Ep.214 w/ Andy Friedman-Topps Spotlight 70 & highlighting the underdogs

I'm excited to talk to my next guest on the sports card shop guest line this
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next gentleman is multi-talented writer musician artist I probably left
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something off he's Wroten for the New York Times the New Yorker S.I other
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other Publications not mentioned but without further Ado Let's uh welcome
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Andy Sunday Freeman to the show hey thank you thanks John thanks for
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having me nice to be here thank you for joining us uh I got to ask you is there anything you can't do
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I don't know yet I haven't tried everything yeah that's uh you know I get I have an
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idea where you got the the Sunday uh moniker but uh for those that may not
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know or I might be guessing wrong well where where did that come from oh there came a point in my life right
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around the time I guess I signed on Instagram where I made a shift in
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certain life decisions that left me on one side more mellow and got the nickname Sunday Andy that was already
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taken apparently when I signed on so I went with Sunday Friedman there you go and the rest and the rest
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is uh history now like I said you're a musician you're uh an artist a writer I
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mean you don't have the nice thing is you don't have to not do any of those is there one that you're you enjoy more
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than the others you know it's all form follows function
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um I get credited I guess a lot for do doing a lot of things but I I really look at it as one thing like a
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contractor shows up to the job with the toolbox you know so I have a toolbox I studied
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Renaissance painting techniques you know I worked on painting sometimes for two two years
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um it's nice to be able to write a poem it's nice to be able to take a Polaroid
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photo you can't always be making oil paintings for two years 24 7 so then what so as life happened and the less
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time I had in my studio I adapted and learned a whole different
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arsenal of tools to express myself in various ways given the purpose
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so I don't have a favorite because it always hits in the moment that's exactly what I need
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yeah that's that's good to hear it and you know it's hypothetical you can do whatever you want to do one you don't
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have to give one up I just figured I'd ask in case there was one you know that that stood out for but like you said
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they're all they're all you know utilities at your disposal that you can
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use whenever the the moment calls uh for uh hobby background uh you know did you
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collect cards as as a young kid I did yeah starting before I even really
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knew what baseball was I was really enthralled by the tactile
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feeling of them I remember uh with a company my dad I guess I was seven
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uh six uh we're coming to my dad on errands on
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Sunday or whatever and at the end I'd get a pack of 82 flear baseball cards is
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what they sold in this one cigar shop so you know I remember Mike Schmidt looked like one
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of my dad's friends Steve you know like these these were the ways I bonded with with the uh the players and the designs
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but it was the designs that Drew me and I started drawing the cards and I was about 12. by that point 86 Mets fever
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hit so I knew I was I was all into baseball and then started to go you know
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it started with collecting Garbage Pail Kids and wrestling cards and then once baseball fever hit then it was like hey
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let's try and get all the 86 Mets so that's when it started yeah fellow Mets fan here as well and
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we're going to talk uh later on I got a question pertaining to uh to them but uh
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you know we're focused on there one thing I love uh about you and and with
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the the sports art you don't always focus on the superstars well that's
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that's nice uh and a lot of other artists sort of do uh you've done some
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of those lesser known players very good in their own right but less maybe spoken
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of uh why do you think that is where does that come from well you know what
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sparked it kind of focus in is it sort of the underdog mentality or you know
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I'll ask you where did that uh inspiration come from yeah well
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um I mean again going back I would I would paint the cards that I had Without Really knowing much about the players so
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actually three cards in the 2022 Spotlight 72 set include three cards
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that I drew when I was 12. they actually included it in the set I didn't really know who Alan Trammell was I just liked
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the design I didn't know Pedro Guerrero 81 Topps Dodgers was I just loved the
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colors so when I injured my hand I got I did a lot of illustrating a lot of guitar
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playing after 10 years I kind of came down with carpal tunnel and lost a lot of my fine motor skills which I sort of
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relied on as my kind of super powers through my entire life and my whole identity I had to kind of learn how to
