The Odds

 One topic I've wanted to discuss on this blog for a while is the rise of sports gambling. During the last year or so I've had several unpublished draft blogposts that eventually got deleted and sent off to the ether.

The reason being is that it's such a multi-faceted topic that it's honestly hard to cover without the post getting too long that I lose track of what I'm even trying to say.

Before going further let me just state that I do try to keep a relatively neutral look on this whole thing. I personally don't gamble. I don't really condone using gambling apps (hence why I won't name drop any, no free ads folks) but I'm not a prune that's going to "tut tut" people that do either. That said gambling is always going to have its risks. Gambling additions are bad and lots of people are affected by it (studies show males especially are more likely to gamble and have issues), hopefully they do get the help and resources they need to recover. Not really sure if stating these is doing a whole lot but it'd feel kinda weird if these weren't in here somewhere.

This is also why a lot of those drafts in the past got deleted. This topic can be heavy and some parts require being handled with extreme care, since it doesn't take long to find horror stories of how gambling addictions just completely ruined people's lives. Then you have other parts that can be approached a lot more casually.

Like the way sports gambling took advantage of the chaos that took over the world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and started making headway into mainstream circles through easily accessible mobile apps and eventually ended up in bed with sports leagues. Gone are the days when the law and sports leagues would shun gambling outlets, now the whole sports ecosystem from the leagues/teams/stadiums to even media outlets talking about sports like news sites/radio/podcasts/YouTube videos are all dependent on and sponsored by the same gambling outlets you hear name dropped over and over again. That's also to say nothing of how gambling odds are prominently shown on sports networks now.

The story of how these gambling outlets got to where they are is not all that surprising once you realize that people wanted to cash in at a time of immense fear and uncertainty. Several states were desperate to generate more tax revenue. The leagues were anxious and open to new revenue streams as they grapple with the slow death of cable TV and the lower profitability of streaming (also quite a coinkydink but illegal pirated sports streaming is on the rise too). Everyday people were also losing jobs and income due to lockdown measures, on top of the usual thing where the cost of living is exceeding wages.

Granted, gambling on sports have been going on forever in the darkness/more hush hush, or among coworkers/friends/family but I'll always be convinced that a lot more people started delving it in 2020-2022 in the wake of the economy being warped by COVID-19, combined with how much easier it became to gamble at all.

There's a lot more at play but the gist of how sports gambling became ubiquitous with modern sports fandom basically comes down to that.

Which then brings us to the here and now.

This is often presented through the lens of the rise of gambling addictions and a growing number of people shouldering gambling debt. It's been reported that gambling addictions in general have steadily risen since 2018. Obviously not even people in sports are immune as a lot of events in 2024 have shown (and will continue to show given how those are never going away).

So with the past established, the present on-going, what happens in the future?

Honestly the vibe I'm getting is that nobody really wants to know.

Kinda fitting since the whole game (for lack of a better term) is to gamble for some semblance of a future, not to think that hard about one.

But there are a few things that I've seen get brought up (along with some of my own predictions thrown in just because).

- The legalization of online casinos

Cited as the ultimate end goal for all of the entities behind the gambling apps, given the way things are headed it's hard to imagine this isn't in play and coming eventually.

- Revised regulations on sports gambling

Either the courts get tougher, or it gets much more lax and leads to the online casino thing.

- Improved officiating and heightened standards for umpires and referees going forward

Umpires and referees are under a new level of scrutiny and while it's due to social media, if you look a bit deeper you'll see it's also because every call they make is could potentially have millions on the line. The argument that every call needs to be as accurate is possible is technically correct, but the reason why people want that probably has more to do with their parlays.

- Some gambler who bet everything and lost is going to shoot an athlete

I hope I am VERY wrong on this but I don't think highly of people enough to not at least consider how this might happen one day. Note: to make it very clear I do not condone violence. Also not fun to think that such a tragedy wouldn't change anything either as the discourse would get exhausting by design.

I've kinda condensed and simplified so much of this but going back to what I was saying at the start, I kinda had to. Just the history and context on how those gambling apps started popping up everywhere would take forever to write. By the time you get to where things are now (think like post-2022 to today) everyone is tired and could use a coffee break. This is an on-going human story, which in turn means it's messy and has a shit ton of layers. But it's also weirdly simple since it's basically just a story about greed.

