It’s a game that can really make you do some soul-searching.

“What is it about baseball?” Zaun Boyer wonders aloud to his pious friend, Mars McManus.

“It gets into your soul, like religion,” Mars responds.

Passionate baseball fans understand this. And so does author Mike Reuther, whose latest work of fiction plumbs the depths of baseball fans’ despair as they try to confront other personal, more serious life issues.
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In The Baseball Losers: Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Reuther follows Zaun and Mars as they decide to follow the New York Mets, on the brink of clinching the National League East in 2007, for the final two weeks of the season, taking in games at Shea Stadium and in Washington, D.C.

As any Mets fan can tell you, New York went into a tailspin, going 5-12 the rest of the way to finish the season one game behind the Philadelphia Phillies, who had a 13-4 finish. It was an utter collapse that ranks with the 1964 Phillies’ fold and the implosion of the 1978 Boston Red Sox.

Zaun and Mars have their own personal issues to worry about. Zaun’s marriage is falling apart, while Mars goes from ramrod straight to “sneaky and duplicitous” by the end of the two-week adventure.

I kept thinking of Gregg Zaun — who never played for the Mets — throughout the book, only because “Zaun” was the main character who gives a first-person account of the two-week odyssey with the Mets.

But Zaun Boyer has issues. Like Reuther, he is a newspaper reporter. Reuther is a longtime reporter for the Williamsport Sun Gazette who honed his reporting chops by writing about sports, politics, health and local government.

And, as is typical in Reuther’s narratives, Zaun carries an awful lot of emotional baggage and is way too serious.

The main characters in Reuther’s books usually have a sidekick who can provide comic relief. In The Baseball Losers, Mars is not that guy.

The comedy comes from a fan the two friends meet at Shea Stadium. Jimbo sits one row behind them and really, really enjoys eating. He has a basement full of Mets memorabilia and a mother who believes he is a never-do-well guy wasting his life away.
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The gregarious and aggressive Jimbo invites himself to travel with Zaun and Mars to Washington to watch a three-game series with the Nationals. 

Jimbo relieves the tension that jams the main characters like a Mariano Rivera cutter. Zaun does not believe his wife when she tells him she is pregnant and cuts short her pleas of “we need to talk” by hanging up on her telephone calls. His brother, Gil, stalks his wife after she went to a weekend gathering of artists in Long Island. Their marriage is also hanging by a thread, especially since they had an “agreement” to sleep with other people  — and gets into a nasty argument when she returns home.

“You shut up, Gil,” his wife says. “Curse you. And you too Zaun and your damn New York Mets team as well.”

Well, baseball fans are superstitious, so this did not bode well for Zaun — or the Mets. One can almost see members of the 1969 Cubs, who were spooked by a black cat that paraded in front of their dugout during a crucial series with the Mets, smirking with delight.

There is a little bit of irony in this marital spat, since Reuther is “long-suffering” Mets fan.

Reuther’s works definitely have an ironic twist, and the focus is always on baseball. In his 2017 work, Pitching for Sanity: A Nervous Man’s Journey, a former hotshot American Legion pitcher faces anxiety and uncertainty as he reaches middle age.
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Baseball Dreams, Fishing Magic: One Man’s Trip Through This Crazy Thing Called Life, published in 2014, combines baseball with another one of Reuther’s passions — fly fishing.
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Nothing Down is about Homer Newbody, a pitcher who loves baseball so much that he was willing to play for free. Return to Dead City, Reuther’s 2011 debut, is a crime drama that features a world-weary main character who battles alcoholism and tries to solve a murder involving a minor league Mets player.
But before you get depressed, understand that Reuther can inject some humor into his narratives.

In one scene of The Baseball Losers, Zaun is paying his respects at the funeral of Mars’ father. He watches his friend walk up to his father’s casket, grin and place a Mets cap on the dead man’s head.

“Dad was a Yankees fan, you know,” Mars whispers to his friend.

The sweetest revenge for a Mets fan.

Reuther brings back the pain for Mets fans, as their losses are the backdrop for the book’s main characters. Without giving away the ending, it appears that the only person who is truly happy at the end of The Baseball Losers is Jimbo, who cleans up his appearance, stops drinking and swears off fast food. Mars is accused by “the woman of his dreams” of stalking her, and during the Mets’ season finale — they did not have tickets but sneaked past security — he has a meltdown in the stands, which leads to him and Zaun getting tossed from Shea Stadium.

“People tie themselves to ballclub in ridiculous way,” Zaun notes in the book’s prologue. “For whatever reason.”

Zaun’s character is morose throughout The Baseball Losers. When he finally reconnects with his wife at a bar and grill in their hometown of Niles, Pennsylvania, he is startled to find Mars sitting across from her in deep conversation.

“The good Catholic, my buddy, trying to do the right thing,” Zaun tells his wife.
Despite this awkward exchange, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for Zaun and his wife to stay together. Reuther alludes to the future in the book’s final chapter, although the narrative does come to an abrupt halt.

The Baseball Losers is a sobering look at life’s struggles, and how a diversion like baseball could calm life’s anxieties. That did not happen in the case of the 2007 Mets, as sports mirrored life’s disappointments.
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The main characters in The Baseball Losers have flaws and are not particularly lovable (except perhaps for Jimbo), but as usual, Reuther excels in his character development and tells an interesting story.

Faustian bargains are not new in literature and music. In music, a good example is when the Charlie Daniels Band fiddled around with betting their souls in 1979’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Making wagers or deals with the devil goes back to the Book of Job in the Old Testament, when God and Satan make a bet, with the virtuous soul of Job hanging in the balance.

In baseball literature, the benchmark is Douglass Wallop’s 1954 classic, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant — published, ironically, in a year the Yankees did lose the pennant because the Cleveland Indians won a then-American League record 111 games. That book was later repackaged for stage and film as “Damn Yankees.”

I saw a stage version of “Damn Yankees” years ago in Tampa, with Jerry Lewis playing the role of the devil (Applegate). He was pretty good, too.

Tampa-based writer Michael Lortz draws from all of these examples to produce a new twist to an old story, with a little bit of Sidd Finch thrown in for good measure, in his first novel, Curveball at the Crossroads (Paperback, second edition; $9.20 on Amazon Prime; Legacy Book Publishing; 269 pages).
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The cover for the second edition of this self-published novel is much better than the first. Flashier and more intriguing — just like Lortz’s premise. 

JaMark Reliford seems too good to be true. He is a high school pitching phenom in northwestern Mississippi, a Black left-hander with extra-long fingers that allow him to grip the ball and deliver exploding fastballs and a curveball nicknamed “Legba,” a name for the Caribbean voodoo god who leads souls to hell.

Some will recall the reference to the Talking Heads song, “Papa Legba,” or the character of the same name played by “Mod Squad” alumnus Clarence Williams III in an episode of “Miami Vice.”

Regardless, opposing hitters were having a hell of a time with JaMark — until he shatters his shoulder in the final inning of his final high school game for the Rosedale Eagles.

Lortz has a fast-paced narrative aided by 66 short chapters — a subtle, devilish twist for numerologists. The book blossomed from a five-page short story Lortz wrote in 2012. The beginning and ending are the same — but in this expanded version, the devil is in the details.
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Unlike Wallop’s character, JaMark does not take on a new identity, changing from Joe Boyd to Joe Hardy. And unlike the disgruntled Joe Boyd, JaMark hits rock bottom in life, abandoned by all of his family except his ne’er-do-well Uncle Rufus and his saintly grandmother.

“You were bad before,” his grandmother scolds him. “But at least you made people happy. Now you just actin’ like you got the devil in you.”

Looks like Grandma was prescient.

The book gets its name from a crossroads outside Rosedale, which is a tribute to the real-life Devil’s Crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi. That is where, according to folklore, legendary blues singer and guitarist Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil so he could “play a mean guitar.”

JaMark is snoozing near the base of an old tree when the moonshine bottle and cigarette he tosses to a nearby intersection catches fire. But it’s a weird fire, and a strange man, well-dressed in a black top hat, suit and tie emerges from the controlled blaze.

Hello, Satan. We’ve been here before. Remember “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.”

But …

They make a deal and here is the caveat: “Always put me first,” the devil says.

Do that, he says, and JaMark’s arm will never hurt again. Failure to do so will result in the devil taking it all away — including his soul.

Lortz received his bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Florida State University, and he weaves an intriguing tale that begins to separate itself from the Joe Hardy tale.

Plus, Lortz comes up with some good lines.  My favorite was that JaMark's mother "ran away with a freelance writer who wrote run-on sentences."

