It's bracket season

 

I found it a little odd yesterday that the Oscars were broadcast the same night as the NCAA tournament selection show.

Different audiences for the most part, but I know people interested in both. I used to be interested in both. But I probably watched less college basketball this year than the early 1980s, and I think the last Oscar telecast I saw was when Dances With Wolves won best picture. Both are so off my radar that I don't know any of the movies that were named for best picture and could've picked only two of the No. 1 NCAA tournament seeds before they were named.

But both events are so ingrained in the American public that those familiar activities, filling out brackets and handing out awards are often used to stir up conversation for whatever topic (fill out your bracket for the top 64 ballpark foods!). I've gone that route to, especially the awards thing. I do it at the end of every year.

 

And I'm doing it again ... well, the bracket part, not the awards part. Doing both would make this thing too long, and no one has an attention span anymore.

 

I received four different envelopes of cards pretty much all at the same time last week. I'll show them off here.

 

This is my latest Time Travel haul from Diamond Jesters. The top row are the cards I claimed. The bottom row are welcome throw-ins from Matt! I should've known that the Stars of MLB insert would contain a chrome parallel again this year.

 

 

This is the result of my fourth TCDB trade, this one from KSJ128 (I'm way behind, I just received another TCDB trade in the mail and three more are in the works). 2005 Topps is a popular send in my transactions on that site.

 

 

This is my latest purchase from Kelly on Twitter. He's always raising money for good causes in his sales and I'm happy to contribute and add some shiny Dodgers!

This is my latest win from one of Johnny's Trading Spot's daily contests. Well, my actual latest win just showed up today and I haven't had any time to do anything with it. I'm just a regular Bo with all these contest wins lately.

OK, so out of those cards, I'm selecting eight to play off against each other in bracket form. That's right, we're already in the Elite 8. I'm not gonna drag this out for three weeks.

#4 vs. #5

No. 4 -1997 Topps Scott Rolen vs. No. 5 - 2022 Panini Capstone Trea Turner

 

OK, you may think you know me, and you're right in this case, you do. The Trea Turner card is very shiny (as long as there's a light source) and also quite thick. It's sure to dazzle someone, but that's not me. I claimed the Rolen from Matt because when Rolen was elected to the Hall of Fame earlier this year, I looked at my Rolen cards and the earliest one I had was from 2005. I needed to fix that. Also, the '97 Topps set is fairly pleasant in the wasteland of late '90s Topps flagship sets. I should have more cards from it.

 

Rolen advances to the Final Four.

 

 

#3 vs. #6

 

 

No. 3 - 2023 Topps 2022's Greatest Hits Freddie Freeman vs. No. 6- 2005 Topps Blue Jays team card

All right, I like team photo team cards more than 98 percent of the collectors on the planet and this has the added bonus of being a modern team photo team card without any batboys covered by fake walls as Topps tended to do. However, it can't match up to the Freeman Stomping Through A Giant Leaf Storm card, and I just noticed when I uploaded it right now that the date featured is my birthday!!!!

 

This could be the only card that showcases my birthday on the card front (I'm not sure how I would determine that). And, bonus, the card says that Freeman hit a home run, scored the 1,000th run of his career and the Dodgers beat the Angels 7-1 ON MY BIRTHDAY.

 

Freeman card advances easily.

 

 

#2 vs. #7

 

No. 2 - 1979 Topps Football Leon Gray vs. No. 7 - 2022 Panini Chronicles Clearly Donrus Andre Jackson

I've been making good progress on my 1979 Topps football set through TCDB as well, although this card is from the Time Travel trade. The Andre Jackson Clearly Donruss card was something I didn't even know about until Johnny showed some off on his blog. It's typical Donruss nonlicensed mindlessness, but the acetate aspect allows you to make your own border parallels, as I've done before with acetate cards on this blog and Johnny did in his post.

Look, it's the Andre Jackson spring time color border collection:

I can't help it, after that, I'm going with the upset. Clearly Donruss Jackson, as the 7 seed, clearly advances.

#1 vs. #8

No. 1 - 1970 Topps, NL Playoff Game 3 Nolan Ryan vs. No. 8 - 2005 Topps R.A. Dickey

You eagle-eyes were probably waiting for me to bring up that Nolan Ryan card. Well, here we are. I was an R.A. Dickey fan during his career and it's fun to get a card of him when he was a struggling reliever with the Rangers, but none of that matches FINALLY getting that Nolan Ryan card. It was the only low-number 1970 card (it's #197) that I had needed for months and months. Everything under card No. 460 had been in my collection. I missed out on purchasing it twice, but then Johnny sent me an email saying that he had an extra one! Woooo! It's been a long time since I've enjoyed erasing a want that much.

Nolan Ryan advances.

 

FINAL FOUR

We'll go quickly through this because you already know who's going to win.

No. 3 - 2003 Topps 2022 Greatest Hits Freddie Freeman vs. No. 4 - 1997 Topps Scott Rolen

Sorry, Mr. Hall of Fame, but the Hall is no match for my birthday on a card.

Freeman to the final.

No. 7 - 2022 Panini Chronicles Clearly Donruss Andre Jackson vs. No.1 - 1970 Topps NL Playoff Game 3 Nolan Ryan

Ha, ha, Clearly Donruss Jackson, where's your color show now? Ryan in all of his black-and-whiteness advances without a second of thought.

 

THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF RANDOM CARDS RANDOMLY LUMPED TOGETHER BY ME

No. 3 2023 Topps 2022's Greatest Hits Freddi ...

Oh, come on, no point in going through with this, Ryan wins it all, birthday on a card or not.

Many thanks for everyone sending me cards this day and every day.

Yeah, that was my acceptance speech.