set include Dwight Gooden and David Cone.

2003 UD Yankees Signature

It wasn’t a long wait for Mazzilli’s next autograph appearance in 2003 UD Yankees Signature.  The Pride of New York autograph insert set featured just about every notable person ever associated with the Yankees, so finding Mazzilli in there wasn’t a big surprise.  Also featured in this set are Don Zimmer, Dwight Gooden, David Cone, and several other Mets whose first names do not start with D.

Mazzilli was also featured on the Pinstripe Excellence dual autograph insert set with fellow also-Met Mike Torrez.  Like Mazzilli, Torrez was also on the small-town autograph circuit in the early ’90s, though for some reason I have two of his autographs from back then.

Upper Deck was on a massive Yankees kick in 2003.

But that’s not all!  Mazzilli was featured two more times in 2003 Yankees Signature, this time on a pair of Yankees Forever triple autograph insert cards.  Triple autographs are common these days when you can just slap three sticker autos on a card and call it a day, but in the olden days, you had to get three different people to physically handle the card for these sort of things.  With guys like Paul O’Neill and Dave Winfield on these cards, Mazzilli clearly wasn’t the main draw.

2006 Fleer Greats of the Game

Surprisingly, Mazzilli did not have any autograph cards in 2004 or 2005, when products like UD Timeless Teams, UD Past Time Pennants, Topps All-Time Fan Favorites, Topps Originals, and Donruss Timelines went heavy on players from the ’86 Mets.  His next appearance would be in the UD-produced 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game.  In addition to the base Greats of the Game Autographs card, Mazzilli was featured in the Nickname Greats insert set with the inscription “Italian Stallion.”  These would be Mazzilli’s first sticker autographs.  At least he was finally shown as a Met.  Other Mets featured in one or both of these sets include David Cone, Sid Fernandez (“El Sid”), Howard Johnson (“HoJo”), Tom Seaver, and Rusty Staub (“Le Grand Orange”).

2007 Sweet Spot Classic

Things came around full circle when Mazzilli made his final autograph appearance in 2007 Sweet Spot Classic.  Unlike the 2003 version, this one shows him as a Met.  Also unlike the 2003 version (as well as just about every Sweet Spot autograph from the era), only one version of this card was produced, numbered to 199.  Other Mets in this set include Tom Seaver and Keith Hernandez, all with cards numbered to 16.

And that’s all there is.  Mazzilli has never had an autograph card in a non-UD product and has never had a game-used memorabilia card.  If you’re looking for a premium Mazzilli card, these ten are the only ones you have to choose from.

Update: Two more Lee Mazzilli autographs for the obsessive collector

What a difference a year makes.  After not having any certified autograph cards for five years, Lee Mazzilli was back in action with more autographs and not just for Upper Deck.  Still nothing from Topps though…

2012 SP Signature

Technically, this 2012 SP Signature Mazzilli autograph existed back when I originally wrote this piece.  However, being from the unlicensed Upper Deck and featuring no player photograph, it was an easy one to overlook.  Upper Deck didn’t even release a checklist for this product, instead letting the product “speak for itself” and encouraging collectors to check out YouTube and eBay for more information.  So yeah, this exists, Lee Mazzilli’s autograph on a sticker stuck on a generic card.  Mazzilli’s autograph also exists on a 6-player autograph card (numbered to 10) and an 8-player autograph card (numbered to 2).  I will almost certainly never own these, so we’re done having all of Mazzilli’s autographs here.  Oh well.

2013 Panini Hometown Heroes

It only took a decade, but the Upper Deck monopoly on Lee Mazzilli autograph cards has been broken!  Panini included Mazzilli in 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes, their response to Topps Archives.  Hometown Heroes / Fan Favorites, get it?  Already without team names or logos because of that other baseball card monopoly, Panini went with a rather uninspired design and color scheme on Hometown Heroes, one that brings back memories of 2005 Diamond Kings, one of the ugliest products in recent memory.  Blue ink on a light green background just doesn’t work.  At least there’s an actual picture of Mazzilli this time…  Though it doesn’t look like he’s in a Mets uniform.  Parallel versions numbered to 25 and 1 also exist, but what’s the point?  A different border color isn’t going to save this card.

So there you have it, two more autograph cards (plus four low-numbered variants) for you to chase if you need to have everything Lee Mazzilli.  Ball’s in your court, Topps.

Update 2: A long overdue conclusion

2014 Panini Prizm

So I might have skipped an update in 2014 and neglected to add Mazzilli’s 2014 Panini Prizm autograph to the list in a timely manner… Panini’s back with a second helping of Mazzilli after his appearance in the (thankfully) one-off 2013 Hometown Heroes. It’s a sticker autograph and shows him in what apparently started as a Mets jersey before Panini’s crack Photoshop team sucked the soul clean out of the iconic racing stripe jersey. This time around, there are no parallels, just a lone abomination. Still waiting on you, Topps…

2020 Topps Archives

Eight years after I started this post, it has finally happened – Topps has released a Lee Mazzilli autograph! It only took them to the, um, 72nd Mets Fan Favorites Autograph (and 79th base Mets Archives autograph overall) to get him into Topps Archives. Still, it’s a beauty – portrait orientation, on-card autograph, full MLB licensing, and a proper Mets pinstripe jersey. An early ’80s Mets pinstripe jersey from his first stint with the team and not the iconic mid-’80s racing stripe jersey… It’ll have to do, we might not get another one of these. Well, other than the multitude of parallels. Four parallels join the base version, including a gold border 1/1 not shown here. That brings our total to 22 different Lee Mazzilli autographs, five of which I may never see. And I’d say that’s enough.