Speaker 1: Check it down man, Now down Man. It's the Beating
Speaker 1: the Book Podcast Gil alec Vander. During this coronavirus pandemic,
Speaker 1: it gives me an opportunity to do some shows that
Speaker 1: I didn't otherwise get to do during a full sports calendar,
Speaker 1: never enough time to do these random shows. But today
Speaker 1: I get that chance, and it's a show I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to do. The rise and fall of the baseball
Speaker 1: card industry. I think it's a story that hasn't been
Speaker 1: fleshed out nearly enough for a generation of folks who
Speaker 1: used to collect as kids like myself, and really was
Speaker 1: our first entree into associating sports with money in the
Speaker 1: first place. It's an amazing story and has some real
Speaker 1: correlations to sports betting. We get into it with Las
Speaker 1: Vegas Chris, who has seen it all on all sides
Speaker 1: of the baseball card industry. On today's Beating the Book Podcast,
Speaker 1: Enjoy It's a numbers game with your host Gil Alexander.
Speaker 1: Want those believe in Analytic's good Monday Morning to you.
Speaker 1: It is Gil Alexander right here on Visa in the
Speaker 1: Sports Betting Network Serious except Channel two O four, Visa
Speaker 1: dot Com, the Visa app Fubo Sling Game plus on
Speaker 1: down the line. But today I want to do something
Speaker 1: a little different. And you know, while sports are going on,
Speaker 1: when it's just when we're on a hamster wheel of sports,
Speaker 1: I think to myself sometimes, you know, one day I'd
Speaker 1: like to do a show on this subject, or one
Speaker 1: day I'd like to do a show on another subject,
Speaker 1: But you never get a chance to do it when
Speaker 1: sports are in full bore mode. But there's no better
Speaker 1: time to do it right now today. Uh, this was
Speaker 1: promised last week. We're gonna do a show on the
Speaker 1: rise and fall of the baseball card industry. And you
Speaker 1: say to yourself, baseball cards, Um, the sports betting tie
Speaker 1: in is what? Well, Actually, for many of us and
Speaker 1: many listening to the show, uh, this was our first
Speaker 1: experience in life tying sports into money. Um. We'll get
Speaker 1: into some of that, the similarities of of the markets
Speaker 1: and what kind of betters might have sprung from the
Speaker 1: baseball card days. But really, I think, not only is
Speaker 1: there is there a betting tie in, it's just an
Speaker 1: amazing story. Many of us grew up in a time
Speaker 1: where baseball cards where everything we cared about as kids.
Speaker 1: It was a booming industry and then it all collapsed,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it's a story that's been told enough.
Speaker 1: And to help us along with that today and to
Speaker 1: really give us insight as a gentleman who has been
Speaker 1: on all kinds of the baseball card industry, UM, retail manufacturing,
Speaker 1: UM distribution, just all different kinds of the business. It's
Speaker 1: our old friend, Las Vegas, Chris. Good morning to you, Chris,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. UM you hear me. I'm having
Speaker 1: internet connection problems. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm off my headset here, so you can
Speaker 1: hear me anyway. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay. Let
Speaker 1: let me let me just give your street credit as
Speaker 1: a better first of all, for those who have not
Speaker 1: had you heard you on the show before. Chris is
Speaker 1: a very successful professional better in Las Vegas. He won
Speaker 1: the College Football Station Casinos Last man Standing contest, defeating
Speaker 1: over competitors, taking in fifty two dollars. At that time.
Speaker 1: UM also won the Win Eliminator Contest one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollar contest back in the day, the Palms contest in
Speaker 1: Eleven Stations Casino Last man Standing College Football contest. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned in UH this year. This past year, UH
Speaker 1: finished twenty and thirty one using different picks and his
Speaker 1: two entries in the circuit contest UM four of twenty
Speaker 1: of the remaining last man Standing stations UM at Station's
Speaker 1: Casino this year had four of the remaining twenty entries.
Speaker 1: Four of them were his, but flamed out. Thankfully, UH
Speaker 1: he was able to hedge his way out of that.
Speaker 1: It is Gill Alexander. It is Las Vegas, Chris on
Speaker 1: a numbers game right here at Vista, the Sports Betting Network. Chris,
Speaker 1: can you hear us? Okay, yeah, I'm having no problem
Speaker 1: hearing you. But I'm coming in and out with my
Speaker 1: inferior technology. So okay, well we we got you here.
Speaker 1: That okay. So that's just for those who aren't familiar
Speaker 1: with you. I just wanted to give your give them
Speaker 1: your betting background, because you are very successful pro better.
Speaker 1: We'll get into some of that later, but as far
Speaker 1: as your baseball card history, let's start there before we
Speaker 1: get into the rise in the fall of the industry.
Speaker 1: How did you get into the industry in the first place,
Speaker 1: You know, I was I was looking for something to
Speaker 1: uh just fill time to con productive cobby sort of speak,
Speaker 1: because there was the after college times and that really
Speaker 1: hadn't picked a career, and I started. Uh. I had
Speaker 1: a friend that actually, uh G literiously enough got himself
Speaker 1: into game and trouble and was selling his baseball parents
Speaker 1: from way back when. So I started going to sub
Speaker 1: shows with him as he was liquidating his sets from
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, and I'm like, only cow and
Speaker 1: this stuff is worth fortune. And it just happened to
Speaker 1: be in the era where there was a huge boom
Speaker 1: back in uh and andalistically you could do no wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, anything that you bought was going to make money.
Speaker 1: So I basically just started to absorb as much information
Speaker 1: as I could, and um, you know the trick it
Speaker 1: kind of similar to gameling in the old days, where
Speaker 1: you are searching like in the old days, where you're
Speaker 1: searching for those rogue lines, you're searching for those rogue
Speaker 1: deals of great deals to buy cards because you would
Speaker 1: find out, oh, I can sell this over here for
Speaker 1: this price. So you're you're going to different other shows
Speaker 1: or different stores around or you're writing around your different
Speaker 1: states and you and you're chasing down Barry standards in
Speaker 1: in uh you know, Iowa with the nobody cares about
Speaker 1: and you're selling them for triple your money in Detroit.
Speaker 1: So that's how I initially started, and that evolved over
Speaker 1: time into actually getting a store. UM started off with
Speaker 1: a really small store, uh four hundred and fifty square feet.
Speaker 1: I think it wasn't really small. Um that evolved into
Speaker 1: uh store that triple dad size. We started a wholesale
Speaker 1: company that we were distributing all around the nation. Uh.
Speaker 1: We would go to national shows. Um we actually got
Speaker 1: to the we we uh opened another store afterward and uh,
Speaker 1: um that's pretty big for a long period of time.
Speaker 1: What years were this, Chris? That was I got in
Speaker 1: I think in eight seven, and I opened in the
Speaker 1: store and had the stores in my retail business h
Speaker 1: and my offices to think about two thousand three or
Speaker 1: two thousand four. So you really saw the boom and
Speaker 1: the bust. You saw it all from from the beginning.
Speaker 1: You you really rode the curve up and and down. UM.
Speaker 1: Let me just start with with sort of reflecting where
Speaker 1: most of us were. Most of us were collectors back
Speaker 1: in those days, in the eighties and maybe into the
Speaker 1: early nineties, when we were either teenagers or kids and
Speaker 1: then teenagers, and um that was kind of I think
Speaker 1: most of the listeners of the show. That's the relationship
Speaker 1: to baseball cards. I was obsessed, I mean absolutely obsessed.
Speaker 1: Nothing in the world mattered more to me as a kid.
Speaker 1: My calendar year was sort of obsession with the Redskins,
Speaker 1: obsession with music. Oh now at summertime, I'm collecting baseball
Speaker 1: cards as I was when I was a kid, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that was my joys in life. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people have have similar, um, similar
Speaker 1: sort of likes and and obsessions when when they were kids,
Speaker 1: as as far as those listening to this network in
Speaker 1: this show, and so for us, it started as something,
Speaker 1: you know, very cliche. We got cards, let's say, from
Speaker 1: the neighbor who was going to throw them out or
Speaker 1: whatever it was. I got no more joy than anything
Speaker 1: in life than my mom when she went to the
Speaker 1: grocery store. I would always say, to help, but don't
Speaker 1: forget to buy, you know, baseball cards for me. If
Speaker 1: you could just little three packs of tops with the
Speaker 1: gum with the cardboard gum in it. And by the way, uh,
Speaker 1: Tops really a gum company that that happened to sell
Speaker 1: cards with it as a marketing tool, and so this
Speaker 1: was the this was the innocence of it. And then
Speaker 1: uh it became with Beckett Price Guides. It became a
Speaker 1: sort of our introduction to value or perceived value, or
Speaker 1: in the case of baseball cards, as it turned out,
Speaker 1: a lot of speculative pricing before we get into all
Speaker 1: that tell me about, um, the actual production of the cards.
Speaker 1: In other words, everything in Beckett Price Guides looked great.
Speaker 1: Uh seven. I used to collect all these Barry Bonds,
Speaker 1: Flear rookie cards. I was obsessed with Barry Bonds even then,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh man, look what the prices
Speaker 1: and the Beckett Price Guide. These are gonna be so
Speaker 1: valuable in the future. But wasn't this simply a case
Speaker 1: of supply and demand where the reason that the industry,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about baseball cards is something that
Speaker 1: fathers and sons could share. Not my father wasn't from
Speaker 1: this country, but generally speaking, the American story is fathers
Speaker 1: and sons could share baseball cards. But really it was
Speaker 1: the mothers who threw them out in previous generations who
Speaker 1: created this market of perceived value. And so when we
Speaker 1: were kids and we're thinking, oh, these are going to
Speaker 1: be valuable thirty years moving forward, just like the cards
Speaker 1: thirty years ago were valuable. That's where it all kind
Speaker 1: of turned, didn't it. Well, it's similar to people do
Speaker 1: it the points Prince nowadays. But getting back to your
Speaker 1: point about having a passion for it. I never closed
Speaker 1: my store in twelve years when I had it. We
Speaker 1: were open to the sixty five every Christmas, every Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: I personally didn't take days off for years, like three
Speaker 1: years straight gambling. At least you have two days off
Speaker 1: during the All Star break. So and and as I
Speaker 1: was mentioned to you, I have I have dreams a
Speaker 1: couple of times a year that I'm still working in
Speaker 1: that store almost you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago,
Speaker 1: and it's like I worked the whole store. But as
Speaker 1: you said, you know, you've got the price guides for
Speaker 1: for the cards, and you get it. That retroduction to
Speaker 1: it is thinking, oh boy, that's the Bible and I'm
Speaker 1: making all this money, when the reality of it is
Speaker 1: it's sort of like when you're you know, be bending
Speaker 1: a line up so that they can bet it back
Speaker 1: down later on, you know, that's basically what the baseball
Speaker 1: card industry is just trying to you know, shove lines
Speaker 1: up on certain things. Uh uh, you know, similarly to
Speaker 1: to betting. You know, there were people heard industry where
Speaker 1: you know, you could get together. You do that you're
Speaker 1: going to run up these certain parts or run up
Speaker 1: these certain products because you knew what the print run
Speaker 1: was and you knew how you know, who had the
Speaker 1: majority of a certain product, and you had a position
Speaker 1: in it. So the manipulation is, uh, you know, really
Speaker 1: similar and really interesting, and unfortunately probably wasn't good for
Speaker 1: a lot of people that went on inside. So I
Speaker 1: guess what I'm getting because you just use the word manipulation.
Speaker 1: I guess the whole thing about this is for those
Speaker 1: of us who were so in a cent it and
Speaker 1: loved it as a collectible. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: still have them, my parents have him in d C
Speaker 1: most of my valuable cards. I still cherished them. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not like I don't still love them because they
Speaker 1: bring back memories of my of my childhood. But the
Speaker 1: notion that this was something that would you know, pay
Speaker 1: for our college let's say many years. Hence the whole
Speaker 1: thing was kind of a scam, wasn't it. In other words,
Speaker 1: let's say Beckett. The Beckett, uh, for those who don't know.
Speaker 1: Beckett was Jim Beckett, who had the Price Guide. At
Speaker 1: their peak, they sold a million copies of their magazine
Speaker 1: a month, Chris a million of them, um, which is
Speaker 1: just staggering to think about. Uh, back in the day.
Speaker 1: So you know, I was making the I was making
Speaker 1: the comparison to how we viewed cards in terms of
Speaker 1: how valuable they were going to be then versus what
Speaker 1: then happened in the subsequent years, talking about into the nineties,
Speaker 1: the pinnacle of Bay small card collecting. In terms of
Speaker 1: individual cards, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, the
Speaker 1: T two O six Honus Wagner tobacco card is considered
Speaker 1: the most valuable card there is. There's only a couple
Speaker 1: of handfuls of them known to exist. Then there's the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two Rookie Mickey Mantle cards, which was from tops.
Speaker 1: Either first or second said. I believe second said in
Speaker 1: the in the early fifties. The nineteen fifties is when
Speaker 1: the industry started a boom. By the way, I don't
Speaker 1: know what Brent said this on the air with me,
Speaker 1: so I don't feel like I'm speaking out of turn
Speaker 1: when I say this. Brent Musburger owns two nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: two Mickey Mantles, and apparently it's a point of contention
Speaker 1: with he and his brother Todd that they're going to
Speaker 1: have to work out at some point as to the
Speaker 1: ownership of those cards. Um, but it was. It was
Speaker 1: the T two O six Honus Wagner, It was the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two Mickey Mantle and then the third most
Speaker 1: important baseball card in history, uh is considered to be
Speaker 1: the Night nine Upper Deck Ken Griffey jew Year card,
Speaker 1: which was the number one card in terms of its
Speaker 1: order in the set. Was the one card where someone
Speaker 1: who worked for Upper dec you know, knew that he
Speaker 1: was going to probably get called up to the big
Speaker 1: leagues the next year. And this is where things went awry.
Speaker 1: And you tell me you're knowledge of this because this
Speaker 1: was considered at the time to be a hugely valuable car.
Speaker 1: And first of all, you could if it's the number
Speaker 1: one card, oh man, you can't get it in good condition, right,
Speaker 1: That was the thing at the time. Um. But that
Speaker 1: you know, they went from from whatever the cost of
Speaker 1: a of a card in a in a set was
Speaker 1: just something that was worth five bucks, then a hundred
Speaker 1: bucks and then four hundred bucks. But really, can't we
Speaker 1: say that the beginning of the end was that card specifically, Um, well,
Speaker 1: that was the beginning of everything that was good for
Speaker 1: years though, you know the problem was that, Uh that's
Speaker 1: what got everybody into the industry, and Upper Deck first started.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, they had the hologram and the card
Speaker 1: the card stock was just so much better, uh more colorful.
Speaker 1: They were packaging their sets up nice or the packaging,
Speaker 1: uh foil was just nice, and you know, similar to
Speaker 1: beanie babies. It was tough to get, you know, not
Speaker 1: everybody could order it. You know, it took me. It's
Speaker 1: like if you you couldn't just open up a car
Speaker 1: shop and get an Upper Deck account. So, um, they
Speaker 1: were limited production and that actually lasted, you know for years.
Speaker 1: But I think what you're you're trying to touch on is, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta watch what I say, you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta watch what I say. But there's it seems
Speaker 1: like they were bushels and bushels and bushels bushels of
Speaker 1: Ken Griffey Jr's that would appear later on in the years,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, it was hard to find
Speaker 1: upper deck factory sets. Uh. Allmo sudden, we're easier to
Speaker 1: find and um so that's what you're touching on, those
Speaker 1: kinds of shenanigans. You know, I was pretty two for years.
Speaker 1: Uh it was. It just went all over the place.
Speaker 1: Uh So, yeah, it was bad for people because people,
Speaker 1: you know, if they would have held those production numbers,
Speaker 1: it would have held value pretty well, right if they had. So.
Speaker 1: By the way, let me just weird. We're in the
Speaker 1: business of sort of recommending documentaries here on this show,
Speaker 1: and all kinds of different subjects. Um. But a baseball
Speaker 1: card documentary that is a really interesting watch is something
Speaker 1: called Jack of All Trades, which is told through the
Speaker 1: perspective of the son of the former owner of the
Speaker 1: Sluggers baseball card shop in Toronto, and he was Canada's
Speaker 1: leading cards salesman. It's a whole story and it really
Speaker 1: does sort of talk about the evolution of the card
Speaker 1: industry from that perspective. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: they talked about during or in that documentary is what
Speaker 1: I was getting at, because you're right, the interest in
Speaker 1: the Ken Griffy Junior card. I think about it, there
Speaker 1: was ten thousand, Chris. There were ten thousand baseball card
Speaker 1: shops around the United States back in the early eighties.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, the late eighties and the early nineties. Tops
Speaker 1: had been the only baseball card company UH for decades.
Speaker 1: Don Russe and Flear I think had a set in
Speaker 1: the early eighties or a couple of sets, but then
Speaker 1: that that went away. It was not until the late
Speaker 1: eighties were cards proliferated beyond Tops, Don Russ and Flear.
Speaker 1: Upper Deck shows up in eighty nine. So at first
Speaker 1: that Griffy card, because Upper Deck came in an upper
Speaker 1: Deck started as a shop in laws in southern California,
Speaker 1: and they're like, we're gonna make these beautiful cards. Griffy
Speaker 1: became this this thing that, through a combination of marketing
Speaker 1: and and beauty and just his popularity became a huge thing.
Speaker 1: But what you touched on is really the thing that
Speaker 1: I was getting at, which is okay. Once it did
Speaker 1: become a big thing, upper Deck realized literally if you're
Speaker 1: to believe it um and I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of proof about this when you talk to people in
Speaker 1: the know they decided, oh, we can literally print money.
Speaker 1: At least that was their attitude. And so something that
Speaker 1: was so so rare, supposedly uh as the Griffy one
Speaker 1: card and eight nine they would print those baseball cards,
Speaker 1: as you know, came on these ten by ten prints
Speaker 1: of a hundred cards on one sheet. They would start
Speaker 1: printing complete a hundred sheets with nothing but the Griffy card.
Speaker 1: And there's some spect there was one story told in
Speaker 1: that movie about someone seeing a box of someone just
Speaker 1: having five thousand of them. So it's just sheer greed,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Like that's what I mean. You you'll talk
Speaker 1: about it from all angles, but that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest things as to why this all turned sheer greed
Speaker 1: and gaming the market. Well, yeah, and and that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: I I you know, there were times, uh when I
Speaker 1: was in the business that I would have five thousand
Speaker 1: comboxes full of hard to find insert cards, and ah,
Speaker 1: it just seemed there were leaks at every manufacturer at
Speaker 1: some point, because as you said, they're printing money. And
Speaker 1: I actually was a paid consultant with I think every
Speaker 1: card manufacturer at some point other than Upper Deck, But
Speaker 1: you know, they were buried themselves in these licensing fees.
Speaker 1: The licensing fees would just go higher and higher each
Speaker 1: and every year, and uh and they had no choice
Speaker 1: but to print and print and print. So um, the
Speaker 1: word back door seemed to be, you know, common knowledge
Speaker 1: and common terminology in the industry. You know by the time, uh,
Speaker 1: you right around the baseball strike and you have all
Speaker 1: kinds of stories to tell us about different other sides
Speaker 1: of the business. Where shenanigans we're going on. But this is,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is really where now you know, I
Speaker 1: have this old collection of baseball card it's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of people do And we thought when we were adults,
Speaker 1: you know, back then, we thought by this time we
Speaker 1: would look at something like the Beckett Price Guy. By
Speaker 1: the way, the Beckett Price Guide still exists, um today,
Speaker 1: although they're not nearly selling a thousand uh copies per month. Um,
Speaker 1: they're not worth a damn We'll get into all that
Speaker 1: coming back with Las Vegas Chris Jimmy Viccarrott to come
Speaker 1: as well on the numbers game in visa these sports
Speaker 1: betting Now welcome back to a numbers game with Jill Alexander.
