Ramblings of an old baseball card collector

Some random thoughts...

* It feels good to get back to writing again. I don't know how frequent it will be, but at least its a start. I'm slowly getting everything in order. 

* Well, my Texas Rangers didn't make the playoffs, didn't even reach a .500 season, but we're still 2023 World Series Champions. 

* As busy as life has been I've been able to keep acquiring cards thanks to Ebay and Facebook claim sales. 

      

* So sad about the passing of Pete Rose. If ever there was a player who deserved the HOF it was Pete. I was never a big Rose fan, but I respected the player and how he played the game. I would love to get a little Charlie Hustle in my players today. You will be missed Pete.

* One more comment on Rose, It would almost seem like a slap in the face if they were to Pete Rose in the Hall now. Wait till he passes to put him in just so he doesn't get to experience it? Seems pretty petty to me. 

* A good thing, I guess, is that I've got 3 or 4 ideas for posts on my blog. I've just got to find the time to write them. 

* Excited about my Rangers in 2025. Wyatt Langford, Kumar Rocker, Jack Leiter, and the return of Evan Carter and Josh Jung to go with Marcus Semien and Corey Seager. It should be fun!

* I'm actually writing this in my hotel room in St, Louis, MO. I got the chance to see the outside of Busch Stadium. I love the statues outside the stadium. 

* Shout out to my friend Johnny's Trading Spot for his random act of kindness of Rangers cards!

  
 

Thanks for helping out with the Rangers collection!

* The problem with acquiring cards over a period of time and not doing anything with them is that you get piles and piles of cards. Piles and piles of cards means a lot of time going through and organizing and storing or displaying. There are a lot of worse problems to have!

I guess that's it for now. Hopefully, I will be back soon. 

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

An Update on this blogger's life and collection

 Obviously, it's been awhile since I posted an update. There has been a job change that has really taken all of my spare time. I'm still teaching a special education math class, but I've added the responsibility as the head baseball coach. 

About 5 years ago I volunteered to help coach the JV team because the JV coach was in the National Guard and was going to be training for a month right in the middle of the season. I coached a couple of games with him before he left and coached 2 games by myself before COVID shut us down. 

When we came back in August for the next school year, the same coach told us that he was going to be deployed for the year starting in September. Once again, I volunteered. This time it stuck. 

I have been the head JV coach and the varsity assistant for the last 5 years. One week before teachers were to report for this school year, the head coach was stepping aside to focus his time on his own family and I was asked to be the head coach.

It really was by default. By this point, there were no teaching positions available at the school to bring someone on board and there really wasn't another person to do it. 

All of that to say, that I'm extremely excited to be the head coach and extremely overwhelmed by all that I have to do. 

At no point in my life did I ever think I'd be a head baseball coach at a high school. It wasn't even on my radar. I was pretty content being an assistant coach. Being involved in the game, having an impact on the players and helping out a friend who needed some help was more than enough for me. 

Until you are in this position you have no idea of the amount of time and energy it takes. Scheduling, paperwork, practices, equipment, weight-training, grades, etc...it seems to be never-ending. I'm sure once I get a better grip on everything it will get better, but now, it's overwhelming. 

Pretty sure it's easy to understand that writing a blog and collecting cards has gotten pushed to the side for a bit. 

To be honest, the card collecting hasn't gone completely by the wayside. I have picked up cards for my set builds through TCDB trades and a few blasters and hangers from Walmart. 

I did manage to grab this from Ebay...

(I had to make sure I at least posted one picture of a card!) Number 1 of 10. I think that's pretty cool to get number one. 

That's the quick update! Hopefully, I can get this coaching thing under control soon and can get back to blogging!

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

P.S. Johnny's Trading Spot Freddie Freeman relic is headed your way soon!

Well, that's one goal busted!

 I made a goal at the beginning of the year to write at least one post a week. I did pretty good up until about two weeks ago. Life just got too busy and there wasn't too much time for baseball cards. If there's no time for baseball cards, there's no time for blogging. 

Through the busy period, I did manage to pick up some 2024 Topps Series 2. I picked up a hobby box, and several blasters and hangers. I've still got a long way to go to finish four sets (mine, my two grandsons and my niece's newborn boy), but I've got a good start. I still haven't organized all of the cards yet, but what few I've done, I can tell that I'm not close to finishing the sets. 

I did pull a few good inserts...

Nice rookie parallel of Austin Wells '89 insert,

A Freddie Freeman relic,

Gold Mirror Gavin Sheets,

Team logo Carson Spiers, 

Brice Turang sticker auto and...

a short print Wyatt Langford! Best card I've pulled in a long time. There were a lot more good pick ups, but these were the only ones that I had time to take pics of. All of the cards, except the Wyatt Langford are available if anyone is interested. 

That's it for now. 

Peace, 

Michael 

Isaiah 40:31

 

Summer is flying by!

Summer is flying by! The Rangers have hit the halfway point of their season and the All-Star game is right around the corner. Last year there were a ton of Rangers on the All-Star team. This year when it's at home we're going to be lucky to have one on the team. Oh well, at least for a few more months we can still say we're the reigning World Series Champions. 

Not only is summer flying by, I don't feel as if I'm getting as much done on my card collection as I wanted to. I've spent most of my time organizing and putting my player collection in TCDB. 

There have been a few lightbulbs go off concerning my player collection.

First, I didn't have as many different cards of each player as I thought I did. I have a bunch of cards of my players, but more dupes than I thought I had. That tells me I"ve got to do a better job of keeping up with what I have. 

Second, putting player collections into TCDB is not a fast process. I can put a year's cards into TCDB pretty fast, especially compared to a player collection. Putting newer cards in is way harder with all of the parallels for each card. 

Third, I'm trying to figure out the best way to store my player collection. Currently, they are all in top loaders and in boxes. I kind of like it because, I can look through the cards pretty easy and if I add a card, I can put in year order and not have to make a lot of movement. I'm still considering binders, but I just don't know. I'm open for suggestions guys. 

I did pick up some cards that finally came in. All of these were Ebay or Facebook claim sales. 

 

The two Father's Day patch cards move me a little closer, not much, but a little closer on that subset. The other two cards were more throw in cards to the deal. I will probably list them on buysportscards.com unless someone on here wants to trade for them.

All of these go into the player collections. My player collections are pretty lopsided in that I've got way more cards of Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout and Bobby Witt Jr than I do of Mookie Betts and Bryce Harper, just to name a couple. I guess I might need to rethink and decide if I really want to collect these other non-Rangers. I am a big fan of the guys I do collect, that's why I started their collection in the first place. 

I've finally opened a couple of hanger boxes and a couple of blasters of 2024 Topps, but I haven't really gone through them yet. That will be for another post. That's it for this week. 

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

Ramblings of an old Collector

- With school ending, graduation, losing power for a week because of a storm, keeping grandkids and trying to recover from everything, I've gotten way behind in reading everyone's blogs. If you start seeing comments on older posts you'll know why. 

 - I was at the local Walmart looking for Topps Series 2 and there weren't any out. Instead of leaving empty handed, I picked up a '24 Heritage blaster. Good decision. Every pack had a purple refractor in it! 

 

Not only did I get 7 purple refractors, two of them were Rangers! Not a bad concession prize for not finding Topps Series 2!

- Not to brag or anything, but my son was an assistant coach on the Texas 5A State champion Grapevine High School baseball team. So awesome to see the positive impact he is having on players, not just in baseball but on becoming young men. 

- Now that its summer and school is out, I'm trying to get more organized in my collection. I know, its the neverending battle of collectors. Right now, I'm focused on my player collections and getting them organized and in TCDB. 

- I'm down to 54 cards in my 1978 set. This is going to be my priority once I finish 2024 Topps series 1 & 2.

- Speaking of 2024 Topps, my niece just had a baby boy, so I decided to put another set together for him. I already had a lot of dupes, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

- I've done 3 breaks in my lifetime now and unless I'm really bored, I think I'm done with it. The only good thing about the breaks is I got some Ranger cards I wanted, but it wasn't worth the money. I've heard there are breakers out there that only send out the hits and not the base cards. That would tick me off. Anyways, here are the hits that I did get...all in one break.

