BOB BRILL'S BLOG

Time [GMT -7] : 06 Sep , 11:18:49


29 Jul 2005 09:20:59 pm
HINES AND THE WORLD, DO IT


Hines Ward is no Terrell Owens, at least not in the mouth department and this is why it is very likely more people are behind the Pittsburgh wide receivers request for more money than those behind the mouthy Owens. Hines is considering holding out of training camp if he doesn’t get a large signing bonus with an expected contract extension. Hines wants $12 million while the Steelers are offering about $8. Currently he is the 39th highest paid player in the NFL at his position. He should be in the top 10. Ward has made the Pro Bowl for the last four years; he comes to work in the blue collar steel city every day. He is the quintessential Pittsburgh Steeler. Hard nosed he is the best blocking receiver in the game and more players respect him than almost any player in the game. The Steelers have a policy of not renegotiating contract extensions at certain times and this is one of those times. However they are willing to do so because they know they are on the brink of the Super Bowl and Ward, the most experienced receiver on the squad, is an integral part of the plan. Ward and his agent know this too. Mr. Rooney, get it done! Settle the deal for $10 million and move on. This is a rare exception as was Tommy Maddox last year. You have the chance to put the Steelers over the top this year and if this is going to happen Hines Ward is going to have to be a ready guy. We all understand the two sides could sit out much of training camp and not be effected but don’t wait too long because every game in the NFL counts. Losing one game because the player wasn’t ready or worse yet, losing him to injury early on because he was not as ready as he should be, could be disastrous. Hines plays hard and if he is not ready he could pull a hamstring or fall to another injury in the first or second game. We need all the Steelers ready for this season, all of them. When it comes to the hobby his cards don’t sell for big money for some reason but for fantasy folks he will be a key acquisition. He won’t be the TD guy but he will catch his passes and gain the yards. So this isn’t only a plea for us Steeler fans, it is a plea for fans of all kinds. Please Mr. Rooney, Get It Done!

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [11978]


28 Jul 2005 10:32:45 am
VINTAGE COLLECTIBLES, THE ECONOMY AND THE NATIONAL


To say vintage trading cards and memorabilia have come back in a big way is an understatement. The reasons for this can be attributed to many things, but one in particular is the best indicator. This is a bad economy. This week at the National sports collectors convention in Chicago more money is being spent on vintage trading cards and memorabilia than you can shake a stick at. The reason is the market is so hot. Some will say the reason the old card market is hot is because the new card market is so weak. New issues using vintage memorabilia as game used jersey, bat and anything else cards have taken over and died in quick fashion. Thus the vintage market is the place to go. However, in the big scheme of things when an economy (particularly the US economy) goes sour investors don’t put their money into the stock market. They don’t put their money into banks and they don’t typically invest in business expansion. The investors, the speculators put their money into antiques, art and vintage collectibles. The reason is simple. Vintage collectibles rarely go down in value. They are a safe bet. Chances are very strong when the economy returns these investors can liquidate their vintage collectibles for more than they paid for them. At worst they can sell them for break even. Try that in the stock market. The rate of return is usually better than a bank and it is more fun. Buying and selling collectibles, treasure hunting if you will, is always fun. It is usually profitable too. I don’t care what Mr. Alan Greenspan says this economy is not good. Ask the small business owner on the street where he stands today. Ask the folks who bought into those adjustable mortgages to get into a house as Greenspan raises interest rates for the next five months. Get him out of his ivory tower and into the mom and pop store for a week. Only then will he understand what it’s like. In the meantime buying vintage collectibles remains the safest bet. It is sort of like the line, ‘everything old is new again.’ It works.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [6308]


