Cindy Dick returns to talk Women in Hobby/Sports E328

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What is up? Everybody? Welcome to Episode three, twenty eight of Sportscardination' gonna keep the intro short and sweet. Great conversation with Cindy Dick from last week continues this week. It's the conclusion Women's Hobby Historian. Hobby sports Historian just does great work and great advocate and ambassadors I like to always say for our great hobby.

So that will be part two today, right after I'd done shutting my big gap, but one other house cleaning. Note Break Cardboard, my new old show was a show I used to do. I'm bringing it. Back every other Friday, starting with tonight, the twenty first a guest.

Every Breaking Cardboard will open some wax, we'll talk some hobby, and my first guest in the reincarnation is Mike Petty. That will be tonight if you are listening at listening to this on show release date nine pm Eastern, six pm Pacific, and we'll come out on audio the following Monday, So if we don't catch it live you can catch it Monday as well, alternating with Hobby Quick Hits. Okay, quick Break, and we'll be back with the conclusion of our conversation with Cindy Dick. Hi, Hi, Isa Calpert, a longtime card collector.

I'm the co founder of the Penny Sleeper. My wife and I started the Penny Sleeper the simple premise in mind to offer collectors top quality supplies at fair prices. We offer a full range of hobby supplies and we'll get them to you fast. Whether you're looking for a two hundred and sixty point magnetic for that oversized patch card, or a slew of semi ridgids for your next PSA submission, the Penny Sleever has you covered.

Shop now at the Pennysleever dot com and use the promo code sc nation to get ten percent off your first order. That's sc nation for ten percent off at the Pennysleever dot com. The Penny Sleever top quality supplies, fair prices. All right, now the conclusion of my conversation with Cindy Dick, We're going to start off here with a little Caitlin Clark discussion in some of the stuff she has to deal with and I make a weird comparison, but see.

If you will agree with me. So here is the conclusion, part two of our conversation with Cindy. Well, you don't necessarily do modern cards. I know, I've heard you say from time to time you open some I know you get to some shows.

You know, I spoke again a little bit before we kind of went live. You know, I can attest to we're seeing more female collectors, which is which is awesome. We're seeing I've seen a lot more female dealers on that side of the table where it used to be, you know, just wives of male dealers. Now we're seeing females in their own right, being entrepreneurial and setting up at shows.

We're seeing females you know, working in the corporate space on the hobby side. So on all levels we're seeing more. There's obviously always room for more improvements in those areas. Can can you attest it as that's something you're noticing? Do we need to still you know, can it be better or create some of these companies even do more stuff to keep that trend going at a better trajector.

I mean, there's always always room for improvement. Right now, they seem to be focusing a lot on the team sports, and there's not a lot on the individual sports as well. You know, It's it's kind of a loaded question, and I'm not really sure how to answer it, because there's women in the hobby, but they're not necessarily collecting women's sports, you know, and so and men collect women's sports. And then there's the collectors that collect for the love of the sport and the love of the card, and then there's some that's purely in it for the money.

And so that second group I don't really connect with because I've never been in it for the money. It's it's, you know, if anything, it costs me a lot, but I've just never been in it for the money. And so I have a hard time sometimes seeing women's cards commercialized so much, and yet at the same time, that high dollar price, for some reason, dad gives it validity, means it's important. You know, you have the Serena Williams cards and the mia Ham card and you know that now we're in six figures and it's crazy, but it gives it like a piece of legitimacy that it didn't have before.

And you know, it's just because of the dollar signs, and yet it's the same card that some kid picked out of their SI for Kids magazine of mea ham and stuffed it in a shoe box. And you know, it's like, does this make it more important or not? I still go into excuse me, local stores. Sometimes. I did a rare thing and that I sent my cards to PSA, but only because they did a local drop off.

And so after I met them in the store, I asked the person behind the counter, who was a woman, if they had any women's cards at all. Any None, none, which was really surprising because usually they will have the WNBA cards. Now we have ice hockey and some others, but I was really surprised. We're getting a female baseball professional baseball league now.

And and as a baseball guy who coached, you know, in little league, and then I wound up coaching varsity high school baseball, you know, in in little league, I got to coach some some young ladies who were just as good as the boys I had on the team. And then what happens is you probably well know, is then you have to play if you're if you're a girl, you have to go and play softball, whether you liked it or not, there wasn't any uh you know, baseball leagues at a certain you were aged. Out and they came, you know, you know, you went over. To softball side.

And now it's nice to see you know, a professional. It would have been nice sooner or even uh even not even a professional, but uh, you know regular you know, just even recreational or high school even uh baseball teams for for for a girl that says, hey, I want to just continue playing baseball, played since some five years old, and uh it's what I know how to do. Uh you know, I don't need a bigger ball. I like the bats I use and and and all that.

But you know it's nice to see that. I guess better late than never would have been nice to see it, uh sooner, but uh, you know, we're seeing strides there. We're seeing strides and and even pay scale right, a lot of these leaks. You know, I guess we'll you know, we'll use the poster child for with the w NBA.

Now, the salaries is still I'm not comparing them to the NBA, but they're they're closer to that than they were when it first you know, came out of the scene, and we're starting to see you know, we're starting to see more female athletes and endorsements and doing commercials and representing products and brands and and so there's there's a ways to go, but I think we're seeing some strides again. You know, maybe later than it should have happened, but I rather happened then did not happen. You're kind of I know, I threw a lot at you. There different kind of levels with branding and the athletes themselves and leagues themselves, but kind of your thoughts on where like women's sports is in general, even outside the card aspect of it.

Going to your point about baseball, you know, I was never a softball player, but I think I would caution them. It's great, it strides, it's nice, but if they could take any lessons from the Silver Bullets team from the nineties who they played against men, but they had this great novelty year and people came out and then they folded shortly after that because they lost the novelty. And in baseball, you don't have a pipeline like hockey ice hockey, which I think is going to be the next big women's sport, they have a pipeline. They have college teams that play.

It's in the Olympics. There's interest, people see it, and not that baseball's foreign by any means, but you really don't have a pipeline in softball and base ball skill level have their own, you know, unique things to them, and so this will be interesting to see how that plays out. It is a competitive market, of course, in sports and TV and getting competitive you know, getting eyeballs and seat price tickets, and I think that's one of the interesting things with the argument with the w n B a is we want the players to get paid more so they don't have to play overseas and just wear out their bodies faster. But just to get paid more.

That's a livable wage. And at the same time, a lot of people don't want to pay higher prices in the tickets. So if you compare a w NBA game ticket to an NBA game ticket, they're vastly different. And I think that the WNBA it's taken decades to you know, in its maturation process of getting more fans because you need to be able to get more people in the seats.

So you know, yeah, I would like to see them paid more, but do I want to pay you know, a sixty to eighty dollars ticket for an upper deck seat? No, probably not, you know, And so it's it kind of goes both ways. It's like we want to see the development and the improvement, and yet at the same time, I always pay more, even though of course there's other streams of revenue, and women's soccer showed that with demanding equal pay to the men's team, you know, even though they might not get as many people in the stands, but there are other sources. Of revenue as well. Yeah, great, great point, but it's you know, I'm for fair compensation.

So whenever that, you know, you make a great point like that, where's the tipping point right where if you charge that much, maybe someone's not going to come out, And now you don't sell that and that obviously affects salaries, and so I guess it's, you know, we've got to look at as an overall but definitely better than when you know, at certain points, you know, they talked about the w NBA kind of folding and going away. So it's it's survived and it thrives and now. We're you know, I guess you know, we're seeing Caitlin Clark and she not the only one, but she's really sort of burst out into the scene after a great college. Career and really, you know, and really a very humble.

And modest athlete, doesn't, you know, just really guys of make it more about the sports. She plays that about her, but people love her. You know, Is there too much or you think this is a good thing. I know she's not necessarily looking for the spotlight.

It's founder like it or not. Do you think the attention she's getting is like a double edged sword where it can be good and bad because maybe it's too much on one person and not just the all the athletes in general or not necessarily. I look at it like social media, Like we can absorb one or two or three times of social media and you get more than that, and there's a lot more out there, and it just it's like too much. I can't do it, Like I only like a few things.

And with stars, you need a star. Michael Jordan was the star for a long time. Larry Bird was the star and the spotlight. You know, there was other stars, of course, but sometimes you just need that one person to capture the country's attention or the world's attention.

I remember asking my mom recently, she's eighty two years old, and they said, mon, do you know who Caitlyn Clark is? And she's like, of course, I know who Klen Clark is. She's not a sports person, but she has become a household name, and so you get that excitement of this like phenom now in women's basketball, and people will want to come out and see her, and then they get they get exposed to other people, and then they can start like, oh, I really like this other player. She's fantastic. I relate to her, you know, for whatever reason, and so she's kind of that gateway into exposing more people to particular sports.

So I don't have a problem with it at all, you know, as long as the other equally talented athletes also get some limelight as well. Yeah, I agree. And you know one thing I hate to see too, I think sometimes some of the athletes in in the league, in the in the WNBA, I think they And it's not Caitlin's fault. I mean, she's declined, like she could have entered the three point contest and she declined that invitation.

And just wants to work on her game. And get ready for the next season. So she's not like, she's not like the you know, she's not going out and seeking all this stuff. And I think there's certain other players in the WNBA that sort of resent her for the attention she gets, even though she's not you know, acquiring it by her own you know, I mean, by her own athletes as a great basketball player, but not really looking for it.

And you see some of these other players, I think, with some of these. Hard fouls and comments they're making and in press conference, in the press where they're taking shots at her, that always bothers me because like if you know and read between the lines and learn a little bit about her, you know, like this is not her doing. Is her masket ketball play and her attention to detail and her working on the game. She's not you know, she's not necessary looking for all the live night it just comes along with being a great basketball player.

And I think some of the stuff she deals with in her own league, if you will, from other you know, competitors that she faces night in and night out, and not just on the court, but even some of the words you know, in press conferences and in the media afterwards. I think that it's kind of unfair to her, but you know, she takes it in strive. She kind of turns the other cheek. And you know, I know it's going to sound crazy, but you know, I'm a Brooklyn kid, So Jackie Robinson was my idol grown up, even though even though I did, you know, he had died a month before I was born.

But I learned a lot about him, what he meant, you know, on and off the baseball field, probably more so off. And you know, I almost feel like, and again I'm not don't you know, I gotta preface this parent her like verbatim to Jackie Robinson, but you know, she's sort of in a sport not dominated, you know, by her race, and and becoming a very prevalent player, and I think there's some resentment there a little bit, and not across the board, not gonna paint with a rob brush because that's not fair either, but from from some of some of the athletes, and it just is a little reminiscent of that, just a little small comparison. And she seems to like, like Jackie learning about him, she seems to like just kind of taking a strategy doesn't doesn't fire. Back in the media and just talks about her game and the team and successful and and and doesn't you know respond and.

Kind of takes a high road. Do you do you see any of that and your kind of thoughts on you know, maybe I'm nuts with Parrison, but but you know, your your kind of take there. And I think that there is racial bias in sport. I don't study it.

I could not speak eloquently to it, but I've heard about the arguments of she gets more attention than some of the black standout players, and she's also done the one thing that's nobody has done, and that is score you know, setting that scoring record over men, over women, over everybody, and that's what, you know, really just turned all of the national cameras onto her. So I don't want to wait into that argument because I just I don't know that. I'm sure people have studied it and would be better, you know, equipped to answer it than I do. But I know it's there.

There's definitely racial bias in sports, sports and microcosm of society. Yes, and again I want to reiterate, I'm not yeah calling her Jackie Rob, just saying there's some similarities there in their perspective sports that and things they've they've had to deal with. Yeah, I mean, I think I think she has done remarkably well, you know, especially when she was in college, of how she handled herself in press conferences. We have no idea the kind of pressure she was on in the line.

You know, the limelight that she always see is what we see on TV, which is a fraction of her life. And I just I take my hat off to her of how she handles herself as a college athlete. Yeah, likewise, and well said, there. Time to hear from one of our great sponsors.

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Let's go. You are listening to the Sports cod Nation Hooka. So you're writing this book, is it? I got to you know, is this your first foray in to writing a book or no, it is. I did a master's thesis on that.

It was a comparison of women's sports and newspapers, and so that's a little bit different, but had similar, you know, pictorial theme because it was both pictures and also text. And so that's the closest I probably got. I did have one book offer. I turned it down because it had the wrong look and feel and presentation and how they marketed the book.

And I have one shot at this, and there's a certain look I do want, and so I'm holding out for that. And it's more, you know, it's a bit more of a coffee tables type book. It's not just a picture book. It also has a fair bit of history to give it context, because, like we talked about, it's so easy to look at women's sports from the lens of today than it was back then.

It is so vastly different back then, and so just looking at a picture doesn't do it justice. And that's why I feel like it's important to spend a little time to give it a little context around the socioeconomic history. But it does obviously focus heavy on the cards, and so I'm still shopping it around. I'm not you know, I work on it.

I'm still working on it, but I have enough, you know, to do proposals and just you know, hopefully find the right fit. Is you know, It's funny. I've had a lot of authors on the show too, you know, They've they've let me either sent me the book to read or a digital copy to read. I will say most of them, if not all, of them, have been terrific.

And I always ask this question because, uh, you know, I write for Sports Collectors, Digest, Sports Illustrated collect and those are just short columns if. Some you know. But I've had people tell me, with my long history and the hobby, some of the stories I have, like you want to write a book, and like, I'm not even gonna attempt it because I don't Number one, I don't I don't know how interesting I could make it or and I don't know if i'd be good at it. Has like has the.

Whole process been kind of what you expected, more difficult or even maybe less difficult than what you imagine. Like you know, going in, you know, it's it's kind of a double edged sword because I read to stay informed, but reading as an activity is not something that I would gravitate towards as my first pick. And so to you know, read about history, I would like reading about If I had to read a chronological book about women's sport, like in Encyclopedia, I probably would not do it. That's just not something interesting.

But what's interesting to me is how each card opens this door to want to learn more. And so then when I start digging into their history, then I'm hooked. And then I'm interested in what they went through. And I try to convey that, you know, in a short way, because many of these athletes have many books written about them, and so I'm not trying to rewrite history.

It is a long process. If you've ever done research, you know that it's like a lot of reading and reading and reading to get one little tibit out of it. And so it's that ferreting out of information of what fits and what I think my reader will be interested in, and hopefully it is enough to interest them to want to learn more, and that's the goal. So it's it's again, I'm not trying to rewrite history, but give them enough to say, like why was this person important at that time? And why was this card important? Yeah, it's refreshing to hear you say that.

And then also you know, hey, this is the book I want to do, Like I turned down that sort of off or when, and that's a different direction than I'm envisioning this. Do you have sort of a timetable when people might be able to read and acquire this book? I mean, yeah, it all hinge and zn either getting a publisher or getting a literary agent, and those are the two avenues you have to get first, or one of the two at least. Once somebody picks it up, they like to see it within a year finished, and so that I can do, you know, once I can have somebody you know interested in enough. And it's really it's another catch twenty two because men understand women's sports cards the uniqueness of them, much better than women do.

Because women didn't have cards growing up, they didn't get that magic and again very general terms here, and so like female feminist sport type publishers, they don't get it as much or they don't get as excited as men that love sports cards. And so it's like trying to find this, you know, somebody that's interested in it in women's sports and also understands how unique novel and rare these vintage women's cards are. Yeah, for sure, you know, I know you said you're working on it. These other things have to obviously fall in place for it, you know, the book to hit the market.

Well, you know what percentage of the book is finished? Though? Is in terms of like in your mind, like writing, is it seventy five percent or where where do you think you're at in that process? Most of the chapters are pretty much done. I need to go through and fine tune things like just some of the stats around the cards and shoring up all the references because it is a referenced book, so that way, if it does get picked up by an academic publisher, it's legit. And you know, just I would say eighty to ninety percent you know, done, so you know, fine touches. The other thing though that I just realized I worked on it for a fair bread today.

There's a chapter I'm calling the Olympians, and when I started it, I loaded it with you know, images of cards, and since I had started it, though, I had purchased quite a few more, and so I started going through my database. I'm like, oh, I want this card, I need this card, I need that card. You know, a pedious process to transfer them into the document. And so I need to do that to probably, you know, before I ship it out again, so to speaker propose it.

You know, I need to do that again just to make from not missing some treasure. And I'm not It is a curated book. It's not like this is all my two thousand cards. I'm not going to do that.

I don't need to show everything. Well I'm sure that would be interesting. That would be interesting in its own right too. But uh, you know that's the fun part, right, is like, hey, I can go back and and and give this the proper respect this one.

You know, that happens every book. I missed that or that one doesn't have to get in here and shine some light on it. And uh so that's that's always a fun It's not a mistake because it's not it is published yet, right, make all those fine you know, adjustments and fine tunings and and different things, and so you know, you know, looking forward to to that when when it does come out. And I think a lot of people I think a lot of people will be uh as well.

I think it's a you know, it's part of hobby because you know it's not it's not female. Hobby history is part of hobby history. You know. It's it's like Jackie Robinson to say, right, I'm not a black baseball player.

I'm a baseball player. And there these are these are athletes and these are their cards. So it's part of of hobby history. We don't.

To me, we don't separate. I don't anyway. Uh, you know, the hobby, it's the Hobby's the hobby. And we have actresses and actors on cards, we have non sports cards, we have athletes on cards.

We've got pseudo celebrities now on cards. We've got you know, tops even where they're Alan and Kent. They're putting you know, regular people that have done interesting things on cards. So you know, it's it's the hobby, right, It's like aline of the show.

The hobby is that the compass you know, all of us. So that's that's That's how I've always looked at it. But uh, you know, I think your your book will go a long way to more people seeing that and and you know, seeing that for the way it should be, so so. They I appreciate you making some time.

I know you're very busy with the process of writing that book as as you say, and doing some final touches and tweaking here and there. Anything you want to share where people can follow you, what's going on, what you're doing, some of the cards you own and are acquiring, and that sort of thing. Take your time, give out whatever information you want to share there. For the cards.

I have a page called Giant Legends, and it's short for one of the working titles was Tiny Treasures Giant Legends, and that's what these are. They're small, but the treasures and these are fantastic female athletes. But I call the Instagram page Giant Legends. I post a fraction of what I have because I just I just don't spend a lot of time on Instagram and posting things.

But I appreciate the follows. I love the comments. It shows that people are really interested. I have a side business called on her Mark, so it's on her mark dot com and some of the items we made polls from some of the imagery.

Of the older cards. They have to be careful of, you. Know, trademark violations and licensing. But I started making something so I'm also a woodworker, and I started using some memorabilia in items like vintage trophy toppers into.

Yeah, I've seen I've seen some of that and excellent, excellent work, and thank you amazing talent. I can barely knock and nail into our for it. So I'm always when I see people do stuff like that, it's always to me, even more so than any else. Put incredible stuff, for sure, definitely, And I'll put this stuff too in the episode note.

So if you missed it, go to the episode notes and it'll it'll it'll link up there. Thank you, thank you for your time. Me really, you know, I've always enjoyed talking about women's sports cards and especially get it. Yeah, well it's important, it's it's part of the whole hobby history.

Right. I'm a I'm I don't want to say i'm you know, people I've heard other people have called me like a hobby expert. I don't. I don't believe I'm an expert because I'm learning stuff every day, but I do appreciate the history the hobby.

