Beating the Book: The Rise and Fall of the Baseball Card Industry

card industry. I think it's a story that hasn't been fleshed out nearly enough for a generation of folks who used to collect as kids like myself, and really was our first entree into associating sports with money in the first place. It's an amazing story and has some real correlations to sports betting. We get into it with Las Vegas Chris, who has seen it all on all sides of the baseball card industry. On today's Beating the Book Podcast, Enjoy It's a numbers game with your host Gil Alexander.

Want those believe in Analytic's good Monday Morning to you. It is Gil Alexander right here on Visa in the Sports Betting Network Serious except Channel two O four, Visa dot Com, the Visa app Fubo Sling Game plus on down the line. But today I want to do something

a little different. And you know, while sports are going on, when it's just when we're on a hamster wheel of sports, I think to myself sometimes, you know, one day I'd like to do a show on this subject, or one day I'd like to do a show on another subject, But you never get a chance to do it when sports are in full bore mode. But there's no better time to do it right now today. Uh, this was promised last week. We're gonna do a show on the

rise and fall of the baseball card industry. And you say to yourself, baseball cards, Um, the sports betting tie in is what? Well, Actually, for many of us and many listening to the show, uh, this was our first experience in life tying sports into money. Um. We'll get into some of that, the similarities of of the markets and what kind of betters might have sprung from the baseball card days. But really, I think, not only is there is there a betting tie in, it's just an

amazing story. Many of us grew up in a time where baseball cards where everything we cared about as kids. It was a booming industry and then it all collapsed, and I don't think it's a story that's been told enough. And to help us along with that today and to really give us insight as a gentleman who has been on all kinds of the baseball card industry, UM, retail manufacturing, UM distribution, just all different kinds of the business. It's

our old friend, Las Vegas, Chris. Good morning to you, Chris, thanks for joining us. UM you hear me. I'm having internet connection problems. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah, I guess I'm off my headset here, so you can hear me anyway. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay. Let let me let me just give your street credit as a better first of all, for those who have not had you heard you on the show before. Chris is

a very successful professional better in Las Vegas. He won the College Football Station Casinos Last man Standing contest, defeating over competitors, taking in fifty two dollars. At that time. UM also won the Win Eliminator Contest one hundred thousand dollar contest back in the day, the Palms contest in Eleven Stations Casino Last man Standing College Football contest. As

we mentioned in UH this year. This past year, UH finished twenty and thirty one using different picks and his two entries in the circuit contest UM four of twenty of the remaining last man Standing stations UM at Station's Casino this year had four of the remaining twenty entries. Four of them were his, but flamed out. Thankfully, UH he was able to hedge his way out of that. It is Gill Alexander. It is Las Vegas, Chris on a numbers game right here at Vista, the Sports Betting Network. Chris,

can you hear us? Okay, yeah, I'm having no problem hearing you. But I'm coming in and out with my inferior technology. So okay, well we we got you here. That okay. So that's just for those who aren't familiar with you. I just wanted to give your give them your betting background, because you are very successful pro better. We'll get into some of that later, but as far as your baseball card history, let's start there before we get into the rise in the fall of the industry.

How did you get into the industry in the first place, You know, I was I was looking for something to uh just fill time to con productive cobby sort of speak, because there was the after college times and that really hadn't picked a career, and I started. Uh. I had a friend that actually, uh G literiously enough got himself into game and trouble and was selling his baseball parents

from way back when. So I started going to sub shows with him as he was liquidating his sets from the sixties and seventies, and I'm like, only cow and this stuff is worth fortune. And it just happened to be in the era where there was a huge boom back in uh and andalistically you could do no wrong. You know, anything that you bought was going to make money.

So I basically just started to absorb as much information as I could, and um, you know the trick it kind of similar to gameling in the old days, where you are searching like in the old days, where you're searching for those rogue lines, you're searching for those rogue deals of great deals to buy cards because you would find out, oh, I can sell this over here for

this price. So you're you're going to different other shows or different stores around or you're writing around your different states and you and you're chasing down Barry standards in in uh you know, Iowa with the nobody cares about and you're selling them for triple your money in Detroit. So that's how I initially started, and that evolved over time into actually getting a store. UM started off with a really small store, uh four hundred and fifty square feet.

I think it wasn't really small. Um that evolved into uh store that triple dad size. We started a wholesale company that we were distributing all around the nation. Uh. We would go to national shows. Um we actually got to the we we uh opened another store afterward and uh, um that's pretty big for a long period of time.

What years were this, Chris? That was I got in I think in eight seven, and I opened in the store and had the stores in my retail business h and my offices to think about two thousand three or two thousand four. So you really saw the boom and the bust. You saw it all from from the beginning. You you really rode the curve up and and down. UM. Let me just start with with sort of reflecting where

most of us were. Most of us were collectors back in those days, in the eighties and maybe into the early nineties, when we were either teenagers or kids and then teenagers, and um that was kind of I think most of the listeners of the show. That's the relationship to baseball cards. I was obsessed, I mean absolutely obsessed. Nothing in the world mattered more to me as a kid. My calendar year was sort of obsession with the Redskins,

obsession with music. Oh now at summertime, I'm collecting baseball cards as I was when I was a kid, right, I mean that was my joys in life. And I think a lot of people have have similar, um, similar sort of likes and and obsessions when when they were kids, as as far as those listening to this network in this show, and so for us, it started as something, you know, very cliche. We got cards, let's say, from the neighbor who was going to throw them out or

whatever it was. I got no more joy than anything in life than my mom when she went to the grocery store. I would always say, to help, but don't forget to buy, you know, baseball cards for me. If you could just little three packs of tops with the gum with the cardboard gum in it. And by the way, uh, Tops really a gum company that that happened to sell cards with it as a marketing tool, and so this was the this was the innocence of it. And then

uh it became with Beckett Price Guides. It became a sort of our introduction to value or perceived value, or in the case of baseball cards, as it turned out, a lot of speculative pricing before we get into all that tell me about, um, the actual production of the cards. In other words, everything in Beckett Price Guides looked great. Uh seven. I used to collect all these Barry Bonds, Flear rookie cards. I was obsessed with Barry Bonds even then, and I was like, oh man, look what the prices

and the Beckett Price Guide. These are gonna be so valuable in the future. But wasn't this simply a case of supply and demand where the reason that the industry, you know, we talked about baseball cards is something that fathers and sons could share. Not my father wasn't from this country, but generally speaking, the American story is fathers and sons could share baseball cards. But really it was the mothers who threw them out in previous generations who

created this market of perceived value. And so when we were kids and we're thinking, oh, these are going to be valuable thirty years moving forward, just like the cards thirty years ago were valuable. That's where it all kind of turned, didn't it. Well, it's similar to people do it the points Prince nowadays. But getting back to your point about having a passion for it. I never closed my store in twelve years when I had it. We were open to the sixty five every Christmas, every Thanksgiving.

