Back to School

Break is over.

1996 Upper Deck V.J. Lovero Showcase #VJ19

I truly miss the days of driving into work, greeting my students as they enter the classroom, and teaching the old school way.

Oh well... it's time to get back in front of the camera and hopefully impact the lives of my students in a positive manner as we begin to see a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel.

1993 Portfolio Endless Summer Promo #ES Promo 1

Only six more weeks until Spring Break... and sixteen weeks until summer.  Happy Monday and sayonara!

TWiB: The Real Sam Malone, Coins & Stamps, Another 80's Variation, and my 1st 2021 Card

The news about people being stuck at home, the loss of power, numerous traffic accidents, and the impact of freezing temperatures around the country was heartbreaking.  It honestly put a lot of things into perspective for me.  That's why I thought I'd start things off by stating that I hope all of you are able to stay safe and reasonably warm.

Hopefully some trading cards and blog posts will help distract some of you who were impacted by Mother Nature personally this week.  So let's dive into This Week in Blogging...

#1:  Let's Celebrate

1991 Stadium Club #1

Figured I'd try to start off with some happy news and wish Dime Box Nick a happy 29th birthday!  He celebrated his special day by ranking his Top 5 Dave Stewart cards.  Stewart shares the same birthday as him and happens to be one of my favorite 80's pitchers.  If you want to see which cards made his list, click here.

1999 Pokemon Fossil #58

1999 Pokemon Fossil 1st Edition #58

1997 Pokemon Fossil #NNO

This week also marks the 10th anniversary of This Card is Cool, which is a blog that focuses on everything from Japanese baseball cards to Pokemon cards.  Happy anniversary Ryan!

By the way... if you're interested in Pokemon cards, please check out Matt's latest post on Cards Over Coffee, which covers the McDonald's Happy Meal cards.

1995-96 Fleer Flair Hardwood Leader #9

Oh and I almost forgot... Billy over at Cardboard History just celebrated 25 years of being an NBA fan.  Congratulations Billy!  He mentioned that 1995-96 Fleer Series 2 was the first pack of basketball cards he opened, so I dug into my binders and this was the first card from that set I found.  Although... technically these Hardcourt Leaders inserts were in the Series 1 packs.

#2:  Factory Team Sets

On Monday, The Shlabotnik Report featured a great post breaking down the 2012 Topps New York Mets factory team set, which offered player photo variations and unique numbering.

2017 Topps Yankees Factory Team Set #NYY-16

I've purchased a few of these Topps factory teams sets over the years, because I enjoy the rookie card variations that are sometimes offered.

#3:  The Real Sam Malone

1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated Autograph Collection #NNO

On Monday, Matt over at Cards Over Coffee showed off the Ted Danson signed photo he recently acquired in a trade.  He talks about a few of the television shows and movies that Danson has appeared in over the years.  The one that stood out to me was Cheers, because it was one of those 80's television shows that I'd watch with my mom as a kid.

Sam Malone (Danson's character on Cheers) was inspired by a real MLB pitcher from the 60's and 70's:  Sam McDowell.  According to this article, McDowell struggled with alcoholism... but later turned things around and became a substance abuse counselor for a few MLB teams.

By the way... anyone else notice the error on the back of the McDowell card?  He never played for the Cincinnati Reds.  That being said... I've confused those old Cleveland hats with Cincinnati hats more than a few times myself.

#4:  Two Hobbies Unite

2003 Topps Gallery Currency Connection #CC-WM

In celebration of President's Day, Collecting Cutch showed off some fantastic coin cards on his blog.  I've always been fond of these collectibles that combine two popular hobbies into one.

2010 Panini Century Collection Souvenir Stamps #45

The same thing can be said for stamp cards.

#5:  The Big Hurt in Oakland

Peter K. Steinberg featured a sunset card of Frank Thomas over on Baseball Every Night earlier in the week.  I'm a huge fan of the guy and love it when I see him wearing Green & Gold.  Figured I'd share one of my cards as well:

2006 Flair Showcase Stitches #SS-FT

I'm always looking for an excuse to show off one of my Frank Thomas A's cards.

#6:  Check the Back

1987 Sportflics #31

If you own some 1987 Sportflics, you might want to flip them over and check out the copyright date.  If it says 1986, then you have a factory set version, while the ones with 1987 were pulled from packs.  Looks like the Gwynn sitting in my binder came from a pack:

By the way... I learned this little variation tidbit earlier in the week over at Kerry's blog: Cards on Cards.  

#7:  My 1st 2021 Gwynn

A lot of bloggers have written their 2021 Topps flagship reviews and check out my blaster posts.  I personally haven't seen or looked for any blasters myself, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I get my hands on some singles.

2021 Topps Blake Jamieson 1951 Topps #20

In the meantime, a post over on Wrigley Wax reminded me that I actually own a few 2021 Topps trading cards.  It's from the Blake Jamieson 1951 Topps online set that was released a few weeks ago.  I picked up the Week 2 box, because it included a bunch of players I collect including the Gwynn you see above.

#8:  Other Sports

As much as I enjoy collecting baseball cards, I actually enjoy reading non-baseball card related blog posts almost as much.

1996 SPx Tribute Autograph #T1

Paul over at Card Boarded  (a hockey card blog) announced earlier in the week that he's going to start collecting Jeff Gordon cards.

And Billy over at Cardboard History wrote a nice post about Jarome Iginla in honor of Black History Month.  He mentioned Iginla's interest in diabetes even though he doesn't suffer from it.

