Jason: It's time for the Boomers Sports Cards Player of the Week, where we spotlight the athlete whose performance is making waves not just on the field but in the hobby as well. My name is Jason and alongside me as always is Alex, ready to go.

Alex: Hey guys, welcome back.

Jason: So this week's Player of the is someone who has dominated baseball. It is Paul Skeens from the Pittsburgh Pirates. He finished 10-and-10 record, that's just a test because that team was really bad. And he's very good. He had a 1.97 ERA, 216 strikeouts over 187 innings and 32 starts. This guy just dominates every time he's on the field. mean, he's led the major leagues in ERA, recorded 200 plus strikeouts, ultimately captured the 2025 National Cy Young Award. This dude's only 23 and he's already having a fantastic career. And it was pretty dominant his last performance against Mexico in the World Baseball Classic. This dude's just an absolute tank. What's your opinion on Paul Skeens? I know you have a couple of cards of his.

Alex: Man Paul skeins is only 23. He is gonna be great and selling Jason other did that or mean him are collecting cards and it's only our like second year and I work on I be eating good like new players are always coming out and We still have a chance to get more cards of his that are rookies. So which is even even better so and This team his overall in the next couple years is gonna be great because they do have ⁓ one of the best prospects for next the next draft or whenever he gets there call the play corner griffin he's on the he's on the the pittsburgh team also so that seems to turn around ⁓ overall great great player for polskies though ⁓ so we'll switch over to ⁓ the high-end card i picked jason jason always fix the good cards case because

Jason: I do good research. Just call it that.

Alex: And I thought I'll find something nice and then like I'll put it in there and he'll message me. He's like, hey By the way, you you idiot. I got that card right now. I feel so I'm like damn it

Jason: So what you got? Let me hear. I haven't looked at your list yet. Your card.

Alex: ⁓ So I picked up a PawSkin Stadium Rookie 237 first day issue out of 10. There's only 10 in the world, which is insane. know, right? Last was 161. That was probably last year of March. None has been sold. I checked eBay. Nothing has been sold. The newest one that recently just came out, well, not recently came out, just like one of the ones that on sale.

Jason: ⁓ man.

Alex: for and that's going for $2,500 for a PSA 10 which does make sense because this is only 10 in the world and

Jason: Cheese.

Alex: Most I've seen online is maybe four cards. I think I think it's four cards I would love to check but there's only four cards on online for sale one I think two raw one Authenticated and the PSA 10 that's going for 1200 2500 which makes sense Would you pay 24 no if you had the money? I'll probably like try to like maybe like a thousand dollars Maybe because it is a rookie card. This is also a tops card top stadium club but overall

Jason: Yeah, I

Alex: Not a bad card and I had to pick something different from Jason because Jason always picks the good stuff. But also a little fact drop for this card are overall stadium clubs. I thought stadium club did like Chrome cards every year like like Tops does with the other series. They no longer do stadium Chrome club anymore. They discontinued it in 2022. They said they just want to mainly focus on the photography of the cards. So

Jason: You Hmm.

Alex: you can get a chrome version of this card they're not rare, like different parallels of this card so if you do pick up this card and you don't want to the $400 you could get like a parallel version of it that's chrome, chrome green, chrome pink but overall there's no extractors, no refractors, it's just regular cards so not bad

Jason: Not bad. Yeah. I don't know I feel about Stadium Club. I feel like it's just a it's just a picture on cardboard, but like that's everything. But, oh, that's everything. But like, I don't mind the scenes one. He has a it's a nice pose to it. But there's some that I'll open like Stadium Club this past year. And there's some that I'm like, why is this even a card? But I like this one. I mean, I wouldn't spend.

Alex: Yeah I was like, that's everything, Jason. That's true.

Jason: like $400 or $161 on it. But if you're a big Paul Skeen's collector, mean, you can't go wrong with it, you know? It's out of 10, like, it's unheard of.

Alex: So what did you end up picking? Because you usually pick the better cards.

Jason: Yes, sir. So the high end, got Paul Skeen's 2024 Topps Chrome Cosmic Stars in the Night. It's also a rookie card. It's raw is 103 PSA 9 is 125 and PSA 10 is 273. So they're all going up high. Mostly the the raw cards up 37 percent. It could be attributed to that performance in the World Baseball Classic because he had like four innings shut out and like seven strikeouts. So I feel like his cards are really going up from that performance because that was on a national stage and everyone just watched how dominant he was because Mexico could not hit him at all. So it's just a nice card. It's very colorful. It's it's tops cosmic. So it's a it's one of like the rare ⁓ products the tops does. It's chrome. So it's very shiny. We love shiny in this in this show. I just love this card. I seen a lot of I saw PCA card of this and I was looking at some other prospects. They're not too expensive if you're looking for other players and this like stars in the night parallel. But it's a it's a nice little card. I wouldn't mind picking that up from Paul Skeen's guy.

Alex: schemes guy, I mean shiny shiny shiny cardboard guys ⁓ it not really cardboard technically I think ⁓

Jason: big Paul skeins guy. It looks like paint splatter. if I'm looking at this, this looks like paint splatter. I don't know where they got stars in the night.

Alex: Yeah, it's not I think I think chrome cards are actually metal cards not like metal metal But like I think you have a certain amount of metal in them to me That's why they're real real expensive to buy because they I think they usually actual metal to make these cards Yeah, nice card though if a PSA 9 is not that bad for 125 But if for yeah, that's not bad at all if you look at it the raw one 103 and then you can like I if I want like yeah

Jason: Yeah, they're heavier, feel like. Yeah, too. Yeah, it's a couple... 20 more books. ⁓

Alex: It's like probably the same amount to get it graded too. So you might as well save yourself the time and just get the PSA 9 if you don't really care about like the 10, which is not bad.

Jason: Yeah. Yeah. So what's your, what's your budget card? Cause I know Paul's Keen has a lot of budget cards and you got for us today.

Alex: He paid up a heritage Aqua pot skeins. It goes for $13. So can you can you for $13 Jason?

Jason: That's not bad. ⁓ possibly, depends on the day.

Alex: I know. There is no PSA 10s, I just checked for sale technically. I haven't checked PSA, there's probably pop ones or like for PSA 10 but ⁓ I seen anything else but like sold wise. ⁓ PSA 40 bucks, which is not bad. So if I ever saw this at a show, I'd actually pay 40 bucks for this, which is not bad.

Jason: something. I like the Aqua. I feel like Aqua's very underrated. It makes it look more expensive than it is. And I like Heritage as well. It gives you that old school feel. got like that fake signature in the front of it. It's not a bad card.

Alex: You know what's funny? I think last year around this time, that's when I started collecting cards. And I opened up a Heritage Fat Pack. And I know, I'm gonna say something stupid, but opening I got like, think it was a Shohei card and it had, you know how like it has signs? Like it's signed, but it's not really signed. I'm over here like flipping on the card, like, oh my God! First try, what the hell? And then you look it up and then...

Jason: Yeah, yeah. Ha ha. That's unfortunate.

Alex: And then I'm like, ⁓ nevermind. It's just, that's how the cards are. then you like, you sit and like, not, you like, those are the words, like you sit there and you just like think about your life and you're like, man, I got, I got too excited for a car piece of cardboard.

Jason: Should I really collect cards now?

Alex: And then now we're here and I'm like down $5,000 in cards.

Jason: It's a nice card. mean, heritage is just around the corner for us, I mean, I think it comes out next Wednesday. 2026 heritage, something about picking up a box, ⁓ a hobby box might feel if if I can get one on retail, I might might just do it. ⁓ might just do it.

Alex: you might get it one for retail. He won't get screwed by scalpers. He won't get screwed by tugs.

Jason: No, no, I'll go that day to the shop. I'll make it a priority. I'll call off work. No, I don't want that.

Alex: I'll call off working, we in line. When there's no line, I'll be the line.

Jason: Yeah, yeah, I'll be the line. Fuck. Yeah. So I picked up a twenty twenty three Bowman draft, his first Bowman. It's just his Chrome card. ⁓ Ross, twenty seven dollars. It's up six percent. PSA nine. It's sixty one sixty seven dollars. ⁓

Alex: ⁓ When did you end up picking Jason?

Jason: plus 23 PSA 10 250 plus 1905. So this card was one of the cards I chased from the jump. I remember when going to the national, this was one of the cards that was on my list and I bought it for like $20 at the national. It's just a really nice card. I mean, it's one of his first cards. He was still a prospector in this time and unheard of. ⁓ This is a really nice card, it's Chrome. I love the first Bowman series, I have so many of them. have like Bobby Witt, Roman Anthony, I have a bunch of first Bowman and I don't think you can go wrong with the first Bowman of like a player like Paul Skeens because I feel like that's gonna go up.

Alex: Yeah, that's ⁓ within the last couple months my dad ⁓ My dad's trying to like flip cards and everything get them graded try to sell them for a lot of profit before the season starts So that's one of the cards we saw ⁓ Yeah, gem rates not that bad. ⁓ there's a way to check gem rates for grading so if you if you just look up gem rates online and look up the card you're looking for ⁓ Say this card you could actually see how good how well this card grades With PSA and not like at other places so before you can like grade them like it has a bad rating I'm like how much just keep this raw I guess but overall this is one of the cards. I think everybody shouldn't buy or just get one

Jason: Yeah. Yeah, it's a dope card. I love it. I mean, you can't go wrong with Chrome Chrome, first Chrome. ⁓ Yeah, so Paul Skeen is pretty cool player. He's very serious. has a very serious character, but he is just dominates every time he's on the field. And hopefully the Pirates cook something up because you don't want to waste his career because he is a true ace in the MLB. ⁓ So now let's go into collector's corner. Alex, we haven't talked yet about what's going on with us, what players were on in our radar experiences. So let's start players on the radar. Who are you looking for? I know there's so much sports going on from the world baseball classic to all other things in the sports realm. Who do you got for us this week?

Alex: Um, so we were like yesterday I was messaging you like around 11 because we do talk about outside of the podcast. We talk about cards. Half of like our conversations are like chat. What do you think about this card chat? What do you think with this card chat? I want to get this car chat. Oh, look, Chad, this is really good. Um, uh, getting Kyle teal from, uh, the white socks, but, um, his RPA 40 bucks, which is not bad. It might go down because he just got hurt.

Jason: Time to buy now, you never know. Wait a couple weeks and I think you can get it done.

Alex: And I know the time to buy now might to go lowball somebody lowball the shit out of somebody. I'll just do it right now. He's hurt. Yeah, I just got a notification. He's out for six weeks. And then I just got to like gaslight the crap out of this person. we're like, ⁓ yeah, he's probably just have to like low ball somebody because somebody's one with these players, people don't really know who they are because, ⁓ say if you're not like a fan of the team or you don't have enough ball knowledge to know who these players are. ⁓

Jason: He's bad. He'll never be good. Yeah, legit. Mm-hmm.

Alex: I'm not saying that I do I just know who he is because of what we're socks fans here I know fortunately I know right ⁓

Jason: Yeah, mean, yeah, yeah, if the Sox aren't a big popular team, unlike like the Dodgers, Yankees. So I can see him going under the radar.

Alex: Yeah, um Yeah, people might not know who he is, but he's been really he was Doing really well the world baseball classic. I think jason sent me a little video of him hitting a home run I don't know. All right, this guy's not that bad um But unfortunately he's hurt now, but yeah um another player Who just hit uh just broke a kobe's uh rookie not rookie What do call it points? Uh, bam bam out of bio I wanted to buy one of his riki cards but there's two conflicting things about it for me. I don't really like him enough to buy his card but I also have the FOMO where like alright cool I want to history somebody's a historical player because he's on the most pointed list now next to Kobe and everybody else and I'm like so I'm like conflicted about that. Do I really want him? I don't really like him as much as the player. I'm too

Jason: These cards are going crazy, man. You

Alex: that I really want just because everybody wants me.

Jason: Yeah, but I'm gonna vote as a Bayer ran a performance. It was at 83 points against the Wizards. No one expected that. yeah, his card skyrocketed right after the performance. I was on eBay just snoozing. was like, I just want to see what the sales were going and $300 there, $400 there. It's like $670 over a year. Yeah, his cards went. It went crazy after that performance, right after everything was selling. Crazy.

