For those not thinking football

 

I was supposed to be watching the Bills playoff game today, which would probably mean no posting here.

The game was moved to Monday -- during a time when I'm working, thanks a lot -- so now all I have to do is stare at the snow (we've haven't gotten as much as Buffalo but apparently it's coming tonight). There are NFC games today, but I don't have much interest in that conference. Sounds like I've got some time to post!

I was happy to see the snow though because that means it's cold enough that we don't have to deal with the weird weather that led to the power outages last week. But on No Power Wednesday the mail did arrive and it included a package from Torren' Up Cards. Zippy Zappy's downsizing!

It was just the thing to divert my attention from the no heat/no light.

 

 

Kenny doesn't send your typical card stuff so I had cards of the Dodgers' two most recent big-name Japanese pitching acquisitions to warm things up! He has the honor of presenting me with my first Yoshinobu Yamamoto card and my first Ohtani Japanese card.

 

The size and glitz of that Yamamoto signature is something else.

 

 But the back lets collectors down easy. It's just a "regular printed signature."

ZZ also sent a card of one of his favorites, Hiroki Kuroda from Kuroda's Hiroshimo Toyo Carp days. That's a nice-looking one, I like the texture, too.

 

 

This 2012 Sega Card Gen card of Clayton Kershaw showed up, too. ZZ sent me this card way back when. It's odd to look at the Dodgers' pitching rotation depth chart and see no sign of Kershaw. I'm hoping once he comes back, he'll squeeze into the team's rotation for at least one final hurrah.

 

ZZ seems to be parting with many of his signed cards as you probably saw on Baseball Card Breakdown. This is a selection of Dodgers prospects, new and old. That's my first signature for Jeren Kendall, who made it as high as Double A for the Dodgers. Kody Hoese (second auto of him) was in Double A last season, still plugging away. Scott Schebler made more noise for the Reds. For Diego Cartaya, that's my first auto. He also was in Double A Tulsa last year. I assumed he was going to boot Will Smith eventually but last season didn't look too good.

 

This is my favorite of the autographs. Kenny said he got this Wally Moon signing in-person, which is very cool. This is my second Moon auto -- the other is a certified one -- and I love how tidy his signature is.

Kenny also sent me some pages, which are always welcome. I think I'll use some of these to finish replacing those corroding pages in my 2010 Topps binder. It's about time I did something with that.

 

And then there's this hodge-podge, which includes one-pockets, 15-pockets, three-pockets, the other three-pockets (what I call the "pyramid three-pockets"), two-pockets, four-pockets and another four-pocket page, which Kenny noted is for cards in top-loaders.

I've seen these top-loader pages praised on Twitter. They're not really for my collection because I have so few top-loadered cards but a one-page sample is perfect to try it out. It'll probably take me four months to decide which four cards to put in there.

So there you go, that took my mind off of being cold for a little bit and before I knew it, the power was back on! Now it's Sunday and we're looking at a bunch of snow -- which is what we should be doing at this time of year instead of worrying about hurricane-style wind gusts.

Plus the snow helps me dream about baseball season.