Hobby Quick Hits Ep.178 My Baltimore Trip Review

SPEAKER 1: Hobby.

SPEAKER 1: Quick hit, hit, delivering that breaking hobby news directly to your, I know those hot drops from the car shops.

SPEAKER 1: We've got your, yeah, John, new name.

SPEAKER 2: Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 178 of Hobby Quick Hits. Going to be talking about my recent trip to Baltimore my first time ever in that city. No, I'm not turning into a Ravens fan. So, don't worry about that being a Steelers fan, but I actually got to hang out or hang out, for four days with my good friend, Danny Black.

SPEAKER 2: My card mentions, co-host and a very, very good friend and, his family. So thanks, to Danny and family for the hospitality. Had a fun four days, got there on Thursday and left Sunday morning. So three and some change days and, did some stuff. I'll, I'll save it for the, the main topic, of the episode. But, but had a blast first time ever in Baltimore and, hopefully not last and not planning to make it, the last time.

SPEAKER 2: Maybe we'll see a future national in Baltimore. That would be, really cool. So, that is going to be the main crux of today's episode. Talk about some of the things we got to do and see and partake in. So, with that being said, we're going to hear from our great sponsor and then, start the show.

SPEAKER 2: Ok. Now a quick word from our great sponsor, followed by the new product release schedule. Then we'll go around the hobby verse to tell you all the latest hobby happenings and news. Then we'll tackle today's topic of discussion.

SPEAKER 3: Hi, this is Pat Hughes Cubs announcer. Coming to you from the Sports Card shop in beautiful New Buffalo Michigan. The Goer family has built an incredible place here for collectors to buy, sell and trade cards and memorabilia. Be sure to stop by and let them show you around the Sports Card shop.com connecting sports athletes, the hobby and collectors around the world.

SPEAKER 4: Hi, this is Allen Pinkett and I'm here to tell you the Goer family has done it again.

SPEAKER 4: They've just opened up the sport card shop in downtown Valparaiso, Indiana and it is awesome.

SPEAKER 4: If you're a collector, you need to check this place out.

SPEAKER 4: Tell them Alan sent you and get a free gift on your first visit.

SPEAKER 5: Let's check out this week's hobby. Wax releases. Take it away. Max.

SPEAKER 6: Hey, guys, it's Max in the sports car shop in New Buffalo and Valparaiso.

SPEAKER 6: And we are bringing you guys the weekly releases for these next upcoming weeks here. Starting off on the eighth. We have 2024. Bowman baseball blaster. 2024. Bowman. Baseball hobby and Jumbo. 2024. Bowman baseball ht A choice. 2023 Panini National Treasures racing. 2023 24 Panini Crown, basketball and 2024 upper deck game news. Golf. On the 10th we have 2023. 24 do soccer. 2023 24 pen like basketball.

SPEAKER 6: And on the 15th we have 2024 tops archives, signature series, retired player, Ed Baseball, as well as 2023 24 tops UEFA club competition. Finest soccer and 2024 tops UFC at midnight, as well as 2023 24 Upper Trilogy. Hockey. On the 17th, we have Panini Clear, 2023 Panini dominant, clearly, football and that is your weekly releases. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the show. Be sure to check out the Sports Card shop.

SPEAKER 2: Let's go round the hobby verse and catch up on this week's hobby news.

SPEAKER 2: All right. Lots of news during this segment. Much of it coming from the Tops Conference that took place last week in Atlanta, Georgia. They had a lot of their direct dealers, come there. Andrew Jones and Thurman Thomas were special guests. It seems a little light on Star Power.

SPEAKER 2: I know Andrew Jones was a Atlanta favorite for the Braves, but, you know, here in central New York we're all very familiar with Thurman Thomas in his bill's career, just thought they'd have a little more star power than that. But, hey, they didn't have to have anybody there.

SPEAKER 2: Right. So, let's talk about some of the news coming out of that, conference and, this is what we know. It's not necessarily, everything that event was a couple of days, redemption cards, they're going to try to make less of them. But they, you know, you're gonna still have to have them.

