Just swell how are you. I'm about to on vacation. Sime do better than a great sounds. Nice well we have a few better topics today and then we will have an interview with dan. Hey duckie who's reporter for. Espn and he'll be joining us to fill us in on a wild week in the sports card collecting space as they say tops lost the license from mlb and the players association or soon will in the coming years. This news broke on. Thursday fanatics is taking over trading cards essentially striking deals with multiple leagues and players unions and so tops which is just an absolute institution when it comes to baseball cards dating back to the early fifties. Its days as a baseball card manufacturer. At least a licensed baseball card manufacturer appear to be numbered in that came as something of a shock not just to people like us who are not monitoring developments in the trading card industry closely but also to those who are so. Dan is going to explain to us why that happened. And what the implications are and also give us some background on the recent boom in trading card collecting which is something we have talked about before. Also fill us in on a record sale earlier this week of yet. Another t to six on his wagner card but few things before we bring dan on here. Yesterday we talked about protective headgear for pitchers and some possible solutions. They're prompted by rays pitcher towers broke being struck by line. Drive and then as pitcher. Chris bassett suffering the same fate. And we've got an email today from listener. Patrick who said they might not look as cool as the helmet hat. One possibility that we had speculated about on this episode but softball pitchers semi regularly wear protective masks. Like these and he includes a picture. And i will send pictures of softball players wearing these masks and the masks just on their own and they kind of look like catchers masks more or less but maybe a little less heavy duty for someone who has to be a bit more mobile then catchers are but offering. I suppose similar protection fewer bars but there appears to be coverage of really your whole head not your neck but if chris bassett had been wearing one of these for instance it looks like it probably would have prevented his cheekbone from being broken and would probably prevent more serious injuries. I mean you could still get concussion or something but it looks like it would be less likely to result in a skull fracture or something super serious so there have been some pretty prominent softball pitchers who have worn these. There often weren't at lower levels sometimes by infielders to but for upper level players pros even. It's a pitcher thing. And there is a pitcher named page who several years ago was pitching missouri and she got hit by a line drive and when she came back from that injury she started wearing the mask. And there's also a pitcher named kelly barnhill who started wearing one proactively and she's a pro pitcher for the chicago bandits formerly of university of florida softball team in the usa women's national team. And i'll link to this tweet as well as a number of articles about both of these pitchers but back in may twenty nineteen. She tweeted growing up. I was told that i wasn't going to get recruited by colleges. Because i wore a face mask ended up being number one pitching recruit in my class and committed to uf. And i played for years wearing a mask every game and went number one in the nps draft batson college pro and especially international are how does hell and the faster. The ball comes in the harder it goes out and yes. Us pitchers are not perfect. Sometimes we make mistakes and the bulk. It's hard. I liked my face. Plus my parents paid a lot of money for braces. So i like to keep them nice and pretty and finally no. I have never been hit in the face. But i've seen it enough to know i don't ever want it to happen to me. Wearing a face mask is a personal choice but there are legitimate reasons for wearing one and people shouldn't look down on anyone who is making that choice to where it patrick wanted to know what we thought of the viability of these masks in baseball. Do you think this would work. I mean i guess it's different questions. Would it work and would pitchers way with. Maybe two different answers would certainly prevent some things. I think that some of the more serious head injuries that we've seen sustained over the last little bit. This might not prove to be enough cushion. Because like the whole. Now like your. It's really the face that it's that it's most concerned with protecting. So if it's something that comes back and hits you know the top of your head or the side of your head. I think you're still going to take a fair amount of impact there. But it's something. Can i ask you a question and i know that this is not going to happen preface by saying that but like is there isn't that they can't just wear football helmets is. Here's here's the potential. Here's one one though potential yours. Only problem with that plans. It's really the only thing that's holding us back. No here's here's one thing that i anticipate might be an issue if you i wonder if your peripheral vision is limited such that like from a pickoff perspective you might find it cumbersome but other than that and the fact that it won't happen because they'd be deemed to be irritating football. I mean there's no reason why you can't like obviously there's a level of comfort that checkers prefer. I mean we'd all prefer not to be wearing helmets most of the time if if all else were equal but yeah in football you've made the calculation that hey i'm gonna be butting heads with some beef voice here so i better wear this helmet. And where the pitcher obviously like. You're you're not necessarily. Blocking at the line of scrimmage or anything but you may have ball's coming back at you and yeah you would think like. There's no reason why you can't. I mean i feel like every time. There is some advance in safety and with protective equipment like the trend over time has certainly been toward more padding or helmets and more protection and each time i think you kind of have to drag. Some percentage of the players kicking and screaming to their own safety. It's like you know players who can personally testify to the danger. Like if you've been hit if you're stanton than yeah you're gonna go with the helmet with the ear. Flap like if you have suffered the consequences maybe not in all cases but in a lot of cases. You're going to say yeah. I want to avoid suffering that same fate again. Give me all the protective gear that is available but with a lot of players you know. They're young men they have Air of invincibility about them. And maybe they think i'll be fine. This will impair my performance..