The WNBA Card Podcast: Indiana Fever Through the Eyes of a Team Collector with Mitch (@almanacsportscards)

Foreign. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the WNBA Card Podcast here on Stacking Slabs Network hosted by my good friend Caitlin at Cold Lunch Cards Fun one today. Shout out card ladder for supporting the WNBA Card Podcast, the official data provider of the pod. In the broader Stacking Slabs Network, the Team Collector series marches forward. I'm fired up. Caitlyn is facilitating out here, bringing passionate team collectors to all of us. And this one's a special one for me because today we're covering my squad, the Indiana Fever. And I was really fired up when Caitlin shared the list of team collectors and we would be hearing from Mitch at Almanac Sports Cards. Mitch has the greatest Tamika Catchings collection these eyes have ever seen. Love connecting with other passionate team collectors and excited to share this episode with all of you. And I got to give Caitlin some love here. Caitlin was featured in the PSA Mag from this month with Victor Wembanyama on the COVID in an article by Ryan Fagan. Asia Major Wilson star is soaring, but her cards haven't caught up. Caitlin was quoted throughout that article representing the damn pod and it was awesome. So make sure you go check out that article wherever you can and make sure you're following us at the WNBA Card Pod on the Instagram machine. And if you want to show your support for the broader Stacking Slabs Network, hit the follow button. Tell a damn friend, run on over to the Patreon group. But for now, we got Mitch Almanac sports cards coming at you. Welcome back, loyal listeners. The Stacking Slabs Podcast to season five, episode three of the WNBA Card Podcast. My name is Caitlyn and I go by at cold lunch cards on the Instagram machine, but on other corners of the Internet as well. And for season five, episode three, we are covering one of the most popular franchises in sports in general today, at least in my opinion. And that would be the Indiana Fever. Last week we talked to a Mercury collector all about the Phoenix Mercury. And today we're going back to the Midwest, away from the west to the Midwest. And we're talking with Mitch. Mitch is a die hard Indiana Fever fan and I am so, so excited to bring you guys kind of like into the world of a Fever collector. It feels like a chaotic kind of like emerging space in the card collecting world. And Mitch, I'm just so excited to have you here today. How are you doing? I'm great. Thank you for having me, Caitlin. I appreciate it. Yeah, of course. And so before we kind of get into the hard hitting question, what it's like to be a Fever collector and how you collect Fever cards. Do you mind introducing yourself to the audience if they don't know who you are? Kind of where you operate both in the card space, whether you have some socials and then what you do outside of cards. What kind of makes Mitch Mitch. Well, my name is Mitch. I appreciate you having me. I'm based here in Indianapolis. I'm a lifelong Hoosier here in Indiana and I am in in commercial real estate, brokerage and development and property management on a daily basis. But I've been collecting sports cards off and on since about 1993. I am on whatnot under Mitch Donor and then my Instagram handle is Almanac Sportscards, which is where I am most active. So I've been a WNBA fan since it was founded in 97. I've started out as a Rebecca Lobo and a Houston Comets fan. Okay. Once the Fever were founded, then I quickly abandoned both of those fandoms and became a Fever fan. So I I've been collecting WNBA cards since about the early 2000s, by about 2004. Ish. And then I've been obviously collecting ever since then. I took a little bit of a hiatus in the hobby for about 10 or 12 years, but got back into it in very early 2024. So in regards to my, my collecting fandom within the wnba, I do collect Caitlin Clark there. She's just not my primary focus. But I collect Tamika Katchens and Katie Douglas, who are Indiana Fever stalwarts. They're absolute legends, hall of Famers, and the Fever certainly wouldn't be what they are today without their performance and their commitment to the community 100%. There's a lot to unpack there. Mitch, you said a lot. I want to start kind of with where you are. You're in Indianapolis. What's it like? What's it like being a Fever fan in Indianapolis these days? It's great. The sports scene here in town is as big and as popular as it has been historically. Obviously we had success with Pacers last year. Indiana Hoosiers football has taken the world by storm. And then the Fever ever since Leah Boston came to Town in 2023 and then Caitlin Clark in 2024. The. The, the energy within the city itself is, is at an all time high. And I know that sounds cliche, but I don't have a better way to put it. And everybody just kind of feels a different way here in Indianapolis, which is a massive sports town to begin with, but now we feel you know, we get, we get more than our traditional Midwestern heat now because we have a lot of eyes upon us across the country because of all the attention that Caitlin Clark brings. So it's great. I focus more on what I can control, generally speaking, in life. So with everything that's going on with the Fever historically, and especially this year, with all of the extra attention that we're getting, I try not to get too high and mighty on the Fever fandom and I also try not to dwell too much in the Dumps. So whether it's a good week at practice or a bad week at practice or a good performance, bad performance in games, which there's a lot of attention on that with the Fever, especially over the past couple of weeks, I try to tune most of that out and I think Fever fans, generally speaking, feel pretty good about the team. That's awesome. I'm so glad to have you representing the Fever fans on this podcast. I think you're a perfect representation and you can kind of stay level headed as we have these conversations. You don't need to get too excited or too down in the dumps about whatever the controversy, whatever the flavor of the week is over there in Indiana. Let's focus on kind of, let's, let's focus with your personal collection. You named a couple players that you liked. You kind of explained a brief summary of your introduction into fandom with Rebecca Lobo in Houston, but then you transitioned over once your hometown team got a team. I want to ask you, when did you kind of realize card collecting wise, that you were becoming a Beaver team collector? Not just necessarily a WNBA card collector or some other type of collector. It would have been in 2001 when Tamika was drafted. Tamika. So she was drafted no. 1. I think she was third overall. Lauren Jackson went number one that year, but Tamika was coming off a really bad ACL injury from the March Madness Tournament during her final year at ut. So she didn't end up playing for an entire season because her rookie year was technically in 02. So, you know, WNBA card collecting back then was really refined just because there were only two products. So I would try to pick up any of the Fever cards that I could, whether they were new cards or duplicates, I didn't particularly care. I just wanted as many Fever cards as I could. So. And then when, when products started to evolve, especially with Rittenhouse's involvement, that's when it became, became a full on assault for me, collecting all the Fever cards that I could. Gotcha. And so when you say all the Fever cards you could has that kind of philosophy or. Lane continued, or have you sharpened your focus? When I look at your Instagram page, I see kind of player super collector on top of team collector. Would you consider. Would you kind of agree with that assessment? Or how would you describe your collecting philosophy? No, that's a pretty accurate description. I. I collect any and all Tamika Catchings and Katie Douglas cards that I do not already have in my collection. I'm a player collector, definitely for those two. I will also pick up any duplicates that I find of any the more rare editions as well as the limited run copies. At last check, I think I had like 80 or 85 gold out of 10 cards of Tamika and there's a lot of them that are duplicates, but I pick them up whenever I can and especially if nobody's paying attention. Her cards are criminally cheap. So I'll try to pick them up and then if I, if I encounter any other collectors, I'll make sure they get a shot at them. So for the most part, I would say it's mostly player super collector in that regard. I do have a handful of cards from. I've got a handful of Leo Boston cards and Lexi Hole cards and, and they're more of their, their rare rookie rookie cards that they do have, but with the sheer amount of inserts and parallels