So, hard to believe, the birthday was pretty great. I love cheese ravioli and meatballs and chocolate cake with chocolate/peanut butter ice cream. I can see why the day shows up once a year, we can't be eating like that all the time.
The gifts were almost all related to my hobby, too, which does not happen a lot.
For starters, I received this 2024 World Series program. I figured I was overdue for some sort of paper product recognizing the Dodgers' World Series title. I have the one Walker Buehler Topps Now card, but since Topps/Fanatics didn't bother to produce any other card Series retrospective other than that overpriced, ugly Topps Now set, I had to pivot to non-card items.
The program is pretty slick and impressive. It better be at 15 bucks. I hadn't gotten a World Series program since 2017 when the Dodgers reached the World Series for the first time since 1988. I didn't bother to look for a program in 2018 or in 2020 (the 2020 one is pretty small).
The 2017 version on the left is massive -- 256 pages. The 2024 one is 186 pages. Yet both cost 15 dollars.
There's several interesting write-ups inside but I turned right to the scorecards -- there is one for all seven potential games. I am tempted to fill out the scoring for just the Dodgers' fifth inning in Game 5.
As for cards, my sister-in-law took care of that again.
Look at that. You can tell she selected "one of everything." I don't collect Bowman at all but, of course, you can't expect relatives to know every little detail of your cardboard hobby. I was amazed that I kept unwrapping box after box after box of 2025 cards.
It took me a couple of days to open all this, normally I open what I get shortly after I get it. But I had to let some of it sit overnight.
The cards I pulled are mostly useful for trade-bait. I've already got some ready to go for the Tigers and Cardinals fans in my trade circle. There was also a good selection of Brewers and Red Sox. But those will be for surprises in the future. As for the Dodgers I am keeping:
Not much from Topps Series 2 that I didn't already have, just two cards. But Bowman did well. I have all but one of the base Dodgers from that set now. And I added a "mojo refractor" for Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
That is some nice birthday swag -- oh, and I also got a mini-fridge for work -- and I still have a lot of card updating to do on TCDB.
Also I visit the daughter this weekend -- and she has a gift waiting for me.
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