2 Vintage Sports Guys - Episode 1

Episode 1: Join Joe and Paul as they discuss Bill Belichick's HOF snub, the latest sports cards drop, and why people collect cards. 

Get a look at us in this one on BZZR, because we're transforming to avatars starting with Episode #2!

https://bzzr.com/profile/EwjIXH8NQJbDYtvgfxe27PE3BQ53?tab=videos&watch=true&videoId=Eg7LrfuTFhnABmYfwPOw

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hey folks, welcome back to Two Vintage Sports Guys, the show where two guys nerd out about sports cards, rookies, vintage gems, and everything in between. I am Joe.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Always makes me laugh when you tell me who you are. This is Paul, uh, co-owner of the Luttox card shop down in Arlington, and coming live from Atlanta, all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

All right. So each podcast will talk about four different subject areas. We're going to look at what's going on on and off the field in the world of sports, uh, what sports cards are dropping this week, vintage moment in sports, what our favorite cards, and then what's going on with the uh with the card shop in Arlington. So, Paul, you want to kick us off with your thoughts on the latest break of news? Maybe uh Belichick not getting into the Hall of Fame. I mean, I hate him, but like how could you deny him?

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Like because he cheated, number one. Cheating. Uh does six Super Bowl wins overcome cheating against the Philadelphia Eagles and uh Deflate Gate. Who is that against? The Colts. So I yeah, I read yesterday that the Colts, Bill Pollian, who used to be the general manager of the Colts, led a campaign to get people to vote, uh not vote for Belichick. So uh old wounds uh take a while to heal, I guess. And uh there's a case that can be made either way. Belichick obviously was a genius, did great things in New England, was a historian. Players are coming out left and right, saying how great he is, but people who are jaded, like me, uh, will always have a problem with him because he cheated and condoned cheating.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Anyway, what are you jaded for? I'm an ex-Jet fan before before I divorced him, and I had a deal with him for all those years. What are you what was your problem with from an Eagles perspective?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So Philadelphia Eagles played the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, and we lost uh because they But you beat them too. We beat him up with Nick Foles, but the first time we lost because they cheated, and it was a scandal because they stole video practice, they taped practices, and so that was the first scandal that Belichick went through. Second scandal was Deflate Gate, which they deflated the balls against the Colts and won that way. So we were we were victims.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

No, no, no, no, no. The first filming cheating was against my Jets and Man Joni, the plump little coach back in 20 years ago. That's the first one. I don't remember the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

But that was never in a Super Bowl because Joe, the Jets haven't been in the Super Bowl since Joe Namath. So what what this comes down to is I was one year old, but go ahead. Okay, that's yeah, that's just too long. Nobody cares. Um the Philadelphia Eagles played the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl during that week of practice. The Patriots cheated, taped film, used it, and the Philadelphia Eagles lost that Super Bowl in the last couple of minutes, and won uh and and and that was the um that was one of two Super Bowl cheating. Maybe the cheating goes well beyond just the two Super Bowls.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

It's okay to cheat during the the season, just not in the Super Bowl when your team's in it. Got it.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

No, I think no, the matter is you if you cheat all the time and you're known as a cheater, you can't get in the hall of fame.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

If you cheat, well, I mean Pete Rose Maybe that's what he did. That conversation. But so the what did he win? Six, seven? So even if you take those two away, which I wouldn't take away, like you give him no credit for like the rest of them.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Oh, I think you have to vote them in. Let me I'll I'll I'll jading all jading and and negative, cynical people aside, I would have voted for Bilichek to go into the Hall of Fame. I think voting in either Hall of Fame, whether it's baseball or football, is done by sports reporters. And sports reporters are not that great, let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

So the whole the whole Hall of Fame voting is just ridiculous with these with these um what are the old committees that just put them in because they want to after Yeah, that's baseball and the Veterans Committee, and and I think they do the same thing in football.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

But yeah, I think the whole voting thing is is wild, and it's done by sports reporters who want them who probably do hold a grudge. I noticed that one longtime sports beat reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, um, Paul Domowich was a voter. I don't know how he voted, but if he didn't vote, we all know why. Uh so yeah, these sports reporters, I don't think that's where it belongs. I think they can have a voice, but something needs to be done when people are left out. Is bonds in the Hall of Fame?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Um, you know, we own so many steroids that he looked like he ate the original Barry Bonds.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

But it wasn't cheating, you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

So uh that creatine was what, not illegal at the time, Maguire. Gray area.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, such so that's where you get into all kinds of things. I I had a buddy text me the other day and during this whole conversation yesterday, and he's like, you know, technically it wasn't cheating. He didn't cheat. He he just uh it wasn't illegal what he took. So it gets to be fine lines and gets to be a different conversation, but I will go on the record as saying Belichick should be in the hall of fame.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Belichick should be in the hall of fame.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

He can date whoever he wants to, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Exactly. Just for the girlfriend now, he should be in there.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Right. All right, what else is happening? Then we're getting to the Super Bowl. So speaking of Super Bowls, we're getting there. It should be uh it should be a good one dominated by the Seahawks. So you have the East Coast, West Coast, and everybody in the middle uh not having a team. So I would imagine that if you looked at a map, it's much like politics. It's gonna be all Seahawks with this one little corner in New England rooting for the Patriots. But I would imagine the whole nation roots for the Seahawks on this one.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I think most will because most still hate the Patriots, as I did for decades and decades. And they they just had um I don't want to cut them short. They actually are the first team ever to win every road game this year, regular season and playoffs. It's never been done. And so you gotta give him credit.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, and and then we'll we'll slide in the cards. Like, is Drake May the the real deal? You know, his card stock is going up and up and up and up.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And I don't think he played well, these playoffs. And I think they somehow, mysteriously, with the Patriot damn luck, had the playoffs cleared for them. No Mahomes, no Lamar Jackson, no Josh Allen, uh, no Denver quarterback with a backup who hasn't started all year. Did you watch the second half of that gender game? Nobody was doing anything in that snow.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

No, so no, and then Broncos defense is great. So yeah, he didn't look good and he had an easy road. Let's see what he's dealing, but I would imagine the Seahawks pound them and win probably 34-13. They have to. I don't know what the overall is, and but I would take the Patriots given the points all day.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Ugh dude, if somehow the Patriots pull this out, I don't know if I could ever watch football.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Oh, did I say the Patriots? I would take the Seahawks given. Sorry, I didn't mean to say I stumbled on my words. I would give it a chance.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

No, no, you said you would take the Patriots with the points. I'm just saying if some of the Patriots in the game.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

I would I would I think Seahawks buy a mile.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Two touchdowns. All right, moving on. What spoils cards are dropping this week, sir?

SPEAKER_00 7:48

So pitchers and catchers report in three weeks, February 15th. So they report and cards are coming on the market. So I know from our shop perspective, we have just pulled the trigger on buying a lot of topps cards. Baseball's coming, and um everything from the high-end gilded product, which looks to be fantastic. Um, the artwork on it, all done in gold, is is looks high-end. It's a pricey product, but you know, for the for the high-end collector, that's what they get. And then everything else is starting to drop for baseball too. So we are marching headfirst into baseball season. Um, but you know, that it's just a reminder of of where we are. So topps, if you want to sit on the landscape for a minute, um, topps has has basketball. Uh they just dropped chrome not too long ago. Um, that's an expensive product. They're getting a lot of feedback on on the pricing for that. So they have baseball. The last year of football is by Panini. Topps will take over football next year. So while Topps has baseball, basketball, F1 racing, uh, and next year they'll have football. Panini's last year and football is now. So the question is, is Panini just going to dump a lot of football on the on the on the public, uh, saturate the market, come out with a ton of autos. Are they just gonna back the truck up, empty it all out on the public, and we'll be flooded with Panini product? Maybe, maybe not. We'll see what they do. But this is gonna be the last year of Panini football, so I would like to see what they do there. And we're in the middle of hockey season. You report on the lightning down there in Florida, so uh we all follow them and follow you. But Upper Deck has all the hockey. Uh, and that's that's a great product uh from Upper Deck as well. And then last night, with the sad passing of Bob Weir as a deadhead myself, I did see Upper Deck makes a Grateful Dead series that I'm gonna buy later today. Uh and and and collect that one as well. So there's lots to collect, whether you're a hockey fan, football fan at the end of the season or getting ready for baseball.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