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embrace wobbly imperfection you know if my hand never got better so I wanted to draw
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things that weren't threatening to draw because I had enough pressure on myself with being
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hardly able to hold a pen and so I gravitated to my old baseball cards in a shoe box I wasn't going to hold you know
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a Mickey Mantle card in my hand because I picked like little common players and also as as somebody who made a living
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for 20 years drawing presidents of the United States on the cover of Publications that they'd see it was
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liberating to not have to really care about what the player looks like so if I'm drawing Dave Winfield that could be
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that's everyone's hero I gotta represent him but I could barely hold the pen so having kind of like lesser known players
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I didn't intend to share these drawings with anyone anyway I just took the pressure off
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yeah did uh I mean where you were when you have carpal tunnel was obviously uh you
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know while it's common it's still scary because you know like you said what even if you're not as talented uh as you are
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Annie right we all use uh our hands right and they're they're important sometimes we take them for granted until
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there's something wrong or they're injured or you're you heard it was was that a scary time like what if this you
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know I don't get like full range back or they're not a hundred percent was that kind of Weighing on your mind too
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yeah it was really scary it was every I had everything wrapped up in my perfectionism which I had honed since I
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was six you know since the earliest strongest I can think of you know
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um So Not only was it my sort of identity it was also my livelihood
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so you know um I had to really think about it I mean I
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I already broke the idea that I am a painter who is put on this Earth to
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carry in the footsteps of Vermeer and Velasquez like I said my life didn't turn out where I could
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spend 18 hours a day on a painting if I needed to so I found all so I broke the
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identity I had already of myself as some kind of Fine Art painter uh of that
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uh no medium so I'm free to invent whoever whoever I
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whoever I I am you know uh so uh
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yeah what was I saying yeah well I'm glad well you know we were talking about you know worrying about whether you'd
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get back to you know a full range but uh thankfully yeah no right so what it turns out really what the talent is is
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in adaptation ability to adapt so so I'm not a painter or a guitar player or a
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writer or this or that you're an artist if if I lost my hands if I lost if I was
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a head in a jar you know I used to say that in college I would figure out a way to like express myself you can always
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adapt unlike an athlete if you're if you're injured unfortunately it's the end of the road but artists can always
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adapt so it was a scary time but it was a challenge yeah and like you said you adapt and you
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you keep moving forward um you know you're growing up in New York like you know Mike Schmidt your
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idol did you take a look you know I'm a people people listen to show know this I grew
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up in New York City and I I was a Steeler fan from a very young age and I took a lot of of heat from my friends
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like how do you how are you not a Giants or jets fan you live in New York you know and it was the whole Mean Joe Green
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the coke commercial that kid had a resemblance to me I just didn't get into
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the Jets or Giants during that that time period and and I've been a Steeler fan
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ever since you know being a Mike Schmidt fan even though obviously he's a Hall of Famer a great player uh being a Philly
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did you take a little did you take a little heat for sort of like in uh schmidty in New York or not too bad uh
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took a little heat more less heat more confusion from people
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um but the reason why he was my favorite player was really due to baseball cards
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uh as a rookie in little league and my only season when I was 12 I froze at the
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plate I struck out every single at-bat I never hit and you know
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Mike Schmidt's rookie year wasn't that great either and then the next year he
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came back to lead the league in home runs year after year after year it was so inspiring to me and so
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when I was having trouble hitting like I I uh kind of quit baseball and I started
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playing softball in the summertime and I just kind of like you know we lived in the Poconos in the summer so we got the
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local Phillies broadcast so I would watch Mike Schmidt the reason why I started watching them was I mentioned 82
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Fleer packs you know I pulled the Schmidt and it looked like one of my dad's friends so it just kind of like I
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just was like oh that's that guy who I pulled when I was a kid let's watch him
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do that and just the way he would stand there exactly the opposite of my coach would make me so nervous like bend your
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knees elbows up in fact you know like like he just kind of stands there like like like you know like a lumberjack
