Off Hiatus Baseball: 2004 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classics

I'm in a chatty mood today.

I've said in the past that I went away from baseball cards from college pretty much through now. That's almost 100% true. Almost.

You see, every so often I would find myself on eBay buying a box of junk wax. That's apparently why I have as many 1989 Topps as I do -- I didn't buy that many cards during my junior and senior years of high school. I was busy chasing girls and colleges -- usually in that order.

After I started working after I finished school, I didn't think about baseball cards all that much. But there was one time at some point in either 2004 or 2005 when I decided to make a trip to a baseball card shop. I think the shop I visited was in Snellville, Georgia -- a true road trip for someone like me who, at the time, lived in the heart of Midtown Atlanta and, to be fair, lived my entire life within about a 2-mile radius of my condo.

On that trip to the baseball card store, I ran into the ridiculous number of cards that all the card companies were printing in those days...not that it's any better now or anything, but there is only one company with real logos and all. Anyway, I recall that I bought a 1975 Robin Yount rookie card on that trip for like $15 -- because I could afford to do it and I thought that was a great price.

I also bought an unopened box of what was called the Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic set. High priced packs, no current players -- it sounded like a great idea to me to drop like $30 or $40 on an unopened box. I was a little disappointed in the number of cards I got -- I didn't know any better, to be fair -- but I kept those cards stored away and thought little of them until each time I've had to move.

Now, I'm glad I kept them, I think. I've looked around and this set carries some pretty high price tags on COMC.com, it seems. I like the set, but I'd really like it more if I would have gotten a Rollie Fingers or Robin Yount card in it!

Anyway, this set had a bunch of serial numbered patches commemorating various things. I don't recall noticing the serial numbers back then, but I do recall thinking that these "relics" were a rip off -- they weren't real patches from the games, were they? I learned today that that doesn't matter.

Here are a couple of the patches I have: