I pulled a cut sig today!

So I bought a pack of Celebrity Cuts. I pulled a presidential auto of Thomas Jefferson 1/3. Nah, just kidding, I still haven't bought any American Sports Cards this year. In fact, I might start making my own presidential cut signatures since ya know, the cut autos might not even be signed by the Presidents. This also has been reported on Wax Heaven, The Sports Card File, and Sports Card Uncensored.

The sports industry is not like any other business industry in the world. Not only do customers come into venues to watch the event or their favorite players, but they take in the atmosphere that comes with it. That hot dog you chomp on during a day game on July 4th, standing in the friendly confines of Wrigley during the 7th Inning Stretch, watching your favorite football team launch a 40 yard TD pass and high fiving the other frantic fans around you. This is your product you purchased. Those same people do not go to their job and high five when they get their budget reports sent on time, there is no wave at the Monday morning briefing. Hell failed "executives" and "managers" in sports aren't shunned from the industry when they fail, they are simply recycled from one team to another because they've already made it this far, so how bad could they be? In any other industry, they screw up, kiss goodbye ever trying to get a job in their respective field again. And that's why so many people take to sports. It's a place to take their minds away from reality, and why so many of us stay wrapped up in sports and write these blogs.

Sports cards are no different. We can all sit around and rip open packs and talk about the cards we pull in them. Pulling that autograph or memorabilia piece of your favorite player can leave you on a Cloud 9 high for days or even weeks. Slowly for a lot of us, the passion we have for this industry is fading away by crooks. The people running this industry are destroying it while they swindle plenty of ill-advised collectors of their hard earned cash.

Razor seems to be the worst of the bunch as of late. And that's unfortunate because they are a new company trying to get a foothold in the game. They picked up some good first round picks to exclusive deals. Throw in some presidential cut sigs and the brand now has some power in the industry. They can now play with Topps and Upper Deck. Unfortunately they are not playing against them, they are playing with them. People are dropping insane amounts of cash on cards that might not even be legit. That should never have ever happened from major companies. Gimmick cards that show players throwing no hitters in the future, superstars from one club being in jerseys of another, parallels that aren't parallels. This stuff has got to stop. The sad part is, it never will because it makes money off of sucker customers.

Unfortunately for those of us who know enough about this industry (bloggers for the most part), we are watching our childhood past-time die slowly every day.

Topps, Upper Deck, and Razor make nice products but I won't see myself buying any of their products this year if all of this gimmick crap keeps up. I already am welcoming Panini and it's line of basketball cards into America with open arms.

March Update

This is my first post since February 19. In that time span there have been quite a few releases of baseball cards from the big two. Having read about them and scouring Ebay, I honestly have no desire to collect any of those cards. Error cards and rare chase cards plus the whole "black" parallel set that is in Wal-Mart and Target, unreal. A Hanley Ramirez in a Sox uniform that says "2008". I literally refuse to spend money on this garbage anymore. It also doesn't help the fact that even if I wanted to buy cards, I can't. Over the last few months I barely have money to do anything, let alone buy cards. The economy has killed what little income I have not to mention the fact that bills are coming in at a resounding rate, but I guess this is what I have to look forward to in growing up.

Most likely, I'm going to end up selling a majority of my cards for whatever I can get, which will probably end up being around $5, if I'm lucky. I'd much rather trade what I have away for Grady Sizemore cards, so if you'd be interested in that, let me know. I do still have to mail out John's cards to England (sorry it's taken forever!). I appreciate your patience and you'll be rewarded for it all throughout this summer when I move back home.

Also, tickets for the National have gone on sale, so if you plan on attending you should get them soon before they increase the price. I should be in attendance one of the days.

Lastly this blog will still talk about sportscards but as of right now, posting on here will not be frequent. Hopefully I'll have time to write some decent articles this summer.

Tottenham One and Done UEFA Cup

Well, the away leg is upon us. Redknapp is at least smart enough to realize that the UEFA Cup is something we don't need on our plates at the moment. We also don't need 6 games in 17 days, but what is a team to do, sometimes clustered fixtures happen.

Spurs are resting or not even bringing these players to Ukraine:
Modric
Woodgate
Cudicini
Lennon
Palacios

These players are injured:
O'Hara
King
Defoe

Cup Tied Players:
Corluka
Keane
Pavlyuchenko

Holy shit. Even if Harry wanted to bring guys with him, there isn't many to choose from. As of 1:30ish EST, I have no idea what our starting 11 will look like, other than slotting in Dawson, Chimbonda (haha), Gomes, Frazier and Bent. After the US vs Mexico game where Gio ran wild for 72 odd minutes, I wonder if he'll be traveling to Ukraine to get some time. I hope he does just so it shuts up all the Spurs fans who think Gio was a waste buy. Does he fit the Comolli signing guide, yes. Is he full of talent, of course. I just hope Spurs make a horrible mistake and sell Gio.