Without giving away the plot, it is apparent that Curveball is a classic tug of war between good and evil. Most of his baseball peers are stunned by his meteoric rise in the minor leagues, but at least one old coach had seen this tale before.

JaMark is unnerved at a bingo hall when introduced to an elderly woman who exclaims that the ballplayer has the devil in him.

And of course there is the devil himself, who periodically shows up to express displeasure at not being put first.

JaMark does have a creative way of getting around crediting the evil guy, telling reporters that “the devil is in the details.”
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How true. 

JaMark makes it to the majors and plays for the St. Petersburg Saints — the name is a nod to the longtime minor league franchise in the west-central Florida city that existed before the Devil Rays (now the Rays) joined MLB in 1998.

He has a memorable first full season, eerily similar to those of fellow left-hander Vida Blue in 1971 and Dwight Gooden in 1984.

But in the devil’s view, JaMark giving credit to everyone but him in a filmed commercial for Colonel Crispy cereal (must be Captain Crunch’s older brother) is the last straw.

The petulant devil eventually takes away JaMark’s abilities, but offers him one last chance to save his soul.

And that’s when the drama builds.

There are some strong characters in Curveball to support JaMark. In addition to his uncle and grandmother, there is Betsy, his lover who remains loyal and encouraging while JaMark wrestles with his, um, demons.
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There is Dusty Polichardo, who was a great pitcher during the 1950s but suddenly lost his touch. Now, as a coach, he seems to creep out JaMark more than offer advice, but he will play a crucial role when it counts. In an interview, Lortz has said that the character was influenced by Fernando Valenzuela (remember Fernando-mania in the strike-shortened 1981 season?) and Tom Lasorda.

And finally, Inga Roosevelli, a mysterious woman who runs a restaurant in the middle of nowhere with a clientele that resembles the bar patrons in the “The Shining” with their seemingly sinister silence. She also will play a role in the finale, having an odd exchange with the devil that may portend what is to come years later.
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On his website, Lortz notes that there are several hints and references to blues legends, songs by Jimi Hendrix and Snoop Dogg, food preferences of Elvis Presley (peanut butter, banana and bacon) and Elwood Blues (dry white toast), and a nod toward pro wrestling’s Iron Sheik, among others.

The only glitch I saw was the incorrect spelling of "Volkswagen" in Chapter 61.

Lortz’s novel is heavily influenced by the blues — JaMark’s birthday (May 8) is the same date as Johnson’s, for example.

But above all, pay attention to Lortz’s narrative. Some of JaMark’s feats are simply unfathomable, but Lortz pulls it all together in a crisp, believable story. There are several currents flowing in this book, but they inevitably swirl around JaMark.

Spoiler alert, sort of: the final chapter, like several in the book, are presented in a play-by-play announcer’s patter. The final sentences will really get you thinking.

I have a theory, but I will keep it to myself. Even if I am wrong, I am correct in saying that Curveball at the Crossroads was a fine debut.

Seventeen and oh.

It remains pro football’s gold standard 50 years later. The Miami Dolphins did the unthinkable in 1972, going undefeated and untied on the way to a victory in Super Bowl VII.

How difficult is perfect? The New England Patriots came within 35 seconds of finishing 19-0 before losing Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants in February 2008. No other teams have come that close to matching the 1972 Dolphins.

The story of the ’72 Dolphins is familiar and iconic, but Marshall Jon Fisher digs deep and adds his experiences from a childhood spent growing up in South Florida during that magical season.

Seventeen and Oh: Miami, 1972, and the NFL’s Only Perfect Season (Abrams Press; $28; hardback; 408 pages) mixes nostalgia with a blend of solid research and perspective from the players. It also is a story that resonates with me, so forgive me if I insert my own observations from that time. Like Fisher, I grew up in South Florida during the late 1960s and 1970s, although I am about six years older than him. Because of the NFL’s blackout rule at the time, home games from Miami were not televised, so we would listen on radio to WIOD play-by-play announcer Rick Weaver: “It’s the end of the first quarter, with the score, our Dolphins 7, the Patriots nothing.” Always, “our Dolphins.”

During halftime, my father, brother and I — like Fisher, his brother and father — would go outside and throw the ball and play games of touch football to blow off steam.

Memorably, we listened to the 1971 AFC Championship Game on the radio, and my father was giving me a haircut in the garage (pre-Flowbee). For about a week after that Jan. 2, 1972, game, the route Dick Anderson ran when he returned a third-quarter interception 62 yards for a touchdown was shaved into my head in a disturbing zigzag pattern. Christmas dinner at my aunt’s house in 1971 was delayed several hours until Miami defeated Kansas City in the NFL’s longest game. That was a prelude to 1972.​

Books about the undefeated Dolphins are not new. The last full examination came in 2012, the 40th anniversary of perfection. There was Bob Griese’s memoir with Dave Hyde, Perfection: The Inside Story of the 1972 Dolphins’ Perfect Season; and Undefeated: Inside the Miami Dolphins’ Perfect Season, by Mike Freeman.

But Fisher takes the well-known story of the Perfect Season and adds his own perspective. As I read Fisher’s narrative, it triggered many of the same memories. Fisher lived in suburban Miami, while I lived about an hour north in Boynton Beach. To attend the Orange Bowl was a huge treat.

Miami was known as the Magic City in the 1960s. But Miami Beach had the glamour. That was where “The Jackie Gleason Show” was taped every week. The Beatles appeared live from the Napoleon Ballroom of the Deauville Beach Resort for one of their three appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964. That same month, Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) would defeat Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Miami? To my knowledge, it was the only place in the U.S. where there was a traffic light on an interstate highway. I’m not talking about on-ramp lights. I mean, an honest-to-goodness, stop-and-go traffic light. There it was, on Ives Dairy Road north of the city near the line that separated Dade and Broward counties. The light would turn red on I-95 and traffic would cross. The explanation given at the time was that stretch of road was not I-95, but State Road 9. People strange to the area had to slow down in a hurry. It was a bottleneck then and remains one today, even after an overpass was built during the 1970s.

The first Dolphins game I ever saw in person was a preseason game on Aug. 16, 1969, when Miami lost 14-10 to the Philadelphia Eagles at the Orange Bowl. It was the weekend of Woodstock — “Rock fans just give peace a chance,” the Miami Herald’s headline noted — and dangerous Hurricane Camille was taking aim at the Mississippi coast, where it would make landfall the next night as a Category 5 storm. Rick Norton had a lousy game at quarterback, and Larry Seiple faked a punt and ran for a first down — a play that would loom larger during the 1972 playoffs.

My father was able to get tickets each year through a fellow member of the Lions Club. The seats were on the south sideline of the Orange Bowl, about 15 rows up on the 50-yard line. “Seats” is a charitable term. They were actually aluminum benches that stretched through the stadium and could be hot to uncovered legs. Tickets were $8 apiece in 1972, which left my father enough cash to buy us food and drinks from the Zum vendors. We would see three games that year — against the Bills, Patriots and Jets.

I would cover the Dolphins as a sportswriter for The Stuart News from 1980 to 1983, and my perspective certainly changed because the fan had to disappear once I entered the press box. But the memories from 1972 linger. The white handkerchiefs. The lyrics of Lee Ofman’s “Miami Dolphins No. 1” blaring through the loudspeakers after every touchdown.

Seventeen and Oh is well researched and is broken down into game-by-game chapters. Fisher gives the reader the details on the game, but also adds vignettes about many of the key players. He also attempts to weave in the politics of the time, mostly President Richard Nixon’s efforts to bring a halt to the war in Vietnam, his concerns about his campaign for re-election, the atmosphere surrounding both the Democratic and Republican conventions (both held a month apart in Miami Beach) and a simmering scandal after a break-in at the Watergate complex that would boil over in 1973.

It is unlikely that laser-focused coach Don Shula read the news headlines during the football season, and his players were probably too tired from training camp and subsequent practices to care. But Fisher does put politics into context with the times, writing about a nation “deeply divided by the war and by social and economic crevasses.”
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For his football narrative, Fisher draws from many sources, with 42 total pages of end notes. That includes Bill Braucher’s seminal 1972 book, Promises to Keep: The Miami Dolphin Story, which chronicled the Dolphins from their difficult beginnings as an expansion franchise in 1966 until Miami was humbled by Dallas 24-3 in Super Bowl VI. Newspaper clippings from the two Miami newspapers were also helpful.

That loss was the fuel that drove Miami’s ’72 squad. While the players probably never envisioned a perfect season, they did want to return to the big game and win it. Shula, on the other hand, hated to lose, so a perfect season was certainly something he wanted to achieve — even if he did not admit it publicly.