I personally didn't take days off for years, like three years straight gambling. At least you have two days off during the All Star break. So and and as I was mentioned to you, I have I have dreams a couple of times a year that I'm still working in that store almost you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago, and it's like I worked the whole store. But as you said, you know, you've got the price guides for

for the cards, and you get it. That retroduction to it is thinking, oh boy, that's the Bible and I'm making all this money, when the reality of it is it's sort of like when you're you know, be bending a line up so that they can bet it back down later on, you know, that's basically what the baseball card industry is just trying to you know, shove lines up on certain things. Uh uh, you know, similarly to to betting. You know, there were people heard industry where

you know, you could get together. You do that you're going to run up these certain parts or run up these certain products because you knew what the print run was and you knew how you know, who had the majority of a certain product, and you had a position in it. So the manipulation is, uh, you know, really similar and really interesting, and unfortunately probably wasn't good for a lot of people that went on inside. So I guess what I'm getting because you just use the word manipulation.

I guess the whole thing about this is for those of us who were so in a cent it and loved it as a collectible. And by the way, I still have them, my parents have him in d C most of my valuable cards. I still cherished them. Right, It's not like I don't still love them because they bring back memories of my of my childhood. But the notion that this was something that would you know, pay for our college let's say many years. Hence the whole thing was kind of a scam, wasn't it. In other words,

let's say Beckett. The Beckett, uh, for those who don't know. Beckett was Jim Beckett, who had the Price Guide. At their peak, they sold a million copies of their magazine a month, Chris a million of them, um, which is just staggering to think about. Uh, back in the day. So you know, I was making the I was making the comparison to how we viewed cards in terms of how valuable they were going to be then versus what then happened in the subsequent years, talking about into the nineties,

the pinnacle of Bay small card collecting. In terms of individual cards, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, the T two O six Honus Wagner tobacco card is considered the most valuable card there is. There's only a couple of handfuls of them known to exist. Then there's the nineteen fifty two Rookie Mickey Mantle cards, which was from tops. Either first or second said. I believe second said in the in the early fifties. The nineteen fifties is when

the industry started a boom. By the way, I don't know what Brent said this on the air with me, so I don't feel like I'm speaking out of turn when I say this. Brent Musburger owns two nineteen fifty two Mickey Mantles, and apparently it's a point of contention with he and his brother Todd that they're going to have to work out at some point as to the

ownership of those cards. Um, but it was. It was the T two O six Honus Wagner, It was the nineteen fifty two Mickey Mantle and then the third most important baseball card in history, uh is considered to be the Night nine Upper Deck Ken Griffey jew Year card, which was the number one card in terms of its order in the set. Was the one card where someone who worked for Upper dec you know, knew that he was going to probably get called up to the big

leagues the next year. And this is where things went awry. And you tell me you're knowledge of this because this was considered at the time to be a hugely valuable car. And first of all, you could if it's the number one card, oh man, you can't get it in good condition, right, That was the thing at the time. Um. But that you know, they went from from whatever the cost of a of a card in a in a set was just something that was worth five bucks, then a hundred

bucks and then four hundred bucks. But really, can't we say that the beginning of the end was that card specifically, Um, well, that was the beginning of everything that was good for years though, you know the problem was that, Uh that's what got everybody into the industry, and Upper Deck first started. Uh you know, they had the hologram and the card the card stock was just so much better, uh more colorful.

They were packaging their sets up nice or the packaging, uh foil was just nice, and you know, similar to beanie babies. It was tough to get, you know, not everybody could order it. You know, it took me. It's like if you you couldn't just open up a car shop and get an Upper Deck account. So, um, they were limited production and that actually lasted, you know for years. But I think what you're you're trying to touch on is, um, you know, you gotta watch what I say, you know,

I gotta watch what I say. But there's it seems like they were bushels and bushels and bushels bushels of Ken Griffey Jr's that would appear later on in the years, and all of a sudden, it was hard to find upper deck factory sets. Uh. Allmo sudden, we're easier to find and um so that's what you're touching on, those kinds of shenanigans. You know, I was pretty two for years. Uh it was. It just went all over the place.

Uh So, yeah, it was bad for people because people, you know, if they would have held those production numbers, it would have held value pretty well, right if they had. So. By the way, let me just weird. We're in the business of sort of recommending documentaries here on this show,

and all kinds of different subjects. Um. But a baseball card documentary that is a really interesting watch is something called Jack of All Trades, which is told through the perspective of the son of the former owner of the Sluggers baseball card shop in Toronto, and he was Canada's leading cards salesman. It's a whole story and it really does sort of talk about the evolution of the card

industry from that perspective. But one of the things that they talked about during or in that documentary is what I was getting at, because you're right, the interest in the Ken Griffy Junior card. I think about it, there was ten thousand, Chris. There were ten thousand baseball card shops around the United States back in the early eighties. Excuse me, the late eighties and the early nineties. Tops had been the only baseball card company UH for decades.

Don Russe and Flear I think had a set in the early eighties or a couple of sets, but then that that went away. It was not until the late eighties were cards proliferated beyond Tops, Don Russ and Flear. Upper Deck shows up in eighty nine. So at first that Griffy card, because Upper Deck came in an upper Deck started as a shop in laws in southern California,

and they're like, we're gonna make these beautiful cards. Griffy became this this thing that, through a combination of marketing and and beauty and just his popularity became a huge thing. But what you touched on is really the thing that I was getting at, which is okay. Once it did become a big thing, upper Deck realized literally if you're to believe it um and I think there's a lot of proof about this when you talk to people in the know they decided, oh, we can literally print money.

At least that was their attitude. And so something that was so so rare, supposedly uh as the Griffy one card and eight nine they would print those baseball cards, as you know, came on these ten by ten prints of a hundred cards on one sheet. They would start printing complete a hundred sheets with nothing but the Griffy card. And there's some spect there was one story told in that movie about someone seeing a box of someone just having five thousand of them. So it's just sheer greed,

isn't it. Like that's what I mean. You you'll talk about it from all angles, but that's one of the biggest things as to why this all turned sheer greed and gaming the market. Well, yeah, and and that's absolutely true. I I you know, there were times, uh when I was in the business that I would have five thousand comboxes full of hard to find insert cards, and ah, it just seemed there were leaks at every manufacturer at

some point, because as you said, they're printing money. And I actually was a paid consultant with I think every card manufacturer at some point other than Upper Deck, But you know, they were buried themselves in these licensing fees. The licensing fees would just go higher and higher each and every year, and uh and they had no choice but to print and print and print. So um, the word back door seemed to be, you know, common knowledge

and common terminology in the industry. You know by the time, uh, you right around the baseball strike and you have all kinds of stories to tell us about different other sides of the business. Where shenanigans we're going on. But this is, I mean, this is really where now you know, I have this old collection of baseball card it's a whole bunch of people do And we thought when we were adults, you know, back then, we thought by this time we

would look at something like the Beckett Price Guy. By the way, the Beckett Price Guide still exists, um today, although they're not nearly selling a thousand uh copies per month. Um, they're not worth a damn We'll get into all that coming back with Las Vegas Chris Jimmy Viccarrott to come as well on the numbers game in visa these sports betting Now welcome back to a numbers game with Jill Alexander.

