During a few of my recent-ish runs to the grocery store I finally found them.
The Utz chips that come with baseball cards.
I passed on these last year for no reason in particular but this time around I thought "why not?" and picked up two bags.
To me baseball cards coming along with potato chips isn't new. I spent my high school years in Japan where Calbee chips and cards are a staple and part of the cultural zeitgeist.
But what is new is buying a giant bag with 12 small bags inside and that only gets you three cards total. In Japan a bag of Calbee chips is like one dollar and it comes with two cards, one of which could be an insert. Hmm.
The chips that I got were the plain flavored chips. Nothing really special. I've made chips like these before with sliced potatoes, 350 degree (Fahrenheit) oil and a dab of salt.
Just yesterday I saw that they finally had the chips with actual flavors come with cards too. I didn't pick these up because I opted for cookies instead, but good to know these exist too.
As for the cards? They're perfectly serviceable but they honestly kinda just give off the vibe of what those Honus Bonus cards from 2017 would look like if they had logos.
Also good grief does your heart sink when you're greeted by Rockies. Although Trevor Story and Charlie Blackmon are salvageable in that they do sign TTM autographs (provided you send along a donation to the Colorado Rockies Foundation). If/when baseball resumes I might look into that. I'm a sucker for getting food-issue oddballs signed.
For the curious, the non-Rockies were Tim Anderson, Rafael Devers, Justin Verlander and Lorenzo Cain. Also two $1 off coupons for packs of 2020 Flagship (Series 1, 2 or Update). Fine, sure, whatever. I already have designated homes for these cards BTW.
The backs look like this. As you can see whatever the color of the front is will determine what the color of the back is. Is this insightful commentary? Probably not since just noticing things and saying them isn't really adding much, but that's all I've got.
These aren't prospect cards, these aren't rainbow building cards, these aren't Luis Torrens cards, these are merely regular cards. Mirrors how the chips are merely regular potato chips.
These past few weeks have been a non-stop stream of the world perpetually feeling like it's crumbling. The more time spent at home ultimately equates to more time being alone with my thoughts, which is to say that I'm finding myself dicking around on Twitter a lot more.
Being on Twitter is a double-edged sword. On one hand it's the lone thing keeping me connected to "the world" in this current period where I can't physically connect with other people. On the other hand Twitter has never been anything more than a hellsite where it feels like the world is constantly burning to the ground and the near constant exposure to it (or more than usual in recent times) probably isn't the best thing ever.
Now onto more specific topics and my takes.
The USPS being in danger has me very worried
I know that we all have had and probably still have issues with the USPS, but for me there's an immense comfort in still having it around and serving its role as the American institution this country needs a lot more than it thinks it does.
I'm not too comfortable bringing my own politics into this blog but fuck it, this is important and it's better to stand for something than sit on the fence. I do have (to put it mildly) less-than-positive views on privatizing things I feel the public sector should be doing and those views definitely apply to what could potentially happen to the mail service if it's privatized. If it's anything like what's going on with healthcare and eduction, things will go bad real quick for a lot of people because these things pretty much never work out for ordinary consumers.
Not sure exactly what'll happen here but I just really hope the USPS doesn't go kaput for everyone's sake. I might only use it for this hobby right now but not everyone has that luxury. There are a lot of jobs and livelihoods at stake across all walks of life.
So yeah with what I'd consider to be the most important issue I'll get to today out of the way, I'll admit that I haven't had a ton of time to ruminate on baseball or sports. Of course the fact that there's nothing going on isn't helping. Not to shame anyone who still does think about sports, I'm happy for those who can cope by using sports in whatever way they can, but for me right now I'm more worried about people in my life (and even those who aren't in it) being in danger.
That said every now and then there are some sports topics that come up and in baseball world it's basically been all of the ideas being tossed around to bring baseball back at some point this season. I have takes on them.
These are merely ideas, don't think MLB is seriously going to enact any of these
I've noticed a lot of people treating these ideas like the Arizona-only games or the AZL/GCL realignment games or playing games in countries that have flattened the curve to be like actual measures MLB are setting in stone but as of now they are just ideas. The optics on all of these ideas lean towards being very bad in a world where we're currently without a vaccine for COVID-19.
