One of the things that I think people of all political persuasions can agree on, is that when it comes to sports and politics, they really don’t want to hear about the latter. I follow politics pretty closely but much of the reason that I follow sports even closer is to get away from all the political garbage (but Phil this is a blog I read about sports and now you are bring up politics…I feel confused…).
The reason I bring this up is there were two big events on TV Wednesday night. The Cowboys v. Giants and Bill Clinton’s speech at the DNC. You might be interested to know that the game got much higher ratings. It brought to my mind the question of why? Why did the NFL game get higher ratings? Why do many like me go to sports to get away from politics? Heck it’s our love of sports and the cards associated with them that has us all here right?
A couple reasons came to mind:
1. Sports are so much more objective. For instance, when the running back fumbles the ball, he fumbles it – sure there could be an instant replay but there is no doubt that the ball left his hands, the only question might be when. If the other team recovers, then that player bears the consequences, it’s really rather simple. The ability to hold onto the ball (again, a simple thing) can dramatically change the course of one’s career. Now, lets compare this to our politicians and even this current campaign. There have been “fumbles” by many major politicians and there undoubtedly will be more. However, instead of admitting the turnover and mistake the fans of one team usually wind up crowing “oh my gosh that was a game changer, worst turnover ever, they can’t recover.” And what does the other team say? “We didn’t fumble the ball at all, that was an illusion what you saw there. You probably need to get your eyes checked. If you think that was a fumble you must hate the middle class, or women, or small business, or just generally be a racist bigoted arse whose existence on this earth revolves solely around the oppression of others for your own benefit and frankly the fact that you even brought up the question makes me think much less of you as a human being….” and breath…..if you recall how Newman’s face gets really red and he starts sweating when goes on a rant, yeah that happened to me just then.
2. INSTANT GRATIFICATION NOWZ!! This is the beauty of watching the Cowboys Giants game last night. We know who won. We know how many TDs Romo and Eli had, we know how many yards were gained and so on and so on. With things like political speeches at a convention all we can do is apply some scientific measurements to the volume of hot air emanating from mouths on the stage. And yes if you were wondering these measurements would have include a number to the power of another larger number, or for those of you more familiar with your keyboard that means the little “carrot” that happens when you hit Shift+6. Unfortunately the hot air doesn’t stop when the speeches do because then the real fun begins as pundits and others try to predict what impact such a speech will have on the election (as if most people will even remember it!!!) and phrases like “that speech defined the campaign,” “he was so presidential,” and on and on and on. If you’ve read the Hot List before you know how I often disparage the Booyah network and much of it is because they’ve turned hiring mediocre to downright crappy ex-NFL players and having them over-analyze games into an art. I don’t know how many times I’ve already heard “what does this tell us about the Giants?” since last night. Ummm, what does it tell us. I’m going to go with nothing, they lost 7, yes 7 games last year and went on to win the Super Bowl. But at least we know who won last night.
3. Camaraderie. I have some fairly distinct views from a policy perspective that I think many that I interact with in my every day life would heartily disagree with. But here’s the thing… WE GET ALONG FINE. It’s true, I’m a Chargers fan that lives in a Chiefs land. An Illini fan in KU land, a Cubs fan in a Royals land (eh, that one may be irrelevant) and I actually have these people I know that I call friends. The thing is most of us are pretty normal people living rather normal lives (admit it, you’re not that interesting!) and we get along just fine but for whatever reason politics and the people associated with it just love dragging out the nastiest little parts of people, blowing them up like a hot air balloon, taking off and proceeding to drop crap on everyone from the sky. Those of us who like watching sports and collecting cards have lots of different interests and opinions but we often sit around and discuss all these things without blowing a gasket and in fact, build relationships around them.
So speaking of discussing, lets get to it.