Alex: I know if you saw that one of rookie card that went for a million dollars.

Jason: Like that's what I don't understand. Like after like the hype goes down, that card's going to be maybe worth maybe half of that. Cause like Bam out of bio, he's not going to be putting points like that every week. Obviously. Yeah.

Alex: Somebody, somebody's capitalizing. Less than half. I don't think he that and like this is a good opportunity for people to sell. But also, but the other thing is for me is that like, I don't, don't think you'll ever win. I'm not saying like he's, he's not, he's how do I play? Like he's a good role player, but I don't expect him to win like any championships lately, like anytime soon.

Jason: definitely. Yeah, they don't have... They don't have that core in Miami and he is a great player. He's been part of Team USA. He's been an all star, but yeah, I agree. He's not a winger premier players and this is probably his peak to be honest in price of cards because unless he goes for a hundred and has this like defensive player season or some crazy season, this is pretty much his peak because We don't see these performance that often and I can see why you're saying that.

Alex: ⁓ yeah, we would have got a hundred maybe that would have been justified. Like, yeah, at least no longer. It's no longer like he's historical. He's the number like, you know, when LeBron passed, like this guy, Kareem, that makes sense. Like LeBron's number one now he's going to be a legendary player. That's his all his charts. Cart shot up. ⁓ but it have been the other way around for a bam. don't, I think that people would have been like, I got the guy with the most points in the NBA ever. But, ⁓ I don't, I don't, I think that.

Jason: Yeah. Yeah.

Alex: Overall if you're like a big BAM person, yeah, I get it. And then maybe the other thing is ⁓ What is it? I just don't think it's a goodbye think you'd be screwed at the end of it If you retire just maybe in the next 10 years, I don't think that the value on that's gonna be good

Jason: definitely anyone else

Alex: ⁓ Man so many like so many cards so many people like so little money, you know, like you know Jason like All they want to do is buy cars all day and every day. Let me see. No, I was looking at Luther Bertonado's because of my dad. ⁓ yeah. Well, I'll get to that next. Yeah, we're looking Luther Bertonado's Nothing really good yet because everything is in this college uniform. So something

Jason: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's not many cards of his it's like a bunch of his cards just have like 87 on it and like and like

Alex: The only one I saw that was not that bad was the big Kahuna one. like, Ankar. And I'm like, I don't really like that one as much, but okay. And then I was looking at DJ Moore autos because unfortunately DJ Moore is no longer a bear and I did hurt a little bit. But he does have, his rookie cards are not that bad. They're not expensive, but I might get one because DJ, who doesn't love DJ? But yeah.

Jason: Yeah.

Alex: That's it. ⁓ and another WhiteHawks player, Takamora, the guy, the Japanese guy.

Jason: ⁓ yeah, more comming. Yeah.

Alex: Murakami there. Yeah, that guy is killing it for Japan right now and No, ⁓ right, are we got our own brand of Otani you see that clip with him showing how to like hit up ⁓ Yeah, Doug my bad my bad Yeah, and then the comments are funny like Comments are fun. Like yeah, this is the settings I do and then he just go hit some Roman right after later. We got an Otani at home guys

Jason: Dude's a tank. We got Otani at home. Yeah. I sent it to you. dude looks nice. W settings. Fuck yeah. Hopefully he's a beast in this season.

Alex: ⁓ He's hard. doesn't I hope he My thing is I haven't finding rookie cards of his except when be the NPL international cards and they're not that nice and hope he gets like a rookie card from tops for here, Would you would you get Jason and I'll Randall Don

Jason: Yeah. Alright, so I got Roman Anthony. Dude's been going crazy. He's had like a home run like I think the other two games ago. So I think this is the best time to buy because he's going go insane. And I know his prices are higher now, but when we approach the regular season, this guy is going to go crazy. I feel like he's going to be an all-star right away and win rookie of the year. He has that potential. He has the power. He has a Red Sox team that's pretty much built around him and he's just that guy. Man has the power and I want to keep buying more of his cards. I bought a Sand Glitter card of his. Pretty nice card, it like 15 bucks. ⁓ But yeah, I want to buy more Roman. I have a couple cards. I think I have his First Bowman and like some other card of his. It's like out of 250. ⁓ But yeah, he's a cool player.

