Upcoming Events

As you may have noticed (or not) I took a brief hiatus from the blogs, mostly to finish cataloging my card collection. Every card has been now been hand-checked again and according to TCDB I have exactly 97,879 cards - not counting factory-sealed complete sets. There are at least 65 cards in my collection that are not listed on the site, but I don't feel like submitting more update requests right now.


I don't know how much new product I'll buy this year. Besides saving money for trips to Cooperstown and the National, there haven't been any sets in the past year or two that have inspired me to roll the dice on a hobby box. I think I've been away from card shops so long that I've become stingy. It's almost as if the experience of going to the National is more attractive to me that what I might find there.


Baseball is such a mess right now that I've had a hard time getting excited about the 2020 season. I'm one of the few Red Sox fans that understood the need to trade Mookie Betts. All of the 'experts' who bemoaned the Sox for being cheap fail to recognize that even the frickin' Yankees were thrifty enough to reset their payroll limits to avoid paying the luxury tax. Chaim Bloom made the right move... eventually. It's just a little embarrassing that it took so long. (Hello, Iowa!)


The Mookie trade isn't what's got me down on the sport. The sign-stealing scandal is a dark cloud dampening any Spring Training enthusiasm, and Rob Manfred's mismanagement has the league headed for another work stoppage. The Kris Bryant service time ruling and the slow-moving off-seasons of 2018 and 2019 were bad for management-labor relations, but those weren't entirely in his control. His ideas to "improve" the game have been ridiculous - gutting the minor leagues, pace-of-play rules, the Nike 'swoosh' getting prime real estate on every jersey. Now he wants to expand the playoffs? Wreck the game some more, why don't you? And you thought Bud Selig was a lousy commissioner!


It's possible that my upcoming trip to Cooperstown and/or the National could be a farewell of sorts. Or maybe I'm just ornery because I have learned what 'aural waterboarding' is, and I experience it five days a week.


Anyway, I won't be busting open any packs of 2020 Topps but I will be celebrating the return of baseball in my own way - by re-starting the All-Time Teams series. The plan is to post one every 2-3 days until Opening Day. Los Angeles teams are on deck.

Will all four of these fellas make the Dodgers' All-Time Team?

I will squeeze in a non-baseball post as events dictate, and I do want to recap the 1992-93/1993-94 Fleer Ultra sets at some point. After that I might take a much longer blog break. We shall see..



Thanks for reading!


 
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