SPEAKER 2: They also announced that they've extended the red redemption time to 10 years. Not that it will take 10 years for redemption to come in. But if you have an expired card, you can add 10 years to that. So, but it says expires in 2023. It's actually 2033.

SPEAKER 2: They've had 70,000 outstanding redemption. They have announced that they're down to 10,000. So they've, they've returned 60,000 redemption. That's always a good thing. The other big news coming from that they are going to start producing basketball cards even before their license officially gets kicked in with unlicensed brand and they showed a tops chrome basketball wem be a auto.

SPEAKER 2: They're gonna have autos in this product. Obviously, they cannot use team name or logo. So Wendy's will just say San Antonio won't say Spurs or have a Spurs logo and same with all the rest of the, the cards that appear in these sets. Some of the sets that they announced will be called Midnight Cosmic Chrome Finest Motif and others to be announced. So that's coming very soon.

SPEAKER 2: They're going to visit randomly their store accounts and give grades.

SPEAKER 2: It's called an L CS scorecards. And grades are gonna be on store layout, cleanliness, how their products are displayed.

SPEAKER 2: So each of these stores will get a score and how much product you get from tops as the store owners will be reflective on the score. Now, was a former L CS owner. I know it's been a while but, I had my hat in that ring. I don't like that. I, I don't like that. I understand that you care about what stores they are going to, you know, they're selling to, I don't like the scorecard thing.

SPEAKER 2: I, I, you know, I don't know, it just doesn't sit well. I, it seems sort of gestapoish, to me if you don't know what that means, look it up, I don't want to spend time doing that.

SPEAKER 2: But, not a fan of that, right?

SPEAKER 2: You apply for an account, ask for that information, then ask for pictures, then, you know, if you're getting complaints about a store, you know, then maybe you can go visit them. But again, it's, it's free country, right? So they can visit anyone they want. I just don't like the score and you get product based on a score.

SPEAKER 2: Again, I just don't like it.

SPEAKER 2: They're making one of one, piggy backing off the major league debut patches. They are making a, one of one bat knob, with, and these bat knobs are gonna be a picture of the player whose bat it is and the, the, these bats, they're gonna be specifically made to be used on these one of one bat knob cards. And, I, I've heard people who hate it who say it's cheesy, it's, it's sort of almost manufactured intentionally.

SPEAKER 2: Aesthetically. I really, really like these cards. They showed some pictures.

SPEAKER 2: I, I do dig and wouldn't mind pulling one.

SPEAKER 2: Even though I don't open a lot of modern anymore, but, I like it, but I can see it's sort of an on Purp, an Onur game use card and, you know, we complain about Panini and them having a, a player put on like 12 jerseys at once and then pull them off. It has a little bit of that feel to it, to be honest, with you.

SPEAKER 2: So I, I get that I can see that.

SPEAKER 2: And they've also announced fanatics not at the, at the event itself that they've partnered with perfect game and they're gonna be producing cards of young athletes and baseball players. So perfect game. They've produced cards before of, of high ranking high school baseball players, many who unfortunately don't pa pan out on the major league level.

SPEAKER 2: But fanatics is going to partner with perfect game, to do those cards, and produce those cards and, autos and I believe game use, which I, I don't know if perfect game had done game use cards prior to this. So that might be new there. Let's talk about Panini.

SPEAKER 2: Their W NBA product has kicked off with many first W NBA gus of some big names, right? Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark.

SPEAKER 2: And a lot of attention on the W NBA this year with some of the star power coming to the league, some of the star power they already have in the league. And so get your Panini W NBA cards and following the rookie rule, right?

SPEAKER 2: These will be the rookies of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and this year's class SGC had their biggest month ever in their history in April, 100 64,000 cards with 100 and 38,000 being sports. So, piggybacking kind of coming off the news of the collectors acquisition of them, maybe more confidence, being bestowed, they have my confidence already.

SPEAKER 2: But I think this will go further into cementing their brand and to kind of close the segment. Unfortunately, a passing that kind of strikes close to home for me and my dad and is Carl Erskine, as he's affectionately known Brooklyn Dodgers, former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher, passed away.