In the end I'm not sure if the tone of this post should've been a lot more like addressing a problem that needs to be fixed. But a big reason for the past/present/future structure was because, well, I feel like what would be publicly perceived as real problems are yet to come. People being in immense debt and addicted to stuff that's bad for them despite whatever that is always being sold to them is not new, as heartless as that may seem. Society has also long accepted that a few people making lots of money while even more people lose all of theirs is reasonable. That's just the way things are.

Honestly this is just my read but given how historically tween boys look at what's popular among early 20-somethings to tell them what's cool and shit, it wouldn't really surprise me if they considered getting into this shit to make them feel more like adults. You can say this shit wouldn't be legal but when there's money to be made, nothing is ever truly off the table.

Guess I could also wonder out loud if we'll ever see ads for gambling apps Fanatics owns/is partnered with show up in packs of baseball cards. Or maybe logos in the outfield start showing up on cards in the background. Maybe Vegas already has the odds on that.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Changes, Big Changes

 Hello, it's been a while since my last post.

In the time since there've been some changes I decided to make to my personal life, leading to this hiatus.

For one thing I left my previous job.

Last year I blogged about how I felt burnt out, this year something similar happened and that's when I kinda figured, "yeah no, I'm out". Glad to have the experience under my belt, but I'd like to do other things than try to stick around and inevitably feel it a third time.

Second, I moved back to Japan.

My life until this point has been very weird, I've spent more time in the states, but I spent my entire high school/adolescent years in Japan which to me basically means that I was born in NYC but raised in Japan. Like everyone with my background I did have to eventually pick where I wanted to be, I went with Japan.

This is what the extreme downsizing I've been doing the last few years was gearing up for. To my surprise I actually did manage to bring the amount of stuff I moved out here down to a reasonable amount. Once again big thanks to folks like The Lost Collector, Night Owl Cards, nick, NPB Card Guy, Dime Box Nick and Gavin for their "contribution" to this effort.

A third big change that's also happened is that I just kinda stopped collecting sports cards. My interests shifted elsewhere, mostly to Yu-Gi-Oh!

In the time since I've moved back to Japan I've only gotten two baseball cards for myself and have actively continued to downsize since among the stuff that came with me here, a few cards were designated to be distributed to folks in Japan.

The Shinnosuke Ogasawara autograph above replaces an older one I had which had a shitty picture. This one isn't much to look at either given how much real estate is devoted to the autograph but it sure beats just having some generic profile picture looking shot where Ogasawara looks pissed off.

The second autograph was of Shinya Matsuyama which I got for a specific reason.

My old collecting friend Anco89 got me a signed Shikishi (a Japanese autograph board) with a signature made out to me by Matsuyama. This is extremely cool and will definitely be kept. Also pairing it with an official certified autograph felt right.

But overall it's just been very easy to not think about sports. Maybe wrapping up work and moving around kept me preoccupied too but outside of the week where the World Series was happening nothing really had me interested in sports and even less about accumulating those pieces of cardboard.

Who knows though, I might get the itch again. Maybe not to get stuff for myself but more accurately to send PWE's across an entire ocean.

As for this blog it's not formally ending, but I also can't commit to posting as often as before. Not when my interest in sports cards is this low. I'll just let the ideas come to me naturally.

In some ways I suppose it's very fitting that all of this happens in the same year after I decide to part with what I was preoccupied with for the better part of the last decade. It's a new chapter for me personally. The fear, the anxiety, the dread, all of that is there, but so too are feelings of excitement, hopefulness and optimism. I know I'm in for good and bad times ahead just like if I were to be anywhere else, bring them both on. I'm ready.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

これからもよろしくお願いします！

Cards from Childhood to Today

 As documented on this blog, I didn't grow up collecting sports cards. I had some here and there but it wasn't an active hobby until much later on in my teens.

Today I just wanted to share the actual cards I've had since childhood that slowly (very slowly) have been built upon over the years.

Yup, Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.

These can be organized into about four different time periods of my life where I've been on and off of it.

1. 2002-2004

While I was clearing stuff out from my childhood home a few years ago I came across a plastic bag and inside were a select few cards I owned from the days when I was still in elementary school.

Chief among them was this Dark Magician. Originally it came in a starter deck from when Yu-Gi-Oh! first came to North America. But as a kid I thought the original card art for DM sucked so I put a sticker of DM from the anime over it. This is easily the most "well loved" card in my possession. The cut corners, the piece of tape I put on it, it's all there baby.

