Innholdsfortegnelse for October 1, 2021 i Sports Collectors Digest

When PWCC Marketplace was banned from eBay over accusations of shill bidding, company executives went through a wide range of emotions. At first, they were angry at being targeted by a company they had done business with for years. Then they were scared over what might happen to one of the hobby’s largest sellers of sports cards. Then, when the smoke had cleared, they began to get excited about the possibility of reshaping their business and creating their own platforms and marketplace. “Internally, when it all happened, we were angry because we didn’t understand it, and we still don’t,” said Jesse Craig, director of business development for PWCC. “Then you get a little scared. It’s like, holy crap, this is changing our entire business. “The first day or two, it…

EDITOR’S NOTE: SCD contributor Tony Reid works full time selling sports cards and collectibles at Sports Zone Toys & Comics in Sunbury, Pa. The collectibles community was in a state of shock as news spread on Aug. 19 that Major League Baseball had made a deal to award their trading card license to Fanatics, effectively taking Topps out of the lineup as they celebrate an iconic 70-year run. As that news was still being digested, reports surfaced that Fanatics had also secured the trading card licenses for the NBA, the National Basketball Players Association and the NFL Players Association beginning in 2026. Wow! As you can imagine, that was the hot topic of conversation the next day in the shop. I half-jokingly asked the shop owner if it was too…

To those of us obsessed with sports, history has supplied a generous, seemingly endless lineup of heroes. From the earliest Olympiad standouts (ever hear of Milo of Croton, a wrestling standout active from around 520 to 540 B.C.?) to Adley Rutschman (today’s No. 1 prospect in baseball), the list is long and ever-growing. As such, singling out 10 hobby icons is a near-impossible task. By the time you’re finished reading, we guarantee you’ll have come up with a number of names you’ll insist should be included. (Note: We’ve headed you off at the pass, at least a little, by packing a sidebar with 15 other names that should be in the argument.) In a way, the assignment would’ve been easier if we had angled our feature on the cliché of…

Derek Grady claims his wife doesn’t know anything about trading cards, but she had a question for him: “Is Topps really going to stop producing baseball cards?” Grady, Heritage Auctions’ vice president of sports auctions, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I was like, ‘You have heard this? You noticed it’s Topps?’ So, it just shows you that this is major news that Topps won’t be producing baseball cards anymore. I think it hit everybody.” News that Fanatics, the world’s largest producer of licensed sports merchandise, has secured the rights to produce officially licensed baseball cards sent shock-waves through the sports collecting community. Topps is celebrating its 70th year of producing baseball cards and has held the exclusive rights from MLB since 2009. The deal means that Topps, the most…

With just over five minutes remaining and New England trailing by a touchdown, Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe was hellbent on doing whatever he could to keep the drive alive. So, after being flushed out of the pocket during a third-and-10 play, he saw an opening and began chugging down the sideline toward the first down marker. What he didn’t see was New York Jets linebacker Mo Lewis giving chase like a roaring 18-wheeler about to T-bone him. “I had gained about eight yards and thought I could pick up the first down by lunging forward,’’ Bledsoe recalled. “But then Mo Lewis came out of nowhere and absolutely destroyed me. I never reached my intended destination.” Backup quarterback Tom Brady was standing on the sidelines, not far from where the collision…

From time to time, Mike Orzechowski takes out his card binders to flip through his collection. It makes him happy to look at his extensive Philadelphia Phillies collection. The 39-year-old has every Phillies team set that Topps has ever produced from 1951 to present. “I think the rich history with baseball and with Topps in particular, that consecutive run … there’s just something awesome about it,” Orzechowski said. One of Orzechowski’s favorite parts about opening the four binders is seeing how Topps has changed its design over eight decades of printing cards. He also likes to look at how the Phillies’ rosters developed every year and how uniforms and hairstyles changed. Each season Orzechowski looks forward to collecting the next batch of Phillies cards that Topps releases. “As you approach…

The long anticipated 2020 Centennial and 2021 Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinements shined bright over central Ohio from Aug. 5-8. After the August and September 2020 cancelations due to COVID-19, fans were treated to a special weekend of events and encounters with the greats of the game. An incredible 19 living honorees became new members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which now boasts 354 enshrined members. After more than 20 years attending and covering enshrinements and inductions for baseball, basketball, boxing and football, I have to admit I was a bit awestruck seeing 18 of these greats on stage brandishing their Gold Jackets for the first time at the Gold Jacket Ceremony on Aug. 6. (Troy Polamalu arrived after the Gold Jacket Ceremony due to COVID protocols.)…

Saratoga, whose world-famous thoroughbred track is America’s oldest sports venue, has long been known as the “Summer Place to Be.” But like most vacation destinations, that wasn’t the case last year as the COVID pandemic forced racing to go on without fans in the massive grandstand. The New York Racing Association, the track’s operator, and the Saratoga Springs community, whose economy relies heavily on tourism, were thrilled when the 153rd racing season began July 15 in front of full grandstands, with fans lining up at midnight to get in. The meet typically draws more than 1 million people during its annual seven-week run from mid-July to Labor Day. “This facility was frankly a shell of itself [last year],” Patrick McKenna, a spokesman for the New York Racing Association, said on…