Wax Heaven

The year was 1997 and a new product made it’s debut; Bowman Chrome. It would go on to become perhaps the greatest brand in the history of the hobby (Check the Beckett Top 20 every month) but today the once SUPER HOT debut is now worthless.

I remember going to my baseball card store with a hard-earned $20 and buying two packs and pulling the likes of Shawn Green and Troy O’Leary and standing next to a business man opening four Hobby boxes and pulling refractors, autographs, Kerry Wood and Jose Cruz Jr. rookies and more. It was a painful reminded that I could not compete with these jerks just yet.

The great thing is that today those two players’ career came crashing down faster than a Mark McGwire homerun record. Kerry Wood, fresh from striking out 20 batters in a game hurt himself; over and over and over and over again. Cruz, Jr. went from overshadowing the legendary, immortal, future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. in his first season to become perhaps the biggest waste of talent of the last twenty years.

Why is it all the Jose’s that let me down…?

After 10 long years of collecting baseball cards I quit cold turkey as a 17 year-old. To me pursuing girls and having a vehicle was just way more interesting to me than trying to afford a pack of SP Leaf Limited or whatever the fuck was big then. Packs of baseball cards had gone up from an average of .99 cents /$2.00 a pack to 8,9, or even 10 dollars a pack by then. I just could not keep up with the big boys.

Well, it’s 2007 and I have a well-paying job so I decided to jump back in. Today’s cards have autographs, pieces of jerseys, and even bats right on them! It’s amazing. I started out with a hot product called Topps Co-Signers hoping to snatch up a then very hot Daisuke Matsuzaka rookie card. Instead I ended up pulling a Michael Bourn autograph. Maybe if this guy was an actual prospect I would have been satisfied but from the looks of it all this guy can do is run the bases. At best he is a career .270 hitter with 20-30 stolen bases for his first five years and then he’s a utility guy.

It wasn’t so bad. I enjoyed the thrill of opening up the box so since then I have bought at least 10 other Hobby boxes, some for as high as $180 and I have pulled no card higher than $50. It’s not about the price cause I remember buying Big Mac’s USA Topps card for $30 and watching it go all the way up to almost $300 in less than a year and never thought once of selling it, but damn it feels good to have a card that is wanted by the people. The problem is that today I am stuck with SIX, yes six Michael Bourn autographs. This guy shouldn’t have six cards period, let alone 6 autograph cards. I am sick of him. Please, if there is such a thing as a baseball card God, please stop sending Mr. Bourn my way. How about a good prospect for once? Please?

Michael, cut it out. You don’t look badass at all, with your midget-ass!

Damn, I should have known it was too good to be true. I saw a great lot of Jose Canseco cards, 50 to be exact for under $12 with shipping. Soon as I pay with my Paypal account the owner of the listing, a douchebag by the name of “jellybean1776” sends me an email telling me that he is NOT going to send out the cards and I can leave him bad feedback.

Of course, I got a refund by Paypal but I lost time and effort trying to start my Canseco collection again. What a shame. Is all of eBay fucked up like this or what? Here is a photo of the lot of cards I won’t be getting in the mail.

So if you use eBay, avoid Jellybean Cards and his 20 negative feedback comments in just one month’s time!

I took a little break from updating due to having a little extra work at my job. I am back, though…a little earlier than expected after finding this gem. There is an eBay auction for a 2004 Upper Deck Jose Canseco autograph card but when I looked at the photo, it is clear that the man photographed is none other than Ozzie Canseco!

Having been in both the presense of Ozzie and Jose, I know the difference. I am 95% sure that picture is Ozzie and Upper Deck got a little lazy.

Today, Bowman is without a doubt the biggest name is trading cards, thanks to their Bowman Chrome series but their debut into baseball was a disaster. For starters they went and made their cards bigger than the standard baseball card, which meant it was an eyesore when you put it in the Ultra Pro pages or in a display. It just did not fit. It also featured this horrible card of Jose in which it appears Jose’s head is actually the size of Walt Weiss’ entire body.

Thankfully Bowman would redeem itself; see it’s 1998 Jose card, not yet featured in Canseco Completist.

This card here is something else. On more than one occasion some creepy guy at a convention booth has tried to pass it off on me as a “rookie”. Fool, this ain’t no rookie! It’s a cool card and photo, with Jose looking more pompous than ever—but it ain’t a rookie and I won’t pay more than $3 for it.

Upper Deck Legends had the right idea including game-worn jerseys and game-used bats into their product but this card here is just horrible. Just check out the expression on Jose’s face as he’s rounding the bases. WTF? Is he dropping a turd or something? And to top it off, Upper Deck has even issued a piece of the toilet paper with the card, making it ultra-rare!