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