25 Jul 2005 10:02:35 pm
DONRUSS AND THE RETRO CASE


If you can't beat them, join them...or at least take an end run. This is the story with Playoff/Donruss/Leaf after the company lost its license to make baseball cards. Last week the Major League Baseball Players Association decided to cut back to two licensed companies in 2006 thus effectively ending the Donruss run of making current player trading cards. Now comes word the company is applying to the league to get a license to make cards of retired players. This kind of license does not need MLBPA approval and still gives the company a chance to show some of the greats and not so greats in their MLB uniforms. The license is also cheaper since you don't have to pay two entities, well, sort of. You still have to sign the players individually to appear on the cards. Donruss already has several under contract including Sandy Koufax and a Babe Ruth license. Donruss has made very nice retro cards for the past several years. However, the greats, about 30 of them are locked up with Upper Deck in an exclusive deal with the company representing those players. They include among others Rogers Hornsby. It will behoove PDL to think this one through. Pacific did it for a while and so did the Ted Williams Card Company. Both had their problems with marketing these but in today's world it should be much easier. The framework and the audience are already in place. If PDL can pull this off and keep producing quality baseball cards until the market returns, it would likely be first in line and welcomed back by the PA for a new card license. There was such uproar in the dealer base over the loss of PDL from baseball cards this may help satisfy those dealers and might even see PDL stay in the baseball card field. Both would be good things.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [5459]


24 Jul 2005 10:50:48 pm
MOVIE REVIEW: WEDDING CRASHERS CRASHES AND BURNS


My 20’s something kids loved it and thought it was the best and funniest comedy of the year. The tabloids are proclaiming the same. I don’t know, for me it was funny but not THAT funny. I literally found myself squirming in my seat with 25 minutes to go, wondering ‘when will this thing be over.’ Don’t get me wrong, ‘The Wedding Crashers’ was a cute idea with lots of laughs. Heck I even like both Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. But I like them in somewhat smaller doses than I got because there was certainly just too much of what some folks are calling ‘a good thing.’ The basic story is two guys who take a season off from their partnership job each year to crash weddings in order to get girls into bed. They are great at it. The stories they come up with, the laughs they have, the tricks they use are all ingenious. The kicker comes when they decide to crash the wedding of the daughter of the Secretary of the Treasury. This in itself is as far fetched as it can get and despite their talk of the ‘secret service’ and the ‘IRS’ they just waltz on in. It would have been more interesting if they told us what ingenious method they used to crash this wedding, or, maybe I missed it. Anyway our two heroes fall in love with daughters of the Secretary (Christopher Walken) and Jane Seymour. Both of whom by the way picked up a paycheck by going through the motions on their name-tags. There is also a grandmother who is not needed and a strange and icky son (grandma calls him ‘a homo’ three or four times) who could have just as easily been left out. One or the other of these two characters would have been okay, not both, and preferably neither. There were scenes with some folks we haven’t seen in a while including Rebecca De Mornay, Dwight Yoakam and Henry Gibson. This was just nice. I guess I just got tired of being beaten to death with Vaughn’s banter followed by Wilson’s banter. Both it seemed were non-stop. Once you’ve seen Vaughn do his shtick you don’t need to see it three, four or even five times. On top of this if I saw him feeding his face, or overstuffing is more appropriate, one more time I would have walked out. I just got tired of the same old thing over and over and over and over again. There was a great scene using the song ‘Shout.’ It was a finely edited (and I mean fine in the sense it was very well done) montage of clips of various crashing of weddings. It would have been great for 30 seconds. It felt like 30 minutes. Add Will Ferrell at the end for good measure with his overdone ‘I’m scoring all the time when crashing funerals because women at funerals are really horny’ attitude, was just ten pounds of icing on the overdone cake. Man, I couldn’t wait until this one ended. The ending by the way was actually the best part. It was very good. Too bad it didn’t come sooner, much sooner. Feel free to comment by clicking on the comments section below.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [6327]


22 Jul 2005 10:52:23 pm
LOSS OF DONRUSS BASEBALL A GIFT TO THE HOBBY


There continues to be an up roar in the dealer community and perhaps the collecting consumer community over the loss of the third remaining baseball license by Playoff/Donruss/Leaf. For ease sake we’ll call the company PDL. As mentioned previously the powers that be at Major League Baseball Players Association chose not to renew PDL’s license to make baseball cards in 2006. The reasons are many and there are more changes being made mandatory with the remaining two companies. PDL has been making baseball cards for about six years picking up after the demise of Pinnacle Brands. Fleer finally went belly up a month or so ago so a baseball card license went away leaving only PDL, Topps and Upper Deck. Now MLBPA is choosing not to renew the PDL license. While PDL made quality products this is not a bad thing. It is certainly not as bad as it’s being made out to be. In fact, in the long run it says here this will be a good thing. We’ve all cried for years, too many years, there are way too many brands, way too many companies and far too much collector confusion. Fleer dropping out was a start and it was expected. There were rumblings two months ago PDL was going to be next. Word circulated PDL was not having an easy time making its royalty payments. We don’t know this for sure and only the MLBPA and PDL can say with certainty and they are not talking. If this was the case the last thing this industry needs is another company facing financial issues. Dealers remember the disaster as Pinnacle and Fleer were having problems. These companies were dumping product so fast it would make your head spin. The only way they could get cash to pay the bills was to produce products and sell them for whatever they could just to get cash. MLBPA has wanted to cut down to two manufacturers for some time. The market is just too overcrowded and one of the biggest reasons people give for why they don’t collect anymore is ‘too many brands’ also known as collector confusion. ‘I dropped out when they issued so many different kinds of cards,’ is the common answer we hear at the hobby shop level. This is not the only reason but it is the biggest. If you were to eliminate a company after Fleer which would it be? Upper Deck the original innovator and certainly the one making the most money for the MLBPA? Of course not. Topps, the grand-daddy of them all and the name most associated with trading cards? Of course not. Or PDL which was making baseball for six years was the weak sister despite making really nice cards and offering good value? The obvious choice is PDL, unfortunately for those who liked the brands and for those who work there. There are other issues. PDL is really good at making retro products. These are the products with players such as Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth and more. Upper Deck just locked up a license which handles the big names from the retro era. This is an exclusive deal. PDL cannot truly make a strong retro product without these names and they were not going to have them. This means bat, jersey and autographed cards of Cobb, Hornsby and nearly all the other Hall of Fame deceased greats are exclusive with Upper Deck. PDL is out of luck. Turning to Topps we suggest something else. The Rookie Card issue is a reality again. Part of the deal with the new licenses in 2006 is Rookie cards (or RC) can only be cards of players who are on the major league roster and playing. In other words players which Topps had the exclusive rights to sign under the old agreements are no longer RC’s until they come to the majors. A special Rookie Card logo is now mandatory starting in 2006 for a card to be a RC. This is going to be a powerful boost to the hobby. So it looks now as if Topps will be contributing more or at least something different to the MLBPA. Previously Topps had a special arrangement with the Players Association because of its history in helping the MLBPA get started and becoming what it is today. Now there is no need for Topps to shell out thousands of dollars for players who may never make the major leagues. We are not sure how this financial arrangement will work but if it is as it reads in the news release from MLBPA, Topps and Upper Deck will both be funneling their money into the royalty package with the amount enough to make up the loss of PDL. So we have one less company which means fewer brands and less collector confusion. We have a new RC designation which should result in people chasing RC’s again. Add to the mix a very big and much called for third element. No new baseball cards until February, 2006 after the final issues of this season. What does this mean? Baseball cards in baseball season. Collectors and dealers for years have been screaming for this and now we have it. Not only will this cut down on the amount of new product dealers have to buy in the fourth quarter (product which even during the holidays drains cash flow), but it will mean a longer shelf life for other baseball products. Dealers will be willing to stock older products through the holidays for their gift buying customers which also means prices should stabilize. For a hobby store to survive this is a real key; stabilization of the market. There are those who state this all could have been done by keeping PDL and having all three companies cut down on the number of brands they issue. Not so at all. Two issues are involved here. One, is you would still have far too many brand names which will not cut down on collector confusion. This is one of the issues which got us into this mess in the first place. The second is simple. These companies, especially Topps and Upper Deck are very large companies. To have them cut down on the number of brands in a competitive market place would not work. The only way a card manufacturer gets money is to ship product. Revenue comes upon shipping. The fewer products you ship the less revenue you get. It would have been financial suicide for these companies if they were told to cut their brands or issues by one-third. By not renewing the license for PDL a third of the brands of baseball cards are eliminated and there will likely not be an increase in the number of new issues Topps and UD can produce. In addition, the new rule from MLBPA is more low priced brands to attract younger collectors. The increased competition was causing the increase in pack prices to race at a ridiculous pace to higher levels. Picture it as Mr. Greenspan slowing the economy by tightening the hobby’s belt. The loss of PDL, while regrettable in many ways, is a gift to the hobby. Having only two licensed companies making baseball cards will only strengthen the hobby in the long run…a hobby which was in danger of crashing and burning if some drastic moves did not take place.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [6741]


20 Jul 2005 11:07:09 pm
DONRUSS OUT OF THE BASEBALL CARD BUSINESS?


On the heels of the demise of Fleer Trading Cards it looks as if there will be one less company making ‘baseball’ cards in the near future. Reports are Playoff Corporation will lose its baseball license beginning in 2006. Playoff holds the Donruss and Leaf brands as well as others. There has been uproar in the dealer community as with many hobby stores Donruss/Leaf have been very strong sellers. There are indications the company has been behind on royalty payments and if this is true it is certainly a good thing the license is not being renewed. Weaker card manufacturers cause more problems than they should. Playoff was a strong player when it only had an NFL license and should return to this mode if the baseball license is completely pulled as it looks like it has. One of the tell tale signs is the push toward retro products including the purchase of a game used Babe Ruth jersey the company shelled out big bucks to get. Donruss made nice retro products but with Upper Deck locking up the vast majority of big names in the vintage field, the writing was on the wall. Upper Deck has become a juggernaut in cards and with Topps indecisive about its future (they are discussing selling the candy company and doing something with the entertainment division) UD could be the last man standing at some point. This is not a bad thing. Trading cards were healthy when there was one manufacturer. The eras from 1956-59 and 1964-1979 were healthy times. Of course there were few card stores then and selling/buying was quite different. There also was no internet. Having one card company, dictating the rules might not be a bad thing and maybe it is necessary to put some controls on an industry which badly needs them. The hobby does not police itself. Perhaps if there are fewer players at the top the policing can begin. No one likes to have someone dictate terms to them but in the case of this hobby/business it may be the only way to fix it.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [6061]


18 Jul 2005 06:03:41 pm
UPPER DECK AND THE FLEER REDEMPTIONS


When Upper Deck won the auction for a portion of Fleer Trading Cards with a $6.1 million bid it sent a message out to the industry. The bid was for the intelectual properties and the die-cast business. This included the die-cast inventory. It did not include the inventory from the rest of the card company. That inventory includes the autographs, game used cards and other trading cards. Thus when collectors think Upper Deck should be filling their redemption cards under the Fleer name, they are in for a surprise. Upper Deck did not acquire those items, at least not at this point. Another auction is planned. Reallistaclly UD did the smart thing. Little is known about what would or will happen to anyone purchasing the autographs because there are some clouds over those issues. 1. Since the players who signed those cards were not paid for their signatures would the company which buys the autographs have to pay the players before they could use them? 2. Since the autographs were obtained under the guise of a license with the leagues and players' associations, would the company which buys them have to settle up with those entities first? 3. If the company buys the signed cards to redeem them for collectors who are now holding worthless Fleer redemption cards, would they have to fulfill all redemptions even if there were not enough in the Fleer inventory to meet the requirement? 4. What legal issues would arise upon purchasing the redemptions based on the above three questions asked? No at the moment Upper Deck has done the prudent thing. Buying the die-cast company and it's inventory means UD can jump right into the licensed die-cast market. They can redeem a portion of what they spent immediately by selling off the die-cast inventory. There are an estimated 30,000 redemption cards issued by Fleer by some estimates. There is also an issue regarding the redemptions which is up in the air and this stems from signed and memorabilia cards which were ready for future products. Two products were made and sitting in the printer's warehouse; Ultra Football and Fleer Traditions Baseball Series 2. Where do the redemption cards and autographs and game used stand when it comes to these products? Presumably there were no redemptions in these but you can choose to believe that or not. We certainly don't. Perhaps the best thing that could happen would be for the leagues and PA's to buy those cards, make a deal with the players involved, or pay them. and issue the cards to collectors who are owed. Don't bet on that happening either.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [7229]


13 Jul 2005 11:53:29 pm
AUTOGRAPHED TRADING CARDS: FIXING WHAT'S BROKE


One reason for the high cost of sports trading cards these days is collectors are demanding more autographs in packs. These autographs often come at a cost which is highly prohibitive for the trading card manufacturers who already pay hefty royalties to the leagues and players’ associations for licensing rights. This is the legal right to produce pictures of baseball players on trading cards. The royalties cost the companies millions of dollars annually. In addition these companies must purchase autographs from the individual players, jerseys and other items from the players; all to weave into the card to offer what are called ‘game used’ memorabilia. The industry has gone to this extreme to keep current collectors and attract new ones. A huge problem stems from the cost of these autographs which can average anywhere from one per box, to one per pack. In some cases more than one per pack. This is one reason why packs of baseball cards cost $5-$500 per pack with most regular adult collectors purchasing packs which average $20-30 each. Autographs are the most important and costliest element in the equation. Some fans will argue players should provide these autographs for free. After all they make a good living playing and being paid by the clubs who are supported by the fans. This isn’t realistic or even fair. Players should be paid a fair price for what they do and for their signatures. What is the key question is how much? For instance the manufacturers certainly can get some common players for as little as $2-$5 per signature. They may buy 5000 of these or what may turn out to be a $25,000 pay check for the player. However, players such as Albert Pujols (star of the St. Louis Cardinals) charge $135 per signature. This is an unheard of sum but it is what the manufacturer must pay to get Pujols to sign a card. In most cases the $135 is more than it costs the manufacturer to make, and even more than they sell the box to the hobby store owner. This is also why there are so few Albert Pujols autographs available. The solution may be in a variation of what the NFL does. The NFL does not allow exclusivity. For instance, Lebron James of the NBA Cavaliers signed an exclusive deal for autographs and jerseys with Upper Deck. They paid a hefty price, millions of dollars. The NFL does not allow this. What might be a solution is for baseball (and the other sports as well) to issue a blanket deal for player autographs and in return also reduce the royalty structure to incorporate this. For instance, if company A is paying $10 million in royalties and is actually shelling out another $5 million for autographs in addition, maybe the royalty could be reduced to $8 million and include signatures of all players (with a formula used to determine how many for each class of player). It might be $11 million including the autographs, or whatever makes sense. The numbers at this point are not important, what is important is the idea. This money would go into the regular group licensing pot to be divided amongst all players as does the regular royalty money. The formula would need to be worked out and the distribution would be equal when it came to the card manufacturers. The question of the super star players being worth more could easily be settled by following the NFL example of the Quarterback Club. The NFL faced the same issue a number of years ago but the QBC changed that. The super star players (mainly quarterbacks but other positions were added later) had a separate agreement. This team of the highest profile players would reach a different deal which was negotiated with the individual card companies. To be fair the price would need to be equal with each company. The way it would work is that the MLBPA would decide which six key players would be designated to be the first ‘All Star Team’ players. You of course would have Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, and four other players of equal value. Each year the MLBPA would add two more players to the list. Once players retire they would be removed and would be free to cut their own deals as retired players. The list would never likely grow past 20 or 30 players as players drop off due to retirement attrition, or injury or just having several consecutive bad years causing their demand to drop. In this way, the super star players would get super star treatment and paychecks while the rest of the players would be covered under the general agreement. This in turn should allow card companies to pay less for more and keep the rising cost down. It also in turn would allow the more popular players to keep their more popular paychecks while handing equality to the masses who collect. This would save the companies in the long run as well because less money would be spent on negotiating each individual deal with the players needed. There are hundreds of players signed for these deals and the massive amount of work put into it could be eliminated. It is not a perfect solution by any means, but it is a good start. It has the beginnings of some sanity and in the trading card industry there is a need for a good dose of that! Please feel free to comment by clicking on the comment box below. We appreciate your feedback.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [6883]


