Getting the Sports Card Blogroll Up to 2019 Standards...and Is Blogging Still a Thing??!

A Twitter discussion happened a few days ago regarding the status of blogging, specifically blogging about the Hobby.

Is it still viable? Is it still popular? Are people still doing this?

Or as ALLTIMEGREATS.BLOG asked:

What do you all think. Is sports card blogging dying? It’s dead? Or thriving?

— ALLTIMEGREATS.BLOG (@VictorRomanSr) January 11, 2019

Somehow, thanks to Mario, the man who writes Wax Heav...I mean The Baseball Card Blog (I hope you got Ben's blessing to use this name Mario), I wound up getting involved in the conversation:

It’s not anywhere near as popular as it once was. Ask @bdj610

— Mario Alejandro (@TheWaxHeaven) January 11, 2019

Night Owl wrote about this last week (he's has taken the mantle as the most prolific and popular blogger, with tons of readers and commenters). You want to read his take? Here you go!

Nachos Grande, another long-time card blog, followed Night Owl's lead and did his own research, which you can read here.

(But before you read what they have to say, finish mine first...or go read their stuff and come back...PLEASE!!!)

So I did a bit of research. I always made it a habit of keeping tabs of the number of blogs I added and removed over the years. When I created the Sports Card Blogroll on July 7, 2008, I started with 112 blogs. Many of these sites I found through the blogrolls of dayf the Cardboard Junkie and Mario (again...thanks to his Sports Card Blog Directory).

I promised I would figure out when the most blogs were ever on the Sports Card Blogroll. That would have been in July of 2012, when there was a whopping 387 blogs listed before I did my monthly maintenance.

I haven't made any updates to the big Blogroll in a while, and I have to tell you, I'm really sad.

Presently, there are 215 sites listed on the active roll. The following sites will be removed from the Blogroll tonight:

• Number 5 Type Collection
• Once a Cub
• Pirates Treasure Room
• supportingtheminnow
• the cardboard review.
• Toronto Blue Jays Collection
• Off Hiatus Baseball Cards
• Orioles Card "O" the Day (more about this shortly)
• Adventures in 1952 Topps
• MLB Card Values
• 21st-Century Topps Baseball
• The Home Run Apple
• plain gray swatch
• Need More Cardboard
• Phungo
• 1978 Baseball
• Hangin with Chuck
• The Infinite Baseball Card Set (more about this later)
• Topps 1971
• Tony's Sports Pub
• The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame
• Cardboard Hogs
• Mets Cardboard
• Waxaholic
• Paul's TTM Autograph Blog
• MC's Autograph Signings
• The Prowling Cat
• Inception Baseball: A Very Simple Idea
• HoopsHobby

That's 29 blogs that being removed (hold on...I will explain shortly). That brings the number of active blogs down to 186. That's more than 200 blogs down from six years ago (not the number of blogs that have ever been placed on the SCBR...you're looking at over 500 blogs that made it's way onto the active roster at one point in time).

The Infinite Baseball Card Set blog was created by artist Gary Joseph Cieradkowski. The site combined his passions for baseball history and art (he did create a card set...beautiful cards...don't own any, but I do remember reading reviews). He has a new site now, Studio Gary C, which combines all of his artwork, and I am going to add his baseball card section, which continues his Infinite Baseball Card Set project, and will move his old site to the Retired, but Relevant section of the Blogroll. (I better be getting that book Gary...or if not, I'll have to find it somewhere).

The Sports Card Blogroll Hall of Fame adds one new member to its ranks: Orioles Card "O" The Day. For over 10 years, Kevin, the writer of the Orioles baseball card blog, highlighted a card from his vast Orioles card collection, giving the reader a glimpse of the player, and his contributions to Orioles lore. From 2008-2014, he would post more than 300 times per year, the first four years posting EVERY DAY!!! While there is no reason why he stopped (we can all speculate...it's the ORIOLES after all) maybe he'll get back to it. I hope he's okay. But his last post was in May, 2018, and the site has reached more than six months of inactivity. As one of the pioneers in the Hobby Blogging Community, and one of the first team-centric Hobby bloggers, his Orioles Card "O" The Day will now be enshrined into the SCBR HOF.

Yes, I will have to say that the popularity of blogging has been on the downside. But, as I stated in my contributions to the twitter discussion:

While I think you are right with the opinion that the popularity is down, I think those that are still blogging about the Hobby now are the ones who are committed to the medium and enjoy it. We are really writing for ourselves, after all. People reading what we say is a bonus.

— James B. Anama (@bdj610) January 12, 2019

There are those who are still contributing on a daily basis: Night Owl Cards (who I will have to check his blogroll for sites that I don't have), Wrigley Wax, who writes about the cards in his Cubs collection, The Chronicles of Fuji, The Shlabotnik Report, and 182 others (including this humble, little blog). We're still around, and we're still posting about the Hobby. We may not be (okay, most of us might not be) making any money off blogging, but as I tweeted, we're really writing for ourselves. If people happen to read what we're saying, then it's a bonus.

It (blogging) has become a Hobby in of itself. We all had our reasons to get into this. Some got into it to trade with others. Others wanted to share their opinions on the state of the Hobby (good or otherwise). Some wanted to stir the pot and the notoriety (good or otherwise) got them the exposure they wanted. Others just wanted to show off their collections and what the cards mean to the writer.

As with many trends, blogging has hit its plateau. During the height of popularity, I had hoped that the SCBR would one day reach 500 blogs on the list at one time. It never made it there, but the Blogroll still stands as a way for people who want to read different viewpoints about the Hobby of Sports Card Collecting.

On a final note, I do want to thank Sports Card News for bringing up the topic. And for indirectly giving me a nudge to get my site up-to-date.

As always, if you or someone you know has a blog that is about the great Hobby of Sports Card Collecting, and you want it added to the Sports Card Blogroll, please send me an email at bdj610@hotmail.com, send me a tweet (you can find me @bdj610), or leave a comment on the blog.

You know, I meant to change the design of the site just to make it a bit more modern. I guess I better get to work.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

Updating the Sports Card Blogroll, Just In Time for 2018, and Other Things.

Between working with a food broker and a pharmacy (yes, they let me work with drugs), there really hasn't been much time to relax. Not complaining, but I haven't had a day off since January 1. That's a good thing as it means a steady paycheck and I am able to pay bills and support my family.

More importantly, it means I have disposable income to pay for my habit (that pesky thing called baseball cards). I am going to ask if I can hang out on Friday night at the convention center as the spring card show is this weekend. And, as it was my birthday yesterday, maybe I celebrate by buying a few cards (or something).

In the meantime, I wanted to do a bit of catch up since I didn't post anything since I bought my first few packs of 2018 Topps Series 1.

So I decided to take two Topps packs each from Target and Walmart and put them in a box. The first pack I picked was from Walmart. So the first card from that pack, the official Topps first card for 2018 (for me) is:

Nick Pivetta, pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. Card #241.