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with an ax on his shoulder and so I just kind of tried that as a kid and just was
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like imitated him and then because I was so relaxed I started the ball found the
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bat so I used that as a really a metaphor for anything you do in
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life you know like you learn how to kind of Swing easy and rely on know-how and
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level-headedness and that's what Mike Schmidt symbolized to me I had nothing to do with New York or Philly yeah no
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that's that's great story and you got to you got to interview him yourself you got to meet him you get what what was
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that like speaking of that experience I mean here here it's so in lockdown my
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folks are in Florida but they leave behind a cabin in the woods in Pennsylvania where like I said where I
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Spent My Summer so that was that was available to my family and I we stayed there for four months
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and that interview happened during that time so here I am in like the childhood bedroom
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you know we're in the room where I used to watch him as a kid
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on a talking to him on a device deep in the future like that didn't even
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exist back then you know I mean like if my childhood self could picture myself in 35 years or whatever interviewing
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Mike Schmidt on a little phone like what the whole thing was so surreal and and
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then just to of course just to be meeting my hero but having a conversation with him uh you know it was
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great actually it was beautiful beautiful moment a lot yeah yeah some people never get that uh
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opportunity and and whatnot um you know let's talk about the Mets I
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I you know you're a Mets fan I'm a Mets fan uh we lived through uh the willpond
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era uh that's I think that's all you need to say no explanation is needed we
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now have Steve Cohen uh as as the you know own in the team a lot different
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from what we're used to uh back during the willpon errors he's he's willing to you know open the checkbook and try to
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make things happen and and get a a winning team and obviously the goal is
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to win a World Series um I mean just thoughts as a Mets as a
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fellow Mets fan just to to the dichotomy of that right the willpenn era where we
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we rarely signed anybody and now we're improving and trying to be competitive
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because of a new owner who who wants it it was a fan the team just like us he's
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just he's got the willpower to do it and the means
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yeah a lot of the kind of um bad luck uh the outcomes of the will
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Pond era seem to have sort of dissipated
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fallen off the Mets like they're not as hapless and Bound for the opposite of
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what we want which we've become so used to as a kid starting with like pulsifer
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and Wilson and Israel and that was gonna be it and this was going to be our year
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and uh you know so on and so on suddenly the The Walking the walk and talking the
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talk yeah and it's nice to be you know have an owner that that cares and uh wants
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wants the team to to win not look into just fill up you know his bank account
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in the process um you know and uh you know it's nice
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every year to feel like you know we have someone calling the shots that uh is
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taking to this personal uh as we do uh as fans right and uh you know you win
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you you live and die with the outcome of the standings and uh I think he does as
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well he you know he mentioned trying to bring a World Series in the next uh when he took over to team three to five years
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now in uh his second year and so uh we we've seen what they've done this off
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season and uh it's nice because I I know what the alternative was uh before uh
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Steve Cohen bought the Mets and uh you know a choice between the two it's it's an easy one so it's it's good to know
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that you know in a division that's tough right with the Braves and the Phillies uh the Marlins have their moments uh
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even and uh you know it's nice to know that um he's gonna do you know whatever
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he thinks is necessary to to try to accomplish what every fan uh hopes will
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will happen so it's a different feeling uh as a Matt fan and one one I embraced
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than the prior one yeah it feels good it feels good yeah so you know you've
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worked on a lot of mediums you've you've worked with gum you've been you know put
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your artwork on on cleats is there a medium you haven't worked with yet
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that's on your list or that you're looking forward to to working with uh
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yeah I think it would be nice to return to oil which I haven't done in you know 25
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almost 30 years uh yeah that's what I was schooled down that's what I was trained on and it it
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would be not it would be nice to I envisioned you know almost making a return to oil on the face of a card
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that would be pretty cool so I think of that sometimes yeah what what was it that way you got
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away from it what how come um well I worked on this one painting
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for two and a half years from the time I was uh let's see 20 years old to 23 and
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I was a June sophomore junior senior and College Art School uh graduated without having
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finished the painting yet rented a office space above an auto body garage out on Mineola Long Island for
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150 a month where I just I sold a couple actually I sold a couple
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of portraits of some guys I played softball with in the summertime and put them into like Tops baseball card
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borders and made enough made enough money to buy this studio for a few months where I would just paint finish
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this thing I finally did and then waited a year for it to dry because that's how
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long it takes to uh before you can put the final picture of varnish on which kind of seals it behind invisible armor
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forever and I kind of botched that process after a year I didn't let it dry
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long enough I've been using mixtures in my paint that slowed the drying time so
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I've kind of ruined the painting and washed it and my whole idea of perfection which in my mind I had
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captured I kind of destroyed that painting and it sent me into a kind of a creative Awakening where I started to
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then Embrace uh you know imperfection that's when I became a musician I don't
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know anything about music I never sang a note until I was recording my first record I didn't play guitar till I was
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30. you know and I've recorded the first record like nine ten months later because I wanted
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to just kind of capture my inability to do stuff yeah so that's how I got off oil plus
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like I said I used to get into my studio as a college student so early it would
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take me two and a half hours just to prepare my palette yeah so I don't have that kind of life
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right now yeah so on the music side you're self-taught I mean you did you teach yourself
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that's that's incredible yeah I mean you know I mean I learned from listening
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to the 1920s country and Country booze musicians who weren't necessarily musicians either they just had something
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to say and new two chords or three chords and made it as easy as they could
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on themselves so that empowered me to try you know Johnny Cash says two
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chords in the truth okay I have that I mean as an artist that's my whole job is
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to be true remain true and uh you know trying my best is probably an
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interesting sound as long as you own it and and it's like all my country Blues Heroes they didn't go to Juilliard
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so it was kind of like just kind of sink or swim as a kind of artistic experiment
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now it's like trying something new like just kind of cold turkey just saying I'm doing this is it a nervous experience
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are you you know are you relax like how you know I know speaking myself I'd be a
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nervous wreck but that's me like for you does it just come sort of naturally I guess you know I guess combating the
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nerves is the performance yeah and arm wrestling them to the
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ground is when the audience sees that that's what happened and you give a
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performance of genuineness for having arrived and delivered and so that was
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the thing so it's so you know that was the formula I thought if you exhibit
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doing it and committing to it yeah not letting nerves get in the way you know it's a clear shot emotional
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shock I think as humans so I did my did my best but well you know
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but I took it right to the stage so it's like was I self-taught I don't know I think like the audience taught me my I
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had a band for a while they taught me you know a plan it's like you know they say a
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performance is worth a thousand rehearsals I never really rehearsed it
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was like always on the stage and then when I got home I wasn't really playing guitar it's like a performance thing you know
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so it wasn't until I picked up the guitar again in 2020 during the lockdown when I really for the first time ever
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just kind of like formed a relationship with the instrument in a whole other way yeah trial by fire now how about like
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one thing playing the guitar whether it's two chords three chords it's still playing guitar how about songwriting
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itself now obviously you have a a writing background do you think that made it easier or again is it something
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you just hey I'm doing this this is how it's gonna go talk about the song you
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know did it did it take you long to write songs or talk about that process
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well no like I I some some of them I wrote and as long as it took to sing
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them but I actually don't have a writing background I learned on the job there
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too yeah and yes I have written and had the Great have had the great pleasure of having anything to do with the
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institution of the New Yorker magazine where I really got my start you know as
