Hour 4: NBA Champion Jose Alvarado Joins the Show & The Mets are Letting Claude A.I. Tell Them What Pitch to Throw

**Craig Carton** (0:00)
Jose Alvarado is coming up in a little bit. Not this second, so I apologize for that. Just a little scheduling issue, but he'll be here before the end of the hour for sure. He's just doing some stuff for FNAX. He's going to walk right over here. So we will have Jose Alvarado, the Knicks coming up in a little bit.
Jason, right? Right. Jason's here with AA Mint Cards.

**Jason** (0:21)
That's right.

**Craig Carton** (0:21)
Why are you here, Jason? Why am I talking to you?

**Jason** (0:24)
We are all set up.
That's a good question. Especially with Jose Alvarado coming. He's got an NBA champion going next and me here now.

**Craig Carton** (0:30)
I know all the rage right now amongst these kids is rips, right? It's all called rips.
Box breaks. Box breaks was a big thing for a while. Now we're talking about rips and collectibles have gone crazy. And I've seen a lot of people here from NXPEC on TikTok and Instagram and whatnot. They buy a box.

**Jason** (0:48)
Correct.

**Craig Carton** (0:49)
And the box costs a couple hundred bucks. And there's cards in the box. And the excitement is I'm going to rip open the box.
And then the hope is that I didn't waste my 250 bucks.

**Jason** (1:01)
Correct. Well, I mean, it could be 250 bucks. Some of the boxes are cheaper. Some of the boxes can be more expensive. There's $5,000 boxes that people are buying.

**Craig Carton** (1:09)
Really?

**Jason** (1:09)
Yeah. So but what people are hoping for, for example, Shohei Otani, his his super factor from his rookie year, which is his one of one like, you know, the gold pattern one just sold for about $3 million.

**Craig Carton** (1:22)
I'm sorry?

**Jason** (1:22)
Just over $3 million.

**Craig Carton** (1:23)
And someone got that by randomly opening up a box like ripping open a box?

**Jason** (1:27)
Right.
A pack of Topps cards, man. They just ripped it. They got the one of one. They beat the odds, you know, and got the Golden, Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket.

**Craig Carton** (1:35)
We just had Gary Vee here. He's got Vee Friends cards, which I've got here just sampling through them. I'm not sure the value of these cards yet because they're so brand new. But outside, excuse me, outside of an Otani card, that might go for millions of bucks. Give me an idea of, are there other genres of cards that are going crazy?
Like maybe not millions of dollars, but tens of thousands and more?

**Jason** (2:00)
For sure. It's funny you brought up Vee Friends. I used to be Vee Friends marketing manager. So Gary Vee, shout out to that.

**Craig Carton** (2:04)
He fired you?

**Jason** (2:05)
He did. That's all right. No, but I pulled last year one of the biggest Vee Friends cards on the first day of release.
I bought one $40 pack. I was with my wife in Portugal. I was on whatnot and she was in the shower getting ready. I just decided to buy one pack. I pulled the $12,000 one of one Super Fracture out of that pack. I saw it at a gold auction.

**Craig Carton** (2:24)
When you say Super Fracture, what does that mean?

**Jason** (2:26)
So that's the one of one card. It was called an erupt, which is the biggest chaser in that whole set, and they make numbered ones.

**Craig Carton** (2:34)
Okay.

**Jason** (2:35)
I pulled a numbered erupt out of there.

**Craig Carton** (2:38)
So I have like creative crab here.

**Jason** (2:40)
Right.

**Craig Carton** (2:40)
So that's not a special card.

**Jason** (2:42)
That's a base card.

**Craig Carton** (2:43)
Or the slaying slug.

**Jason** (2:44)
Correct.

**Craig Carton** (2:45)
These are the base cards. And theory kids will trade these cards and collect them.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:49)
Put them on their bike spokes.

**Jason** (2:50)
Exactly.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:51)
So along with their Mickey Mantle rookie card.

**Craig Carton** (2:53)
So I think somebody on your team, this kid here, you work with this guy?

**Jason** (2:55)
That's Bobby.

**Craig Carton** (2:56)
Is that your son or something?

**Jason** (2:57)
No, that's Bobby. Bobby's my guy and he used to work at VFRIENDS also. He came over with me.

**Craig Carton** (3:01)
God. So he handed me a box. Mint City South Beach. Yeah, what are these? So just before I, with your permission, I'm going to open it.

**Jason** (3:08)
Absolutely.

**Craig Carton** (3:09)
So you guys own this?

**Jason** (3:11)
Right. OK, so it's a separate company, but it's, you know, it's definitely, you know, we're, we are their biggest customers. It's also owned by the same people. OK, so what we do is you'll see our guys upstairs. They're they're buying cards, you know, from people that are coming up, selling us all kinds of cards.