The first card from the Target card was of:

Jose Abreu, the White Sox' first baseman, card #280.

(On an unrelated note, I'm going to miss my HP scanner, but I'm starting to get the hang of this scanner/printer...loving it).

On the insert front, I did get one SP, Dexter Fowler of the Cardinals. But after opening 10 regular packs, 4 jumbos and two blaster boxes, the best card came from the fourth pack that I opened for the year. From the second Target pack that I opened, I found this:

A Corey Seager Major League Material Bat Card!!!

This only means one of two things:

• I beat the pack searchers or they had not arrived yet.
• They searched but missed a pack.

Either way, I'm happy with the pull as I rarely, if ever, get a card like this.

Now, onto the other reason for posting tonight. It's time, once again, to update the Sports Card Blogroll.

Yes, blogging seems to be a dying form of communicating. We've lost a number of bloggers to other social media platforms like Twitter (you can still follow me as I hang out there from time to time @bdj610). But perusing the site at 280 characters, I'm discovering new voices, and have decided not only to give them a follow, but to add their sites to the big blogroll. And of course, new blogs tend to find other new blogs, and so on, and so on...

But first, time to remove the blogs that have not had any activity in the past six months. The following blogs have been removed from the main blogroll:

• Capewood's Collections
• Bleedin' Brown and Gold
• The Hero Who Didn't Want To Be: My Journey of Completing The Hank Greenberg Player Set
• That 90's Sport Card Blog
• The Card Bin
• Just A Bit Offside
• The Other World
• Dodger Penguin
• Coot Veal and the Vealtones
• Fantastic Catch
• My BF collects Chipper Jones
• Uncle Doc's Cards
• TheLostCardsFile
• The Great Orioles Autograph Project
• Paul's Random Baseball Stuff
• Justin's World
• Long Way from Lambeau

But as some blogs leave us, I am adding a few new blogs onto the site, including:

• Baseball Every Night
• A Guy and his Pavel Bure Collection
• Jenny's Card Collecting
• Wax Heaven (yes, boys and girls, Mario is back, and looks to be here to stay).
• Statis Pro 1984 (not really a baseball card blog, which explains why this site, up since 2012, has eluded me).

So there will be at least 206 blogs on the main blogroll when I'm done with the updating tonight. Would you like to add your blog to the site that has been keeping tabs of the Hobby Blogging Community for almost a decade (I can't believe it's almost 10 years)? Send me an email at bdj610@hotmail.com, DM me on Twitter (@bdj610), or just leave me comments.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

A New Beginning

For those of you who still happen to read this humble, little blog, you know that the reason for my recent activity was because I was no longer employed. Realistically, I have been working, but not making enough money to pay major bills. I was able to get back to blogging on a semi-regular basis, and I've enjoyed re-connecting with the Hobby, the blogs, and most importantly, the cards in my collection.

Starting Monday, December 4, I return to the specialty foods industry, but with a food broker instead of a distributor. And I'll be returning to an office environment instead of working from home. Meaning no more Maury...no more MLB Network...no more playing games on the tablet during the day. It's going to be a new experience, and I am grateful to those of you who have reached out to me and given me encouragement, moral support, prayers, and, most importantly, job leads. I will be forever grateful for your kindness and taking time out of your busy days to check in on me.

Now, the blog...

still goes on.

Well, let me explain.

I have a tablet. It helps because I can get online and do get onto the blog and catch up on other sites. The only trouble I have is that it's hard to write using it. Yes, the touchscreen is great, and I could certainly use the voice-to-text thing, but it's an inconvenience at best, and time consuming at worst. I certainly can't go back and forth with my research on a tablet (try copying and pasting spreadsheet data on a tablet...having fun yet??!)

So, until I get a computer that I can use at home (and I vowed not to use my kids' laptops from school), the only time I'll get to sit down in front of a computer will be at the local library.

Onto the baseball card portion of the program.

I am working on my 2017 Topps Update Series set. I have the base set done, but now am working on inserts. Money is obviously at a premium, so trades would be welcome for any cards you're willing to part with. You can email me at bdj610@hotmail.com with what cards you have and what cards you need (your want lists don't necessarily have to be from this set...)

I am definitely looking forward to 2018 Topps. I wish I could see cards in hand, but I'm not that well connected with The Company to have that kind of access.

Regarding, the Sports Card Blogroll, 8 blogs will be removed for reaching past six months of inactivity. They are:

• Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought To Be!
• My Life In The Sports Card Hobby
• Starting Nine.
• Scott Crawford On Cards!
• Nolan's Dugout
• Dawgbones, a Phillies Phan!
• addiction as therapy
• timeless teams

That brings us down to 217 active blogs on the big Blogroll. As always, if you, or someone you know, writes a blog about the Hobby of Sports Card Collecting, and it's not on my list, please drop me a line at bdj610@hotmail.com. If you've recently decided to bring your inactive blog back to relevance, let me know as well.

One thing I will definitely have time for is the return of Pack Break Week. Starting next week, using the magic of the tablet, I'm going to open the packs that I bought back during National Baseball Trading Card Day and see what each holds. And after a lot of agony over making this decision, I will also reveal what was inside that 2017 Topps Allen & Ginter's Noah Syndergaard Rip Card that I found in the one pack of A&G that I did open a few months back. That should be entertaining.

Finally, after going over the entries that I received for the Guess the 2017 Topps All-Star Rookie Team contest that was held last month, nobody out-predicted me in the contest. I had seven, as you recall, and of all the entries, the only person who matched the number of names was Jason Carter of The Writer's Journey.

Just like me, he had the names, but the positions ran all over the place. He had Paul DeJong at 2B (Ian Happ was this year's second baseman), Cody Bellinger (the 1B), Andrew Benintendi, and Aaron Judge in the outfield (the third outfielder was Trey Mancini), Manny Pina was the only rookie catcher it seemed, and both German Marquez and Jordan Montgomery as the pitchers. The rest of his squad included Josh Bell at 1B (the aforementioned Bellinger), Yuli Gurriel at third (Rafael Devers was the winner), Pat Valaika at shortstop (DeJong won this one), and Robert Stephenson as the relief pitcher (which went to Josh Hader). For coming the closest, Jason, I think I still have your address (unless it's changed), a Hobby pack of 2017 Topps Update Series is on its way to you. The 2005 Topps Rookie Cup base set remains with me.

Thank you all for sticking around. Once I get that home computer, the posts should increase a bit more.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

The 2017 Topps Archives Derek Jeter Retrospective Set...Update

Before going on my long hiatus from card blogging, I wrote about my thoughts regarding the Derek Jeter reprint set that Topps was going to include into its 2017 Topps Archives product.

