Move Over Willy Wonka, There's A New Golden Ticket People Are Going Crazy Trying To Find And It's A Signed Baseball Card Of The Greatest Football Player Of All Time In A Montreal Expos Uniform

Cardlines - Every year, Topps holds a conference. This year, the Topps 2023 Industry Conference was more important than ever. After all, Fanatics (the owner of Topps) is poised to become a complete monopoly after winning the rights to the NBA and NFL.

For our purposes, the most important announcement was that a Tom Brady card would be included in the coming Bowman products. And yes, there will be auto versions available. And to make it even more excellent, these cards will be issued as Bowman 1sts of Tom Brady.

The cards will presumably be part of the highly anticipated Bowman 2023 line of releases. That factor and his elevated celebrity status should guarantee good value. How good? We will try to figure that out below.

But the folks at Topps did not disappoint and provided several dramatic announcements at the Arizona-hosted event. The first was that in the future, the company would lower the number of redemptions included in their products.

Welcome news by all accounts. Topps will also start to include Bowman refractors for players without a Bowman 1st in that year’s product. That will likely lower the average refractor’s value, which has not been well received.

Topps Ripped - Dream Draft Picks

The product’s most exciting new insert card is the Dream Draft Picks card featuring Tom Brady in a Montreal Expos uniform. Before becoming the greatest NFL quarterback of all time, Tom was a highly touted catching prospect drafted by the Expos. This Dream Draft Picks card will represent the idea of “What if . . . Tom Brady had pursued a baseball career?” and collectors will only be able to get base and auto versions in 2023 Bowman Draft.

TB12 played catcher at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, California. (Barry Bonds' high school) He started as a first baseman before moving behind the plate, where he hit left-handed. He was the 507th overall pick in the 18th round of the 1995 Major League Baseball Draft by the Montreal Expos. 

What's crazy is that he would end up being the last player ever drafted by the franchise. (Fun fact).

I was wondering if he was actually any good at baseball so I looked up his high school stats and he was good enough to make the the All-West Catholic Athletic League (which Pat Burrell was also on). Brady hit .311 with eight home runs in two varsity seasons. Not too shabby.

The Expos general manager who drafted Brady, Kevin Malone, said, “I think he could have been one of the greatest catchers ever,” Malone said, according to Bleacher Report. “I know that’s quite a statement, but the projections were based on the fact we had a left-hand-hitting catcher, with arm strength and who was athletic. … But his first love was football.”

Scout John Hughes agreed, “I think he would have been a pro. He had all the intangibles. He could throw left-handed power. There is no reason to think this guy couldn’t have been a big-league catcher.”

I was knee-deep in the baseball card game when I was a kid back in the 90s. Almost every dollar I made from my busboy job went straight to the baseball card store. 

I don't think I cared about acquiring something as much as I dreamt of being able to score or land the Upper Deck '89 Griffey Jr. card.

Granted, had somebody told me if I had just saved up all the money I collectively spent buying unopened packs of old 1989 Upper Deck cards to hope to find this card, I could have bought the card straight up 3-4 times over, I would have said fuck off still, because the fun is all in the hunt. 

I began getting turned off by collecting when it exploded and became over saturated beyond comprehension. They started mass producing all the sets, there were so many different licensed card companies it was hard to keep track of who was who, and companies started putting out sets that didn't even resemble baseball cards anymore. They looked like shit, covered in chrome, foil, and holograms. (Looking at you Topps Chrome, Donruss Elite, and Pinnacle). 

(Sidebar- I do remember one of the cooler companies to come out around that time was the Ted Williams baseball card company who issued cards of historical players. Those were pretty cool. One of my favorite cards I ever got opening a pack was the Larry Bird baseball card.)

One of the first things I did a few years ago when I paid down some debt and had some money in the bank was find a near mint version of this card online and buy it as a gift to myself. I'm not going to lie. It sucked. Finally having this card I dreamt of getting for years and years the easy way felt cheap. 

After seeing, and reading about these Brady cards, I also can't lie, I'm starting to make it move in my pants a little.

And I'm far from alone.

Needless to say, anticipation has been at a fever pitch since Topps announced this at the beginning of the year. This set officially "drops" tomorrow but people are going fucking crazy already and somehow, a bunch of big-name collectors are streaming breaks online. 

You've got lunatics like this guy, a real-life Slugworth from Willy Wonka trying to get everybody to just do the work for him and then buy them off for half a million.

According to "hobby (that's what the real collectors call it) experts", they're saying "they expect the highest-end card Brady to reach the $10,000-$30,000 mark based on comparisons to the most similar cards we could find."

After looking up where to even come about buying some packs of these cards, I'm realizing the "hobby" has gotten so fucking complicated and out of hand. I can't even figure out what is what of this?

The release date for 2023 Bowman Draft is scheduled for December 12, 2023 (subject to change). The product became available for pre-sale on Topps.com for pre-sale on November 14, 2023 and quickly sold out.

The product will be available in two different formats: Hobby Jumbo and Super Jumbo.

2023 Bowman Draft Hobby Jumbo Boxes contain 12 packs per box. Autographs are seeded 3 per hobby box. There are 8 boxes per case. Pre-sale prices on Topps.com for a hobby jumbo box were $479.99. After-market prices aren’t yet known.

2023 Bowman Draft Super Jumbo Boxes contain 120-card packs. I believe there are 8 packs per box, based on my attempts to read a zoomed-in image of a box. 

There are six boxes per case. Autographs are seeded 5 per Jumbo Box. Pre-sales on Topp.com of Super Jumbo boxes were for $649.99. After-market prices aren’t yet known.

Shop for 2023 Bowman Draft:Shop for 2023 Bowman Draft boxes on eBay

p.s. - I'm all for making December 12 (12/12) National Tom Brady day.