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gotta be a New Jersey. Restrictions apply. Is at bet mgm for the fullest of terms of conditions. Gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler. It's Gill Alexander. This is a numbers game right here at Visa. UM. Jimmy McCarroll on to talk Leonard Haggler later in the show the thirty second, No. Thirty third pardon me, thirty three year anniversary of Leonard Haggler. He'll talk to us about that.

We get tweets, by the way at beating the book as we do our baseball cards show today the Rise in the Fall of the baseball card industry with Las Vegas, Chris Crane and a whole bunch of others showing their baseball card collections by picture here Jeffrey Lawson, you tank forever. Uh the nine upper deck Griffy Junr Card. Now I'm angry again, Gary Kincaid one, Chris, there's a question for you.

Can you and Chris touch on the values of cards in I'm assuming by people he means basketball and football in the fifties and sixties or those cards worth anything? Well, you know when when we first started, when we first started, uh, seeing the rise in the industry back on eight nine, football and basketball cards were worthless until David Robinson came around and they came out with hoops, and hoops became very popular, and uh, football cards were the last one

to ever get any sort of play. So there was basketball became very popular, people chasing to Michael Jordan's Rookies seven Flair basket ball, and then the real coup and and I'm good friends with the guy that did this. Uh, the Star Basketball started to get run up and and that was a brilliant move because that had really really low productions and they were very knowledgeable and where the

entire product was, so they basically controlled it. They had a relationship with Beckett and they ran that up and did quite well on that, and then after after basketball and finally went to football, but football never really caught on as much. But the answer specifically, I think it really gets down to the grading of cards back in the fifties and sixties. If you have gem Mint cards, you're you're talking big bucks. I know, somebody accost him.

I think, Uh, I think he's got a football set that's all p s, A nines or tens and uh

it's you know, well over a hundred thousand dollars. So it really just depends on the quality because that's up phys legitimately rare and it's harder to counterfeit also, well, that that's a whole another thing you touch on there which has changed since since our childhoods, which is, you know, we would look at a car and our definition of of what was meant or excellent or very good when we were kids is a whole different story than what

is considered that now by you know, much more formal grading. Um. So that's a whole another layer to the whole thing that's changed. But you know, I mean just to just to give a sense, and I'll just tell a personal story. When I was a kid, uh, me and my best friend would would trade cards and one day and we're all familiar with being in trades where we fleeced somebody

or where we where they got the best of us. Anyways, my best friend I ended up trading for a nineteen seventy five rookie George Bread, and I gave him crap in the trade. And then the Beckett Price Guide came out. We found out very quickly that I had completely fleeced him.

And so for many years I and I swear this is I'm not exaggerating this, for many years and I wouldn't think about it every day, what every so often when I'd be talking to my friend, I'd be thinking of myself, Wow, I really least amount of that seventy five rookie George Brett. And at the time it was priced that like two bucks, right, or like, you know, three hundred bucks whatever a rookie George Brett was from

nineteen seventy five tops. So for his fiftieth birthday, I ended up buying him in nineteen seventy five, George Brett, so that I could sort of make amends. It was sort of our lives coming full circle. It cost me less than twenty bucks. Like that's how, that's how unbelievably wrong. Not wrong, but how the the industry itself has crashed, at least in terms of again, what the perceived market value was then versus what it is now. We'll talk with Las Vegas Chris about how this relates to sports

betting markets. What kind of sports bettors came out of a session with baseball cards as kids and an FBI sting operate shi that Chris was involved in. It's right, it gets that serious rise and fall of baseball cards right here on a special edition of a Numbers game, right here at Visa. The sports Betting Network. Welcome back to a numbers game with Gil Alexander. Back on the numbers game right here at Visa these Sports Betting Network

serious except Channel two. Oh for it's Gil Alexander, Las Vegas, Chris Multiple, Las Vegas sports handicapping a champion with us to talk about his years of the baseball card industry, that rise and fall of the industry, because I just don't think enough has been made of at so many of us grew up on cards, and uh, what better time to talk about it than in these strange times where we have some u some time to spend. Let

me ask you this, Chris. Uh, there were often there was often promotions in a baseball card collecting, as I recall where and this was more of a nineties and I think it was more of a nineties thing than an eighties thing. But there was always like, okay, um, there's a you know, the Jose Canseco card or whatever the card de jure was, whatever the flavor of the month was, or to be more accurate, the flavor of that set, like the most valuable card in the set.

It's somewhere in these packs was that all bull two in other words, were masses and masses of tens and thousands of of cards produced with the hope to all these little kids hoping to find this one valuable card.

And was it all gamed against us anyway? Well, I believe that there was a lot of hanky panky for years, and that's what led to having to have numbered cards because they would say, oh, this card is so rare, you can't find it, and there'll be tons of them that would come up from you know, they'd get funneled through dealers that had connections to the manufacturers and sometimes the printers. But the only way you knew that something. It got to the point the only way you know

anything is limited is if it's numbered. If it's not numbered, you just can't trust it. A printer can print it, um, you can't trust the manufacturer. Uh, you just can't verify how many of an item there are. So that's what was hurting the industry. Uh. And when they started numbering the cards, that rejuvenated it a little bit. But then it got to the point where they were doing all these crazy inserts with the jersey cards and all these

different styles. It got to the point where you could search out those cards, so you would know sometimes by the placement uh within a box. If you open the top four cards in a box, you knew what the sequencing of the cards were. You could put the packs on a scale. You could put an unopened box on a scale, and you're gonna know if because you know, you might have one super duper insert per twenty count case.

So you could just weigh the boxes and sell the other You could find the box that had the tough insert because it would weigh several Grahams different and then sell the other boxes and the same thing with pack so it you know, there's there was. It's a real shame at how people were cheated, not only by the manufacturer, but by the dealers and the card shop owners and

uh you know people that were just trading amongst themselves. Yeah, as as an adult, this seems so unsurprising, right, like to hear, oh wow, adults doing ridiculous things too out of greed and scamming other people. But like as a child, the fact that it's children generally speak who are getting

who are getting scamped? Because you know that even in this movie that I referenced earlier, Jack of All Trades to talk about the eighties six done Russ jose Canseco, which was like the Jose Canseco card and uh is rookie actually prior to his rookie year, I think at eighty six where he was trying to grow that mustache weekly by the way, and it was promised, Oh, you're gonna find one of these and all these packs, and it was just they they so underproduced it, and so

kids would open, you know, tens of thousands of packs and never get to it. Um, what about the FBI sting, what was that all about? Well, that touches a little bit. And when I was saying there was a lot of counterfeiting of cards going on, um and uh, we actually made a large purchase of David Robinson rookies. Uh and uh that was actually I think we were like one of the first people to to be hosed on counterfeiting. That I remember because I really didn't hear about counterfeiting

before then. But so we bought I forget how many we bought. Uh, and we're selling them. We've got a great price on it, and and some people started to point out there's something wrong with these things. So we took a magnifying glass to it. And we could clearly tell there is something different about it. So, uh, we were piste off because we put a lot of money into this. We couldn't sell them because you know, we're

not going to sell counter for cards to people. And we actually had an FBI agent that was my customer and contacted him and he put us in touch and we ended up trying to make another deal with the people because they were out of Texas and so they flew in from Texas. We were in a hotel room, uh, and it was our job to wait for these guys to come up and show us the merchandise and then we were we were you know, gave the FBI the signal and then they came in and we left the room.

