2021 Topps Chrome NPB Nippon Professional Baseball Roki Sasaki #194

A little bit of FOMO got me pulling the trigger on picking this card up for roughly the price of a blaster box - there will likely be countless rookie-year MLB issues released soon enough, especially Sasaki can build on the hype he has generated over the past five years in Japan.

On the other hand, where I'm not a Dodgers collector - maybe a non-MLB card ends up more as a novelty, where I'll wait to see if he is healthy to withstand the rigors of a MLB season, to decide whether I'll softly scoop up his MLB cards as I find them.

Immaculate Grid

I was filling out an Immaculate Grid game and it was killing me I couldn't think up a player who played both for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers - it was the last spot I needed filled and I was really having an existential crisis about knowing my obscure MLB players, before a 'Matt Kata' finally popped from my memory banks.

I used to be into this game a couple of years ago, where I was compelled to have a go at thinking up players that matched a 3 by 3 grid - it made me think just how little I know, where my knowledge of most MLB players start through the junk wax era and then up through the last 10-15 years.

I feel like I'm not filling out the grid with vintage / old school players before the junk era and/or filling the grid with players from recent years - especially for rank-and-file guys who came up past the pandemic.

I think I got bored filling out grids with the guys I'm familiar with and it got to be where I tried to always take screenshots and save my results - as is, when I see results posted somewhere, I'm tempted to fill out a grid, though I try not to use names I've just seen.

2024 Topps Black & White highlights

I haven't kept up with any of Topps' online releases in the past five years, but I pounced on some 2024 Topps Black & White singles sold online for $0.50 or $1.00 - where the cards add some instant fuel to my themed curated sets or to my specific player decade / binder stars collections.

I've never formally collected Parker where I've sought out his loose cards with any intent - but being a committee Hall of Fame inductee has me on the look out for the Cobra's cards in a 'catch all' sort of way, unlike ever before.

Maybe like Parker, I've considered Valenzuela an 'out of sight, out of mind' guy for the longest time - though he isn't in or currently bound for the Hall of Fame, his passing gave me some pause, where I give his loose cards a second look.

I've been on the receiving end on these fan service interactions with Pedro - so I like cards that show a player like him signing autographs in-person.

Maybe Andruw has been an 'out of sight, out of mind' guy for me but there might be scattered Hall of Fame campaigns - where he might be an eventual hall of famer or will have his case discussed as just about the best defensive center fielder in MLB history.

Mattingly is a retired non-HOF player I collect in a 'catch all' sort of way - where cheap but unique cards end up instant keepers.

McGriff is a retired HoF player I collect in a 'catch all' sort of way - where cheap but unique cards end up instant keepers.

Trout is my team's franchise icon and I feel obligated to still collect him one way or the other - go figure it might be closer to the end and these upcoming years might be Trout's last big league run, where playing for so long as taken a real toll.

Witt Jr. maybe the next great hope realized as far as a baseball superstar goes - I like this 'game face' on deck shot where he might be studying the pitcher and getting ready to go up to bat.

Henderson is another young MLB player that looks to star through his prime years - is this considered a unique majestic / panoramic shot?

Maybe this ends up being a boring card, of a player idle in the dugout - but he's blowing a bubble, so I was obligated to stake my claim to it.

2024 Topps Chrome Update Mega box break

This was gifted from sister back in December and basically ends up being a glorified lottery ticket to pull a Rookie Debut Patch Autograph Card - I don't think it's worth what my brother in law paid at the card shop, but I was grateful to be able to bust this and see what I got.

Trying to read up on this particular box configuration online, was there not even a chance to pull a Rookie Debut Patch Autograph Card [?] - I think the fine print somewhere was that the chances for pulling such a card came at 1:336,040 mega packs.

To get the my curiosity out of the way, I ripped through these and didn't find anything at first, but when I formally list out the contents later on - the Wyatt Langford rookie I pulled was an variation, so while that didn't save the box or anything, it ends up a notable pull.

