Not Perfect... but Better

Natural disasters.  The Pandemic.  Blaster box shortages due to flipping.  Yup.  2021 wasn't perfect.  But like I commented on Nacho Grande's post this morning... 1/2/22 is way better than 1/2/21,

Last January... I was teaching from my dining room table and stressing over what #45 would do during his final weeks in office.  Combine the worst teaching experience in my twenty-four year career with watching people storm the Capitol... and that adds up to some serious anxiety.  Thankfully... the year got better and better as time passed.

Like I said at the start of the post... 2021 wasn't perfect.  Not even close.  But it was better (at least for me) compared to 2020 and I'm grateful for that.  Hopefully in 2022 things will be even better.

While we're on the topic of not being perfect, I figured I'd show a pair of additions to my Damaged Card PC:

2021 Stadium Club Oversized Base Master Photo #OBPFT

John over at Johnny's Trading Spot is the by far the largest contributor to this collection.  I'm pretty picky about what goes into it, but I assure you this Tatis makes the cut.  It features my favorite current player and a giant crease that runs right through his head.

I've commented on a few blogs how I'm tired of Topps reusing old designs.  But I've gotta say, this one isn't too shabby.  It's not perfect, but better than 90% of the other inserts sets they produced in 2021.

The other card headed into my Damaged Card PC binder is this autograph of Marcus Freeman:

2009 Sage Autographs Silver #A17

Wow.  This card is a candidate for my Damaged Card Hall of Fame.  I'm not sure what the story is behind this card, but it looks like someone went out of their way to destroy it.  That's okay.  I'll provide Mr. Freeman with a nurturing home.  He doesn't have to worry about receiving any additional creases.

By the way... if you're not familiar with Freeman, he was recently promoted to head coach at the University of Notre Dame.  Unfortunately his Fighting Irish lost a close game yesterday to the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the Fiesta Bowl.  It wasn't the perfect outcome (at one point the Irish held a twenty-one point lead), but it was better than being blown out.

John didn't just send me damaged cards... he also sent me these two Campaneris cards for my collection:

1969 Topps #423

1995 Sonic Baseball Greats #NNO

The gorgeous TSN All-Star card has a slight smudge running down the left hand side of the card... and the Sonic oddball issue doesn't feature an A's logo.  In other words, they aren't perfect... but they're way better than the logoless stuff Panini produces these days.

Actually... I really like the Sonic card.  Never seen this set before... but thanks to John I've added it to my list of saved eBay searches.

I'll wrap up my first post of 2022 with a very nice surprise.  When it comes to Wacky Packages, John is the super collector among bloggers.  Although not expected, I wasn't surprised to see some 1980 Topps Wacky Packages tossed into his care package:

He sent me twenty stickers in total... with these two being my favorites:

The sticker on the left stirred up a very fond memory from my childhood.  When I was a kid, I spent hours sitting on the living room floor building things out of my cylinder filled with Tinkertoys.  And what sports fan wouldn't appreciate a Sports Illustrated parody?

As for the surprise... I was absolutely flabbergasted when I turned over the above nine pocket scans and noticed they were pieces to a very, very, very cool puzzle.  After rearranging them, this is what they produced:

This is my favorite Wacky Package of all-time.  It's absolutely perfect and doesn't get better than this.

Thank you John for the awesome care package.  I hope you and anyone reading this post have a great 2022.  It might not be perfect, but let's just hope it's better than 2021.

Happy New Year and sayonara!