Keeping It Honest

Setting goals for myself as New Years resolutions can be really ineffective at disparaging me from spending money, but I've found that the resolutions I set have enough staying power to stick in my mind. Whenever I'm bored and just casually looking around looking for stuff and bump into baseball cards, I remember my no spending goal.

But every now and then you find deals and cards that I feel I just have to have. I am human. I have impulses.

When these things happen, I usually try to justify it. Like oh this is part of this other month. Or sometimes I just try to flat out lie to myself and say that this is fine. At one point I think I had this crazy notion of "if I don't blog about it then it didn't happen!" But in the end, honesty is the best policy.

I went back to Chameleon Cards and Comics in downtown NYC again. I went in looking for supplies (more on that in another post) because they technically aren't cards and don't affect my goal. But instead I found myself there for nearly an hour thumbing my way through a box of cards priced at a dime each.

It's not my fault, 2017 Bowman Draft did it.

Goodness knows that I refuse to buy boxes anymore in general and will definitely stay away from spending $7-8 just on shipping for a full set of base cards on eBay. So instead I look at dime boxes to give me TTM fodder.

And I got just that.

My haul was so huge that the store gave me one of those plastic storage boxes since putting these in team bags would've been a huge waste.

On one hand I was glad I got a giant stack of cards I can attempt TTMs with once the minor league baseball season starts.

On the other hand I am ashamed because I was only one day into February and I messed up a chance to go a whole month without buying baseball cards. The fact that it's February only added to the shame. February is the easiest month of the year to get through because it's also the shortest month of the year. I just poo poo'd it. Although that said, I could very well just make the most out of this and go after some cards that had been on the 'Bay for a while now...

...only to realize that the only way to justify spending on those would be if I really do only buy baseball cards for four more months for the rest of the year. And knowing me, I think there's a better chance that scientists rip apart the fabric of space first.

Ugh. I need more self control. I guess I have a large stack of cards now to remind me to write more than accumulate.

To punish myself I made myself actually read the backs of all of the Draft cards I picked up.

To Bowman the backs have never mattered (except for the serial number there) but these backs were okay. The skills section is quite helpful actually and better than what Bowman has done before. The Up Close section is a bit lackluster. Mainly boring tidbits like how a player was drafted by another organization before, or an occasional "highest draft pick from school-X" bit. Also there were way too may words about what everybody majored in in college or what college they were committed to. But here are some highlights.

*Daulton Varsho was named after the late Darren Daulton, who was a teammate of his dad Gary Varsho

*Jacob Gonzalez is the son of Luis Gonzalez

*Matt Trabor raised money to build a whiffle ball park for charity

*Joseph Dunand is A-Rod's nephew

*Trevor Rogers is the first cousin of Cody Ross

*Kade McClure is friends with Mitch Trubisky

Yeah, that Trubisky

*Lincoln Henzman likes steak, spaghetti and Honey Nut Cheerios

*Kyle Wright's mother (Belinda) works for NASA

*Keston Hiura never eats the eggs yolks and only sticks to the egg whites

*Hans Crouse cites Mark "The Bird" Fidrych among his favorite players

*Cash Case plays guitar, piano and saxophone

*Jeter Downs was named after Derek Jeter

*Gavin Sheets likes chicken nuggets

I noticed that Bowman tends to say that player x "idolized" player y a lot on these backs. Which is helpful since I can prepare cards of that player y as a gift if player x ever signs for me. Although they don't make for interesting fun facts when you consider that player y is usually Derek Jeter. Because no shit :P.

At the end of the day, even with my New Years resolution getting a lot harder to accomplish, I'm glad I can at least sleep soundly at night knowing I was at least honest with all of you and myself.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).