My best memory of the 1989 Bowman set was pulling my first Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.
Great card. Really underrated in my opinion.
In the 30 years since I opened my first pack of Bowman cards, I have generally enjoyed this product. There were some blah years during the early 1990s where it felt like a second Topps base set, but I even enjoy looking at those cards from time to time. For example, the time that Topps squeezed a Jamie Moyer Cardinals card into the 1991 set.
Not the finest moment of his career, and not many cards were made of him wearing a Cardinals uniform.
When Bowman transitioned to being a prospect heavy set in the mid 1990s, I played along and found all of the cool rookie cards. I watched the Cardinals, and did not know much about Minor Leaguers at that point, but I learned. If nothing else, I would find cards of the Cardinals prospects. I have all my favorite Redbirds from the 1990s and early 2000s who had really good Bowman cards.
Scott Rolen.
Chris Carpenter.
Albert Pujols.
They made Bowman spin offs like Bowman Chrome. Yep, got those too.
Another good 1990s Cardinals player.
Eventually, I even picked up the really popular rookie cards, like Vladimir Guerrero that I did not pull out of packs, or buy at the time the Bowman product for the year was released.
Bowman Autographs. Huge fan.
I have always had a soft spot for the 1997 Bowman Lance Berkman card where he is standing by the old pickup track in front of the AstroDome. Got to fit this card into the post.
Yes, it took money to buy Bowman cards, but they were a reasonably priced pack of cards. It was a set you could assemble on a budget. When players did not pan out for whatever reason?
Who remembers Matt Anderson? Nobody spent a small fortune on his cards, at least I do not think they did. Probably not.
I loved Bowman, but they feel different now. How does someone go from thorough enjoyment of a baseball card product to annoyance and negative feelings? I would like to point a finger squarely at the Steven Strasburg craze in 2010 as the starting point. That entire summer was filled with baseball card people going crazy over packs of Bowman cards, Strasburg autographs, and all the different parallel cards.
Can I buy Bowman cards at Wal-Mart and Target? Normally, the answer is yes, but not the summer that Strasburg rolled around. I think I ended up buying a box from someone online, but was highly annoyed that it was more expensive than normal. At some point that summer, I was booted from a Facebook Baseball Card Group for rejecting a trade that involved me taking a Strasburg autograph and giving up autographs of Stan Musial, Ernie Banks, and Yogi Berra.
I regret nothing.
I saw Strasburg pitch at USA Baseball when he was at college, seemed like a pretty incredible talent, so I am not sure I could really fault people for being all in on finding his cards. There has always been that sort of feel with Bowman since the late 1990s, it just seemed to go to the next level with Strasburg. I was hoping it would be a one year phase.
It was not.
The craze over Bowman has continued since, in what feels like a now annual event. There was the Bryce Harper year, something about Kris Bryant, some other people I am not remembering off the top of my head, Wander Franco, and now we are on some kid from the Yankees who has not even played a game stateside.
I am not even going to touch a pack of Bowman cards this year.
I may not even touch a loose single Bowman card this year.
To me, there is simply no enjoyment in this product anymore. I can basically narrow my dislike of Bowman down to two different factors.
1. Money
Money for baseball cards is finite in my world, and Bowman has become pricy. I am not going to screen shot some baseball card stores site for this post, but they are generally selling jumbo boxes in the neighborhood of $400. That's quite a price hike from what they normally cost. There are better ways for me to spend my baseball card budget.
I could buy 20 of those Project 2020 cards. I should have bought 20 copies of the Bob Gibson card with the pirate hat.
I recently went through a whole boat load of sets looking for missing cards, finding them on COMC or Sports Lots, and dragging them into my shopping cart. I could finish off roughly two dozen partial sets in my card closet by buying 140 some cards off of the two sites. My cost was less than $100 before shipping.
That's the plan I am going with for the rest of my CoronaCon vacation.
2. You Don't Know. I Don't Either.
Nobody knows what players from this year's Bowman set are going to be good ten years from now, but there are going to be plenty of people who spend a small fortune trying to guess. That feels like a big waste of money.
I frequently question whether people who spend a lot of money on Bowman cards actually pay attention to the number of Minor Leaguers who reach the Majors, what happens to them when they get there, and the chances of that player fulfilling their definition of the word great. I have my doubts.
Take the Strasburg draft. The best player in the draft, Mike Trout, did not get taken until the 25th pick right after Randal Grichuk. Besides Strasburg and Trout, the players with the best career numbers taken in the first round are A.J. Pollock, Mike Minor, and Mike Leake. That went downhill quickly. What did Mike Leake cards sell for in 2010?
Who wants to go back to 2010, and spend a whole bunch of money buying up the Mike Trout cards?
Bowman story time. Gather round on the carpet. Let me tell you about the time when I pulled the best autograph from a Bowman box, which is now borderline worthless, but one of the other autographs that was worthless at the time is really popular and expensive now. It shouldn't be. It's a good story.
Everyone ready?
In 2014, I went to some sort of half day training in a part of Raleigh that was near my card shop of choice at the time. I miss Big D's Card Shop, great store. It was Bowman release day, so rather than taking a lunch break, I went and got a pair of Bowman boxes to open. Food can wait. I opened my packs of cards, and got to hang out and talk to the store owner. Best thing was that I got the best autograph possible.
Look at this thing.
I was excited.
I took it home, put it in a penny sleeve and a top loader. The thing was going to go to from being a really good Bowman autograph to being a great Bowman autograph. At least, that's what I told myself at the time. It is still sitting in a box full of autographs. Bet I might get $5 for this card on a good day.
Who were my other autographs?
Some Reds outfielder who was hitting sub-.250 in the Pioneer League, which is half season A Ball. Threw this in a box. Completely forgot about it for awhile. Everyone has looked at his Minor League numbers, and knows Aquino is 26 and has not played a full season in the Majors? (whispers) He didn't hit well away from Cincinnati, (whispering and mumbling) and he hit .196/.236/.382 during the last month of the season.
I got someone to pay and arm and a leg for the card recently. Glad these prospect collectors pay attention to numbers.
I am already staying at home, but whenever and wherever Bowman shows up, I will be somewhere else buying cards that make me happy. Probably some cards that actually have some reason attached to their value. Hopefully one day we can return to the sane days of Bowman, because I would be happy to enjoy these cards again.
