Ramblings of an old card collector

 Wandering thoughts about card collecting. 

* It drives me nuts when people say opening packs isn't worth it. Would I be wrong in saying that if everyone abided by that thought, there wouldn't be any singles to buy???

* 2025 Topps release is right around the corner. 

     

I like the design. I think the team name down the side is a little difficult to read, but I like the team color aspect and actually like the position dots. It's different. I will say that I don't love the design like I did '24, but overall, its not too bad. 

* Still working on my favorite players from each team. It's a little harder to do than I thought. I'm sure that it will evolve as I go along. 

* So sad that we lost another great one in Bob Uecker. He loved the game and had the best sense of humor. So many great stories. 

* HOF voting is starting to come out. Ichiro should be a unanimous pick. 

What an unbelievable talent. Not only that he did it for quite awhile without much regression. I just remember every time he came to bat against the Rangers I would say just go ahead and put him on and save time and pitch count. I don't think he gets the attention in the card collecting world like he should. I know he hasn't in my collection. 

* I did manage to complete another set. I made a trade on TCDB and when I was putting the cards away I decided to look and see how many more cards I needed and I was down to 8. I went on Buy Sports Cards dot com and picked up the rest from one guy. I can now check my 1996 Topps set as complete. 

     

     

     

These are just a few of my favorites from the set. I really like the simple design of the cards. There are some cool shots like the Henderson, Jeter and Chipper Jones cards. Who doesn't love tribute cards in a set like the Mantle and Ripken cards. 

* I've reached the point that my current card room set up needs an adjustment to become more worker friendly. Just like about everyone else, there is limited room so I'm going to have to be creative. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I've got to do something. 

* I'm over all of these so called collectors who want absolutely nothing to do with base cards. I'm big on collecting what you want, but literally, discarding them completely and looking only for the inserts is something that I can't wrap my head around. Okay, that sounded really bad. They aren't so called collectors, they're collectors. They can send me their base cards though! 

* Question: What are your thoughts on the PED players, those that were actually caught, getting in the HOF? I'm of the thought that they don't get in because they cheated the game. I don't know that I'll feel that way forever, but that's where I'm at now.

* Speaking of cheating the game, Jayson Stark wrote in The Athletic That "voters are not looking at the Astros' infamous Bang the Can Slowly scandal as a This Dude Must Never Enter the Halls of Cooperstown kind of "crime"." I think that's worse than steroids. Okay, maybe not worse, but just as bad. Pretty sure that if I had a vote for HOF Carlos Beltran wouldn't get mine. 

* Back to my non-voting for the Hall this year, I think the only ones that I'd vote for if I had a vote would be Ichiro, Sabathia and Wagner. I'd probably vote for a few others to keep them on the ballot, but that'd be it. 

* I've heard that there's a lot of baseball card people moving to Bluesky Social. Any of you on Bluesky? I just downloaded it and thought I'd give it a look. 

I think that's it for now. Hope everyone has a blessed day!

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

     

Ramblings of an old baseball card collector - New Year edition

*Happy New Year! Okay, okay, I know it's already almost a week into the new year, but time is a precious commodity during the holiday season and there just wasn't time to write. I did start a post before Christmas, but never got it finished. Started another one before New Year's Day and that one didn't get done either. Well, I least I got this one done. 

*My Rangers re-signed Nathan Eovaldi. If deGrom is healthy that's a pretty powerful 1-2 punch in the starting rotation. If either Rocker or Leiter pan out, or better yet if they both do, that would be the best rotation the Rangers have ever had. 

*For the first time since I've started putting together Topps sets for my grandsons I didn't get them finished by Christmas. Still need to get that done. Good thing is they are both so young they won't notice. 

*The golden at bat rule that Rob Manfred mentioned has got to be the worst thing that could happen to MLB. I will say that the other rules, save one, have been good for baseball.

*I had a goal of completing more sets...failed! I did manage to complete a couple of subsets though. 

  

Covering the Field inserts is one of my collecting successes this past year. I'm not sure why I decided to collect this subset. Maybe it was because I had acquired a good number of them opening packs. I do really like the spray chart on the cards though.

*Just read that Rangers are on the short list for Roki Sasaki. Man, wouldn't that make the starting rotation hot!

*Had another goal of writing a post every week. I did pretty good at the beginning of the year, but the new responsibilities of head baseball coach was overwhelming. It's better now, but still failed on the posting to the blog.

*Quick update on the new head coaching job...They never tell you about all of the paperwork and hoops you have to jump through besides the coaching baseball part. I still really love coaching the guys and sharing baseball with them, but if I could just find someone to do all of the other stuff... 

*I've managed to pick up a couple of autographs of a couple of Rangers. I'm not a big autograph collector, but both of these came really cheap and they are two of the young guns that the Rangers have.

When the Rangers acquired Josh Smith and Ezekiel Duran, I told everyone that Smith was going to be the star of the trade. It didn't start out that way. Everyone thought it was Duran. I knew that once he got the chance he'd prove it. I love the way this guy plays. 

This is my second Carter auto. I really like this one more than the other one. The Topps Chrome auto is a nice looking card.

*Back to Manfred and the rule changes. The one rule that I'm still not a fan of is the pick-off rule. After two attempts it's almost like a freebie out there. I don't know if there is a magic number of attempts, but I'm not a fan of three.

*The other subset I managed to complete is the All-Topps Team.

I really like the design of these cards. I didn't hurt that there are two Rangers in it too!

I think that's all for this post. I hope each and everyone had a Merry Christmas and I hope and pray that everyone has a blessed New Year!

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31