It's a wonderful life

 

I found my blog on the Bedford Falls Bridge last night, looking over the railing, ready to jump.

 

He was a wreck, crying and sweating and carrying on. I tried to tell him all that moisture isn't good for the computer, but he was inconsolable.

 

"Blogging isn't what it used to be," he exclaimed, moving even closer to the edge. "The new blogger changes are ruining my life, constant format fiddling between 'normal' and 'paragraph' mode, struggling with the size of photos, battling to get text left-justified! I actually now need to upload the pictures after the post is written if I have any hope of a thumbnail photo showing up on the blog roll! It's all backwards!"

I tried to calm him down by reminding him that I'm the one who is doing the writing and uploading. But he wouldn't listen, muttering something about how one of the images took four tries to upload in the right spot for this very blog post. He eyed the crashing waves below eagerly.

"I'm ending it!" he announced. "It's just not worth it anymore!"

I quickly tackled him and brought him inside. "Listen," I said. "You don't know how much you mean to my collection."

The blog stared at me.

 

"I'm going to give you a great gift. I'm going to show you what I would have for a collection if you had never been born."

The blog's stare grew concerned, as if I was wearing wings or something.

I continued:

 

 

"If you didn't exist, I would know exactly 1 other collector in my life. I wouldn't be connected to a large and lovable network of collectors across the country and even in other countries."

 

"If you didn't exist, my Dodgers card collection would probably be confined to the Dodgers I collected in the '70s, '80s and early '90s and a handful of Dodgers I found during various mind-numbing trips to Walmart to buy caulking guns or shelf liners."

 

"If you didn't exist I wouldn't even know about the vast array of Dodgers available. And if I didn't like the set that the Dodgers came in, instead of someone sending them to me anyway, I'd probably just forget about them forever."

 

"If you didn't exist, I'd quietly admire any card I found with a night scene in the background and nobody else would know about its greatness. I'd probably still think that night photos were difficult to come by on cards. I certainly wouldn't have a binder devoted to a night card frankenset. I wouldn't even know what a frankenset was."

(I don't know what kind of parallel that Bryce Harper is. The bar on the right that is normally gray is blue or black but there's no serial number of the back).

 

 

"If you didn't exist, I wouldn't have a chance at pursuing the inserts that I have a love-hate relationship with now. I'd buy vastly fewer cards and probably pull a couple inserts of A's and Indians and never, ever see a Dodger."

 

 

"Oh, and I could forget about owning PARALLELS of inserts."

 

 

"If you didn't exist, I'd have no idea what a commemorative player medallion card was (not necessarily a bad thing). I likely would never buy a blaster because I wouldn't know what those boxes were that Topps was selling, likely never bothering to pick them up and investigate. My collecting would be restricted to whatever packs I could find because that's how I collected for years before I started blogging."

 

 

"If you didn't exist, I wouldn't have a chance at completing a modern set. Something like Heritage with its HUNDRED short-prints, would be impossible. It's impossible now, but at least I feel like I have a shot. Also, I'd be lucky to wind up with one Dustin May-Gavin Lux card, let alone have two now, because little ol' me in my "to the store to buy a couple packs every month" would be no competition for the hoarders and flippers. Also, I would have no idea hoarding and flipping was happening."

 

 

 

If you didn't exist, I'd still be admiring the one Hostess card in my collection, a 1977 Davey Lopes. I'd likely never bother to shop online, the enthusiasm might be there occasionally but it would never last. Any online trip would begin and end with ebay with no knowledge of any other place to buy cards."

 

 

 

 

"If you didn't exist, my ability to accumulate vintage cards would be crippled. Forget about having the interest to look for 1967 Topps cards, I'd never get there. I never would have finished the 1971 Topps set or the 1972 or 1973 Topps sets either. I'd have exactly no 1977 Topps football cards. My total collection of binders would be those few Dodgers binders I compiled and the sets I completed before you came along -- the 1974 and 1975 sets, 1984 and 1985 sets and the 1988 and 1989 sets. The Topps run I've completed from 1971-1991 would be a run of two years at the most."

"And, if you didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to have big dreams, like one day completing the 1956 Topps set. That day almost 40 years ago when my dad brought home some '56 Topps cards from work would be a distant memory and where my '56 accumulation ended, stopped in time, with about 50 cards from the set."

 

"It certainly wouldn't include a Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Sandy Koufax, Hank Aaron and now a Yogi Berra card."

 

The blog stopped whimpering for a moment, looked up, and sputtered, "Is that a 1925 Wills Cigarettes Life In The Treetops owl tobacco card?"

 

 

"I think so," I said, not entirely certain. "See what wild stuff is now in my collection thanks to you?"

"Don't you see, blog, you've really lived a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it all away? Look at how many collectors enjoy you and shower me with cards just because you're there."

 

The blog blew his nose.

"Now, stop blubbering and clean yourself up and apologize for yelling at your poor kid for playing the piano."

 

"OK," he sniffed. "But there's no guarantee the card at the top of the post is going to show up in the blog roll thumbnail."

(Thanks, Dave for another tremendous selection of cards in the mail!)