If Spurs can get a draw out of this match, I'll be happy because I think we could push past Shakhtar at the Lane.

Starting 11:

--------------------Gomes-----------------

Gunter---Dawson----Huddlestone----Chimbonda

Bentley----Parrot(1st Start)--Jenas[C]--Zokora---Gio

-------------------Campbell------------------


Subs:
Bostock
Bent


EDIT: Starting 11 is very alright. Don't have word on all the subs as of right now. The pitch apparently is horrible and I don't have a Feed for the game yet, still have the Udinese game on, which is now at 2-2! Updates to follow.

EDIT 2: Half-time. 0-0 still. I actually went out to get some food during the first half, which shows how much emphasis I'm putting on this match. Looking foward to our league play more than anything now, which nearly all Spurs fans are the same. Dario Srna plays for Donetsk, forgot about that.

Fun trivia question during Half Time: Who is the most famous player to come through Donetsk?

A: Sergei Rebrov. Yikes.

I also cannot forget about our American Sports here. Only 8 more minutes until the NBA Trade Deadline is over. So far the Cavs have been linked with quite a few players, but most notably Shaq. Unreal stuff right there. I'm on the fence about if I want us to make a move. I think it's imperative, however I don't want the chemistry to be broken up, or lose Wally.

69': Bent comes on for Gio. Bentley moves to the left, Campbell moves over to the right side. Still running a 4-5-1. Hopefully we can get some magic out of Bent and score on a counter. Donetsk pushes up a lot and hopefully we can catch them off guard.

78': Goal for Donetsk. They brought on a sub and within 10 seconds the sub scores. All the fault is put on Gomes for sure. Completely out of place for the ball. Gomes came out and was in complete no-man's land and tried to punch the ball away, even though he was at least 2 yards away from ever touching it. Unreal. He's tried to give this away by throwing the ball to a defender who was 23 yards out. Now Gomes is down and about to be carted off by the stretcher. Unbelievable how fast this guy has fallen from grace after being with PSV.

88': Just as John Bostock is about to come on Donetsk scores their second. Bad defending by the back 4 as Jadsen (sp?) puts the ball across the body of Gomes. Bostock comes on for Parratt, who looked fantastic today. Hopefully he'll continue to impress. I was going to do a write up about how a 1-0 lead going back to WHL wouldn't be to bad, but having to score 3 is going to be nearly impossible, especially on our form all year. Well, nice to get this out of the way and focus strictly on league play.

UEFA Cup Feb. 18 2009

Plenty of games going on today.


18:00 Dynamo Kyiv ? - ? Valencia
18:15 Zenit St. Petersburg ? - ? Stuttgart
18:30 Olympiakos Piraeus ? - ? Saint-Etienne
20:00 Aston Villa ? - ? CSKA Moscow
20:35 Werder Bremen ? - ? AC Milan
20:45 Bordeaux ? - ? Galatasaray
20:45 NEC Nijmegen ? - ? Hamburger SV
20:45 Paris S.G. ? - ? Wolfsburg
20:45 Sampdoria ? - ? Metalist Kharkiv
21:00 Aalborg BK ? - ? Deportivo La Coruna
21:45 Braga ? - ? Standard Liege

Predictions of winners are bolded.

This soccer/football tournament is comparable to the NIT Invitational for College Basketball. While the UEFA Champions League is the biggest clubs in the world (sorry AC Milan), the UEFA Cup still have some of the larger teams however these are more of the "second tier" of club teams in Europe. I'm hoping that Olympiakos beats St. Etienne, just because Comolli works for Eteinne. Villa-CSKA should be a really good game. And it'd be incredible to see Werder Bremen beat AC Milan. Hopefully Hugo Almeida can put 2 away and finish off Milan, but most likely not. Last but not least, Hamburger SV should have an easy time with NEC Nijmegen. Spurs played them last year without much troubles, and Hamburger should do the same. Not to mention Martin Jol is in charge over there in Germany with two quality fowards (Mladen Petric, Ivica Olic).

Spurs playing tomorrow against Shakhtar Donetsk. Game is away and Redknapp is talking about not having Luka travel with the club due to hurting his ankle. With Keane, Corluka, and nearly the rest of the club ineligible to play due to Cup ties, we can all but kiss UEFA Cup done. Having Darren Bent up top alone is bad, but factor in that there isn't anyone to command in midfield (except Lennon who doesn't have an end product) and there really isn't a need to watch this match if you don't have to. At least with the defense we should be okay, maybe. Ledley is out. But the way Dawson has played we shouldn't need Ledders. I'll for sure be watching just to see how the reserve squad plays, who knows maybe Zokora will go crazy and score a brace. Haha, just kidding.