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Speaker 1: a numbers game right here at Visa. UM. Jimmy McCarroll
Speaker 1: on to talk Leonard Haggler later in the show the
Speaker 1: thirty second, No. Thirty third pardon me, thirty three year
Speaker 1: anniversary of Leonard Haggler. He'll talk to us about that.
Speaker 1: We get tweets, by the way at beating the book
Speaker 1: as we do our baseball cards show today the Rise
Speaker 1: in the Fall of the baseball card industry with Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: Chris Crane and a whole bunch of others showing their
Speaker 1: baseball card collections by picture here Jeffrey Lawson, you tank forever.
Speaker 1: Uh the nine upper deck Griffy Junr Card. Now I'm
Speaker 1: angry again, Gary Kincaid one, Chris, there's a question for you.
Speaker 1: Can you and Chris touch on the values of cards
Speaker 1: in I'm assuming by people he means basketball and football
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties or those cards worth anything? Well,
Speaker 1: you know when when we first started, when we first started, uh,
Speaker 1: seeing the rise in the industry back on eight nine,
Speaker 1: football and basketball cards were worthless until David Robinson came
Speaker 1: around and they came out with hoops, and hoops became
Speaker 1: very popular, and uh, football cards were the last one
Speaker 1: to ever get any sort of play. So there was
Speaker 1: basketball became very popular, people chasing to Michael Jordan's Rookies
Speaker 1: seven Flair basket ball, and then the real coup and
Speaker 1: and I'm good friends with the guy that did this. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Star Basketball started to get run up and and
Speaker 1: that was a brilliant move because that had really really
Speaker 1: low productions and they were very knowledgeable and where the
Speaker 1: entire product was, so they basically controlled it. They had
Speaker 1: a relationship with Beckett and they ran that up and
Speaker 1: did quite well on that, and then after after basketball
Speaker 1: and finally went to football, but football never really caught
Speaker 1: on as much. But the answer specifically, I think it
Speaker 1: really gets down to the grading of cards back in
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties. If you have gem Mint cards,
Speaker 1: you're you're talking big bucks. I know, somebody accost him.
Speaker 1: I think, Uh, I think he's got a football set
Speaker 1: that's all p s, A nines or tens and uh
Speaker 1: it's you know, well over a hundred thousand dollars. So
Speaker 1: it really just depends on the quality because that's up
Speaker 1: phys legitimately rare and it's harder to counterfeit also, well,
Speaker 1: that that's a whole another thing you touch on there
Speaker 1: which has changed since since our childhoods, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: we would look at a car and our definition of
Speaker 1: of what was meant or excellent or very good when
Speaker 1: we were kids is a whole different story than what
Speaker 1: is considered that now by you know, much more formal grading. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's a whole another layer to the whole thing
Speaker 1: that's changed. But you know, I mean just to just
Speaker 1: to give a sense, and I'll just tell a personal story.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, uh, me and my best
Speaker 1: friend would would trade cards and one day and we're
Speaker 1: all familiar with being in trades where we fleeced somebody
Speaker 1: or where we where they got the best of us. Anyways,
Speaker 1: my best friend I ended up trading for a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five rookie George Bread, and I gave him crap
Speaker 1: in the trade. And then the Beckett Price Guide came out.
Speaker 1: We found out very quickly that I had completely fleeced him.
Speaker 1: And so for many years I and I swear this
Speaker 1: is I'm not exaggerating this, for many years and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't think about it every day, what every so often
Speaker 1: when I'd be talking to my friend, I'd be thinking
Speaker 1: of myself, Wow, I really least amount of that seventy
Speaker 1: five rookie George Brett. And at the time it was
Speaker 1: priced that like two bucks, right, or like, you know,
Speaker 1: three hundred bucks whatever a rookie George Brett was from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five tops. So for his fiftieth birthday, I
Speaker 1: ended up buying him in nineteen seventy five, George Brett,
Speaker 1: so that I could sort of make amends. It was
Speaker 1: sort of our lives coming full circle. It cost me
Speaker 1: less than twenty bucks. Like that's how, that's how unbelievably wrong.
Speaker 1: Not wrong, but how the the industry itself has crashed,
Speaker 1: at least in terms of again, what the perceived market
Speaker 1: value was then versus what it is now. We'll talk
Speaker 1: with Las Vegas Chris about how this relates to sports
Speaker 1: betting markets. What kind of sports bettors came out of
Speaker 1: a session with baseball cards as kids and an FBI
Speaker 1: sting operate shi that Chris was involved in. It's right,
Speaker 1: it gets that serious rise and fall of baseball cards
Speaker 1: right here on a special edition of a Numbers game,
Speaker 1: right here at Visa. The sports Betting Network. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to a numbers game with Gil Alexander. Back on the
Speaker 1: numbers game right here at Visa these Sports Betting Network
Speaker 1: serious except Channel two. Oh for it's Gil Alexander, Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: Chris Multiple, Las Vegas sports handicapping a champion with us
Speaker 1: to talk about his years of the baseball card industry,
Speaker 1: that rise and fall of the industry, because I just
Speaker 1: don't think enough has been made of at so many
Speaker 1: of us grew up on cards, and uh, what better
Speaker 1: time to talk about it than in these strange times
Speaker 1: where we have some u some time to spend. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you this, Chris. Uh, there were often there
Speaker 1: was often promotions in a baseball card collecting, as I
Speaker 1: recall where and this was more of a nineties and
Speaker 1: I think it was more of a nineties thing than
Speaker 1: an eighties thing. But there was always like, okay, um,
Speaker 1: there's a you know, the Jose Canseco card or whatever
Speaker 1: the card de jure was, whatever the flavor of the
Speaker 1: month was, or to be more accurate, the flavor of
Speaker 1: that set, like the most valuable card in the set.
Speaker 1: It's somewhere in these packs was that all bull two
Speaker 1: in other words, were masses and masses of tens and
Speaker 1: thousands of of cards produced with the hope to all
Speaker 1: these little kids hoping to find this one valuable card.
Speaker 1: And was it all gamed against us anyway? Well, I
Speaker 1: believe that there was a lot of hanky panky for years,
Speaker 1: and that's what led to having to have numbered cards
Speaker 1: because they would say, oh, this card is so rare,
Speaker 1: you can't find it, and there'll be tons of them
Speaker 1: that would come up from you know, they'd get funneled
Speaker 1: through dealers that had connections to the manufacturers and sometimes
Speaker 1: the printers. But the only way you knew that something.
Speaker 1: It got to the point the only way you know
Speaker 1: anything is limited is if it's numbered. If it's not numbered,
Speaker 1: you just can't trust it. A printer can print it, um,
Speaker 1: you can't trust the manufacturer. Uh, you just can't verify
Speaker 1: how many of an item there are. So that's what
Speaker 1: was hurting the industry. Uh. And when they started numbering
Speaker 1: the cards, that rejuvenated it a little bit. But then
Speaker 1: it got to the point where they were doing all
Speaker 1: these crazy inserts with the jersey cards and all these
Speaker 1: different styles. It got to the point where you could
Speaker 1: search out those cards, so you would know sometimes by
Speaker 1: the placement uh within a box. If you open the
Speaker 1: top four cards in a box, you knew what the
Speaker 1: sequencing of the cards were. You could put the packs
Speaker 1: on a scale. You could put an unopened box on
Speaker 1: a scale, and you're gonna know if because you know,
Speaker 1: you might have one super duper insert per twenty count case.
Speaker 1: So you could just weigh the boxes and sell the
Speaker 1: other You could find the box that had the tough
Speaker 1: insert because it would weigh several Grahams different and then
Speaker 1: sell the other boxes and the same thing with pack
Speaker 1: so it you know, there's there was. It's a real
Speaker 1: shame at how people were cheated, not only by the manufacturer,
Speaker 1: but by the dealers and the card shop owners and
Speaker 1: uh you know people that were just trading amongst themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as as an adult, this seems so unsurprising, right, like
Speaker 1: to hear, oh wow, adults doing ridiculous things too out
Speaker 1: of greed and scamming other people. But like as a child,
Speaker 1: the fact that it's children generally speak who are getting
Speaker 1: who are getting scamped? Because you know that even in
Speaker 1: this movie that I referenced earlier, Jack of All Trades
Speaker 1: to talk about the eighties six done Russ jose Canseco,
Speaker 1: which was like the Jose Canseco card and uh is
Speaker 1: rookie actually prior to his rookie year, I think at
Speaker 1: eighty six where he was trying to grow that mustache
Speaker 1: weekly by the way, and it was promised, Oh, you're
Speaker 1: gonna find one of these and all these packs, and
Speaker 1: it was just they they so underproduced it, and so
Speaker 1: kids would open, you know, tens of thousands of packs
Speaker 1: and never get to it. Um, what about the FBI sting,
Speaker 1: what was that all about? Well, that touches a little bit.
Speaker 1: And when I was saying there was a lot of
Speaker 1: counterfeiting of cards going on, um and uh, we actually
Speaker 1: made a large purchase of David Robinson rookies. Uh and
Speaker 1: uh that was actually I think we were like one
Speaker 1: of the first people to to be hosed on counterfeiting.