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a messenger uh um but uh
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um sorry hold on edit this part out yeah you're good um brain freeze
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where are we going with that you are just saying you know I imagine writing background you and you said I really
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don't have one so I'm fortunate to you know work for some of those places right
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so getting right right so getting back to songwriting is what we're talking about about writing writing songs
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um no um when you well let me ask it in a
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different way when you when you write a song do you say does it pop in your head
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and you're like I gotta write this down or do you say hey I'm gonna write a song today and then formulate it like where
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okay where does it come from yeah so
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uh after after I was pushing the card around at the New Yorker I became the
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assistant to the cartoon editor and it was my job to understand what a New
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Yorker cartoon was and this this relates to songwriting I promise uh my boss was
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like he's the cartoon editor he tells me you know since the 20s this is the thing you know the the picture is the delivery
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the line is the line you're a stand-up comedian but in cartoon form and it's
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all about saying the biggest things with the fewest amount of Strokes at the same time I was starting to get into country
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music and Country blues music which were extolling those same virtues which is
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like say the most with the fewest amount of strokes and I was learning learning this this concept so as long as
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I'm sitting there absorbing I had to look at hundreds and hundreds of cartoons a week and Whittle it down to a
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stack of about 50 that my boss would Whittle down to fewer and then they'd bring it to the big boss at the end and
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they'd sell maybe 15 20 a week uh you know the collective all the submissions that come in so I was really really
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getting it so I want to try my hand in it not to become a cartoonist but uh as
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a practice for writing Country music lyrics because I was starting to get into writing lyrics but but not to sing
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and not to play on guitar but to accompany my my slideshow that I did I
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traveled around with uh projections in my paintings and drawings and I accompanied them with spoken verse so I
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wanted to kind of write lyrics that's how it starts for me and then as
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I walk around the street like I said you know at home there's the easel with the paint but on the street you got a
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notebook someone says something you write it down I don't know if it's going to be a song lyric I don't know if it's
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gonna be a cartoon I don't know what it is but after a while something starts Brewing inside you play a few chords you
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like the way it feels and you get you know I think I need to write a song about this and I look at my notebook and I
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take out all of the little things I wrote that has anything to do with the feeling I'm feeling right now and then
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it starts to become assembled and that's kind of how I how I did it but sometimes I write a song right on the spot
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sometimes it would be notebooks and notebooks of actual thinking and writing and scheming and plotting and so they
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all take different lives but I'm always a form follows function kind of artist you know it's like the the way it looks
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the way it sounds is because it's supporting what something that
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needs to be said so it starts with you know satisfying an emotional need
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everything so I mean that's the way you know my dad's a drummer uh I'll I'll
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steal one of his lines it really it comes from your heart your soul comes from uh within and uh like you said it
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can take many forms sometimes it's a longer form and sometimes it's just very quickly uh you know comes and and there
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it is and uh nothing wrong in in either case because it's it's genuine uh from
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you yourself so uh that uh that's very very cool yeah uh talent I for sure
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don't don't don't have there but uh you know let's speak about the top Spotlight
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70. kind of talk about how that uh you know how tops uh you
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know got a hold of you have that thing all came about the whole process yeah well I told you the story about how I
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started drawing these kind of obscure players and I wrote a story about it for the New Yorker uh new yorker.com I would
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contribute Illustrated reportage or illustrate my own interviews with people and I uh in this case I wrote on
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Illustrated essay called the loneliness of the common player and it was all about every the whole story I just told
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you it was Illustrated with a lot of the cards uh it was actually Scott Rogowski
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uh who uh a friend of mine a friend of my brothers uh we bonded over obscure
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jerseys people all have you know obscure like Kelly Gruber jerseys and stuff uh
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and uh you know he he saw that piece and he said you know you I I used to work there I'll take you on a tour of tops so
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for years we kind of uh we're trying to get me a tour of tops because I definitely want you know I've revered