SPEAKER 2: I think he was in his nineties. He was still going and, one of the last sort of links to the Brook living links to the Brooklyn Dodger, is, passed away. So, condolences to the family and, rest in peace to, to Carl now our feature presentation.

SPEAKER 2: All right, let's talk about Baltimore. Once again, I wanna thank Danny Black. Laura Black. The kids had a great time. So kind of set the, the tone here. I have a week off from school in, in April for it's called spring break. Every school does it different parts of the country do it in different weeks, usually.

SPEAKER 2: And so I saw that week, you know, coming up and I'm like, you know, we've, it's come up before about coming to Baltimore and, you know, I had Mike Gibbons on from the Babe Ruth Baseball mu birthplace and Museum and he said, man, it'd be great if you come down and check out the museum and you know, never been to Camden Yard. So kind of really thought about the week off.

SPEAKER 2: Knew I couldn't, you know, do a whole week away from, from home, but thought maybe three or four days. Kind of checked the Orioles schedule cause definitely got to check out an Orioles game. So, so they were the, the second part of the week, the, the A's were in town and kind of mentioned to Danny.

SPEAKER 2: Hey, I'm thinking about, you know, I gotta ask you first, but I'm thinking about coming to Baltimore and he, you know, checked with, with his family and he's like, let's, let's go, let's do it. So we planned, Thursday, come in Thursday afternoon, leave Sunday, morning.

SPEAKER 2: So it's only a five hour, 1520 minute drive from, from where I am in Syracuse. So not, not too bad. So, you know, made sure that week was basically me kind of just crossing Ts and dotting I's and getting everything kind of done so I can make the trip. I'm, I'm doing three college course courses.

SPEAKER 2: So make sure I'm like most of my homework and, and course work was done. I actually had to do a little bit more Saturday morning at, Danny's house but nothing, nothing too bad. And, so I got that all kind of, squared away left Thursday morning, packed two bags, 22, you know, two, backpacks, my bag, one backpack and another, with clothes for the few days.

SPEAKER 2: And, got there Thursday went to lunch, had, Old Bay chicken wings and, I can tell you right now I'm hooked. I'm gonna be making them here at home. I got some Old Bay seasoning and and, and I've had old babe before. I don't want to make it like it's the first time but not Old Bay wings.

SPEAKER 2: And those were absolutely delicious. And then Laura, that was Thursday. Laura made them on Friday night, homemade ones and those were really, really delicious. So I'll be making those here in Syracuse taking a crack at it and see my, my spin on it.

SPEAKER 2: But so we went to lunch, like I said, had some Old Bay wings and, and loaded tots and you know, picked up boys from school and made our way to Aberdeen where the single A Aberdeen Ironbirds play. So we got to see a single a game, not an exciting game, pretty low scoring, not much hitting a lot of strikeouts. So that's your sort of thing.

SPEAKER 2: It was right up your alley. We left about the sixth or seventh inning with the score, 00 and like three hits total. Wound up the visiting team. One one nothing. That was the Jersey Shore, the Phillies minor league team and they have Justin Thomps, Justin Crawford Carl Crawford's son who's lighting it up there.

SPEAKER 2: Didn't have a great game this day, but having a great, great year. So remember that name. Justin Crawford, for future for future reference. So enjoyed, enjoyed the game, you know, came back to Danny's house, got kind of settled in and watched a little TV. And the next day was Friday.

SPEAKER 2: We went to the city, I went up into the World Trade Tower of Baltimore and got a real panoramic skyline view of the city, which was great and did that and saw the, unfortunately, saw the, the bridge collapse, saw the Camden yards from there and saw part of Raven Stadium M and T but it was, it was kind of blocked by 22 skyscrapers.

SPEAKER 2: And, but one thing about Baltimore that I was impressed with is it's very easy to get it in, in and out even with traffic.

SPEAKER 2: They don't gouge you for parking like some of the other big cities do the tunnels and bridges don't gouge you for fees and you know, costs there, which were, which was pretty, pretty cool. So we kind of did that. We went to the paper Moon diner for lunch on Friday.