But what was sad about it? I think it was like a deal or so all they did is, you know, get a warning because unless you can prove that they absolutely knew what they were doing, you know, they just had to play stupid and nothing even came out of it. So we didn't get any money back and they didn't get convicted of anything, and they just played dumb and uh, it's just an interesting story though, jeez. Every So everybody was scamming everybody. So it wasn't just the you know,

the collectors getting scared. It was the actual dealers them sell, the retailers. Like it was just everybody trying to scam everybody. I don't mean to laugh, but it's just like, who knew this was even going on in the business to this day? We were getting Yeah, we were getting buried by by customers. I mean, you know, people would you know that when you're talking about these older cards, they're nearly impossible to find in great to find in great condition.

So what these people would do is they would trim the cards, so they were getting really tricky so that you know, these little fraid engines edges would be you know, they would make them disappear and they would look like they're in gemin condition. And then you'd find, oh, wait a minute, this card is a little smaller than it's supposed to be. Uh. You know, they may come in and sell you, try to sell you unopened boxes and maybe they opened the packs, you know, carefully with a

and iron them shut again after taking out the good cards. Uh. It never never stopped. It just never stopped. It is amazing to think about and what you said the peak of the industry was a convention in Anaheim. What year was that. I think that was the convention that Now that was nuts because that was at the convention center and uh a huge, huge complex. Of course, there was

lines going both directions around the entire building. But that was the first time I ever saw bulk inserts and bulk uh difficult to find cards uh circulating and uh you know, the real hustlers were making big money on those, uh because they were coming out from the back door of a manufacturer that there was in the area. And uh lots of you know, lots of That's when the real underhead and this really started. Jeez, it goes on

and on. Let's get into this, uh this notion of what kind of sports betters may have been produced from obsession with cards as kids from innocence to maybe sort of getting them in a mindset that might not have been a good thing. I don't know. We'll find out what Chris has to say about that coming up on a Numbers Game right here at Visa, the Sports Betting Network. Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Jill Alexander. Surreal times indeed, like living in a sci fi movie. What

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picks dot Com slash vs. In Bonus. That's quick picks dot Com slash vs. In Bonus. Gill Alexander on a numbers game here at Visa, the sports betting network with Las Vegas. Chris, who saw it all in the baseball card industry back in the day before we get into thing about what kind of sports betters the industry might have produced. Chris Felika, who's on the show tomorrow. By the way, Caesar's putting out one hundred and thirty college

football season win totals today. Chris, I don't know about you, but I I can't wait to talk about them. And at the same time, I'm like, I don't even know if this stuff is gonna get played. It's hard for me to make bets when I'm not sure if the thing is even gonna get going. I don't know how you feel about these kind of subjects, but well, we'll

bat it around for sure. Yeah, I'm not gonna put any time into something like that because it's gonna be lucky to have a season number one, and if they do, you would think that they may have to abbreviate it so that, you know, throws futures out the window. Well, we'll talk about it because I know people people want to hear Chris's opinion on that, Chris, because obviously no

one knows college football better than the Bear. Chris actually chimes in on on what we're talking about today on Twitter at beating the book, he said I got one, meaning he got a nine upper deck rookie Ken Griffy at a seven eleven on Mill Lane in West Hampton. But it had a factory crease in the upper corner. And he was devastated, devastated. And this gets back to

what I didn't I really glossed over this earlier. Chris, and you mentioned this to me, uh off Air, that we should probably touch on this again, which is when we were kids. All Right, a crease what Felika got on his upper deck. He saw a crease. He's like, oh, man, I know this is this car is not worth what it could have been, obviously, because it's something is obvious

as increase. But the difference for us between very good and maybe even more so between excellent and what we thought was meant we were just doing it by our eyes, right, And so we were like, well, you know, we could we just sort of traded on an honor system with conditioning. But that whole grading of cards based on condition long after we were people of my generation and our generation were collecting cards that became this massive thing too. Was

that a scam? Also? Well, when I when I first started branching out with relationships, I made a lot of people that were in the coin industry as friends, and they said, what really ruined the coin industry was when grading started to happen, and and it just completely brought that industry almost to a halt because of the reason you just spoke up. There was no interpretation of quality anymore. Um, you know, getting back to the guy that we're talking

about old football cards or baseball cards. People would bring in cards from the fifties and the sixties and gee, they're forty years old. They look great, but they are not perfect. So for being forty and fifty years old, you think, oh my god, I've got something, but you don't. It has to look like it just came out of a pack. And then even if you had the four

sharpest corners around, it might be off center. Maybe the the cut on the sheet was just a little bit off, or there's a printer's dot, or there's just some tiny imperfection. So when grading started to happen with cards, you know, that didn't help either, except the people that were really just you know, you know, sending the stuff out for grading, and then if they don't get the cards graded, they just break the plastic and they try to get them

regraded again. And um, those guys were doing okay. But you know when you took out the fat, you know, the the negotiation and then the the the the guesswork out of what condition is, and you didn't write and and and it was it was just automatically predetermined. Um. You know, it really changed the industry a lot because you didn't have as much buying and selling anymore. So what about this notion? Because you and I listen, we probably only think of our baseball cards once or twice

a year. Now at this point in our lives, we're sports bettors. That's all we care about. Seven when we're not with our family necessarily, sometimes even when we're with our family, that's all we care about. Um, it's kind of in our d n A. But um, you raised a notion that I hadn't really thought about. But it was you know, I made the relationship between baseball cards and sports betting as it was sort of our first entree into what's the value of something what's the value

of something sports related based on a market? Um, so that was the connection I made. You even took it one step for further, which is the kind of sports better it might have made if you could talk about

both of those things. First of all, the market similarities and then that latter point, Well, it's really interesting how many similarities of the evolution of somebody that collected anything and the sports better from you know, not knowing a thing, going in the learning curves, then you know, wanting to be a pro addit and and trying to be you know, you know, you know, you know, if you're betting sports,

you want to be a handicapper. You want to be a pro if you're if you're a collector, you want to open up a store. But what what I didn't kind of really think about before today is there was a thing called Sportsnet for the card industry, and that was there was another interesting thing because you couldn't just get on Sportsnet. You had to have qualifications, You had to go through an approval process. So the people that had access to Sportsnet had an advance manage over other people.

