2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 205 + A Holiday Surprise from Topps

I got my Topps UFC NOW bundle of cards from UFC 205 a little while back, but haven't found time yet to post about them. I've got a lot of drafts in my queue, and I am trying to prioritize packages I've received from other bloggers over stuff from corporations and eBay sellers, but I also want to get some of the older stuff cleared out. It seems like half the time I am struggling to find material to post, and the other half I am considering posting twice a day so I can get to all of the many things I want to post about. I suppose I'm doing all right if that sort of problem appears on my list of worries.

UFC 205 was a pretty big deal, earning 5 Topps NOW cards. Card 205-A went to the big headline of the night, which was Conor McGregor winning the Lightweight belt in a dominant and rapid victory over Eddie Alvarez. The victory gave him both the Lightweight and Featherweight belts. After he held the belts for a couple of weeks, he gave up/was stripped of the Featherweight belt, which went back to Jose Aldo. Him winning the two belts was pretty impressive, but the UFC probably saw that there wasn't any more money in keeping two belts tied up by one guy, and gave back the belt to the weight division Conor was least likely to fight in again. That is my take on it, at least. This card had a print run of 474 copies, the 2nd-highest UFC NOW print run to date, trailing only McGregor's card from UFC 202.

Although Conor McGregor led the hype train that was the first UFC event in New York, the rest of the card had some good moments. Maybe the weirdest moment was at the end of the Tyron Woodley - Stephen Thompson fight for the Welterweight title. The bout was initially announced as a victory for Woodley, but then Bruce Buffer issued a correction, stating that it was instead a draw. Woodley looked confused and angry, and I really thought he was going to go after Buffer or anyone within reach. Luckily, someone explained to him that he would be allowed to keep his belt with a draw result, and he calmed down. The print run on this one was 108 copies.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Karolina Kowalkiewicz went the full five rounds in their battle for the Strawweight title. Jedrzejczyk was in control throughout, but Kowalkiewicz threatened a couple of times, especially in the 4th round, and gave it her all. She just couldn't beat the champion. I was kind of surprised that this one didn't sell more copies, but it came in just ahead of the Woodley card with 111 copies sold.

Yoel Romero's flying knee knockout of Chris Weidman was absolutely nasty. It was the kind of knockout that makes you jump out of your seat, but also wonder if you're a bad person for getting excited about this sport. Romero's upcoming title shot against Michael Bisping should be a good fight. This card got the smallest print run for the event, with just 82 copies ordered.

Finally, the fight between Raquel Pennington and Miesha Tate got a card. Pennington got the victory by decision in a very close and not particularly exciting bout, and then Miesha Tate stole the thunder by announcing her retirement during the post-fight interviews. This card got 103 orders, which is more than I would have expected for a Pennington card. I think Topps put these ones up for pre-order, so a number of copies may have been sold to collectors anticipating a Tate victory.

This was a pretty good UFC event, with plenty of big names on the card and a healthy dose of action. The upcoming UFC 207 promises to be a pretty huge event as well, and it will ultimately be judged by how the Amanda Nunes - Ronda Rousey fight plays out. I'm looking forward to it. A fighter whose cards I collect, Neil Magny, is also on the card for the Preliminaries, so I will be tuning in hoping for a victory out of him.

I've seen these popping up around the blogs, and I also received a Topps NOW holiday card. Rumor has it that anyone who directly ordered a card through the website during the 2016 season got one sent to them. You're probably out of luck if you only purchased them through re-sellers, although there are plenty listed on eBay if you need your fix. The greeting card is shown above...

...and down here is the trading card that was enclosed. It's got some of the most popular subjects from the 2016 Topps NOW set sharing one piece of cardboard. Most people seem to agree that Kris Bryant, Ichiro, and David Ortiz deserve a spot on the short list for this card, but question the inclusion of Yankees rookie Gary Sanchez. All I know is that people on the Blowout forums were going nuts for his cards every time another one was released. They couldn't get enough of this guy, and that is probably why he is included here.

This was a pretty cool move from Topps, and makes up somewhat for the practice of charging cardboard-addicted collectors to the tune of $9.99/card for their Topps NOW fix throughout the baseball season.

Get on Your Bikes and Ride!

There was a baseball game last night. I don't have a particular affinity for Cleveland or Chicago, but I was kind of pulling for Cleveland to pull out the win. That didn't happen, but there was plenty of excitement and that was good enough for me.

