Merry Kershmas

 

The main thing that bugs me about the uncertainty of the baseball season in 2022 is whether Clayton Kershaw is going to be back in a Dodgers uniform.

The more time there is to think about that, the more I consider him playing for the Texas Rangers or not even at all. And I think I like both of those possibilities even less than than there not being a baseball season next year.

To help take my mind off of that unpleasantness, and also perhaps as a farewell to my favorite player for the last dozen years, I went on a COMC Black Friday Kershaw card binge.

The timing seemed right, and since I was taking advantage of the savings, almost every card was a buck or less. And the three or four that went over were still $1.25 or less. With 842 total Kershaw cards before this binge, my plan was to get to 900. 

 

But I fell far short. I'm only at 889 now. Not sure what happened. I miscalculated, or ran out of money, or some life crisis knocked me sideways for a couple of days. Possibly all three.

Still, I can see 900 from here and so can you once I show you what I got in bite-size 8-card pieces:

My only considerations, since there are way too many Kershaw cards to choose from, were price and cards that looked good to me. Mostly that means shiny stuff or colorful cards or things well-designed that don't make Kershaw look like a dope (it's amazing to me how many cards are created without any consideration for what the player looks like in the shot).

I'm a little bit of sucker for Topps Fire parallels and a bonafide sucker for border-color parallels. The 2008-themed Rookie History card is dumb but I'll grab it for super-cheap.

The playing card-themed Kershaw is from the Kenny Mayne set, my first of those cards. Normally I dislike anything to do with ESPN, which continues to ruin the sports landscape, but Mayne was around before ESPN fully leaned into its power-hungry mission, so cool beans!

 

The Ginter Greats Kershaw was a Nebulous 9 need for too long. The WAR Leather and Lumber diecut is thickly and I do love blue-bordered Big League cards of my Dodgers.

 

Yeah, that's not even all the variations of the 2020 Topps Kershaw card I own. If my mom was around, she'd try to shoot me down with buying these, "you don't need another one of those," she'd say. Sorry, mom, I gotsta have it.

Not an even-eight here, but like I said, I miscalculated/ran out of money/oh, for crying out loud, what's happening NOW? So you get seven and will like it.

All those cards together actually make a nice Christmas tree:

A little crooked, but I'd like to see Charlie Brown pick out something that nice.

Oh, wait ...

Forgot the star.

There we go!!

I hope everyone has a nice holiday. I may be scarce over the next several days, but rest assured, I will be enjoying my time.

Merry Christmas to all my readers.