that Nene has released over the past few years, I can't really keep up with everything else that's being released as far as collecting any more than that. So it's an extremely refined collection for Fever players and Fever cards outside of Katie Douglas and Tamika Catchings. I love that and I can relate to that. I think like, we talk a lot about overproduction and scarcity and availability and these days it's so hard to keep up, like you're saying. So kind of creating those guardrails for yourself is really helpful. Before we get into more of your collecting itself and like, I want to dig in deep into why certain players, why certain cards, et cetera. But before we get into that, just remove the cards for me for a second. If you could tell me what, like, kind of what makes the Indiana Fever different as a franchise compared to say, the rest of the teams that we're going to hear from this season, what would you say is kind of that distinguishing factor? Um, it's a really good question. In my, in my personal opinion, I think the sheer insanity of everyone's passion for basketball in Indiana, it will set us apart just by itself. And that's. It's really tough to describe unless you've been around it here in Indiana, whether you're in, you know, any. Any. Any corner of Indiana or if you're in central Indiana and Indianapolis. The love for sports and the love for basketball, I mean, it's really unmatched. I mean, otherwise we wouldn't hold, you know, all of the world's largest sporting events here in Indianapolis all the time. So the team does a really, really good job of connecting with the local basketball community. They always have. And they're owned by the same group that owns the Pacers, so that always helps. To the Simon family, who are the world's largest shopping center developers. So they've got. Well, let's just say they're well funded, but they've owned the Pacers since the early 80s. They've owned the Fever since the Fever were born. So a lot of that consistency and a lot of that passion really, really helps our community. I know a lot of teams get involved in their community, but the way we do it, it's like we're all on scareways. It's Brisbane. And the Fever have always been. They've always packed the house, thankfully. They've always played at Cambridge other than when it was being renovated, but they've consistently been near the top of the league as far as their attendance figures and had been at the top of the league for that least past two years. So, yeah, it's. I tell people, I said, you got to be here to feel it and experience it. And it was. We had a lot of those folks come to town last year for WNBA All Star when it was here, and many who that I talked to were just absolutely blown away, and they're like, why don't we just have it here every year? And I'm like, well, that's not how the world works, but I would like it to. So, yeah, 100%. I was one of those people. And when I was in Indianapolis, I was like, I didn't know you guys rolled like this. Like, I didn't know it was this kind of production going on, but I could feel the energy. It's a certain energy. It's a basketball energy, for sure. It is, it is. And we only had. We only had 13 months prepare for All Star because we were awarded it so late in the process because somebody else backed out. We were still coming off of our. Our hosting experience with the NBA All Star Game in 2024. So we had a. We had a short Runway to prepare, but we we did the best that we could with what we had, and I think they're putting together a bid to hold to host it here again in the next handful of years, so we'll see how that goes. But I always tell people, I said, if you want to get a feel for what basketball means to Indiana, 14 of the largest 16 basketball gymnasiums in the country or in Indiana. So it's a whole new world when it comes to basketball. Absolutely. One of the things that was talked about, not to bring up a rival here, but one of the things that was talked about in the Mercury episode was the idea of the X Factor, of the kind of vibe of the stadium when you're at the game, and even when I was at kind of the recreational game of the All Star Game, they're not competing for anything. You could feel the energy of Gainbridge, and that's like out of towners coming in. It just felt different. So I'm sure gamebridge has its own kind of like, feel, vibe, fan experience. And I, for one, as you know, not a Fever fan, just because that's not the team that I root for, could still feel it, and I felt welcomed, and it was just a great experience. And thank you for your part in putting that on. I know before we got on the mic, you said you were involved in All Star Game planning or production and all those things. Just such a cool, cool thing that Indiana puts on, for sure. Yep. And we take a lot of pride in it and especially use our hospitality and it's what we're known for across the country. So anytime we're able to welcome folks that are not from here, we're always happy and willing to show them a slice of what we're all about, period. I love that. Well, one question that I want to ask every guest this season, and there's a few that'll be sprinkled in here, so hopefully the listeners can kind of understand and compare apples to apples against franchises. Uh, the first one that I want to ask that I asked last episode, and like I said, we'll ask in the future, is if you could kind of describe the Fever fandom in three words or less. That's a tough ask. But if you did have time to think about it, what would you say? Probably crazed, chaotic, which could be a synonym of that, but. And then I would say community centric, the. The Fever. I mean, they go above and beyond to make sure that their mission of inclusion and the development of women athletes, not just in basketball, but in every other sport, that they can do is felt in the community. The Pacers do a good job of that, but the Fever do a great job of it. And I think they work kind of in tandem to do that occasionally. But again, we're a bunch of basketball sycophants and we can't get enough of it. And like I said, the Fever do do a great job of fostering and developing that in all corners of the state. I love that. That's a good three. And I like the alliteration, too, with the four Cs, by the way. Mitch, that's good stuff, right? Oh, yeah, I like that. All right. So one of the themes of this season is all about community, which you just brought up, and it's around women's sports and inclusion and diversity, and it's something that, you know, isn't really talked about too much in the sports card hobby. So the final question I have as part of this se is around what women's sports in general means to you, Whether that's the Fever or just more broadly. Well, that's a great question. I mean, people ask me why. Why or when I got into collecting WNBA cards and becoming a WNBA fan. Honestly, in. In 97, when the league was formed, I was just. I'm just a proud supporter and. And a fan or. And a spectator of sports in general. I didn't really care if it was. Was. Was men or women. Didn't matter to me. I just wanted to see excellence in action. So I started becoming a Rebecca Lobo fan in 97 because of her involvement with the US Olympic team. And she was, from what I had read and heard and seen, she was friends with Shaq when. During his tenure with the U.S. olympic team, which, you know, I was a Shaq fan ever since I was. Well, ever since he was in college when I was a young kid, so he was my first kind of foray into sports in general. But it's a lot easier to market the WNBA with a lot more eyes these days. It was tougher back in the 2000s to be a fan, not because we would get. We would just feel like we were kind of on an island a little bit, just because the league wasn't as exposed as it could have been, should have been, and is now. So the community aspect of it, you know, you felt it in all the other major sports leagues, but you didn't feel a ton of it. The wnba, unless you were in. In my opinion, unless you were in Los Angeles, New York, or Houston, you know, one of the original franchises that had had a hotbed for success to begin in the league, you know, and the Comets won four straight championships with Van Chanzler to start the. The league. So, you know, they had, they had a really good head start in everybody else as far as developing their fandom. But the WNBA has done a better job and an even better job today of making sure that they, they market what the league is about. They showcase the excellence, but they also showcase that a. We want to involve and include as many folks as possible. But also, guess what? You can do this, too. And here's how. And they do a lot better job of, in my opinion, of messaging that than. Than the NBA or the NFL or the mlb, in my opinion. But, yeah, it's, it's an, it's an easy thing to be a WNBA fan because it's such a great, it's such a great concept. It's a great art form. And, and it's, it's easy to be a fan. That clip right there, like, I can see it. All right, that's what I want, like a tagline to be. It's easy to be a WNBA fan. That's so true. Like, I relate to that so much. So let's kind of transition here. We talked about your fandom. We talked about how you got into cards, and I want to talk about how the collection looks today because I, for one, when I see your Instagram, I drool just because of the, the quality of sports cards that you have in your possession. So why don't we kind of start, if you don't mind, by trying to either quantify or qualify your collecting philosophy. You mentioned player collector and team collector, but I kind of want to hear a full picture for the audience so they've got an idea of what you're working with. Well, in regard to my WNBA collection, it's, I mean, it's probably 95% Tamika and Katie Douglas. And I collect, you know, everything that I can find of theirs. You know, I have limited storage space, so I can't collect everything that they have. But I think my Tamika Catchings collection is. Right now it's about probably 70% of her entire catalog. And there's a lot that I'm missing that are older, more rare cards that I will try and keep an eye out on online through various marketplaces. But I'll also look at card shows, but I try not to put too much focus into those because my assumption is that they're in collections of WNBA card collectors that have been collecting since the beginning and, and they knew what they had back then, but they certainly know what they have now. Individual value. So I know where some of the cards that. That would skyrocket to the absolute top of my priority list are. They cannot be bought right now, But I'll usually check in once every six or eight months just to say, hey, how you feeling about this card? And see where they're at. But I put a big focus on procuring cards from the latest releases just because those are a lot easier to get because the product's being broken out now rather than something from 2019 or 2004 or something along those lines that is either in somebody's collection or it's in a. In a stale, sealed, you know, wax box that hasn't been touched in 20 years. So my Kitty Douglas collection, she has a very limited catalog. I think she only has maybe about 145 or 150 cards. I have about 320 including duplicates, but I think I have about 90% of her catalog. So this year I wanted to focus more on the one of ones that have been produced for both of those players. And really anything before 2023, Tamika only had I think three one of one cards, maybe six. Now she has 46. Holy cow. From. From the 2023 through 2025 releases. And then Katie Douglas, she's got I think 12 one of ones and I own seven of them. So got a few others out there. I don't know if I will ever find them. And honestly I don't know what I would do with all of them once I do have them. But I try to just focus on procurement and then I'll figure out what I want to do with them from there on. But I have different philosophies as far as if I grade, when I grade, how I grade, or how everything gets stored. I don't want anything in my house. So it's all got to be located elsewhere. And in today's hobby, there's a lot of different alternatives for off site storage and of your collection, that kind of thing. So I just try to focus on procuring and determining where cards are and then I'll focus on the rest of the stuff. Gotcha. That's so interesting. It's. To me, it sounds like you're kind of drinking from the fire hose when it comes to catch and it comes to Katie Douglas. But I'm assuming you've got other players or even like outside of the realm of wnba, you probably collect other things. Maybe. Is the philosophy the same of give me anything I can get. Or are you setting up any particular guardrails or rules to kind of keep you in check? Most of it is based upon how much time and how much capital I'm working with. My, my philosophy ever since I was a young teenager was, you know, everybody thinks their most valuable asset is their time. In my opinion, it's your attention because sometimes you can, you can give somebody your time, but you don't, you can't give them your attention in some scenarios. So my collection gets my attention outside of WNBA in a very refined way. So similar to our esteemed, our mentor here with Stacking Slabs Network Brett. So he and I are both in our collecting habits, we're extremely similar and we're both lifelong Hoosiers. So you know, Colts and Pacers, you know, have a big dominance in my collection outside of wnba. But it is extremely refined. And then same thing with a couple of other NBA players that I collect and a couple of other WNBA card collectors or excuse me, WNBA players that I collect. I'm only a player collector of Tamika Catchings and Katie Douglas. Everything else is just by selection either as you have discussed on previous episodes, either based upon a moment or an era that relates to me personally. Last I think it was maybe late last year I adopted your philosophy of the one card PC for a handful of WNBA players. So I'm still waiting on Nafeesta Collier to get her act together. But she owes me a couple of signed cards that are still sitting with Panini right now. But one of them is her private signings card from Don Russ from the 2025 release. And that is going to be my, my showcase Nafis Collier card. I don't want to go. I'd rather put my money on on in my Tamika Katjans and Katie Douglas collection than spend a fortune on, you know, Anafisa Collier, you know, Gold Donruss rookie or an Asia Wilson, you know, Rittenhouse rookie or anything like that. Granted those, those cards will, will demand a pretty penny and deservedly so. It's just I can put that money elsewhere in another section of my collection that will give me more joy. So that's what I will end up doing. But I like having the one card PCs of Nafisa. Diana Taurasi, Asia, Kelsey Mitchell, Rebecca Lobo, Michelle Timms, trying to think who else. Stacy Dales, Becky Hammond, you know, a couple of the older style players and I will have, I haven't finished this room yet but I'll have a display of all of those one cards, PCs put up. So that's, that's kind of how I, how I've tweaked my collection over the years. Back when I was much younger, 15, 18 years ago, I had a completely different collection philosophy. But as life evolves, and it will, with every collector, you kind of, your collection will evolve as well, depending on how much time and how much capital you want to put into, into a hobby. So, so, and that's exactly what it is for me. I don't, I don't flip cards, generally speaking. Usually if I, if I buy wax, which is extremely limited, but if I do and if there's a, you know, a nice card in there, I usually try. We'll. We'll try and find a player, collector for that particular player, and I'll just fire that card off to them and so they can add it to their collection. So people had done that for me without me asking, and I've done that for others, and it's just a cycle. So we're all trying to make sure these cards end up in the, in the best hands possible. So that's just kind of my philosophy, 100%. I always find, like, just hearing from other people kind of how they're. I think of it as like a pie chart of their collection, how it's weighted, and it sounds like Tamika is like taking up a huge portion of the pie. But, you know, we're not going to leave leftovers here. There's other parts that make it whole. And so it's super interesting to hear kind of how that converges with time, capital, availability, scarcity, all those different things that go into what makes up your collection. It's cool to kind of see under the hood. One thing that I kind of want to ask you is you've been in this hobby, or at least in the fandom of wnba for a long time. You said you left for a hiatus in collecting at some point, but you've been doing it for, you know, a long time. For people that are newer to the hobby, or maybe they're, they've been in the hobby for a while, but they're trying to explore team collecting or collecting certain players from a certain team. Any sort of flavor like that. Do you have any advice for those folks? Because you seem to have kind of your, your, I don't know, blinders on, you know what you're going for, you know what you're looking for. How would you, why would you kind of help somebody that's trying to do that? Well, we live in a, in an information overload society in today. So, and especially with ease of access of information, sometimes it's a great thing, sometimes it's an awful thing. It just kind of depends. And I have this discussion occasionally with collectors, sometimes over a couple of my LCs that are here in Indianapolis. But I usually ask them, what makes you happy? Like, yes, you want to do this, do you know why? And if so, what makes you happy? And what do you want this to look like, whether it's X amount of months or X amount of years down the road. And this is kind of a little bit of a bleak way to look at it, but our collections are all going to end one day and it's just a matter of what kind of a journey do you want to have along that path. So when it comes to whether it's player collecting or team collecting, I just ask them what makes you happy and then just kind of figure out what their initial ideas are. Because not everybody's going to know up front what makes them happy. They just kind of got to dip their toe in to begin with and try and see. But I will try and encourage people to start slow just because the, the, the axis of cards. I mean, you can go to an LCS and buy them, you can go to Target, Walmart, Meijer Dick Sporting Goods, which couldn't do when I was younger, and get them, or you can just go on ebay, you can hop onto an online marketplace or seemingly now 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you can hop on whatnot or on fanatics live or ebay live, and you can go buy cards literally at three o' clock in the morning if that's what you want to do. So I try and encourage people not to get overwhelmed by the sheer access on demand that they have, but figure out why they're, why they want to collect and who they want to collect and what makes them happy. I know that's a very generic response, but I usually everybody's why will change as soon as they get into it, or it will at least evolve the deeper they get into it. Yeah, I think that's really sound advice. I think if I would have heard that my collection would be better from the start. So I think whether it's generic or not, it doesn't matter. It's good advice. Well, and it's more from an organic approach. Some people will say, well, I want to make some money on this stuff so I can fund my own collection. Which I think that's everybody's goal. That's not always going to work out. But I'm like, okay, well, here is probably an easier way to kind of scale that to some degree. I mean, if I had all the answers, I'd be doing it myself. But that's not the way I approach my collection. It's usually okay, I got X amount of money in my budget to focus on cards, so that's what I'm going to operate under. Especially since I don't really spend time flipping anything for profit or for loss. But that's just kind of how I operate. It happens. We've all been there. Yeah, I've got a ton of. I'm not gonna name names, but there's a, there's a few WNBA players that I've, I might still hold a minor grudge against. So I get it, I get it. We'll leave them anonymous for now, but I think, you know, we can read between the lines there. Yeah, I guess one interesting part of you as a collector, at least in my, in my opinion, is that the folks that you're collecting aren't necessarily like, like super old vintage cards. Right. Like there's this whole segment of baseball cards from like quite a long time ago, but you're collecting legends of a league that are no longer playing. And so when you think about kind of the journey of your card collecting, as you just described it, of what makes you happy and kind of approaching what you're going to leave behind one day, I guess, in your collection, is the point of collecting cards of these players, like Catch or like Douglas, to transport you back to specific moments? Or is it just like a fondness, I suppose, of the players and what they brought to your, your favorite team? It's both, most certainly. And yeah, they're, they're retired players. Tamika's is, in my opinion, she's in the top five greatest women basketball players of all time. I think she's in that list for a lot of people as well. She's still employed by the Fever as a basketball ambassador. She's on, you know, obviously the call for some USA Network games. She's in studio on some as a WNBA analyst. She does a ton of work with the SEC for women's college basketball. So she's, she's still seen a lot in today's market. So I think a lot of people, even if they're recent fans, they're still familiar with her to a certain degree. Similar to like the Dawn Staley's or the Becky Hammonds or Rebecca Lobos of the world who all played, you know, they all played at the same time. And Katie Douglas, she's not as involved with the WNBA these days, but she's still around. They're both still heavily involved in Indianapolis community. I see Tameka pretty frequently in the market. So part of it is I like collecting them because they're such great people and they're great for our Central Indiana community, but they're also magnificent for the sport in general, for women's sports as well as idols to lots of people. But also the other great thing is that they're among the best in their field of all time. So Katie Douglas doesn't get the love that I think she deserves, but she was, I mean she was successful in her own outright starting in high school and then you know, she won a national championship with Stephanie White at Purdue and 99 I believe so and they, you know, her and Tamika both were extremely successful in the WNBA and ruled for a lot of years. So not only because of their off, their, their on court success, but their off court success is, is why they're, why they're, they're so heavily focused in my collection. That makes complete sense. And, and one of the things that I want to kind of ask about here and I know you said you had a hiatus, so I'm not sure how it applies but you know, at some points the Indiana Fever, Iraq, kind of like the top dog in the league. You know, they've had really high moments, but they've also had some really low moments in terms of collecting. Does that get reflected in your PC at all or how do you kind of navigate winning seasons versus losing seasons? Versing, you know, underwhelming, overwhelming. Is there a difference or do you try to stay steady and have you stayed steady throughout that time? I've seen steady throughout that time. In regard to the collecting itself. I mean both of these players were retired before know by about 2016. So the really. And in the Fever's case, I mean you can, you can break it down by era, but it's pretty much pre Tamika and post Tamika because of how long she played for the Fever for 16 seasons and she was with the team for 17 years. So which is the, the, the large portion of how long they'd existed. The Fever, you know, they really, as everybody remembers they were really bad for about five years there, six years there after, after Tanika retired. I mean historically bad. I mean there, there, there's like three or four seasons where they won six games. I mean it was, it was really, really bad. But as with bad Teams, I mean, they. They stop. Start to stockpile draft picks when they can, and then everything started changing in 2023. But my collection been pretty steady as far as players that I've collected. Outside of Tameka and Katie. I can see where some. Some individuals that collect fever cards, they might have. They might have taken a backseat a little bit during some of those years, but those years that the fever were historically bad, that was when Panini started to come in and take over and started releasing products left and right. So it was a good time for WNBA card collectors to keep collecting in that regard. But generally I tried to keep it pretty consistent and pretty safe there. Good for you. I don't think I can say that. I think I get really emotional with it when the links lose. Even when Fee's not playing right now, I'm like, it just takes so much more for me to tune in or to want to collect when they're not right here in front of my face, especially when they're losing or like when they're not playing well. So all the power to you, Mitch. That's. That's like true fandom right there. I love that. Well, and it's too bad the links are, you know, they're missing their star player because it seems like they're pretty bad and they don't have any good rookies, right? Yeah, yeah. They just, like, kind of suck, right? Nobody pay attention, please. Nobody pay attention. No, we're not talking about the links today. We're not doing that. All right. We're still doing. We're still doing pretty well, but they are for sure. I'm happy about it. But kind of my favorite segment so far that we've done on. On this season is the personal Grail segment. And I think, you know, I can kind of predict I know what the card is, but I can. I think the audience can probably predict who's going to be on the card that you choose that represents kind of your PC the best. But I'm going to pull it up here, and while I'm doing that, why don't you kind of explain