And uh they traded everything from unopened cards to every collectible you can imagine too, uh single cards to uh lots of cards and such. And then we have our non best line service and such, which you know is uh, you know, that's listing the lines we had to deal with and and the hilarity of it is in our in the betting industry, uh, you know, people will give you games that you can bet, but you've got to do it off screen. You can't hit the screen. And

the trading card industry was the same way. Hey I'm gonna sell you a bunch of this, a bunch of these inserts, or I'm gonna sell you a bunch of

these unopened cases, but it can't hit the screen. So I was thinking about today and they think about how hilarious that was, very similar in that vein, and then they both you know both you know, the screen uh, you know obviously narrows the market the more people that have access to it, and uh, it narrows the range and em betting, you don't have those wide variances and

lines like you used to have. And much of that stuff you're talking about, or maybe all of that stuff was just available from the retailer side, right, the collector never was aware of any of that, where we we just had our Beckett price guide. Well, um, the bettors all learned about sports Net pretty quickly. They just couldn't access it. And the bettors would want to, you know, let they would want to latch onto you if you

if you had sports Net access. Uh, you know, they were cool, you know, if they could develop a relationship with me and I could tell them what the real market was on stuff. You know, I'm I'm you know, you know, they're the king amongst their group of people. I found out that this item is going for this so, uh, you know it's the same ways, and it's the same ways. You know. Yeah, it's unbelievable too. I mean I get, like I said earlier, as an adult, Yeah, I guess

it all makes sense. Of course, human beings doing crappy human beings things to other humans. As a kid, you had no idea, right, because you're so innocent, You're so what kind of sports better do you think sprung out of this? That's interesting to me? Um, I I think careful. I think you're careful about about the like for example, in trading cards, they had the pump and dumps. Uh, you know, they would run they would run certain products up.

Like I referenced earlier, we could run products up on sports Net and then you know, supposedly quote do a favor for people and say, oh, well this is going for a thousand and sports Net all State for nine fifty. Uh. And that's what you know happened in in you know, betting on the line services. You know, you see a line that's there, maybe ten, but you know it's not really ten, and you know it's going to be crashing soon. Uh.

You know that's how Billy Walks did so well. It's just manipulating uh, the market, the same way people manipulated the market and trading cards. I think it. Yeah, I could not agree with that more. Go ahead, I'm sorry, no, yea.

To answer your question that you know, that was one of the things that I was able to easily grasp uh from trading cards, is the manipulation of the lines and not necessarily touch on the lines, and to kind of look at certain patterns you've got to pay careful attention to if it was cards, who's selling, who's buying, is it real or not real? And the same way with betting markets, which which book is moving these lines

and which books are not moving these lines? So you kind of you have the instincts that kick into, you know, that tell you to pay attention to that type of stuff. There's so many tentacles of it. I mean, you know, I think about how people tended to value the cards they owned more than than your card, like in other words, they became very much in love with their cards. Some people were very nitty, didn't want to trade their cards

because they overvalued them. And I think about fantasy players who do the same with their own fantasy players in leagues. I think about people who hold futures tickets in sports Benning, who tend to value There's um sort of irrationally in a way. I mean, there's so many different ways to

part it. But we got this kind of education without really knowing we were getting this education as kids, and for for many of us again it was what really sparked our our minds for the first time into something like, Wow, yeah, this is something I'm totally uh interested in. I'm totally latching on to forget school. This is what I this

is all I care about. Um, we'll get back into it, Jimmy, Jimmy McCarroll coming up on the show to talk Leonard Hagler with us, by the way as well, thirty third anniversary of that middle weight fight for the ages, at least from some people's perspectives, others not UM, and we'll get into some more baseball card industry stuff with Las Vegas, Chris. What's the only manufacturer that's even a lot of hers the cards these days? You may be surprised by that from what you remember, And a lot of it has

to do with what we've been talking about. Coming back on a numbers game at VISA, the Sports Betting Network. It's a numbers game with your host, Gil Alexander. Believe in analytics. It is a numbers game right here at VISA these the Vegas Stats and Information Network, the Sports Betting Network. It's Gil Alexander that I mentioned that serious x M Channel two oh four, Visa dot Com, Visa app, uh,

Fubo Game plus Sling. Coming up later on the show, Jimmy Vicarro join us tomorrow Chris Felika to talk about college football season win totals. They're putting them out at Caesar's Day, a whole bunch of them. A hundred thirty uh to be exact, I believe is the number. So

we'll talk to Chris about that tomorrow on the show. Um, we're talking baseball cards and the industry, the rise and fall of the industry with Las Vegas, Chris, Uh and I also want to get into some of your your contests thoughts, because again, as I mentioned earlier on the show to start it, you've won multiple Las Vegas handicapping contests including college football station Last man Standing UH contest win eliminator for a hundred thousand dollars back in the day,

the Palms contest in eleven UH, and you come close to winning so many others including Circle this past year twentieth and thirty first. With your two entries, UH, you had four of the remaining of the of the last remaining standing twenty UM once for college football at stations this past year was a college football or pro football that you had four of the remaining twenty of the last twenty. That was a bumber because that was four, and then had a big, nice paid day to it.

Uh No, you know, I think it was a hundred and fifty K. But I was very lucky to lose all four uh that particular week because it was for some reason these people did not drop out afterwards, so it would have been a hedging nightmare. And could you explain that to people, Chris, Yeah, because because I think I'm sorry, because I think that's something that most amateur bettors don't get well, I've learned something. I learned something

from this year also about it. Uh, you know, if you've got you know, if you've got twenty people left and the prize is a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know you don't have twenty five into that entry anymore. You you you have implied, uh, you know, value versus fifty k. So traditionally you could expect around fifty of the people to be knocked out every week. And after

we dropped, that didn't happen. They had weeks where nobody lost and one person lost, two people lost, And so if we had continued, I think we would have really been in hot water, uh with having too much money on the heads losses if we didn't middle anything along the way. So it was actually, you know, a relief that we had been popped when we we popped out when we did. Yeah, akin to and I'm just trying to put it in terms that more people understand. Akin to.

I don't know, if you have an n C double a tournament, and let's say you have a futures bet on a on a team, uh, if you hedge too early, I guess is the similarity in that it's kind of counterintuitive. But if you hedge too early in that situation, well, you're gonna remove all your equity if they you know, if you're if you're all I'm doing the Sweet sixteen and the Final Aid and the Final four and that

kind of thing. And what you're saying is essentially, with that contest continuing on, you would have been, in essence, ended up in the same situation where you just keep have to keep hedging along. It's not exactly the announce For some reason, people understand the march madness a scenario, but they don't understand it for for a contest like that.