11 Jul 2005 09:01:48 pm
THE HIGH COST OF SPORTSCARDS


Owners of hobby stores which sell trading cards as their primary business are facing a continuing dilemma. It stems from collector demand, high player royalties, manufacturers in a quandary and the fact most hobby stores survive on fewer and fewer collectors. The problem in question is the continuing rise in the cost of a pack of trading cards. While the average price of a pack of baseball, football or basketball cards today is in the $5 range, the bulk of adult male collectors (the staple of the industry) spend their money on packs which average about $30-$40 each. No it is not your father’s baseball cards anymore. It hasn’t been for some time. It has been this writer’s contention (I too own a hobby store) as the price spirals upward we lose more collectors, while feeding the gambling frenzy of the pack ripping collectors who can afford it. Picture it as a pyramid. The higher we go, the more people drop out. The bottom line comes when a store is living on one or two customers. There are such stores now in just this position. If you are surviving with just one or two heavy users it doesn’t take long to see your business disappear if one of them leaves, loses his job, transfers, dies or just decides he doesn’t need to collect anymore. Disaster strikes and the store either shuts down, or dies a slow death. The problem is even more complicated by the fact we have lost a lot of the casual collectors either due to the price increases or because of the reasons mentioned in the above paragraph. To me, it is a lot of both but more due to the ever rising cost of packs. Collectors want ‘the good stuff.’ When the ‘good stuff’ was $5 a pack it was easy. Spend $75 and get 15 packs of cards. Now the good stuff costs $75 a pack for four cards. Sure the four cards will likely be as good or valuable as what you got out of 15 packs previously, but you get the picture. The collectors who are supporting the hobby in the biggest way are at the moment willing to spend $75 or a hundred or even the $500 SRP Upper Deck offers for Exquisite Basketball. The cost on the secondary market is now $650 per pack of five cards but there are those willing to pay it. I have friends who back what I am saying and others who say the high priced packs are good for the industry. Some people drive Fords and others drive a Rolls Royce. Different strokes for different folks. My contention is however the collector who can’t afford the higher priced packs, one who feels it is morally wrong to pay those prices or who is appalled by it, will drop out. He will no longer support the hobby store which in turn will lead to the closing of more such stores. Let me say here, there is nothing wrong with these high priced packs. The problem lies in there are so many lower priced products being switched to higher priced SKU’s, the general collector is faced with fewer products he can afford. The problem is complicated by the death of the cash flow for the store owner. The store owner can no longer carry every product. If he does, even every high priced product (therefore bowing out of the lower priced inventory) he can easily go broke when a few of those products fail and sit on his shelf too long. The risk in holding on to 10 boxes which cost him $30 each, is far less than holding on to 10 boxes which cost him $135 each. There is no easy solution but the industry, the manufacturers and yes even the dealers who make good money on these high priced packs have to make a decision. If the manufacturers would limit the super high priced brands to one and the middle range of high priced brands to just one, this would go a long way in changing the way the industry is going now. At the moment the trading card industry is spiraling and it is not an upward spiral when it comes to new issues of trading cards.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [5987]


09 Jul 2005 12:11:22 am
Olympic Showdown; No Baseball?


With all the money the United States pours into the Olympic Games every time out, you would think the country would get a little respect. We get none! It was announced today that in the 2012 Olympics both baseball and softball would be eliminated from Olympic competition. The country which pours the most money into the sport gets brushed aside when it comes to its national pastime. The US dumps tens of millions of dollars into the Olympic movement with television advertising and broadcast rights. For years we would not send our best athletes to the games because we strictly used amateurs while the Soviets, the Eastern Block and even the Asian countries sent professionals. They were professionals by the simple fact their sport was their profession. Now after only a few Olympics of baseball and soft ball the US games are kicked out. It is also the national sport of Cuba and numerous other nations are picking up the great American game. Softball has been a huge hit with the women and now that is also gone. The hint is there was some backlash to the Major League Baseball steroids controversy. Heck, the Olympics is where doping began! Remember in the 1960’s the charges the East German women and the Soviet women were drawing dangerously close to being men due to drug use. Can anyone draw anything from Bulgarian weight lifters? C’mon! Doping in major league baseball compared to Olympic drug problems. Remember Ben Johnson, the sprinter who ran for Japan after failing his drug tests in 1988 during the Seoul games? It’s time to draw the line with this one. Boycott the games. Not by pulling the athletes out as in 1984, but by withholding our money in any support of the Games except for our athletes. Let’s start with broadcast rights. Don’t bid the big bucks. Let the games go un-noticed except for a minimum sum. Congress needs to apply pressure here. Let’s find a way to boycott the Olympic Games financially. There has to be a way to keep American dollars away from the IOC and still support our athletes who participate. Let them pull soccer out of the games and draw the ire of the Italians, the Irish and the Argentines. Let them pull gymnastics from the games and see how fast the Chinese and the Russians scream. Let them pull the marathon from the games and watch the Kenyans and the other African nations yell at the IOC. Pull any of those sports from the Olympic Games and the world would cry fix and politics. Let them pull baseball and softball and see the world cheer. Okay, you won’t let us play the National Pastime, so let’s put our National Spectator Sport into the games: NFL Style Football. That will never happen as most of the rest of the world, beginning with the IOC isn’t man enough for a real sport.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [5796]