Speaker 1: That I remember because I really didn't hear about counterfeiting
Speaker 1: before then. But so we bought I forget how many
Speaker 1: we bought. Uh, and we're selling them. We've got a
Speaker 1: great price on it, and and some people started to
Speaker 1: point out there's something wrong with these things. So we
Speaker 1: took a magnifying glass to it. And we could clearly
Speaker 1: tell there is something different about it. So, uh, we
Speaker 1: were piste off because we put a lot of money
Speaker 1: into this. We couldn't sell them because you know, we're
Speaker 1: not going to sell counter for cards to people. And
Speaker 1: we actually had an FBI agent that was my customer
Speaker 1: and contacted him and he put us in touch and
Speaker 1: we ended up trying to make another deal with the
Speaker 1: people because they were out of Texas and so they
Speaker 1: flew in from Texas. We were in a hotel room, uh,
Speaker 1: and it was our job to wait for these guys
Speaker 1: to come up and show us the merchandise and then
Speaker 1: we were we were you know, gave the FBI the
Speaker 1: signal and then they came in and we left the room.
Speaker 1: But what was sad about it? I think it was
Speaker 1: like a deal or so all they did is, you know,
Speaker 1: get a warning because unless you can prove that they
Speaker 1: absolutely knew what they were doing, you know, they just
Speaker 1: had to play stupid and nothing even came out of it.
Speaker 1: So we didn't get any money back and they didn't
Speaker 1: get convicted of anything, and they just played dumb and uh,
Speaker 1: it's just an interesting story though, jeez. Every So everybody
Speaker 1: was scamming everybody. So it wasn't just the you know,
Speaker 1: the collectors getting scared. It was the actual dealers them sell,
Speaker 1: the retailers. Like it was just everybody trying to scam everybody.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to laugh, but it's just like, who
Speaker 1: knew this was even going on in the business to
Speaker 1: this day? We were getting Yeah, we were getting buried
Speaker 1: by by customers. I mean, you know, people would you
Speaker 1: know that when you're talking about these older cards, they're
Speaker 1: nearly impossible to find in great to find in great condition.
Speaker 1: So what these people would do is they would trim
Speaker 1: the cards, so they were getting really tricky so that
Speaker 1: you know, these little fraid engines edges would be you know,
Speaker 1: they would make them disappear and they would look like
Speaker 1: they're in gemin condition. And then you'd find, oh, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, this card is a little smaller than it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be. Uh. You know, they may come in
Speaker 1: and sell you, try to sell you unopened boxes and
Speaker 1: maybe they opened the packs, you know, carefully with a
Speaker 1: and iron them shut again after taking out the good cards. Uh.
Speaker 1: It never never stopped. It just never stopped. It is
Speaker 1: amazing to think about and what you said the peak
Speaker 1: of the industry was a convention in Anaheim. What year
Speaker 1: was that. I think that was the convention that Now
Speaker 1: that was nuts because that was at the convention center
Speaker 1: and uh a huge, huge complex. Of course, there was
Speaker 1: lines going both directions around the entire building. But that
Speaker 1: was the first time I ever saw bulk inserts and
Speaker 1: bulk uh difficult to find cards uh circulating and uh
Speaker 1: you know, the real hustlers were making big money on those,
Speaker 1: uh because they were coming out from the back door
Speaker 1: of a manufacturer that there was in the area. And
Speaker 1: uh lots of you know, lots of That's when the
Speaker 1: real underhead and this really started. Jeez, it goes on
Speaker 1: and on. Let's get into this, uh this notion of
Speaker 1: what kind of sports betters may have been produced from
Speaker 1: obsession with cards as kids from innocence to maybe sort
Speaker 1: of getting them in a mindset that might not have
Speaker 1: been a good thing. I don't know. We'll find out
Speaker 1: what Chris has to say about that coming up on
Speaker 1: a Numbers Game right here at Visa, the Sports Betting Network.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Jill Alexander. Surreal
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Speaker 1: numbers game here at Visa, the sports betting network with
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. Chris, who saw it all in the baseball
Speaker 1: card industry back in the day before we get into
Speaker 1: thing about what kind of sports betters the industry might
Speaker 1: have produced. Chris Felika, who's on the show tomorrow. By
Speaker 1: the way, Caesar's putting out one hundred and thirty college
Speaker 1: football season win totals today. Chris, I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I I can't wait to talk about them. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, I'm like, I don't even know
Speaker 1: if this stuff is gonna get played. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to make bets when I'm not sure if the
Speaker 1: thing is even gonna get going. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you feel about these kind of subjects, but well, we'll
Speaker 1: bat it around for sure. Yeah, I'm not gonna put
Speaker 1: any time into something like that because it's gonna be
Speaker 1: lucky to have a season number one, and if they do,
Speaker 1: you would think that they may have to abbreviate it
Speaker 1: so that, you know, throws futures out the window. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it because I know people people want
Speaker 1: to hear Chris's opinion on that, Chris, because obviously no
Speaker 1: one knows college football better than the Bear. Chris actually
Speaker 1: chimes in on on what we're talking about today on
Speaker 1: Twitter at beating the book, he said I got one,
Speaker 1: meaning he got a nine upper deck rookie Ken Griffy
Speaker 1: at a seven eleven on Mill Lane in West Hampton.
Speaker 1: But it had a factory crease in the upper corner.
Speaker 1: And he was devastated, devastated. And this gets back to
Speaker 1: what I didn't I really glossed over this earlier. Chris,
Speaker 1: and you mentioned this to me, uh off Air, that
Speaker 1: we should probably touch on this again, which is when
Speaker 1: we were kids. All Right, a crease what Felika got
Speaker 1: on his upper deck. He saw a crease. He's like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I know this is this car is not worth what
Speaker 1: it could have been, obviously, because it's something is obvious
Speaker 1: as increase. But the difference for us between very good
Speaker 1: and maybe even more so between excellent and what we
Speaker 1: thought was meant we were just doing it by our eyes, right,
Speaker 1: And so we were like, well, you know, we could
Speaker 1: we just sort of traded on an honor system with conditioning.
Speaker 1: But that whole grading of cards based on condition long
Speaker 1: after we were people of my generation and our generation
Speaker 1: were collecting cards that became this massive thing too. Was
Speaker 1: that a scam? Also? Well, when I when I first
Speaker 1: started branching out with relationships, I made a lot of
Speaker 1: people that were in the coin industry as friends, and
Speaker 1: they said, what really ruined the coin industry was when
Speaker 1: grading started to happen, and and it just completely brought
Speaker 1: that industry almost to a halt because of the reason
Speaker 1: you just spoke up. There was no interpretation of quality anymore. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, getting back to the guy that we're talking
Speaker 1: about old football cards or baseball cards. People would bring
Speaker 1: in cards from the fifties and the sixties and gee,
Speaker 1: they're forty years old. They look great, but they are
Speaker 1: not perfect. So for being forty and fifty years old,
Speaker 1: you think, oh my god, I've got something, but you don't.
Speaker 1: It has to look like it just came out of
Speaker 1: a pack. And then even if you had the four
Speaker 1: sharpest corners around, it might be off center. Maybe the
Speaker 1: the cut on the sheet was just a little bit off,
Speaker 1: or there's a printer's dot, or there's just some tiny imperfection.
Speaker 1: So when grading started to happen with cards, you know,
Speaker 1: that didn't help either, except the people that were really
Speaker 1: just you know, you know, sending the stuff out for grading,
Speaker 1: and then if they don't get the cards graded, they
Speaker 1: just break the plastic and they try to get them
Speaker 1: regraded again. And um, those guys were doing okay. But
Speaker 1: you know when you took out the fat, you know,
Speaker 1: the the negotiation and then the the the the guesswork
Speaker 1: out of what condition is, and you didn't write and
Speaker 1: and and it was it was just automatically predetermined. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it really changed the industry a lot because
Speaker 1: you didn't have as much buying and selling anymore. So
Speaker 1: what about this notion? Because you and I listen, we
Speaker 1: probably only think of our baseball cards once or twice
Speaker 1: a year. Now at this point in our lives, we're
Speaker 1: sports bettors. That's all we care about. Seven when we're
Speaker 1: not with our family necessarily, sometimes even when we're with
Speaker 1: our family, that's all we care about. Um, it's kind
Speaker 1: of in our d n A. But um, you raised
Speaker 1: a notion that I hadn't really thought about. But it
Speaker 1: was you know, I made the relationship between baseball cards
Speaker 1: and sports betting as it was sort of our first
Speaker 1: entree into what's the value of something what's the value
Speaker 1: of something sports related based on a market? Um, so
Speaker 1: that was the connection I made. You even took it
Speaker 1: one step for further, which is the kind of sports
Speaker 1: better it might have made if you could talk about
Speaker 1: both of those things. First of all, the market similarities
Speaker 1: and then that latter point, Well, it's really interesting how
Speaker 1: many similarities of the evolution of somebody that collected anything
Speaker 1: and the sports better from you know, not knowing a thing,
Speaker 1: going in the learning curves, then you know, wanting to
Speaker 1: be a pro addit and and trying to be you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, you know, if you're betting sports,
Speaker 1: you want to be a handicapper. You want to be
Speaker 1: a pro if you're if you're a collector, you want
Speaker 1: to open up a store. But what what I didn't
Speaker 1: kind of really think about before today is there was
Speaker 1: a thing called Sportsnet for the card industry, and that
Speaker 1: was there was another interesting thing because you couldn't just
Speaker 1: get on Sportsnet. You had to have qualifications, You had
Speaker 1: to go through an approval process. So the people that
Speaker 1: had access to Sportsnet had an advance manage over other people.
Speaker 1: And uh they traded everything from unopened cards to every
Speaker 1: collectible you can imagine too, uh single cards to uh
Speaker 1: lots of cards and such. And then we have our
Speaker 1: non best line service and such, which you know is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, that's listing the lines we had to deal
Speaker 1: with and and the hilarity of it is in our
Speaker 1: in the betting industry, uh, you know, people will give
Speaker 1: you games that you can bet, but you've got to
Speaker 1: do it off screen. You can't hit the screen. And
Speaker 1: the trading card industry was the same way. Hey I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sell you a bunch of this, a bunch of
Speaker 1: these inserts, or I'm gonna sell you a bunch of
Speaker 1: these unopened cases, but it can't hit the screen. So
Speaker 1: I was thinking about today and they think about how
Speaker 1: hilarious that was, very similar in that vein, and then
Speaker 1: they both you know both you know, the screen uh,
Speaker 1: you know obviously narrows the market the more people that
Speaker 1: have access to it, and uh, it narrows the range
Speaker 1: and em betting, you don't have those wide variances and
Speaker 1: lines like you used to have. And much of that
Speaker 1: stuff you're talking about, or maybe all of that stuff
Speaker 1: was just available from the retailer side, right, the collector
Speaker 1: never was aware of any of that, where we we
Speaker 1: just had our Beckett price guide. Well, um, the bettors
Speaker 1: all learned about sports Net pretty quickly. They just couldn't
Speaker 1: access it. And the bettors would want to, you know,
Speaker 1: let they would want to latch onto you if you
Speaker 1: if you had sports Net access. Uh, you know, they
Speaker 1: were cool, you know, if they could develop a relationship
Speaker 1: with me and I could tell them what the real
Speaker 1: market was on stuff. You know, I'm I'm you know,
Speaker 1: you know, they're the king amongst their group of people.
Speaker 1: I found out that this item is going for this so, uh,
Speaker 1: you know it's the same ways, and it's the same ways.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, it's unbelievable too. I mean I get,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, as an adult, Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: it all makes sense. Of course, human beings doing crappy
Speaker 1: human beings things to other humans. As a kid, you
Speaker 1: had no idea, right, because you're so innocent, You're so
Speaker 1: what kind of sports better do you think sprung out
Speaker 1: of this? That's interesting to me? Um, I I think careful.
Speaker 1: I think you're careful about about the like for example,
Speaker 1: in trading cards, they had the pump and dumps. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they would run they would run certain products up.
Speaker 1: Like I referenced earlier, we could run products up on
Speaker 1: sports Net and then you know, supposedly quote do a
Speaker 1: favor for people and say, oh, well this is going
Speaker 1: for a thousand and sports Net all State for nine fifty. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's what you know happened in in you know,
Speaker 1: betting on the line services. You know, you see a
Speaker 1: line that's there, maybe ten, but you know it's not
Speaker 1: really ten, and you know it's going to be crashing soon. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know that's how Billy Walks did so well. It's
Speaker 1: just manipulating uh, the market, the same way people manipulated
Speaker 1: the market and trading cards. I think it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: could not agree with that more. Go ahead, I'm sorry, no, yea.
Speaker 1: To answer your question that you know, that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that I was able to easily grasp
Speaker 1: uh from trading cards, is the manipulation of the lines
Speaker 1: and not necessarily touch on the lines, and to kind
Speaker 1: of look at certain patterns you've got to pay careful
Speaker 1: attention to if it was cards, who's selling, who's buying,
Speaker 1: is it real or not real? And the same way
Speaker 1: with betting markets, which which book is moving these lines
Speaker 1: and which books are not moving these lines? So you
Speaker 1: kind of you have the instincts that kick into, you know,
Speaker 1: that tell you to pay attention to that type of stuff.
Speaker 1: There's so many tentacles of it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about how people tended to value the cards
Speaker 1: they owned more than than your card, like in other words,
Speaker 1: they became very much in love with their cards. Some
Speaker 1: people were very nitty, didn't want to trade their cards
Speaker 1: because they overvalued them. And I think about fantasy players
Speaker 1: who do the same with their own fantasy players in leagues.
Speaker 1: I think about people who hold futures tickets in sports Benning,
Speaker 1: who tend to value There's um sort of irrationally in
Speaker 1: a way. I mean, there's so many different ways to
Speaker 1: part it. But we got this kind of education without
Speaker 1: really knowing we were getting this education as kids, and
Speaker 1: for for many of us again it was what really
Speaker 1: sparked our our minds for the first time into something like, Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is something I'm totally uh interested in. I'm totally
Speaker 1: latching on to forget school. This is what I this
Speaker 1: is all I care about. Um, we'll get back into it, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: Jimmy McCarroll coming up on the show to talk Leonard
Speaker 1: Hagler with us, by the way as well, thirty third
Speaker 1: anniversary of that middle weight fight for the ages, at
Speaker 1: least from some people's perspectives, others not UM, and we'll
Speaker 1: get into some more baseball card industry stuff with Las Vegas, Chris.
Speaker 1: What's the only manufacturer that's even a lot of hers
Speaker 1: the cards these days? You may be surprised by that
Speaker 1: from what you remember, And a lot of it has
Speaker 1: to do with what we've been talking about. Coming back
Speaker 1: on a numbers game at VISA, the Sports Betting Network.
Speaker 1: It's a numbers game with your host, Gil Alexander. Believe
Speaker 1: in analytics. It is a numbers game right here at
Speaker 1: VISA these the Vegas Stats and Information Network, the Sports
Speaker 1: Betting Network. It's Gil Alexander that I mentioned that serious
Speaker 1: x M Channel two oh four, Visa dot Com, Visa app, uh,
Speaker 1: Fubo Game plus Sling. Coming up later on the show,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Vicarro join us tomorrow Chris Felika to talk about
Speaker 1: college football season win totals. They're putting them out at
Speaker 1: Caesar's Day, a whole bunch of them. A hundred thirty
Speaker 1: uh to be exact, I believe is the number. So
Speaker 1: we'll talk to Chris about that tomorrow on the show. Um,
Speaker 1: we're talking baseball cards and the industry, the rise and
Speaker 1: fall of the industry with Las Vegas, Chris, Uh and
Speaker 1: I also want to get into some of your your
Speaker 1: contests thoughts, because again, as I mentioned earlier on the
Speaker 1: show to start it, you've won multiple Las Vegas handicapping
Speaker 1: contests including college football station Last man Standing UH contest
Speaker 1: win eliminator for a hundred thousand dollars back in the day,
Speaker 1: the Palms contest in eleven UH, and you come close
Speaker 1: to winning so many others including Circle this past year
Speaker 1: twentieth and thirty first. With your two entries, UH, you
Speaker 1: had four of the remaining of the of the last
Speaker 1: remaining standing twenty UM once for college football at stations
Speaker 1: this past year was a college football or pro football
Speaker 1: that you had four of the remaining twenty of the
Speaker 1: last twenty. That was a bumber because that was four,
Speaker 1: and then had a big, nice paid day to it.
Speaker 1: Uh No, you know, I think it was a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty K. But I was very lucky to lose
Speaker 1: all four uh that particular week because it was for
Speaker 1: some reason these people did not drop out afterwards, so
Speaker 1: it would have been a hedging nightmare. And could you
Speaker 1: explain that to people, Chris, Yeah, because because I think
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, because I think that's something that most amateur
Speaker 1: bettors don't get well, I've learned something. I learned something
Speaker 1: from this year also about it. Uh, you know, if
Speaker 1: you've got you know, if you've got twenty people left
Speaker 1: and the prize is a hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: you know you don't have twenty five into that entry anymore.
Speaker 1: You you you have implied, uh, you know, value versus
Speaker 1: fifty k. So traditionally you could expect around fifty of
Speaker 1: the people to be knocked out every week. And after
Speaker 1: we dropped, that didn't happen. They had weeks where nobody
Speaker 1: lost and one person lost, two people lost, And so
Speaker 1: if we had continued, I think we would have really
Speaker 1: been in hot water, uh with having too much money
Speaker 1: on the heads losses if we didn't middle anything along
Speaker 1: the way. So it was actually, you know, a relief
Speaker 1: that we had been popped when we we popped out
Speaker 1: when we did. Yeah, akin to and I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to put it in terms that more people understand. Akin to.
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you have an n C double
Speaker 1: a tournament, and let's say you have a futures bet
Speaker 1: on a on a team, uh, if you hedge too early,
Speaker 1: I guess is the similarity in that it's kind of counterintuitive.
Speaker 1: But if you hedge too early in that situation, well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna remove all your equity if they you know,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're all I'm doing the Sweet sixteen
Speaker 1: and the Final Aid and the Final four and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And what you're saying is essentially, with
Speaker 1: that contest continuing on, you would have been, in essence,
Speaker 1: ended up in the same situation where you just keep
Speaker 1: have to keep hedging along. It's not exactly the announce
Speaker 1: For some reason, people understand the march madness a scenario,
Speaker 1: but they don't understand it for for a contest like that.
Speaker 1: But that's why it's good for you to have been
Speaker 1: eliminated when you were, because you didn't get into that
Speaker 1: nightmare of that and you might have even who knows
Speaker 1: lost money in that situation. You probably wouldn't have, but
Speaker 1: you would have certainly not one a damn thing. So
Speaker 1: that that's pretty interesting with that. Who did you lose with?
Speaker 1: Do you remember Chris Um? Now? I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: remember off the top of my head. I know that
Speaker 1: they were close, but I can't remember. Let me let
Speaker 1: me let me ask you this with with well, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: go ahead, and finished the thought, I'm sorry. I mean,
Speaker 1: the only thing I remember is the year before we
Speaker 1: lost by half a point to get knocked out when
Speaker 1: we were down to three people. So, um, that was disappointed.
Speaker 1: That was that Dallas Washington Thanksgiving game where they boxed
Speaker 1: the extra points. So but usually trying not to remember
Speaker 1: any bad beat stories. It's just not worth it, uh man,
Speaker 1: that is said. It isn't worth it, right, There's no
Speaker 1: point it's doing over it. It's Gill, Alexander, It's Las Vegas, Chris.
Speaker 1: It is a numbers game right here at vicent, the
Speaker 1: sports Betting network where sports betting analytics live typically but
Speaker 1: not like not like a day to day where we're
Speaker 1: talking baseball cards, primarily the rise and fall of the industry. Um,
Speaker 1: but I do want to I didn't want to talk
Speaker 1: about this, this betting side of thing, because you have
Speaker 1: such a pedigree in it, and one of the questions
Speaker 1: for you would be and in some ways an unfair
Speaker 1: question because we don't know the answer to it. But
Speaker 1: do you wonder? I mean, look, this is a time
Speaker 1: in our lives, Chris, where none of us could have
Speaker 1: ever anticipated the state that we're in we're all sort
Speaker 1: of in our you know, we're quarantined in our own
Speaker 1: little corners of the world. Um, And we don't know
Speaker 1: when we're gonna come out of this. We don't know
Speaker 1: when sports is going to return. And when I had
Speaker 1: Mike Palm on the show, I think it was a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks back now on on a numbers game,
Speaker 1: him here at Visa and he obviously is Derek Stephen's
Speaker 1: conciliary over there at Circa, and I asked him, I
Speaker 1: was like, look, have you guys thought about the impact
Speaker 1: this is going to have on your contests? And I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure he had deeply at that time, because
Speaker 1: we're still two weeks ago then, and lord knows, the
Speaker 1: world is changing so quickly. We forget where we even were,
Speaker 1: you know, and mentally speaking two weeks ago. But do
Speaker 1: you do you wonder if we're I mean, one, let's
Speaker 1: say there's first of all, I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: going to be college football. That's the one I'm really
Speaker 1: because they're kids, and I just don't know if you're
Speaker 1: going to have that season, because we forget that their
Speaker 1: students first followed by being athletes. Um, don't. Obviously, I
Speaker 1: don't want to get into that debate, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, they have to congregate as students, but uh,
Speaker 1: pro football, let's say it happens. Let's say it happens
Speaker 1: in some truncated form. I mean, I would imagine these
Speaker 1: contests the rules will have to be altered. I know
Speaker 1: over at Uh you know, some of the by laws
Speaker 1: have stipulations on on the necessary number of weeks. I
Speaker 1: know the West eight has to have ten weeks played
Speaker 1: for it to be um an actual contest. But do
Speaker 1: you wonder people with their discretionary income, the thought that
Speaker 1: these contests may happen in some form and even if
Speaker 1: they do, like the pots will be much smaller, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, what is your thinking on that? Do you
Speaker 1: think this year just might be a year that just
Speaker 1: goes by the wayside as far as contest because I
Speaker 1: know you really spend most of your betting life on those.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I would. I would say that there's there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a fair amount of people that are less enthusiastic. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna have a fair amount of people
Speaker 1: that are that are going to appreciate this break from
Speaker 1: gambling and tell themselves. Oh you know what, my life
Speaker 1: isn't bad. Uh, you know, I found different hobbies and
Speaker 1: and and I'm not blowing a bunch of money and uh,
Speaker 1: I've I've found alternatives. And then you're also going to
Speaker 1: have these people that are you know, uh like betting
Speaker 1: ready from the flints stones, that are gonna be oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's back, and and they're gonna want to
Speaker 1: bet on everything. And maybe they're gonna get careless and
Speaker 1: not be disciplined. So you know, you know, word a
Speaker 1: caution to those people is you know, easier way in
Speaker 1: uh is one thing to avoid. But you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know why people really chase those huge giant pay days.
Speaker 1: Yeah they're nice, but the more people there are, the
Speaker 1: harder it is to win. So uh, fewer people actually
Speaker 1: may be more desirable for uh, you know, many people
Speaker 1: that would like to get into contests. Some people may
Speaker 1: just feel overwhelmed. I can't be three thousand people. I
Speaker 1: can't be two thousand people. So I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: go both ways. Really, So, I mean, as a guy
Speaker 1: who's won multiple handicapping championships, then what don't you plays
Speaker 1: or are you indicating that you don't even bother with
Speaker 1: for instance, Super Contest Classic, which has the most entries.
Speaker 1: I think of all of these contests, like, you don't
Speaker 1: touch that. No, I playing that years ago, because I
Speaker 1: don't think you can you can defeat the variants. You know,
Speaker 1: if if you have a true talent um, then you're
Speaker 1: never going to uh get to those high numbers that
Speaker 1: puts you at the very top. It's that's why you know,
Speaker 1: you always it seems like you always have unknowns that
Speaker 1: win these things because anybody, you know, by randomness can
Speaker 1: have a great year. But if you have you know,
Speaker 1: true and tried systems. Uh, you know, there's formulas the
Speaker 1: dictate that you're never going to have a year that's
Speaker 1: really that high over that number of games. I forget
Speaker 1: who did it, but there was some you know, I
Speaker 1: personally think that of the games are are are a
Speaker 1: coin flip anyway, they don't match the statistics, uh that
Speaker 1: that you payndicap the game on and then you're dealing
Speaker 1: with the remaining and you're just hoping to hit seven
Speaker 1: to those remaining games that aren't going to be just
Speaker 1: dumb lucked by referee calls and bad bounces. Um, can
Speaker 1: we take a Can we take a question from Twitter,
Speaker 1: if you would, about baseball cards. Can we say way
Speaker 1: back there for a second, because I think, uh, some
Speaker 1: people will think of things that I did not. Buddy Arthur,
Speaker 1: can you please ask the card guy. That's you, Chris,
Speaker 1: you're now the card guy. Can you please ask the
Speaker 1: card guy about the frenzies created by error cards back
Speaker 1: in the day. Remember those? Uh, those were always an
Speaker 1: interesting sort of side thing too. Please tell me those
Speaker 1: weren't a hustle like Billy Ripkin's error card comes to
Speaker 1: our other. Yeah, those are all hustles. Obviously, that Billy
Speaker 1: Ripkin was the first notable card because it had an
Speaker 1: obscenity written on the bottom of the baseball bat. And
Speaker 1: I think that those cards went up to like fifty
Speaker 1: dollars if I'm not mistaken. And then, of course, uh,
Speaker 1: a bunch of them ended up appearing later on. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure that that error card is worth about the
Speaker 1: paper it's printed on today. But the other manufacturers, and
Speaker 1: I do know this for a fact because I was
Speaker 1: told by certain people, you know, we're intentionally making errors,
Speaker 1: and uh, they would they would put in some oddities
Speaker 1: throughout their sets intentionally hoping that they could benefit from
Speaker 1: that craze. So yet another uh, you know, if it
Speaker 1: can be exploited, it will be exploited. Yeah, I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: we're talking to Las Vegas Chris here on the numbers
Speaker 1: game at Visa the Sports Mading Network. I mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: that the you know, look, the upper Deck Griffy card,
Speaker 1: which was really what caused this amazing boom in the industry,
Speaker 1: was actually it's the beginning of its undoing, because there
Speaker 1: are there are stories that once the card was you know,
Speaker 1: so speculative that it was four hundred dollars in val
Speaker 1: you or whatever it was valued at at its peak,
Speaker 1: um that there were stories of folks finding a guy
Speaker 1: with a box of five thousand of just Ken Griffy
Speaker 1: Rookies in his box ready to sell. That upper Deck
Speaker 1: had essentially um manufactured, not essentially, but actually had manufactured
Speaker 1: so many of these mass produced. Now, remember that was
Speaker 1: an eighty nine Ken Griffy upper Deck card, his rookie card.
Speaker 1: They had manufactured a whole bunch. And the way that
Speaker 1: you knew that it was a scam is that it
Speaker 1: was on nine paper stock and and beyond. So they
Speaker 1: had basically taken this amazing gem and realized, oh, we
Speaker 1: can mass produce this is like printing money. And in
Speaker 1: subsequent years, UH made so many of these. And I
Speaker 1: guess it comes down to the question. You wonder, okay,
Speaker 1: where people prosecuted, Like did people go to jail? That
Speaker 1: kind of thing, And it really was, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a question of legality versus ethics. Right in the end, legally,
Speaker 1: no one did anything really to break a law, at
Speaker 1: least nothing that anybody didn't pursue, you know, felt the
Speaker 1: need to pursue in a court of law. Really, legally
Speaker 1: you were not on solid ground with that. Ethically, of course, Uh,
Speaker 1: it was just awful, right, I mean, it goes against
Speaker 1: the whole ethical because, as we said, every all ethical
Speaker 1: UH boundaries because everything was everybody was scamming everybody, And
Speaker 1: it's just it's amazing to think about that. You you said,
Speaker 1: and we'll get back to the question before about UH
Speaker 1: Star cards impacts. I guess my question to you then,
Speaker 1: Chris personally, is how much of this did you know
Speaker 1: at the time? In other words, you you came to
Speaker 1: learn all of it as you progressed. But I guess
Speaker 1: what I'm asking is, did you ever feel And this
Speaker 1: sort of gets to how you got out of the industry.
Speaker 1: What were what were the points where you're like, I
Speaker 1: don't feel right doing this or did you do it wrong?
Speaker 1: For a period of time and then you were like
Speaker 1: and then you sort of one day you woke up
Speaker 1: and like, wait, I don't want to be this person.
Speaker 1: Like how did that go for you? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: there was an honest way to do business. Uh so
Speaker 1: you you there are. There are plenty of reputable dealers
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are still around. I don't
Speaker 1: know how, but you could do honest business because you know,
Speaker 1: you can't rip off your customers and uh you know,
Speaker 1: expect them to come back. So you can't sell you know,
Speaker 1: packs of cards that don't have those inserts in them.
Speaker 1: You can't uh uh, you can't be selling you know,
Speaker 1: misrepresenting quality or or or certain other issues about what
Speaker 1: you're selling, because you need that customer to keep on coming.
Speaker 1: You know, as you mentioned, they're in every month for
Speaker 1: that becket. They're they're waiting for the ups driver and
Speaker 1: there's a line of people. Uh lookally, you know it's
Speaker 1: it's like the lottery. So there was a way to
Speaker 1: do it. Honestly, what really hurt the industry though, is
Speaker 1: we had horrible terms. It was it's it's it's humiliating
Speaker 1: to even admit this. But any normal industry would have
Speaker 1: will give you terms. You apply for credit, you get terms,
Speaker 1: you get a chance to sell the product. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's the way normal industry is. In the card industry,
Speaker 1: the manufacturers were so short on dough because of their
Speaker 1: licensing fees. They had you pre pay, so all the
Speaker 1: dealers had to prepay. But there was very few people
Speaker 1: that didn't have to prepay a manufacturer. Uh. So, and
Speaker 1: you might prepay to three months ahead of time. And
Speaker 1: by the time, you know, and if you your full
Speaker 1: service and you're carrying full product lines, you've got, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars out of your pocket for stuff
Speaker 1: you can't even sell. And you're just waiting and waiting
Speaker 1: and waiting. And then what happened when when people, you know,
Speaker 1: when dealers started to get financially dressed, Uh, there'd be
Speaker 1: times work on the sports net, the product will be
Speaker 1: worth ten less than what you paid for because dealers
Speaker 1: needed to pay rent. They had to sell some of
Speaker 1: the products they had guaranteed to come in later, so
Speaker 1: they'd sell it at a discount just to get their
Speaker 1: money back. So uh, that's what really heard it for
Speaker 1: the stores there. There was just no manufacturer support in
Speaker 1: any way. So whatsoever? Uh Today Upper Deck, for instance,
Speaker 1: just to let people know, upper Deck no longer has
Speaker 1: a license to produce baseball cards. They just do hockey cards.
Speaker 1: No longer has a license to produce baseball cards. And
Speaker 1: Tops who remember owned the baseball card industry from the
Speaker 1: early fifties all the way to the late eighties. They're
Speaker 1: the only company that produces baseball cards today. So all
Speaker 1: of these other companies Upper Deck and Score and don
Speaker 1: Rus and Flear and on down the line, they're uh,
Speaker 1: they don't, they don't exist in this in this industry.
Speaker 1: And it's just, uh, it's fascinating. And you wonder if
Speaker 1: and I mean again, I'm just sort of figured out
Speaker 1: loud here. I just wonder if thirty forty years from
Speaker 1: now this will all be cyclical again. Who knows? Uh.
Speaker 1: You mentioned in an email to me or or in
Speaker 1: a text to me, chris Um manufacturers and dealers themselves,
Speaker 1: the unscrupulous behaviors, backdoor products, reprinting, counterfeiting, which we talked
Speaker 1: about it you're you're staying with the FBI. The method
Speaker 1: the methods that dealers robbed customers with being able to
Speaker 1: sell products they knew had no star cards. Did we
Speaker 1: miss anything? Was there something else that we hadn't touched
Speaker 1: on yet? Because it just scams every which way. Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's it mirrors our industry. You've had
Speaker 1: dealers and manufacturers, uh, you know, go out of business. Uh. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest dealers, uh was based here in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, UH place called Smoky's. They went and they
Speaker 1: actually started manufacturing their own hockey set and uh A
Speaker 1: long story short, you know, they weren't around very long,
Speaker 1: and I think people uh lost a lot of money
Speaker 1: pre buying product there was never delivered. In fact, I
Speaker 1: had to go to quarter on that because I pre
Speaker 1: sold some some product and it was never delivered. It
Speaker 1: was never made, and somebody that I pre sold to
Speaker 1: sued me. So uh, you know, you you you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's just like you've got bad you know, bad
Speaker 1: off shores. You had bad dealers, and you had bad
Speaker 1: you know situations that you could get into the same way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a place in Burbank. I believe it
Speaker 1: is which has the largest collection, largest full sets, and
Speaker 1: largest collection warehouse of baseball cards. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a that's a field trip one for me. I'd I'd
Speaker 1: love to see this. This is from Scott Hoffman on Twitter.
Speaker 1: We get tweets at beating the book at halfee time.
Speaker 1: How does Chris feel about the current state of the
Speaker 1: card industry now? Does he still collect or invest or?
Speaker 1: Are you just completely out of disinterested Chris? After all this,
Speaker 1: I've been completely out and disinterested. But I bounced into
Speaker 1: a few people that, uh, they're they're they're still in it,
Speaker 1: but what they're focusing on is p S A graded.
Speaker 1: So they're buying uh you know, things that are numbered,
Speaker 1: things uh that are limited production and only the highest quality.
Speaker 1: Uh and and I have to agree with that. If
Speaker 1: if I were to pop back in, I would only
Speaker 1: want the rare items, the highest quality, and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to know that it's real. You know, we haven't
Speaker 1: even touched on this, not that I was involved in
Speaker 1: it too much, but you know there was a story
Speaker 1: that of all the Michael Jordan's UH signed items were
Speaker 1: ownerfeit and and it's probably higher. It's probably the amount
Speaker 1: of fake autographs and fake fake jerseys and fake game
Speaker 1: war in this. You know, that was another way that
Speaker 1: it really suck money out of the industry. Also, people
Speaker 1: became disillusioned by that. I would have counterfeit stuff and
Speaker 1: and fake autographs and fake letters of authenticity come in
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, you really had to, you know,
Speaker 1: have your wits about you. You had to have the
Speaker 1: magnifying glass. You had to be familiar with. I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how many signed Babe Ruth baseballs came into
Speaker 1: my store. I mean, jeez, come on, come on. They
Speaker 1: were counterfeit though, Yeah, of course they were. But you
Speaker 1: had to know that, right, you had to question at
Speaker 1: the time. Even but you know what, let me tell
Speaker 1: you something. You can see some of these, you know,
Speaker 1: they you know, sometimes they could take a ball from
Speaker 1: that era that might have been signed by other Yankees,
Speaker 1: or just a ball from that era, and and and
Speaker 1: so you know, if you carbon dated, it would be
Speaker 1: from the era. Uh. And you can fade inc in sunlight.
Speaker 1: There's ways to fade inc. There's a lot there's a
Speaker 1: lot of creative ways of counterfeiting signatures. Uh. And memorabilia.
Speaker 1: It's it's unbelievable, by temperatures, by lighting um, you know,
Speaker 1: by trimming um, by adding or subtracting something to it. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: Like I said, all not surprising as an adult, but
Speaker 1: a little part of me dies with every word that
Speaker 1: you say. We'll come back. We'll wrap it up with
Speaker 1: Chris Jimmy the Caroll on the way right here on
Speaker 1: a Numbers game, on a golf update right here at Visa.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to a Numbers game with Jill, Alexander, Jason
Speaker 1: Sobel tweeting out some golf updates, majors and other notable events.
Speaker 1: The United States Open Golf tournament reschedule for September seventeen.
Speaker 1: That is the working date now for the US Open.
Speaker 1: UH they're at Winged Foot. It will be at Winged
Speaker 1: Foot in New York. So the new dates for the
Speaker 1: US Open September sevent The Open Championship that remains canceled,
Speaker 1: which we once UH would call the British Open. The
Speaker 1: Open Championship that remains canceled, the p g a UH
Speaker 1: is now rescheduled for August six to nine. That was
Speaker 1: the one at Harding Park here in San Francisco, where
Speaker 1: I'm broadcasting from. That is now rescheduled for August six
Speaker 1: to nine. So p GA August six to nine, US Open,
Speaker 1: September seventy, as far as the Ryder Cup that remains
Speaker 1: at the end of September September, And if you're wondering
Speaker 1: about the Masters, the dates that they're thinking about, per
Speaker 1: Jason Sobel, November twelve through the fifteen. You imagine so
Speaker 1: augusta national which closes down over the sub summer. Were
Speaker 1: of course used to seeing the azaleas in full bloom
Speaker 1: at the beginning of April. Tentative dates for this year's
Speaker 1: Masters November twelve to the fifteenth. By the way, UM
Speaker 1: FedEx playoffs pushed back one week as well that according
Speaker 1: to Jason Sobel again, so p GA August six and nine,
Speaker 1: the US up in September, Ryder Cup September seven, the
Speaker 1: Masters just before Thanksgiving November twelve, fift if in fact
Speaker 1: all of that happens, and this is as best as
Speaker 1: they can come up with the schedule here uh in
Speaker 1: early April, um Chris Las Vegas, Chris still with us,
Speaker 1: you want to take some tweets here because I've got
Speaker 1: some questions. Uh for you. Uh, let's see here, Gary Kincaid,
Speaker 1: where can we go to find a reputable baseball card
Speaker 1: evaluator with this new grading system? Um? Well you you had,
Speaker 1: You've got several grading services. I think you know. P
Speaker 1: s A was the number one service that I'm familiar with.
Speaker 1: Uh h, But I think a simple Google search will
Speaker 1: do that. David Foreman, great show today on the baseball
Speaker 1: card industry guilt. Although it's making me realize that ten
Speaker 1: year old me was caught holding the bags on these things.
Speaker 1: We all were man, ten year old, all of us
Speaker 1: were all them lawns mode and sidewalk shovel just to
Speaker 1: be hustled into thinking cards had value. So true, Brock Marshalla,
Speaker 1: going down memory lane here, this was my time the
Speaker 1: Billy Ripkin can say, a rated rookie, upper deck, all
Speaker 1: of it. What was it you wanted to say off air?
Speaker 1: You mentioned something, Chris that from the previous question in
Speaker 1: the previous segment, Um, something related to sports betting again
Speaker 1: about the notion of finding smaller markets in sports betting.
Speaker 1: Could you get into that a little? Yeah, well I
Speaker 1: wanted to Scott. Scott Hoffman was asking, you know, you
Speaker 1: know what would I do now? I would also wait
Speaker 1: that to betting. Also is better collect what you like,
Speaker 1: don't don't you know, just be careful. So if I
Speaker 1: was if I was collecting now, I would want to
Speaker 1: do it and stuff that I'm really interested and not
Speaker 1: solely for the purpose of it's going to be worth
Speaker 1: more later. But you know, another correlation of how baseball
Speaker 1: cards and collecting went is the same as betting. You
Speaker 1: had to get to a point where you needed to
Speaker 1: diversify the way that uh, you know, we're starting to
Speaker 1: bet smaller market sports, uh to find value. That's what
Speaker 1: you had to do with trading cards. And you moved
Speaker 1: to the basketball. You moved to the football, and then
Speaker 1: you're sitting in there and you're going to wonderbred cards
Speaker 1: and you're going to entertain and cards and uh um
Speaker 1: like the Star Basketball which was you know, a bag
Speaker 1: set that didn't come out and packs. Um. I've got
Speaker 1: these Olympic cards that I had a you know, a
Speaker 1: bunch of these Olympic cards that are pretty rare. Um.
Speaker 1: So you have to do the same thing because that
Speaker 1: you did there with sports to find the real value
Speaker 1: because it doesn't matter what the market is there's the
Speaker 1: value is going to be lost and all the information
Speaker 1: is consolidated. So if you're smart you find these little, small,
Speaker 1: little niches of value, I think you'll benefit more. You're
Speaker 1: not betting table tennis or soccer in Belarus or Chris,
Speaker 1: I'm not, but I did see that what was that
Speaker 1: ten nine or ten pong pong parlay? That one? Yeah? No,
Speaker 1: I was mentioning the other day that listen, people who
Speaker 1: people who think, uh, these off shores or trouble, at
Speaker 1: least the reputal ones, uh reports of their demise are
Speaker 1: greatly exaggerated. As I was mentioning, Uh, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: K and the handle on some of these MADD simulations.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's higher than that these days, um than
Speaker 1: it was even five days go, and maybe even more
Speaker 1: predictive than actual football. That's a whole another matter when
Speaker 1: get into that another day, more with Las Vegas, Chris,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Viccarro on the way. As we wrap things up
Speaker 1: the baseball card industry, the rise and fall. We were
Speaker 1: all scammed, all of us right here on the Numbers
Speaker 1: game at Visa, these pools betting out. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: a numbers game with Jill Alexander. Support for a numbers
Speaker 1: game comes from manscaped, the best in men's below the
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Speaker 1: dot com. That's off at man scaped dot com with
Speaker 1: promo code visa in and yes, I will read this
Speaker 1: at the end to your balls. Will thank you, Chris.
Speaker 1: Whatever they're paying me, it's not enough. Well, that reminds me.
Speaker 1: In fourth grade, I was suspended for bringing a T
Speaker 1: shirt that said tennis players have fuzzy balls? Is that true?
Speaker 1: That's true story? Really, that's a true story. I drew story.
Speaker 1: I thought it was hilarious at the time, and that
Speaker 1: we suspended you when you were in fourth grade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they sent me home. Can't wear that shirt? Okay. I
Speaker 1: thought they like issued a formal suspension where they were
Speaker 1: like telling you how old are You're like nine years old,
Speaker 1: there like, I'm sorry, you've been suspended for two weeks
Speaker 1: or something like that. They just sent you home that
Speaker 1: day hot water. Um, I was. This has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with wearing a T shirt that says the word
Speaker 1: balls on it. I was kicked out of the Washington
Speaker 1: d c. Chapter of my Hebrew school and sent to Potomac,
Speaker 1: Maryland because I knew more Hebrew than the teachers and
Speaker 1: would tell the kids, the their kids what the teachers
Speaker 1: were saying to each other. How about that? How about that, Chris?
Speaker 1: How about that for somebody? Nobody? Nobody likes to know
Speaker 1: it all in any language. They certainly they certainly, we're
Speaker 1: not happy with me over at Abrew School at d
Speaker 1: c Um. How about the Masters? You catch that last
Speaker 1: last segment. I didn't really get your reaction on that.
Speaker 1: How about the notion of the Masters being played in November? Wow?
Speaker 1: Well why not? When does it really why does it
Speaker 1: really matter when it's played? Well, it doesn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: apparently that course is fine. Again. They close Augusta in
Speaker 1: the summertime. We we know it for all its beauty
Speaker 1: and spring, but apparently it's very nice at that time
Speaker 1: of year, late in the year as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: the grass is different for sure, and the look will
Speaker 1: be will be somewhat different. Golf is the one sport
Speaker 1: that during this pandemic, you really did hope that golf
Speaker 1: because there's the distancing that's inherent in it. But it
Speaker 1: is about the travel and getting the players there and
Speaker 1: and so I do understand that of it. That's why
Speaker 1: they they had to UH spend the tournaments, but they're
Speaker 1: they're at least going to try to give a go
Speaker 1: at this later in the UH later in the year. Um.
Speaker 1: But just wrapping up everything, and thanks to everybody for
Speaker 1: tweeting at Beating the book. It seems to have resonated
Speaker 1: with UH with a whole bunch of people. And I
Speaker 1: knew it would because so many of us grew up, um,
Speaker 1: you know, as sports bettors first really speculating in the
Speaker 1: baseball card industry and learning about the value of collectibles
Speaker 1: or what we thought the valuable of collectibles of the
Speaker 1: value of collectibles were at that time. And it's really
Speaker 1: our first correlation between sports and money. And I do
Speaker 1: agree with what you said earlier, and I think these
Speaker 1: are the macro points that it really did, I think
Speaker 1: create a certain education for those of us who ended
Speaker 1: up being sports bettors, to learn the proper value of things,
Speaker 1: to learn that some things weren't what they were perceived as,
Speaker 1: that other people had different value on items than you
Speaker 1: might have. I get back to the very original point
Speaker 1: we made. We often think about this the baseball card
Speaker 1: industry as this quaint slice of Americana where fathers and
Speaker 1: sons would bond over a shared love of baseball and
Speaker 1: a shared love of collecting cards, when in fact it's
Speaker 1: a shout out to the moms of the world from
Speaker 1: the generation before hours. Those were the moms who threw
Speaker 1: out all their cards. Danny Burke, who's uh? Who's in
Speaker 1: studio on a numbers game. We didn't get to hear
Speaker 1: much from the day today, but Danny was talking about
Speaker 1: how his uh in his family there was an instance
Speaker 1: of that as well, where someone throughout baseball carts. It
Speaker 1: was that kind of uh thing that created this market
Speaker 1: of value when we were kids, and it's that very
Speaker 1: it's the very opposite of that then ended up ruining
Speaker 1: the market, if you will, with mass production um and
Speaker 1: the notion that thirty years hence our cards would be
Speaker 1: just as valuable as they were at the time in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, but we just didn't get that
Speaker 1: that's what created the market, and they were doing the
Speaker 1: exact opposite through scams and all kinds of shenanigans when
Speaker 1: we were kids. You were mentioning as sort of your
Speaker 1: macro statement of the whole thing about collectibles in general
Speaker 1: and how it teach us about markets. Chris off air Well,
Speaker 1: getting back to the moms, they karma got them back
Speaker 1: with beanie babies, that they were the most dysfunctional group
Speaker 1: of collectors. No, I'm not I'm not kidding. They are
Speaker 1: worse than they're Yeah, they are worse than any drug dealer, uh,
Speaker 1: drug user, gambleholic, uh, you name it. The beanie baby collectors,
Speaker 1: barn none are the most dysfunctional people. Uh ever, ever, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: the moms themselves. I mean, don't get me wrong, there
Speaker 1: was a normal people. But you know, collectibles in general
Speaker 1: are just you know, it's like a game of hot potato.
Speaker 1: I mean everything that we buy in life, you know, stocks, medals, houses, uh, cars,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. You know, the price guides mean nothing.
Speaker 1: Nothing is worth worth uh what it says in a
Speaker 1: price guide. It's only worth what somebody is willing to
Speaker 1: pay you at that moment in time, and that's what
Speaker 1: collectors failed to to remember, and there was a time period.
Speaker 1: Getting back to Beckett, I had a standing policy I'm
Speaker 1: selling at I'm buying a ten percent of high Beckett.
Speaker 1: And I'm selling and I'm selling it of high Beckett. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know I would have showcases filled with stuff. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't be everything in the store, but that was my
Speaker 1: general policy. You can buy it of the price, and
Speaker 1: you can if you want to sell it to me.
Speaker 1: I'm buying it a ten percent because that that was
Speaker 1: the range that I found the most given take on.
Speaker 1: But the people fool themselves into the looking at price
Speaker 1: guides or or or eBay. Oh I saw this go
Speaker 1: on eBay for this much. It's all bs. You know
Speaker 1: how many fake sales there are and how many people
Speaker 1: are buying their own products and having friends by it.
Speaker 1: It's just to prop things up. And it's the same
Speaker 1: way they did it with betting lines, where they're trying
Speaker 1: to prop up games throughout the week just so that
Speaker 1: they can pound it back down right before game town,
Speaker 1: where the beanie baby moms like pushing the shoving each
Speaker 1: other out of the way, like, what were they? Were
Speaker 1: they worse than the cabbage patch moms? Oh yeah, seriously,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just ridiculous. It was unbelievable, the lines
Speaker 1: and the passion, and and I would, I would, I
Speaker 1: would run ads in the paper, don't buy these, these
Speaker 1: are really overpriced. But I have them. I'm the first
Speaker 1: person in the state you can see the twelve new
Speaker 1: beanie babies. And then they'd be absurdly overpriced and they'd
Speaker 1: be gone. They be gone. So these people actually have
Speaker 1: thought they I can't. I can't tell you how many
Speaker 1: times moms would honestly say it's going to help out
Speaker 1: my my child college one, and I would tell him,
Speaker 1: please don't do that. Well, we'll end on that note.
Speaker 1: Human beings irrational then irrational. Now, Chris, I appreciate it
Speaker 1: so much, man, Thank you so much.