My Nominations for Stale Gum's 2009 Gummie Awards!!!

Chris Harris has opened up the floor for nominations for the 2009 Gummie Awards. As President of the BBCWAA (Baseball Card Writers Association of America), he has hosted these awards for a few years now. Even though I was new to the Hobby blogosphere, I went ahead and sent my nominations to him for last year's awards, and thought it would be a good idea to do so again now.

Not only is he going to honor the best (and the worst) of 2009, he's also going to honor the best (and the worst) of the past decade (that's 2000-2009 for those counting). Below is the e-mail sent to Mr. Harris:

Chris:

Here is my list of nominees for your Annual Gummies Awards:

Categories for the 2009 Gummies:

Product of the Year
2009 Topps Baseball

Card of the Year
2009 Topps Mickey Mantle #7 (because many people, and some still do, believe that this card was short-printed because he was listed as a SS).

Rookie Card of the Year
2009 Topps Rick Porcello #658

Best Base Set
2009 Topps Baseball

Best Insert Set
2009 Topps Legends of the Game

Best Autographed/Game Used Set
2009 Topps Allen & Ginter autos and relics.

Best Retro Themed Product
2009 Topps Allen & Ginter (have not seen 2009 Topps 206 yet to judge, although this would be a good alternative)

Best Designed Product
2009 Topps Baseball

Best "High-End" Product
2009 Topps Unique (short of the large relic swatches, what they put out was amazing).

Best Set for Prospects
Bowman Chrome Prospects set

Best Unlicensed Product
n/a

Best Hobby Idea/Innovation
2009 Topps Short Print Variation cards

Worst Overall Product
2009 UD O-Pee-Chee

Worst Base Set
2009 UD O-Pee-Chee

Most Meaningless Product
2009 Upper Deck Icons/Spectrum/X/A Piece of History (any product without a point other than to take a spot on the 17 card product list)

Most Disappointing Product
See above.

Worst Insert Set
2009 UD OPC "1975 Reprints"

Worst Designed Product
2009 UD O-Pee-Chee

Worst Gimmick
Exclusive parallel blaster boxes for 2009 Topps (black and throwback). Bad execution and inconsistent distribution between series 1 and 2 turned what would have been an interesting chase into a PR disaster.

Best Cardblog (You can't vote for your own!)
Cardboard Junkie

Best New Cardblog
JD's Wild Cardz

Best Hobby News Source (Again, you can't vote for own.)
Beckett

Best Video Box Breaker/YouTuber
n/a

Hobby MVP
Albert Pujols

Hobby ROY
Tommy Hanson

Hobby Top Prospect
Buster Posey

Jefferson Burdick Award for Contributions to The Hobby (this goes to a person)
Marvin Miller (I don't know if he's already won this award or not)

Categories for the Gummie Awards of the Decade:

Product of the Decade
2006 Topps Allen & Ginter

Card of the Decade
2001 Bowman Chrome Auto Albert Pujols

Rookie Card of the Decade
2001 Topps Chrome Traded Ichiro Suzuki #T266

Best Base Set
2001 Topps (the closest they ever came to bringing back the 792 card set)

Best Insert Set
2001 Topps Through the Years (what got me hooked on insert sets in the first place)
or
2004 Topps American Treasures Presidential Signatures

Best Autographed/Game Used Set
2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites autograph set, including 21 subjects that were not included in the base set.

Best Retro Themed Product
2005-2006 Topps Turkey Red

Best Hobby Idea/Innovation
Retro sets. Honoring sets from the past from T206, T205, Cracker Jack, Allen & Ginter, Turkey Red, Goudey, Play Ball, and Goodwin was a great way of introducing, or re-introducing, these sets to the average collector.

Worst Overall Product
2002 Donruss Originals

Worst Base Set
2002 Topps Baseball

Most Meaningless Product
Any Fleer set from early in the decade without a point other than to take a spot on the product list

Most Disappointing Product
2002 Donruss Originals (Donruss' "Heritage" set). Because they didn't continue it into next year, so we're only left with retro cards of 1982, 84, 86, 88, a "what if?" of 1980, and wondering what a 1979 Donruss card would have looked like.

Worst Insert Set
2007 Topps Generation Now (did we really need to highlight every double Jose Reyes had in 2006???)

Worst Gimmick
2006 Topps Alex Gordon

That does it for me. Can't wait to see what the final list of nominees will look like.

I highly doubt that all my picks will make the final cut. But rest assured, I'll be voting when the time comes.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama