Comments. We've Got Comments. We Have Stacks and Stacks of Comments.

It's that time of the month where I go through Reader's Comments and respond to some of them.

Starting with Dave at Fielder's Choice, for his comment regarding the Rays President Matt Silverman stating that nobody did anything worthy of the honor of throwing the ceremonial first pitch in the Ray's first playoff game ever (which eventually was bestowed upon Ray Higgins, senior Vice President, who joined the team as it's first ever employee). It wasn't the Chicago media who reported this, it was the Washington Post who had the story. The Chicago Tribune picked it up because of the Rays-Sox series. By the way, thanks for giving the White Sox an early holiday. Heck, if the Cubs weren't going to go, then neither should the White Sox.

Dave also questioned my choice of Angels pitcher Scot Shields over Rays pitcher Grant Balfour as the AL middle reliever for my End of the Year All-Star Team. Yeah, Balfour had better stats, but my initial criteria for this position were those who were among the league leaders in holds. Balfour was so far down the list, I didn't even see his numbers. But after seeing what he did against the Pale Hose in game one, I was beginning to have second thoughts.

Another Dave (no relation) commented that he is looking forward to my previous End of the Year MLB All-Star teams. I do too as it will bring up lots of memories about what my mindset was during those years when it would look like I was just basing my picks on whoever made the all-star team that year. It only goes as far as back as 1987 though. Not necessarily historical, but 20 plus years worth of teams is a start.

To the gentleman over at Hand Collated who commented about the extra Obama and McCain cards being part of the Topps basketball set instead of the U & H set. I thought they'd be part of the baseball set. I could be wrong.

To Jason Fry, who was the inspiration in the first place to list "Cards that will Never See the Light of Day...EVER!!! Thank you. I have enough material that should keep me busy for at least one off season.

To Mario...I think we all know how I feel about it. Still, good luck. And on an unrelated note, I can jest about asking Topps to give me free stuff because I know that it won't happen any time soon (unless they've reconsidered of course).

Friend of the blog tdlindgren commented a couple times regarding the Topps Mantle reprint sets. You know, I too have the Bazooka card you're talking about, and it also is in my collection along with the other 36 cards. Good to see that I'm not the only person who has all these cards together. I would have liked to have seen Topps also continue reprinting a player's entire Topps card library. I even had compiled such a list somewhere, I'll have to find to find it one day. I had players on there like Bonds, Ripken, Schmidt, Brett, Molitor, et. al.

The girls at Dinged Corners mentioned that it seems that we collectors have been "bombarded with Mantle cards in modern collecting." I agree. It was great that Topps was able to sign Mantle's estate. And while I was against them bringing back the #7 card back to their eponymous sets, it was nice to have a full album again, instead of seeing a blank where card #7 should be. But enough is enough. Creating a card for Mantle every year takes away a slot for someone who could be more deserving of a card.

Ryan Cracknell of Trader Crack extolled the positives about Razor inclusion into the baseball card market with a caveat that I agree with. I personally can't call these cards "rookie cards" but other people will, and that's fine. But like he said, Razor's products will be considered Minor League. And there isn't a minor league set that ever becomes a must have.

Back to Dave at Fielder's Choice about picking my brain regarding why players like ARod, Matsui, Varitek, and Kevin McReynolds didn't have Topps cards during their first few years. I remember reading somewhere that young Alex Rodriguez was upset that he was not included in the 1993 Topps Traded set as part of Team USA that he didn't sign the Topps contract his first few years in the majors. I guess Topps just could not get Matsui signed to a contract his first few years either. Must be something to that as players like Ichiro, and even Fukudome, signed on with Topps later in their US "rookie" campaigns. An ESPN column mentioned something about Varitek not signing a contract with Topps by choice, stemming from his 1992 Topps Team USA card (fifteen years is a long time to hold a grudge, don't you think???) As for Kevin McReynolds, I'll have to get back to you on that. I have to find the Topps Magazine article on it. When I do, I'll post it here.

So that's it for now. Please keep those comments coming. Thanks to those who've said something, whether they agreed with me, disagreed with me, or just wanted to add something more to the post. As long as you're not that adolfo loser from India who just copies stuff to make it look like he's trying to say something, and then spams his crappy website in the comments. You, buddy, are not welcome unless you have something more meaningful to say.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama