The Bad Baseball Card Tournament Championship

We've made it. Twelve days, nine articles, fourteen jokes, and 29 ballots have successfully killed two weeks of offseason and now we stand, panting and achy, at the precipice of history. History that you will make, that can never be unmade. Today we choose a champion.

The favorite: 1999 Skybox Thunder Dial "1". The underdog: 1992 Topps Kids. Both teams overcame tough contests to arrive here. The prize: glory, if not the good kind.

Briefly, a rundown of how we got here:

Monday, January 12 - Opening Round: Garish Division
Tuesday, January 13 - Opening Round: Boring Division
Wednesday, January 14 - Opening Round: Insert Division
Friday, January 16 - Opening Round: Subset Division

Monday, January 19 - Sweet Sixteen: Base Sets
Tuesday, January 20 - Sweet Sixteen: Subsets
Wednesday, January 21 - Elite Eight
Thursday, January 22 - Final Four
Friday, January 23 -  The Championship

Look, maybe this isn't the championship we want. But it's the one we deserve. Metal Universe and its fanbase (of which we are all members) are just going to have to wait 'til next year. Put away that nostalgia for alien life forms and tentacles and submarines and holographic explosions. It's time to grow up and live in the real world. The real world involves outdated phones and pathetic attempts by old men to imagine what kids like. Ready? Let's go.

1992 Topps Kids

1999 Thunder Dial "1"

This is it, kids. Make it count.