[uvaspina]

I bought a blaster of 2010 Chrome and got a Strasburg base refractor. At the time Strasburg was pretty hot and I was excited to get it. I also got a Hayward, which was another good Rc at the time. After that, I bought a retail box or two from topps.com, then what really brought me back full force was butting a hobby box of A&G. Right off the bat, I got a California state relic, and an Ortiz rip card (which I traded to Travelingmandan for, essentially, nothing since he has apparently gone AWOl). It was a whole new experience for me buying nice stuff like that. When I was a kid I got a collated box of that year's topps set (1980-1994) for Christmas, plus loose packs at the grocery store and the occasional "hard case" card from my local card & coin shop. my dad would also take me to a card show once in a while and I'd load up on tigers, David Justice, and Frank Thomas cards. Anyway, I'm 31 now and I think there's plenty of growth in the hobby for come-again collectors like me.

The card companies would do themselves a big favor if they bought better shelf space at the check-out lines in grocery stores. That's prime time kid territory that's lost out to candy, gum & batteries these days. Kids -for unknown reasons- like Pokemon and magic cards. Surely the brilliant minds at topps can figure out a way to make baseball (or sports cards, for that matter) appealing to the 7-11 year old audience.