Like my prediction for if North American baseball does try to come back prematurely in May or June is that they try to get a game in, but before long a player (and likely several key personnel around the teams/broadcast crews) tests positive and the season is suspended indefinitely again, possibly even longer than if they had just waited it out a bit longer do to the now increased likelihood of exposure. My take is, don't risk it and more importantly don't make it worse.
And I get that there a lot of factors at play putting everyone in an uncomfortable situation where they need to have a resolution to the seasons that are/were about to be underway. There's a lot of money at stake, much of it tied to those huge multi-million dollar broadcast deals, and a lot of sports leagues and teams can't really afford to wait until a vaccine is readily available. A massive expansion of testing is a start, possibly one that might be enough to get the ball rolling, but even that seems far away given how we're seeing how that's turning out in general in real time.
Only MLB has the luxury of seriously discussing a 2020 season
The reason fans can still speculate on MLB's return (and to a lesser extent NFL) is because MLB has had the luxury of having zero major league baseball players test positive for COVID-19 so far. There have been a few confirmed cases of minor league baseball players testing positive, but none of the big leaguers have gotten it (that we know of anyway).
I bring up this point because a little after the NHL followed NBA's lead and temporarily suspended the season, there were talks that the season would eventually go on as normal within a matter of weeks. However those talks immediately vanished when multiple hockey players, personnel and venue staff started testing positive for COVID-19, not coincidentally that's around the time that shit got crazy in America too. The same will happen to baseball if even one member of the MLB ranks gets the virus. And that very much is inevitable because the amount of people it requires to make a baseball game happen (even if you shrunk it down to the tiniest crew ever) is still just enough that an outbreak can occur.
Cut your losses, focus more on preserving 2021 and 2022
I haven't completely given up on sports coming back in 2020, but at this point I'm more resigned to the fact that the number two priority for the sports leagues (after player/personnel/staff safety being number one of course) is making sure the 2021 season is not jeopardized for sake of some vain attempt to salvage the 2020 season.
Like if MLB is going to run a shortened 2020 season or if the NBA/NHL are going to try to jam in the 2019-20 playoffs, they should do all of these things in a way that doesn't have a major affect in 2021/2020-21. As a fan I would much rather forgo a season in 2020 if it means that 2021 can remain a normal season that's absolutely untouched.
There's already discourse surrounding the optics of a shortened 2020 season, imagine having two of those seasons in a row with 2021 also falling victim to it just because they tried cramming some shit in. I doubt anyone's gonna think that's okay.
Of course whether or not 2021 remains in tact is also very much up in the air since it won't be until sometime in fall 2021 that we realistically get a legitimate vaccine or at least an answer for COVID-19 (and I assume that most of the public will not have immediate access to it due to combination of short supply or just because most Americans likely won't be able to afford it anyway). For the time being we have to entertain the possibility that 2020 is lost beyond all measure and 2021 is the real year where a shortened season gets taken more seriously as a measure that can be taken. Then at that point get even more serious about keeping 2022 in tact.
Really at the end of the day we are in uncharted territory. We're going through a pandemic mankind hasn't faced in a while and the third "once in a generation financial collapse" in my lifetime (I was there for the Dot-com crash and the Housing Crisis too ya know), anything goes beyond this point because the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel once this is over is going to be a whole new world altered by COVID-19. What that world entails in the scope of sports remains to be seen.
Initially I'd hoped that people take this as a wake-up call that the safety nets in America (and across the world) need to be reinforced and improved to better the lives of all people but after these past few weeks my enthusiasm is vanishing. We're already getting to a point where people are basically admitting that they're okay with "acceptable losses" among their fellow Americans that they see as expendable so long as their own lives aren't inconvenienced. It's pretty disheartening.
Although in turn this whole thing has only made me a lot more sure of my own beliefs (politically or socially or what have you) and what I'm going to be voting for going forward.
Not sure if I sound super preachy today, that wasn't my intention. But then again I'm not used to having this kind of tone on this blog.
As always thanks for stopping by and I hope that all of you and your loved ones practice safe distancing and stay healthy during this madness.
