Author: Mario Alejandro
There was once a time when The Hobby ran through my mind 24/7. Here I was cranking out over 100 articles per month, recording box breaks to post on YouTube, scouring eBay for new cards I needed, and making online trades in every popular online forum available. Oh, did I forget to mention I had a full-time job and a wife and kid at home?
I guess you could say I was burning the candle at both ends looking for something I could never quite find. Was it the perfect Jose Canseco collection, a cover story on Beckett, or maybe those long-lost barrels of 1952 Topps buried at sea? I can’t quite say because I do not know the answer. I do know that my time at Wax Heaven, which unofficially ended in December when I shut the site down, is officially over as of October 4th, 2010, just a few weeks shy of the third anniversary.
Rather than let the site sit unattended and underappreciated except for the 700-800 random visitors who come through Google searches daily, I did the only thing I could do to ensure the Wax Heaven name would live on; I sold it. Everything, too, not just the WordPress blog. The Twitter account with 200+ followers and the YouTube account with over 500 subscribers as well. Everything Wax Heaven was, including the 2,000+ articles, close to 2 million visitors, and 25,000+ comments now belong to one man … and who is this man, you ask?
Well, his name is Austin and aside from being a true blue journalist like everyone’s favorite blogger, Chris Olds, he is also a collector from the 80’s and early 90’s who has just come back to The Hobby after a long absence and wants to write about his experiences coming back to a completely new scene none of us “old” collectors could have ever envisioned.
Sounds exactly like me, which is exactly why I knew he would be the best man to take over Wax Heaven. So expect a full return to stories, probably written much better than I ever could with an entirely new perspective on this wonderful hobby of ours that keeps us coming back for more even decades after our last pack of cards.
God bless you all for the wonderful support, emails, free cards and so much more. A special thanks goes out to Upper Deck and Chris Carlin for being the first to believe the “little guy” could one day compete and kick Goliath’s ass (and we certainly did). We had a great run and I’m very proud to see how immense the entire community has become since my arrival in 2007. See you all in the future and for those that want to keep up with me you can find me on Facebook.
Keep Collectin’,
Mario Alejandro Castillo
The Baseball Card Blog 
Farewell, Mario. You did the Hobby well…
BOOO!
Three cheers to the best sports card blogger out there! Best of luck to you and your future adventures… you’re one of the key inspirations for my blog… and a couple of my buddies as well. I still have the cards I won in one of your contests and will keep them as part of my blogger PC. Take care Mario.
Austin… glad to hear you’re keeping Wax Heaven alive! I look forward to reading your posts.
Mario:
Best of luck to you in the future. If you had to go, I’m glad you sold the blog to someone just getting back into the hobby.
Good luck Mario, we’ll miss you.
Best of luck to you Mario, and I do hope you’ll stop by once in a while to update us all on how you’re doing.
As for the new direction of Wax Heaven, I’m actually excited about this prospect. I feel like I’m on the tail end of my sports-card collecting days and I’m really looking for a reason to continue to buy cards in the first place. Perhaps reading someone who’s actually excited about the hobby will be the thing I need to get me back into the game.
So nifty kean jelly bean and keep on rocking.
Mario, you were the one who got me into reading card blogs. I will miss your candor and wit. Thanks to you I now have my own blog and hope to be half as good as you someday. I hope things go good for you in the future, you will be missed
-Todd S.
Thanks for the well wishes.
Mario leaves gigantic shoes to fill. I don’t think I’ll ever be quite the blogger he’s been — but in the next few days I’ll be posting my first couple of items on WaxHeaven and over time it’s my hope to bring the site back to full speed.
I’ve only been back into collecting for a month or so now, but it’s already become an everyday obsession. Usually staying up an extra hour or so at night to open packs and enter the data into the Beckett site. Not sure how much I really trust their prices, but maybe that’s a post for another day.
This should be a fun ride!
Farewell, Mario. You were one of my top inspirations for blogging in the first place, as well. I really wish you the best in your life, even if it’s been difficult lately. I hope you can check in on us every now and then, too.
Truth be told this is the site that got me excited about collecting again, I cried when it was shut down, I’m shattered it was sold. Mario, much luck to you in the future, I guess in the end you can only look forward, and know you have touched millions with your words, that is not just lure thats legend.
Goodbye, mario, A&J Sportscards wishes you well
Farewell, friend. You have been, and will be, sorely missed. All the best to you!
Good for you, Mario. Take the money and buy that island you always had your eye on. You could probably hire Jose Canseco to be your man servant. I can see it now. Jose saying, “Da plane, boss! Da plane!”
Mario,
Thanks for the great and insightful reads over the past few years. Like yourself, I got back into sports card collecting about 5 years ago after quitting in the mid-90’s. Boy, how things changed over the intervening years including the development of ‘blogs’ talking about cards and card collecting. Your’s was one of the first card collecting blogs that I discovered. I enjoyed reading your comments on a daily basis, and especially liked your discussions about card sets from the years I was out of the hobby.
Best of luck in your future endeavors!!!!
Mario wow what can I say but Thank You for making my blog life so much better! I never like saying good bye,but what I will say ,is take care my friend and my God Bless You and your Family.
Good bye, Mario 😦 I’ll never forget this site…