Ramblings! Cause I got Nothing.

Hey it’s still summer!  I should be at a beach or something. Why sit inside a stuffy apartment filled with boxesand hack away at a computer when there are sunny, summery things that can be done? I could be walking along the lakefront, kayaking down a river or enjoying a beer on a patio.  How about a compromise?  I’ll sit outside and hack away at a computer.  After all it’s a warm, August evening. One of those summer evenings that we in Chicago think about in the middle of the darkest, coldest February nights.  You know. The ones we say we won’t waste when we’re drinking a beer watching the sun set at 3.15 in the afternoon.

Of course, things like work and laziness get in the way. So I’m not kayaking down the Chicago river or having wine and cheese on the harbor (oh, maybe we’ll do that on Saturday). Instead I’m sitting outside the Argo Tea (the official tea café of The Hopeful Chase) trying to figure out what I want to write about as I watch the 9-5ers walk home.

I could write about the Orioles. After all the pennant races are heating up and the O’s are in the thick of things. Only 2.5 games back in the Wild Card, baby!  Who cares if they don’t have a true ace on the staff - Chris Davis is mashing again! And Manny Machado’s knees haven’t broken yet.  Oh wait, they just got no-hit by the Mariners?  That’s not good.  Neither is going 4-6 on this west coast swing. Nor is the fact that the Blue Jays finally realized that having a dominant starter to go along with the 1927 Yankees offense is a good idea.

What about cards?  Hey the last two posts have been card-related! I’m finally getting back to earning my spot on the Sports Card Blogroll.  Well, due to the impending move all of my cards are currently boxed up and I’ve banned myself from ordering anymore. No sense in adding more stuff to move at this point. Although with a bigger place I can finally rescue the bulk of my collection from my in-laws house. Yes that would require driving from Tampa to Chicago with a Chevy Malibu-sized card collection.  (That’s an actual measurement. When I moved them out of my condo they filled every square inch of a Malibu).

I was going to write a nice review about Stadium Club, but my main point was going to be about how god-damn happy everyone is in the set, but another blogger kind of beat me to that point. I wish I could remember who it was so that I could link it, but  I can’t and frankly and waaaaay to lazy to keep looking.  Point is that it’s been done and I would hate to seem like I was borrowing someone else’s idea (please disregard any post I’ve written in the past based on The Raw Charge’s Question of the Week).

Look how happy Larry is. And this isn't even the happiest card in the set!

Liverpool!  Remember them?  My favorite EPL team.  They won.  Phillippe Coutinho’s wonderstrike with four minutes to go! I actually watched most of the game (although I was listening on my phone for the actual goal. Yup I was the idiot cheering on the bus).  This is the year I get back into the Premier League.  I’m 1-for-1 watching games. I’m going to watch all the games! (Checks their schedule.  Checks his work schedule) Or for goodness sake!  I’ll never get into a good soccer watching groove.  Well at least they may finally get rid of Lucas.  Never cared for him.

Wonderstrike? Lightningstrike? Lucky Strike?

English football is out, what about American football?  Boxing Training camps have started. The Ravens are practicing at The Castle and the first pre-season game is right around the corner!  I’m not going to lie,   I’m having trouble getting pysched for the NFL this year.  I just need it to not be in my life for a little bit. The 24-hour-365-day coverage is too much.   I need it to go away for a little bit so I can actually miss it.

Hockey, there is always hockey to write about!  The Lightning! Two wins from the Stanley Cup last year and they’re bringing back the whole team. How can they not be the favorite?  How can I not write about them?  Well, because there really isn’t much going on down on Channelside Drive.  Sorry, but I can’t punch out a 1000 words on Brian Engblom getting hired to replace Bobby Taylor on the TV broadcast crew.