On the first day of training camp in 1972, Shula showed films of the Super Bowl VI loss. “He repeated his mantra of taking the games one at a time … and winning each one,” Fisher writes.

Running back Jim Kiick turned to fullback Larry Csonka and, knowing how tough the previous two training camps were under Shula’s direction, said, “Oh, this is going to be a beauty.”

Fisher’s prose is sharp and his observations are keen. Csonka ran up the middle “like a hussar on a rampage,” a nod to Zonk’s Hungarian heritage. Earl Morrall, who stepped in at quarterback when Griese broke his ankle in the season’s fifth game, “looked like Spiro Agnew at a rock concert.” Receiver Howard Twilley “had the hands of a pickpocket and a workingman’s attitude.” Linebacker Doug Swift, who had long hair, wore beach shoes and wore “granny glasses,” looked “as if he’d be more comfortable at an antiwar demonstration.”

In retrospect, some critics have tried to minimize Miami’s perfect season by claiming the Dolphins had an easy schedule. But before the season began, Kansas City and Minnesota were considered Super Bowl contenders, and Baltimore and the New York Jets were touted as contenders. But the Chiefs finished at 8-6, the Jets and Vikings wound up 7-7, and the Colts had an abysmal 5-9 record two years removed from a Super Bowl title.

You play the schedule presented. But in 1972, “on any given Sunday” did not apply in Miami.

The Dolphins’ lone appearance on “Monday Night Football” in ’72 was at home against the St. Louis Cardinals in Week 11. The game was blacked out, but my father took me to meet up with some of his Lions Club colleagues at a motel in Fort Lauderdale. The motel’s antenna was pointed toward Fort Myers, where the ABC affiliate was broadcasting the game. Fun times.

But here is where Fisher’s ability to analyze a seemingly mundane play comes to the fore. In the game against St. Louis, a 51-yard field goal attempt by Garo Yepremian was blocked and he picked up the football.

“He should have just fallen down on it, but instead he picked it up and made a mysterious attempt to propel the ball with his right arm,” Fisher writes.

Sound familiar? Super Bowl VII would have a similar play.
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“One would think that Shula, with his overwhelming attention to detail, would have Yepremian practicing falling on the ball for the next week or more,” Fisher writes.

He didn’t. And that almost came back to haunt him.

In 1972, Miami led the NFL in points scored with 385 and allowed the fewest points in the league with 171.

Certainly, the Dolphins had some close calls — they had to score 10 points in the fourth quarter to defeat the Vikings in Week 3 and held off Buffalo 24-23 in Week 8 after defensive tackle Manny Fernandez stole a Dennis Shaw handoff intended for Jim Braxton and helped erase a 13-7 deficit.

Miami would win a 28-24 shootout against the Jets two weeks later, highlighted by Morrall’s improbable 31-yard run for a touchdown — including a nifty fake against the Jets’ cornerback — that gave the Dolphins a 21-17 lead.

“It was the longest touchdown run for the Dolphins all year, in distance and in time elapsed,” Fisher writes.

Both playoff games were closely contested, with Seiple’s fake punt (remember 1969) and 37-yard run the key play in a 21-17 AFC title victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On the fake punt, the Steelers’ defenders turned and ran back to set up their return coverage. Seiple “ran down the other side of the field as free as a jogger on the beach,” Fisher writes.
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The one fact that surprised me was Fernandez’s anguish prior to the AFC title game. He had just gotten married the previous week and his new wife, Marcia, was a stewardess for Eastern Air Lines. She was supposed to be working on a flight from New York to Miami, but she switched with a colleague when she got married and was on a different flight. Her original plane crashed in the Everglades, killing 80 people. 

Miami dominated Super Bowl VII and would have tossed a shutout except for Yepremian’s ill-advised attempted pass after a blocked field goal with two minutes to play. That made the final score of 14-7 closer than it appeared, but Miami had one touchdown pass to Paul Warfield called back by a penalty and Griese was intercepted in the end zone.

Miami won the Super Bowl “with a defense that may have been No Names, but had plenty of adjectives,” Tex Maule wrote in Sports Illustrated. “Try tough, tight, dashing and daring for starters.”

Many fans who did not recall Yepremian’s “throw” against St. Louis remembered Super Bowl VII, when he picked up another blocked kick, which he batted skyward after the ball slipped out of his hands in an apparent passing attempt. Washington’s Mike Bass plucked the ball out of the air and ran it back for a touchdown, making the play a staple of NFL blooper films.