1. Kevin Ogeltree Rookie Autos
Comments: All we heard about for the past few weeks as it goes for Cowboys wide receivers was Dez Bryant’s round the clock security team everywhere he could go and not go and blah blah blah. What you heard less of was the fact that Miles Austin and Dez Bryant are very very good and that means Kevin Ogeltree is going to get covered by someone a lot less good (don’t you love my English there? Feel free to pronounce good in as bizarre of an accent as you need). This manifested itself last night when Ogeltree played the part of Laurent Robinson i.e. the fantasy guy who no one had on their roster but puts up huge numbers that makes the owners of the other Cowboys WRs start screaming bloody murder. So anyway in big D if you make big plays you get big noticed (again with the English?). Kevin’s Elite Autos which sold for couple bucks last week were selling for over $20 as of last night.
2. Kris Medlen 2006 Bowman Chrome Draft Parallels
Comments: You may or may not have noticed that we have “a few” Braves fans on the boards. I got a text from one of these fans this week that said in short “Medlen on the list or I keeeeeel you.” Look up Jeff Dunham on youtube if you need to understand “keeeeeeeel.” There are two fortunate things here, #1 – I don’t bend to pressure but #2 – Medlen is totally deserving. The N.L. pitcher of the month (4-0 and an absurd .50 ERA) has seen his blue refractor parallels go from $20 to $70 overnight and this is the first time that we’ve seen some action on the ’06 Chrome Draft set in some time. I was going to try and work in a Medellin cartel joke here somehow but given I’d already gone the terrorist angle I figured we’d keep the violence to a minimum.
3. T.J. Yeldon 2012 Leaf Autos
Comments: T.J. Yeldon is a part of the reason that Alabama is #1 in this week’s poll. I’m a Big Ten guy but Michigan was over-ranked and in spite of that Alabama was still impressive and if you were watching #4, he was REALLY impressive. BINs were hit all over the place on cards that previously hadn’t been moving and if you buy into the hype this is just the beginning. The tour autos immediately went from $40ish up to $100.
4. Brock Holt 2011 Chrome Autos
Comments: Often to do a little research on perhaps why those nominated for the Hot List make it here I google the name and when I did that for Brock Holt the article “A Holt of Lightning” came up. I mean, man, I go too far with the bad jokes on a regular basis but that’s just horrible. Nonetheless Brock was called up and through the first few games has played very well. Brock’s Chrome autos were at an astounding $2 prior to his call up and so makes the bar pretty low to jump over. In fact, you don’t even have to jump to make it over. Brock’s Chrome Autos bounced to $10 and there you have it.
5. Demarco Murray 2011 Auto Rookies
Comments: So a couple years ago if someone had told you “Adrian Peterson isn’t going to be the best OU back in the NFL.” What would you have said? Called them some nasty word or would you have believe that AP’s hard running style would indeed result in injuries some day? Regardless, Demarco went beast mode on a Giants D that helped them to the Super Bowl last year and immediately collectors remembered to go look for Demarco’s cards on eBay causing SP Authentics like the one above to pop 50% overnight.
6. Jurickson Profar 2011 Bowman Chrome Autos
Comments: Short and sweet. Nothing like hitting a HR in your first at bat when you are called up to the big leagues as an extremely hyped prospect. Chrome Autos went from $75 to over $100 this week.
7. Shelby Miller 2010 Bowman Chrome Autos
Comments: Speaking of big league call ups of highly hyped prospects, Shelby has been a big name since going in the 2009 draft and having a card released in 2009 elite. However, his big card has since been the 2010 Bowman Chrome Auto and that’s the card that was moving from $20 to $30 as a result of his call up.
8. 2011 Topps Heritage Avisail Garcia Minor League Auto
Comments: Another September call up, Avisail has made a big impact quickly in Detroit and his Heritage Autos moved from $15 to $25 this week.
9. Nick Foles 2012 Autos
Comments: Do you think that collectors are banking on Vick getting hurt? It sure seems so with the prices that Foles autos are going for, the Finest patches /250 above were going for $25 last week and moved up to $35 this week. Maintaining card prices as a back up quarterback is not easy.
10. Oscar Taveras Chrome Parallels
Comments: Oscar had an absolutely monster year in the Texas League and everything, I repeat, everything is selling. This includes blue refractors non-autos for up to $40 this week!