I had a handful of Japanese cards too. The more scuffed the card is, the more I must've liked it. After all, Magical Cylinders played a big role in the anime and this card is shiny! Or was.

At the time Yu-Gi-Oh! was becoming a phenomenon that was being played at playgrounds across the US and classrooms all across Japan. Despite that, the number of friends I had who actually played the game was basically zero.

We all had the cards and watched the Duel Monsters anime, but what we didn't have was reading comprehension. The way the cards work can be very confusing and the fact that real rules for the game are nothing like how it was played in the anime didn't help. It ultimately it came down to who could shout the loudest before the closest parent or teacher in our vicinity stepped in to tell us to stop playing this game and do something else.

Just like that though, I did stop. After the Battle City arc in the anime, I lost interest in the franchise and tuned out for a while.

2. 2006

This wasn't really a revival but I did happen to catch the second anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! GX on Cartoon Network a few times and thought it was pretty neat to watch.

I didn't pick up any cards around this time period because by then all of my friends had moved on from the franchise. But in the years since I did pick up a few cards I liked from the show. Learning that the best HERO strategy is to use absolutely none of the monsters shown in the show was a heartbreaker though.

3. 2008-2009

By 2008 I had moved to Japan and over there Yu-Gi-Oh! was hot in the streets. Around this time we were in the 3rd anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's and more importantly during the midst of when the game transformed overnight.

It was thanks to the introduction of synchro summoning that the game had a new mechanic which fleshed it out even further. This is where in-game strategies shifted in a huge way and started to turn into the combo fest it's since become.

During that wave I pulled two "relief" parallels, which is usually one of the more sought after parallels given to the rarer cards in the Japanese sets. These two weren't worth anything then and they're worth even less now but it sure did feel cool to say I was able to pull them out of random packs I bought on a whim at 7-Eleven.

But despite that, I just still couldn't get into the card game because it still required me to read and interpret how cards worked. By 2010 my interests shifted to LEGO and then to baseball cards.

4. 2017-2019

Alright, third time's the charm right? This is when I'll finally learn how to play the game right?

Well kinda. Around 2016 is when the app Duel Links launched, and in its early infancy it was a nice way to get re-introduced to a sort've abbreviated version of Yu-Gi-Oh! It helped ease me through the core gameplay and more importantly didn't require me to memorize every effect in play since the game did it automatically.

My first blogposts about Yu-Gi-Oh! were from around that time period too.

But the game Duel Links started getting complicated and my friends who also played the game started leaving (the game being a gacha/grindfest doesn't help). I also deleted it when my phone just needed the space for other things.

But hey, at least I'd been able to obtain some level of understanding for how the game works.

5. 2022-today

In late 2022 I got a new phone, and more memory space. With that I downloaded Duel Links again and as somewhat expected the game evolved because it had introduced the new mechanics the actual card game had been implementing since I stopped paying attention in 2009.

XYZ Summoning, Pendulum Summoning, Link Summoning, Rush Duels, welcome to Master Rule Five!

The XYZ and Pendulum eras of the franchise were ultimately what I feel I truly missed but at the same time it didn't appear like I missed out on much.

Now I've got a firmer grasp on the game, how to play it, and most important of all what I want to play. Turns out the best way to get better at playing a children's card game is to not be a child.

After all this time I've finally assembled an actual deck proper that isn't just a pile of random stuff combined from booster packs and starter decks. It's not the best, nor is it competitive, but I like it.

I'm not sure if I can describe it as "fun" because Yu-Gi-Oh! is not supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be a cruel ritual by which the vengeful undead spirit of a pharaoh judges whether you deserve to just die, or die and then have your soul banished to hell. But at least I know what it can do.

Anyway as I was sorting, sleeving and paging these cards together, it just struck me that this is the rare franchise/collectible where I'd picked it up and then put it back down more than any other hobby. Every time my appreciation for it grew just a little bit. Will I eventually get bored again and then move on? Probably. But if my life to now has shown me anything, it's that I'll find my way back to it again eventually.

The heart of the cards compels me I guess.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Just Dump It

 So while I've discussed how I've parted with my TTM, IP and Luis Torrens collections, one more collection I've also had going that I pulled the plug on and finally moved on from was my New York Yankees Prospect Autograph collection.

This collection was a nebulous one that encompassed any and all Yankees prospects since 2000 to around 2022 when I stopped. I can't say it had any real focus other than to see if I could ever recreate the MLB Pipeline Top Prospects lists.

Kept for sentimental reasons

All you have to do is thumb through like 20 of these "oh I remember him!" guys who never amounted to much before realizing that card companies pump out way too many autographs of future busts.

This feels even worse when you realize that from 2013-17 the Yankees were extremely focused on player development following the end of the Core 4 Era and despite how they assembled what was at one point one of the best farmsystems in baseball, their results from that period just ended up mirroring that of the 2000's. One big time Hall of Fame caliber success in Aaron Judge/Robinson Cano, a solid All Star like Gleyber Torres/Brett Gardner, a small army of very good faceless/nameless relievers, another "so much for that" catcher in Gary Sanchez/Jesus Montero, and not a ton else due to various circumstances. At least in 2009 they won a ring though.

Overall I'd say the 2010's fared a lot better for the Yankees' development program and the jury is still out on the last wave of guys like the Volpes-Dominguezes-Jones who can still potentially change how the 2010's prospects are viewed but, yeesh it still doesn't change how we all collectively wasted too much time thinking about Chance Adams and Manny Banuelos.

So then what does one do when they've accumulated this much wasted certified ink?

Well in my case I just sent them off to The Lost Collector. TLC the blogger is no longer active but TLC the collector is fortunately still very active. Especially on TCDb. 

I've been sending TLC stuff at random for so long that he more-or-less knows the deal. He's free to thumb through whatever I send and keep whatever he wants, and if the rest can help him get other things he does want, that works out the absolute best. This is also basically the core of my Zapping philosophy, just dump folks a bunch of stuff at once with what I know/hope is a mix of good stuff and worthless stuff.

To be clear as much as I joke about "dumping grounds" I do really appreciate having people like TLC and Gavin and so many others for this. Because I'm someone who gets bored quickly and wants to move stuff I don't want anymore even quicker. The best way to do that is to move it all as one giant lot. No hassle, no thinking, no liquids/perishables/fragile items/lithium batteries.

Also kept for sentimental reasons

Because think of the alternative. I'd have to put these up on eBay or send them to COMC or list them on TCDb or routinely keep track of what cards are available, just typing all that out felt time consuming. I don't want to imagine having to actually do it too. No offense to people who do do those things, but that's not how I want to spend my allocated hobby time or energy.

Especially because when money is involved, I think expectations are set unreasonably higher. Like for me as a consumer when I go on eBay and pay for shipping (especially now that it's like $5!) my expectation is to immediately receive a tracking number within an hour after the payment clears and if the card isn't physically shipped out within two days I get annoyed. If the seller had it as free shipping, I don't care nearly as much. In the event that the mail carriers simply didn't just scan properly I DM the seller and at least expect a confirmation from them that at least the card was sent out. In any scenario, if their response is either ghosting me or even slightly irks me then I don't leave feedback regardless of when the card actually does arrive. Not positive, not negative, not neutral, just none.

Probably a passive aggressive dick move that's just because I'm impatient but whatever, when money comes into it it's a whole other realm. A while ago I bought a card where a seller charged me $5 for shipping but only spent $1.59 to ship it, no tracking either. If I were in a bad mood I would've left neutral feedback but instead I just blocked them and didn't leave any feedback.

If I go on the selling side I have to then apply the same unreasonably high standards I have for vendors like these to myself, and there's no limit to how petty and unreasonable people can be for other reasons. So no I don't want to go through that shit for no-names and never-weres like Jairo Heredia. I will also not use this to consider that my standards for sellers who charge for shipping are too high and re-adjust them.

Yup, kept for sentimental reasons

So the best way for me is to just never sell and unload onto others. Once the card is bought it's all a sunk cost to me anyway so any money that could've been recouped be damned.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

1,500th TTM Return

 Pulling the plug on the TTM/IP collection did not necessarily mean that I won't still continue partaking in these hobbies in some form in 2024 and beyond. Old habits die hard. It just means my focus will be narrowed down, er, even more narrower than before.

Received On: 2/20/2024

Like this return from Vinny Castilla, which was the first (and to date last) request I sent out in 2024.

Castilla is one of those names people who grew up with baseball in the 1990's and 2000's remember. He was a staple of those early Colorado Rockies teams, or at least it feels like it in hindsight. Castilla enjoyed a 16 year long career as a major leaguer and he was a two time All Star and one of Mexico's best and brightest stars to date.

