Paul Skenes Superfractor Bowman Chrome Auto RC Back on Market
 

Paul Skenes best RC on the market again

Golden Elite Auction

Predictions?

I saw $125k

More than the Recent Gehrig RC and Babe Ruth game used bat.

Imagine that. A Pirate beating the Yankees. Oh, yeah. October 13, 1960, 3:36 p.m.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_EnDpFD0y0


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLo88Vf90g0

Every time I see these new cards selling for more than the great old ones, I just shake my head. And that is why there is chocolate and vanilla. I don't even know of 99% of the new players. I would if I cared, I guess.

+1 for what Leon said.

I was once told I wasn't a baseball fan; and it shocked me, the comment was from a good friend who collected the old cards (our cards) and knew tons more about them than I did... we'd gone to MLB games together, even a WS game.

He told me I was not a fan of modern baseball with outrageous salaries, through the roof ticket prices, $11 beer... instead, I was a fan of 19th and 20th century baseball. He was right.

I can watch an all-star game and know just a hand full of players. I'd not go to the home run thing the night before the AS game if I was given tickets, lodging, and airfare.

As a younger person, I would have flipped out for the streaming games we have now. I'm still a bit amazed how easy the access is for high quality streams.

MLB Players Alumni Association $25 membership. Half off the $140 MLB.tv streaming package. $95 a year for everything (local blackouts apply). This is a golden era of game consumption.

I watch many 100s of hours of games per season and it's awesome. I'm very thankful to live in this era and if/when the era of local blackouts come it should only get better.

I couldn't agree with you more. Each year I am less and less interested in modern MLB. The micromanaging rule changes, disrespectful players, etc. I recently dumped all my modern crap and switched to pre-war. I'm never going back.

If disrespectful players keep you from enjoying the game, then I don't think you would have enjoyed 19th and turn of the 20th century baseball. The game was perceived as being solely for disrespectful people of ill repute. This was mentioned many times in many stories throughout the Glory of Their Times.

**** Let me clarify: Players that don't respect the game. Hot dogs, showboats, etc. This was not tolerated in as little as 40 years ago. And this is simply one small factor. The silly changes(pitch clock, base enlarging, lack of strategy/all or nothing Home Run approach) are much larger that the the Eloys and Tatis types that ass up the game today.

I agree with you. I recently got back into watching baseball after a 30 year break, and I love it. The game is much more accessible now.

Wasn't it exciting to do well when you were younger? I don't understand why older people are upset when young people have a good time. When I was 21, if I cranked a 450 foot homer to deep center in the 9th inning of a major league baseball game, yeah, I'm going to go nuts. And it's not going to bother me if some older person in the stands who didn't hit a home run doesn't like how excited I am for hitting mine.

These are grown men playing a children's game for a living, after all. How serious should you be?

I agree
 

It took me a little while, but I have gotten to really enjoy all the whooping and hollering in today's game - now when I see footage from the 1950s where a player does something special and then he and his teammates barely react, it seems unnatural. Today's game may be less stately or elegant, but it's a lot more fun to watch. The recent rule changes (pitch clock, limiting pitching changes) have helped with quickening the pace of games. And what magic could possibly be lost by making the bases two inches wider and encouraging more steals? I just wish they could figure out a way to reduce strikeouts and get OPS up some....

Well, ask a players agent how serious baseball is. And I am not begrudging anyone making what they can. It is a game, but kind of a high stakes one.

I was out with the 1994 half season strike. I just really never went back to it. Too many other things to distract me. And I am happy there are so many fans today. If baseball wasn't popular then collecting baseball cards wouldn't be as popular and fun. New baseball stuff is great for 98% of the guys on this forum, probiably. Then, there are the other 2 percent of us.

I loved playing baseball (still pay a little softball) and watching the games when I was younger. If everyone were the same the world would be a boring place. Go Rangers! :)
.

I enjoy the history of baseball and the items associated with that more than this new wave of these over inflated value of modern cards.

I highly suggest anyone who doesn't appreciate "fun baseball" never watch any Dominican Winter League baseball games.

You might give yourself an aneurysm seeing an entire dugout celebrate a game tieing HR in the 3rd inning or pimping a bat flip going 30+ft. into the air.

Actually, it might win some of you over. The players are having more fun than the fans at some points and the fans are having lots of fun.

All fair points. I don’t disagree things get serious for you when there’s money involved but it’s still playing baseball for a living. If I made a million dollars a year playing tag professionally I think it would still do me some good to have some perspective about playing tag for a living.

Yeah, it's football, but I miss the days of Barry Sanders making sick moves and getting into the end zone, only to then simply flip the ball to the nearest official. No hullabaloo.