SPEAKER 2: And that is a eclectic diner with toys all over the place. Mannequins, baby heads, kind of a different place, but very cool. My dad, I was telling Danny, my dad would absolutely love this place. He, he loves this kind of stuff.

SPEAKER 2: Great food.

SPEAKER 2: Had had some breakfast food and, but, very good, they give me big portions and then we picked up his boys and then, his one son, Zach had a, a hitting lesson and fielding lesson with former major league player, Mike Bordick.

SPEAKER 2: And so got to watch that with an hour lesson. Got to speak with Mike a little bit. Very, very nice guy, very thorough, with his training session. And, that was fun. And then we, we called it a day and got some pizza.

SPEAKER 2: And actually we didn't get pizz that night. We had the, the homemade wings that Laura Black made, which were delicious to say the least again, Old Bay. Old Bay for those that don't know, is a seasoning with multiple ingredient, has a seafood flavor and it was invented in Baltimore. That's where it all started.

SPEAKER 2: So Baltimoreans love Old Bay but other people, lot of other people love Old Bay myself included. So that was Friday, Saturday. We had tickets to the the stadium Camden yards for the A's Os game. And we headed there early took the not the monorail, but it's a train that you park and ride that takes you pretty much right to the stadium. We got there early kind of did a little tour outside the front part.

SPEAKER 2: And then went in found our seats and second tier but very close great seats and, and the game started and was very cool and, you know, to see that warehouse and be on the other side of it, which was cool, you know, you TV, only tells part of the story, seeing it up close and personal, really, really hit home about how beautiful that ballpark is and it really is.

SPEAKER 2: It, it reminded me a little bit, truth be told of Citi Field in, in Queens. It had a little bit of that, feel to it and about the third inning, Danny's like, hey, let's, let's walk around, I'll give you a tour of the park.

SPEAKER 2: You will still be able to see the game from all the views and the TV S. And so we did that. We went in front of the warehouse, which is, you know, that warehouse you see in right field is a very long building, but it has some restaurants, some apparel stores, lids.

SPEAKER 2: They have a major league baseball, game use which has balls and bats and uniforms and lineup cards from Baltimore. It's a game used, I didn't think the prices were terrible. Some things were pricey, other things weren't, weren't too bad.

SPEAKER 2: They got a bar boog's barbecue smelled great. Just wasn't hungry at that time or I might have, embellished in, in that. But, did it and, So oh earlier before we went to the game, I, I, I'm, I'm backtracking. Sorry, I I'm, things are, are coming back fresh. We went to Papa's restaurant which is famous for the crab cakes.

SPEAKER 2: It had a real crab cake folks. And when I say a real crab cake, this was like 90% crab and then 10% of the filler. And when you get a crab cake in a lot of other places, you don't get that, that sort of ratio. And this was I'm not making this up. This was the greatest crab cake have ever eaten.

SPEAKER 2: And I'm sure unless I get another one in Baltimore, they're all gonna fall short at this point. So that, that's what we did for lunch before the game. So I wasn't hungry. So I didn't, I didn't get any boobs, although it smelled absolutely delicious. So we walked around the park, we got into the left field and Ryan Matt.

SPEAKER 2: Ryan Mount Castle was up. I'm, I like Ryan Mount Castle kinda. So I kind of slowed the walk and sure enough he blast one to left field, which is where we are now and it's a hits a home run. So you, I, I was kind of walking and I kinda walked back to see where this ball was gonna wind up.

SPEAKER 2: It was about, you know, 67 rows in front of where I was standing and then the next batter was Adley Rush man. Adley Rush man. I'm a fan of him as well and he's on my fantasy baseball team. So I couldn't, we stayed there. We stood there, in that walking out to watch the Hadley Rush man at bat. Sure enough, a pitcher two later, boom, he blast one to left field.

SPEAKER 2: This one was a shot and only a few rows in front of where I'm standing and, and Danny and, later in the game, we're back in our regular seats and, and Danny was looking at highlights on the major league baseball app and he's like, hey, we, we made, the highlights and sure enough, I have my, baby Blue Sports Car Nation podcast hoodie on.