So is it wrong that I didn't hear anything you said after the word panini 10 times? Because as an Italian, I'm now hungry for a sandwich.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

That is well, it's not wrong. It it would be good. You know, we could go back to what's that place we used to eat lunch at in uh North Point Parkway.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

You mean everywhere?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, right, there you go. So so that's it. You know, we uh stock stocks are shelves are stocked, we're ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Very cool. And then give me a vintage moment in sports, one of your favorite sports cards. Tell me about something. It's one of your earliest thoughts of a card or something really new that you want to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah, so I think on the vintage side, you know, we're seeing stuff drop all the time. I I I was watching uh the golden Netflix special the other day, and it looks like uh the latest Honus Wagner card um is going to hit the market or has hit the market recently. And I think just with with everything vintage, it's becoming currency. And um you can count on the vintage cards to continue to go up. I watched Kevin O'Leary give an interview of his cards. They're not vintage, but they are landmark cards which are worth millions and millions of dollars. And I think the vintage market will always remain stable. Um we're looking at buying vintage from all kinds of places and putting that in our store. And, you know, I I saw one come on the market of a of a Mickey Mantle, but it was trimmed. So what does that do to the value? So all kinds of factors weigh in from grading which company to grade with. We we prefer Beckett, who's now owned by PSA, uh, but PSA is there as well if you if you have a long time to wait to get your product back. But the vintage side will always be there. So this is our time where we march in the spring training and think about all the years past and in leading up to baseball because everybody's in first place right now. So we'll go.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

So I think this uh Yeah, no, I mean as far as vintage cards, I was in the a card shop the other day and I was looking at they still had the boxes of 1984 and 85 cards, where you buy them unopened if they're unopened, and they wanted 18 bucks a pack because it said with a little sticky note on it, it might have a Gooden Clemens rookie in there. So I bought one pack for $18 just to chew on some 40-year-old bubble gum. There we go. Well, that is that is what I think the called part with the 10 cards in there probably weren't worth 10 cents by the time I was done. So uh that's what I call the interesting uh 17 bucks and 90 cents there for uh my investment.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

That happens. Uh that's what I call the Willy Wonka collector. You're you're you're looking for the golden ticket. Um not seen it recently with with whole boxes. So, you know, I just got a consignment um a vintage collector here in Georgia uh that's gonna put a bunch of the boxes that have all those packs in there. They they seal them up and you can buy the whole box, uh, or you can buy the individual packs. But that's the Willy Wonka collector who who's going after the thrill of finding that golden ticket.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

So when they put those boxes out, how do you really know if those packs have been sealed for 40 years or if they resealed it? Is there any way to really tell?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah, there is. There's actually a certification company that will take the box that the that the person has and they will shrink wrap it. So they'll count the number of cards, they'll inspect the packs to see make sure they weren't open, that the the the glue is still in there, they'll look through it, they'll seal it. Costs about uh, I think based on the on the on the box that it is, anywhere from a hundred to three hundred bucks a box, they'll certify it, shrink wrap it, get it back to you. And then you know that it's a certified unopened box or unmessed with box of of sealed packs.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

And that's interesting and good to know from a box perspective. But when you get to the store like I did, and that box is ripped open and they're selling them per pack, how do you know those individual packs are wrapped or if they're just somehow resealing them, rewrapping them and resealing them with nothing in it?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

I mean, the the quick answer is you don't know. Um, so that you have to have faith in mankind and that they're not getting ripped off. And we all know you don't have any faith in mankind, so that shit sailed. So but but the point being, you could you could go to a shop like ours and you can see the certified shrink wrap boxes of cards, buy the whole box. I think there's what 60 packs in a box or something like that, and do that. But you'll you really have no way of knowing. In fact, I just saw Jeff Wilson do a YouTube video. He bought a pack of cards for some ungodly amount of money, might have been twelve hundred bucks, and he got six of the same card, meaning he got duplicates in the pack. Open the pack live on a stream, and he had six of the same cards, duplicates in that. And so he ended his his video with, I think I got ripped off, I think this was opened already.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Six of the same card in one pack.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah, let me rephrase that. He got three players doubles, so six cards, but he got three players, uh, and he got doubles of those players.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