to the people that are listening what card you picked to be your personal grail and if you have any story behind it. Sure. My pick was the Impeccable honors signature Platinum one of one card of Tamika catchings from Panini's 2025 impeccable release that was released. I want to say it was shortly before Christmas, and that's. It's the first release of Impeccable for wnba. The WNBA has never had an impeccable release yet, even though the other, I guess the other three major sports have and they've seen it for a handful of years. Panini announced its release I think just a few months before that and I think the community is pretty excited about it because they knew they were going to get higher quality cards, thicker stock material. Now the only thing they didn't like was the price point obviously. But I think a lot of folks were really excited for the, the absence, believe it or not, the absence of memorabilia from Impeccable temporarily, but on card autographs which haven't been seen on WNBA cards in quite some time. So the reason why I picked that particular card was one that showcases to me Tamika's successes from 2012 when they won the WNBA title and she was the mvp. It's good looking photo. It's a great background. The, the. The platinum foil which is tough to tell in that photograph. It sits on the card really, really well and it looks great. It's a great looking autograph. I did not pull the card I. With the players that I collect, I very seldomly break into WNBA product that's recent because of the price. This point, it's just, it's just a lot easier and a lot more inexpensive for me just to chase after singles. So me being as impatient as I typically am, I try to. I wanted to avoid ebay so I, I spectate on breaks on whatnot all the time. Sometimes I'll participate if there's a pick your player type of break. But in this scenario I want to say it was a, is a, it was a team break. So if somebody purchased the Indiana Fever spot, they would get all the fever cards and this was being run on whatnot. I can't remember what night it was, but Chelsea Stafford, who is a, a prominent WNBA whatnot breaker, she found this card in an impeccable box. Um, and, and for a collector out in Arizona. And I know that if it's after 9 o', clock, 10 o', clock, 11 o' clock at night and I start getting text messages, notifications from whatnot, notifications from Instagram all simultaneously, I know that somebody hit a big card that I'm going to want. There aren't a whole lot of Tamika catches collectors out there. So that's one of the other reasons why I collect them is because I don't have a whole lot of competition. But I got, I got messages left and right at. This card was pulled and I knew that with what the other impeccable honor signatures cards look like I figured that this is going to be one of my favorites, if not my favorite Cardiffers that I've ever seen. So I was able to do. I reached out to the. To the owner of the card, and she was like, I was waiting for you to reach out to me because everybody told me this needed to be in your hands. So she collected Caitlin Clark and Paige Becker's, you know, deservedly so. They're two most popular athletes in the league, and I have a handful of their cards, and some of them I will keep in my collection forever, but there are some that I use for trade bait. So I made sure that this other. This owner of the card had a handful of Caitlyn Clark cards that were numbered, that were rare, and a handful of page cards that. That made up for what I believe to be the value of that card. So we agreed on a. On a trade, and. And that was that. So I didn't have to go chase after the card. I didn't have to go, you know, pay fees through another marketplace to find it. It pretty much came to me. And that's one of the many things that I love about the WNBA card community is, like I said before, we all try to make sure that the cards end up in the. In the, in the best hands possible. And I, and I do that for a lot of others. I don't necessarily expect that to be reciprocated. I just want to do it because it's the right thing to do. So when this card ended up in my collection, I was. I still am extremely and eternally thankful. So it's. It's one of the best ones that, That I have. And I know it's, you know, it may not measure up to somebody else's cards or a couple of the cards that are demanding high value these days. But you know what? It's. It's got. It's got a lot higher value in my collection than it does anywhere else. Oh, that's a perfect way to end that. Like, I love the way explained this card. I'm like, keeping up on the screen for a little longer because I just cannot take my eyes off the, like, so pure of a signature here from Catch. It just looks so good. You talked about kind of the disappearance of on card autos in the WNBA card collecting space. This impeccable release, bringing that kind of back, I think was a huge win by Panini and this card in particular. I think a lot of folks understand that once you get a trophy in the photo, not one, but two trophies in the photo, that kind of connects you to a moment. It brings you back. Add on that, you know, Catch actually touched this card, held it in her hand and signed it. Yeah, it hits all the marks for me. And I'm glad that it ended up in your collection because like you said, I think you appreciate it most and. And it's just awesome. So thanks for sharing that story. Yep. It's a great card. And. And I can't believe I heard it, but did you say huge win by Panini? Yeah, I think I did. I think I did. They do that every now and then, so. Every now and then. For sure. For sure. Okay. So part of that conversation and part of this conversation in general, what I've heard echoed is the word community. It's a word that we use, you know, on the WNBA card podcast. It's kind of a pillar of. What I'm trying to build is to cultivate a community where people can explore the WNBA and explore card collecting. But with that in wnba, I think we can all agree that fandom is unique. The community is very unique. What would you say, I suppose, about the Fever collector community is different than say, other franchises either in the WNBA or outside of it? What makes it kind of unique? Well, the sheer amount of WNBA card collectors we have in this market now. I don't travel a whole lot across the country, but feels like it's. It's huge here. Now. Indianapolis has a lot going for it. Obviously the Fever, you know, they have a lot of high profile players right now. They're doing moderately well to above average in the league's performance. From a sales and marketing performance, they're probably top of the league. They've got a $85 million athletic center that's being built down the street from. From Gainbridge Fieldhouse that is exclusively for the Fever's use. So the city and the community are pouring into it. But one thing I do my best to not take for granted is that we have such access to the WNBA card products that are being released. Yes, Indianapolis is a large ish market, but we have a ton of card shops in the city market that wholly embrace the wnba. Hasn't always been that way. Now they're businesses. They have to embrace, you know, what their consumers want. Sure. But there were a handful of shops that you could, you could easily go find cards that were released from, I guess near the tail end of the Rittenhouse days. You can go find those in shops now. Some were in there in their sealed cases because you could buy them one full set at a time. But I remember 2020 prism. I could. I can go anywhere and find that here in Indianapolis. So the. The Hobby does. Does really well here. And. And I consider Indianapolis kind of a hotbed for. For WNBA cards just because there's a lot of. A lot of shops in town that embrace it and to make sure they have products left and right to. To. For consumers to access most of it. I mean, they do a really good job of making sure there's hobby boxes and limited releases that are. That are in stock, but when they're not, you can go find six to eight of the different types of retail releases anywhere you want. So that's. That's a good part of it. A lot of our card shops have. Have larger kind of gathering areas. So you probably saw that when you were at IndyCard exchange when you were here for All Star last year. You know, there's a big area kind of in the middle of the room with all their cardboard dime boxes that they have. You can come out and just hang out or you can sit at the bar, which is more often what I do. I just go in there just to hang out. They have a lot of fan events here in town that embrace the Fever. Not only for just the Fever sponsors and supporters on monetary perspective, which is what most the teams do, but there are a lot of community events that the Fever just pour themselves into when nobody asks, so. Or nobody's paying them to do it for exposure. Yeah. So I just feel that the market does it really well. Really good job, excuse me, of embracing it. Some of the card collectors, you know, there's. There's a lot of them that are. That are newer from the past two to three years, which we kind of anticipated that. But there's still a lot of. Of the legacy card collectors for the. The in the market as well. And while it's tougher to collect the WNBA cards of old, let's say because they were either limited releases or there was a lack of products, some of the older collectors have gotten into some of the newer releases and are just like everybody else. They've got their mind blown with just how much is accessible in this market. So not to make anybody else feel bad elsewhere located in the country, but you want any cards, just come to Indianapolis and come hang out. We'll have live fun. I was gonna say, I think you're gonna evoke some envy from the audience, Garrett, especially like our Super Rule listeners who maybe don't even have a shot near them. They're hearing, you can find Rittenhouse in your local card shop, they're like freak out. So like, yeah, that environment, it's, it's special. And yeah, you mentioned I went to IndyCard exchange while I was in Indianapolis for All Star Game and there was a wide like wide selection of WNBA cards. So just to see and hear from a local person that that's kind of across the board plus one for Indianapolis as a card city for sure. Yeah. And we, we try not to take that for granted. We know there's, there's a lot of rural areas in Indiana, you know, Indianapolis only or Indiana, excuse me, only has a handful of, of larger markets in it. So me being located in, in the heart of it, like I said, I try not to take that for granted. And I know access to, to products and information, that kind of thing is not easy to come by for a lot of people. So I try to do what I can to make sure that while it is accessible, I can share it with anybody. I love that. I'm going to do kind of a hard pivot here. Mitch away to my next question which I asked on last week's episode and I think it's just a question that I find super interesting because as I mentioned in that episode, I feel like rivalries aren't as kind of in your face in the WNBA as they are say in more cemented leagues and that have been around for like hundred years or so. So if I could pick your brain kind of as a Fever fan, when you look out onto the sea of WNBA like teams, what teams are like the Fever's rivals who kind of gets your like blood pressure up whenever you play. Well, some of it, some of it is is related to like team rivalries. Some of it's just player rivalries. Clear. It just, it just depends. We used to have a pretty strong and we, I don't want to say we used to but the rivalry with Detroit, with the Lynx and with the Mercury, I mean they were, I mean they were pretty strong rivalries. Not too long ago the Fever lost to Detroit at four years in a row in the playoffs and it was not fun. And then you know, obviously they lost to the mercury in 09 in the, in the WNBA finals. Yeah. Maya Moore and Lindsey Whalen and Sylvia Fallows from the Links Gay was fits non stop. It still bugs me to this day. I make skin's crawling and obviously we lost the finals to them in 2015. So I guess it depends on who you ask. Some of the, some of the more, some of the more recent Fever Fans, I've become Fever fans recently that they, they usually go to the. The player rivalries for the most part, whether it's with. With whoever the Fever tangle with on court, whether it's. And we all know who they are, I don't need to go into it unless you've got another hour and a half. But I think that's where most of the rivalries these days are coming from because the league has seen an insane amount of parity since really the late 2010s, in my opinion. There isn't one team that's just dominating their way through the regular season and playoffs. There are some teams that we expect to be strong, whether it's the Golden States or the Las Vegas or the Minnesota's or the Phoenixes of the world. There are some teams that we anticipate are okay, they're going to be rebuilding or they're kind of retooling. But even some of those teams that come out of nowhere and they do really well. I went and saw the Dream play the Fever last night, and to begin the season, I didn't really know how Atlanta was going to fare with as many mouths as they have to feed on that team that are really, really good because you got Ryan Howard, Alicia Gray, you know, Naz Hellman's really good. And then you got Angel Reese joining the team. And I just didn't know how that team was going to work. And they're, they're performing in a very, very, very well meandered way. They, they do really well in the court. They've got a lot of good court. Oh, gosh, I don't know. I. Court. Oh, gosh, now I'm. Now I'm drawing a blank here. You're good. I think they just showed up here like record or every record desk. No, you're good. I think it's just like the star power, like synergy, energy, like just the cohesion of them is something I feel like I was not expecting. I was expecting a lot more fragmentation of like not selfishness, but like just getting used to one another. And they're still waiting on Bree Jones to come back. Like, that's a. And then you have Jordan Canada. That's a real team. So, yeah, that must have been a, a fun game to attend. For sure. It was. And anytime Angel Reese comes to town, there's. There's a handful of people who feel either way about that, which. Yes, that's perfectly fine. Me, I try to keep all of my, my attention towards on court demeanor. So it was it was a great game. And I think that today we might have a. Maybe a regional rivalry with Chicago. Um, they'll be in town next week, but I don't really see a whole ton of, like, strong rivalries. We haven't really met with anybody in the. In the playoffs recently on a consistent basis. Yes, Los Angeles has done very well historically over the past handful of years. Same thing with New York, but we really haven't butted heads with. With too many teams as a whole. But like. So I think, depending on who you ask, like, my, My. My rivalries that I still. That I still feel in my gut are with. Are with Phoenix and with Minnesota just because of the way the funnels went. That's so funny that this lined up like this because we had Mercury last week. Fever this weekend, Both of you. Both of you said the links and I'm just taking it. So I just want to be known that I am not fighting back here despite the fact that I have things to say. I did want to ask you. No, go ahead. It's not like we don't like them because of the way they do things or anything. We don't like them because they're successful. Exactly. It's just the way it goes. I hear you. I do want to ask you with the entrance, or re. Entrance, I suppose, of certain franchises like Cleveland and Detroit coming in on the horizon here, are you going to preemptively start that rivalry personally, Mitch, or are you just going to let them do their thing? No, let them do the things. There's been a certain dormancy that's been. That's been sitting for now, so it'll be interesting to see how Cleveland shakes out. I think Dan Gilbert is still the one that's. That's fronting that effort with the Rockers Detroit. I don't really know who's going to be involved with that, but, you know, now that Portland and Toronto are in, we'll kind of see how the league evolves. And I'm. I'm of the. And you've mentioned it historically on this podcast, I'm more of the approach of, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. So I'm always embracing kind of any further expansion that the league can foster and develop. Obviously, that puts a lot of money in people's pockets and has a lot of other opportunities for players to succeed. Historically, I've been more of a. Hey, I want to keep it pretty refined because I want to make sure that the threshold is still extreme, extremely high to make it in the league. And I'm still of that mentality to a certain degree, but we'll see how everything gets expanded. And I think it's. It's nothing but. Nothing but great things for the league in the future. For sure. I. I'm like, this is kind of tangential and not related to the fear, but I am, like, super excited to see how that Detroit Cleveland rivalry develops. Like, Michigan, Ohio rivalry. Like, I feel like they could really, I don't know, strengthen the. Or like. Like, bring up the temperature, I suppose, is what I'm trying to say. I think that could be huge. But I guess we'll see. I guess we'll see. Well, and that's the way a lot of. A lot of markets operate. I mean, well, all the teams stick together. And if there's a rivalry, like, I'll give an example. So us. Us Pacers fans here in Indianapolis, we cannot stand anytime anybody mentions the Knicks. So we are. You know, we're. We're. We're kind of dwelling on the dumps a little bit right now with the Knicks being in the Finals. But anytime the Liberty come to town, it's just. It's just there's something. There's something subsurface there that we already don't like. So. Turn the mic up. Turn the mic up. No, I'm just kidding. So we'll see how that Detroit Cleveland works out. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so one of the things that you just mentioned with rivalries, and this is how I'm going to try to pivot us here, is the idea of player rivalry. So I want to come back to, like, the player idea. If you had to pick a Mount Rushmore of Fever players, who are you picking? And right off the bat, is Caitlin Clark in your top four? She's not. She's not. Oh, and Aaliyah Aliyah, Boston is not. And it's. It's not because I do not think that they are great players. It's just because, I mean, they're in their third and fourth years, respectively, and unfortunately, we don't have a winning record in the playoffs since then. So there's no. And there's nothing in our trophy case since 2012 other than a Commissioner's cup trophy, which is nice. You know, we got that last year, but I think most of us have forgotten that we won the Commissioners cup by now. Just like. And I get why the league does it, but that's not something that I personally focus on. So I. You know, at the wnba, it's tough. I mean, there. There are very few players, especially today, that spend more than a half dozen years with their respective team, especially with the way the CBA has evolved over the past handful of years. I mean, Brittney Griner's on her third team in three years and Mercury fans would have never guessed that it would ever happen. So market dynamics change everything. So on my Mount Rushmore I kind of focus on, on court success and tenure and Caitlin Clark, Leah Boss and anybody really in the past eight to 10 years is, wouldn't be on my Mount Rushmore. I think the closest person that would would be Kelsey Mitchell. She's been with the team for a while, but she's also an extremely dynamic scorer who is in my opinion still criminally underrated from a card perspective as well. But, and that's another topic. But I would put, more than likely I would put Tamika number one, which I think every W fan on the planet would agree with that. I do Katie Douglas second and then probably do Brianne January 3rd. She was, she was very good with the Fever and spent a lot of time with us, helped a lot of teams throughout the playoffs and I think that a lot of people still underrate her as well. And even the recent WNBA fans, they have no clue who she is other than maybe an assistant coach because she is the assistant coach for the time first Fever. Now I don't really know if I'd have a fourth, but in my opinion there's a, there's a drop off from 10 year in performance and maybe team accolades from third to the rest. We can make their space smaller on the map. Yeah. And I think that that's probably where I would stop because I probably have a handful of players that I think could be tied for fourth. But, but that's, those are probably where I'd put my three for, for the Fever. I, I'm not even going to touch that list. I agree completely with your top three. So we'll, we'll leave it there. And listeners, if you disagree, I'd love to know who you're replacing because you can add one. He's given you space to add one. But I don't think you can knock off, I don't think you can knock off those three for sure. Yeah. And I think that as the years go, as long as the Fever developed the way they, they are on the trajectory to do it. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if all of that changes. Yeah. And you've got a completely new four for Mount Rushmore. You know, Tamika, she, she gets not a lot but Some flack because she only won one championship with the Fever. You know, she was in the finals twice and lost. The Fever were. They had control of both of those final series, in my opinion, in 09 and 15, and just couldn't. Couldn't get across the finish line. So I think that if they won both of those years or maybe picked up another year, she'd be up higher in that conversation. As far as maybe the Mount Rushmore in the entire league all time. She's probably in the top five, maybe sitting on the outside of that, in my opinion, just because of, you know, the success with DT and Asia and so forth. But I think that, you know, if the Fever can start to stack up a championship or two with how they're developing the roster, that. That Mount Rushmore that I just listed could completely change and I would embrace that. Yeah, for sure. That's a, That's a unique position for a franchise to be in to kind of like see this transition period hopefully result in trophy case being filled up. Right. Like, that's the goal. I. It would be so interesting to see how fans react to that if that happens. You know, just from like a legacy perspective, one of the things that you touched on throughout this conversation, and I can hear hints of it, you know, coming up, is this idea of, you know, disrespect or like, like players not getting the credit they deserve from card collectors per se. And one of the terms we came up with on the WMA Card podcast is like the Disrespect index, which is like, one day I hope to quantify this, but like on the court performance not equating to market prices. If you had to pick a player from the Fever current or retired or anybody who would you say has like the highest degree of disrespect index? You're right. I have touched on this and I've mentioned both of them before, but I would, I would put Kelsey Mitchell and Tamika Catchings at the top of that list. Tamika's is, is a little bit because she's been retired for 10 seasons already. So people have been focusing more on some of the current players. But her cards are, are. They're underrated. They are extremely inexpensive, in my opinion. Now if you talk to a WNBA collector from 97 to 04, you know, they're like, well, I would have never paid these kind of prices. Well, market markets change. But to make it for sure. And for example, I don't know how, but I sliped a 2023 Prizm hall monitors which is one their, their insert set from that year. It was a. As a gold parallel of the hull monitors inset set out of 10 in a PSA 10 for $48 on eBay. So I'm just like, that card is worth, that is worth more than that just in a raw condition. So I could not wait to buy that card that cheap. And you know that's going to sit in my collection for a long time. I mean anybody else in that checklist, it would have been probably triple the price. But in that similar nature, Kelsey Mitchell is the same. Now she doesn't have any championships yet, but she's got, I mean she just hit 5,000 career points last night at the Atlanta Dream Game. And I mean she had 25 points going into the fourth quarter and, and she does it so quietly. You don't see, you don't see a whole lot of emotion, at least newsworthy emotion from her on the court or off the court. She's, she does some, some pretty toned down demeanor as a player. She's an absolute court general. Even though Caitlin's the one bringing up the ball up the court. Kelsey really knows how to run that offense by herself and she does a great way of executing her cards are criminally cheap as well. I know a handful of, of Kelsey Mitchell player collectors that are out there, so anytime I'm seeing cards that are, that are out in breaks or that are online or anything like that, I'm trying to make sure they end up in good hands. But I think over time, I don't know how much more time Kelsey Mitchell's gotten a league, hopefully another six or seven years, which would be great because she's already been in a league eight years. I think that if somebody's looking at a good way to add some value to their collection, start picking up some of the older Kelsey Mitchell cards because they'll be a lot more valuable later on for sure. I agree and I know this is the WNBA card podcast, but to add to Kelsey Mitchell's resume, she will always be in the record books in the collegiate level as well, just scoring ability. So like you add that on top of it and it just doesn't make sense. The equation does not add up. And so yeah, I, I completely agree with Catch and with, with Kelsey Mitchell being high on the Disrespect index, I think you could add anybody, honestly in WNBA cards, the disrespect index and they'd like make sense. Yeah, for sure. Agreed. Well, and even some of the, some of the players that are demanding the highest dollar amounts right now. I still think the cards are undervalued, generally speaking. I do. I agree. I agree completely. I suppose we talked about Mount Rushmore of players and I don't want to kind of like make you rattle off a bunch of options, but if you had to pick a card or two or three to be kind of the Mount Rushmore, I suppose, of Fever cards instead of Fever players, are they lining up with that Mount Rushmore of players that you just named or are they different? And so I kind of want to hear from you your take on which cards, not players, but cards kind of are seen as the centerpieces of fever fandom collecting. I think a lot of that's right now it's Caitlin heavy, whether it's some of her rare, you know, base cards or whether there's some of her rare autograph cards. I think it's Caitlin heavy right now just because of the sheer number of cards that are being produced as well as some of the loud dollar amounts that are being demanded for those cards. So like, if I had to create a short list, I put, you know, I'd put probably Tamika's her. Her Flare tradition rookie card at the top of that list just because it was a red. You know, all the rookie cards in 01 flare tradition were all redemption only and the cards were of a. A more thinner stock, but they were fully glossed so they're really tough to keep in. In. In good condition. I'd probably put maybe a couple of Caitlyn's more rare rookie cards up there. Maybe her green Kaboom that sold for 600 plus thousand dollars. Or maybe her similar to Brett. I'm a massive fan of the black finance in prison, so more so than I am of the gold vinyl one of one. So I'd probably put one or both of Caitlin's Prison Black Finite Wicked cards on that list as well. Maybe an Aaliyah Boston Gold parallel from Prism in 2023. But I think the Mount Rushmore of quote unquote Fever cards, they're probably more heavy towards the recent releases than they are the older ones. I think that's undisputed. I think Clark cards just are in a league of their own. I think the only comparable cross sport comparison I can think of sort of is Shohei. Just where it feels like. I heard somebody recently. I can't remember who said it, but I think it was contrarian cards. Jason said like collecting or I would Dave or one of those guys was like collecting. Shohei is collecting Shohei. It's not collecting baseball, and collecting Clark is sort of like collecting Clark and not collecting WNBA cards just because of the financial implications. And that brings me kind of to our last segment, which is all about hobby market perspective. And I. This is a unique position, I would say, is that your team, whether it be in team breaks or in singles or just all these different avenues that you can acquire a card. It feels like, at least from an outsider perspective, Fever cards have increased in price exponentially since the entrance of Caitlin Clark and the kind of, like, attention that she's brought to the franchise. How have you navigated a exploding market as a Fever fan when prices continue to just rise and rise? It is very tough and it's wildly unpredictable from a monetary perspective of how cards are going to perform and kind of where the, where the, where the bar and the threshold are of kind of the point of entry into certain cards, you can budget, okay, maybe I'm going to spend X amount of dollars on this particular set or this particular parallel if I want to pull, you know, all the, all the Fever players on this particular checklist. And Panini knows what they're doing. They know how to build checklists. They know that, you know, collectors are going to focus on more on, on some of the Fever players than you will on maybe a couple of the other of the other bench players on some of the other teams. So Fever players, you know, in checklists will have eight or nine players on a checklist out of the 12 team members, which is crazy. But again, Panini knows what they're doing. They're not stupid. So it's tough to kind of gauge where those cards are going to perform, generally speaking. But there's a, there's a considerable drop off from Caitlin to Kelsey Mitchell to Aaliyah Boston to Lexi hall, and then in my opinion, everybody else kind of those centralized 4. So I think the team performs well in the hobby itself. But, but especially in my case, you know, I'm chasing after a couple of retired players, which some appear. You know, Tamika will appear in some sets and Katie Douglas will do the same, but sometimes she isn't. So she's not even in, she's not even in Prism or Select or Impeccable this year. Katie Douglas is not. So my collection for her this year has been focused on don russ and one and one for the 2025 releases. So I'm, I'm happy about that. But I'm also a little sad because I, I like the cards and I want the cars, but my Wallet's a lot happier when that happens. So I can, I can focus that money elsewhere now. It's still going to get infused into my hobby. It's just a matter of where. So. But yeah, that's where we're. That balancing act is just so interesting. And I think the reason why I wanted to ask that question is because, like I said, the Fever franchise is such a unique position to be in financially right now. It's just seems like it's operating at a different level, especially if you're collecting Caitlin Clark. So to kind of hear the, I don't know, the inside scoop on that is interesting. I guess that's where we'll, we'll kind of round the corner on today's discussion. I feel like we've been going for a while, Mitch, and I feel like we can go like forever. But I'm going to ask you to kind of like finish off today's episode with a question that I, I'm going to ask every guest, which is if someone today is listening to WNBA Card Pod and they're like, damn, I don't really have that amount of fandom for a team yet, but I want it. I want to be immersed. What would be your sales pitch for the Indiana Fever? Well, I think I, I somewhat made it earlier in the podcast of kind of, kind of our love and infatuation and clinical sheer obsession for the sport of basketball that we have here in Indiana. And I mean, the team is named the Fever for a reason. It's because we have basketball fever here in Indiana. So my, my pitch to someone would be, well, you know, if you're, if you, if you love basketball for the sheer love and performance of the game, then what makes the most sense and that is to become a Fever fan in the basketball capital of the country. And that's, that would be my pitch to them. And, and yes, we've got a great team and a great community that's behind the team, but I think, I think every other team has, has great aspects in that regard. In similar regard as well. Yeah, for sure. Well, mic drop on the Fever there, Mitch. If people want to see your collection, there's more than just, you know, what we talked about. Where can they find you online? Where can they see these awesome catching Katie Douglas cards? I'm on instagram @almanac sportscards. Then I'm on Whatnot as well under Mitch Donor. So right now those are the only two platforms that I participate in, but I'm heavily active in both of those. If anybody has any questions on WNBA cards in general. Caitlin is a great resource for that as well. But I'm happy to help out. I study, I study checklists for a living, it seems so, especially with WNBA cards. So I love kind of studying checklists and how the sets are composed by Panini. So if anybody has any questions on any of that, please let me know. And if I can make just a very quick plug for Stacking Slabs. So Brett, our esteemed mentor on this platform, he has a great flagship episode that he releases and if there are any newer card collectors that are getting into the hobby or some that are that are recently re entering the hobby or some long term ones, I will say I listen to a lot of the Stacking Slabs Network podcasts and the flagship episodes that he releases every week which are relatively short. They're 20 to 30 minutes in length usually. It's some of the best sports card content that I can that I can find on the Internet. And he does a great job job of thinking about the hobby and not only a mental and monetary or fiscal perspective, but also in a psychological way of trying to make sure that you're doing things the way that you want and you kind of learn your learn a few things about your own self in the process. So I just want to make a quick plug for that. Always room for a plug for Stacking slabs on this podcast for sure. Mitch, thanks for joining the WNBA Card Podcast and we'll see everybody next week. Thank you for having me. Mitch is such an awesome collector. He brought some passion and insights to the conversation. Go follow him at Almanac Sports Card Shout Out Card Ladder for supporting the podcast. Shout out Caitlin Shout out. You appreciate all the support for the WNBA Card Podcast and the broader Stacking Slabs Network. You all have a great week. Happy WNB viewing, happy collecting.