As we all know, Topps created reprint sets in the past, honoring legendary players such as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Nolan Ryan, and Hank Aaron, with reprint sets of their respective baseball cards. Jeter was included in such a set for their 2015 Topps Update Series product. But there were frames, and parallels, and for whatever reason, trying to get a complete set of reprinted Jeter base cards was not something I was planning to do, especially since...well...I have all of his regular cards. Why would I want to spend money on reprints that were being sold for more than the base cards??!

Back to the point.

I was waffling between going after the reprint set that was part of Archives, even if I had no intention of going after the actual Archives set. The Jeter reprint set was to consist of 23 cards (1993-2015), with three cards being short-printed: the 1993 Rookie/Draft Pick card, the 2015 final card, and that infamous 2007 Jeter card with Mantle and President Bush photoshopped into the picture. As it turns out, Topps never did include the 2007 card as part of the base set (there are autograph copies out there somewhere apparently...). And yes, there are parallel cards based on the color of the foil used for the DJ logo. So the most basic set consisted of 22 cards, including the two short-printed bookends.

Well, in my hunt for cards on the Bay, I did find a Jeter set in my price range (anything under a hundred bucks...which some of these sets were going for). And...

It's mine.

The guy I bought this from was nice enough to throw in a 2007 Jeter card anyway to make it feel complete. Even though this is not part of the official Topps set (it is part of Archives, after all), I am adding these cards to the big 2017 Topps binder. I might seriously have to buy a second binder for all of the insert sets before the Update Series comes out later in the year.

Other business:

Now that I am taking a bit more of a proactive role in maintaining the Sports Card Blogroll, it's time once again to remove blogs that haven't been updated after six months of inactivity. While my humble, little blog was almost on the edge of that cliff, I'm happy to be back blogging a bit more frequently.

So this time around, two blogs will be removed from the Sports Card Blogroll:

• Catching Up With Collecting
• My Baseball Card Blog, written by friend of the blog Craig from Texas.

Removing these two sites from the big blogroll brings the site down to 221 active blogs about the Hobby we all share.

So as always, if you, or someone you know has a blog about sports cards, please send me an email, or drop me a line on Twitter.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

Finally Getting Around to Updating the Sports Card Blogroll

It's been more than two years since I last updated the Sports Card Blogroll, and boy am I depressed. I knew I should have taken more time to do some house cleaning. Before, being able to do this once a month, was all right. But two years??? Wow, a lot of good sites have been inactive.

Long story short, since I've been back on a "semi-regular" basis, I have added six sites to the blogroll. I'm still trying to dig older emails to see if I've missed any. The bad news is that there have been 89 blogs that have not been active within the last six months (and this humble, little blog was almost one of them). A handful hadn't been touched in two years. TWO YEARS!!! So I've finally done some housecleaning around the SCBR. It is as up-to-date as I can get it. What once had an list of 297 blogs on the main roster, there are now 209.

So, for posterity, the following blogs have been removed from the Sports Card Blogroll. If you're site is among them, thank you very much for adding your voices to what was a great community:

• "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog
• 14,000 Phillies
• 1964 Topps
• 1979 Topps
• 1982 Topps Blog
• 1993 Topps
• 6,000,000 Cards and Counting...
• ALL TRIBE BASEBALL
• All-American Baseball Cards
• Andrews baseball cards
• Atlanta Sports Cards Blog
• Bad Wax Customs
• Baseball By The Letters
• Baseball Card Bust
• BASEBALL CARD COMEBACK FUN!
• Baseball Card Value
• Baseball Cards Rule
• baseballcardman
• Basketball Card World
• Battlin' Bucs
• Bob Lemke's Blog
• Bring Back UD MLB, NBA, NFL Cards
• Can't Hit The Curve
• Cards from the Quarry
• CheckOutMyCards.com Blog
• Democratic Roadkill
• Diamond Cuts and Wax Stains
• drewscards
• Drop The Gloves!
• Ed The Collector
• Emerald City Diamond Gems (see update)
• Enough Already
• Funner Here.
• Funny Baseball Cards
• garvey cey russell lopes (see update)
• Hockey Card Geek
• Hockey Card Heaven
• Hot Corner Cards
• In The Ballpark
• Indianaland Sports Cards
• J. B. Trading Co. Baseball Card Blog
• Keys to the Batter's Box
• Life and Baseball Cards
• Maple Leaf Sports Calgary's Blog
• OFF THE WALL
• Old Foul Cardboard
• One Man's Junk (Wax)
• Orange and Black Wax
• Play at the Plate
• Poor Old Baseball Cards
• Rating the Rookies
• RBI Collecting - Ryan's Baseball Item Collecting
• really bad baseball cards
• Rectangle Men
• Ride of the Ancient Mariner
• Ryan's Pitch
• SpokeWorthy
• Sports Card Magazine
• Sportscard Mask-a-Rade
• Stale Gum (I will talk about this in a minute)
• Tall Boys - 1964-65 Topps Hockey
• Texas Rangers Cards
• The 1991 Score Blog
• The Baseball Card Blog
• The Baseball Card Hub
• The Baseball Card Store | Hairline Crease
• The Card Chop
• The Cardboard and Me
• The Cardboard Examiner
• The Cardboard Way
• The Common (Card) Man
• The Diabetic Card Geek
• The Golden Age of Baseball Cards
• THE PURSUIT OF 80's(ness)
• THE REAL DFG
• The Sexy Geek's House of Swag
• The Skillz Report
• The Sports Bookie - Bob D'Angelo
• The Topps Baseball Fanatic
• The Trading Card Want List
• The Underdog Card Collector
• This Way to the Clubhouse...
• Topps Redemptions Update
• Two Packs A Day
• Vic's Dugout
• View from the Skybox
• Voice of the Collector (Same with this one)
• Wax Heaven 2.0
• Yankees and Jays

Although these sites are no longer active, there are two blogs that have been inducted into the SCBR Hall of Fame.

The first blog inductee into the SCBR HOF is Stale Gum, which was written and hosted by Chris Harris. He was around long before many of us joined the Hobby Blogging Community, writing his take on the state of the Hobby for many years. His views weren't always positive, but there were a lot of collectors who shared his sentiments. Others (myself included) did not necessarily agree with most of his opinions, but you can't fault him for his passion for the Hobby of sports card collecting. He has since taken his musings to Twitter, where he has been an active presence and has no love lost for the bane and sole reason for his existence, the Topps Company.

The other newest inductee into the HOF is Rob, also known as the Voice of the Collector. He started in 1997 as well, just as the Hobby Blogging Community was just in its infancy. He had a unique take on the Hobby as he was one of the handful that started to rebel against the "Number One Source of the Hobby." It was this blog, along with the still going Sports Card Uncensored, and at the time Wax Heaven, that really started to get under the skin of those who ran Beckett and its Sports Card Magazines. Nowadays, Rob, who has worked with Cardboard Connection and their radio show, along with Leaf Trading Cards as a writer, works with GTS Distribution as its Marketing Manager and oversees the content that goes on the GTS website. He also hosts a web show called Go GTS Live. So his voice, although no longer active with the Blogging Community, is still strong in other media.

