As I sit here in the afternoon on Good Friday, while also checking in on the tailgate festivities at the Brewers' Miller Park for Opening Day that I am missing, we decided to open a box of Topps T-51 Murad Basketball.

When it comes to trading cards, I think there are some basics that should be followed. One of those is having the player's name who is featured on the card mentioned somewhere on the front. With a classic style of card that is more art than a photo, you can't always tell who the player is, especially when the uniform number is obscured.

My second rule is when showcasing statistics on the backside, have numbers that are easy to read (and in my opinion, they should have career stats, not just the last year).

Needless to say by that intro, Murad falls flat on both of those. There is no mention of the player on the front. The Middle Eastern art influence is fine, but it doesn't work if I don't know who the player is.

And the stats on the back look like they were printed with a 1985 word processors and all of the "numbers" are spelled out. As in, if the player had 933 assists in his career, it reads, "nine hundred thirty-three assists." Please.

We also received a fancy mini card that is clearly a special insert, as it's housed in a plastic sleeve, but we still don't know who the player is because it doesn't say anywhere on the card.

Again, the look of the cards is great, but to the average collector, the omissions mentioned above will immediately turn them off. This set is for a select group, that's for sure.   

I'm thinking of doing what I consider to be something evil. I'm considering canceling my subscription to my daily newspaper. Now, that's a tough call to make when you work for a publishing company that has been ravaged by people who have gone online to do, well, everything. It's one of the reasons why the magazines you read aren't the 200 pages they used to be. But back to the newspaper. the baseball season kicked off, and I like to read the box scores in the morning while I eat breakfast. Except, my newspaper has decided to run about two box scores and give summaries for the rest. What?! I like to see who is doing well, and not just the guys on my fantasy team. So now I have to log onto my computer and get the results. Perhaps this is only natural, since that's where I get most of my news, too. It seems that whatever I read in the newspaper, I've already read it online. Perhaps it's because I sit in front of a computer all day long as part of my job and then I log in at night to see how those fantasy teams are doing, among other things. Am I addicted? Probably not, but it seems after a weekend of being away from the computer, I want to log on and see my mail and anything exciting going on. And I'm not even of the generation that can't be connected to something electronically 24 hours a day.

I'm not one of those collectors who is into set building. I think it takes up too much time and money to accomplish. If they has everything in one single box, then I'd buy it. All of those doubles and other "advertising" cards for websites and special offers would drive me crazy.

And if collecting a full set of a particular card series would be too much for me, then trying to secure one of the Legacy Sets from Upper Deck might send me over the top of the crazy hill. It started with the Yankee Stadium set, which consisted of more than 6,600 cards. Thus far, two people have accomplished that feat (kudos - that couldn't have been easy).

And then there was the Documentary series, which chronicled each MLB team's 2008 season - that's 162 cards for each team.

However, there is one Legacy Collection that I know collectors will eat up – and it will be a lot of collectors, not just one or two die-hards. Upper Deck announced that longtime company spokesman Michael Jordan is being honored with a 1,170-card tribute insert set chronicling every single Chicago Bulls game he played in from his NBA debut on October 26, 1984 through his game-clinching heroics in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on June 14, 1998.

The 1,170-card set will pack out inside four Upper Deck basketball products during the course of 2009: Lineage (April 1); Radiance (April 29); Upper Deck (Sept. 22); and First Edition (Sept. 29). Each of the cards includes MJ’s specific box score stats from the game in question, giving every card some historical significance as the overall set captures every game Jordan ever played with the Bulls, regular-season and playoff battles included. The cards will be at a ratio of 1:4 packs.

Plus, there will be another 100 gaem-used memorabilia cards in the set.

While this is still a LOT of cards, you must admit that when it comes to collecting, Jordan, like on the basketball court, is way above the others. To have a complete sets of these cards is not only a unique Jordan set, but it relives his career that would be hard to do otherwise.

With his announcement into the HOF today, this will just add to the momentum that is Jordan, even if we were all just waiting got this day anyway.   

This blog entry is going to be short and sweet, as I saw this in one of the sports headlines for the day. It went something like this: Reds Look at Sheffield for Limited Role.

Huh? First, Gary Sheffield is like Allen Iverson - he wants to play whenever he can. He's too proud to sit the bench. He needs to be on the field so he can be seen on camera and still be a star.

My distaste for Sheffield goes all the way back to his first few seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers - a place he didn't want to be. You see, he freely admitted that he purposely booted ground balls at third base so the team would trade him. What a great teammate, eh?

But the Reds looking at Sheffield has me even more perplexed. This is a team that is now ready for the youngsters to take control of the team and call it theirs. With the departure of Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn, this is now a club led by Jay Bruce, Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips. Why would you want a malcontent like Sheffield on your team with those stars ready to take center stage? And there is no DH in the National League.