Alex: That's the bed.

Jason: Another guy, Aaron Judge. This dude's going crazy in the World Baseball Classic. He had like a two home run game. Great defensive plays and he's the MVP for a reason. I mean, his rookie cards aren't too expensive. His paper ones are like around like 45 to like 60. His like Chrome card is it's like around the hundreds. Couple hundred dollars. Yeah, I have one of his rookie cards, but maybe I'm like I look to get another one of his. Uh, what else? So we got Nick Kurtz, one of the players I collect the most. His market's expensive, but I was looking to get his update X-Factor. It's also a rookie. It's not too bad. It's like $7. I was like, I might have to do it. I already have his original X-Factor. So was like, why not grab his other one? So that's one of my priorities this next coming week to grab that guy. Yeah, it's a lot of baseball.

Alex: That's not bad. ⁓ Yeah, a lot of baseball basketball right now on quite expensive

Jason: You got to wait till the playoffs, I feel like, to get back into basketball because basketball changes like every, every other day. Who's good, who's bad. Yeah, right. Like who's going to have that game changing performance with baseball? We're just on the head of it. We're like 13 days away from opening day. At least for the White Sox, I saw a post about that. So we're close. We're close to baseball and more proxies are to come out.

Alex: Alright, well then I wonder who's gonna break another record this week.

Jason: We're gonna keep buying more baseball cards.

Alex: I just hope the weather turns around over here because it snowed today, which was kind of weird.

Jason: Yeah, I saw the cameras and that I was like, what was going on? Yeah, hopefully, hopefully get better weather than that. Now it's time to experiences. I'll start off first because we're going to talk about other stuff. I feel like yours is more porn experiences. I went to a card show in Romeville. It was in the middle. It was in a middle school gym, so it was very small. And to get in, it was like a dollar. It a pretty good turnout, though. Got there as soon as they open. Lot of cool cards a bit overpriced. I'm not gonna lie I was I almost bought a It was a slab of wemby and it was like $75 it was a PSA 10 It was just his base card and then I looked it up on market movers and it's like oh, it's actually a $45 card I'm like, all right, he's not gonna go down that much. I already know that I already know he's not gonna do it So I was like, all right, I'll hold off. I walked around a couple times found nothing that I really liked I bought a $5 Jordan. It's a sky box. Pretty cool card. I was looking at online for the longest. Just pretty much the moral of story is I brought $100. I didn't spend $100. And that's okay because you can't win them all because if you don't, don't want to like buy a car that you're not interested in. So yeah, it was, it was an alright experience. I'm gonna take that $100 somewhere else, you know.

Alex: And then, he doesn't take that $100 to the next show.

Jason: Exactly. Yeah, you can't win them all. I got a cool $5 card. a nice time at the show. Met a lot of cool people, yeah. How about yours? What experiences you got this past week?

Alex: So It's like a morally like a buyer-seller thing The guy sent me the wrong card. So he had asked us to what do you call it? Just asked us to Because the guy he had sent my cards to had also bought a cosplayer. So I had bought Kevin Alcantara's cards and he had bought Moses I don't know he says last name. They yeah that guy and I guess he got mixed up and He put my cards in there. And so he had asked us like hey, can you guys

Jason: Ballesteros, yeah. What a guy.

Alex: When you get them, can you just send them back with the label? And I was like, all right, cool. I'll do it for you. He sent me the label. Yeah, he sent me the label. And I just printed it out and put it back on and sent it out. And I got it back, I the day before. And I was like, it's not bad. It took a week. And I wasn't really pressing it either. Part of me was like, god, I hope this is not a scam.

Jason: You pay for the label? What a guy. Mm-hmm.

Alex: Last thing you really need is getting scammed right now, but he's like, no, it's not a scam. ⁓ overall got the cards, nice guy. And then I found that you can make a group chat and colegs, which I didn't know, which was the funniest shit ever. Cause me and him, I mean, put me and him, the other guy and he was like, Hey guys, let you know about the cars. And I'm like, what the hell you can make a group chat here? ⁓ but overall at end of the story that he gave, he's adding something. I had bought more cards from him because of colegs gave me $10 from.