That's a little much. I guess we've definitely all opened the pack and got doubles, it happens, but that's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Three times is unusual. So he he I just saw that on YouTube. So for those of you coming into the hobby, I mean it there's some great channels up there. I think cards HQ with Jeff Wilson is a great channel. Chasing Cardboard is a great channel. Um, and I know Ty does some great stuff there. So look around. There's there's um different people uh that will have different angles on what they do, but at least start with with those guys because Jeff Wilson is a great channel, and and the other guys do too. So you always can find out. It helps you find out what trends are going on, what um what's happening in the industry, and a lot of education about grading, ungrading, what's going on, what's coming out. Listen to our show, but watch a few YouTube videos as well, and they're fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

All right, very cool. And to wrap it up, what else is going on at the shop in Arlington?

SPEAKER_00 16:54

So we in February we're gonna be having uh college uh baseball tournaments, three consecutive weekends at Globe Life Field. Uh that's starting on the 13th, and then the 20th and the 28th. Uh, those weekends are happening. So we'll have 18 separate teams coming in, six a weekend and having a tournament. Then we'll move to March 14th is the Arlington Indy Car race, right outside of our doors, probably 30,000 people to that. And then uh that leads up to Major League Baseball opening day, April 2nd, Globe Life Field. So we've got a lot going on, a lot we're getting ready for, and hopefully we'll have the stocks shelf to stocks the shelves filled. The shelves stocked. Yeah, that that would be a little bit more. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Fully sells cards at the shop in Arlington.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Yeah, there's every weekend there's something going on, something positive happened. So we're getting ready for a big grand opening in April, and which will uh coincide with the Texas Rangers. And the Rangers, man, they've cleaned house. They've did a bunch of trades uh recently, so they're gonna be a new look team, and they're gonna be exciting, and they're they're my they're my favorite American league team. So there you go.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

I don't even recognize my Mets. I don't the they it's just it was a rotating door. Polar Bear out, Jeff O'Neill out, Brandon Nemo out, Edwin Diaz out, and um where did Wright go?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Where did David Wright go?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

David Wright.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah, yeah. Where's he?

SPEAKER_01 18:30

David Wright. He's playing golf, he's been retired for 15 years. Who are you thinking of?

SPEAKER_00 18:34

No, no, I'm thinking of the outfielder that nobody likes.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Brandon Nemo?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

No. The big dude hits all the home runs, goes to the home run derby contest. I'm drawing a blank.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

That's uh polar bear, Peter Lazzo, first base.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

He's still there. No, he went to Bal he went to Baltimore. He's with the Orioles there.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

I knew he went somewhere. See? I should know that. I I can't keep up.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

But anyway, focus on your fillies.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah, we we we didn't make enough moves. The the natives are restless. We're trotting out close to the same team.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

And you're aging out there. You're aging it out.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Maybe we'll see. We might have a rookie come in at uh in left field, and you know, but but then personally, uh I'll leave it on this note. My son uh gets on a flight today. He's junior hockey player in the knall, and he's getting on a flight to Alaska today. He was traded for future considerations, and he is joining a new team in Alaska. Best of luck to him. He's hopping a plane right now for a six-hour flight to Anchorage, and he'll be in Kenai, the peninsula of Kenai, Alaska.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Go brown bears. And he will be asking, can I make it in Alaska pretty soon? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

And it's it's nicer than Bismarck. We'll we'll uh we'll give it that. There's excellent fly fishing. We you and me need to go out there in April.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Fly fishing. Yeah, that's that's how we want to end this on fly fishing.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Well, you're old. I mean, you you don't look like Robert Redford, but I you know I could pass for a Brad Pitt, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Okay. Picture Dorian Gray, you think you are, but let's uh let's let's end it on that. All right, guys, I want to thank you all for listening and stay tuned for the next drop of Two Vintage Guys. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Thank you.