NFL Films had the classic reaction from Al Jenkins, who yelled "Damn!" from the sidelines.

“My God, can you imagine what life with Shula would be like if he lost another Super Bowl?” tight end Jim Mandich said.

Fortunately for Miami — and Yepremian — they never had to find out.

I interviewed Yepremian in 1980 during a minicamp for the New Orleans in Vero Beach, Florida. Wrapping up, I said to him, “You know, I have to ask you about that pass in the Super Bowl.”

“I’d be insulted if you didn’t,” Yepremian said, adding that he noticed that Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw had copied some of his passing techniques.

It was easy to laugh then.

Some of the players have since died, along with Shula. Others have suffered in later life from brain injuries incurred from the pounding they took. But the memories linger.

Seventeen and Oh, Fisher writes, was not just about the perfect record.

“It was the assembling of a disparate bunch of players and coaches into a unit of cohesive excellence that felt as though it couldn’t lose,” he writes.

He’s right. Get out the white hankies.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Darren Garnick, a New Hampshire collector who has orchestrated a card giveaway of players from the Dominican Republic to kids from that Caribbean country.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/new-hampshire-collector-making-dreams-come-true-for-kids-in-dominican-republic/​

Here is a review I wrote for Sport in American History about Charlie Murphy, the owner of the Chicago Cubs during their dynastic years in the early 1900s:

ussporthistory.com/2022/07/09/review-of-charlie-murphy-the-iconoclastic-showman-behind-the-chicago-cubs/

Topps' flagship baseball set is like a comfortable old friend.

What collectors will find in Series 2 mirrors what Topps has done for years. There are team cards, Future Stars and rookie cards to complement the base set, which picks up where Series 1 left off with card Nos. 331 to 660. That includes 56 rookie cards.

But even comfortable old friends can make you see double.

The blaster box I bought had 99 cards — that breaks down to 14 packs of seven cards apiece, plus a manufactured commemorative card.

Here is where I did a double-take.
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I pulled 84 base cards from the set, which included 11 rookie cards. Of that stack, there were 12 base set doubles and two duplicate rookie cards. With prices going up for products—I think this year’s blasters for Topps are about $5 more than last year at my store — it is frustrating to receive nearly a pack of doubles.
So, just 72 base cards this time.

Chalk that up as an error. And no, they are not variation cards. I even checked the codes at the bottom of the cards to be sure.

There was even a duplicate insert card, but I’ll address that later.

The design for Topps Series 2 is similar to the first series. Much of the set has a vertical design, which I like, although there are plenty of base cards with a horizontal look. The player is featured in an action pose, with a nameplate underneath the photo that fades from gray to black and then back to gray.

The Topps logo is stamped in silver foil in the upper left-hand corner of the card front, and the team name is placed at the lower-left of the card inside a baseball design.

The card backs are horizontal, with the team logo anchoring the upper left-hand side while the card number anchors the top right.

Vital statistics are placed between the player’s name, which dominates the top middle of the card. Where there is room, a brief biography is presented above the player’s statistics.
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The crisp design and clean layout are plusses.

I found several parallels in the blaster box. There was a pair of Rainbow Foil parallels of Kevin Gausman and DJ Stewart, and a Royal Blue parallel of Chris Bassitt. The Royals fall once every 10 packs.

I also pulled a Gold parallel of Yonathan Daza, numbered to 2022; and a Green Foilboard card of Seth Beer, numbered to 499.

The commemorative was a batting helmet card of Jose Abreu. This was produced on very thick card that was packed into the second pack I opened. The Sox helmet is very cool, by the way.
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As for inserts, each pack contains a Stars of MLB card. I hit the average, but there was also a duplicate card of Giancarlo Stanton.

The other inserts in the box included a Sweet Shades card of Juan Soto, and a Generation Now card of Brian Reynolds. Sweet Shades, as one might expect, features a star player wearing sunglasses. It’s a 20-card subset.

Generation Now is a more modern version of the insert from the 2007 Topps set. The 2022 version is much nicer and has a shinier look.
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So Topps Series 2 brings some continuity for collectors who enjoy building sets. The duplicates are annoying, but how long can you stay angry at a comfortable old friend?

Talk about a blast from the past. The Pro Set football product returns for a second year after a nearly 30-year hiatus.

