I did end up getting some cards for Christmas* - two megaboxes of Topps Heritage and a megabox of UD hockey. (Did I pick them out myself, pay for them, and wrap them? perhaps...)
*the only Christmas card I received from outside the family arrived yesterday. D's friends have sent photocards in the past but I guess they don't see a reason to send one here without her.
I don't know why I took a picture of the packs but not the cards. There wasn't anything great in here - I already had one of the Young Guns rookies and didn't pull any notable Devils or superstar inserts. Just slowly plugging away at the base set as I've been doing for 35 years with Upper Deck hockey.
One of my Goals For 2026 will be to fill in the missing years in my UD base set collection. I stopped after 2015-16 and didn't resume until 2022-23. There are probably some Extended sets I'm missing, too.
Topps Heritage might be the best value of all recent sports card sets. I got a huge stack of cards with shiny parallels, a couple inserts, and some SP's for less than the cost of a single megabox of Topps Chrome basketball. 272 of these, or 42 of these? Heritage all day!
This stack is going to keep me busy for a while. And so will this book my brother in law gifted me:
He also got me a compilation of sci-fi stories, which I will enjoy almost as much. And one single card:
This was a very cool surprise. I asked if he met Mike Eruzione, but he didn't - this was an eBay purchase. If you haven't seen Miracle I highly reccomend it - even if you're not a hockey fan.
Thanks for reading and Happy New Year! Here's to a less shitty 2026!! 🎉
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you're having a happy holiday celebration with your families and not driving two hours to your in-laws like I'm doing. Can I still call them in-laws? I'm not married anymore ?:/
This is the first year that I'm in charge of Christmas, and I definitely spent a lot on my girls. Next year we'll be a bit more frugal. I also spent a little bit on myself, with some high-end singles that I'll show off soon.
And there's at least one unwrapped sports card gift for me...
I spied a Topps Holiday ornament while shopping for my daughters and thought it would be a nice capper to the Advent calendar. Little did I know how badly I'd need a proper finale. Yeesh.
Inside this decorative ball (which was far too heavy to stay on my tree) is a tray holding 52 cards:
I'll add the base singles together with my calendar haul and recap everything this weekend. Meanwhile, here are the ornament exclusive parallels:
The blue ones look better IMO. Nice to get a Bregman even though he's definitely not coming back to Boston (not that we need him) I might ship the Machado out to Fuji once I open the rest of my Christmas cards.
There were no Nice List inserts (good, I'm tired of them) nor any other insert, but there was a card flipped over in the pack:
Hmm, I wonder why this was .... oooohhh
Holiday image variation of last year's big rookie free agent!!! This has got to be a $15-20 card, no?
No. Not at all. It's basically a common. Shouldn't the base Sasaki RC sell for $2+??
I am woefully out of touch with card values. Which is fine; I only need to know them when buying graded vintage anyhow. The Advent calendar and the Ornament were fun to open and that's what matters.
Did you open any sports card packs or boxes this Christmas? Did you receive them as gifts, or did you buy them yourself (like I did)?
We've reached the end of the Topps Holiday Advent calendar. Here's door #24 (shoutout Kiefer Sutherland.)
What grand finale do the fine folks at Fanatics have in store for us? I've heard the last pack is an original from years past....
...and, yeh... that it is.
Uh-oh...
Oh great, it's my least favorite Topps set ever. This came out when I was nine years old, and as much as I loved baseball I never even bothered to finish the complete set. Four years ago, when my mom moved out of my childhood home, I found a stack of bent 9-pocket pages with 1989 Topps singles sporadically inside, as if I'd completed 25% of the set, realized it sucked, and then threw the pages in the closet without a binder to protect them.
I'm honestly amazed that I continued to collect baseball cards after this year.
Welp, let's get this over with.
Here are the highlights, and I only added Henke to fill in the six-pack since the rest of the cards were absolute no-names (Mark Grant? Jose Cecena?) There was a broken stick of gum in the pack, and it stained the back of the Galarraga card. I'd rather have another stamped buyback from 2024. What a lousy end to the Advent calendar.
I've got one more Topps Holiday product to open tomorrow. Hopefully that will wash the stink off this pack (no offense to Hawk, Ryno, and Sweet Lou)
It's the penultimate post and pack of the Topps Holiday Advent Calendar. Today we're opening door #23 -- shoutout to Don Mattingly, Ryne Sandberg, and anyone who wore this number because it was randomly assigned to them, or because they were drafted #23 overall, or because they were born on the 23rd -- and NOT because they were trying to be Like Mike.