But that's why it's good for you to have been eliminated when you were, because you didn't get into that nightmare of that and you might have even who knows lost money in that situation. You probably wouldn't have, but you would have certainly not one a damn thing. So that that's pretty interesting with that. Who did you lose with? Do you remember Chris Um? Now? I don't. I don't remember off the top of my head. I know that

they were close, but I can't remember. Let me let me let me ask you this with with well, I'm sorry, go ahead, and finished the thought, I'm sorry. I mean, the only thing I remember is the year before we lost by half a point to get knocked out when we were down to three people. So, um, that was disappointed. That was that Dallas Washington Thanksgiving game where they boxed the extra points. So but usually trying not to remember any bad beat stories. It's just not worth it, uh man,

that is said. It isn't worth it, right, There's no point it's doing over it. It's Gill, Alexander, It's Las Vegas, Chris. It is a numbers game right here at vicent, the sports Betting network where sports betting analytics live typically but not like not like a day to day where we're

talking baseball cards, primarily the rise and fall of the industry. Um, but I do want to I didn't want to talk about this, this betting side of thing, because you have such a pedigree in it, and one of the questions for you would be and in some ways an unfair question because we don't know the answer to it. But

do you wonder? I mean, look, this is a time in our lives, Chris, where none of us could have ever anticipated the state that we're in we're all sort of in our you know, we're quarantined in our own little corners of the world. Um, And we don't know when we're gonna come out of this. We don't know

when sports is going to return. And when I had Mike Palm on the show, I think it was a couple of weeks back now on on a numbers game, him here at Visa and he obviously is Derek Stephen's conciliary over there at Circa, and I asked him, I was like, look, have you guys thought about the impact this is going to have on your contests? And I'm not so sure he had deeply at that time, because we're still two weeks ago then, and lord knows, the world is changing so quickly. We forget where we even were,

you know, and mentally speaking two weeks ago. But do you do you wonder if we're I mean, one, let's say there's first of all, I don't know if there's going to be college football. That's the one I'm really because they're kids, and I just don't know if you're going to have that season, because we forget that their students first followed by being athletes. Um, don't. Obviously, I don't want to get into that debate, you know what I mean, they have to congregate as students, but uh,

pro football, let's say it happens. Let's say it happens in some truncated form. I mean, I would imagine these contests the rules will have to be altered. I know over at Uh you know, some of the by laws have stipulations on on the necessary number of weeks. I know the West eight has to have ten weeks played

for it to be um an actual contest. But do you wonder people with their discretionary income, the thought that these contests may happen in some form and even if they do, like the pots will be much smaller, Like I mean, what is your thinking on that? Do you think this year just might be a year that just goes by the wayside as far as contest because I know you really spend most of your betting life on those. Uh yeah, I would. I would say that there's there's

gonna be a fair amount of people that are less enthusiastic. Uh, you know, you're gonna have a fair amount of people that are that are going to appreciate this break from gambling and tell themselves. Oh you know what, my life isn't bad. Uh, you know, I found different hobbies and and and I'm not blowing a bunch of money and uh,

I've I've found alternatives. And then you're also going to have these people that are you know, uh like betting ready from the flints stones, that are gonna be oh my god, it's back, and and they're gonna want to bet on everything. And maybe they're gonna get careless and not be disciplined. So you know, you know, word a caution to those people is you know, easier way in uh is one thing to avoid. But you know, I don't know why people really chase those huge giant pay days.

Yeah they're nice, but the more people there are, the harder it is to win. So uh, fewer people actually may be more desirable for uh, you know, many people that would like to get into contests. Some people may just feel overwhelmed. I can't be three thousand people. I can't be two thousand people. So I think it's gonna

go both ways. Really, So, I mean, as a guy who's won multiple handicapping championships, then what don't you plays or are you indicating that you don't even bother with for instance, Super Contest Classic, which has the most entries. I think of all of these contests, like, you don't touch that. No, I playing that years ago, because I don't think you can you can defeat the variants. You know, if if you have a true talent um, then you're never going to uh get to those high numbers that

puts you at the very top. It's that's why you know, you always it seems like you always have unknowns that win these things because anybody, you know, by randomness can have a great year. But if you have you know, true and tried systems. Uh, you know, there's formulas the dictate that you're never going to have a year that's

really that high over that number of games. I forget who did it, but there was some you know, I personally think that of the games are are are a coin flip anyway, they don't match the statistics, uh that that you payndicap the game on and then you're dealing with the remaining and you're just hoping to hit seven to those remaining games that aren't going to be just dumb lucked by referee calls and bad bounces. Um, can we take a Can we take a question from Twitter,

if you would, about baseball cards. Can we say way back there for a second, because I think, uh, some people will think of things that I did not. Buddy Arthur, can you please ask the card guy. That's you, Chris, you're now the card guy. Can you please ask the card guy about the frenzies created by error cards back in the day. Remember those? Uh, those were always an interesting sort of side thing too. Please tell me those weren't a hustle like Billy Ripkin's error card comes to

our other. Yeah, those are all hustles. Obviously, that Billy Ripkin was the first notable card because it had an obscenity written on the bottom of the baseball bat. And I think that those cards went up to like fifty dollars if I'm not mistaken. And then, of course, uh, a bunch of them ended up appearing later on. And I'm sure that that error card is worth about the

paper it's printed on today. But the other manufacturers, and I do know this for a fact because I was told by certain people, you know, we're intentionally making errors, and uh, they would they would put in some oddities throughout their sets intentionally hoping that they could benefit from that craze. So yet another uh, you know, if it can be exploited, it will be exploited. Yeah, I mentioned earlier, we're talking to Las Vegas Chris here on the numbers

game at Visa the Sports Mading Network. I mentioned earlier that the you know, look, the upper Deck Griffy card, which was really what caused this amazing boom in the industry, was actually it's the beginning of its undoing, because there are there are stories that once the card was you know, so speculative that it was four hundred dollars in val you or whatever it was valued at at its peak, um that there were stories of folks finding a guy with a box of five thousand of just Ken Griffy

Rookies in his box ready to sell. That upper Deck had essentially um manufactured, not essentially, but actually had manufactured so many of these mass produced. Now, remember that was an eighty nine Ken Griffy upper Deck card, his rookie card. They had manufactured a whole bunch. And the way that you knew that it was a scam is that it was on nine paper stock and and beyond. So they had basically taken this amazing gem and realized, oh, we can mass produce this is like printing money. And in

subsequent years, UH made so many of these. And I guess it comes down to the question. You wonder, okay, where people prosecuted, Like did people go to jail? That kind of thing, And it really was, you know, it's a question of legality versus ethics. Right in the end, legally, no one did anything really to break a law, at least nothing that anybody didn't pursue, you know, felt the need to pursue in a court of law. Really, legally

you were not on solid ground with that. Ethically, of course, Uh, it was just awful, right, I mean, it goes against the whole ethical because, as we said, every all ethical UH boundaries because everything was everybody was scamming everybody, And it's just it's amazing to think about that. You you said, and we'll get back to the question before about UH Star cards impacts. I guess my question to you then, Chris personally, is how much of this did you know

at the time? In other words, you you came to learn all of it as you progressed. But I guess what I'm asking is, did you ever feel And this sort of gets to how you got out of the industry. What were what were the points where you're like, I don't feel right doing this or did you do it wrong? For a period of time and then you were like and then you sort of one day you woke up and like, wait, I don't want to be this person. Like how did that go for you? Well, you know,

there was an honest way to do business. Uh so you you there are. There are plenty of reputable dealers and a lot of them are still around. I don't know how, but you could do honest business because you know, you can't rip off your customers and uh you know, expect them to come back. So you can't sell you know, packs of cards that don't have those inserts in them.