Pro Set football was a staple of the 1990s, and it seemed like billions of these cards were produced from the time it debuted in 1989 until 1993.

It just seems that way, but go to any yard sale, and if sports cards are offered the football cards are most likely of the Pro Set variety.

Pro Set was founded by Lud Denny, who scored a major coup by obtaining a licensing agreement with NFL Properties. But the company had folded by 1994.

Now, thanks to Leaf, the football set we saw so much of 30-some years ago is back — hopefully, without the errors that plagued Pro Set, particularly in 1990. Although I must admit, the 1990 Santa Claus card was a fun one to collect.

Leaf had an on-demand Pro Set offering in 2021, but this year’s set is more mainstream and can be bought at retail stores like Target (where I bought a Silver blaster box).

Like the 2022 Leaf Draft football set, there are only 10 base cards in the set. But just like that set, there are two autograph cards per blaster.

The 2022 set mirrors the design of the 1990 Pro Set layout, although some elements are missing. The Pro Set logo is firmly anchored at the top left-hand corner and the card features solid action shots. The player nameplate is beneath the photo in a black banner with white block letters, while the position is underneath the name with a silver banner.

At the bottom is perhaps a cheeky reference to Pro Set’s NFL licensing deal from the 1990s: “Official trading card of football fans everywhere.”

The card back features a horizontally cropped version of the front action photo and includes a seven-line biography.

The checklist is similar to the Leaf Draft football set, with a few exceptions. New to the set is Kenneth Walker III, the Michigan State running back who won the Walter Camp and Doak Walker Awards in 2021 and . The other newcomer is Ohio State wide receiver Chris Olave, who was a first-round pick of the New Orleans Saints (No. 11 overall).

The players in the 2022 Pro Set product who also were part of the Leaf Draft football set are 2021 Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young out of Alabama, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud and Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers (who transferred from Ohio State), Southern Cal quarterback Caleb Williams (who transferred from Oklahoma), and two more Buckeyes, running back Treveyon Henderson and wide receiver Garrett Wilson, who was drafted by the New York Jets at No. 10 in the first round.
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Rounding out the set is Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams, who was drafted in the first round (No. 12 overall) by the Detroit Lions; and University of Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett, who was drafted by the Steelers at No. 20 in the first round.

As promised, there were two autograph cards in the blaster box I bought. Both are sticker autos and feature Texas A&M defensive back Leon O’Neal, who was not drafted but was signed as a free agent by the San Francisco 49ers; and Wisconsin linebacker Leo Chenal, a third-round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs.
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Leaf has two designations for first-year players: ARC (amateur rookie cards) and XRC (extended rookie cards). In the base set, Caleb Williams and Henderson are ARC cards, while Wilson, Jameson Williams, Pickett, Walker and Olave are XRCs.

Is this century’s version of Pro Set better than the last? Well, it was nice to collect lots of pro players, but the newer version has a cleaner look. And while it only concentrates on college players, it is obviously easier to collect the base set. The autograph set will naturally be more difficult to complete, since there are 196 cards including four redemptions.
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Have fun.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 2022 Topps Finest baseball set, which will be released the week of Aug. 10:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2022-topps-finest-baseball-preview/

It’s not often that you can complete a set with one blaster box, but that is what a collector can achieve with the 2022 Leaf Draft football blue retail box.

Granted, there are only 10 cards in the blue blaster set, but Leaf does promise a pair of autographs in each blaster.

The base set includes 2021 Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young out of Alabama, 2022 Heisman hopeful Bijan Robinson (a running back for Texas), The Ohio State (got to put “The” in there now, since the Buckeyes won that trademark case, you know) quarterback C.J. Stroud and Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers (who transferred from Ohio State), Southern Cal quarterback Caleb Williams (who transferred from Oklahoma), and two more Buckeyes, running back Treveyon Henderson and wide receiver Garrett Wilson, who was drafted by the New York Jets at No. 10 in the first round.
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Rounding out the set is Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams, who was drafted in the first round (No. 12 overall) by the Detroit Lions; University of Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett, who stayed close to home as a first-round pick (No. 20 overall) of the Pittsburgh Steelers; and Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral, a third-round pick of the Carolina Panthers.

The design for the card fronts are simple and elegant. The player is shown in an action shot with the background in soft focus. The Leaf Draft logo is underneath the action shot, with the player’s name beneath that in black block letters. The action shot sits between two red borders with some nice geometric lines.

