You're not clicking for this

 

This past weekend wasn't as restful as I expected it to be.

First, work followed me into the weekend, which is always a delight. When you're younger this doesn't bother you as much, but when you're older, it makes you need to take a nap. Then there were weekend responsibilities that sometimes can be fun, but these weren't. They involved getting up early. 

Even the baseball-viewing part took more investment than usual. MLB had to throw the Dodgers and the Yankees against each other and TV had to freak out about it -- hey did you know the Yankees had someone named Babe Ruth play for them? Did you know the Dodgers had someone named Jackie Robinson play for them? And also I had to view my team playing in Yankee Stadium, which is so annoying. Let's boo Shohei Ohtani every time he bats for no reason at all. At least Saturday was the highlight of my baseball season.

 

I ended up sleeping 10 hours last night to recuperate from the weekend. And in the process of sleeping, or being too busy, I missed this:

That's right, at some point over the weekend, the pageviews odometer hit 5 million. Even with a healthy portion of that being bots, that's still wild to me.

 

But big numbers are made to impress. 5,003,314 views is approximately 333,554 views per year. It's approximately 27,796 views per month. It's about 927 views per day and 39 views per hour. It's more a number that in words means I've been doing this a long time.

 

But still the views are there.

 

I don't really know what that actually means. There was a point during the pandemic in 2020 when my views shot up for several months, but ever since 2023, those numbers have been blown past. I guess it just means AI bots have been cranking out clicks at a never-before-seen rate for the last year-plus. I don't actually know the reason.

But those live human beings who do actually click on this blog are appreciated.

And today, as a note of appreciation, I have my first look at 2024 Bowman.

Yeah, sorry, I know you aren't clicking for this.

 

These cards came from Johnny's Trading Spot, who collects Bowman every year, I think. I don't know why -- I don't think I've purchased a pack of Bowman in a dozen years (Don't hold me to that. If you specifically search the blog,you'll probably find a stray pack purchase in 2017 or something). 

These are all the veteran Dodgers in this year's set, except for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. I do like the design, at least it's better than at least the last 10 Bowman designs. There's a hint of a border that's team-color coded.

Here are all the prospect Dodgers in the set that I won't know if they'll make the big club for another five years (I've booted all of the Bowman prospects who didn't make it from my binders up through 2018 but that's as recent as I can go. There are at least a couple of 2019 guys who are still making a go at it).

 

And a couple of the shiny Bowman prospects -- which will also show up in Bowman Chrome and Draft and begin the yearly ritual of confusing night owl.

Johnny sent some other cards, too, but you'll see those another time when there is not quite as much going on.

This is the first year of my blog in which I've started to think that maybe I should cut down on posting to three or four times a week instead of the five that I do now (once upon a time I used to post like 12 times a week!). That's not a serious thought at the moment but it could be soon.

Thanks as always for reading -- and not just clicking.