The dog days of blogging

Each year I notice a malaise that settles over the blogging community during late August.

I'm not sure why that is. My guess is vacations come into play. In some areas of the country school has started up (which still strikes me as bizarre). Perhaps some folks are a little tired of baseball -- their teams are fading, the NL playoff contenders are a collection of gross -- and they can't get interested in cards.

This is usually the time of year when everyone fails to comment on one of my posts, a rarity as a post earlier this week was the first in almost two years without a comment. And yesterday I kind of opened my heart and the clicks were, well ... weak.

But I knew all this. That is why I had planned to start The Greatest 100 Cards of the '80s countdown in August, specifically the end of August. Maybe I could generate some interest among bored collectors.

However, life has conspired all summer to prevent that from happening and with everyone apparently too busy to read blogs why start it now? The countdown is now moved to September, which is when I started my Greatest 100 Cards of the '70s countdown last year. Seems like the right time for it.

Instead, today, you lucky few readers, I have a few cards from Marc at Remember the Astrodome.

Marc was able to do something that few people have the last couple of months:

FILL MY SERIES 2 DODGERS BASE CARD NEEDS, DAMMIT!!!!!!!!

Why is this so hard? When I tell you I'm done buying packs of Series 2, this means send me all the Dodgers left on my want list!!!!

I'm down to a lowly Kyle Farmer card to finish this thing off. Who's going to earn my undying gratitude by sending me that card?

Marc also contributed to my progress on the Big League Baseball Dodgers team set. Still a few guys to land from this one. Not too concerned though. It's not the travesty that is Series 2.

Marc also threw in a couple of parallels. The blue Turner is my first look at this parallel. It's very 2005 Bazooka.

Moving on to this year's Stadium Club. This Matt Kemp card was a need. The image shows signs of photoshopping. Helmet color is off. The red number is too small. Dodgers script looks ironed on. Kemp is too fat. This obviously is a Braves photo.

Marc also sent one of those First Edition parallels that '90s fans get all worked up over. It means little to me, it's just a dumb stamp, but I do admit it's the first time I've seen one of these since the Stadium Club reboot began in 2014.

Here are a few stickers. The first two are from 2016, I think I have the Jansen already. The Turner is from 2018, probably my first Dodger sticker from this year. (Can you tell I don't pay much attention to these?)

Finally, Marc added what he called a "double-bipping" into the envelope. I admit I never realized that Bip Roberts was getting retired at second base on two Dodger card in the '91 Fleer set (the Padres stink). I can't believe I've missed this completely (But I tend to squint when viewing '91 Fleer for some reason).

Well, that's about it for today (and probably tomorrow).

I have to admit, writing for no one isn't as interesting as it once was. But I know that once August is done, readership will pick up a bit again. It always does. (Then there's usually another dip in November).

Thanks to those of you who are reading. Stay tuned for the Greatest 100 Cards of the '80s.