Read books, it encompasses all of the hobby right, we don't. We don't take segments and that and that's the hobby. And that's not the hobby. It's all you know, if if Jefferson murder cataloged it, uh, you know, everything prior to his passing, uh and then everything we know after that's that's just a hobby.

There's no two hobbies. It's you know, trading card hobby. And uh that's always been my approach. And you know so uh, you know, right here in Syracuse we have uh you know, Branda Stewart is could could run for mayor and she she she'd win.

She's a local, a local legend. Yeah. And seeing us high school so and got to know her a little bit. So she's really a great young lady.

And uh, you know I still call young lady. You know, she's been been playing for a bit. But uh so there's again, I'm a one hobby guy and that's how it always be. But to to give credit where credits due to is another thing.

I a peg. I hang my hat on. I think if I think your book will go a long way into that, and not just your book, but what the stuff you're doing even on social media and just being you know, a historian in women's sports yourself. I think that goes a long way into uh education, right, education is very important, and that's on on both sides, So it doesn't matter.

I've learned. Yeah, I'm sorry. I've learned so much to this process. I mean, it's it's been an amazing teacher, these little cards and just again the gateway of interest that they have opened for me.

And so I'm just incredibly grateful for them, because all the things that I spewed out today, most of them I would not have known if they hadn't been for the research. Yep, and learning as you like writing the book. I'm sure you learned a few more things along the way, as I do each each day. So yeah, I.

Always joked a minute I stopped learning about something the hobby, I just I didn't do anything that day, or I just turned my brain off or one or the other both, so you know, but there's always something to take away and learn, and you know every day and the hobby changes every day too, so you go. What I can say too is I mean there's such great people in this hobby. I have found people that know what I do, know what I collect, and they've either sent me like a tip to some card that's up for sale somewhere, or they just send it to me. And so even though they are few and.

Far between, the people that actually no Cell appreciate how everyone to put it about women's cards. The fact that somebody would take the time to do that always touches me. Yeah, no doubt. It's a great community and that tend to care for everybody, look out for everybody.

We hear some of the horror stories and it's it's important to talk about them and just kind of, you know, let people know that, yeah, there are pratfalls that it's not you know, it's not always pleasant though, but for every bad story, there's there's ten good ones. I like at least yeah, yeah, it's always nice to. Talk about those more or at least ten times more yeah yeah than the bad ones. So uh, Sidney, thanks continued success and again looking forward to that book hitting hitting the bookshelves and people can learn about the great great hobby history.

Just in general. So thank you, thank you, bye. All Right, it was great talking to Cindy this week. Was the conclusion.

If you happen to miss last week's and you want to go back and catch part one, A great conversation about the hobby, especially on the women's side that's making moves. You know, whether you like it or not, the women's hobbies making big moves, and I like it and as it should be. And you know Cindy is at the top, at the forefront of knowledge on that front. And again, you know, great ambassador and the advocate for all the hobby, not just the women's side.

So glad she made some time and came on the show. I hope you felt the same way and enjoyed it as well. We're gonna hear from our hobbies, the people announcer of the week, some closing thoughts, and wrap up this week's episode. So one more reminder on programming note if you're listening to this show on Friday, the release date of the show tonight at nine pm Eastern Time, the debut of a show we used to do.

I'm bringing it back Breaking Cardboard. We're gonna call it episode one. Myself and Mike Petty. We'll be chopping up some hobby topics and we'll be live with a chat room, and we're gonna open a few packs along the way as well.

So gonna be just kind of a laid back, fun conversation a little different than sports carnation, a little less structured, if you will, but live and there's no take too, so hopefully you check us out. That'll be every other week, So two weeks after tonight we'll do it again with another guest, and two weeks after that and so on and so on. So hope to see you in our interactive chat room. Time for all announcer of the week.

This is King Nascar from the Nascard Radio podcast. And remember, the hobby is the People. If you'd like to be the Hobby is the people announcer of the week. To have one f ORMP three file and send it to Sportscott Nation PC at gmail dot com.

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