Buzz buys and busts a lot of boxes right here for Buzz Breaks, but one of my goals is to rip a little less and talk more about cardboard that I -- and you -- might like. One way to do that? Simple show and tell -- present a few pick-ups and say why they captured my attention.

So, with all that said, here are a few Buzz Buys ... 

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ICONIC ARRIVAL
The Cards: Caitlin Clark 2024 Panini Instant WNBA (All-Rookie Team) -- Rookie Card (/26,980)
The Price: Whatever a 10-pack cost was from Panini
Why it’s Buzz-worthy: There's no doubt that Clark owned the WNBA in her rookie year and for most of this year her only pro cardboard came via Instant ... but I passed. Why? I figured I'd wait and see what popped up that I liked in packs -- and then when I opened one of her college career boxes I found interesting stuff but not cards all that slab-worthy with the details for cutting and printing. (Too messy for the risk to me.) As an easy slabbing decision, I grabbed a 10-pack of this card within hours of its arrival online. Why? It's clean and simple -- iconic -- and I knew that I'd want one or two of these in a slab with a high mark. How does that happen? Well, you have to have a few to pick from -- to eliminate obvious flaws like centering or corners -- and in this case three of my 10 might get sent in. The rest were too off-centered for my taste. There were plenty of these made so there's no rush, but it'll happen at some point in 2025.
Grab a box right here: Nothing for this ... but WNBA cards are here.

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It's been a busy day on The Buzz for headlines in the here and now of today -- you know, modern cardboard and sports business -stuff -- so I'll work from left field on this quick and simple vintage item with a story.

Call it a Buzz Buys (it is), call it afternoon/evening filler (yeah, it is), call it whatever you want depending on your collecting tastes ... I like to call this one interesting.

I recently found this old, semi-mangled print from the archives of The Sporting News from a dealer of other non-card materials and the simplicity of that clean pose got me to stop and look. Why? Well, a lot of photos just don't look like that from back then -- where, for example, you can see plenty of details on the fabric of Bill Connelly's Philadelphia Athletics jersey. (Yes, Philadelphia ... that's the Oakland A's two cities ago where they made plenty of MLB history from 1901 to 1954, winning five World Series and nine American League pennants.) This one just felt really different, though. That just felt like a superstar kind of pose, or at least somebody of note who needed a portrait taken by a major publication, and yet ... I didn't know his name.

Who's in the background? I dunno. When's it from? Based on what's scribbled on the back of this one -- a patchwork of handwriting from a few uses over the years -- I'm not that sure. So that's when I headed over to Baseball Reference to learn more and that's where this one got interesting to me. I learned plenty more.

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