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Puerto Rico's Piculín Ortiz dies at 62
The Hall of Fame basketball player, who competed in four Olympic Games and played in both the NBA and Spanish League, passed away at 04:03 GMT on Tuesday. Ortiz was a key figure in international basketball for decades. mwafrika.life
During his career, he played for teams including Real Madrid and Barcelona, becoming one of Puerto Rico's most celebrated athletes. His death marks the end of an era for Caribbean basketball.
Why Carl Edwards Jr. parted ways with Mets by leaving contract mid-season
Why Carl Edwards Jr. parted ways with Mets by leaving contract mid-season originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Carl Edwards Jr.'s long and winding baseball journey is going to continue.
He will no longer be pitching for the New York Mets after some roster maneuvering in the last week.
Edwards is a free agent, and he's free to sign with any MLB team after clearing waivers, according to MLB.com's Anthony DiComo.
MORE: Tyler Rogers is 51 degrees different than every other pitcher in MLB
Why is Carl Edwards Jr. a free agent?
Edwards had a clause in his contract that allowed him to elect free agency rather than report to Triple-A Syracuse.
The Mets designated him for assignment last week to remove him from the 40-man roster and send him down to the minor leagues. But a player with Edwards' veteran status can essentially refuse the assignment and become a free agent instead. That's what Edwards did.
He pitched twice for the Mets recently, allowing just one run in six innings while striking out 11.
Apparently even in this bumpy Mets bullpen, that wasn't enough to stick around.
Edwards pitched briefly for both the Rangers and Angels in 2025, but he's very much in the journeyman stage of his career.
A long time ago now, he was a promising prospect in the Chicago Cubs' system as a starting pitcher, but he's strictly a reliever now and can't seem to stick around anywhere.
There's always a chance he circles back to the Mets if there isn't an MLB offer for Edwards out there, but he's pursuing such an opportunity first in case he can stay in the big leagues rather than going to Triple-A.
More MLB news:
Auriemma says critics were ‘lying in weeds waiting’ in runup to Staley confrontation at Final Four
UConn coach attracted widespread criticism for actions
Auriemma says he felt ‘dumb’ after altercation
Six weeks after his team lost to South Carolina in the Final Four, UConn coach Geno Auriemma said on Monday that he felt “dumb” for how his postgame exchange with Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley played out in front of a national audience.
“When I walked into the locker room afterward with the coaches, you are just shaking your head, thinking five more seconds, you couldn’t keep it in for five more seconds,” Auriemma said in his first news conference since then.
Continue reading...Going Horizontal for Vertical Cards
A potential $15 million+ LeBron James true rookie vertical auto Logoman 1/1 card is still somewhere out there. Let the chase begin!
Lots of sports-card-soup ingredients going on here when you add in the “horizontal” and “vertical” in the card description. And while I’ll never own that card, I do have a serious question for y’all: there are two cards in this scenario, both of them are 1/1 and have the same exact attributes (Upper Deck, rookie, auto, Logoman) except one is horizontal and one is vertical; what makes the vertical version “more valuable” than the horizontal?
It’s that we just all decided that it is, right? There’s no real other reason why, right? I get the whole “ugh, I have to turn the card sideways to look at it and I would rather pay more money than to not have to move my hand 90 degrees every once in a while…” I totally get that. I’m as lazy as the next guy.
But at what price? Is that laziness worth $10 more? $100 more? $1 million more?! I totally get why vertical Kaboom!’s are more valuable than horizontal. The print runs and rarity dictate the costs. I’m just not fully sure why this holds true for 1/1’s.
It’s because we’re lazy, right? You don’t have to tell me…but, just blink twice if that’s the reason.
Alright, let’s get through a couple of quick-hitters this week, shall we?
This 1/1 Benjamin Franklin autograph sold for $1 million less than it should have sold for. No way this isn’t a $1 million card.
Don’t look now but we’ve officially hit the run-up-to-the-World-Cup buying season for soccer cards. According to ALT, over the last 90 days soccer has seen a 20+% increase in sales and nearly 11% increase in the last 30 days. The only collectible set that it trails during that timespan? Pokemon cards, of course.
The beauty of soccer, if you’re looking to sell some of your cards during the World Cup frenzy the ones in most demand are, of course, the “big five”: Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe, Cristiano Rinaldo, Lamine Yamal, and Lionel Messi. We love when the market stays consistent.
Here’s a mind-blowing headline: Former Blue Jays all-star Josh Donaldson says his trading card collection is worth $35 million.
And the kicker is that he mostly only collects basketball cards. Wild.
