Throwing down the gauntlet

I’m tired of it all.

There are countless entries around the blogosphere complaining, and probably rightfully so, about boxes missing hits, an utter disregard for quality control, fake relics, sticker autos, and about a general unwillingness of the card companies to listen to the consumer.

Do you know why the companies don’t listen?

I’ll tell ya:  Because you keep buying their products.

The ONLY way to get the companies to listen is to stop buying their products.  They don’t care about two or three or four or five people whining on their blogs about quality control.  Think your 200 reader base makes a difference?  Not at all.  In fact, the number of bloggers (and readers of blogs) complaining is a drop in the bucket to the big corporations.  Go ahead and fire off a letter or email.  The over/under on time it takes to get deleted, if it’s ever even read, is two seconds.

Don’t write and say you’ve been buying their products for 20 years – they know you’re a loyal, addicted customer and won’t stop.  Don’t post a box break, only to follow that post with an entry complaining about possible fake hits.  The way to get the companies to listen is to not buy the products.  At all.  Not even a pack from Target.

Will this hurt the card shops?  Perhaps.  But their voices are most certainly louder, because when they stop buying from distributors, you can bet the distributors will start squawking.  If you’re going to buy the product no matter what, you have no right to complain.  There’s a reason unions strike and people boycott:  it works.

I’m challenging everyone who finds fault in today’s products to stop buying.  It’s the only way to be heard.

Before phones played games

I like Scramble, Airline Conqueror, and Mega Jump on the iPhone as much as anybody, but there was a time when portable gaming had nothing to do with your phone.  I’m not talking about the Nintendo DS, or DSi, or whatever version is the most current, I’m talking about my most recent pick up, the Game Boy Pocket:

This particular system was an ‘upgrade’ over the original Game Boy in that it was more compact and had a sharper screen resolution.  Also, the color was actually black and white instead of the greenish scale used by the original.  Instead of four AA batteries, the GBP used two AAAs.

And if the system alone wasn’t a sweet enough deal, it included the matching Game Boy Camera:

Plug in the doohickey and take pictures of yourself!  Remember, this device came out long before digital cameras, and I read or heard somewhere (probably Wikipedia, so take this with a grain of salt) that the Game Boy Camera once held the Guiness World Record for world’s smallest digital camera.  There was also a Game Boy Printer, which I’m assuming allowed you to print out pictures that you took with the camera.  I never owned one (I’ll fix that in due time) but I can only imagine that’s how it worked.

Of course, when have I ever been sufficiently satisfied with one of anything?  To go with the Game Boy Pocket I purchased a Game Boy Color:

This is where portable gaming got interesting.  About the only downfall with the Game Boy was that it was black and white (or green).  Sega released a hand held system of their own, the Game Gear, but it was clunky and was a total drain on batteries.  Battery life was so bad, actually,  that it was virtually unplayable without an AC adapter, which kinda killed its portability.  Finally, Game Boy games could be played in color!  The system was backwards compatible, so even if you didn’t feel like forking over the cash for a ‘color’ game, your old Game Boy games (the Pocket never had unique games – it was simply a smaller Game Boy) could be played with a pre-assigned palette.

Do I need two Game Boys?  Absolutely not.  But are two Game Boys better than one?  Obviously, especially for the crazy low price I bought them for.  Of course, I’ll need games to play:

The Griffey baseball game was a bit of an oddity: it was the first Griffey endorsed Nintendo game that featured real players.  I’ve never played Tetris Attack, but I’ve read that it’s absurdly addicting and it’s regarded as one of the best puzzle games of all time.

These games – and the many others I’ll pick up along the way – are far more entertaining than anything I could possibly download on my iPhone.

Too close for comfort

The third base umpire is getting a little cozy with Bip Roberts, wouldn’t ya say?

It’s not often that an umpire makes a cameo on a card, especially not this clearly.

Rad

There are two things I love seeing on a baseball card, sunglasses and players signing autographs.  And I give bonus points to cards that clearly depict an era.  When all three of those conditions collide, you get the perfect storm of an early ’90s baseball card:

BOOM!  Oversized wrap-around shades?  Check.  Player signing? Check, and on something that looks to be a waiter’s tablet.  High front cap with mullet sprouting in the back?  Most definitely, check.  Got a pen, anything at all to write on, and want an autograph? Rick Honeycutt will happily oblige.

What not to do

I’m not one to criticize Greg Maddux, but if there’s a way to shatter your hands and never pitch again, he’s got it figured out:

Again, I never reached my goals of becoming a Major League baseball player (although some of the pitchers in the San Diego Adult Baseball League throw some wicked curveballs, so maybe I’m closer than I realize… or not), but I’m pretty sure the best way to bunt is NOT to wrap your hands around the barrel of the bat.

Or maybe it is, and that’s why I’m writing a blog about baseball cards and Greg Maddux is the subject, and not the other way around.

Retro Racing

First, I’ll set the mood.

It’s a hot Saturday afternoon, and the wife and kid have a mother/son photo shoot.  No dad’s allowed.  We’ve been out all day as a family, doing various odds and ends, so I drop them off and look for a way to kill an hour or so.  It’s too late in the day to make it to the card shop with much time to spare.  As much as I love spending cash on junk wax boxes, I mostly enjoy the experience of walking around the shop.  Spending two minutes and leaving with a box of ’92 Topps kinda defeats the purpose.

So no card shop.

Luckily, the retro game store was closer to the photo shoot location AND open later!  Plus, it’s a great ‘consolation location.’  The only question I had to answer is what, exactly, I’d go in looking for.

You see, the trouble with the game store is that I want EVERYTHING.  Old systems, old games, newer systems, retro strategy guides… I “remember” and “used to play” nearly everything in the place so it’s easy to become overwhelmed with it all.  I decided that this particular trip’s objective would be to find racing games.

Racing games are the easiest retro games to pick up and play because they’re easy to learn, which is a necessity because they usually don’t come with instruction manuals.  Not that I would’ve read it in the first place, but still.

Getting more specific with my target, I decided to pick up a few games I never played, but always wanted.

First up, Extreme G:

It’s an incredibly high speed “motorcycle” racer.  In addition to the high speeds you pick up weapons to destroy opponents.  Or attempt to destroy.  I can’t seem to aim AND keep my vehicle off the railings.  I remember this game being kind of a big deal, although playing it now I can’t say I understand why.  It’s fast, yeah, but there’s no ‘character’.

Next,  San Francisco Rush.

This game released close in time to Top Gear Rally, so that when it came time to formulate my Christmas list I had to choose one or the other.  I don’t know if I specifically picked one of the two games, or whether I asked for both to put the decision in someone else’s hands, or what. Either way, I got Top Gear Rally, the rally racing simulation with realistic physics (re: HARD!) and crazy good – for the time – graphics.  The game filled my need for a ‘realistic’ racing game (as opposed to something like Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing), so I never picked up SF Rush, Top Gear’s arcade style racing counterpart and polar opposite.  The cars in SF Rush basically fly, completely ignoring the laws of physics, and plowing head on into a wall results in an explosion.  Good times.

And finally, Beetle Adventure Racing:

I can only assume this game was released around the time the real life VW Beetles were re-released.  The game plays surprisingly well and is quite fun.

I can now cross the “buy racing games I never owned or played but always wanted” off my bucket list.

Political incorrectness never hurt anybody

In 1961, Fleer didn’t care.

Political correctness, as we now know it, hadn’t exactly been invented yet.  There are certainly worse names for an, *ahem*, rear end than “Heinie”, but it’s still a little strange to see it in print on a baseball card.  In this case, it’s Heinie Manush, from Fleer’s 1961 Baseball Greats set.

There have been a few examples of obscenities in the past few decades, like Billy Ripken’s infamous “error” card from ’89 Fleer, and even a Frank Thomas from 1994 Stadium Club, but modern technology lets us correct any “errors” that slip through the cracks (pun intended… ZING!).  Unless, as is made apparent by this particular 1961 Fleer example, it’s part of the player’s moniker.

Still, that didn’t stop the card companies from making Dennis “Ass Face” Boyd use his secondary nickname, Oil Can.