Sick daze

 

I took a sick day from work Wednesday. If I'm remembering correctly, it's the first sick day I've taken in 11 years. The previous sick day before that one was in 1995.

 

Then I forced myself into work yesterday. It went OK. But after four hours, I could feel my body shutting down and left. Whatever time-bomb head cold I acquired started slowly days ago until exploding into action Tuesday. Wednesday I could barely lift my head.

 

I'm feeling a little better today, but thinking long and leisurely about sports cards is not in me right now. This is why I trade with people: so I can have new card content queued up for when I am inevitably detained.

 

A new send from Doug of Sportscards From The Dollar Store arrived a week or two ago. I always look forward to these. He finds some fancy stuff that I'll never track down, and also delves into other sports ... so I don't have to.

 

There you go. Like some Sabres. Doug very nicely stuck to my interests in the non-Dodger sends by shipping just current Sabres or Sabres from when I was covering the team.

Victor Olofsson, who is having a not-awesome season this year, and Kyle Okposo could be gone after this season, which would leave only Rasmus Dahlin as a current Sabre among this crew.

 

Also in the package, a whole slew of current Bills sets. (Sorry for the grainy image, it was pretty gloomy out when I took these yesterday). I wish whatever requirement there is to squeeze legends into current products would end because it's still strange to me to collect a team set of current players and, oh yeah, here a couple of guys who haven't been on the team in more than two decades. Hello, Panini, Jim Kelly did not pass to Stefon Diggs.

 

There is Kelly again, with a bunch of other (mostly) currents from 2022 Donruss. I'm still committed to keeping all of my Bills cards in a single binder, but sends like this may make me find one of those industrial-size binders for the Buffalos.

Some cards of the Bills' Heartthrob. I don't know what those cards are across the bottom, but that seems like something that Panini was trying to sucker people into collecting like those Moments & Milestones cards.

More random cards. I kind of like the SQUAD card ... until I turned it over. In typical Panini fashion, it reads SQUAD again in even larger type and then adds some NFL-like vacant words about players "riding together like brothers".

Back to hockey. I almost forgot! A couple of 1991-92 Pro Set cards! Yay! Check out that giant VW ad!

 

 

OK, let's get to the key baseball portion. Doug's always finding stuff I don't have access to and would never venture out on my own to get. Heritage Minor Leagues is still a thing while Pro Debut got the boot. Neither of these sets needs to exist for me. I'm happy with team-issue minor league cards.

 

 

Three more "not necessaries" but yes, I will take them! If I lived in the U.K., I would definitely appreciate special Topps cards with the Union Jack on them. But if I lived in the '90s (and I did, but I didn't collect for much of it), I would not appreciate the word "SAMPLE" stamped across the face of the player I'm collecting. ... Nick Biddison is a former Virginia Tech player who was in Class A last season.

I am a status member! This is what team collecting will do to you. My cards tell me that Victor Arano was a Dodgers prospect and that's all that happened. He actually appeared in 40 games for the Nationals last year, but why would I have Nationals cards?

Two more fancies of former Dodgers. I don't think either of these will fit into my Dodgers binders, which is where all my non-thick relics are going now.

Last card, because it's the best kind of card (well, non-licensed, anyway). It's a current Dodger!

All right, I don't know how exciting that was for people but that's all I can manage in my state.

March never fails to throw everything it can at me. I should be recovered by the weekend, just in time for a lake-effect snowstorm that's scheduled to hit.

Did I mention there's a card show this weekend that I'm too sick/too broke/too busy/too chicken to drive through THAT to go to?

Can always count on ya, March.