Yesterday, in these pages, I wrote about baseball’s rogue card set: 2010 Upper Deck. While interesting to me — and perhaps to, like, three readers — there are some decided gaps in my understanding of The Hobby. I asked Chris Harris of Stale Gum to help fill in said gaps, and he was nice enough to answer my dumb questions.

Q. Upper Deck released only Series 1, yes? Did they release ALL of Series 1? Baseball Card Pedia reports that Wave 2 wasn’t released. Is that different than Series 2?

Chris Harris: To answer your question: Yes and no. 2010 Upper Deck Series One Wave 2, was to have included all 600 cards of the regular Series One set PLUS an additional fifty cards (cards 601-650). It was then expected that UD would release Series Two later that year, but never did. The reasons why Wave 2 and Series Two were not released are explained in the BCP article. (I wrote it.)

Q. What sort of cards get distributed in Series 2 of a set usually? Is it the case that, if I buy a Series 2 pack, there will there be NO Series 1 cards?

CH: Generally, Series One is released before the season while Series Two around the All-Star break. 2012 Topps Series One, for example, is being issued this week. Series Two cards usually contain those players who changed teams in the off-season and rookies who made the opening day roster, as well as other players not included in Series One.

S1 packs will yield exclusively S1 cards, and S2 packs S2 cards.

Q. Are the 2010 UD cards likely to be more valuable than cards from other sets?

CH: Not necessarily.

Q. What’s the difference between a Retail and a Hobby box? How do I know which is which?

CH: Retail packs are sold at mass-market outlets (i.e. Target, Wal-Mart, and the like) and Hobby packs at baseball card shops. The base cards are the same, but the inserts are different and/or seeded at different rates. Usually the pack/box will have in small type either “HOBBY” or “RETAIL.”

It may have come to your attention by now that some women like baseball. This is a fact that, although still often expressed as an exclamation of surprise, has actually been true for the last 100+ years. Maybe you even have a woman that likes baseball in your life? Lucky you! MLB.com and I have some suggestions for you regarding this upcoming Valentine’s day. If your [girlfriend, wife, sister, sister-wife] doesn’t care for the greatest game on earth? Find one that does*.

* JK!!!!!! That’d be a pretty dumb reason to leave a nice girl and besides, sometimes it’s fun to have your own interests instead of shared ones — like my interest in Ryan Gosling.
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To bread I do not ask to teach me
but only not to lack during every day of life.
I don’t know anything about light, from where
it comes nor where it goes,
I only want the light to light up,
I do not ask to the night
explanations,
I wait for it and it envelops me,
And so you, bread and light
And shadow are.
-Pablo Neruda, “And because Love battles”

Having bread is good.  Not having bread is bad.  Discovering that there is a snake where you previously assumed there was bread is the worst.  You are not alone Deion Sanders, you are not misunderstood, you are a glorious grain of humanity and I wish you all the bread in the world.

It’s been the custom in the last half-century or so for critics to ask expressly — and artists, obliquely, through their work — to ask, “What is art?”

I think we can all agree that this photo portrait of relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel, courtesy the Atlanta Braves official Twitter feed, answers the question decisively.

What we do is assign cool nicknames to players rather than perpetuate the tired, lamewad practice of assigning cool players nicknames. Last time out, Jon Rauch seized the nickname “The Call Is Coming From Inside the House“. So Mr. Rauch has been added to our Hall of Honouur, which is so stately, so regal, so much itself a celebration of the Norman Conquest, that an extra British-English unstressed “u” is required for proper spelling …

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Look: A cake made to resemble one of the Brewers’ racing sausages!

On the other hand, the cake is plainly crafted as an homage to Guido, the Italian racing sausage. The problem is that Guido wears no. 3. The faux Guido made out of stupid buttercream frosting is wearing no. 1.

So nice try, “Noah.” Or should I say, “Al Qaeda.”

My greatest acquisition from this past weekend’s trip (alongside the internet’s Common Man) to TwinsFest in Minneapolis was not, if you can believe it, the baseball which now bears the authographs of (both!) Chris Herrmann and Alex Wimmers, nor the memory of a brief, but spirited, exchange with the very bad J.R. Richard. Rather, it was an introduction to the oddity that is the 2010 edition of Upper Deck baseball cards.

Apart from the autograph stations, the main attraction of TwinsFest is the copious amounts of baseball-related memorabilia being sold by the only slightly less copious number of baseball-memorabilia vendors. The Common Man has already documented his inability to restrain himself wherein the coveting of baseball cards is concerned. For the present author, however, the event represented the first time I’d thought of baseball cards at any length since probably 1992.

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The 1986 MLB season is the first that I can remember. The main reason that I remember it was 1986, I think, is that it was the year that I started collecting baseball cards — those Topps cards being so recognizable to me now.

While I grew up in Milwaukee, one of my mom’s best friends lived in Long Island at the time and was/is a huge Mets fan. Starting in 1986, he would collect all of the Mets cards from the year’s Topps set and send them to me. I remember Darryl Strawberry and Gary Carter being big, though I wouldn’t comprehend the extent of their greatness or tragedy until twenty years later. Read the rest of this entry »

To Whom It May Concern:

Hello. This is J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner and New York Times baseball scribe emeritus Murray Chass. I am writing to inquire about the open position in the “MLB Fan Cave” for which I have received numerous electronic mail solicitations.

With respect to my qualifications for the position, I think my curriculum vitae speaks for itself. Let me repeat: J.G. Taylor Spink, New York Times, Associated Press, BBWAA, etc. I have enclosed a copy herewith.

Now that we have those formalities out of the way, I would like to discuss my vision for this year’s cave as well as the terms and conditions under which I will accept your offer for employment for the 2012 season.

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In which the Royal We insert Dick Allen’s name into various works representative of the Western Canon, thus adding to those various works the patina of blessedness.

Today’s episode: A brother pleads with his sister to understand the immense power of Dick Allen, in J.D. Salinger’s other book, “Franny and Zooey.”

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