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As most of my regular readers know, I don't watch a lot of baseball.  Mostly because my local teams don't allow their channel on streaming services.  And since COVID, I haven't really watched hockey either.  And I've never been a basketball fan.  So I'm a bit behind when it comes to the details of current sports.

Something I noticed when I happened upon some playoff baseball last season: the ad patches on the shoulders - and now even the batting helmets - of the players.  It's been my opinion that team wordmarks on baseball jerseys have been diluted and limited to plain cursive, which is boring.  But the uniform has never been invaded by corporate logos until now.

I mean, there's plenty of advertising in the ballparks as it is...

And the arenas and venues have been corrupted with company names for years.  

From Wikipedia:

Rate Field (formerly named Comiskey Park II, U.S. Cellular Field and Guaranteed Rate Field ... the park opened as Comiskey Park on April 18, 1991, taking its name from the original Comiskey Park, the team's home since 1910.

Originally called Comiskey Park, the stadium was renamed U.S. Cellular Field in 2003, after Chicago-based telecommunications company U.S. Cellular purchased the naming rights at US$68 million for 20 years. U.S. Cellular would later pay $13 million to end the agreement seven years early, saving an estimated $10.8 million.

The stadium's next name, Guaranteed Rate Field, was announced on October 31, 2016, after the Chicago-based private residential mortgage company Guaranteed Rate purchased the naming rights in a 13-year deal. It was later revealed that Guaranteed Rate would pay $20.4 million over ten years for the 13-year agreement. This translates to an average payment of $2.4 million, less than U.S. Cellular's yearly payment of $3.4 million as well as below the average MLB naming rights payment of $3.6 million at the time of the deal's signing.

Coinciding with Guaranteed Rate's rebranding as Rate, the Sox announced the ballpark would henceforth be known as Rate Field on December 17, 2024.

So there are already millions of dollars being spent on just the names of the places.  And some of the sources are rather bizarre.  Why do these high powered finance companies and obscure firms advertise to the general public anyway?  Most of us have to look up who the heck the company is anyway, so how is that advantageous?

The Phoenix Suns' arena became Footprint Center in the summer of 2021. It has previously been known as Talking Stick Resort Arena, U.S. Airways Center and America West Arena. It is now called PHX Arena.

Glad that didn't last long...at least it's sorta relevant to the actual place now.

But all that isn't enough.  Now the ads are infecting uniforms.  

Soccer has been doing this for years.

So has international hockey...

As has international and minor league baseball...

It's creeping into the American pro level sports, like the NBA.

And now baseball is heading down the road from this:

to this:

But is this what the teams really want?  Not only is it hideous and disgusting, but it's blasphemous to the history of the sport.  Is this kind of marketing even effective?  I would be inclined to say that I would hold a much less positive opinion of any company that would participate in the defacing of pro sports like this.

What are your thoughts?  Has it gone too far?  Aren't all the billboards, venue names, redundant ad announcements on TV, and corporate influence on the sports just a bit too much?

Bonus points for anyone who knows the company references in the post title.

Guess Whooo Sent Some Heritage

Got a large quantity of 2023 Heritage from Greg the Night Owl this Saturday.

Yeah, the toughest part of Heritage is the short prints.  I have exactly one from each series.

They came in a pair of packages.  Guess he was out of bigger mailers.

 
Two big bags full. (Editor's note: N.O. is a "back flapper").

All the big names, inserts, All-Stars, etc.

Trout, Alonso, Cole, Ramirez, Swanson, Rutschman, Betts, Witt.  All the current guys I recognize.  (And a lot that I don't, of course.)

Of course, anyone outside of the database is competing with all the trades I've been getting.  And this day wasn't any different.  Got these two sheets worth the same day.  But I don't mind the dupes.  

All of this allowed me to put names by the remaining numbers in my list.  I'm down to 27 regular series base and 33 high series.  All of Greg's were regulars, which meant that list went from twice as big to below the quantity of the high series needs.  I've traded for the entirety of what I have.  Haven't bought a single card from this set. 

Hopefully I can find a good starter batch of the SP's down the line.  Wouldn't mind a couple of the Adley variants as well.  

Thanks Greg! from Greg...

Birthday Trifecta: Superheroes & Spies

I try not to post too many of these eye candy posts.  I could do a whole other blog with them and get millions of reads, but for what?  Though today I noticed that there were three gorgeous gals all having a birthday on the same day, so I couldn't resist.

Kirsten Dunst has been nominated for four Golden Globes, an Oscar, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I liked her best as a redhead in the Spider-Man movies by Sam Raimi in the early 2000's, then Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and later Hidden Figures.

