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You can't make 2000 without some zeros
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Someone once told me he thought I complained too much on this site. I've never really seen it that way. If I just told you about the products and cards that I liked then I wouldn't be doing a very good job. Looking back over the year 2000 I can see that I've given many great reviews of products and services along with my occasional negative report. I'll give you my thoughts on the best of the year next time, but today is time to look at the things in our hobby that have put the zeros in 2000.
In a year that saw probably 200 new sets released, various innovations (graded cards in packs, rookie jersey cards, etc.), and even a sportscard stock market, I could go on for pages about the various things that I didn't like, but instead I've decided to limit myself and just give out some "awards" to the real stinkers of 2000.
DUMBEST MEMORABILIA CARD OF 2000
If there was one thing that
had the hobby talking this year it was the abundance of memorabilia cards in
virtually every product no matter how cheap the pack was priced. It's no
surprise then that one of the dumbest cards we saw this year was a memorabilia
card. Late in the year both Topps Stadium Club (Game Used dirt?) and Upper
Deck (Michael Jordan's business suit) made a charge for this honor, but they
couldn't take it away from Fleer with their
Vince Carter player worn fatigues. Sgt. Carter? I guess Fleer didn't
care if they offended anyone in the military.
WORST SET OF 2000
Have you been visiting our site all year? If so then you have to know where this award is going. Not only have I been outspoken about the inclusion of graded cards in packs, but the majority of you have agreed with me. Late in the year Playoff and Pacific released products with one graded card per box which might end up being the middle point our hobby needs. That said, our award for Worst Set of 2000 goes to Collector's Edge for their Edge Graded Football set. What made EG so much worse than Donruss QBC was that it was boring (only base cards were graded) and all of the grades were 9 or 10.
MOST OVER HYPED CARDS OF 2000
In early October I wrote how
Tiger Woods
might be the man to rescue our hobby from the boredom of losing Michael Jordan,
Wayne Gretzky, John Elway, and Dan Marino. Unfortunately,
with the help of a very unscrupulous company (that we won't mention until the
next award), the possibility of Tiger Woods saving our hobby has turned into the
reality of his "rookie cards" destroying what little faith any new
collectors have brought into sportscard collecting. My email has been
overloaded with people telling me how much they spent on their Tiger rookie and
asking me what the card is worth. It doesn't help that some of the grading
companies have been using questionable judgment in grading cards that had to be
cut out of magazines (with or without their perforations). PRO Grading is
also joining in the mess by grading some stamps from Turkmenistan as if they
were rookie cards. I still believe in Tiger, but there's no doubt that his
cards deserve the title of Most Over Hyped Cards of 2000.
TRIPLE ZERO AWARD
In honor of the three zeros in the year 2000, we've come up with one very special booby prize for a company that has done the most to lower the standards of our hobby and make new collectors turn away from sportscards. Of course we're talking about Shop At Home. The first zero is presented to Don West and his "Blue Chip" specials. These $70 to $100 boxes have done more to ruin our hobby for new collectors then anything else. In the second zero we find the Tiger Woods "rookie" fiasco as detailed in our previous award. Hanging in the third zero we find Ken Goldin, formerly using Scoreboard to do his damage, now he's latched onto SAH as a way of selling all those cards Scoreboard never redeemed.
I've heard rumors that Upper Deck plans on starting to sell cards directly to the public on Shop at Home in the future. I hope this doesn't happen. It seems like the manufacturers are looking for a way to cut out the middle man (distributors and card shop owners) and sell directly to you and I. Don't be fooled into thinking this is a good thing for our hobby. Our current system of manufacturer to distributor to retail outlet to collector is actually better as it creates some checks and balances we might lose by buying direct.
I'm sure there are a bunch of other cards, sets, and companies I could have picked on this year, but I'll leave that to your email and postings (what do you think about redemption cards?). Don't worry, it's not all bad news in 2000. As I said in the beginning, there were far more positives in the sportscard hobby this year then negatives and our next article will feature some of them. My hopes for 2001 is that the companies are paying attention to what the hobby is saying. We can't afford to lose anymore new collectors.
Happy Holidays to You All!
ANDY
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