Jason: What a guy.

Alex: I I'll buy more cards. He's like, you know what? I'm going to give you something special. Let me, let me, was like, before you send us something, let me buy something off you so you can make easier for the shipping. So I bought two 1991, you ⁓ know, those little silver packs with little cards in them. Where can find hobby boxes. The little 75 years, 91 ⁓ cards. I got a each row, one on the rookie and then what do call it?

Jason: Okay, yeah, yeah.

Alex: I thought Jack Colgan was the other rookie, what is his name? He's a pitcher. Not Bubba Chandler. I just can't think of his name right now. But he's one of the big players too. Yeah, there we go. I picked up his for like $2. I'm like, that's not bad. I came out to seven bucks and he's like, I'll throw something in for you. I was like, okay, cool. But over a not a bad experience.

Jason: We'll see you. I dunno. ⁓ Maserowski? That's pretty good, yeah.

Alex: And I wasn't really like mad either. No point in getting mad over something that can be just fixed by talking it out. But yeah, not bad. Not a bad experience. ⁓ yeah. My experience this week, another one is that I traded Jason my Paul Skeen's rookie card extractor.

Jason: We made deals, chat. We made lots of good deals.

Alex: ⁓ Jason owes me his first born son and

Jason: The first point, son. I don't know about all that.

Alex: He's like, yeah, you can have my firstborn son. I'm like, all right, cool. I will be naming him Jason also. a reminder that he's your son, but he's

Jason: He's gonna see the light in the sky. like, Jason finally had a son.

Alex: you here's a big one. ⁓

Jason: It's happening.

Alex: And your wife's like, wait,

Jason: No, you can't take our son. But I have this card.

Alex: I'll use me sliding you a card here, Jason. Here's your Paul Skeen's I attract a rookie card.

Jason: I'm gonna call them Paulskins.

Alex: I'm call your name is Paul schemes. Why it's just a reminder that you got traded for a Paul schemes card

Jason: W.

Alex: But yeah, I traded him. I have two of them. I got one for Christmas for my dad. prior for that, my dad didn't know I had one ready. then he's like, so I like, I already have one. I just gave it to Jason because Jason wanted to buy one. So the real agreement we made was that we're to have t-shirts coming soon. Me and him are going to wear t-shirts on the pod. the t-shirts are not bad. I actually like

Jason: day. Hell yeah! Where for the nationals that'd be dope.

Alex: people are gonna come up to us and ask us like, who are you guys? ⁓ we're Boomer sports carts. Who the fuck are you guys?

Jason: ⁓ yeah follow us follow us here who the fuck is that guy yeah what is that logo you need a new logo

Alex: He's waiting for somebody to call us dorks. Like, look at these dorks. If you don't have a cool shirt, fuck off. But yeah, that was the experience. yeah, then we had an upcoming show this weekend. I'm going to slide the PawSceneScar to Jason so he can get his. And he's going to give me his son's certificate also.

Jason: Look these guys. Nah. Hell yeah. Yeah, the- I don't know. Yeah, the Chicago sports spectacular. It's going to be big. We went last time. A lot of good cards. Very busy towards like the end of towards like the middle of it. So hopefully we get some nice cards. I don't know what the budget is, but we're going to figure that out. We're going to see what we got.

Alex: Jason's and we're like I the budget isn't there yet because I don't know how much how much I'm gonna come back with Cuz Jason's were like I brought a hundred bucks and he's in like I ended up spending five hundred dollars instead

Jason: Yeah. I went to the ATM right after.

Alex: I right I saw a card I really wanted it was $500. But um, crap lost my train of thought but yeah, we're gonna go. We're gonna have a good time. then yeah, any experiences any other experiences Jason?

Jason: And now I'm in debt. Yeah. It is. Nope, I think we covered it all. now if you enjoyed the show, just make sure to give us a follow. This has been Player of the Week. It was Paul Skeen. So make sure to tune in next week and we'll be going further deep into other players. Pause. So just give us a follow on all the socials. Like, share the episode. Stay ripping, stay collecting. Remember, the hobby is always booming and we'll catch you next time.

Alex: Peace.