As they say, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than be…apathetic. This 2018 Yasiel Puig Topps Now card that you could have had for free using Topps points (back in the day) or paid less than $8 for will now cost you around $4,000 to buy. A Yasiel Puig card?!
On the back of the card is a photo of the legendary Kobe Bryant, sitting in the stands celebrating Puig’s home run. The card has a print run of just 466 cards and there are only 11 PSA 10’s in existence. Which is why it’s sitting on eBay with a $4,000+ price tag.
Really, that Max Dowman Topps Now debut rookie card with a print run over over 77,000 cards is not where you’re going to “cash in” on. It’s the dumb Yasiel Puig kind of cards that no one wants…until everyone wants them!
Speaking of Kobe Bryant… One of my favorite things in the hobby is when a card catches fire and doubles in price, with absolutely no real logic behind it.
Take this 1996 UD3 Hardwood Prospects Kobe Bryant card, for example. About a month ago you could get this card in a PSA 10 for under $600. Then, for some reason, the card shot up all the way up to around $1300 in a few week’s time.
Why? No idea. It’s not a rare Kobe card. It’s not a low pop card - there are over 2,200 PSA 10s. It just took off. And a small part of me feels like you guys are all in cahoots and didn’t tell me about it, like that whole Gamestop thing where you guys never told me about the stock until I was the one left holding the bag.
Hey, next time give me a heads up, please?
Speaking of Topps Now (that’s not a smooth transition since it’s two blurbs ago, but…)… I bought this killer Topps Now card. I have no idea who Joe Hendry is. None at all. And no idea what is happening in that photo.
However, the image on the card plus caption - especially because I don’t know what’s going on and who that is - just makes me so happy.
It’s written as a lune. A lune? Yes, basically an American version of a haiku with a 5-3-5 syllable pattern.
Main Roster Debut
Concert Draws
Ire of the Vision
I love it so much.
Munetaka Murakami’s market is booming. Why? Well, because chicks dig the long ball. He’s on pace, as they say, to hit over 60 home runs this year as a rookie. Wild.
Also, this is cool. It’s less about a little kid hitting a 6-figure Superfractor and more about his reaction. It’s like when you were a kid and your parents surprised you with a trip to Disney and they were like “read what it says… read it… what’s that word…” with a camera in front of your face and you’re just like “oh, cool.”
I think the last time there was a horse racing & jockey trading card set was the 1993 Jockey Stars Trading Cards set, which was a 220-card set of, well, jockeys and horses. The set’s not all that rare, but maybe it’s time we got a new horse set? I’m not talking about throwing a few cards in Allen & Ginter checklists, but legit jockey and horses cards.
This is where I would tell you to buy a Cherie DeVaux rookie card as she just became the first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby this past weekend. But, see, you can’t. Let’s go Panini - we need horse racing cards!
Former Barcelona president reveals club received bombshell €400m offer for Messi: ‘Funds from an Arab country were transferred’
Former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has opened up on one of the most dramatic moments during his time at the club, revealing how close Lionel Messi came to being targeted by an extraordinary transfer move.
Speaking in an interview with Cadena SER, Bartomeu reflected on the period following Neymar’s exit, when Barcelona were already dealing with major changes.
It was during this time that concerns began to grow inside the club about a potential record-breaking attempt to sign Messi.
Bartomeu explained how the rumours first surfaced. “A few weeks after Neymar’s departure, rumours began to circulate that a club was preparing €400 million for Messi – the amount of his release clause.”
He then went further, revealing details about how serious the situation appeared at the time.
“Funds from an Arab country were transferred to accounts in Europe.”
More to the story
When pressed for more details about the origin of those funds, Bartomeu chose not to disclose specifics but hinted at the level of financial power involved.
“It doesn’t matter now… that’s old news; it was years ago. There are very few clubs in England, or state-owned clubs, that can afford such sums.”
An unnamed team was ready to trigger Messi’s release clause. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)
He also made it clear that while a club was ready to trigger the clause, it was not one of the most commonly linked names.
“There was a team willing to pay €400 million. I don’t want to name names, but it wasn’t [Manchester] City.”
Faced with that threat, Barcelona acted quickly to secure their biggest asset. Bartomeu explained the internal response and the discussions that followed with Messi and his family.
“What we did was talk to Lionel Messi and his father and discuss the matter: we had to raise the release clause.”
That decision ultimately led to a major contractual change, with Bartomeu concluding,
“At the time, the clause was 400, so we raised it to 700, which is a very high figure.
“If you raise the release clause, you also have to raise the player’s salary and compensation.”