Tonight Stephan Strasburg is set to make his return to the big league mound. For those that don’t know who he is, Stephen was drafted in the first round 2 years ago. He played for the Nationals and saw some success in his first season before being sidelined by injury. You may have seen a few of his cards selling on ebay about a year ago. I think he had a card in 2010 Bowman and maybe a few others. One of them sold for like 20 grand or something, but it didn’t get much coverage.
Satire by the way.
Seriously though, I hate when people can’t separate their dislike of the hype and price inflation of his cards (that is our fault as collectors by the way) from the guy himself. I was disappointed when people seemed happy when he was hurt because it somehow made them feel like they were right for not buying into his hype. I was bummed when he was hurt. Watching him pitch was a blast. During his first outing I kept pausing and rewinding each pitch. In a word he was absurd.
I didn’t get many of his cards, my best is probably the one Mojo sent me.
I wish I had one of his Bowman chrome prospect cards. Even if his best days are behind him it will be an iconic card.
For the record I hope he tears it up. As a baseball fan I would love to see him come back and dominate. It will also be interesting to see what happens to his cards value wise if he starts killin’ it again.
-K-
mojobeardy.wordpress.com 
I can’t agree with you more about everything you said. I hope he has a great start.
I don’t care for the hype (Strasburg, Harper, Todd Van Poppel), but if he goes on to be great the nay-sayers will be collecting his stuff too. I think people who say they’re happy he got hurt are just happy they didn’t miss out on an investment opportunity.
Normally, I’d be rooting for him. But not today, against my team. I hope he tanks. Or the game’s rained out.
Night Owl sort of got his wish. Strapsborg gave five scoreless innings, but will end up with a no-decision after the Nats’ middle-relief went all a-splode after he got pulled.
I have mixed feelings about the hype machine and overpaying-for-collectibles-stupidity.
On one hand, it does run against my better judgment to anoint someone as timelessly awesome before they prove that they deserve it. However, it’s intrinsically exciting to see somebody with a lot of promise come up and do well. I’m lucky in that I saw both Lincecum’s and Strasburg’s MLB debuts. I enjoyed both games immensely.
On the other hand, there is an all-too-free market in place to set the price of collectibles for what the market can supposedly bear. If the /999 2010 Topps Heritage NSCC Strapsborg routinely pulls down a Franklin, who am I to disagree?
However, any genuine “lucky seller finds real collector buyer whale” doesn’t seem to actually exist outside of true vintage, serious business auction houses. However, there does seem to be an awful lot of over-familiarity between would-be buyers and sellers of hot trendy ridiculousness (like the Stras-fractor), whether it is Strapsborg, Vanilla Bryce, or even a Pristine Colorless 10 BGS Yo Gabba Gabba Jordan Rookie.
I certainly didn’t cheer when Strasburg got hurt, but this hobby seems filled with unlearned lessons, thinking that some athlete is a can’t miss (Matt Wieters, Mark Prior), or that other athletes are above making catastrophic mistakes (Vick, Favre, Tiger Woods). Not much lasts in this hobby, except the cardboard itself never seems to degrade.