Pack one
#USC193 Junior Caminero - Rookie Debut
#ASGC-20 Emmanuel Clase - 2024 MLB All-Star Game insert
#USC81 Jeimer Candelario - X-Fractor
#USC170 Seth Lugo - RayWave Refractors

Pack two
#USC50 Robert Gasser RC
#USC35 Wyatt Langford rookie - Refractor; Image Variation 1:187 mega packs
#USC104 Landen Roup rookie - X-Fractor
#USC162 Dylan Lee - X-Fractor

Pack three
#FSU-17 Paul Skenes - Future Stars insert
#ASGC-31 Logan Webb - 2024 MLB All-Star Game insert
#USC97 Graham Pauley rookie - X-Fractor
#USC73 Victor Caratini - X-Fractor

Pack four
#USC125 Ronel Blanco RC
#SSC-15 Evan Carter - Stratospheric Stars insert
#USC96 Cam Eden rookie - X-Fractor
#USC63 Elvis Peguero - Refractor

Pack five
#USC2 Jorge Soler
#USC157 Kyle Harrison - Rookie Debut; Prism Refractors
#USC49 Nelson Velázquez - X-Fractor
#USC168 Manuel Margot - Refractor

Pack six
#USC68 Nolan Schanuel - Rookie Debut
#USC54 Ramon Urías - Green RayWave Refractors - Serial #’d 59/99
#USC137 Hunter Stratton - X-Fractor
#USC189 Eddie Rosario - RayWave Refractors

Pack seven
#USC110 Christian Scott - Rookie Debut
#89CU-17 Corbin Carroll - 1989 Topps Baseball
#USC98 Michael Kopech - X-Fractor
#USC12 Jonathan Cannon rookie - X-Fractor

Collecting outlook through 2025

Collecting baseball cards occupies a weird headspace where it ends up being a ride-or-die hobby - on the other hand I feel like cards I've taken in end up literally sitting around, piling up where I get self-conscious, yet don't do much about it most times.

I continue to think about cards, claim cards through online sales, rummage for cards in-person when I make card show trips - but any sort of pulse of the hobby has passed me by, where I might as well be on my own little island somewhere.

I've kind of wished that there was a part of the collecting scene that revolved around what I did - but that never was the case at all and I'm just plodding along, peeking on everyone else doing their thing online.

I’m too far deep into it through at least parts of the past four decades to pull out or pull back just a little for a reset - I feel like all my interests have been spelled out to an extent somewhere, where it shouldn't be the case where I feel down and out, but I really need those occasional reminders why certain things animate me.

It's not really all doom and gloom here and maybe it shouldn't be - there are at least a few things I would to be doing or thinking about going forward, where a part of me is emotionally invested.

1.) Making home brewed sets - from my all-time Top 100s to my so-called curated sets teasing various themes [mini-collections, stadium cards, uniform cards, Angels, etc], there is something about turning random bulk cards into something that I can sort of personalize.

I'm planning to make it where being pickier [all-time Top 100s] and doing more of roundups of themed bulk cards [curated sets] - end up being what I try to work on, in order to keep me sane.

2.) Mini-collections purge - maybe this ends up being a big deal for me, where I've been content to build up my various themed collections as part of a monolithic archive.

The inability to gather up what I've hoarded over the past three years to list and put away has left me in this perpetual bind - it might not be a solution at all, but the plan is to refer to my mini-collection cards as more of a feeder collection towards my home brewed sets.

This ultimately means seeing where I can break down a substantial number of undocumented bulk cards, to turn into Top 100 fuel for my all-time sets or using them to make themed curated sets - maybe it has never made sense to seek out all these bulk themed cards, without really looking to make them part of my own set to display and/or talk about.

One of my goals is to be able to list such cards out again in a spreadsheet - where I have a list to look at and occasionally check in case I might be picking up dupes.

3.) Decade / binder stars material - this is my catch-all collection and I have a tally of the subjects I have most cards of separated mostly by decade debuts.

I can't stop picking up odds and ends for one or more players as binder material - at some point I might need to get the actual cards in pages to update my player binders.

An idea in mind was to list out all the cards I had for 10-15 subjects - where it might be a thing to have something like 500 cards in-hand for any one particular subject.

4.) Regional collections - I'm not a team collector where I'm scoping out all the cards for one team, but having one team I do collect in general just makes sense.

I don't know if I have ever bothered to rein in my Angels collections - but for 2025, it might mean making a curated set out of random team cards, trying to keep up with my regional binder stars and updating loose card projects [Opening Day starters, all-time autograph collection, all-time register and frankenset].

5.) Loose card projects - maybe much of what I'm doing is considered 'loose card projects,' but I think I need to keep up with or revive ones that end up being neglected.

Maybe I need to keep tabs on my Hall of Fame collections, milestone numbers collections and award winners collections - where I can tally up new additions and see where updated numbers.

6.) A-Z singles - it's been a long time since I thought about maintaining this collection where maybe the idea was have a temporary collection of cards that might be keepers, but not at the same level as my personal collection cards.

As is, what I may end up doing is turning my A-Z singles collections into sort of my loose card PCs - where I am able to round up a number of miscellaneous cards that might be misfits at the moment.

7.) Personal collection cards - I don't know if I've maintained an update in recent years, but may end up doing so, just so PC cards do not get lost in the shuffle.

1998 Topps Interleague Match-Ups Mystery Finest Jim Edmonds #ILM14

I tried to microwave a UV era Topps insert card from the 1990s with a mystery peel for 10 seconds - I wanted to see if I could loosen the adhesive from the peel, so I can reveal the player shown on the card, but ended up with this catastrophe.

Maybe I should have left it as is, but I remember pulling a similar type of insert over 25 years ago that revealed Mike Piazza - after figuring out what the card was back then, the adhesive was still fresh unlike the Edmonds card I picked up recently.

Rummaging for some old school material

Card shows are a mixed bag where you can a have a good number of tables in a seemingly nice [hotel] venue - yet it's not 20 or 30 years ago where you might see more tables to pick through dedicated to sports cards and/or strictly to baseball cards of all sorts [though that might be too narrow of a scope anyway, if you are trying to sell things at a modern era card show].

As is I thought I was just warming up digging through the value boxes [$1 each] at one table with more old-school and vintage material at a card show date - but I guess this particular dig ended up my highlight of the day.

Newly minted Hall of Famers - Richie Allen and Dave Parker give me a couple of new legends to sort of collect in a 'catch all' sorts of way, even if I wasn't doing so before.

Cult favorites and/or cult favorite cards - in my collection, I had at least one copy of the 1975 Topps Herb Washington RC #407 and 1975 Topps Oscar Gamble #213, but picking up one more of each should be no brainers.

Odds and ends cards - a 1972 Topps In Action Darrell Evans #172 and a 1975 Topps 1974 NL Championships Steve Garvey/Frank Taveras #460 are just random cards that have ended up as scratch the itch oddities, with Evans caught in the air on his card and the all the dirt kicked up on the Garvey / Taveras card.

Maybe the 'star power' is too much to ignore on the 1975 Topps MVP subset cards - though I don't know if I like the idea of cards pictured within cards, rather than using an original image.

I would have thought to do so before, but I picked up a 1974 Topps Garry Maddox #178 - to go into one nickname themed 'curated sets' [of 100 cards], where I've already built up around three versions.

I wanted a card for the 'Secretary of Defense' that teases some mid 1970s flair - rather than trying to dig up the 1 of 2 I may have squirreled away.

Finally some scattered star power - I was finding the occasional low valued star cards from the mid 1970s onward, so I tried to fish out the ones that didn't seem to have obvious blemishes [off-center, miscut, dog-eared, etc] at first glance.