After walking the floor for around nine hours on Friday at the National and buying a grand total of three Bowman cards, I headed upstairs to the VIP trade lounge. Once I got there I realized that everyone seemed to be looking for Bowman. Trades were flying, big money deals where being done, I saw more Bowman baseball cards in that room than I saw maybe at every vendor table combined. The issue isn’t that there aren’t enough Bowman people, it’s that we’re such a niche group that vendors who have paid good money to be at a large show like that can’t fill their cases with cards of obscure prospects because if they don’t get the right audience nothing will sell.
That’s when we got the idea to have a show specifically for that audience. A Bowman card show. Sure booths at the National had Konnor Griffin and Jesus Made cards, but I’d have spent all day at a table that had Cooper Flemming and Kendry Chourio cards. And I think most true Bowman people would have done the same, so I want there to be a place where they can find stuff like that. We are still ironing out the details and nothing is set in stone except for the fact that it would be in the Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater area and take place somewhere in the timeframe of late February to late March. That way we can plan the event around Spring Training and give people the chance to attend games that weekend, with three teams (Yankees, Phillies, Blue Jays) playing their home games within a 30 minute drive of the venue. Obviously the lockout could have an effect on if those games will be played but in theory any prospects not on the 40-man roster won’t be locked out so maybe we’d get an all prospect Spring Training if they haven’t come to an agreement yet. Even better! Along with those Spring games and the show itself we could mix in a trade/wax rip night where we rent out out a section of a sports bar or something similar and do Bowman trades, rip some boxes, have giveaways, etc.
Really the possibilities are endless and we are open to any other baseball/Bowman related events that could make the weekend an even more fun experience for everybody. I know that travel is tough, especially to a location that is so far away from where many people live, so if this thing takes off we could also look into the possibility of alternating every year between Florida and Arizona to keep the Spring Training theme alive. Since it’s not an event that everyone will have time to attend I’ve created a survey to sort of get a rough estimate for how many people think they could make it, that way we can figure out venue capacity, size of hotel room block needed, and all that good stuff. If you think that this is something you’d be able to come to, please fill out the survey so that we can try to bring this idea to life!