- My Texas Rangers, haven't been very good this year. They've had a ton of injuries, can't hit and the pitching has been sporadic at best. It's been interesting watching the number of bandwagon people jumping off. Not me, I'm a lifer. UPDATE: Rangers have won 4 in a row!

- I need some help identifying this reprint. What year is this reprint from? I know its a reprint of '60 Topps, but I can't figure out when it was reprinted. 

I can find the '96 Topps Commemorative reprint with embossed Mickey Mantle on it and the white and yellow back, but not this one. Help!

- I finally got my starter set for 2010 Topps. I've got to sort it and get it on TCDB so I can start trading for it. I'm not doing the update set, so the update cards that I got will be for trade.

- I picked up some cards from Ebay, Buysportscards.com and facebook claims that finally came in... 

All of these are for my player collections. 

These two short prints help me get a little closer to completing the sets. 

These 7 cards got closer to completing the '78 set.

I guess that's all for now. Hope everyone has a blessed week!

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

The Seventies-The least favorite sets

 After a lot of thought I have come up with my least favorite sets of the 1970s. This was difficult, because I'm talking about baseball cards and baseball cards are greatness. Once again, I will say just because these sets are listed here, it doesn't mean that I don't like them at all...it just means I don't like them as much. I mean, the '72, '75 and '78 sets are right up there, it not, my favorite sets of all-time. That makes it a little easier to pick the favorites, the least favorites are a little harder to come up with. 

The first of the lesser sets for me is th 1970 set. I think the design is boring with the grey borders and the plain print. Not only that, but the pictures on the cards look as if they were rushed. Almost all of the shots are posed and the backgrounds aren't very good. Most have people milling around in the background. 

     

At least McNally has ballplayers in his background. Cullen as either a bunch of reporters or exec staff in his. Another card that just doesn't look right to me is the Hank Aaron card. 

This card has always made me think he was looking down and the photographer called his name and snapped the picture as soon as he looked up. Not the best Aaron card. 

There aren't any real good rookie cards in the '70 set other than Thurman Munson. 

Individual or position rookie cards are my preferred rookie card and this is probably my least favorite. I do appreciate Munson's career and it is truly sad that his career was cut short. 

There are cards that I like in the set. I really like the playoff subset cards. 

     

I really like the black and white picturesof these cards. Great picture of Seaver, who knew Powell could get airborne and Agee's catch is classic.

Here are a couple of cards that I do like from the set.

     

Ryan looks so young on this card and Carew looks so serious. Probably my favorite Carew card.

Next up for one of the least favorite sets, 1971. This one is really easy, it's the black borders. The black borders can look really sharp, but they seem to show every little issue the card may have. I don't get too hung up on condition of cards. I don't like big creases or really rounded corners, but a little ding here or there doesn't bother me. However, most of the '71 cards seems to show everything and really takes away from the cards for me. 

     

Now the good thing about the set is that Topps brought back the action shot and most of the backgrounds of the other shots have been cleaned up. That is a classic Nolan Ryan shot and I always love a good action shot of a catcher. 

     

Gibson is one of my favorites and I don't think he gets enough credit that he deserves. He and Ryan kind of pitched the same in that neither one was a pitcher that you wanted to dig in on. Had to include this card of Aaron to make up for the last one. 

This has got to be the worst Brooks Robinson card. I like action shots, but a swing and a miss? Not the best choice. 

The last of my three least favorite sets of the '70s is the 1976 set. I had a hard time with this one. I probably could have stopped with only two sets, but out of all of the years left in the '70s, the '76 is the last one I'd chase. I think it boils down to two color bars on the bottom of the front of the card. 

     

There are much better pictures on the cards as opposed to the '71 set. Better looking Robinson card than the '71 set. Even the posed shots are better. 

     

What action shots that are in the set seem to be better pictures too. Topps did seem to try and color match with the teams. It's not a terrible design, it just isn't my favorite.

Well, that's it for my least favorite sets of the 1970s. I'm not sure I'll do another one of these. Let me know your thoughts on the least favorite sets of the Seventies. Do any of yours match up with mine?

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31