Don't let Sheffield come in, get his 500 HRs (unless the club wants him just for that reason to draw more fans?) and then piss away the rest of the year. It's a bad move and the Reds should look at other options (aside from ridding themselves of Dusty Baker).

Can you tell baseball season starts this weekend?

When it comes to Bernie Madoff, one of the last things I would have associated him with is baseball cards. Unless, of course, he managed to steal those, too and sell them for his own gain.

But then comes this subject line in my e-mail: "Topps Issues a Trading Card of the Swindler as Part of the New 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Product Out in June"

I get the whole social scene inclusion in Allen & Ginter but the only thing I want to do with a Madoff card is burn it.
       
The Madoff card will be a part of Topps' Allen & Ginter inserts of cards that feature the "world's biggest hoaxes, hoodwinks and bamboozles," including disgraced ponzi schemer Madoff. The cards feature 20 perpetrators of some of the most notorious pranks, dubious claims and outright frauds of the last two centuries. Other notables in the set will include: Charles Ponzi, Enron, D.B. Cooper and The Run Away Bride, found in 1:12 packs.
 
According to the release, Topps originally developed the idea of "world's biggest hoaxes, hoodwinks and bamboozles," inserts earlier this year prior to the Madoff scandal.

And I suppose he's the icing on that cake.

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter includes a 350-card set featuring Major League Baseball players and champions from other sports. Along with the "Hoaxes, Hoodwinks and Bamboozles" insert set, collectors can also find subsets featuring "Creatures of Legend, Myth and Terror" and "National Heroes" from around the world.
 
So who do you want in your first pack of Allen & Ginter – Madoff or David Ortiz?

I talked will Billy Bahnsen at Steiner Sports yesterday about a big singing they are conducting and the related collectibles that go along with it.

Steiner has an exclusive signing with goaltender Martin Brodeur, who just set the victories mark for a goalie with 552 wins. Brodeur’s 552nd win on March 17 came in the 987th game of his career, 42 games less than it took former record holder Patrick Roy.  Along with the all-time wins record and three Stanley Cups, Brodeur is at or near the top of most major goalie career statistics.
 
The record-breaking collection from Steiner will feature autographed hockey pucks, goalie sticks, a 16-by-20 signed commemorative collage as well as an 11-by-14 unsigned version and 8-by-10 and 16-by-20 photos that capture the historic nature of Tuesday night.  Fans can visit www.steinersports.com for further detail and a complete list of the record-breaking collection.

So this got me thinking - of all the record sporting achievements, which one would you like to obtain collectibles based on? Would you want Hank Aaron's bat from the home run that broke Ruth's record? Barry Bonds bat that beat Aaron? How about the goggles from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's scoring record night?

I know I'm missing a lot of important events in a lot of sports, but that's where you come in when sharing your ultimate collectibles prizes.
 

Fresh back from the Windy City after a three-day Fantasy Baseball bender. No, I wasn't taking part in the drafts, just monitoring those in attendance from around the Midwest. I placed a lot of stickers on boards and watched some interesting draft strategy.

In one baseball draft of 15 teams (and 30 rounds!), Miguel Cabrera lasted until the 12th pick. Needless to say, that guys was really happy. I also realized that no matter how bad a player does (Rickie Weeks) the year before, people still believe in potential, even three years later.

Also, a lot of the possible rookies studs we hear about (with the exception of catcher Matt Wieters) were not taken for a long time in the draft. Participants selected the known production numbers versus the unknown. And I guess if I was paying $650 or more, I would, too.

Finally, this is a short one blog because missing work means more work, if you ever want to kill about 6-7 hours in a day, participate in a baseball draft that uses an auction format. Imagine the bidding process for 450 players, most starting at $1.

And when does the baseball season actually start?

Well, I made it through day one of the NCAA tournament and managed to not spend so much time checking scores as to jeopardize my job. However, being in the sports department, I can just say I'm doing research on the next big basketball star and projecting the value of his future collectibles. Or something like that.

The tournament is just fun to watch - just like the College Baseball World Series. There's something about college athletics that seems so much more fun. There isn't the me-first attitude that exists in pro sports - at least not as much. That makes me wonder why there's isn't more collegiate material in the collectibles market. This is when the "stars" are first coming on the scene. These would be even better than minor league collectibles in baseball.

If the NCAA is concerned about money – and the NCAA tournament is a perfect example of yes, indeed, they are – then why not? While some college stuff is available, why couldn't the NCAA control the content and offer it through its own store. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Blake Griffin game-used jersey or some autographed shoes?

It's an option - something I was thinking about while "working" this afternoon.