We Have Been Assimilated.

Many of my fellow bloggers probably got the same email that I had today.  It's from Anuj Agarwal at FeedSpot.com.  The subject reads: "<insert blog name here> featured in FeedSpot Top 100 Sports Card Blogs".  The message goes on to congratulate "The Collective Mind Team" (clever...) "as your blog <blog name here> has been selected by our panelist (only one?) as one of the Top 100 Sports Card Blogs on the web. "  And it gives a link to the list ~ bloggers.feedspot.com/sports_card_blogs

Mr. Agarwal goes on to suggest adding your website link (the blog IS our website) and other social media handles for better visibility (on their list) and "get discovered by brands for collaboration".  (It would be nice if it was card companies who would send test product, but I don't think that happens any more.  Other than that, I'm not interested in commerce on here.)

So with all due respect to the FeedSpot organization, I won't be using their services.  There is a lot of positive feedback on their site from business and corporate customers, and that's fine.  It appears a lot of their audience is Influencers from all different areas of life.  I have no aspirations of becoming an influencer.  I've considered a YouTube channel, but I probably wouldn't post to it even as much as I do here, which isn't nearly what I did at my peak pre-2020.  "Influencers" in this hobby is a bit of a derogatory term to me, as it refers to those who came into the hobby during COVID and don't know enough about actual collecting to be credible with most of us.

Best of luck to FeedSpot.  I just hope this doesn't lead to a lot more spam comments on our blogs.  

I couldn't find anything about how they made up the list, but there were several familiar names on it.  The rankings, however, were way off.  Another way I could tell that they're not familiar with the hobby is that the description of my site said you could "Explore Card collection sorted into sports categories like Baseball, Football, Hockey, Vintage and Miscellaneous."  I'm guessing that's an AI generated blurb, since it ignores the "Wants" on each of my list tabs, which is where those categories come from. 

Anyway, to the rankings.  I'll just highlight some of the stars that we know and where they fell.  There are also a lot of card sites of breakers, dealers, and auction houses. 

1. Upper Deck Blog - Standard manufacturer blog is #1?  Not a strong start.

2. Sports Collectors Daily - OK, it's a general news site.  Will let it go.

3. Beckett - Is this still 1992?  No disrespect, but in the blog circles I know, this is not a high pick.

4 & 5. Cardboard Connection - This is one of many that appear twice.  Not sure why.

6. Panini - See #1.

7. Dave & Adams - Seller blogs?  Good for what they are, but for blogs in general, too high for my taste. 

11. Sports Collectors Digest - Widely read magazine.  OK fine.

16. Nachos Grande - Finally we get to one of the actual high level bloggers.  I'd say Top 5.

21. White Sox Cards - Some familar names now.  Lets roll through them to get to the others that should be way higher....All of these should be consolidated at the top.

22. Cards On Cards

27. Topps Archives

33. Cards That Never Were

35. When Topps Had Baseballs

39. Dime Boxes - There's one.  Unfortunately, Nick has shut 'er down, but this one is Top 5 of All time.

40. Chronicles Of Fuji - And right behind Nick, Mark is about 37 points too far down!

41. Shlabotnik Report - Joe's blog is one of those that gets blocked at work for some reason.  Maybe just because it's on WordPress.

42. Johnny's Trading Spot 

49. Too Many Verlanders

54. Sports Cards From The Dollar Store - Crossing the halfway point on the list...

56. Cardboard History - Billy needs to be up around the Top 10.

57. Sports Card Collectors

58. Waiting 'Til Next Year - P-Town Tom was one of my favorite trading partners while he was active.  Blog is sporadic now, but is in the wrong end of 2/3 of the list.

59. Tim Wallach

62. Padrographs

65. Diamond Jesters

67. Captain Kirk 42

69. The Collective Mind - Yours Truly - I am content with this spot, but if I posted regularly, I might complain.

79. Night Owl - Here's the biggest faux pas of the whole thing.  The Blogger King at 79?  What are we doing, people?

85. Baseball Card Breakdown - Gavin should be right behind Greg (NO) at the top of this list.

86. Sports Cards Uncensored - Gellman has slowed this one to a crawl, but it was always good for in-depth analysis, no matter which side you were on.

90. Sports Card Investor - Well, they got that one right. 😃 

This Post Sponsored By Acme, Initech, and Cyberdyne Systems Corp.

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...