The Cubs' rebuilding process has worked out very well, which is more than I can say for my Houston Astros so far. The Astros have too many holes in their roster, and I don't know if they will be able to fill them well enough to compete at a championship-worthy level.

I picked up a Cubs card recently, the 2016 Topps NOW card # 475, featuring World Series MVP Ben Zobrist riding his bicycle to the park after the Cubs clinched their division. The card received some criticism at the time it was released, as it was delayed by a day while Topps secured rights to use the photo. Topps usually uses photographs from Getty Images and probably has some kind of agreement in place, but I believe this photo was taken by Zobrist's wife and required some sort of separate contract. The card was very popular, with a print run of 2,968 copies.

There is a second Ben Zobrist bicycle card out there on the Topps website that is still available for purchase. Until tomorrow (04 NOV 2016) at midnight ET, purchasing the card earns an entry into a drawing for a replica of a bike Zobrist designed. Proceeds from the sale of the cards go to a charity.

Topps NOW - Year of the Colon

Apparently 2016 was The Year of the Colon for me, as I picked up several of Bartolo Colon's Topps NOW cards throughout the 2016 season. There are actually even a few I am missing, which seems crazy for a guy who isn't exactly a superstar.

2016 Topps NOW # 315 - Print Run: 741

He appeared on 6 total cards in the regular season set (46, 57, 270, 315, 360, and 396) and one Postseason card (NYM-11), for a total of 7 Topps NOW cards. Most players didn't even get one card, let alone seven, but most players aren't rotund hurlers with legendarily zany plate appearances, either. His everyman appearance and his highlight/lowlight reel make him a fan favorite of sorts, and probably perfect for multiple cards in this print-on-demand set. I've discussed before my wishy-washy internal conflict about collecting the cards of a guy who has been suspended for PED usage and sued for allegedly failing to pay child support for his mistress' children, but in the end I've allowed myself to look past that stuff and enjoy his on-field exploits. I am not too worried one way or the other about the PED case, but I do hope that he is doing right by all of his kids. The facts surrounding the child support case aren't public as far as I know, so I can't fairly judge him one way or the other. Ideally, every child would be raised in a good environment by loving parents, but most families have some kind of complications.

Although Colon is a pitcher by trade, several of his NOW cards have focused on his batting. The big one was his first home run, which really put Topps NOW on the map and sold a whopping 8,826 copies. a number that was only surpassed by the card printed for Ichiro's 3,000th hit a couple of months later. His HR card's print run is still almost 3,600 more than the 3rd place card, which features Yankees rookies Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge after hitting back-to-back home runs in their first major-league at-bats. He also got a card for drawing the first walk of his career in the same season as he hit his first home run, after a record 282 plate appearances without drawing a free pass. This one was a lot less popular than the HR card, though with only 1,120 copies printed.

2016 Topps NOW # 396 - Print Run: 492

This card is a little bit hokey, but by the time card #396 came around Topps knew that Bartolo Colon NOW cards were like free money for the taking. Colon had his first multi-hit game since 2002, and Topps went ahead and commemorated the event with a card. This one was a little less popular with collectors and only pulled in 492 ordered copies.

2016 Topps NOW # 57 - Print Run: 8,826

There are three Bartolo Colon Topps NOW cards that I do not have in my collection. The first one, 2016 Topps NOW #46, is the most rare of the bunch. It came before the popular home run card and has a print run of just 298. It is currently the most expensive of Colon's NOW cards on eBay. As far as subject matter, it highlight's Colon's 220th win, surpassing Pedro Martinez on the all-time wins list.

His other regular season card that I don't own is card #270, which shows different retro uniforms that MLB teams wore. Colon isn't the only player on the card, but he is one of the six players who have pictures on the card. He certainly didn't get onto that card for his performance, as he gave up 6 earned runs on 8 hits in 4.1 innings in a 2-6 loss to the Cubs.

He also has a postseason card, #NYM-11, which is part of the Mets' postseason team set. That was only available as part of the team set, but some internet sellers have parted out the sets into singles. The set had a print run of 392.

I don't know if I will chase down those last three cards. Card #47 is a little expensive for what it is, and the other two don't really move the needle for me as far as subject matter.