1994-95 SP #181

Anyways... seeing his name reminded me of the days of busting packs of 1994-95 SP searching for Sergei Samsonov rookie cards.  These packs also contained one of Iginla's rookie cards too.

#9:  Movie Mania

If you're into watching movies... then you should check out Elliptical Man's new blog series:  Film Friday.  It's a series where he'll be giving his readers 100 movie recommendations.

Yesterday was the first post in the series and the topic was Books & Plays.

1991 Starline Hollywood Walk of Fame #143

It wasn't featured in his post, but the first movie that popped into my head was To Kill a Mockingbird which features Gregory Peck.

By the way, this week I opened up two boxes of 1991 Starline Hollywood Walk of Fame and combined with a stack of singles I purchased at the flea market... I was almost able to produce two starter sets.  I know this is a long shot, but if anyone has any singles from this product laying around here are the 35 cards I still need.  I have a ton of duplicates available for trade.  Collation was terrible.

That wraps up another This Week in Blogging post.  As much as I enjoy and appreciate the number of views each of these posts receive, I'm thinking about scaling them down.  Between the research, writing, and digging up cards from my collection... these posts end up taking up a large portion of my Saturdays.  And in this day and age... rest and relaxation is something my mind and body needs for mental health purposes.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

Building Connections

The older I get... the less social I become.  I started down this path as I transition into my 30's.  That's when I lost the desire to meet up with friends at the local dive bars, attend concerts, or go to other large social gatherings like weddings and Christmas parties.

Upon self-reflection, I think it has to do with feeling burnt out after trying to accumulate as many friends as I could in high school and even college.  These days... it's all about quality over quantity when it comes to friendships.

Without getting to deep into my personal life... I'll just say that I can count on my two hands the number of friends I consider to be a part of my inner circle.  Sprinkle in my immediate family and I have plenty of social and emotional support to last a lifetime.

Then there's the collecting community.

I'm exactly the opposite when it comes to all of you.  I enjoy reading and commenting on your blogs.  Plus at this point, I don't think I would write four posts a week without the interaction with all of you.

It's actually kind of weird how social I am among the blogosphere compared to my "personal" life.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that we're not meeting face to face and in a sense... I'm hiding behind a keyboard.  Actually... that's not entirely true.

I've actually had the pleasure of meeting up with several bloggers over the years: Dan @ The Other World, Brady @ St. Louis Cardinals' Cardboard, Ryan @ Japanese Sumo Wrestling Cards and Menko, and Rod @ Padrographs.

I only met Dan once, but that might change after the pandemic ends and we're able to attend card shows again.  Brady and I used to meet up once or twice a year at the Serramonte Mall Show, but it's been at least two years since we've sifted through dime boxes together.  Ryan and I have hung out twice: once in Southern California and once up here.  He's also the only blogger I communicate with on a regular basis and we're hoping to hit up another card show at some point in the future.

And then there's Rod.  A few years ago, one of my best friends moved up to Portland and ever since I typically visit her at least twice a year (well not since the pandemic).  Anyways... two summers ago... I reached out to Rod and met him at the bookstore he used to run.

In fact there are a bunch of bloggers up in the Pacific Northwest:  Rod, Gavin @ Baseball Card Breakdown, Kerry @ Cards on Cards, and Kevin @ The Diamond King.  The goal is to one day make it back up north and eventually have a little blogger gathering with those guys.

In the meantime, Rod manages to stay in touch through the mail.  Two weeks ago, he sent out a very thick bubble mailer containing a ton of cards including my two prizes from his recent contest:

Topps Project 2020 #71 (by Ben Baller)

His contest utilized a draft format and I was awarded two picks.  He had a ton of cool prizes to choose from including ten to twenty different Project 2020 cards.

I used my first pick on this Ben Baller rendition of Rickey Henderson's 1980 Topps rookie card.

Topps Project 2020 #97 (by Andrew Thiele)

There were a bunch of interesting cards, including a variety of autographs and a Willie Mays card by Sophia Chang... but ultimately I went with this McGwire with my second pick.

I selected this card, because up until now I've been focusing on Gwynn and Henderson Project 2020 cards and ignoring Big Macs (outside of the Blake Jamieson).

Rod also tossed in a bunch of bonus items including this Dave Stewart custom he had autographed at a private signing:

On Tuesday, I listed my favorite Black MLB players and Stew made the Top 5.  He never pitched for the Padres, but he was their pitching coach during their last trip to the World Series in 1998.

Rod opened a bunch of packs for Christmas, including a ton of 2020 Allen & Ginter... which is a set I've been working on.  He helped me with three of the non-sports insert sets I'm building:

This chicken completed my Down on the Farm set:

2020 Topps A&G Down on the Farm #DF-CH

He also got me six steps closer to wrapping up the Reach for the Sky! and Digging Deep insert sets:

Next up are some singles for my Japanese and Oakland A's PC's:

And rounding out Rod's generosity are two memorabilia cards that inspired me to open up about my social life inside and outside of the hobby:

2003 Playoff Prestige Connections Materials #C-47 (#'d 153/400)

2003 Playoff Prestige Connections Materials #C-48 (#'d 042/400)

If you talked to my closest friends or family members, they'd most likely tell you how I like to keep my inner circle small and they wouldn't be lying.

But it's really nice to have an outlet like my blog and this hobby, because it's allowed me to make a lot of connections with other people who enjoy collecting pieces of cardboard with pictures of pitchers, chickens, and artwork on them.

Thank you Rod for this very generous prize/care package!  And thank you to each and every one one of you who has taken the time to read any of my posts and connecting with me by leaving comments.  They're truly appreciated.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!