Dunk Contest Equals Lame

Rudy Fernandez was screwed. His first dunk was incredible. Behind the back pass off the backboard and slammed into the net. That received a 42. Dwight Howard bounces a basketball on the court and receives a 100 score. Sure Sprite and the NBA are going to cater towards the bigger NBA star in Howard, but the voters seriously cannot sit there and say Fernandez's dunk was worse than Howard's. Oh, wait, that won't happen because Dwight still has their heads around his waist.

Everyone's prop dunk used a teammate or another player of some sort. Smith tried an awesome from the stands pass that didn't work out. Rudy got Gasol to pass off the back of the backboard for Rudy to slam it in, which took 9 tries. During the first 8 the voters talked all kinds of shit on Rudy about how they could make that dunk. Yeah, go for it you fat asses. I'll give a pass to Larry Nance because he isn't that kind of person to gloat or talk down on a player, at least not on National TV. The 9th time he nailed the dunk, which should have scored at least a 46, regardless of attempts.

I completely understand the dunk contest was rigged and geared towards Dwight Howard. C'mon, a phone booth and 12 foot hoop? The retarded analyst who would sound like Carlos Mencia (who is the worst human on the planet)? Was all of this necessary David Stern?

And that brings me to another point. David Stern looked completely bored during Rudy's dunks. You should be excited that Rudy was voted in this contest, not by the American/Canadian Contingent, rather everyone that voted from Spain.

Earth to the NBA and Sprite, if you want to become huge in the global market, it'd probably help to push Rudy during this contest. Not to say they aren't already huge globally, but it still wouldn't hurt to try.

It was a really nice touch by Rudy to wear the Fernando Martin jersey during his dunk last night. Fernando was the first Spanish player to play in the NBA, with Portland. Martin was also killed in a car accident at age 28, eerily similar to one of my favorite NBA players, Drazen Petrovic. Drazen was also brought into the league by Portland and is credited as starting the influx of European players into the league. Sadly enough, Drazen was killed in a car accident at age 28.

Hopefully I'll be able to see Rudy play in March when the come to Cleveland.

Update

So I haven't updated in nearly a week. Between work and school, I barely have time to do anything...especially update a blog. I owe John from the UK a package, it's basically waiting to get shipped out, hopefully I'll have time do that within the coming week. Luckily, there isn't much to blog about in the card world right now, but I'll talk about a few topics:

1. Topps Mayo. Why would anyone buy a set of cards that is based off a condiment? Honestly, that alone makes me never want to touch the crap. Not to mention that it was completely false advertised. Great job!

2. A-Rod. hahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Although, it scares me that since he is named, MLB is going to become nothing anymore in the public's eye. If A-Rod got caught, nobody is untouchable. I believe that's how the sport should be, but man, the black eye that sport will have for the next few decades could be a monumental disaster.

Last Minute Transfers

Today is officially the last day for Euro soccer to transfer players amongst teams.

I'll be live blogging as the events go down, mostly about Tottenham.

So far we're linked back with Robbie Keane. This is after the whole "tapping up" nonsense Rafa said we did. Spurs weren't the one tapping up Robbie, Rafa, you were a few months ago.

Also linked to Quaresma of Inter. Weird pairing. Mourinho would want Jenas if we were selling, which Jenas to Inter is about as odd as any transfer window could ever be.

Talk about selling Darren Bent. His goal scoring has been inconsistent, but when broken down over the season, the ratio of goals scored to games played is solid. Not many people are big on Bent, but he's in the wrong system at Spurs, not his fault. To me, this is reminiscent of fans not liking Defoe, even though he was decent for us behind Keane-Berbatov. Moment we sold Defoe and Keane and Berbs left, everyone was crying to get JD back at Spurs. So we did, and now look how that is turning out.

Also, Arshavin is still in the news. I'm getting really tired of the Russian.

EDIT: 2:30pm:

Robbie Keane is once again going to be wearing the Lilywhite and Blue. Unreal. Not even 6 months at the boyhood dream club and it's deemed a massive failure. Guranteed this will be an undisclosed transfer fee.

All we need now is to sign Mido from 'Boro and we'll have our lovely striking squad from 2005-2006. Man what I'd give for Edgar Davids back. Hopefully Palacios will be our new Davids, then our midfield might actually be able to perform. Although why Redknapp loves Zokora is beyond me. Wish he rated him highly when he was still at Pompey, could have sold him off for a nice few million.

Quaresma ends up at Chelsea. This will be a fun end run for Chelsea. A moody player is all they need, especially one who is very much off and on. I'd gladly bet this turns into a Sheva type outcome, but with attitude.




More to come!