Precipitation seems to be a big deal around other parts of the country. I read about droughts and fires and water rationing. And in the last week or two, I've received full reports on snow in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas.
I get it. It doesn't snow there a lot.
Meanwhile, I'm reading this with it snowing right now and nearly two feet of snow sitting on the ground, most of which fell all within one 24-hour period last weekend, after 12 hours of raining buckets.
Lack of precipitation, or the wrong kind of precipitation, is not a problem here. Sometimes I wish it would "precip" (meteorologist word) a little less -- to make the basement headaches go away. But most of the time, it's not an issue at all. It's expected. Most of the time the reaction is: "it's snowing again" and then we go back to what we were doing.
Snow definitely does not look out of place here, like it does, for instance, on a Topps baseball card.
I nabbed a few Dodgers from the 2017 Topps Holiday set from Once A Cub, who busted a box of the stuff. There is no need for me to own any of these other than that I still subscribe to that "must obtain every Dodger card" rule. Dragging this Holiday/Snowflake concept out for more than a year seems pointless to me.
There it is, snowing in the ballpark, like always.
It turns out I had the three cards I just showed. When it comes to modern cards, I can't keep up with what I have and don't have anymore.
This one I needed. Here, Yasiel Puig swings a mighty blast in the bright sunshine ... oh, by the way, it's snowing.
This is my favorite. Full credit to Topps for using a different image of Cody Bellinger than in the Update set. But that's not why it's my favorite.
This photo is obviously from spring training. Not only is Bellinger wearing his old No. 61, but you've got fans in short sleeves in the background and palm trees. Except the SNOW is blocking out the palm tree.
When has that sentence been uttered ever before in humankind? The snow is blocking out the palm tree.
Here is the Getty image used for that card:
OK, so they're not palm trees. This is Camelback Ranch in Arizona. I don't think there are palm trees there. I guess. I don't know. I live where there's two feet of snow on the ground and no one is flipping out, remember? I just know it's some kind of non-northern tree.
But you can see from the image that there's no chance of snow in the forecast.
The Holiday cards are a bit odd. I'd rather they take the player out of the image and have him wrestling a bear or shooting out of a cannon (think Metal from the late '90s) than super-imposing things onto the photograph that would never happen in real life. But I freely admit I'm overthinking this.
Before I write too much about a set that doesn't deserve so many words (oops, too late!), here is a look at the Dodgers who are in Series 1 of 2018 Topps flagship:
Alex Verdugo
Alex Wood
Brandon McCarthy
Chase Utley
Clayton Kershaw
Clayton Kershaw (league leader)
Clayton Kershaw (league leader)
Cody Bellinger
Cody Bellinger (league leader)
Joc Pederson
Julio Urias
Justin Turner (league leader)
Logan Forsythe
Rich Hill
Walker Buehler
Yasiel Puig
Yasmani Grandal
Inserts
Topps Salute: Corey Seager, Alex Wood, Cody Bellinger, Alex Verdugo, Walker Buehler
Superstar Sensations: Corey Seager, Yu Darvish, Clayton Kershaw, Cody Bellinger
MLB Awards: Kenley Jansen, Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager
1983 Topps Baseball: Alex Verdugo, Clayton Kershaw, Alex Wood, Yu Darvish, Justin Turner, Sandy Koufax, Kenta Maeda, Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager
Legends in the Making: Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager, Yu Darvish
MLB Opening Day: Cody Bellinger
Topps Now Top 10: Cody Bellinger
You're on your own for relics and autographs. The checklist goes on for pages with all that stuff that I'll never pursue.
The checklist doesn't have numbers on it because Topps has to do its made-for-TV hoo-hah about which player shows up on the No. 1 card before releasing all the other numbers. Other than that, I'm trying to reserve opinions on the set until I get some cards. ... OK, just one opinion -- it pains me that Topps is ignoring the 30th anniversary of its '88 design to go back to 1983. No offense to '83, you all know I love it, but '88 desperately needs some attention.
We are two weeks away from the release of 2018 Topps and several more weeks away from the start of spring training.
But I'm ready for the sun to shine, both in real life and on my cards.
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