Eh

My interests are very cyclical. One minute I do care about sports and sports cards, the next minute I very much do not. Right now I'm firmly in the latter. Honestly I've been like this for most of the year except for a two week period in August when the Hudson Valley Renegades came to Brooklyn and I caught the bug for a bit. That was around the time I was going to all those games and making all those pick-ups for New York Yankees prospect cards. But in the time since I've gone right back to having little to no enthusiasm for the sports card hobby.

The biggest sign of this is how I just let the Luis Torrens 2013 Bowman Chrome superfractor autograph go by. If this were fall/winter 2014 I would've spent every last cent at my disposal to get it. Here in 2021 I put in one bid and ended up letting someone else nab it at the last minute.

I'm pretty sure that when the baseball card collecting bug hits me again I'll regret letting that happen but as of right now my immediate mood is indifference. Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown DM'd me not long after the superfractor auction ended to console my loss and I appreciated that greatly but I also had to be honest and say that I've had other things in mind. Which is to say that even before the auction ended I had my eyes set on other items that, if I'm being honest, I probably wanted more than the super. But that's another topic for another day since they're both being mailed to me as of the time of writing this.

My mood also really showed when I went to a Brooklyn Cyclones games yesterday. The game was between Brooklyn and the Jersey Shore BlueClaws (a Philadelphia Phillies affiliate), I went just to get Francisco Álvarez's autograph. Normally I don't go after the New York Mets' prospects but I thought I might as well since he was basically the only threat against the Renegades during the showdowns between the two former NYPL rivals.

Álvarez is currently the Mets' top prospect. Signed out of Venezuela as one of the best international free agent prospects in 2018, Álvarez has steadily developed into a very intriguing catching prospect. One who can hit. How far Álvarez goes from here depends on how he develops behind the plate but with a strong arm he's got a solid chance to be a real force in a few more years. As far as his bat goes, he can hit and he can hit the ball far as fuck.

There's a whole story behind this one single autograph (and why it's signed in black ink as opposed to blue ink) but I'm too tired and it's not particularly interesting. All I can say is that this will probably serve as my last IP autograph of 2021 and I'm okay with that.

Still, I managed to get Álvarez's autograph before the game and after it started I just couldn't really get into the game. I don't know if it's because there were no Yankees prospects I cared about being there but I was just bored. I was either staring at my phone or staring off into the Coney Island boardwalk. I eventually left around the time the Cyclones took a 4-0 lead because I was hungry and the lines at the concession stands were way too long (note: the Cyclones do a lot of fan-promo type things well but their food choices are awful, especially for the prices they charge). I think the Cyclones ended up winning that game but I'm not going to look.

Next to the Álvarez autograph, the biggest development for me yesterday was that I finally finished the book Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana Henry Jr. from 1840. The late-Dana was better known as a lawyer and politician during his time but the book was about his sea voyage from Boston to California in the 1830's when he was still a college student. This is only significant to me because I first picked up this book as something to read on my train rides to and from baseball games shortly before the six game series between the Renegades and Cyclones back in August began. Fittingly I read the first page on the first train ride and read the last page on the last train ride. If you ignore how I effectively put the book aside for a whole month without bothering to finish it, it's perfect. Also the book is pretty interesting. It's dated af but if you're up for old seaman stories from a bygone era, go for it.

So there we are at this point, finishing a book was more emotionally impactful than a minor league baseball game.

With that here's a little preview of what has been occupying my time and mind in terms of a hobby perspective in baseball's place.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

2021 IP Auto Count: 22