We're all going through it

 

Hey, it's July. My favorite month. Maybe I can celebrate by surpassing the record-low number of posts I made to this blog last month.

 

I never would have figured that June would be the month with my lowest total ever. If I had to guess, it certainly would be March. But I posted just 12 times last month, four less than my previous low, which was in May 2019 when my mom passed.

 

Nothing happened in June nearly as tragic as six years ago but just a firestorm of everything: multiple writing assignments outside of this blog, constant vehicle issues, the present job schedule and this past weekend, in which I went out of town for my nephew's graduation.

 

It's the final high school graduation for all the nieces and nephews. All done. Probably no high school graduations again unless I make it for a grandkid's ceremony. While I was in Buffalo, I made sure to return to Dave and Adam's.

 

 

I never spend too much time around the clothing, it's all too expensive, even before you get to the insanity of jersey prices. I naturally gravitated toward the Topps stuff, which is also just about the cheapest thing you can put on your body from the store.

 

I didn't buy any of it, but it's nice to see what's available.

 

 

A couple heroes of the junk wax era on Topps baseball cards for your wearing enjoyment. But you might have to pay me to wear a 1987 Topps card shirt.

 

 

The only thing I bought there this time is a blaster box of 2024 Heritage High Numbers. Dave & Adam's still has singles for sale, but it seems to have jettisoned most of the baseball for football, basketball and hockey. Rather disappointing as I've bought some baseball singles there in the past.

 

I looked forward to opening the High Numbers box though. These have been scarce -- if existent at all -- on store shelves due to the Paul Skenes hype, which is really silly nonsense. It's amazing how little it takes to cause something to be completely unavailable.

 

 

I owned all the Dodgers from this set already, but it was still fun to open. 2025 cards have gone back to being reserved so it was nice to absorb a bright set again -- and note how many players in this set are already on another team, as is the case with the top card here.

 

I opened this in my hotel room as I did another pack.

 

We stopped by the in-laws during our trip and the sister-in-law happened to have a pack waiting for me, even though it was not a scheduled visit. The very latest, too! Don't even have all the Dodgers from Series 2 yet!

 

 

A couple of key ones came out of the pack (sorry about not taking the photo so you can see the last name -- it had to be dark and rainy today).

 

Also, I encountered this:

 

These two cards of JP Sears arrived back to back. I tilted each to see if one was a foil parallel of some sort. Nope. I scanned the front to spot a difference. Nothing. I turned both over to look for one of the stat variations, perhaps the card number was different. I even zeroed in on the tiny code on the bottom they tell you to look for to determine a variation (might I add, that this is all time-consuming and it sure would help my schedule if Topps and its cohorts could make things less complicated).

 

Nothing about the backs was different. It's the same damn card, showing up twice, back-to-back. Like this is 1991 and I'm opening Upper Deck. Which was ridiculous then and ridiculous now.

 

After all of that, and lots of family and just way too much driving, I arrived home -- and went straight to work. I came home a zombie. Went to bed for hopefully an 11-hour nap. Instead I woke up around 5, couldn't sleep, but caught up on a hell of a lot -- particularly in the hobby, which has been behaving like weeds lately. I leave it alone and it keeps growing. So many packages to get to.

 

But we're all going through it. As evidence I have three card envelope arrivals from fellow bloggers who all have mentioned, either on their blogs or elsewhere, how difficult it's been to blog lately.

 

 

I'll start with The Shlabotnik Report. He sent a nice handful of cards and I selected some that fit into my collection to display here.

 

This is just my third gold 1994 Collector's Choice Dodger card. These are not easy to find, not that I'm looking for mid-1990s parallels, like ever. But I do notice when one comes my way.

 

 

More parallel action. I chased Big League parallels a lot more religiously when Joc Pederson was with the Dodgers. Now he's changed teams about four times and Big League is barely recognizable, reduced to selling itself through exclusive tiers -- the Patreon of baseball card sets.

 

 

Yes, more parallel needs. I'm excited about these, I may have requested them, in fact. I will never nab the 2025 Heritage Dodgers parallels in all their forms, but there's some portion of my brain that still thinks I will.

 

 

 I would love, however, to obtain every parallel of this particular Heritage card. I have a couple already. But I'm sure Dodger fans much more psycho than me have already pounced on this idea.

 

 

Finally some cards from Shlabotnik that aren't parallels or even baseball. 1970s Sabres cards are so much fun and the 1977-78 Topps set was underrepresented in my collection. 

 

Many thanks to The Shlabotnik Report and I hope his life calms down a little just as I hope mine does.

 

 

 Moving on to Dillard's Dugout now. Poor Mike's got even more irons on fire than I do, I think. But he's a good collecting bud who still found a moment to grab some cards for me.

 

This gold Kiké card is my first gold Dodger from 2025 Topps, they're not exactly gold nor easy to find no more.

 

 

 You can find rainbow foil varieties a lot easier, which figures -- these could disappear tomorrow and I would never pine for their return. But they sometimes look nice when you take their picture.

 

 

 Yes, please, send me Dodger inserts so I don't have to buy them. The Summer Superstars are colorful and OKish -- a bit too simplistic for me. And I'm doing well refraining from buying this year's Stars of the MLB cards, because I don't want to spend coins on that look.

 

 

The 1990 design inserts (and its parallels), however, are nice and I see myself chasing down as many Dodgers as I can. I really like getting the "mojo" Wrobleski.

 

I was super happy with Wrobleski's most recent outing and per usual wished that the Dodgers would just insert him in the starting rotation, which they seem loathe to do except for only certain pitchers. I don't understand the constant sending down/calling up of pitchers like Wrobleski, Emmet Sheehan, Landon Knack, etc. Why not let one of them figure things out as a fifth starter rather than packing his bags to Oklahoma City 15 times a season?

 

Anyway, I've quietly rooted for underdog Dodger pitchers since my first years as a fan. That's a future post, if I remember it.

 

 

 One more Blogger With No Time to go. These cards are from Cards On Cards. We both had more time to write about cards 15 years ago. But at least we still have time to send cards to each other! I appreciate the Ohtani sends, especially.

 

It seems like Ohtani is the last insert I need when chasing Dodgers, but actually he's climbed into the top 75 in terms of players with the most cards in my collection. And that total is still barely in the top 300 on TCDB overall, which tells you why it's a challenge getting his stuff.

 

 

Woo, even more parallels-and-such, mostly of the very pointless kind, but happy to have them, especially that orange Sheehan, which is my first of that color for that year of Big League.

 

 

How about some Bowman (and one Panini) just to show off the very latest in the brand with the River Ryan card. I'm not impressed (Bowman, not Ryan).

 

 

I had to display this thing separately -- my gosh how awful. This is from something called "Prospect Edition" from Panini. I don't know how Cards On Cards had time to determine this is a Dodger card. I never heard of Chase Harlan -- and since he's playing in rookie ball I guess I shouldn't. (I know he was a third round draft pick, but as much as MLB tries to make the draft "must-view" it never will be for me).

 

 

 Here are the goods that will stick though. Both Kerry and I collect Heritage religiously (though he's been at it longer than I have -- I took a break through much of the '60s designs).

 

I'm at that point with Heritage that I was at last year -- the arrivals are coming so quickly from so many different directions that I'm sure there are cards that I thought I needed that are dupes and vice versa. But that's a fun thing to sort out!!

 

 

 This card -- however -- I knew I needed. I need two of this one, in fact, and it took long enough to get this. I know this is one of the Heritage cards that Topps made less plentiful than other cards in the 1-400 group. I shouldn't complain, I still have one a few days into summer.

 

 

In contrast with all the very modern cards in this post (except those hockey cards) are two 1985 Donruss needs!

 

Stagnating quite a bit with this set, have been down to around 40 cards to finish it for a long time. I need to get that Gooden, Clemens and Puckett and just pick off the rest on sportlots, but the list of Baseball Card Things To Do is longer than ever.

 

My apologies for another long post, but I wanted to get something with lots of words on here after going so long on blog silence.

 

I HOPE that July is more active for the blog. I've got one more Beckett story to write, but the bleeping high school sports are done for a couple of sweet months so that will help.

 

Thanks for continuing to visit and read.