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the brand since I was a kid yeah never quite happened um but right before the pandemic
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you know sort of like let's put a pin in this we we approached them one more time and I guess they were laying off a lot
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of people it was a different time in the industry then came the pandemic and the Boom I
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started collecting again Rogowski started collecting again uh I said you know I wonder
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I know we put a pin in it last we spoke but how is tops doing right now with the boom and he's like actually
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they're having their best time ever this project 2020 and they're about to do project 70. maybe this is a great time
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to reconnect and within two weeks I was I was talking with I just interviewed Schmidt for the New Yorker so I had that
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to kind of throw in the pile and they they saw the loneliness of the common player piece and and I pitched it as a a
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spotlight 70 umbrella tribute to the 70th Anniversary while they have all
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these great artists doing tributes to uh iconic cards you know let's not forget the legacy of the shoebox collection we
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all have them and you know I tried to paint as many cards for my shoe box as I
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could and that's kind of how how it came about I pitched it as like I was gonna do one project 2020 or you know five
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project 70s but they like the concept so much they offered me my own set and that's how Spotlight 70 happened
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well very cool how much artistic Freedom do you have to to do the players that
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you want to do do they do they tell you hey we we need to see this this guy or
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this guy or do or is it kind of uh you know kind of a combination of both we
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need these couple guys for sure who are you thinking that you want to add to the the checklist you know talk about like
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who appears you know how that process uh occurred yeah yeah
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um well I mean firstly you know the first idea was wouldn't it be fun to put
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out a whole bunch of like you know like champ Summers and Pat Dobson and like a
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whole but like the real fan fan fan favorites you know but they didn't have
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the rights to a lot of these players okay so they were like great concept can
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you use this list and of course I I could other than that I mean they gave
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me complete creative freedom it was such a pleasure to work with them
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uh I I curated the set I chose I even asked like you know because I'm used to
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having art directors like what what style yeah anything you want man have fun so it was so amazing and then their
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Innovation was like how to you know making one of five foils each card has a
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CMYK one of one the autographs you know incentivizing the set offering all these
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amazing inserts and variants it was so it was a that was the tag team you know
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but they really gave me a lot of creative freedom and and along the way you know inserted a few like you know
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would be awesome this one that one like oh yeah bring it so you know they definitely threw a couple a couple in
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there um the Jackie Robinson that I painted in this last set is the 56 Robinson that
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was Thompson's idea but the funny thing is I I don't paint cards if I'm not holding it in my hand
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I won't paint from a phone I won't paint from I have to have the card so I had to buy the card I never had it
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yeah well it's not a bad card I'm a Jackie guy you see I'm wearing I see it from Dodgers cap now obviously I'm old
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but not old enough to uh seen him play he passed away unfortunately a month before I was born but my dad grew up uh
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in abbots field and seen all those guys in the visiting teams and it's if you're
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from Brooklyn as you well know right you know what the legacy of Jackie Robinson
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is not just on the field but even off of it and so even as a young kid who never
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got to see him play um I knew who Jackie was what he was
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about and just became someone I looked up to even though he was no longer with
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us at that time just what he stood for what he meant and what he had to go
32:13
through uh to accomplish uh those things uh and so he you know hearing you talk
32:19
about the Jackie piece and having the the buy the card you know definitely uh hits me in the heartstrings and it's a
32:27
great card a great card and you you did a great job with your inclusion uh of it
32:33
and there it gives you a reason to buy it you know in that case of Jackie Robinson card uh to add uh to the
32:40
collection has has the project even got you more into cards like you
32:46
find yourself you know even more so than you than you you would have thought
32:52
um well you know honestly I started getting back into it before the tops thing happened so the fact that the tops
32:59
thing happened after I started to collect again was even more of a thrill but you know what well I'm around a lot
33:06
more car shows now I travel all over the country you know setting up my my spot
33:11
in the show and talking with collectors and showing what I got um but I also walked the floor a lot and
33:19
still collect but what but you know hey look people collect what they collect what I collect and what I've been
33:25
running on for the last maybe three years I try to find the most exciting cards
33:31
that I can find in the worst possible condition yeah and so like try you know I just got a a 1955 Bowman Eddie
33:40