07 Jul 2005 03:55:03 pm
Fleer and Upper Deck: a brand new day?


The latest word from the trading card world is while Donruss/Playoff etc, etc, was the destination of the Fleer Trading Card name and brand names, Upper Deck is making a big push. The west coast company has offered $2 million for the names associated with Fleer. This is higher than Playoff was negotiating and might just force Playoff out of the picture. What would Upper Deck do with the name and why pay $2 million for the name of a company currently despised by collectors? The reason may be simple. Tradition and brand equity. The Fleer name has been around for nearly a hundred years and people have short memories. Fleer by Upper Deck might actually be appealing to collectors; even those who are owed redemption cards from the former. The brand name Ultra has a long tradition, especially in the retail end of the business (Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target) and not a bad tradition in the hobby. There are other brand names, not as familiar, although Greats of the Game comes to mind and is a good one. Topps certainly does not seem interested, or at least there doesn't seem to be any news of interest by Topps. Playoff could have used the name but $2 million is a lot of money for a question mark and for a company not as well off as the others. An auction is expected for the name, inventory and the die-cast division on July 14th. Short notice but a quick resolution when choosing under New Jersey law not to place the company into bankruptcy. There doesn't seem to be a bankruptcy filing at this point, with the lawyers charged with liquidating the company's assets going the auction route first. Liquidate everything you can, pay off the bills you can pay and walk away. No bankruptcy on the record and maybe the guys who took the company to this point do get some of their money back. They won't get $30 million for what they have to sell but they will get as much as they can and the legal fees won't linger forever as they would with a bankruptcy. Whether Upper Deck will bid on the game used, autographs and cards will be another matter. We expect they would. Why not? The company could use this stuff in upcoming products. As for the owners of Fleer, you might say it's easy in and easy out with the collectors left holding the bag in the meantime.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [7268]


04 Jul 2005 09:52:36 am
THE FANS SCREW UP ALL STAR VOTING AGAIN


Fan voting for the Major League Baseball All-Star game is here to stay and this is still an unfortunate thing. Sure it gets the fans more involved in the game they want to see but again if you look at the rosters the fans voted into the game the same old discrepancies exist. The National League starters, voted by the fans, are dominated by the major market players. Fans can vote as often as they want and the more fans there are in a city, the more votes the home town gets. No one is saying Mike Piazza and Carlos Beltran of the NEW YORK Mets are not deserving. But at .264 (Piazza, 9 HR) and .262 (Beltran 9HR) are not more deserving than Paul Lo Duca (.30 and Jason Bay (.311 15 HR), Miguel Cabrera (.342 16 HR) or Andruw Jones (.280 26 HR). How Jones was not voted to the starting line-up after carrying the Braves hitting attack is beyond me. There are three ST. LOUIS Cardinals on the starting team, two NEW YORK Mets, one CHICAGO Cub, one PHILADELPHA Phillie and one LA Dodger. No medium or small market teams are represented. Albert Pujols did not make the starting team but his first base rival Derek Lee is having a monster year. This is correct and the right way to vote. However, voting Piazza and Beltran or even David Eckstein over his SS counterparts, is just wrong. Eckstein at .290 is the Cardinals sparkplug. Are the fans saying he’s that much more deserving than the CINCINNATI Reds Felipe Lopez at .321 with 14 HR? Take a look at the American League. Four BOSTON Red Sox, two BALTIMORE Orioles, one NEW YORK Yankee, one LOS ANGELES Angel and one lonely TEXAS Ranger. At least in the case of the American League fans they got the voting right. All of the players selected are much better, or are having better years than the reserves selected. The problem exists though with the major market teams seemingly stuffing the ballot boxes. With baseballs disparity of the haves and the have-nots continuing to grow with small market teams left in the dust, the AS Game remains an enigma. Making the game more important by giving the winner home field advantage in the World Series is as much of a joke as having fans decide who deserves to play in the AS Game. As long as baseball continues on this course of action the All-Star Game will be more of a showcase for the pre-game skills competition than it will ever be as a game to showcase the best of the best for the year it’s played. At least when the writers voted to pick the players for the game you had someone to blame you could call by name. There was much more objectivity and there would be more today with the vast amount of media scrutiny of the writers and broadcasters. It is definitely time to return the balloting to where it belongs. In the hands of the writers who cover the game and not the fans, many of whom haven’t a clue as to who the players are.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [8009]


02 Jul 2005 12:25:38 am
Spielberg & Cruise lose the War of the Worlds


Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning is wide eyed and dramatic when she’s not screaming, Tim Robbins is the consummate actor, Morgan Freeman phones it in and picks up a paycheck and Steven Spielberg loses the battle in ‘The War of the Worlds.’ And did I mention opening 4th of July weekend the film will make a hundred million bucks before it goes to video and will be THE blockbuster hit of the summer. Why? You ask. Because it has Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning as the wide eyed little girl, Tim Robbins the consummate actor, the voice of Morgan Freeman and Steven Spielberg’s name out in front. And a lot of destructive action. All this despite the fact it’s a pretty lousy movie. Most people will spend their $9 to see it. It has some of the same twists as the original film with Gene Barry who makes a cameo at the end. I would say it has some of the same ‘plot’ twists but you have to have a ‘plot’ to twist in the first place. The video action is pretty good, the Martians somewhat creative or at least true to the original film in many respects. There were the three pronged, or tripod Martian machines from the original film although vastly updated due to modern technology. This was nice. The original film won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects. This one could be nominated for the effects video work. There is a lot more competition for this kind of thing 52 years later however. While the original had Barry as a scientist looking for a way to destroy the Martian menace, the Spielberg version had Tom Cruise (a dockworker) wandering aimlessly through New York and New England trying to get to Boston to dump off his kids with their mom (Tom’s ex). All the while Cruise is trying to keep the horrors of the Martian invasion (which is destroying their home, their street, and everything that moves right in front of them) by telling Fanning to ‘close your eyes’ so she won’t see anything. His teen-aged son keeps asking what’s going on and Cruise acts confused in trying to tell him ‘don’t ask.’ While all the electric power is out (even in the cars on the street) Cruise conveniently tells his mechanic friend to change a solenoid in the car he’s working on. This sets up the obvious. Cruise grabs the car when the guy says he was right about the solenoid and our dockworker quickly becomes the ONLY person in New York with a working car (and all of New England as well). Well, except for the military and one lone news crew, which has a working van. Robbins is wonderful as a somewhat eccentric citizen who offers Cruise and family shelter during an attack. He offers him Peach Schnapps. For a second I thought they were going to say the Peach Schnapps was what was going to kill the Martians. That would have been funny and as campy as ‘Mars Attacks’ based on the Topps trading card set of the late 1950’s. Sorry, it’s still the bacteria which kill the Martian hordes despite the fact the word ‘bacteria’ is never used. While the original had the creatures dying outside a church where everyone went to pray, no such Godliness in this one. Instead they destroy a church in the beginning. They used a lot of the same scenes, or settings, as the original and as a fan of that film this was interesting. Just not entertaining. In 1953 maybe having a love story mixed into the plot was a good thing. It would have been a good thing to have the same in this plot as well. Then again, forgive me. There wasn’t a plot. A Barry and Ann Robinson duo would have been nice. It would have added interest instead of the less-than-caring father figure Cruise was supposed to be. It did not work, at all. Oh, and that Morgan Freeman hack job? Ouch, Vittorio Cramer is the man, and his wonderful pipes did the voice over real justice in the 1953 version. Freeman must have read the script and said ‘sure I’ll do it, as long as I don’t have to appear in it.’ His lack of intensity at the end could have been done better by a dead Martian. He just threw away the lines; lines which were very important to the film. So, did I mention it will be the big blockbuster hit of the summer? Mr. Spielberg will take home millions on this one. It will do especially well in Europe and around the world where a lot of people actually don’t mind seeing Americans losing the battles. One actor remarked ‘I heard Europe didn’t have any damage’. Stevie S., give us back our money! ‘Zip zip zip zip.’ That is the sound of the ray gun. Actually if the Martians had seen the script first they would have sued for mis-representation and the film never would have been made. ZIP ZIP! H.G. Wells and Orson Welles are both turning in their graves.

		Category : General \| Posted By : kckings \| Comments[0] \| Trackbacks [6303]