When I tune in to Mets games now, every time someone hits a home run they begin pointing to the heavens, the dugout and random places all over the stadium as the lights are dramatically lowered for his celebratory rounding of the bases, but it's not over. Then he and his teammates do their well-choreographed, super duper handshaking/fist bumping line dance sort of thing before heading to the dugout for even more displays of adulation...and all of this pageantry is to celebrate a frickin' solo shot when they were LOSING 8 - 0!!!

Please give me back the old days!!!

I have zero interest in a Paul Skenes card. But I absolutely love watching him pitch. There is absolutely a place for one to collect one era while still loving and appreciating the sheer skill, talent, and accessibility of another.

+1, I appreciate the classy "work ethic" attitude and understated behavior in any sport.

To be clear, there is a time to celebrate like Larsen's perfect game or any other perfect game celebration for example. Game ending slam in the 9th, celebrate all you want.

To see an individual celebrate an individual accomplishment when his "team" is losing just looks dumb in a team sport environment.

Yeah, back in the day we'd never have had a left-handed superstar pitcher punch an umpire after walking the first batter in a game.

Or a team going on strike to defend a teammate who beat up a fan.

Or a team conspiring to intentionally lose a championship.

125 k for who lol

Yeah, and back in the day they had this too.

This is when MLB lost me and I never cared to go back.

1994 MLB Season
The strike began on August 12, 1994, and resulted in the remainder of that season, including the postseason and the World Series, being canceled.

Owners and players were at loggerheads over a proposed salary cap and revenue-sharing agreement



.

Today's baseball is DEADLY boring...
 

Ohtani DH AB 6 R 4 H 6 RBI 10
3 homeruns (49, 50, 51)
2 stolen bases (50, 51)
2 doubles
1 single
17 total bases

Among active players you have Trout with 3 MVPs, Ohtani about to win his third, Judge about to win his second, and Harper with 2 MVPs to himself.

There have only been 11 players ever to win three or more MVP awards. There could potentially be 4 of them playing at the same time in the coming years.

Ohtani will become the 12th. Judge is 32 and Harper is 31.

I don't understand any avoidance of the modern game. Right now, you have the opportunity to watch a sport with some of the most dominant players you will see in your lifetime all active at the same time and in their primes. Even if Trout is oft injured, he's still just 33 years old.

I don't love the pitching by committee, but agree there are some amazing players and it's still baseball, is there an alternative?

That is annoying but so is the lack of stealing bases, the bunt, the hit and run is almost not part of the game and everyone is going yard each AB. I am not as much of fan of the game as I was.

Can you think of some great hit and run players from the past that you admire?

19 guys with 30 or more steals. How far down is that relative to past years?

Not sure I have a list off hand but I liked the concept.

With roots in NY and LA my frame of reference are the Dodgers, primarily. The team has gone through a transition in the way they approach the game. They are not alone but there is much less finesse baseball on offense.

Ah I see. Well, it's certainly not the team of Maury Wills, the Davises, and Koufax/Drysdale, I will grant you that. Still, you have Shohei and his 50 steals, and Betts runs a little.

That is 2024 team. Hit and Run, bunting, stealing bases was the way they played ball. Now you have guys batting 1-9 trying to put the ball over the fence virtually every AB. Again I am speaking about a change in the trend. The game has changed which is fine. Nothing stays the same. I am simply saying I was more of a fan of the game the way it used to be played.

Well, it's driven by analytics as we all know. Roberts seems a bit of a gambler at heart so maybe if left to his devices he would do more of that, but he's probably constrained by a philosophy dictated by management.

Analytics is what it comes down to.

I’m sorry, but if Ohtani hitting 3 HR’s yesterday to establish the 50/50 club doesn’t excite you, you’re hopeless.


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Hit and run guys from when I was a kid...

Jim Gilliam
Willie Davis
Dick Groat
Richie Allen
Pete Rose

Those guys could make contact if that's what they wanted, they could watch SS and 2B to see who was covering the bag, and they could run a ground ball through the vacated hole. Brings to mind a close quote of a fella that I considered to be about the best ballplayer... "There's not much to being a ballplayer, IF you're a ballplayer."

Great list Frank, I'd posit the pre 1920 guys were all hit and run, Cobb especially. Post war Willie Mays only concentrated on moving runners.

I remember Dick Allen being a big strikeout guy, not a bat control/contact hitter guy? Looking him up now, he led the league twice and was over 100 almost every year.

Nobody is dissing Ohtani. Just chatting about the game, hope that is ok with you.

Peter,

Wow...
Just because he struck out a lot doesn't mean that he only struck out.

My recollection is seeing him batting successfully in hit and run situations, in person. That was in the mid 60's. He could hit and run then. I saw it. But that is also when he was young and coachable. Gene Mauch survived that for a few years, and once Richie settled into being a talented big leaguer he became somewhat less manageable and developed his own sense of self determination (hardheadedness).