I picked up this Bazooka blast bat relic around the same time as when I picked up the Todd Helton Bazooka bat relic. I immediately then sent this off as a TTM request using PastPros after paying his fee.

A month or so later it returned and it helped me reach the 1,500 TTMs mark.

At least per my back-of-the-napkin-math count. When I took stock of the stuff I got that was dismantled and sent off, I was at 1,499.

I suppose that those are rookie numbers compared to people who can afford to send requests to every minor leaguer ever every summer but I'm still surprised I reached 1,000 in hindsight.

Going forward I might get some more here and there as a few forgotten requests from years ago trickle in, or I dabble more with non-sports. But we'll see what happens with the sports stuff I guess. The whole reason I dumped a bunch of base cards onto Nick was so I wouldn't be tempted to send requests anymore.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

2024 TTM Count: 1

Sources:
*https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/castivi02.shtml

It Just Fell Into My Lap

 Instead of a want list I have switched to a bucket list. They're cards that I'd like to own at some point in my life. I'm not quite sure if I'd want to keep them for a long time afterwards but they're cool enough cards that yes I would like to have them.

One card I didn't put on there but I never thought I'd ever have the chance to get just fell into my lap.

HELL YES.

That's a Japan-fractor autograph of Kyle Freeland from 2014 Bowman Sterling. It's limited to 5 copies and is a card I never thought I'd see, let alone own.

When I made my initial 14 cards of Freeland post, I made a note that the one parallel I wanted was the Japan-fractor. At the time the only thing available was the non-autographed parallel. A year later I got the autograph! For $10 cheaper too because the hobby is weird like that.

Unfortunately this card being as affordable as it was is more of a indicator on how far Freeland's fallen. In 2018 when he looked like he was finally going to be the first pitcher in history to figure out how to pitch in Coors Field this would've at least gone for triple digits. Unfortunately that time has long since passed and Freeland's gone from future Cy Young contender to ace-by-default on a Colorado Rockies team that is more of a "bonus" perk of the Coors Field experience more than an actual Major League Baseball team at this point. Although good on them for continuing to invest in their own players (congrats to Ezequiel Tovar on his extension). 

Fun to have both now

Still, when he's on he does show flashes of vintage Freeland, the guy who demonstrated that one of the best ways to pitch in Coors is just pounding the zone with elevated fastballs and getting swings and misses. As evident by how the Rockies' pitching staff is full of arms that can't throw strikes and melts down every other day because of it.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Bat Blog Around: Top 5 Pack Pulled Cards

 So there was a bat blog around originated by Matt who runs the Diamond Jesters blog where you could flex and show off/share the best hits you ever pulled.

I left a comment in the original post laying out the best "hits" from an objective standpoint but they would be as follows.

2011 Bowman Chrome Ryan Pressly Superfractor 1/1 (Note: I found the blogpost by Match-Up where they scanned and shared this super)

2011 Topps Marquee Troy Tulowitzki Red 1/1

2012 Topps Chrome Will Middlebrooks Printing Plate 1/1

2012 Bowman Draft Christian Yelich Futures Game Jumbo Relic /25

2012 Bowman Sterling Yu Darvish Japanese Player Rookie Card Autograph /75

Honorable mentions:

2013 Bowman Draft Aaron Blanton Printing Plate 1/1

2013 Panini Prizm Draft Kris Bryant Gold Autograph /10

2016 BBM Homecoming Hiroki Kuroda patch /30

2011 Topps Update Mike Trout Rookie Card

2011 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects Mike Trout Rookie Card (Chrome)

2011 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects Mike Trout Rookie Card (Paper) x3

Objectively these would be the "best" cards I ever pulled. In terms of rarity and their value on the second hand market.

But subjectively, out of the 11 cards I listed I only have one still in my possession.

As cool as a lot of the stuff I've pulled over the years has been, the fact remains that I never really valued them because they were always just tradebait to get me what I really wanted. In the case of the Trouts, I pulled them in 2011 when he started his MLB career looking like a scrub so those cards weren't really much of anything to me. Even after 2012 I still only saw them as improved tradebait and not anything to actually bother keeping.

So I thought I'd take a different approach and give this topic a little bit more time to marinate and come together. I'll go an alternative route and present what would be the top 5 best cards I ever pulled in the context of how I was thrilled to pull them, and against all odds I still have them now.