Sure Eric Condra was a nice pickup, but not exactly a Big Sexy Free Agent Move. Maybe there is a post to be written about how he’s going to affect Jonathan Drouin’s playing time, but can we wait until training camp starts before figuring out position battles and if Mr. Yzerman needs to trade Drouin.  Speaking of trading I am officially proclaiming this a Stammergeddon-free zone until he either signs a new deal or the trade deadline rolls around.  Go to Bleacher Sports or TSN for all of your “Stamkos Wore a Blue Shirt and White Shorts And Put MAPLE Syrup On His Pancakes So He Must Be Going to the Leafs” headlines.  (That would be a very bad headline).

He's not getting traded folks. Nor is his career "ruined".

So please bear with me for a little longer (I just spent five minutes trying to figure out if it’s “bare with me” or “bear with me” before remembering that I have the internet available to look these kind of things up. Also I was caught up in the old people next to me arguing that the presidential race is going to be between Trump and Bernie Sanders And they really, really don‘t like Trump. Oh and one of the guys just dropped a legit “Back in my day!” Oh sh*t he just compared Trump to Hitler.  This is getting uncomfortable!). Just trying to muck through the next few weeks until things pick back up.

The Only Trade Post To Highlight Juan Berenguer? Probably.

Have you ever picked up a card in a trade that you swear you already had? In that mental card file that we all keep of our cards that particular card is firmly planted in there.  I don’t know if it’s because it seems like every card is posted on the internet or if it’s residual images of flipping through millions of cards in dime boxes, but I could have swore I had this card:

That’s a 1990 Juan Berenguer Topps #709.  Sexy ain’t it?

Yet there it was on my want list.  “Was” being the operative word thanks to Scott over at Hand Collated. He  recently sent me some 2009 Heritage and 1983 Topps sandwiched between a stack of 90 Topps.  Yes, it’s sad that I’ve spent the last 22 years trying to finish one of the most overproduced sets in the history of card collecting, but hey, what can I say, my attention wanders from time to time.

The point is, if you had put a gun to my head and asked me if I owned this card, I would have said “yes” without hesitating.  Did I mistype a number when inputting the data? After all, I’m not the most diligent typist in the world (especially if Star Wars is playing in the background). Perhaps there a box of 90 Topps lost in the vast wasteland that is my closet that I haven’t entered into my collection yet?

Who knows, maybe it’s an iconic image of Juan Berenguer. Can a middling player such as Berenguer have an “iconic” image?  Heck, “Senor Smorke” was in the big leagues for 15 years, there is a good chance that one of his other cards has a similar photo on it.

The more I think about it (cause I never fully think anything out before I start writing - welcome to my stream of conscious) the more I lean towards blaming the internet (or Canada, or Obama, nope, it’s Ted Nugent’s fault).  Whether it’s from people ripping packs, “Card of the Week” posts, Checkoutmycards, eBay or zistle, the Internet is flooded with card images.

For the most part that is a good thing.  When I don’t want to collect a particular set like Gypsy Queen or Allen & Ginter it allows me to see what the cards look like, almost like a virtual card break.  I can see the goodies the sets have to offer without having to make a financial investment.

Verifying cards is also easier now with the Internet around.  I have stacks of oddball cards laying about that aren’t cataloged.  Back in the old days (when telephones had wires and I was my dad’s remote control) finding out what set a card belonged to meant paging through the Beckett Catalog and hopefully getting a match, or going to a card shop where hopefully the dealer had seen something like it before.

Now, we can just pop in a couple of bits of information and see if Google Images has a match. Then click on the link and chances are someone has written a post about the set.  Imagine trying to figure out what the short prints and variations of 2012 Heritage without the help of the Internet!

At the same time some of the fun is lost.  Part of the fun of ripping wax is the surprise of seeing a cool card for the first time.  Would I have enjoyed the 1992 Topps Cal Ripken, Jr. as much had I seen it on four different websites before I pulled it in a pack?  Probably not, since the surprise factor would have been lost.

Think of this as an observation of how the hobby has changed over the last 20 years, not as a criticism of box breaks or pack reviews.  Those posts are pretty much the lifeblood of what we write as a community.  If we couldn’t post pictures of the cards we own, what would we post?

It’s nice to know that the mental card catalog in my head is a little closer to matching the actual card catalog that I have stored away.  Scott, thanks for the cards!