Instead of just grabbing a season's strike out numbers to be determinative proof of one's ability to hit and run, pick a couple of seasons, 1964 through 1967, and go to retrosheet.org, I think they'll have a game log for each of his games.

What you will find is that with a runner on first, he was less likely to strike out, and often, if he got any kind of a hit, it was most likely a single that moved the runner to third. And you'll see that he was more likely to strike out with no one on base (when he was trying to muscle a ball over the fence).

Now, when the 1970's roll around, and he became Dick Allen, I think he swung for the fences a bit more often, he was more about self instead of team, and he was not expected to hit and run as often. That was in his later years,

I'm not saying he didn't strike out a lot in those early years, he did. To some extent, in later years, he was out of the lineup more often, and his strike outs were fewer. partly because he didn't swing as wildly in later years, and partly because he was getting fewer at bats.

I saw him wearing the birds on the bat probably 7 or 8 times in 1970. The attitude had set in by then. He had the ability of generating that loud crack that comes from a ball being well hit with the bat's barrel. Or, to paraphrase, he could shatter the ozone with all of his might. I saw him with the Phillies in 1964 and 1965, and the Dodgers after he left the Cardinals. The man had bat control (when neeeded) and could hit and run.

I am sure you saw much more of him than I did so I defer to your recollection. But leaving that aside, generally speaking, wouldn't you expect a big strike out guy not to also be a great hit and run/contact guy? I guess I see your point that they aren't per se inconsistent.

On my favorite team I very much admired Tim Foli for his ability to do it.

I can understand people upset with how the modern game is handled. I still watch and there's many things about the game I do not like. How pitchers barely go the distance anymore, the patches of corporate sponsors on the uniform, the constant stream of never ending gambling adds, and how any sense of rationality with sports media has gone out the window.

I just feel like you guys are part of this constant, if I may borrow from Lost, where people of a certain age just don't like current things anymore. I feel like you would have been interchangeably annoyed with every new iteration of the game, from catchers wearing pads, to fielders wearing gloves and on up to the 162 game season not being a real 154 gamer or being upset they moved the fences in. I understand the nostalgia that probably drives these feelings. Being a kid is fun and when you realize you've gotten older, you just want things to be like they were when you were a kid. And every new kid isn't getting to experience the best of life like you did. But you're missing out on a lot when you think that way because modern life isn't so terrible either.

Aaron Judge is not Babe Ruth but he did hit 62 homers. If I put myself into the future where I'm asking an older guy about what it was like to see Judge hit 62 homers, I'd be pretty let down if they said they didn't know because baseball wasn't stealing a lot of bases then, so they weren't watching anymore.

I really enjoy the emotion in the game today. The quality of the pitching is unimaginable. The fact that hitters can hit that pitching at all boggles my mind. I don't miss the bunting. Am glad they are doing something to bring back stealing bases. Love the pitch clock and batter clock.

But...

The strikeouts and swinging for the fences on every pitch by every hitter in the lineup rubs me the wrong way big time. And the constant use of the bullpen leads to over-managing which I have always hated.

So I guess I mostly like and appreciate the game today but it is tough to watch a full game for me.

Same for me. I do love watching all the condensed games on the MLB app the next day.

I agree with a lot of this. But as someone who grew up watching baseball in the 70s, I miss complete games, four man rotations, shutouts and an era where good pitching was the focus of the game. The game isn’t the same for me due to the lack of dominant starting pitching. That being said, when I was a kid we’d get scores off the radio or on the nightly sports report. And we’d see box scores the next day — on all games but the late-ending west coast. I love being able to watch any game I want on demand.

I think there's a universal tendency for people as they age to think things were better in the past. If you want to see this phenomenon ask anyone over say 50 for their all time great list, it will be heavily slanted and won't have a single player from the past four decades. From my perspective, as long as they don't move the pitcher's mound or the bases, or change 4 balls and 3 strikes, it would be really hard to kill baseball.

It is called preference and we are entitled to preferences the last I checked. Change is great. I welcome the concept in my life but that does not mean that all changes sit well. There are a lot of things about the game of baseball today that make me a very casual fan of the game. Maybe that is my loss but I am not going to spend my time doing something I do not enjoy. Football has changed a great deal too over the decades but I love the game more with those changes.

I'm talking about a general angst that seems to be present among the aging that stretches over a variety of casual interests, like music, movies, sports, etc. I think there's a lot of nostalgia tied up in this dislike of modernity. I realize that the individual preferences that exist within this realm, like what specifically you don't like, are there but I still think it's part of a larger and ever-present trend throughout all of time.

I can't find it but in Ken Burns' book he quotes a rant about how current players and the game in general just don't stack up to players of the past. LOL it was from 1914.