THWC 439: How Would 10 Year Old You Hobby?

What's up, everybody? How About Cage episode 349 today, brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder, use code, Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks. And by the Philly Show, Be a little bit of a different one today. Maybe shorter. Who knows? It's not planned out. I don't really have a script. I usually don't have a script for these things. I have a rough idea of kind of what I want to say, but you never really know where it's going to go. And today, maybe even a little more. A little more of a tangent than anything else. I was talking to my daughter yesterday about what she wants to do, and, you know, that led to talking to my son about what he wants to do. And, you know, after I Tribute them off for camp, it got me thinking about what it is that I want to do. So I'm not dead yet. I know some of you guys who meet me think I'm on my way. You know, I'm not exactly young, but I'm not dead yet. And what's funny about it is, you know, I come on here and I talk about the hobby, right? I talk about the. The issues that I think you guys want to hear about. I hope I do a good enough job of that. It's mostly what I'm thinking about in the space. So today's episode is going to be a little bit more of that, too. Kind of what I'm thinking about today. But I think about some of the episodes that I've done just in the past week. And we talk about titles like, is PSA about to kill the hobby? When's it gonna end? Or your card values just went up? Or how to make money in the hobby, right now, talking about bounty discussions or fan cash and what inning is. Had me thinking because of the conversation that I was having with my kids, and then my own internal conversation, right? And it's. I guess this might be important as well. I remember being a kid. I'm sure you guys too, as well. And what's funny is I find myself enjoying this space. Because it brings me back to being a kid, you know, and when my daughter says she wants to sing and my son tells me about what he wants to do, and I remember my fifth grade elementary school yearbook saying I wanted to play football. And then, you know, I evolved a little bit and said I wanted to be a sports agent. But, you know, I mean, obviously sports was something that we did as kids, you know, it was something that we did that was social. It was something that we did that we enjoyed. I got to tell you, I think back to when I was a kid, and we're talking about a time before the Internet here, guys, a time before. Fantasy football and fantasy baseball and that kind of stuff. But I remember being a 10 year old and watching a black and white television and watching a Met game. Like, I have a vivid memory of this, watching a Met game and Dwight Gooden was pitching and I had a little piece of paper and a pen, and every time he struck somebody out, I would count the strikeouts. You know, almost like. I mean, people have been keeping score in games forever, but this was just. I want to see how many he has, you know, I want to see if he can set a record. I want to see. I want to be, you know, there. And it allowed me to kind of be part of the game by scoring it, watching it, you know, by. By kind of counting along with them. And I remember Patrick Ewing played for Georgetown and he came to the Knicks. And I was a Knick fan as a kid. You know, Michael Jordan beat the Knick fandom out of me. But. But I was a big Patrick Ewing guy. And I remember watching him play and counting the rebounds and counting, is he gonna have a good game today? And I wasn't doing this because I own Patrick Ewing cards. I don't know why I was doing it, to be honest. I remember, you know, looking at the stats for his game and. And, you know, yelling to my brother, he's up to 18 points. You know, he's up to 18 points. This is going to be a good one. And then being able to buy cards, you know, and looking at the stats on the back of them and being able to compare players and this was fun. I mean, maybe. Maybe that makes me a nerd, I don't know. But my fandom of sports, you know, what I enjoyed as a kid, what I enjoyed doing, I mean, I would have been nice. Yu-Gi-Oh jeez. Would have been nice to be able to, you know, play sports, of course, you know, but, you know, not all of us get to play professional sports. Not all of us get to do that. You know, not all of us get to play, you know, as a professional. Mostly none of us do. But it's funny to think about this, right? I guess now as I get a little older and I think about my kids, the real thought process for this was, when do we get away from our dreams and what can I do as a parent to make sure maybe they don't give up on theirs? The same way that almost all of us gave up on ours. And then to throw a little, you know, sprinkle a little fun on top of that is, we have some hobby friends who are getting back to their roots. They get back to their dreams. They're starting hobby stores. You know, they're hobbying full time. You know, I don't know if you guys follow along like Cajun, who's even older than me, I mean, but he's, you know, he's now diving back in, and he's going to be full time. You know, there's another lawyer in the space. He's going hobby full time. And there has to be something there, right? There has to be something there about. About the draw of this, the sports draw, the. The card draw, the hobby draw. Dare I say, all roads eventually lead you back to the interests you had as a child. Is that fair? Now we get away from them. Why do we get away from them? Who knows? You know, I'm gonna get a little philosophical on you now, right? I mean, why were we interested in what we were interested in as kids? I don't know. Why did I want to keep Patrick Ewing's stats? I have no idea. Why do you keep coming back to the same movie you watched as a kid or the same song that means something to you? I have no idea. Why did we get away from it to begin with? And why am I talking about this today, boring you? Well, because it's very easy to get lost in our space, lost in the comps. And I got a great comment yesterday that somebody sent me about how it's funny for me to do an episode that says, you know, comps are a bad thing, and at the same time be wearing a card ladder hat, as I am wearing today. And, you know, I tried to have a conversation with this person about, you know, how they're missing the point and how, you know, I did a whole episode on how comps are very important for the space and how, you know, a lot of what we're building now depends on that, you know, that information and just the, you know, the constant flow of data. And then the next one was, you know, being able to do some research, Being able to research cards that don't sell that often is just as important, if not more important, might be an avenue for you to make a little money. But what was funny about that was here I am doing all these episodes about the data. And I mean, the data part of it, it might be something that's important to the hunt, the research, the set building. It doesn't all have to be about, I'm going to buy this today because I want it to go up in value and sell it tomorrow. And there's nothing wrong with that either. Guys, this is no preaching like, you know, hobby bad. It's every once in a while you find somebody who is hobbying the way you would have as a 10 year old. And I think that's maybe my, my, my blabbering on here, maybe where my brain was on this, right? 99.9% of you who will listen to this would be like, cage, you're a moron. Why are you wasting my time with this? I got a job, I got responsibilities. Sure, I wanted to be an airline pilot when I was a kid, but now I'm, you know, the manager of the meatpacking company. I am the, you know, I'm a toll collector, you know, I'm a risk manager. I'm a, whatever I am. And I got to keep doing that because that job, that's what puts food on the table. I got kids, I got bills to pay. I, you know, what do you want me to do? You want me to drop everything and become a dinosaur? Because that's what I wanted to do when I was 10? No, but maybe, maybe what makes the hobby great isn't all the downtowns that you can flip and buy today and sell tomorrow. Maybe it's that you can get a piece of that 10 year old back. Maybe it's that you can, you know, spend a little money, spend a little time and get back to what you did because you wanted to do it, not because it was what was expected of you or you had to start choosing what was practical over what made you feel alive. It's funny how this space can do that. And I come off of a show where I was walking around with another dad and I bought three packs of 1987 Topps cards. And I mean, you know, this is junk wax. These should be less than a dollar, I think, I think I paid two or three dollars each for them, which is just kind of silly. But was it worth it? Yu-Gi-Oh because when Gary Carter came out, he was, I remember watching Gary Carter and the Billy Bean card was out and I had just watched Moneyball. And you know, I happened to run into another hobby friend and his son and showed him the Billy Bean that I put like. We were watching Moneyball, we were just watching that movie. There's something about it. It doesn't always have to be the million dollar sales that I talked about in my news yesterday. And it's just millions and millions and millions. And that's great. Obviously, it brings eyeballs to the space. It grows the space. And this is not shitting on that at all. That is a great, great thing also. But I just. I'm going to have to do better at this myself. And maybe it's one episode out of every 349 or 450. I don't even know what episode I'm up to here. You know, maybe it's one out of. However, there are. I think I said episode 349 to start this off. I think I shortchanged myself, like a hundred episodes, now that I think about it. But maybe it's once in a while, you know, you dedicate a dollar of every hundred you spend or you dedicate a couple minutes of this. I try to do it right because I go to the Philly show and I buy a box every time and I make my son open it with me. And I'm sure he hates it, but I don't care. He doesn't hate it. You know, something that I opened when I was a kid, a Fleer Ultra, you know, trying to get Shaq and Jordan out of packs. I did it at the national. I bought McDonald's Upper Deck packs and opened them with people because those were the packs that I could afford because they were the what came with your McDonald's meals when you went there with your parents. You know, I wasn't opening 93 Finest. I was opening the two card McDonald's packs. But I had more fun at national opening those packs with people and remembering what it was like to open those packs. I'm not telling you, quit your job. I mean, come on, we all have to be smart. I'm not telling you to, you know, to, you know, try to remember what it was that made you happy and then go chase that. We all have lives that we have to live. I think one of the things that I have to get back to in the hobby, and maybe you'll enjoy it as well, because every once in a while, you know, skipping away from the business side of it, skipping away from the, you know, the crazy sales, the, you know, the headlines, the drama, the, you know, who's gonna be at what show, who's breaking, what card got pulled, what company is doing this. And. And remember, there's something real there. There's something nostalgic there. There's something that draws you back there. There's something that almost, I want to say, money can't buy, but obviously, you know, spending the $2 for an Topps pack did buy it. There's something cool about this for us and I'm sure for other people it's different, right? I mean, it is about all roads leading you back to the interest you had as a child. Not everybody was interested in sports cards or sports. You know, everybody has their own thing. But for us, for you guys listening to this, at least for the most part, there is something that draws you back. So I don't know, you may hate this episode, I kind of don't care. You got to do it every now and again. Because this is where my brain is and that's what I do. I mean, I come on and I share with you guys where my brain is, what I'm thinking about in the space. Every once in a while, it's important to remember why you're here because you have a limited amount of time. You have a limited amount of time on this planet. And I guess as I get closer to having less time in front of me than I had behind me, it's. It's one of those things I think about. And I got to tell you, I enjoy spending time in this space. So much so that, Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I have let myself think about, you know, making this a full time thing. And it's funny how nostalgia will do that. It's funny how, you know, being closer to the, you know, the purity of childhood will do that and make you think that way. You know, maybe, maybe thinking like a 10 year old in the hobby isn't going backwards. Maybe it's finally finding a way back to a version of yourself that existed before you learned that you have to do something because you think you have to do it instead of doing it because it's something that you love doing. And that's it. That's my episode for today. I think it will resonate with some of you. I think some of you will think it's just blabbering and that's fine too. It really just stems from a couple minute conversation that I had with my kids this morning about what they want to do with their lives. And they have not turned left yet and gone away from what they love to do and to what they have to do. So one-of-one it just get you thinking. I mean, it got me thinking. I hope it gets you thinking too, because I'm thankful for the hobby. I'm thankful I get to kind of, you know, participate in it. And I mean, listen, it's important you remember that the, the kid that you were didn't disappear and get replaced by the version of you that you see in the mirror today. I mean, sometimes they're just waiting for you to remember what made you feel alive when you were 10. Go find that. And that's another episode, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. If you didn't. Tough. That one's brought to you by card ladder. Brought to you by Arena Club and by the Philly Show. Use code cage on card ladder. Save yourself a couple bucks. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow. Take care, everybody.