Matthews for fourteen dollars you know it looks like it was a in a laundry machine you know I I just I I love it so
33:46
that's honestly that's kind of all I spend my money yeah well uh because they
33:52
say and have you a well-loved card so
33:57
is is that do you think that the relationship with tops will continue maybe in another form uh even after this
34:05
like you think that's something we'll see more from from it from you and tops
34:11
uh you know we're we're we're we're having a great time together I don't I don't see why why it wouldn't
34:17
um yeah yeah well I I hope so you're doing a
34:23
great job with it's a different kind of uh spin on things a different take and uh you know in in a hobby that's been
34:31
around as long as it has it's really hard to to do something different I
34:36
think the the degree of difficulty goes up but uh you've managed to do it with
34:41
your own uh vision and and talents and uh I think a lot of people are enjoying
34:47
and I hope uh you know I hope it continues even with something that that comes off of of that as well I think
34:55
that's the idea I mean the first set came out look I mean what really drives the art card you know movement right
35:02
from the beginning we're starting with maybe like Diamond Kings like realism you know Faithfully painted portraits of
35:10
stars so here I am hitting them up with a set of improvisationally painted fan
35:15
favorites that's a that's a leap for Tops and it kudos to them for given this
35:21
a try and giving me the whole set so like that was a huge Innovation for them
35:27
and a huge risk to you know an authored set and yeah I think it's a 4 800 boxes out of
35:33
the 10 000 that they were gonna cut it at um limit to limited edition set in 30
35:39
days yeah uh which was about which was pretty much what they thought it would
35:44
sell enough to say let's try again and you know Spotlight 72 sold out in 72
35:52
hours so that was very exciting and it definitely showed as did the you know
35:58
the the prices I guess on the secondary Market over the winter you know before the first one came out there was no
36:04
value there was no anything no no uh comps so yeah it's it's been it's been
36:10
received well and it's it's it's it's been a lot of fun to connect with people
36:16
um at the at the table at the card shows who who may don't maybe don't know anything about it and then we start getting into conversations about one of
36:23
Wands and hand-painted one of Wands and paintings and yeah Rarity versus condition all that kind of stuff it's
36:30
been a lot of fun getting back to your first comment about
36:37
who I paint this gives people if there's not many tables where you walk around and you see
36:42
like an Ellis Burks 88 tops and the thing like to even start talking about that so here I have paintings of like 82
36:50
George Bell uh like like Brett saberhagen rookie you know people are just like oh yeah oh my God
36:57
white Evans record breaker card you know so the conversations start to become
37:02
about these jukebox cards and the times and those moments and the the Dewey Evans you know earliest home run in
37:09
1987. I remember that day you know that kind of stuff you start talking yeah it's sort of like music in you right you
37:16
hear a song comes on the radio and obviously you recognize the song but I
37:21
know for me and and I'm sure for a lot of people proud of yourself it brings you back to a time in your life I
37:27
remember that year I was uh a sophomore in high school I was a you know in sixth grade and that's you know things like
37:34
that and the same thing can be said I think with with cards you know someone to see that you mentioned you know Brett
37:40
saberhagen that that uh the rookie like oh man I was buying all those up or you
37:45
know I had a hundred of them and it just it takes you back that like you said the Nostalgia of it it doesn't have to be
37:52
always that Superstar guy it doesn't always have to be Mickey man or Willie
37:57
Mays it could be like you said champ Summers or Dwight Evans Brett saberhagen
38:03
Ellis Burks George Bell those guys were talented in their in their own right and
38:10
it's nice that tops allowed you that that freedom because here they they come off of the you know the 2020 project and
38:18
and uh and those are obviously all those kind of upper echelon uh players the
38:24
mantles and and Maze and that and and that's all well and good but uh that's
38:30
why I appreciate you sort of cover uh everyone that's part of the game not just uh not just the Hall of Famers and
38:37
and uh and the like and all those guys together right bring us back to
38:43
different times uh in our in our lives and uh I think it's important it I think
38:49
people I think like you said things selling out so fast tell tells you that
38:54
people uh liked the Nostalgia uh affect the impact and and it brings them back
39:00
you know to a time when let's you know at the time when you know we didn't care as much about about the values
39:07
comparatively speaking to to today's hobby but uh uh you know great job by
39:13
you I hope to I hope to see uh more uh more to come and uh I appreciate you
39:19
sharing some of that that Insight like you said you're starting to you know you're traveling you're going to some of
39:25
these shows it's a great opportunity you get a lot of people coming up to you and like requesting hey do uh you know make
39:32
put this guy in uh you know you get a lot of like hey what you know do this guy do this guy
39:38
I do I get I get quite a lot of commissions which I'm always always happy happy to do and the thing is I
39:45
only paint a card once so you know so so so the first person to grab you know to
39:51
that that's it I don't I shut it down so no no two collectors are gonna have the same card
39:57
um and we'll have a good time uh in a culture Collision this year in Atlanta they're bringing in a few Art card
40:04
artists and I'm proud to be one of them but that's a lot of fun we're seeing a lot of
40:09
channels outside of the conventional card shows that are starting to embrace the art cards and it's been really
40:16
really exciting yeah no doubt I think that'll that'll even grow go stronger uh as time uh time
40:24
goes on well Andy I appreciate you you're coming on sharing some of that that Insight thought process where where
40:31
this all uh comes about you know when you just see it uh you forget about the story and what goes what goes on uh
40:39
behind uh the end result right and I'm glad you were able to share some of that for for myself who finds it very
40:46
interesting I'm sure a lot of people uh who are listening right now as well I always give the guests sort of the final
40:52
word give out your websites social medias anything you want to get out
40:57
there so people can see uh you know what what you're up to and and follow along
41:02
and stay up to date yeah yeah well my website is Andy friedman.net
41:10
and from there you can find my Instagram page which is Sunday Friedman
41:16
and from there you know the rest of it that's all you need there you go well Andy continued success
41:24
uh I appreciate you again coming on making some time and uh keep keep uh
41:30
keep doing what you're doing it's uh it's a pleasure to to see what comes uh
41:35
what comes next continue thank you so much thanks so much John really appreciate it well you thank you