Well, peeps – it’s happening. Bowman is now releasing autograph-only boxes. Is this the beginning of our hobby turning upside down? In this cardboard enthusiast’s opinion, the answer is YES.

In the year 2020, we will see this as the norm, where every single card of every single product is autographed…except for the case hit: A non-autographed base card.

Before you know it, the card companies will turn every single living player (current and former) into Pete Rose – that is, it will be tough to find a card NOT autographed of any given player. This will also change the game.

Pitchers will be taken out of the 3rd inning due to arm fatigue for fear of them not being able to sign thousands of autograph stickers the next day. Each player will be given 9 jerseys to wear each game. In between innings, each player will run to the locker room to change into a new jersey and feed their old jersey to “The Cutter” – a machine that automatically cuts the jersey up into 2,000 square inch jersey swatch squares and 200 “prime” two square inch patch squares. (20 points to anyone who knows what this really is.)

Stories will surface that former fan favorite baseball players with financial troubles are being chained to a desk to churn out 10,000 autographs a day, without any time to see sunlight. An assortment of blue, black, red, gold and silver markers are given to them, along with a number of statistical inscriptions, catch phrases and nicknames to write. Because of this, human rights activist groups will form to force the hand of card companies to be more humane to the players. New evidence will show that three acres of amazon rain forest is destroyed EACH DAY to make sports cards, the cards will now be made of 100% recycled paper. That’s right, folks – say goodbye to your gorgeous refractors and say hello to the recyclefractor.

Sadly, it will not end there, either. Government will mandate all kinds of restrictions, which need to be clearly shown on the box. Here is what our new hobby boxes will look like.

Mark my words.