2013 Panini Cooperstown

Who doesn't love the National Baseball Hall of Fame?  I do.  It's friggin' beautiful.  It's kind of like a Mecca for baseball nerds.  The city where the Hall is located...Cooperstown...well, that's just somewhere I could live happily.

But, Panini Cooperstown?  This sucks.  Hard.

Let's take a look see.  A one hundred card set.  Each pack holds five cards and a little disc thing in it.  Therefore, a set collector one need to buy twenty packs (with zero duplicates) for four bucks a piece including tax to complete a set.  It can be done.  But...jeez.

The 2013 Panini Cooperstown has the lamest insert variations I have ever seen in a card set.  Let's start with the color variations.

• Green Crystal Shard 1:4 packs
• Blue Crystal Shard 1:8 packs
• Red Crystal Shard 1:12 packs
• Gold Crystal Shard 1 per box
• Black Crystal Shard 1/1
• Dark Crystal Shard 1:1 billion packs

Dark Crystal...NOT actually in this set.

That's pretty much it for SP's.  They aren't even that cool looking.  I expected something called a Green Crystal Shard to look really friggin' cool.  But, the Robin Young GCS I pulled was just humdrum.

This set is a dud.  Each box comes with one HOF autograph.  However, there are no cut autos or anything that I could find.  So, there will be no autos of Dimaggio, Williams, etc...  Nope.  Your chances of getting a Gaylord Perry are pretty high, though.  Not that there's anything wrong with Gaylord.  But, just understand the "hits" are limited.  Here's a checklist so you can see what you are getting into here.

I do, however, kind of like the chip disk cards.  Those are different...sort of.  I believe in the early 2000s, one Fleer set decided to revive the disc card and it only lasted for one set.  But, I liked it then and I kind of like it now.  So, there ya go.  There's your silver lining in this box of poop.

I did buy two packs because I needed to see it for myself.  There was nothing worth mentioning in the packs...except for the Yount Green Crystal Skull...err...shard.

Don't buy it.  Save the dough.  If you must buy something, make it A&G.

No Joy In Mudville...Ummm Cooperstown

So, just gonna throw my two cents into the whole Hall of Fame election voting stuff.  For those of you that do not know, the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) voted no one into the hallowed halls of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for 2013.  This is the first time there has been no class elected since 1996.

I see the side of the voters.  I really do.  There were players entering the fray this year that were playing right in the middle of one of the more controversial times in baseball history:  "The Steroid Era".  However, there were players on the ballot that truly deserved to be in the hall and have never been even whispered with the Bonds' and Palmeiro's of the world...like Craig Biggio.  Biggio was a class act on the field and off the field.  You would be hard pressed to find a person to be able to condemn anything in his personal life or what he did on the field.  I understand the voter's hesitance on Biggio:  He's not really first ballot material, he was never the best hitter on his team (that would be Bagwell), and he never won a championship.

This voting class was tough.  If Bonds wasn't so prickly with the press and wasn't right in the mix with illicit substances, he'd have been a first ballot guy, for sure.  Same with Roger Clemens.  But, we are coming up to the time when we all though there might be some problems with who to elect into Cooperstown.  There will be some tough decisions to be made; I'm just glad I don't have to be the one to make them.

In the early '90's, I thought I would like to be present at a Hall of Fame induction if two things happened:  Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn (two of my all time favorites) got in together...they did, and I didn't go.  Aaaannnnnddd...I thought it would be awesome to see Bonds, Clemens, and McGwire get into the Hall together.  None will get in...at least for a long time.