SPEAKER 2: So it kind of stuck out like a sore thumb and sure enough looking at the highlights we appeared on both of those home runs. Back to back. We were on the video when we got home later and watched, or the next day we watched sportscenter in the morning. You could see us, again, so kind of cool.

SPEAKER 2: You know, we made, you know, highlights if you will not on purpose, but just worked out. That way I went to also, earlier we went to bel air sports cards. Very nice place. Felt like a sort of like an apple store, sort of feel. We, we, we opened some packs I, pulled in Alec Marsh on the Royals pitcher, o out of my one pack and, gave it to Danny's Boy.

SPEAKER 2: You know, my way to say thank you and, thought they'd appreciate more Alex Marsh. Actually, not a bad pitcher. He did happen to go on the DL the very next day, so maybe I was bad luck there. I'll, I'll take the blame, for it. So I had a blast at the game, made our way back.

SPEAKER 2: The, you know, the, the, these new rules were baseball, this is the first game I went to live with the new time rules and the game went pretty quick. We were back at Danny's house about, seven something with a, with a four o'clock game and that's with the, with travel and stuff and we didn't really leave early.

SPEAKER 2: We left kind of with a couple of outs left, but we could still hear everything that was going on. Bought some pizza for the family. I asked them where, you know, where's their go to pizza joint?

SPEAKER 2: It was a place called Vitos and got, three pies brought that back to the house, ate dinner and, relaxed and, you know, kind of got ready to, you know, Sunday was coming the next day and I was gonna head back and get ready to, you know, my week off was over and get ready, to head back to work. So, stayed up a little bit and then I called it a night, got up, on Sunday and, you know, got ready to head back.

SPEAKER 2: But, oh, the other thing we did Friday night, I'm, I'm, I'm going out of chronological order here, but that's what happens when you get old Friday night was, card Mens. We usually do that. Me f from here in Syracuse and Danny at his house in Baltimore, but we were there. So we did a very special Mensches episode both in at Danny's house, which was pretty cool to do the first time we've ever done benches, live together.

SPEAKER 2: We didn't really even have a topic. We just kinda talked about whatever, talked about the trip thus far and what we were planning to do. And then as a lot of times happens with matches, right? The chat room, which is the best in the business.

SPEAKER 2: I always say, we just had a lot of fun talking about, whatever. And so, great episode there that, you can check that out that came out this past, Monday, last week. So it's only a week old if you haven't listened to it yet. And, so we did that on, on Friday night. But, no, Sunday morning got up, took a shower.

SPEAKER 2: You know, Laura made some breakfast, bacon and, and eggs and potatoes and, and, got some, got some food in me and, you know, wanted to get kind of an early start left about 12 o'clock.

SPEAKER 2: I got home about a little before six and, unpacked, you know, did some stuff and, you know, hang out with my family and got ready to go back, to work this week, which I did, but again, great trip, you know, did something every day, very you know, a little tired from, from the, from everything, but have caught up now on, on sleep.

SPEAKER 2: And you know, we're talking about doing this kind of making this an annual trip to Baltimore during baseball season, catching a minor league game, major league game, hanging out, eating some Old Bay and some seafood. And so maybe this will be an annual tradition going forward, but I had a blast.

SPEAKER 2: Wanted to share, share the fun with, with all of you, hopefully, I made it halfway interesting. But I hope everyone's doing well and so that, that was my Baltimore trip. And again, thanks to the black family for their hospitality and accommodated me had a blast and was, was a fun fun for day.

SPEAKER 2: So, that's gonna wrap up This episode, we're gonna come back with some closing thoughts and wrap up the show. All right. Thank you for listening to another episode. Of hobby quick. Its wanna give out our Social Media starting with our website, which is www dot sports Carnation podcast.com, Facebook.

SPEAKER 2: You can follow us at www.Facebook.com/Sports Card Nation podcast forward slash Twitter. We are at Sports Card, NAT T one. So it's Sports Card nat I one Instagram at Sports Car Nation Podcast. Or you can email the show hobby quick hits at gmail.com again. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.