You all know how often I turn over my inventory and pull the plug on my collections, do you know how hard it is for a card to stay with me? Well maybe these will hold the answer to how that's possible.

#1 2016 BBM Homecoming Hiroki Kuroda patch /30

This is the only card in the list above (an honorable mention at that) that's still with me. For obvious reasons.

#2 2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Ichiro Suzuki jersey relic

I opened four (4!) hobby boxes of A&G in 2012 and the 11 other hits were all garbage. By a wide margin, the best thing I pulled in the four (4!) hobby boxes was that Ichiro jersey relic. It's not even serially numbered but who cares, pulling a "hit" of Ichiro is always cool. Or at least I convinced myself it was to cope.

#3 2010 Tristar Pursuit Gary Sanchez Autograph /80

In a way this card is ass because if you look closely, you can see that the geniuses at Tristar bungled cutting the autograph sticker. There's fragments of two different signatures on the top and bottom. I'm pretty sure this lack of quality control is why they've since been banished to regional autograph shows and signed memorabilia.

But anyway when I pulled this in 2012, El Gary was one of the New York Yankees' best prospects and I was absolutely thrilled to nab an autograph of his. The shitty sticker sucks, there's still something charming about a serially numbered autograph card of a player you absolutely wanted to have and pulled when you least expected it. It's to the point where I was okay with moving on from my 2010 Bowman Chrome autograph because I had this card. Do you know how strong an attachment has to be to oppose the Chrome is King principle and willingly keep the unlicensed card with badly cut autograph sticker?

#4 2018 Hits! Honoka Costume & Autograph /55

Front

Back

She's hot.

#5 TBD

There is no fifth "hit" I've actually kept that I think is worth mentioning. There is a card or two that could round out this spot but I'd rather have something worthy of being catapulted to this list than just having an obvious placeholder that only exists to get jettisoned.

There's also a part of me that wants to leave the fifth spot open just because I am okay with being hopeful it comes along.

I don't open boxes or packs nearly as much as I used to. But I do think I'll probably buy something again when I deem that there's a card in the checklist I really really want. Having a whole case break is something of a bucket list item of mine. Just waiting for a product where I can just be like "yup, that's the one" and go in on.

So big thanks to Matt for the fun little blogging exercise.

And thank you (the readers) for stopping by.

Take care.

Thonks

 There's a lot that's been written and discussed about social media and the current state of the internet. How it's all just one gigantic blob of content consumption. Whether we want to or not, the only six websites that still exist are just there to bombard us with content. Some of it is tailored to us, a lot of it is tailored against us, and it's really easy to get burnt out quickly.

That current content consumption landscape is also pretty much the backbone for sports fandom and sports content on the internet. Makes sense, in sports cool shit can happen at any given moment spontaneously. There's no greater rush than seeing a bunch of people (anonymous and unknown to you or not) be caught up in the moment. It makes people who spend their days feeling nothing (read: everyone born after 1993) feel something.

As such there's this constant need for things to be going on all the time. Every five picoseconds that go by without any activity means "ded sporp f". This past winter wasn't a dud because the Scott Boras clients signed at the 11th hour, it was a dud because there were no "PASSAN BOMBS" with league shattering moves every other day. Folks were down bad enough to track a flight from California to Toronto.

But baseball in the regular season is where there's so much baseball happening every night. To the point where we don't even need it all if we're being honest. The 2024 MLB regular season hasn't even been in full effect for a month but already we've cycled through like 5 different headlines. The part I'm not proud of is that I kind of have/had thoughts about each.

- The see through pants and uniforms

I saw someone remark that every manufacturer in the world is in a different stage of not having to give a shit about what they make and that's about the best way I can describe it.

- The Ippei Mizuhara Gambling Scandal

I always thought Ippei was an asshole because he got paid money to hang out with Shohei Ohtani and speak the same two languages that I speak everyday for free.

- The Oakland A's situation

If you think about this for longer than 5 seconds the most cynical side of you completely takes over. Not remotely fun to think about anything related to this.

- The pitching injury epidemic

Gee, who would've ever thought that the league where everyone just copies what the Tampa Bay Rays are doing would end up going through arms before realizing they don't have an army of nameless, faceless pitchers ready to go in triple-A.

- Whatever Jeff Passan/Ken Rosenthal/Evan Drellich writes about next week

I am outraged and indifferent at the same time.

