That Sports Card Show is a podcast that just celebrated its one year anniversary! The first episode went live October 29, 2016. The show covers many topics, most of them related to sports cards. That Sports Card Show’s host is Vince Autullo. Vince was kind enough to answer a few questions for me about himself, the show, and how it all came to be.
BU: How did you first get introduced to the hobby?
VA: I started in the hobby in the late 1970’s, but not with sports cards. When I was a kid I loved non sport, movie and TV series cards. Some of the ones I liked collecting were Jaws, Close Encounters of the third kind, Star Wars, and Grease. Yes, Grease…it sounds funny now but as a kid I loved them. When I got into 5th and 6th grade I started really getting into the sports side of the hobby. Chasing Eric Davis rookies was my first PC action.
BU: What do you currently collect?
VA: I collect Baseball, Hockey, Football, Basketball, NASCAR, and UFC. I collect all of the Ohio teams. Most recently I’ve been trying to get a rookie auto from every Cincinnati Bengals rookie from the 2017 draft class, I’m almost there.
BU: Any highlight pieces from your collection that you would like to share?
VA: I think my collection is like most people’s, lots and lots of junk interspersed with the occasional gems. I’ve got so much stuff it’s hard to recall, I know I’ve got a couple Tom Brady rookies, a couple Mike Trout update rookies, Muhammad Ali auto from the 2011 Leaf “The Greatest” release to name a few. Every time I look through all of the cases and binders I find something cool I either forgot about or never realized I had.
Plastic Trading Card Box
Polystyrene Trading Card Box
BU: What is your favorite part of the current hobby?
VA: My favorite thing is how nowadays all of the collectors can communicate via social media, various hobby forums, and the internet. Card shows and Hobby shops used to be the only places you could talk and share information with other people in the hobby. There are lots of great places to get pricing info too, not just a monthly magazine or newsletter. It used to be way harder to be an “informed” collector.
BU: I couldn’t agree more. I went many years without having anyone to talk to about the hobby. Then I discovered Twitter, and am now able to interact with collectors every single day. How did you come up with the idea to start a podcast?
VA: My son (who is now 16), was toying with the idea of starting his own YouTube channel. He was thinking about making a video game channel where they narrate while they play. Well that idea kind of morphed into a podcast project, and we switched from video games to the Sports card theme. He handles all of the tech stuff and I handle everything else. He was on the first episode but he decided he would rather just do the sound, editing and uploading duties.
BU: How has the reception to the podcast been?
VA: The reception to our podcast has gone far beyond any expectations we had when we started out. We basically started this as a Father/son project for fun, and now I get emails from people I’ve never met, telling me how much they look forward to listening to our podcast twice a month. That is a weird feeling, but it is rewarding knowing people like something that you created out of nothing.
BU: What would you say was the toughest thing you ran into starting up the podcast?
VA: The toughest thing was that I had never done an interview before, and I had zero broadcasting experience. I did a lot of research and learned as much as I could about podcasting and doing interviews.
BU: I can certainly understand that, I have a hard enough time typing out a list a questions! How do you decide who to invite as interview guests?
VA: The #1 thing I consider when looking for a guest is “will this make an interesting podcast?” I mean obviously I would love to have all the biggest names from the sports and entertainment world on the show as guests, but there are a lot of people out there doing things in the hobby that are just as entertaining and interesting, in my opinion.
BU: While I know (trust me) that all interview guests are important, any favorites guest so far?
VA: Probably my favorite would be Tim Virgilio with “Signatures for Soldiers”, for a few reasons. The first reason is that he was the first person I ever interviewed, and the very first guest we ever had on the show. I fumbled my way through that interview, but Tim was so great that we still had a lot of fun doing it. We decided after that episode, that it was the format we wanted to use going forward. Also I admire Tim for all that he does helping our veterans. He is welcome on my show anytime.
BU: What has been your most popular episode so far? My favorites have been Joey Shiver (who I know from Twitter interactions) and Loot Locker. I have met Joel in person a couple of times.
VA: Our most popular episode based on downloads was with Slim Jim Phantom (@officialslimjim) the drummer from the Stray Cats. They must have been huge in Japan because we had tons of feedback and shares from Japanese people. Probably our most popular episode among hobby folks was the one with Joey Shiver and Mike James. Those guys are really popular within the hobby.
BU: Anything big on the horizon for the podcast that you’d like to share?
VA: We are going to be doing tons of giveaways thanks to our good friends at Ballqube. We also have some great guests lined up. We just had our one year anniversary episode, and we are looking forward to another great year with hope and anticipation.
Vince Autullo
Host, That Sports Card Show Podcast
Twitter: @TSCSPodcast
A big thank you to Vince for taking the time to do this for me. Check out That Sports Card Show podcast! I enjoy listening to them on long car rides. Still working my way through some older episodes.
-Shane Salmonson
