I predicted the future

On August 8, 2020, I predicted the future.

I know you're impressed. But I knew that on August 9, Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Atlanta Braves would hit a home run. I was so sure, that I entered a code into Topps HR Challenge. You know, those insert cards that come every few packs. I finally won!

This may be more of a blind squirrel finds a nut situation, but I'd rather believe that I am a clairvoyant. 

The fruits of my knowledge resulted in this fancy card. Shockingly, Topps doesn't charge for shipping when you correctly predict the future:

Ok, ok. So it looks like 172 people also predicted the future in August. Whatever. The card design is ok. Maybe a touch busy. It looks a bit like the 2020 Topps Utz product. 

The back of the card congratulates me on being a psychic.

Pretty cool that I can predict the future for Topps Home Run Challenge. I definitely won't show you all the times where I incorrectly predicted the future, that's for sure.

A B-Met lands me a lot more

Growing up with a Double-A team in my backyard was pretty cool.

I want to a handful of games each year. Looking back, I should have gone to more. But I certainly went to my fair share from the time the Binghamton Mets opened their doors in 1992, until I graduated high school ten years later. 

Plus, I got to play my high school baseball games in the stadium, and often snagged something left behind by the big clubs, such as lineup cards like this one:

I saw some amazing players come through the system, and the fact that the team won the title in their first year of existence was very cool. For Christmas that year, my grandma bought me and my cousins (who were all from out of town) commemorative t-shirts. I remember that well.

So when Jay of Card Hemorrhage posted a few cards he pulled in a re-pack, and one was a Binghamton Met autograph with the old "B" logo on the hat and original team logo in the lower right, I asked if it was available because it stirred up memories of the team I grew up with.

Jay was kind enough to send this along, plus a bunch of other great stuff.

My favorite of the others were these bad boys from esteemed grader Snaggle Tooth Grading. Fuji has shown these off a few times. Definitely a cool keepsake. Not to be overlooked b the hilarity, the cards are gorgeous refractors from 2001 Archives Reserve. As tired as I get of reprinting designs, they do look cool as refractors.

Jay also sent me some really cool John Antonelli collectibles as well:

There was also a handful of basketball cards, and I was psyched to get this Devin Booker rookie card!

Here is a random sampling of some others.

Jay, this was awesome stuff. Thank you!

An old Habit returns to my mailbox

It had been awhile, but I completed a small blogger to blogger trade with Judson of My Cardboard Habit. Judson and I go pretty far back swapping cards. We made out first swap back in 2014, according to my blog posts. This was the first card he sent me back then, if my blog records are to be trusted:

My how times have changed!

Judson does more Tweeting than blogging these days, and recently had the stroke of luck of pulling some Yankee relics out of 2020 A&G. He thought it was misfortune. I disagreed. So we struck up a deal and these came my way:

James Paxton and the 'stache look hilarious!

Judson also threw in a few relics from A&G past. Tex = cool. Ellsbury = fool.

Always good to make a small swap here and there, Judson. If you want to find this cat on Twitter, he's @cardboardhabit.

Pacific even had a strong checklist game

I've mentioned a bunch how much I love the Pacific brand of cards. More so the late '90s Pacific versus the early '90s stuff, bit it's all good stuff in my book.

Growing up, I sort of looked at them as a second-tier brand. Most probably did as well. Most still do. For me, that started to change with some of their incredible looking insert sets later in the decade.

One that was really hard for me to chase down for some reason was the 1998 Pacific Invincible Checklist. This was an insert card that featured five(!) players, with Tino front and center. He's joined on the front by Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams, although Tino is the focal point after coming off his 1997 AL MVP runner up campaign.

The back has shots of staff ace Andy Pettitte, as well as Mariano Rivera. I'm surprised Paul O'Neill or Hideki Irabu didn't make it on this card, but there's only so much space.

What's cool about this checklist is that it's a full team checklist, from base cards to insert cards. They pack a lot of punch onto one card between five players and the full team checklist. It's a pretty great idea, if you ask me. I've never been one to like checklists, so something like this appeals to me more than a standard card listing names with check boxes. 

I'm not sure why this card was hard to pick up. I think I actually have it somewhere but didn't have it marked as a "have", so I snagged it (again) when it popped up for a low price.

X marks the spot

I was actually fairly slow to pick up the newest Allen & Ginter Tino Martinez cards. I haven't even taken inventory of any that I don't have, given the back variations and whatnot.

However, slowly but surely, a few have made it's way to me. Just last week, friend of the blog Mr. Scott reach out asking if I needed the Tino from Allen & Ginter X. Given I don't have any idea where one might find Allen & Ginter X, my answer was a quick "Yes!" In lightning fast speed, these two cards arrived:

That's the Ginter X base and mini. The base would look great signed in silver ink.

Then, via TCDB, I was able to bring in the standard base card from A&G:

Lastly, through a small eBay pickup, I got the silver foil version, which I thought was a nice add to A&G this year. They shine looks pretty good on these cards, likely because of the pastel backgrounds.

I'm still in need of other A&Gs, notably the mini and its variations. If you come across any, you know where to find me!

A few TCDB trades

I haven't had much going on lately on the the TCDB. It's mostly my fault, as I have't added anything new for trade. Without buying new cards, there's not much trade bait to add, so no one gets pinged or notified when I add new cards for trade that match their wantlists.

I did strike up two trades last week to try and get something going.

The first was with Ed from BOCards. I sent Ed a few Orioles from 2020 Topps and 2020 Big League, and got these to cards in return. This is my 1,029th Tino.

I never see Topps Heritage Minors in the wild, so I was able to snag six of them from 2020 for a few cards from CardsInTheBasement. He's working on Heritage sets, so I helped him with a few 2020 needs.

I have a big stack of cards to add to the site, so hopefully I can get a few more trades like this going. If you're on the site, feel free to add me. My username is thelostcollector.

I miss the Election Day bake sale the most

I don't have much to say about today's election. I stay out of politics, in general. They don't interest me. I did vote though. Our tiny town in the NYC suburbs had a ballot drop box at the police station, which is also next to town hall.

I did my duty. Although when you put a ballot in the drop box, you don't get a sticker. How am I supposed to tell people on Instagram that I voted?

My state is a pretty unwavering blue state, so it's hard to vote and think it actually matters. I know it's the wrong attitude, but I didn't feel like I was making a vote that would actually mean anything. I do realize that's the wrong line of thinking, and if everyone thought like that, then that'd be a real problem.

What I miss most about in-person voting at the old people polls and confusing voting machines is the bake sale. I usually vote at the buttcrack of dawn before work, and was always rewarded with a nice piece of coffee cake for $.50 to benefit the elementary school.

I definitely missed the bake sale this year.

As it relates to cards, I don't have any political cards outside of GWB throwing out the first pitch in the 2001 World Series. Non-sports cards don't appeal to me, but I did decide to pick up this piece of history honoring a truly awful occasion: the first 2020 Presidential Debate.

Man, was that a mess that was. But this whole year has been. So I decided to buy a piece of cardboard to remember it. Not that I'll need a card to remember 2020. Nooope. The visions of my kids learning from Chromebooks or me working at my dining room table since March will never be forgotten. Or taking my car 20 minutes away to be serviced, only to get there and realize I didn't bring a mask and had to beg the woman at Dunkin Donuts to give me one. Tiny problems in the grand scheme of things, sure. 

It's been a weird year. But my family is healthy and we're making this all work, just like everyone else. So I bought a card. 

If you head to the polls today, stay safe. And if your's has a bake sale, know that I'm jealous.