Fielder’s Choice Baseball Card Blog

Gellman from Sports Cards Uncensored had a brilliant idea in late 2008 when he started the Blog Bat Around.  The idea is for a large number of card blogs to write about one particular topic at the same time.  Essentially, we all write about our thoughts on the topic and “bat it around”.  The first two Blog Bat Arounds took place in November and December and they were extremely successful, with a huge amount of participation.  You can see the results from the first Blog Bat Around here and the second one here if you missed them before, or if you want to take another look at them.

Gellman hosted the first two Blog Bat Arounds on Sports Cards Uncensored, but his intention was for other blogs to host them in the future.  So I volunteered to host the third one.  If you’re interested in hosting the fourth, let me know.  I think it’s a great way to get visibility for your blog, and obviously it’s a great way for everyone who participates to gain some readers.  And the Bat Arounds are a great opportunity to read a wide variety of different perspectives about the card collecting hobby.

So here is the topic for the Third Blog Bat Around:

2008 is over and 2009 has just begun.  We’ve seen the previews for the first card releases of the new year.  We also know that Upper Deck is planning to eliminate a few brands in 2009, and with the economy in a recession, Topps and other card companies may follow suit.  As collectors, we want to see the card companies make cards that we want to collect, but how do they know what we want?  This is your chance to tell them…

What type of sets would you like to see produced in 2009 and beyond?  What sets from 2008 and past years do you want to see return, and which brands would you like to see killed off?  How could existing brands be improved and what new types of card sets would you like to see created?  Should new sets be geared more toward set collectors, or should the number of hits (autographs and game-used relics) be increased?  What about short prints?  Parallels?  Inserts?  Gimmicks?  What do you love about current cards, what do you hate, and where should the card companies go from here?

We have a chance here to speak our minds to the card companies and tell them what we, as their consumers, want them to produce.  If we can get huge participation from the card blogosphere like we have gotten from the first two blog bat arounds, then we can make a huge impact, and the card companies would be foolish not to read what we have to say and take our input seriously.  It’s not every day that they can get input on future products directly from their most passionate customers.

I think that this has the potential to make a huge impact, not only in the sports card blogosphere, but in the entire hobby.

Here are the rules established by Gellman, which I’ve only modified slightly:

• This is an open forum, and anyone can participate at any time.  I will not discriminate, nor will I leave you out if we don’t agree.  Heck, even the bloggers at Beckett can participate if they want to!
• Please make your post at least semi-relevant to the topic.  You can be as creative as you want, but keep the general topic in mind.  You don’t need to answer all of the questions in the topic, but your post should address what kinds of products you’d like to see the card companies produce.
• Keep your post PG or PG-13, I won’t censor it, but this is necessary since we’ll have a vast audience, which might include kids.
• Give us something to read, so don’t just write two sentences and call it a day.  Make this a normal post, as you would want your readers to see it as a normal part of your blog.  Given the great entries that we’ve seen in the past, I don’t think this will be a problem.
• Please give your post a title, and mark it so it’s easy to find when you give me the link.  If you want your full name included and not just your blog title, put it in there somewhere.
• Please comment on this post or email me the link to your post so that I’ll know about it.

The deadline will be Tuesday night, January 20, at 12:00 AM (midnight) EST. I’ll then write a post listing all of the entries by Wednesday night, January 21.  If you miss the deadline, you can still participate, but your entry will be at the bottom of the list.  And finally, if you don’t have your own blog, but you want to write about this topic, you can email your entry to me and I’ll post it as a “guest post” on Fielder’s Choice.