The card backs feature a small, horizontally cropped version of the front photograph. In addition to the player’s height and weight featured in a thin black banner beneath the player’s photograph and nameplate, there is a seven-line biography.

The left and right sides of the card have a gray border running the length of the card.
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Leaf has two designations for first-year players: ARC (amateur rookie cards) and XRC (extended rookie cards). In the base set, Caleb Williams and Henderson are ARC cards, while Wilson, Jameson Williams, Pickett and Corral are XRCs.

As for autographs, there was an ARC and an XRC. Both autographs are on stickers. The ARC player is Jase McClellan, a running back at Alabama. The XRC signature card sports Mississippi State offensive lineman Charles Cross, who was drafted in the first round by the Seattle Seahawks (No. 9 overall).

Unlike the base cards, the primary colors on the left- and right-sides of the card are gray. The card backs offer no information about the player other than his position, height and weight. The type on the back lets the collector know that the card has an authentic autograph that is guaranteed by Leaf.

“We hope you enjoy your piece of history!” Leaf ends its block of type.
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It’s possible that some — or all — of these players may make it big in the NFL someday. If so, then the autographs may become more valuable as the years go by.

The 2022 Donruss UFC set is a nice debut for Panini in the mixed martial arts area of sports. The sport continues to grow in popularity, and Panini is looking to capitalize since obtaining the license for UFC cards last year.

The Donruss set is a good start. It is more workmanlike and tailored to the everyday collector, rather than previous releases like the 2021 Panini Prizm set, which focused on chrome cards.

A blaster box of Donruss UFC contains six packs, with 15 cards to a pack — or “Pak,” as the blaster box reads. A nod to MMA Pakistan, perhaps?
The product offers a 225-card set. That includes 200 base cards, 20 Rated Rookies and five Voices of the Octagon cards.

​The latter pays tribute to the sport’s announcers.
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Rated Rookies has the traditional blue logo that Donruss has used for years, and no matter what product it adorns it still brings back nostalgic times.

The blaster I bought had 75 base cards, a pair of Rated Rookies (Tom Aspinall and Grant Dawson) and one Voices of the Octagon card (Megan Olvi). There was also a Holo Orange Laser parallel of Alexander Volkov and Press Purple parallel of Jose Aldo.

The design is straightforward and the card front uses red as one of the primary colors. Whether the shot of the competitor is action or posed, it is tightly cropped and framed with a thin red line. The remainder of the card is framed in white.

The player’s name is near the bottom and is stamped in foil, and the Donruss logo is at the top left-hand corner. The UFC logo is at the bottom left-hand corner.

There are some great expressions in the photos Panini uses in this set, but my favorite is of welterweight Matt Brown (No. 149). Look at the mean mug on that guy. You’re not getting me to step into that octagon with “The Immortal” (the nickname is tattooed on his stomach).
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Come to think of it, I wouldn’t step in the octagon with any of them, but that’s another matter.

The card backs have a large UFC logo at the top, with the player’s name, weight division and biography in white type set against a black background.

The eight-line biographies can be fun, too. For Tim Means (No. 157), the bio notes that “Means means business.” The bio for Colby Covington (No. 17) tells the collector that the welterweight uses the microphone “like an old-school pro wrestling heel.”

You get the idea.

As for inserts, I pulled two Craftsmen cards featuring welterweight Jorge Masvidal and heavyweight Stipe Miocic. There are 20 cards in this set.
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Production Line consists of 10 insert cards. I pulled a card of heavyweight Francis Ngannou that celebrates his 20-second victory at UFC 249.

Octagon Marvels is a 20-card insert set that gets its inspiration from comic book covers. I pulled a card of flyweight Valentina Shevchenko. Another 20-card insert is Crunch Time, which uses the typography similar to a box of Cap’n Crunch cereal. The card I pulled was of lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Retro Series has 10 cards and I pulled middleweight Michael Bisping. Magicians, another 10-card insert, gave me a Conor McGregor card and a Press Proof Pink parallel of Rose Namajunas.
Duos, as the name implies, highlights two competitors on a card. There are 10 and I pulled a base card of Alexander Gustafsson and Jon Jones, and a Holo Orange Laser parallel of Nurmagomedov and McGregor.
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So, not a bad debut. It’s an interesting sport that combines the power of boxing and the agility of martial arts with the hype of pro wrestling. Donruss UFC has the same attributes.