Getting Back

I have severely neglected the blog over the last few months; but it’s not because I haven’t been writing at all. I have been very fortunate to land a few writing gigs that are actually printing in nationwide magazines and widely viewed websites! I don’t really know how I got here but I am ever thankful for all of the support from the people who have promoted and shared my blog over the last few years. Without that support, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I’ve so graciously been given over the last year.

I go to bed every night with the best of intentions for the next day. I always say to myself, “tomorrow I will write a new piece for the blog.” But unfortunately, that gets in line with all of the other good intentions I go to bed with. “Tomorrow” is always the day that I am going to get up early and eat breakfast before work. It’s the day that I am going to eat better and take better care of my body. It’s the day that I am not going to sweat the small stuff; I’m going to just breathe deep and enjoy the day. It’s the day that I am going to go home from work and play in the yard with the kids. And it’s the day that I am going to end by getting to bed at a decent hour, ready to do it all again the following day.

Do you want to know what “tomorrow” turns out being every single time? It winds up being the day that I roll out of bed with about 12 minutes to get ready and leave my house for work. I don’t have time to eat breakfast so I down a bag of Doritos and a Diet Dr. Pepper at my desk mid-morning. That throws off my appetite, so I never actually eat a real meal for lunch. By not eating lunch, I am starving when I get home, so I go for some more chips, crackers, or cookies. I’m so burned out by the time I get home from worrying all day about every moment of the day, I hardly have the energy to walk from the truck to the house; so playing outside in this South Georgia heat is out of the question. I ultimately land on the usual activity of fiddling around the house with this or that and getting locked into some TV marathon or Braves Game until 11. Then I get ready for bed and spend another hour or so on Twitter.

I think the old saying goes, “even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. This is so true. But so is another saying that I think fits my problems better; “the best laid plans take 40 years to complete”. I may not start eating healthier until my doctor forces me to; which could be any day. I will most likely always be a worrier. Sleep is one of my favorite hobbies so getting up “early” will always be a challenge. And I suppose that lack of getting up early helps feed into the staying up late. One thing I constantly try to improve is the time spent with my kids. Unless we move to a more climate-friendly region, playing outside during the summer may always be a challenge. It has been 100 degrees since Friday and it doesn’t cool down until the sun is well on the other side of the Earth. But I have tried to take them to the movies, to the mini golf course (at night), and just generally spend more time with them lately. They will always be my children but the moments of them actually being kids get shorter with every passing day.

Finally, I am trying to make amends to my neglected blog with this very post. When we neglect material things, it isn’t so life changing. But we do often forget about how meaningful they are to us and how much joy they bring us. And even though I collect sports cards all day every day, I have recently neglected all of the cards I already have and have focused on cards that have just released or will be released in a week or so. Rookie cards and “Prospect Mania” have a tendency of getting in the way of best laid plans. So while I sit at my kitchen table and look at about 12 “Junk Wax Era” boxes that I’ve been meaning to open, I can look across the room at the trash can and see a mound of shiny wrappers that I have been busting from the 2019 blasters and hobby boxes that have consumed me recently.

All of this busting new product has even made me wonder which cards are the actual “junk”. I don’t mean that as disparaging as it sounds but I’ve begun to ask myself questions like, “would the better pull be a 2019 Heritage JD Martinez or a 1989 Fleer Mike Greenwell?” Would I rather pull a 2019 Unparalleled Tyreek Hill or a 1990 Score Christian Okoye? “What about a 2018 Prizm Gordon Hayward versus a 1990 Hoops Larry Bird? Sure, there are autographs/relics/parallels/variations/short prints to be found today, and that is what keeps me coming back for more. They are splashy and can be worth a pretty penny. They also cost a pretty penny and like a poorly executed cannonball, a hobby box doesn’t always make a splash. But my answer to all of the questions above would be Greenwell, Okoye, and Bird. So in the end, particularly from a collecting standpoint, is a box full of 2019 commons any less “junky” than a box of 1991 commons?

I promise that this isn’t a “new product poo-poo piece” as much as it is a reminder for me not to stray too far from my roots. I really enjoy new products. I just enjoy them a little too much! I will continue to open them. In fact, I have 2019 Donruss Football and 2019 Archives Baseball ready for a weekend Periscope very soon. But for me personally, new products have become more like empty calories than a filling meal. I love the process of eating potato chips because they taste so good. But when I see an empty bag in the trash, my thought process is more of “what did I just do” rather than “man, those really were good”. And I am usually still hungry. Does that mean I am going to completely cut out potato chips? No way! I don’t have that kind of will power. But I can put the chips down sometimes and go with a handful of peanuts or a bowl of cereal. They aren’t 100% healthy either, but they are better than the chips. Am I making any sense at all?

That handful of peanuts or bowl of cereal is certainly representative of “Junk Wax Era” cards in this analogy. A bag of chips is handsome looking with a lot of flair but usually has a lot of air in the bag as well. Think about those one pack products that are releasing in 2019 with a ton of money put into the packaging but only 5 cards in the box. Peanuts come in a big ole canister and are packed to the rim. Cereal can even spill out when I open the package if I don’t do it carefully enough. That is what 1989 Fleer baseball is. It is packed to the gills and by the time I am done sorting a box, I am completely full. I’m not reaching for a second box of ’89 Fleer to bust when I am done. And it isn’t because I didn’t enjoy the rip of the first box. It is because I just got done ripping and sorting 500 cards, and not 5.

And believe it or not, I sometimes have the exact same value in cardboard when I am done with that box of 1989 Fleer as I am that box of 2019 Gypsy Queen. You may not agree with me here, but it is the truth. Every box doesn’t come with a Vlad Guerrero or Pete Alonso. Just about every box of 1989 Fleer comes with a Ken Griffey Jr., Billy Ripken (one version or another), Gary Sheffield, and Randy Johnson. The difference is the “chance” to pull that Vlad or Alonso autograph. That is what you and I are paying for. And I still believe that on a reasonable scale, it is worth it. My scale just needs its calibration reconfigured; that’s all I am saying.

Part of that re-calibration is getting back to my blog as often as I can. My blog is where I write about the products that mean something to me, not where I muse about valuable cards. So getting my focus back on the blog means correcting the neglect I have been showing for the cards that are so meaningful to me. In turn, this will ultimately have an impact on the attention that I am showing to new products, but in a good way. The new products aren’t going away, they are just going to be more balanced. My appetite for cardboard, peace of mind from writing, and wallet will all be thankful for this move. I’ll still be ripping with my periscope audience and for my small, but growing, YouTube subscribers. But I will be here more often as well, talking about some of the cards and memories that brought me to where I am in the hobby today.

I am very thankful for where I am in the hobby today. I am thankful for the opportunities that have come from this meager blog. I am thankful for the people I have met and the trips I have taken simply because of the exposure the words written on this website have brought me. But neglecting the blog makes me feel like I’m trying to “get a little too big for my britches”, as my dad would say. And that never worked out for me in the past. I’m going to keep pursuing every opportunity I’m given and I am going to write for Beckett as long as they will accept my submissions. This isn’t what the post is about. It’s about getting back to my collecting base. It’s about getting back to the smell of 30 year old wax, the feel of brittle gum sticks, the look of holographic team logo stickers, and the challenge of putting together a puzzle of Carl Yastrzemski. That is what this is about!

J-Dub