I complain about the sameness of these 5-card packs, but I have a feeling I'll miss them in a couple days.
Nothing average about these two Dodgers though. Nice to pull the Ohtani base card to go with those Nice List inserts. And speaking of -- how the heck did Matt Chapman post 7 WAR? Was it all defense?
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I've got some more space to fill, so I thought I'd share my first impressions of dating apps. After a few days of research I downloaded Hinge, which appeared to be a better option than Tinder (fewer bots, more mature users looking for more than a hookup) Match sounds like a good option as well, but I'm sticking that in my back pocket until I get the hang of this.
Set up was pretty basic - build profile, upload pics, share some things about yourself, choose your preferences (age, proximity, ethnicity, relationship goals, and one or two others) Once that's done you scroll through photos and click on the ones you like. You can also click 'like' on someone's prompt answer, or other descriptions. (I spent a like on someone who said a certain song by The Cure makes her cry.)
A few days in, and I had a couple 'likes' on my profile. Figured I might sign up for the full version after the New Year - if there's enough interest out there. But the full version costs money, and you can't see anything about the people who ‘like’ you unless you have the full version. That's frustrating, but understandable I suppose.
Yesterday was even more frustrating. There's this 'standouts' tab that's supposed to show you the best potential matches based on your preferences. The algorithm sent me a woman about my age who lives one town over from me. Normally I can decide within a second if I find them appealing in any way, but I was stuck on this one for a while. Which I soon realized was because she was right on my level - and because her profile didn't give me much to go on other than a love of tacos.
Eventually I will have to leave comments for someone I'm interested in, and I've really got no idea what to say. But! I could ask this gal for her favorite taco spot in town. I'm very familiar with said town and at least two taco joints.. perhaps that's how one eventually ends up on a date.
Except.. and this is the dumbest thing ever to a widowed fortysomething who hasn't dated in 20 years.. I couldn't message her because she was on the stupid 'standout' list. I couldn't click ‘like’ on any of her pics. I couldn't comment or bookmark or anything. The only thing I could have done was send her a (virtual) rose.
And roses cost money. Not just a buck or two either. Minimum of three for $11.99.
Sigh…too much to think about. I’ll have to set it aside until after Christmas.
For now, here's one of the two Sportlots orders I was still waiting on. Arrived in my mailbox today:
Yep, another aggressively off-center single. (The mystery Whaler is Jordy Douglas, btw.) I finally added Hillary Knight to my Women on Cards collection. Notice the Boston Fleet's logo, clearly a nod to the Whale.
Sportlots had several Sophie Cunningham cards but this was the only one available at the low common price of 20 cents. That's a much better investment than a virtual rose.
Hope you'll join me tomorrow for the Advent calendar finale. It'll be a short post, I promise :)
We’re back for the final three days of the Topps Holiday Advent Calendar. It's day number 22 - shoutout to Jordin Tootoo who wore number two-two .. but unforunately retired long before 2022.
It's another five-card pack, but this one is above standard:
Another Aaron Judge Nice List insert, and a Plaid Parallel of the James Wood RC. Not bad at all!
I got cards in the mail again today, though I was expecting these. One of my three Sportlots orders arrived and, well, .. I really wish I didn't have to buy singles on Sportlots anymore.
I'm still trying to fill out my Red Sox binders. 1980s team sets aren't quite complete, so I paid $1.60 for these eight cards:
And my 1970s Sox singles are really sparse, so I spent another $1.60 on two that were listed as "NM"
Ugh... nope. Not NM, not even close. I can accept vintage cards that aren't 50/50, but anything over 80/20 messes with my OCD. The '77 Doyle is centered well enough on the back but the front is no bueno. Koonce is 100/0 on both sides - and that one was $1.40.
One of my New Year's resolutions will be to trade on TCDB again - so that I don't pay actual money for poorly centered '70s-'80s singles - since vintage cards are rarely sold at card shows anymore :/
It has been several months since I've received a sports card care package in the mail, so I had to take a day off from the Topps Advent calendar to mark the occasion.
The always generous Dennis sent me a bubble mailer with a bunch of PC hits and one card I forgot I claimed from one of his card show hauls:
Really liked this Clyde Edwards-Helaire patch when I saw it - thick swatch, three colors, and seam across the swatch. It's a welcome addition to my relics and thick cards box -- which is now full!
That's because Dennis hit me with nine more memorabilia cards -- including eight Red Sox!