Topps NOW Ichiro

I've been thinking about doing another Sketch Card Week, but I've got a lot of cool stuff in-hand or arriving in the mail this week, and I don't want to hold off on those posts just so I can do Sketch Card Week. By the time I get everything posted, though, I might have to extend Sketch Card Week to something like Sketch Card Fortnight. I guess I could go with something generic like Sketch Card Mania! or Sketch Card SummerSlam! or Sketchy-Looking Underpass!

Anyway, I've seen quite a few bloggers posting these Topps NOW Ichiro cards, and I also picked up a couple of them. I like the Topps NOW program, but I am not going to buy a card for every walk-off win, every Gary Sanchez hit (or near-hit), or every almost no-hitter. I try to pick up cards for big historical milestones and a card here and there for players I like a lot.

I thought Ichiro getting to the 4,257 hit mark was a pretty good milestone, although Pete Rose wasn't too happy about the publicity he got for it, claiming that they are trying to make Rose into the Hit Queen. I think I might have bought this from the Topps website, as there were (unfounded) rumors that random autographs might be distributed among the print run.

A couple of months later Ichiro made it to 3,000 MLB hits and Topps released another card for that milestone, a two-sided piece with several images from the game. Pretty cool stuff. Lately Topps has milked the Ichiro cash cow a few times, releasing new NOW cards each time he passes another person on the MLB hit list. They also cashed in pretty heavily on relic NOW cards featuring pieces of a base from the 3,000-hit game. The 1/1 went for $999.99 and there were also #/10, #/25, #/49, and #/99 versions of the relic card that sold from $179.99 for the #/99 up to $599.99 for the #/10 version. They sold out pretty quickly, too, so there are people with money out there just loving this Topps NOW stuff. I am content with my couple of base cards celebrating the major milestones. I bought this one on eBay, because the release of the relic card pretty much guaranteed that autographs weren't forthcoming.

Running a 20K with Max Scherzer

I still haven't nabbed any of the Astros' Topps NOW cards, but here's another one I picked up featuring a guy I kind of PC. It's obvious that I am 1) a crowd-follower and 2) not a good investor, as my two Topps NOW purchases have been among the largest print runs to date. This one had a reported run of 3,746 copies.

This card commemorates Max Scherzer's 20-strikeout effort against the Detroit Tigers on May 11th, which tied an MLB record held by several other pitchers. The victory in that game also made him the second active pitcher to defeat all 30 MLB teams in a career. I thought this was a cool card with all of those K's lined up, and while I don't typically chase Scherzer cards too hard I do set his cards aside as a player collection when I find them.

I didn't pay full price for this card. I bought it from an eBay reseller who sold it to me for about 60% of the single-copy price on the Topps website. They must have taken advantage of one of the bulk deals that Topps offers on these cards, but even then they couldn't have made too much money off of me. It was a Buy It Now listing, though, so whatever their profit margin was is their own business. I was just happy to get a copy of the card at a decent price.

A Dilemma of Colonic Proportions

When Bartolo Colon hit his home run last month I got caught up in the hype and anticipated the release of his Topps NOW card the next day. I didn't actually purchase the card from Topps at full price, but once the print run was announced at 8,826 copies I was able to snag one from the many resellers on eBay at a discounted price. Colon's exploits with a bat and on the basepaths have become baseball legend in a blooper-reel kind of way, and that makes his record-setting (oldest pitcher to homer, oldest player to hit their first home run) knock interesting enough to garner a whole load of attention.

I generally have a low-to-no-tolerance policy for players who get popped for PED use. I hesitated to even order this card, because Bartolo Colon is one of the guys who's been suspended for PED violations. I don't really give Ryan Braun a pass (just as an example) and I probably won't give Dee Gordon a pass, either, but Colon's zaniness as a batter and his portly build pushed me to kind of look past his cheating. It's a double standard and I recognize that it is, but I can't explain fully why I let some guys off the hook and others I condemn for basically the rest of their careers. Maybe it is just a personality thing.

So of course as soon as I worked all that out in my mind and ordered the card, the news came out that Colon was being sued for being a deadbeat dad to a couple of kids. Well, heck. I could go either way on PED use, but I am a firm believer that you've got to take care of your kids. The lawsuit just alleges that he hasn't taken care of his kids, though, so I can't assume that he really hasn't taken care of those children, but it certainly raises a red flag. I imagine that the courts will keep whatever happens sealed and we won't know how this gets settled unless one party or the other wants us to know. In the end I guess it's none of my business, but until I hear otherwise my fandom of Bartolo Colon will be followed by an asterisk.