Removing all of these sites has been a sad endeavor. For a long time, blogging about the Hobby was a strong way to communicate our feelings and opinions about sports cards, as well as show off our collections, and make trades with others. Although there are still a lot of long-time blogging veterans still cranking out educational and inspiring posts, that number has drastically been reduced. I have always called for new voices to dive into the blogging pool, and there have been many that I have not yet discovered.

If you or someone you know has a blog about the Hobby that you would like to be added to the Sports Card Blogroll, or you had one and you are making plans to return to the Hobby Blogging Community, please feel free to contact me a bdj610@hotmail.com or follow me at Twitter @bdj610 and send me a message.

Sincerely,,

JayBee Anama

UPDATE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 2017, 11:15 PM .

It occurs to me that there was one more site listed above that should have been inducted into the Blogroll Hall of Fame. I already made the announcement on Twitter, so I thought I'd do it here as well.

A third site was added to the Hall of Fame this evening: garveyceyrusselllopes, written by gcrl. Over the years, gcrl wrote about his love of the Dodgers growing up, including the infielders that he grew up watching: Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Bill Russell, and Davey Lopes. He joined the Hobby Blogging Community as it started to grow in 2008 and was one of the first card blogs dedicated to the Dodgers. Although this blog's run has ended, gcrl made his return to blogging with a new site called cardsasiseethem.

This brings the total of HOF blogs to ten. jba

UPDATE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2017, 12:15 PM .

After even more careful review of the sites that were removed from the active blogroll, there is one more (and I promise...for now) blog that should have been inducted into the Blogroll Hall of Fame. It's a blog that has not seen any action in just under three years, but it was worthy of consideration and should have been enshrined two years ago.

So it is with great pleasure that Emerald City Diamond Gems, written by Mariner1, into the Sports Card Blogroll Hall of Fame. A Mariners (and Dale Murphy) collector, Mariner1 introduced us to a unique perspective in card collecting in the Pacific Northwest, sharing his love of both the Mariners and their baseball cards. He started in 2010, and his Retro Mariner Sunday posts introduced us to many of the players who suited up for the M's in the early years of the franchise's existence. He decided to call it a blogging career at the end of 2014 and he has been missed. Mariner1 also contributed to two other Hobby Blogs: Ride of the Ancient Mariner, and 1979 Topps.

This brings the total of HOF blogs to eleven. jba

Cleaning Up the Sports Card Blogroll on the Fourth of July

Its the Fourth of July!

Happy Birthday America!!!



While many of you are out celebrating our nation's birthday, my wife and daughter are at a dance competition. It's the big one, the "Nationals" where kids from all over the country get to compete after surviving a tough regional season (my daughter's was in February). So this is the culmination of hard work, practice, sacrifice, etc. Good luck sweetheart. We're rooting for you.

Anyway, what better day to celebrate for my son and me by just staying home and relaxing. Something that I haven't gotten to do in a while.

But before enjoying the rest of my afternoon, I thought that this would be about as good a time as any to clean up the Sports Card Blogroll. I can't believe that it's been seven years since I created it. So many blogs have been graced it. Maybe it's time for a makeover. We'll see what happens.

Now I know I've been really bad lately and have seemed to neglect this important duty. But something inspired me lately and I promise to be a bit more vigilant when it comes to the upkeep of my big blogroll. A few weeks a go, the Topps Company tweeted:

@toppscards: Do you read sports card blogs? If so, which ones?

Now, many twitter followers mentioned a lot of the usual suspects. Some tried for self promotion (ahem).

@bdj610: @toppscards Too many to list. Most can be found on the Sports Card Blogroll (bdj610scblogroll.blogspot.com). @nightowlcards has some that I don't

To which Topps responded:

@toppscards: @bdj610 Yep, we check that out. It's a great resource. Thanks for putting it together.

Oh wow. Topps actually has seen my blogroll? Topps actually checks it out?

No, I'm not that skinny. But you get the idea.

That's exciting news for me anyway. I thought, "if they like it that much, maybe I should clean it up more often."

So here I am.

Get ready. After the purge, I'll be adding four new blogs (I haven't forgotten you guys and gals). Let's go.

At the beginning of the clean up, the SCBR contained 321 blogs about the Hobby. Here are the ones that are being removed because they've been inactive for more than six months:

• The Sandlot
• 30-Year Old Cardboard (more on this later)
• A Rookie (baseball) Card Collector
• A Swing and A Hit
• The Wax Fantastic
• 25 Years of Baseball
• From An Unlikely Source!
• The Mojo Beard
• Contrary Guy
• Playing With My Cards
• JonWayne's Autographs
• Kevin's Cool Collection
• The Pack Gambler
• State of the Hobby...I'm Your Average Card Collector
• The Card Raven
• customcardsets
• Sports Cards and Memories
• The Trading Card Manifesto
• 1967 Football Cards
• 1986 Topps Blog
• My 2008 Topps Set Blog
• 1967 Topps Baseball
• 1968 Topps Baseball
• 1970 Topps Baseball
• 1969 Topps Baseball
• 1966 Topps Baseball
• 1972 Football Cards
• 1963 Topps Baseball
• '59 topps: one f/g card at a time
• 1971 Football Cards
• 1974 Topps - Pennant Fever
• Home of the Toddfather
• Retro Jays Cards
• Eutaw Street Cardboard
• Dallas Cowboys football cards
• Once a Cub
• Chipp 'n' Dale
• Goldschmidt Happens
• According To Dr. Price
• Dean's Baseball Card Blog
• Playing with digital baseball trading cards

That's 41 blogs being removed from the SCBR. Well almost.

Brian Applebaum was the writer of 30-Year Old Cardboard. The blog made it's debut on August, 2008 and Brian made it his mission to post about the Hobby he loved and share it with the Hobby Blogging Community. It was a labor of love for sure as he did his best to keep his readers entertained with well written posts and pictures of the cards he received from trades or what was already in his collection.

In one of his final posts, he wrote:

For more than six years, this blog has been a big part of my life. And in that time, I have interacted with hundreds of great people who share common interests with me and dozens of people interested in taking their love for the hobby and the sport of baseball to the blogging world.

One of the most common questions I get asked is, ‘How do you do so much’? My answer is always the same – ‘This is my passion. This is my hobby. For me, baseball card collecting and blogging are linked. And the moment that blogging about my hobby feels like a chore and less like a hobby is when I will stop’.

Well, that time has come. As my personal life has gotten more and more busy with two kids in elementary school while also being very active in sports, my available time has been diminished. The task of logging in a huge stack of cards, then scanning them all, and then creating drafts for all of them, is something I used to tackle with energy and vigor. Lately, that same task has become one that I no longer have time to attack with the same energy.