Seven new David Ortiz relics??! This is one third of all the Papi memorabilia cards in my collection! (Not pictured: a Pedro Martinez 2025 Donruss single)
Dennis also sent some Devils and a Dan Marino insert serial numbered to 5,000. The Martin Brodeur Ice cards are a base McDonalds and a red parallel.
I'm still updating my totals on TCDB but I know that I now have over 500 different Martin Brodeur cards - many thanks to Dennis!
We're gonna cheat a bit and open two doors today because I got a care package from Dennis. I'd write about that one now, but the Packers are playing tonight and I'd rather rush through the Topps Holiday Advent calendar post than the Thank You post.
Only three more doors after today. Will there be another Evergreen pack, or some other insert set?
Nope, both #20 and #21 are standard 5-card Holiday packs. Here's the one for today:
Ugh... Clase again. Zero star power here. Good thing I skipped ahead to #21, huh?
Slightly better. I really wanted Schwarber to come back to Boston, but he fits in Philly too well to leave. My niece used to say "louder it" when she wanted the TV or music volume turned up. I thought that was perfect and couldn't understand why that wasn't already a thing.
It's the last weekend before Christmas. I'm all done with the shopping and decorating. But we've still got a few mini-gifts to open.
Let's see what's behind door #19.
It's a five-card Holiday pack, as usual.
Two Yankes, plus a guy who always wanted to be a Yankee (but didn't account for them having someone better patrolling right field.)
With 24 packs in each Advent calendar and 25 cards in the Nice List insert set, I should be just a couple cards away from completing it if I choose. I'll see which ones are left after tomorrow's pack.
I also want to go back and see if each 5-card Holiday pack had at least one Rookie Card. Maybe I'll post another recap tomorrow at the 4/5 mark. Christmas is almost here!
It's the week before Christmas, and the home stretch of the Topps Holiday Advent Calendar:
18, 19, and 20 are all grouped together so that makes taking a "before" picture much easier.
(spoiler alert: they're all basic 5-card packs)
Let's see what today's pack has in store:
The recently-traded Taylor Ward in Green Plaid and a Nice List insert featuring Vlad.
If you can't see the name of that White Sox rookie through all the foil, it's Sean Burke.
No... not that Sean Burke.
In a bit of personal news, I have begun to explore the feasibility of online dating. As in I've read a couple articles and watched a couple YouTube videos detailing the pros and cons of dating apps like Match, Tinder, Bumble, etc etc...
Here's the thing - I have had zero use for social media over the past 10+ years. OTOH, I've never successfully dated anyone without meeeting them online. Of course, that was pre-social media.
What I've learned so far is that it's going to be a hellscape. Welcome back to being single. You're now going to spend too much time and money sifting through bot accounts to compete with hundreds of other men for the attention of a very small number of women who will expect you to have self-confidence, a six-figure salary, a driver's license and an Instagram account. Good luck!
I might sign up for Match in the New Year. Or I might try to chat up the widowed mom down the street and see what her situation is. Or I might just lean into the loneliness epidemic and avoid rejection altogether!
I didn't get any comments on my last post and I think I know why. I've been too negative about this Topps Holiday Advent calendar. It's really not that bad!
Maybe door #16 will have something special?!?
Okay, so it's a standard 5-card pack. But I'm going to be positive!!! This is fun!! So I'm going to enjoy this pack by scanning each card individually and including a positive comment about each.
Here we gooooooooo!!!!!!
Christian Walker was the Astros' home run leader in 2025!
James Wood is not James Woods, which is good. He led the league in strikeouts with an astounding 221 -- just two away from the single-season record!! Honestly though, he's probably the Nats' best player. He's still only 22, and if he can just be a little more selective at the plate he'll be a monster.
Another Christian Walker! Two cards of the same player in one pack, that never happens!!
Hey .. do you think that somewhere there's a guy named Christian who isn't a Christian? A Jewish guy named Christian would be pretty funny. Like if Ranger Suarez signed with the Astros.
All Rise!! It's Aaron Judge, the greatest slugger in the game today! He hits twice as many home runs as Walker.
Mooo-kie! Four-time World Series champ and the active career leader in WAR with 75.2!!
What's that? I'm being told that Mike Trout still plays baseball once in a while, so Betts has the second-highest WAR among active players. But he's still 10 points higher than Judge and he's younger.
Overall, this was a pretty good pack of Holiday cards! Now, can we please get some variety in this box?