You can't uh uh, you can't be selling you know, misrepresenting quality or or or certain other issues about what you're selling, because you need that customer to keep on coming. You know, as you mentioned, they're in every month for that becket. They're they're waiting for the ups driver and there's a line of people. Uh lookally, you know it's it's like the lottery. So there was a way to do it. Honestly, what really hurt the industry though, is

we had horrible terms. It was it's it's it's humiliating to even admit this. But any normal industry would have will give you terms. You apply for credit, you get terms, you get a chance to sell the product. Uh. And that's the way normal industry is. In the card industry, the manufacturers were so short on dough because of their licensing fees. They had you pre pay, so all the dealers had to prepay. But there was very few people that didn't have to prepay a manufacturer. Uh. So, and

you might prepay to three months ahead of time. And by the time, you know, and if you your full service and you're carrying full product lines, you've got, you know, a hundred thousand dollars out of your pocket for stuff you can't even sell. And you're just waiting and waiting

and waiting. And then what happened when when people, you know, when dealers started to get financially dressed, Uh, there'd be times work on the sports net, the product will be worth ten less than what you paid for because dealers needed to pay rent. They had to sell some of the products they had guaranteed to come in later, so they'd sell it at a discount just to get their money back. So uh, that's what really heard it for the stores there. There was just no manufacturer support in

any way. So whatsoever? Uh Today Upper Deck, for instance, just to let people know, upper Deck no longer has a license to produce baseball cards. They just do hockey cards. No longer has a license to produce baseball cards. And Tops who remember owned the baseball card industry from the early fifties all the way to the late eighties. They're

the only company that produces baseball cards today. So all of these other companies Upper Deck and Score and don Rus and Flear and on down the line, they're uh, they don't, they don't exist in this in this industry. And it's just, uh, it's fascinating. And you wonder if and I mean again, I'm just sort of figured out loud here. I just wonder if thirty forty years from

now this will all be cyclical again. Who knows? Uh. You mentioned in an email to me or or in a text to me, chris Um manufacturers and dealers themselves, the unscrupulous behaviors, backdoor products, reprinting, counterfeiting, which we talked about it you're you're staying with the FBI. The method the methods that dealers robbed customers with being able to sell products they knew had no star cards. Did we miss anything? Was there something else that we hadn't touched

on yet? Because it just scams every which way. Well, you know it's it's it mirrors our industry. You've had dealers and manufacturers, uh, you know, go out of business. Uh. Um. One of the biggest dealers, uh was based here in Las Vegas, UH place called Smoky's. They went and they actually started manufacturing their own hockey set and uh A long story short, you know, they weren't around very long, and I think people uh lost a lot of money

pre buying product there was never delivered. In fact, I had to go to quarter on that because I pre sold some some product and it was never delivered. It was never made, and somebody that I pre sold to sued me. So uh, you know, you you you know, it's it's just like you've got bad you know, bad off shores. You had bad dealers, and you had bad you know situations that you could get into the same way. Yeah,

there's a there's a place in Burbank. I believe it is which has the largest collection, largest full sets, and largest collection warehouse of baseball cards. And I think that's a that's a field trip one for me. I'd I'd love to see this. This is from Scott Hoffman on Twitter. We get tweets at beating the book at halfee time. How does Chris feel about the current state of the card industry now? Does he still collect or invest or? Are you just completely out of disinterested Chris? After all this,

I've been completely out and disinterested. But I bounced into a few people that, uh, they're they're they're still in it, but what they're focusing on is p S A graded. So they're buying uh you know, things that are numbered, things uh that are limited production and only the highest quality. Uh and and I have to agree with that. If if I were to pop back in, I would only want the rare items, the highest quality, and I wouldn't

want to know that it's real. You know, we haven't even touched on this, not that I was involved in it too much, but you know there was a story that of all the Michael Jordan's UH signed items were ownerfeit and and it's probably higher. It's probably the amount of fake autographs and fake fake jerseys and fake game war in this. You know, that was another way that it really suck money out of the industry. Also, people

became disillusioned by that. I would have counterfeit stuff and and fake autographs and fake letters of authenticity come in all the time. You know, you really had to, you know, have your wits about you. You had to have the magnifying glass. You had to be familiar with. I can't tell you how many signed Babe Ruth baseballs came into my store. I mean, jeez, come on, come on. They were counterfeit though, Yeah, of course they were. But you had to know that, right, you had to question at

the time. Even but you know what, let me tell you something. You can see some of these, you know, they you know, sometimes they could take a ball from that era that might have been signed by other Yankees, or just a ball from that era, and and and so you know, if you carbon dated, it would be from the era. Uh. And you can fade inc in sunlight. There's ways to fade inc. There's a lot there's a lot of creative ways of counterfeiting signatures. Uh. And memorabilia.

It's it's unbelievable, by temperatures, by lighting um, you know, by trimming um, by adding or subtracting something to it. Okay, Uh, Like I said, all not surprising as an adult, but a little part of me dies with every word that you say. We'll come back. We'll wrap it up with Chris Jimmy the Caroll on the way right here on a Numbers game, on a golf update right here at Visa.

Welcome back to a Numbers game with Jill, Alexander, Jason Sobel tweeting out some golf updates, majors and other notable events. The United States Open Golf tournament reschedule for September seventeen. That is the working date now for the US Open. UH they're at Winged Foot. It will be at Winged Foot in New York. So the new dates for the US Open September sevent The Open Championship that remains canceled,

which we once UH would call the British Open. The Open Championship that remains canceled, the p g a UH is now rescheduled for August six to nine. That was the one at Harding Park here in San Francisco, where I'm broadcasting from. That is now rescheduled for August six to nine. So p GA August six to nine, US Open, September seventy, as far as the Ryder Cup that remains at the end of September September, And if you're wondering about the Masters, the dates that they're thinking about, per

Jason Sobel, November twelve through the fifteen. You imagine so augusta national which closes down over the sub summer. Were of course used to seeing the azaleas in full bloom at the beginning of April. Tentative dates for this year's

Masters November twelve to the fifteenth. By the way, UM FedEx playoffs pushed back one week as well that according to Jason Sobel again, so p GA August six and nine, the US up in September, Ryder Cup September seven, the Masters just before Thanksgiving November twelve, fift if in fact all of that happens, and this is as best as they can come up with the schedule here uh in early April, um Chris Las Vegas, Chris still with us, you want to take some tweets here because I've got

some questions. Uh for you. Uh, let's see here, Gary Kincaid, where can we go to find a reputable baseball card evaluator with this new grading system? Um? Well you you had, You've got several grading services. I think you know. P s A was the number one service that I'm familiar with. Uh h, But I think a simple Google search will do that. David Foreman, great show today on the baseball

card industry guilt. Although it's making me realize that ten year old me was caught holding the bags on these things. We all were man, ten year old, all of us were all them lawns mode and sidewalk shovel just to be hustled into thinking cards had value. So true, Brock Marshalla, going down memory lane here, this was my time the Billy Ripkin can say, a rated rookie, upper deck, all of it. What was it you wanted to say off air?

You mentioned something, Chris that from the previous question in the previous segment, Um, something related to sports betting again about the notion of finding smaller markets in sports betting. Could you get into that a little? Yeah, well I wanted to Scott. Scott Hoffman was asking, you know, you know what would I do now? I would also wait that to betting. Also is better collect what you like,

don't don't you know, just be careful. So if I was if I was collecting now, I would want to do it and stuff that I'm really interested and not solely for the purpose of it's going to be worth more later. But you know, another correlation of how baseball cards and collecting went is the same as betting. You had to get to a point where you needed to diversify the way that uh, you know, we're starting to bet smaller market sports, uh to find value. That's what

you had to do with trading cards. And you moved to the basketball. You moved to the football, and then you're sitting in there and you're going to wonderbred cards and you're going to entertain and cards and uh um like the Star Basketball which was you know, a bag set that didn't come out and packs. Um. I've got these Olympic cards that I had a you know, a

bunch of these Olympic cards that are pretty rare. Um. So you have to do the same thing because that you did there with sports to find the real value because it doesn't matter what the market is there's the value is going to be lost and all the information is consolidated. So if you're smart you find these little, small, little niches of value, I think you'll benefit more. You're not betting table tennis or soccer in Belarus or Chris, I'm not, but I did see that what was that

ten nine or ten pong pong parlay? That one? Yeah? No, I was mentioning the other day that listen, people who people who think, uh, these off shores or trouble, at least the reputal ones, uh reports of their demise are greatly exaggerated. As I was mentioning, Uh, you know, thirty K and the handle on some of these MADD simulations. I'm sure it's higher than that these days, um than it was even five days go, and maybe even more

predictive than actual football. That's a whole another matter when get into that another day, more with Las Vegas, Chris, Jimmy Viccarro on the way. As we wrap things up the baseball card industry, the rise and fall. We were all scammed, all of us right here on the Numbers game at Visa, these pools betting out. Welcome back to a numbers game with Jill Alexander. Support for a numbers game comes from manscaped, the best in men's below the

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at the end to your balls. Will thank you, Chris. Whatever they're paying me, it's not enough. Well, that reminds me. In fourth grade, I was suspended for bringing a T shirt that said tennis players have fuzzy balls? Is that true? That's true story? Really, that's a true story. I drew story. I thought it was hilarious at the time, and that we suspended you when you were in fourth grade. Yeah,

they sent me home. Can't wear that shirt? Okay. I thought they like issued a formal suspension where they were like telling you how old are You're like nine years old, there like, I'm sorry, you've been suspended for two weeks or something like that. They just sent you home that day hot water. Um, I was. This has nothing to do with wearing a T shirt that says the word

balls on it. I was kicked out of the Washington d c. Chapter of my Hebrew school and sent to Potomac, Maryland because I knew more Hebrew than the teachers and would tell the kids, the their kids what the teachers were saying to each other. How about that? How about that, Chris? How about that for somebody? Nobody? Nobody likes to know it all in any language. They certainly they certainly, we're not happy with me over at Abrew School at d c Um. How about the Masters? You catch that last

last segment. I didn't really get your reaction on that. How about the notion of the Masters being played in November? Wow? Well why not? When does it really why does it really matter when it's played? Well, it doesn't. I mean, apparently that course is fine. Again. They close Augusta in the summertime. We we know it for all its beauty and spring, but apparently it's very nice at that time of year, late in the year as well. I mean, the grass is different for sure, and the look will

be will be somewhat different. Golf is the one sport that during this pandemic, you really did hope that golf because there's the distancing that's inherent in it. But it is about the travel and getting the players there and and so I do understand that of it. That's why they they had to UH spend the tournaments, but they're they're at least going to try to give a go at this later in the UH later in the year. Um. But just wrapping up everything, and thanks to everybody for

tweeting at Beating the book. It seems to have resonated with UH with a whole bunch of people. And I knew it would because so many of us grew up, um, you know, as sports bettors first really speculating in the baseball card industry and learning about the value of collectibles or what we thought the valuable of collectibles of the value of collectibles were at that time. And it's really

our first correlation between sports and money. And I do agree with what you said earlier, and I think these are the macro points that it really did, I think create a certain education for those of us who ended up being sports bettors, to learn the proper value of things, to learn that some things weren't what they were perceived as, that other people had different value on items than you might have. I get back to the very original point

we made. We often think about this the baseball card industry as this quaint slice of Americana where fathers and sons would bond over a shared love of baseball and a shared love of collecting cards, when in fact it's a shout out to the moms of the world from the generation before hours. Those were the moms who threw out all their cards. Danny Burke, who's uh? Who's in

studio on a numbers game. We didn't get to hear much from the day today, but Danny was talking about how his uh in his family there was an instance

of that as well, where someone throughout baseball carts. It was that kind of uh thing that created this market of value when we were kids, and it's that very it's the very opposite of that then ended up ruining the market, if you will, with mass production um and the notion that thirty years hence our cards would be just as valuable as they were at the time in the eighties and nineties, but we just didn't get that that's what created the market, and they were doing the

exact opposite through scams and all kinds of shenanigans when we were kids. You were mentioning as sort of your macro statement of the whole thing about collectibles in general and how it teach us about markets. Chris off air Well, getting back to the moms, they karma got them back with beanie babies, that they were the most dysfunctional group of collectors. No, I'm not I'm not kidding. They are worse than they're Yeah, they are worse than any drug dealer, uh,

drug user, gambleholic, uh, you name it. The beanie baby collectors, barn none are the most dysfunctional people. Uh ever, ever, ever, ever, the moms themselves. I mean, don't get me wrong, there was a normal people. But you know, collectibles in general are just you know, it's like a game of hot potato. I mean everything that we buy in life, you know, stocks, medals, houses, uh, cars, it doesn't matter. You know, the price guides mean nothing. Nothing is worth worth uh what it says in a

price guide. It's only worth what somebody is willing to pay you at that moment in time, and that's what collectors failed to to remember, and there was a time period. Getting back to Beckett, I had a standing policy I'm selling at I'm buying a ten percent of high Beckett. And I'm selling and I'm selling it of high Beckett. Uh. You know I would have showcases filled with stuff. It wouldn't be everything in the store, but that was my

general policy. You can buy it of the price, and you can if you want to sell it to me. I'm buying it a ten percent because that that was the range that I found the most given take on. But the people fool themselves into the looking at price guides or or or eBay. Oh I saw this go on eBay for this much. It's all bs. You know how many fake sales there are and how many people are buying their own products and having friends by it.

It's just to prop things up. And it's the same way they did it with betting lines, where they're trying to prop up games throughout the week just so that they can pound it back down right before game town, where the beanie baby moms like pushing the shoving each other out of the way, like, what were they? Were they worse than the cabbage patch moms? Oh yeah, seriously,

I mean, it's just ridiculous. It was unbelievable, the lines and the passion, and and I would, I would, I would run ads in the paper, don't buy these, these are really overpriced. But I have them. I'm the first person in the state you can see the twelve new beanie babies. And then they'd be absurdly overpriced and they'd be gone. They be gone. So these people actually have

thought they I can't. I can't tell you how many times moms would honestly say it's going to help out my my child college one, and I would tell him, please don't do that. Well, we'll end on that note. Human beings irrational then irrational. Now, Chris, I appreciate it so much, man, Thank you so much.