30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, August 17, 2020

Flowers, Fingers, and a First Round Pick

Summer break is over and a new school year begins.  I thought I'd wrap things up and kick things off with a wallet card post and a review of some care packages I recently received.

Let's start with the wallet card:


My 1986 Topps Gwynn is hanging out with my newly planted garden.  Someone told me that gardening would relieve some stress.  It didn't really work, but it didn't hurt either.  It's nice to see the results from a little work, a moderate amount of sweat, and a bunch of grime.

One thing that did take my mind off of lessons plans and professional development were a few generous care packages I received last week and the week before.

The first one involved a nice stack of 1985 Topps Woolworth All-Time Record Holders cardsA few weeks ago, P-town Tom showed off a trade he made with Jay over at Card Hemorrhage that involved some of these 80's oddballs.  I left a comment on that post stating my desire to pick up one of these sets.  One thing led to another and voila... I now own thirty-one out of the forty-four cards thanks to Jay's generosity.

If you're not familiar with the cards I'm referring to, here's a sampling from the set:

     

The set highlights forty-four players and the all-time records they held back in 1985.  After flipping through these cards yesterday, I'm even more determined to purchase an entire set.  Don't worry Jay, these card won't go to waste.  Each of these cards will be added to my player binders, while the set I eventually purchase will be kept intact.

Here's a closer look at what the cards look like:

     

Fingers was obviously passed up by Mariano Rivera and a bunch of other guys and currently ranks 14th on the all-time saves listMo holds the record for World Series saves as well.  He has 11 compared to Fingers' 6.

Eventually, I'd like to go through each card and see whether or not these guys still hold the all-time records.

Jay also sent several Japanese baseball players for my collection:


As well as some
coins and an Oakland A's UD team logo hologram:

          

Next up is a pair of bingo prizes I received from John over at Johnny's Trading Spot:

     

     

Feast your eyes on a pair of 2017 Honus Bonus one of one's.  I've actually picked up a few of these scratch off cards over the past three years, but I think these are my first one of one's.  These aren't something I'd normally target, but I'm glad to give these two cards a proper home.

I mentioned P-town Tom earlier in this post.  Well... he also sent me a pair of cards for my 2017 Stadium Club set build:

     

     

A month ago, I needed one hundred sixty cards for this set.  I'm down to needing only fifty-one:



And rounding out this post is another card from the Pancake King:

     

Merrell was an Oakland A's first round pick in 2017 who was eventually traded to the Royals in exchange for Homer Bailey.  I hadn't heard of him before receiving this card, but that's the beauty of collecting cards.  You're always learning something new.

Okay... today is my first day back at work and this morning there's more professional development... and if things go as predicted, I should be learning something new right around the time this post is being published.

Thank you Jay, Johnny, Tom, and Wes for getting me to think about something outside of school related work.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

15 comments:

Elliptical Man said...

That does look like a nice set of cards.

Of course, Fingers worked a lot harder for his saves than Mo and newer guys have for theirs.

The Lost Collector said...

Nice garden! I have too many critters here that would eat up a garden like that.

night owl said...

Y'all sure do start school early in other parts of the country.

Peter K Steinberg said...

I love gardening but the longer I spend doing stuff the less it looks like I did anything at all. I can't click on your images. Other than the first one, the rest all take me to MY blogger dashboard-y thing.

Collecting Cutch said...

Same here.

Commishbob said...

Are you doing your PD in person on an online/Zoom thing. Houston is pretty split on all this. I'm just glad to be retired.

Oh, and we've been doing a lot of work on our plants. And we've put about five bird feeders up. Blue Jays are bullies, dammit.

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

kids here are on their second week in Valdosta (which was a 2 week postponement), N. GA students are on their 3rd week. Schools get out in early May .

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

manageable yard work. glad you like the 1/1s

Fuji said...

elliptical man - yeah, the definition of relief pitcher has evolved. fingers would pitch multiple innings. last year we'd be lucky if they pitched to multiple batters

the lost collector - didn't think about critters. i sure hope nothing eats my plants. i'll be so mad.

night owl - i feel like we're later than a lot of other districts in my area. the high school kids went back either last week or the week before.

peter k steinberg & collecting cutch - ugh. i hate this new blogger. i have no idea how to fix the photo issue. i'll mess with it when i'm done writing comments.

commishbob - we did our pd (actually it was a staff meeting) on zoom. but afterwards i met with one of my ap's and a colleague at school to talk about curriculum. do blue jays pick on the smaller birds? that kinda sucks. gotta find some food they don't like ;D

johnnys trading spot - yeah. very nice bingo prizes. thanks again.

Adam Kaningher said...

I forgot all about Wallet Card. I haven't been anywhere.

SumoMenkoMan said...

K-Mart, Woolworth and Kay-Bee has some over produced sets back in the 1980s that are actually pretty nostalgic. Also, the 1986 is one of my favorites from the 1980s right behind 1987. Good luck with class this week.

Matt said...

Great job with the flower beds. We start school on Sept 8th here

Fuji said...

adam kaningher - my wallet card sees the sunlight three, maybe four times a year. and honestly can't remember the last time i took him out, but it was definitely before the lockdown

sumomenkoman - had to look up those two woolworth sets to see what they looked like. i think i have one or two of the 1986 cards, but not sure i've seen the 1987 ones before.

sport card collectors - september 8th? nice. when i was a kid, we'd start in september too. miss those days.

Jeremya1um said...

Nice job on the flowers. Yours look classy. I just have a bunch of stuff all over and not well maintained lol.

Fuji said...

jeremya1um - a few have already died. maybe the extreme heat wave from two weeks ago?