Two posts later, he bid adieu. He wrote an amazing 12,268 posts on his blog. And now he is enjoying life with his two sons and thanks to an incredible diet/workout regimen, has lost a lot of weight and will now focus his energies on running (a 5K was something he mentioned in his last post).

So with that, 30 Year Old Cardboard will not be removed for good, but will be added to the Sports Card Blogroll Hall of Fame. Congratulations Brian. Good luck with everything. Sorry I missed out on saying good bye and good luck to you on your blog. I hope this makes up for it.

With 41 blogs off the active books, the SCBR now stands at 280. I am going to add four more blogs to the big blogroll shortly and then start looking for more.

As always, if you or someone you know has a blog about the Hobby of Sports Card Collecting that is not listed here, please send me an email at bdj610@hotmail.com or contact me via twitter @bdj610. If you haven't written in a while and feel that you are ready to dive back into the blogging pool, please let me know. I'll be more than happy to add your site back to the active roster.

Although I do understand that as social media evolves, blogs may become less relevant. But they're still there. There are many writers out there still passionate about the Hobby and want to share with the world their collections, their opinions, and their voices. Yours one of them?

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

A Long Overdue Update to the Sports Card Blogroll.

It's been too long since I last did this, and I feel really bad for letting things get this bad at the Sports Card Blogroll. But it's about time I clean it up and remove the blogs that haven't been posting for the last six months or more (I think I saw one that hasn't done anything in a year...A YEAR!!).

It pains me to do this because it means that the number of blogs on the active site may go down to under 300, and that's not a good thing. We need more voices to add to the Hobby Blogging Community, and I'm hoping that the number goes back up. Now, because I wasn't consistent in my blogroll maintenance, I'll compare where the roll was a year ago to where it is now.

After maintenance in January, 2014, there were 315 blogs on the active roster of blogs. I have since added 42 blogs during the year, and removed at least 28, so we ended the year at 329 blogs. Including Royal Card Review, before the purge, there are 330 blogs on the active roster. The following blogs are now going to be removed after being inactive for more than six months:

• Triple Play Autos
• Wax Pack Geek - A Baseball Card Blog
• Baseball Card Pack A Day
• Cardboard Heaven
• iCollectBallCards
• Baseball Card Blog - Germany
• OFF THE WALL
• Ballcard Mania
• The Adventures of Napkin Doon
• Mr.baseball-scott
• The Diamond King
• 26 Cent Summer
• Baseball Card Prospector
• USABaseballCardsInOz
• A Pack A Day
• The Pack Prodigy
• Jim's Baseball Cards
• Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog
• Von's Cards
• Canada Card World
• Sports Card Value
• Sorting by Teams
• SportsCardBlog.net
• Community Gum
• Bad Wax Customs
• Yellow Cardboard
• 1968 Football Cards
• 83F Project (will talk about this one later)
• Dodgers88's Blog
• Collecting The Cubs
• Trading John Elway
• Bunt-acular Voyage
• Topps BUNT

Pardon me while I count the damage...33.

That's 33 blogs that will now be removed from the active roster. Not counting Royal Card Review (again, added him before the pileup), we are now down to 296 blogs on the active roster. A number that has not been seen in a very long time.

Now, I put a comment next to the 83F Project. This blog was started back on June 2, 2006 by a gentleman named Scott Mortimer. His goal was to collect autographed cards of every player who appeared in the 660-card 1983 Fleer Baseball card set. Of the 678 possible subjects (meaning some cards had more than one player), he was able to obtain 631 autographs, a bit more than 93% of the set. His blog had no words to it, just a picture of the autographed card and a link to the player's baseball-reference page. His prizes include autographed 1983 Fleer cards of Hall of Famers (Cal Ripken, Robin Yount, Carlton Fisk, Reggie Jackson, Ryne Sandberg to name a few), to players have already passed on (most recently Tony Gwynn and Bob Welch). He has another website that mentions that he's also trying for the 1990 Topps Traded set, but now word on how that is progressing.

I'm adding the 83F Project to the Retired but Relevant section of the blogroll. It doesn't look he's added anything for the last ten months, but it would be a shame to have the site vanish into obscurity.

As it stands right now, the blogroll now contains 297 active blogs, and more coming soon (have to dig up emails for some of them). It's time to start looking for new blogs to add. Maybe I'll sneak a peek into Night Owl's reading list. He always seems to find new blogs. Nachos Grande had a big hit on his hands with his "Get to Know a Blogger" series. I think there were a couple that I didn't know of before.

If you, or someone you know, has a blog that is not on the big Sports Card Blogroll, drop me a line at bdj610@hotmail.com, or send me a note on twitter @bdj610 and let me know all about it. If your blog has been inactive for a long time and you plan on making a comeback, let me know that as well so I can add you back onto the active roll.

In the six-plus years that I have been a part of the Hobby Blogging Community, I have made contact with a number of writers and readers who share the same passion about the Hobby, if not more so, than me. Over time, established media and even the card companies have acknowledged the influence bloggers have in this industry. Lately, a number of bloggers have gone on to other social media sites to maintain their online presence. But it's blogging about the Hobby that got them their start, and it's in blogging that I hope will find passionate voices, new points of view, and hopefully, a rebound in the population of the Sports Card Blogroll in 2015.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

This is What I Get for Not Updating the Sports Card Blogroll!!!

Warning: Lots of rambling below. Bare with me. My thoughts are a bit scrambled as I post this while I'm downtown.

It's been months since I last did this, and I'm really sad.

You see, I started worrying about the popularity of Hobby Blogs as soon as I started realizing that I was neglecting my own. Correction. I started worrying about it when many of the bloggers that inspired me to begin my own journey started drifting away. Stale Gum can be found within the twitterverse, and Dinged Corners shows up too infrequently that it becomes big-time news when Patricia posts. Do many people who follow the blogs even remember Mario, Wax Heaven, and the drama that ensued?

Sure, guys like Greg (Night Owl), Gellman (SCU), and even dayf (the Cardboard Junkie) are still around, and guys and the grandfather of the Hobby blogs (The Baseball Card Blog) returned after a one-year hiatus when Ben Henry started posting again, this time with two other writers supplementing the blog.

But it seems that with all things, even the world of Sports Card blogging has evolved. It seems thata number of the Hobby bloggers have seemed to move on to other forms of social media and have either put their blogs on hiatus, or have just stopped blogging entirely. Heck, some have gone on to better (and actual) paying gigs (and if Sooz still reads this blog, congrats on the gig at Topps).

Have I lost interest in blogging? No. Have I had the time and energy that I once did when I started? Not really. Will I ever get back to devoting more time to this humble, little blog? One day, just not now.

So here I am, looking at the old Sports Card Blogroll, which also is now six years old. A lot of great blogs have seen time on the big blogroll. While some blogs have been around since the SCBR started (and then when it became the blogroll of choice for those curious about the Hobby), many have come and gone. A lot of blogs and blog writers had potential for great things, but then vanished. I would put blogs on the roll, and then within six months, they'd be gone.

