I’m Back…I Think (At Least For Now)

Even though my interest in blogging had been somewhat waning, I didn’t intend to reduce my output to one post every four months.  You can thank my job for that.

Those that have known me for a couple years know that this happened last year as well.  The short of it is that my job involves helping doctors with government mandated reporting deadlines.  The organizations we help are signing up new people for this service all the time.  We far outgrew projections and last year I had to do most of it myself, even though it was the job of over 2 people.  This year, we were able to hire more, but the size of the group we needed to help tripled, so we had a similar problem.  Ultimately, that meant to make sure everything was handled correctly, we had to double check and cross reference and specifically log and triple check and….  From about November until the deadline of March 31st, it was very common to work from 8 or 9 am to 11 pm or 1 am and put in another 10-16 hours over the weekend.

Even near the end, every time I thought I would have a light or free night, something else came up.  It’s been extremely difficult at times (on a couple occasions I scared my wife and dog with random top of my lung screams of frustration, and there were a couple of nervous breakdowns and bouts of depression more severe than usual), but this year was still easier than last.  I’m confident that this upcoming season will be easier still as my main job will be to make the process more efficient and to use these experiences as a guide to get ahead of the trouble spots.

But you don’t care too much about that, nor should you.  What’s most important is that I can actually have my nights and weekends free again.  In the busy time, after I stopped working for the night, I didn’t want to stay on my computer to write or read blogs.  I haven’t really followed card stuff all that much, either.  I’m sure I’ve missed quite a bit.  But now, I hopefully will have more time to catch up.  At least temporarily.  You see, it’s highly likely that I’ll be going to India for my job during the second half of April, and then a few days after I get back, I’m leaving on a legitimate vacation for a while.

So, it’ll be a short return to the blog, followed by a short hiatus, and then probably back for a while again.  Around Mid-May, I might be able to start trading again, which will be very much needed on my end.  I need to purge a bunch of stuff.

Anyway, now that I’m “back,” let’s look at some backs.

Topps Crest Whitening

By the way, except for a few pre-existing drafts and a series or two, most of my posts will be down to 9 cards or less.  It’ll save my sanity.

Would it have killed Topps to include a “the” in the color text?  “chosen in THE NBA Draft by THE San Diego Clippers.”  “9 pitches in one inning for THE Astros.”  I do like the idea of showing the game winning RBI stats, though.  I wonder if that’s walk-off, or just deciding run.

He will not remain a stolen base threat

If you haven’t been able to tell, these are the Tiffany versions from 1987.  Below are Tiffanys as well.

At first glance, I thought 1987 was a better time for hitters, but then I checked the 2015 NL stats and saw 11 names with a .300+ average.  Perception and reality and all that.

5 more GW-RBI.  When did they stop adding these?

If you were to line up all the 1988 Topps cards, I bet you still never actually reach that clubhouse.

Run, run for your life.  To the Clubhouse!

The dude hits .370 and Topps decides to focus on his 4th place finish in Runs?  Show some respect for the All-Star.

124-124 record.  Pretty impressive to pull that off

I don’t know much about my cardboard history, but I know that these are the Venezuela backs from 2013 Heritage.  I was able to grab this before the low print run was figured out.  Now, these are tougher to come by cheap for common players (still hunting Marmol), because people know how limited they are.

Old Planter is not Venezuelan

Speaking of Marmol, this A&G back mini came from Fred, who you may remember from my mini-series For the Greater Wood.  This is a small piece in another package from Fred that I still haven’t showcased on the blog.  Stupid work.

I hope we have a healthy strikeout machine on staff this year.

These last two were pick ups from the National.  As I went through the bins, I found myself flipping over every single card I might need.  With so many pointless variations that are only visible from the back (hence this post’s theme), it became pretty necessary.  If I hadn’t, I don’t think I would have nabbed this sample card.

Leather and Lumber and dumb parallels

I also probably would have missed this “silver” variant.  Even though it has slightly shinier foil on the front, unless you’re looking at them side by side, you have to rely on the numbering from the back.  This was a nice surprise and worth the dollar or less I paid at the show.

I hope I can get out to another card show sometime this year.  That was fun.  Blogging was fun this time too.  Maybe the shorter format will keep my interest longer.  Time will tell, but I have more of that these days.