She is equal parts girl next door and movie star bombshell, even at 43.

 

Gal Gadot is, of course, Wonder Woman on the silver screen.  The Israeli actress was a former pageant winner and model.  Still stunning at 40(!)

I didn't actually like the second movie, it was depressing.  Except for her...

She is both adorable and exquisite....

And finally, Ana de Armas has been a Bond girl, Marilyn Monroe, and a hologram in the movies.

 Those mesmerizing eyes....

She's been in the remake of Blade Runner, Knives Out (for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe), No Time To Die, and Blonde.

A slim and sexy 37 today, Ana is absolute perfection.  She's my #1 most beautiful woman on the planet. 

You're welcome.

 

Back On Exhibit, With Two New Additions

The eBay purchase that arrived last week brought my closer to finishing the oldest team set in my collection (by almost 50 years).  Though it will most likely be a while until I get the last one.

You may recall from past posts the photo of the 1909 New York Giants that I got from my Dad several decades ago.  In the early 2000's, I decided to start a project to profile the members of the team.  I printed out biographies of each player pictured, and got reprints of their T206, T205, and a few other cards of the era.  

Then I got my first real one. This team set is the only group of cards that I seek graded copies of.  I have a few other slabbed items for recent set builds, but only because the price was close to what I thought a raw one should be.  Since these are so different and can be easily faked, I figured at least they should be officially authenticated - for whatever that's worth.  The grades I have don't generally approach level 5.  And they aren't all actually graded either.  But I digress...

Here's the whole set (without the two variations).  I'm only after one brand on the back too.

I set up a separate web page for this collection when I was on the Google site.  Unfortunately, the images I used for the full views of each card were lost when Google stopped having decent websites and shut them down.   The new version of this page (linked above and here) has been "under construction" for a long time.  Last week I finally filled in the thumbnail images with the date of purchase.  (The fonts are inconsistent, so I'll have to fix that).   

So before last week's purchase, I was down to four.  Now I'm missing half that number.

 You can guess which one is going to take the longest....

These are the latest additions:

The thumbnails on the T205 page are going to be linked to the images like these for all the cards I have.  For the moment, these are the only two that are.  I have to reshoot the others. 

Mr. Raymond has been very elusive.  He's apparently a decent star of the era, so he's priced above the majority (but way below guys like Cobb and Cy Young).  Ames was just the last of the common guys that finally showed up in a decent specimen for a reasonable price.

So stay tuned for further progress to bring that page up to date.  I hope to get the images done during Easter weekend.

Monday Mailday - A Time Warp From Where It All Began

The post office tends to "save up" trade mail and packages for Mondays.  The Monday after the second show weekend in a row was especially fruitful.  I had all this waiting in the box or by the door.

Most of it is trades from the Database, but one was an eBay purchase.

The late 80's are to finish a few sets I have for sale that ran short.  It's nice to be able to just trade extra stuff for them.  I'm probably going to end up with extras of the last few I need for '89 at least.  The '09 black Topps are for my Update set build.  Still annoyed that they didn't make whole blasters of these at the time.

This is the second half of that trade from BigOinPA.  Some Capitals and Sabres.  The latter are not the regular base set, but special team sets numbered out of 20.

TCDB trader RangerFreak94 contributed all this to set builds.  Anyone need a Pete Rose?  I'm ending up with four or five extras.  The basketball card was a nice try, but not going to make that set.  All the other football is for set builds, except Sam and Richie.  Anderson is a PC, and that one is the blue back retail flavor.

He also chimed in with hockey.  A couple Fedorovs and a Manon Rheaume for my PCs, more Finests for the Premier set, one OPC base hit, and more recent Caps.

The other large package contains two parts of an epic trade with SirNailhead.  The guy has been on quite a life journey, and has set me on one to gather another Heritage set.  We swapped almost 300 cards one-for-one.  My side was all 2023 Heritage - the '74 design.  I figured why not?  The first cards I ever owned were '74s.  So even though I only recognize about 20% of the fellows pictured, I went for it.  (I might do another post to see what the actual percentage is like I did before.)

 
Glad I don't have to find the Ohtani.  And there was at least one of the "other Aaron" Specials included too.

The flat rate box is the eBay purchase.  I'm going to save that reveal for the next post.  But I'll give you a hint ~ One of my other pages has been revived.  Go there and check out the last two entries.  (They're the only ones linked to full images.)  More on both of those in the next one.

Thanks to all three traders, and to you for tuning in....