But it's been a number of months since I did a through cleaning of the inactive blogs that it should not be considered an update, but an overhaul. Before the purge, there were 336 blogs on the active rolls. Here are the blogs being removed after six or more months of inactivity:

• Nomo's Sushi Platter
• Card Show Weekend
• The Player to be Named Later
• Project '62
• PunkRockPaint (more about this one later)
• Cardboard Gods
• The Baseball Card Snob
• Gem Mint - tales of cards & players
• Cards by Sooz
• Goose Joak
• Joe Average Card Collector
• Jeffs Collections
• Trader Crack's Card Blog
• Top of the Topps
• Blog of Trade Bait
• The 90's Collector
• Tru School Sports
• Confessions of a Sports Junkie
• I am Joe Collector
• Uncharted Hobby
• Returned to Sender
• Baseball 1977 (more on this one later)
• 1983 Topps Blog
• A Hair Off Square
• Ryan's Memorabilia Blog
• Golden Rainbow Cards
• Artmaus Collectibles Baseball Cards & Comics
• Topps bunt (chattified)

That's 28 card blogs that will be taken off the active rosters. But I did say "more on this one later" for two blogs. Let me explain.

Baseball 1977 was a blog about the cards from 1977 Topps (along with some other oddball sets from that year). As the blog was able to include posts about all 660 cards from the 1977 set, I am moving this from the active rolls to the "Retired but Relevant" section of the blogroll. 

PunkRockPaint was a blog that came out shortly after I started, but Travis' blog wasn't one of those "here is a card, let's discuss it" kind of blogs. He would take card designs from Topps' library and make his own cards. Many of them could have passed for real Topps cards. He knew which fonts to use for the lettering, he knew how to add items into existing pictures. Heck, he's even made his own card set, inspired by esteemed twitter fiend Old Hoss Radbourn and it sold. Travis is one of the other collaborators for Ben Henry's The Baseball Card Blog, which probably explains why he hasn't written anything on PRP since November. But because he was one of the best graphic card bloggers, I am adding a sixth inductee to the SCBR Hall of Fame. So congratulations Travis, as your blog will be a permanent resident of the SCBR HOF.

So the active roll is now down to 308 active blogs. I had hoped that the roster would reach 400, but I think I'd be happy if the SCBR stays at above 300. Less than that, then I'll probably start to panic a bit more.

As always, if there are any blogs out there that are focused on the Hobby of sports card collecting, please feel free to email me at bdj610@hotmail.com, or send me a tweet (@bdj610). If you have a blog that hasn't been active in a while and you feel like diving back into the Hobby Blogging pool again, let me know. The number of voices may be down, but the community is still strong. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama 

Things I Have Not Yet Done in 2014

We are already half way through the month of January, and I am sitting at the mechanic's lounge again (I seem to do my best writing when I'm here for some reason), and I realize that other than trying to catch up to the Random Cards of the Day segments (I'm almost there...I think), I haven't written a darn thing here other than the Hall of Fame announcements.

Which reminds me, there are other things I have yet to have written about since I took on the new job, including:

• a preview/review of the 2014 Topps Series II sell sheets (which should have been done in December)

2014 Topps Series 2 Sell Sheet Page 1. Coming soon to the blog.

• updating the Sports Card Blogroll
• adding to the All-Time All-Star team blog now that the Cyber Museum has images of 2013 Topps Update Series cards
• waiting ever so patiently for 2014 Topps to show up at the store
• Announce the winners of the All-Star Rookie Team contest back in November

With the whirlwind of things happening in my personal life (oh yeah, including getting sick last week...couldn't even move), I really have left this place to the wolves. And I'll have to fix that.

I received the first email request to add a new blog to the Sports Card Blogroll. So the first order of business will be to update the site to 2014 standards. Let's do that now.

We ended 2013 with 334 active blogs on the SCBR. The following blogs will now be removed due to 6-9 months of inactivity (yes, it's been that long):

• Uncle Doc's Card Closet
• The Card Hobbyist
• SPOKE BAIT AND THE GAME
• First Ballot
• csd's Custom Cards
• waxcaptain's Dugout
• Building a Better Collection
• The Card Investor
• COLLECTING FOR KICKS
• Got it. Got it. Need it.
• supportingtheminnow
• Classon Ave
• The Underdog Card Collector
• Donruss 1982
• Pursuit of Red Sox
• Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz
• Thoughts and Sox
• Tony...the Killer and Carew >> Minnesota Twins
• Friars on Cardboard

With the above nineteen blogs off the active roster, that brings the total of active blogs in the SCBR down to 315 blogs. Last year at this time, I was hoping that the big blogroll would be host to 400 blogs about the Hobby of Sports Card Collecting. But with everyone now taking to twitter and other social sites, that might now be a dream. It's a good thing that many are able to find a balance and are continuing to maintain their sites with fresh content and new insights. It is my hope that 2013 was just a hiccup and that 2014 will see more blogs about the Hobby, especially with baseball in the horizon.

As always, if you or someone you know has a site about collecting sports cards, please send me an email at bdj610@hotmail.com and let me know about it. If you had a blog that hasn't been updated in a while and was removed previously from the active roll and you plan on bringing it back to the masses, let me know as well. 

I am going to go through the emails now and see who won the contest now. Check back and I'll make the announcement eventually,

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

To the People Who Utilize the Sports Card Blogroll...I Am So Sorry!!!

I didn't realize that I haven't written about updating the Sports Card Blogroll since April on this humble, little blog, and then I did an update roughly three months ago, and didn't bother writing a post.

For that, I am sorry.

I know readership on my blog is down by almost 50% a day, at least that's what my Sitemeter says. I know that since I've been back at work, the quality of posts here has collapsed to the point where I don't think anybody cares anymore.

I feel bad about that.

I used to keep tabs on the Hobby Blogging Community religiously. But since being employed again (I'm happy about this, don't get me wrong), updating the big Blogroll has taken a backseat.

But since October, I've been able to bring back the Random Cards of the Day, the regular daily segments, the Minor League cards, and Team Sets. So why not, before November, update the Blogroll.

Now, I have officially lost count of how many blogs have come and gone since April. I can tell you that on the last update, the following blogs were removed from the roster:

• Tomahawk Chopping - Cardboard & More!
• Classic Card Collector
• Cardboard Zoo
• Baseball Card Monthly
• Bass on Balls
• Free Baseball Cards
• Clear Cut Cards
• Hardwood Cardboard
• A Box Of Old Basketball Cards
• Cards From The Crease - A Hockey Card Blog
• Sports 'n More Trading Cards
• Fan Pack Success
• Field Level View
• Manupatches & Mustaches
• The Wax Morgue

As of today, the SCBR holds 369 active blogs. These are being removed because they have been inactive for 6, 7, 8, and even 9 months of inactivity. Get ready, it's a long list:

• Wax Pack Relapse
• Carl Crawford Cards
• 1st & Home
• Baseball Cards, Sports and Life
• Pictures Of Men
• A Box of Old Cards
• Who Made the Grade
• The Common (Card) Man
• Pence, Nix, and Pierre
• League Leader in Italics
• Serial Numbered Insanity
• Condition: Poor
• callstrike
• The ProspectNation Blog
• Midwest Collector
• Baseball Picture Cards
• Six-4-Three DP
• Nearly Mint
• toppsfreak
• RGB Cards
• Bad Wax
• Bonus Cantos
• My Topps Cards
• Basketball Card Blog (and more)
• Felix Potvin Collection
• Back to the Hobby
• The Cardboard Don
• A Girl Walks Into a Card Shop...
• MY CARDBOARD RANTS AND REVIEWS
• Rain of Error
• Sports Cards Ate My Brain
• Varsity Collectibles
• Cards For Free - Blog
• Make Mine a Double - My Swing at the 1941 Double Plays
• Ride of the Ancient Mariner
• Saints of the Cheap Seats
• Vintage Cubs Cards
• the bbbros.ca blog

That's 38 blogs that will be removed from the SCBR shortly. The total will bring the number of blogs on the main site down to 331.

Whoa!!!

There are so many things that have yet been written about the Hobby we all love. It is the hope that as the year comes to a close that the new year brings us fans of the blogs new writers, new voices, and hopefully new collectors who are willing to share their collections with the rest of the world.

And maybe their blogs will be added to the active sites that the SCBR.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

A Letter from the Sports Card Blogroll

Dear JayBee:

What happened? You last updated me back in March when your kids were home because of a snowstorm (in March??!). I know you and your family have been busy lately, but you haven't updated me since then. Why??! I have blogs past seven months of inactivity and I'm due for an update. Please help.

Sincerely,

The Sports Card Blogroll

Okay, so the above letter didn't really magically show up in my e-mail. But it is true, while I've added blogs to the big SCBR since March, I haven't removed any. That will change now.

At last count in March, the blogroll ended with exactly 350 active sites. As of right now, before any sites are removed, we are at 370 blogs. That means in the past two months since the last update, 20 blogs have been added to the active roster. The SCBR now removes the following sites due to six or more months of inactivity:

• Dropped Third Strike
• BA Benny's Baseball Card Buffet
• Baseball Card Collectors
• Canadian Cardboard
• Troll Might Rule!!! (some may know this blog as the Collective Troll)
• Juuust a bit outside (JABOs) (good luck to you JABO)
• Panini Basketball Blog
• Box Fresh Vintage
• no one's going to read this blog
• Sports Card Report
• Fossil Cards and Collectibles
• oh my o-pee-chee! (oh mon o-pee-chee!) (this site will now be moving to the "Retired but Relevant section of the SCBR)
• 2012 Topps
• 7 Hours from Tampa
• The Amazing Shea Stadium Autograph Project
• Rickey Henderson Collectibles

That's 16 sites being removed from the active list, with one going to the RbR sidebar. That brings us down to 354 active blogs on the main section of the SCBR, for a two month net gain of +4.

As always, if you or somebody you know has a blog about the Hobby that we all love (that of Sports Card Collecting), and you don't see it on here, please e-mail me at bdj610@hotmail.com. If your site has been removed from the site and you plan on making a comeback, please let me know as well.

Okay, now that this bit of business is resolved, it's time to go back and focus on the Random Cards of the Day segments that everybody loves.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

Choice: Clear the Driveway or Clear the Sports Card Blogroll

It's Tuesday, and thanks to a snowstorm that started around nine in the morning (the schools announced they were closing today...at 5:00 AM), the kids are home. My wife and I are home too, and we've been debating about whether or not it would be a good idea to snow plow the driveway even as the snow is still coming (and will be until midnight). After careful consideration, I think I will go out there later. Right now, it's as good a time as any to clean up the Sports Card Blogroll.

When last the big roll was updated, there were 354 blogs listed on the main site. Eight sites were added in February, bringing the total up to 362 active Hobby blogs. The following blogs below are being removed due to six months of inactivity:

• Dinged Corners (although the site remains in perpetuity as a Blogroll Hall of Fame inductee)
• cheap wax fix
• Smed's Baseball Card Blog
• Stats on the Back
• Crinkly Wrappers
• Baseball Card Blog - Germany
• BA Benny's Pack Rip Cafe
• Prospects For Cash
• First and Goal
• Topps Guy
• Broken Lumber Blog
• 2008 Allen & Ginter Card-scape

That's 12 blogs being removed from the active site (well, technically 11), which brings the population down to 350, a net loss of -4 blogs from February.

With baseball season coming, I am hoping that the number of blogs will rise in March and beyond. As always, if you or somebody you know has a blog about the Hobby that we all love (that of Sports Card Collecting), and you don't see it on here, please e-mail me at bdj610@hotmail.com. If your site has been removed from the site and you plan on making a comeback, please let me know as well.

Thank you very much. I think I should get going. The snow isn't going to plow itself.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

It's Cold in Chicago...Time to Update the Blogroll!

It is one degree above zero here at home. Three days ago, it was 65º. How did we get from balmy and shorts weather (yes, Chicagoans will wear shorts when the weather is above 50º) to just above freezing??! It's because we're in Chicago!!!

Anyway, now that I have the weather rant out of the way, I thought, "What better way to keep warm than to update the Sports Card Blogroll?"

There were 339 blogs on the active blogroll by the time I finished the monthly cleaning in January (my first post of the year). I was lamenting that I was worried that I'd be lucky if we still had 300 blogs by the time the year is out. Well, as of right now, there are 363 blogs on the roster now. That was a gain of 24 blogs. There were a lot of factors to thank for this:

• Thanks to Night Owl, I was able to raid his following list, and added a number of blogs that I didn't have before. Although some of them had not written anything new within three months, so I'm not going to hold my breath in the belief that they're going to maintain it.
• Many e-mails from people requesting that I add their blog to the blogroll. I even received a few asking to be added BACK (which is even better).
• Looking at the new blog's blogroll and finding more sites that I had not seen before.

So let's get to it. Here are the blogs being removed from the main site due to six months of inactivity:

• The Cardboard Dugout
• West Virginia Cards
• Get the bat off your shoulder!
• Threepointplay
• Vintage Card Reference
• Sports Syzygy
• Sewingmachineguy on Cards
• Montreal Expos Baseball Cards
• Pursuit of Jacoby

That nine blogs that are being removed from the active rolls. Removing them brings us down to 354 blogs onto the site, a net gain of (+15) going into the month of February.

Now is the time for the usual request:  If you or somebody you know has a blog about the Hobby that we all love (that of Sports Card Collecting), and you don't see it on here, please e-mail me at bdj610@hotmail.com.  If your site has been removed from the site and you plan on making a comeback, please let me know as well.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

UPDATE:  FEBRUARY 1, 2013, 8:36 PM CST.