These topics and my thoughts on them are not what I want to talk about though, because these come and go.

No, the thing that made me want to write this post is how I bothered to have opinions on all of these. And how I'll continue to form thoughts and reactions.

Why?

Well this is an unfortunate side effect of having a brain and thoughts. Also this ties back to that spiel at the top about constant content consumption. On the most basic level all of this is content that I consumed. Then during the digestion process I formed thoughts on it but these poisoned me and my body forcefully shat out anyway in a muddied not fully formed state. Because like all of us in 2024, my brain is broken and this is how I "exchange" ideas with others.

But then I took another step back and wondered, are these genuinely my thoughts?

I did think these sure, but how much influence did other people and their reactions have in my thoughts being molded before coming into being?

Often times my first introduction to a topic is someone else's reaction to it. Maybe it's a quote tweet, maybe it's one of those roundtable discussions done on podcasts and discussion panels, whatever. How much do the reactions color my perception before I even know what the main thing is even about?

Probably a lot, especially if I deem that the topic isn't that important and just steal someone else's opinion so I don't have to waste time forming my own.

Or alternatively, if I hear one opinion, there's a high likelihood I want to adopt the other opinion just to be contrarian. Especially for a lowstakes nothing burger topic like sports.

Thinking all of this does not make me feel particularly great. It just makes me feel like a dolt.

It also opens up more questions. Am I alone? Do other people think like this at a subconscious level? What constitutes as someone's genuine thought?

Blah. No more.

I think the best solution is to just take breaks from social media altogether but doing so would hinder my ability to find titties on the internet. Twitter is just swamped with totally real women who are definitely not bots with nudes in their bios these days.

In conclusion, less thinking with my brain. More thinking with my dick.

Goodnight. Take care.

That Duo, Forever

 When I think of the early 2010's, I think of both Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez.

While we know how their careers ended, at the time they were one of the best duos in the sport. Perennial All Stars who had people wondering when they were going to be traded out of Colorado. As is the rite of passage for all Rockies greats not named Todd Helton (and possibly Charlie Blackmon).

That also means that they were unescapable in the card world for those two years.

Like if you bought a hobby box, there was a more than 30% chance your hit was going to be a gray jersey card of either Tulo or CarGo. You were also going to pull both of their base cards and at least three different inserts of one of them.

I'm not going to look at EVERYTHING they got, but I did cherry pick some cards I like just because.

Like this Black Diamond Wrapper Redemption card thingy from 2011. Lifetime Topps covered the set and has scans of the full base set for all who're curious but the gist is that you had to mail in 10 HTA jumbo pack wrappers or 36 hobby pack wrappers for a five card pack of these cards that featured the 1952 design but with some sparkly diamond theme.

This Carlos Gonzalez is from the Gold Rush Wrapper Redemption program from 2012. The scan doesn't do this card's shininess justice. I wasn't expecting there to be sparkly gold flake effects on this when looked at in-hand.
I'm not sure when Topps stopped with the wrapper redemptions or if they only do them scantly now, but if they ever bring them back I will be sure to have no idea they're going on until I happen to see a card from it pop up on eBay.

I hope Topps cut back on the captions on these Triple Threads cards because people are paying way too much money now on cards for them to be sullied by unfunny Instagram captions.

Although noting Tulo is signed until 2020 is one of the better messages since he was one of the first superstars to sign a long-term extension before hitting free agency, a trend that shortly after took off and continues to this day. Also worth pointing out that Tulo's last season as a MLBer was in 2019 with the New York Yankees.

These silk parallels just kind of came and went. The frames made them a little bulkier than I would've liked but I thought they were neat. I guess Topps figured adding more color borders was better than a card that feels nice to touch.

I remember these die-cut parallels of the Bowman's Best inserts from 2012 being hard to find at the time. Fast forward to 2024 and the artificial scarcity (like how this one is numbered to 99) has allowed them to stay hard to find but when they pop up, they go for pretty reasonable prices.

These Cut to the Chase die-cuts from 2013 are nice and I feel they got overlooked in a rush of good die-cut offerings in the early 2010's. The fact these come in shiny chrome is *chef's kiss*.

My philosophy towards baseball autographs has largely shifted to "do they have Topps 60 autographs from 2011?". Mainly because just having the names from that time period on the designs I liked the most from the time period matters a lot more to me than just getting the cheapest option available. Tulo himself signed a ton for Upper Deck and Topps so there are a lot of cheap autographs of his on the market, but I don't really want those. I wanted this specifically.

Lucked into this CarGo 2013 Sega Card Gen rare for really cheap. The Japanese Yen to American USD exchange rate continues to be more of a discount rate and beneficial for me.

You know, in a lot of ways the Rockies franchise has been defined by duos, or at least it felt like it in retrospect after each core dissolved. Todd Helton-Larry Walker, Todd Helton-Matt Holiday, Nolan Arenado-Trevor Story were some of the other ones that defined entire eras of Rockies baseball. The current non-identity crisis the Rockies have is tied to how the franchise is still waiting for its next duo.

I'm sure another pairing will emerge and give a new generation of Rockies fans fond memories of the team finishing above .500 and making a Wild Card round appearance or two. I'm just not sure how far away in the future that is.

Still, at least I can point to Tulo and CarGo as my go-to duo.

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

First Trade(?) of 2024

 At this point I don't "trade". I don't like going through lists and seeing if anything on it tickles my fancy, nor do I have lists of my own for people to look through. Such things take time and effort, neither of which I am willing to put in for this hobby.

But the nice thing is that every now and then it's good to have friends who you can ask for small things.

Base Front

Case in point, I actually reached out to The Lost Collector and got the base card of Kyle Freeland from 2024 Topps. It's spiffy and really nice thanks to a combination of the 2024 Topps design and Freeland rocking the City Connects jersey. A jersey I'm on record previously saying I think is so bad it's great.

Technically TLC's son pulled the Freeland, TLC mentioned he traded his son a Jazz Chisholm card for it but I later sent a Francisco Cervelli autograph just to be make sure. I still stay up at night worried that it wasn't good enough.

Base Back

In a lot of ways this was as ideal a transaction as I could hope for. Saved me so much time and money compared to going on eBay and seeing if anyone is selling base cards anymore at $1 with free shipping. Plus it was with an old friend who I've traded with since, well, basically the beginning.

But as nice as it was to get the Freeland base, in 2024 it's no longer just about the base. There's another reason I wanted that.

Yup, got the "Golden Mirror" image variation shortprint too.

So I'm going to go a little bit on a tangent here but we'll come back to this card.

2023 Variation

Freeland's shortprint in 2023 Topps is one of my favorite Freeland cards in my collection. It's so great that I've proudly placed it on my blog when viewed on browser mode as the replacement for what used to be the signed Luis Torrens superfractor. That's how much I like it.

2024 Variation Front

The 2024 shortprint is not nearly as good to me for some reason. It's a unique pre-game shot of Freeland chilling in the sunlight for sure, but it's just not hitting the same. Maybe it's the way this card looks like more an Xfinity ad, maybe it's the empty stands, maybe the 2023 SP just raised the bar that much higher because that was a good shot taking inside the dugout and not on the railing next to it. Whatever the reason this card is one of those gray areas where I'm glad I have it but it's more just because I wanted to say I have it as opposed to really wanting it.

Edit: TLC pointed out in the comments that this variation is actually likely a picture of Freeland in an airbrushed Denver Nuggets jersey (maybe Nikola Jokic). Pretty interesting factoid, the way there's just this airbrushed void left is kind of a good reflection of how I'm feeling towards seeing this.

Source: Getty Images, taken by Rachel O'Driscoll

A quick Getty Images archive search proved that theory correct. And not going to lie, if this picture had been left intact, this SP would've been so much better.

Which is to say that if there ever comes a time when I pull the plug on the Freeland collection, this card is definitely going out the door.

2024 Variation Back (we don't need to squint and read codes anymore!)

But right now I have both the base and variation from 2024 Topps flagship. As someone who's built rainbows before I feel like this is a lot better (and feasible) as a compromise than trying to assemble a giant lot of cards that all look the same but just come in different colors.

I'm not sure if Topps will continue to do these short print image shenanigans in 2025 and beyond for Freeland's cards, but I may have just set myself up to obligate myself to continue assembling them for as long as they continue. Maybe thinking I have to do this is why I wasn't thrilled with this 2024 SP in the first place.

Both are City Connects shots now that I look closer

Then again I might not do it anyway given how I'm, well, me.

Maybe I'll realize the idea of owning these cards appeals to me more than actually owning them for real and I lose interest as I tend to do with 90% of stuff that enters my possession.

Either way thanks to TLC and his son for the assist :).

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.