Upon further review, one of the above blogs will transferred from the removed from the blogroll list to the Retired but Relevant blog list.

The blog called Montreal Expos Baseball Cards features every Topps card that features the Montreal Expos player during their playing days from 1969 all the way to 2005 (including a brief cameo from 2012 Topps). As the information is complete, it deserves to be considered as a reference for all Topps Expos cards.

jba

Updating the Sports Card Blogroll to 2013 Standards

And the first post of the year on this humble little blog is a post to update the Sports Card Blogroll.  Now, in 2012, I was a bit lax, letting inactive blogs slide into 7 months of inactivity.  It is my hope to be a bit proactive when updating the SCBR this year.

Let's review the numbers from the last time I ran this:

After removing the last round of inactive blogs from the roster, I had a list of 350 blogs on the Sports Card Blogroll.  As of this morning, January 1, 2013, there were 357.  Today, the following blogs will be removed due to six and seven months of inactivity:

• No Relics Pulled
• Sharpe Since 92
• Chef's Cards
• Cool Breeze Baseball Buzz
• The Bullpen Cardboard
• Card Anathema
• Silver Slugger
• Hey, That's Mine!
• HoopsHobby
• gratzi's collection
• Cards Beyond Oceans
• Old School Breaks
• The 87 Topps Project
• Project '62
• Pirates Treasure Room
• A Giant Blog
• Drinking the Orange Kool-Aid
• The Zistle Blog

Eighteen blogs taken off will bring the list of active blogs on the SCBR down to 339 to start of the new year. By the time I was done cleaning up the blogroll in December, 2011 (I missed January, 2012), we had 338.  That means the blogroll had a net gain of +1 for all of 2012.  So maybe 400 blogs was a bit too optimistic.  At this point, I'll be happy if the blogroll can reach 350 by next year.  But that will mean that people must keep on posting.  People have to keep on writing.  We need new voices in 2013 and I hope that the voices from the past come back to bring their insights into the Hobby Blogging Community.

If you or somebody you know has a blog about the Hobby that we all love (that of Sports Card Collecting), and you don't see it on here, please e-mail me at bdj610@hotmail.com.  If your site has been removed from the site and you plan on making a comeback, please let me know as well.  The medium has seen some of it's best writers moving on to ply their writings to other sites.  It's time that we as a community get back to its independent roots and make our voices heard as well.  Have a good 2013 ladies and gentlemen.  Let's keep the journey going.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

Missed It Again, Doing It Now...Another Blogroll Update.

It's already November 9, and I just realized now that I didn't do the usual monthly maintenance on the Sports Card Blogroll. Instead of giving the reasons why, it would be better just to get it started. On to the details.

After cleaning out the blogroll at the beginning of October, the SCBR had 355 active blogs and one new inductee into the SCBR Hall of Fame (Vintage Sportscards). As of right now, there are 361 active blogs, thanks in part to the Night Owl who has a lot more blogs on his blogroll than I do. So the big roll picked up six new blogs. Thanks Greg.

Here are the blogs that sadly will have to be removed thanks to six months of inactivity:

• Card Collector Universe
• 1,000,000 Hits
• Sports Card Memories
• Auto-Matic for the People (the Cardboard Junkie's side project finally hit the wall for inactivity)
• Hand Collated
• The Topps Card Collector's Blog
• Wrestling With Cardboard
• Card Collector Digest (which ends the legacy of Wax Heaven)
• My First Cards
• St. Louis Cardinals Cards
• Rainout Sports Cards

The removal of these eleven blogs brings us down to 350 active blogs on the blogroll, for a net loss of -5 from the last cycle.

I have been noticing a trend lately. Many of the bloggers that have been in the community for a long time have seemed to move on to other ventures, which is a good thing. To wit:

• Chris Harris (Stale Gum) is a columnist for Sports Collectors Daily,
• Doug Cataldo (Voice of the Collector) and Ryan Cracknell (Trader Crack's) have been busy with Cardboard Connection (Chris Stufflestreet of Vintage Sportscards was also a part of CC),
• Susan Lulgjuraj (Cards by Sooz) who was already an established writer for the Press of Atlantic City when she was writing the HOF blog A Cardboard Problem, is now an editor for Beckett Media

While we should celebrate the successes of these esteemed members of our community, the rest of us who blog for fun, for trading, for information, for entertainment, for a sense of community, should continue on contributing and writing on our own blogs. It's become a second Hobby for many of us to write weblogs, and we should keep it up. If you, or somebody you know, is writing a blog about the Hobby of collecting sports cards, please e-mail me at bdj610@hotmail.com and let me know about it. If your blog appeared on this list as being removed, or if you have a blog that hasn't been updated lately and you plan on bringing it back to relevance, please let me know as well. I had hoped that we would reach 400 blogs by the end of the year. That may have been too ambitious a goal, not entirely unrealistic. Maybe in 2013. Thanks.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

Blogroll Maintenance and Another Inductee into the SCBR Hall of Fame

I am trying to get back into more of a routine with these blogs. Now it's time to get to the business at hand and attempt to update the Sports Card Blogroll before more blogs reach seven months of inactivity instead of the six that I've worked so hard to maintain.

At the end of my last Blogroll update post, I was down to 354 blogs on the active roster. Thanks to a number of emails and comments, I have added eight new blogs to the roster, bringing the count to 362.
You may have noticed, though, that the SCBR presently holds 360 active blogs.

That is because when I heard that blogger Chris Stufflestreet passed away, I immediately removed his blogs from the active roster and into the Retired but Relevant section on the sidebar. I then received a comment from Alfredo Ortega (The Cardboard Don) requesting that I add Vintage Sportscards, his main blog, to the SCBR Hall of Fame. I have read and enjoyed many of his posts. He truly has shown that he is an expert on the subject. Even before he started his blog, he was sharing his knowledge to many websites and Hobby forums, specifically the grandfather of vintage card discussion, Net54(or click here to see older discussions). Based on the number of tributes written by many in our Hobby Blogging Community, as well as the tribute given by Bob D'Angelo of the Tampa Bay Tribune, there is no doubt in my mind that his Vintage Sportscards will now be the fifth blog inducted into the SCBR HOF.

Without further ado, here are the blogs that are being removed from the active roster due to six months of inactivity:

• Vicolz91 Baseball Card Collector
• My Box of Old Cards
• Basketball (and Hockey) Card Blog
• Pete's Sports Cards
• Attic Insulation

With the five blogs now removed from the active roll, that brings our final total down to 355 blogs about the Hobby we all share, for a net gain of +1.

As always, if you or someone you know has a blog about the Hobby we all love, please send me an email at bdj610@hotmail.com and let me know about it. If your blog was on the big SCBR and was removed from inactivity but are planning on rejoining the big Hobby Blogging Community, let me know as well so I can put your blog back on the roster.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama