Rays game, a trade, and craziness

 After a hellish July 4th sale at work, I finally made it to the end, only to go have another non-normal routine 2 weeks coming up. It isn’t all bad, as one of my favorite TV guilty pleasures (Big Brother) starts up, I got a package and am working out some trades, and my wife was able to find some more 2021 Topps Heritage at Big Lots. 

A week before all of the July 4th torture, we were able to go out to a Rays/Angels game at the Trop on June 27. We got the tickets for my birthday, and even though I knew Pujols was gone and Trout was injured, I felt it would be fun to go to a ballgame, plus we would see Ohtani, Arozarena, and Franco, and it would cross off a team that I haven't seen in person before. I believe only need to see the Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Padres in order to have seen all 30 in a regular season or Spring Training game.

All of the photos just ended up getting out of order, and I had a whole plan of putting pictures of cards with the players shown, but since they are all messed up, I'll just try to remember what I took pictures of during the game. I know I took some photos of Ryan Yarbrough hitting, Wander Franco hitting, Kurt Suzuki batting, Ohtani hitting, Randy Arozarena hitting, and some of Arozarena in the field. We had tickets in left field about 4 rows from the wall, and were about a section over from where Randy threw balls to after tossing the ball around between innings. 

The Rays 2020 AL Championship banner. It should've been a World Series Championship banner, but Rob Manfred would've been a laughingstock had he had to put Justin Turner on quarrantine after he contracted Covid in Game 6. He would've been even more of a laughingstock had he suspended the Series for 2 weeks in order to have both teams at (potentially) normal strength again. Doesn't it seem more possible that he offered Stuart Sternberg a hefty check to blow Game 6? It sure explains why Kevin Cash would take out a hot Blake Snell......

All 3 of us right after getting to the game. 

Around the 3rd Inning, I took Kyler to a section in CF where you could meet Raymond, but unfortunately, Raymond had left. He did get to meet DJ Kitty. We got a tip from an employee that Raymond would hang around the Home side of the field around the 6th Inning. I finally spotted him around the 7th, and we made our way from LF to the 1B side seats. We found Raymond, and Kyler got a picture of him, and he signed his 2009 Topps Rays team set card. 

Kyler was a hoot the whole game. He has been reading for a little while, and every time he saw it say 'Go Rays, Go!' on a scoreboard, he would start chanting it with the crowd. He also saw other messages on the scoreboard that he would chant, specifically one in the 7th inning that said 'Drive sober or get pulled over!'. 

He also cracked me up while we were trying to find Raymond. A while back, we were watching Jeopardy!, and one of the answers to a question was Jackie Robinson. I shouted out "Jackie Robinson!", and Kyler thought it was funny, so he shouted "Jackie Robinson!" randomly for the next few days, just like I did. I figured that would be a good time to show him a few of Jackie's cards and tell him how he was such a great player. I guess he remembered all of that, because when we were looking for Raymond, there was no way to walk around the Home Plate area of the stadium seating sections without going behind the seats by the concession area and then go back through a tunnel and into the seating areas. I wasn't sure if we were past the Home Plate seats, so I chose a random tunnel and walked through. The tunnel I chose had a doorway with a photo of Jackie Robinson on it, and Kyler read it and pointed to it and yelled out "Jackie Robinson!". On the way back to our seats we took a picture with it. 

We had a great time at the game, and I hope we can go back again soon. 

As for the cards I got, I had a big PWE come in from Jay of Card Hemorrhage. I had mentioned on one of his posts that I liked a Randy Arozarena card he had picked up at a shop. He e-mailed me and let me know that he had an extra, so he shot me a PWE at the speed of light. The first 2 are 1978 Topps Burger King Tigers cards, a set that I never figured I would own cards of without making a concentrated effort. The Gibson card got me closer to finishing the '81 Fleer set, and the '95 Flair John Doherty is surprisingly, my first Tiger from that set. I've seen packs of that set in gas stations in the mid-'90's, but never pulled the trigger, and haven't really found that many singles elsewhere. I'm still a few short from completing the '19 Archives and Heritage sets, but I'm 2 and 1 cards closer thanks to Jay. The '21 Heritage Arozarena was the 2nd card of Randy in the envelope, and I'm super stoked I got it, because that was the last Rays Postseason Highlights card I needed from that set, and I figured I was going to have to hit up COMC for it. I've always been a fan of Buck O'Neil, and I might start collecting him. The Hairston, Jr. is a 2002 Finest Refractor, so I'll put it in my Refractor binder. 

If you didn't think that more cards could fit in to a PWE, you were wrong, as Jay fit some vintage cards in on top of the ones already shown. They will be nice additions to my Indians, Braves, Rangers, and Negro League binders. 

Yesterday, Karen was able to find some packs of '21 Heritage at Big Lots, so I was able to bust some wax after I got home from work. I didn't take pictures, but I continued my 2021 luck with pulling Tigers inserts from '21 Heritage, pulling a mini Miguel Cabrera #d to 100. The back of the pack said 1 in 419 packs. Does that make it a SICK SUPER MOT HIT?  Do I need to start calling someone BRAH and join Twitter and Tik-Toc?  Anyway, the Cabrera was the 4th special Tigers insert to me, including the 3 SPs in the team set. I pulled 2 SPs, and I have them set aside for Jay, who happens to collect the '21 Heritage set, as well as some cards I pulled from the packs for his Want List. I'll look through my binders at some point (hopefully in the next week) for more '21 Heritage on the list. Thanks, Jay for the cards!

I've also been plugging away at the custom 1991 Topps set. All of the Highlights and Coach/Manager cards are done in the regular sets, and I'm working my way through the AL teams, with the Red Sox, Tigers, and all but 2 of the Blue Jays being finished. Hoping to work on more of those through the rest of this year as time allows. Follow the progress on my 1991 Topps Reference Page at the very bottom. I will update the cards as I finish teams. I'm a little slowed right now, as my wireless mouse stopped working, but I should have a new one the next time we go out to Wal-Mart.

We have a hurricane passing through Florida. Nothing too major for our area, I don't think. The store has finally slowed down a little now that the holiday is over with. The last thing we needed was a hurricane that was serious to make everyone shop all Covid-crazylike and could possibly do some major damage. On top of that, after drought since almost the fall of last year, we finally started getting the afternoon rainshowers, which although has made the grass grow super fast, has helped my thirsty plants.

My coworker Butch gave me a 4-O-Clock bush a few years ago, and after accidentally getting hit by a weed eater, mower, and probably squirrels, it is finally coming up and I think it will get some yellow flowers anytime. 

I also planted some sunflowers back in March when I thought the afternoon rainshowers would start, and really the only one that survived was one in the middle of my flower box in the back. 

Hopefully it will grow pretty big and I can at least get some seeds from it. I've planted a few other things and put some squirrel repelling pellets down. I just hope the rain doesn't keep them from working. Hopefully we will just get a ton of rain and my flowers will look great and not get blown over after the storm goes through. I hope it just ends up being a small storm with minimal damage in it's path. 

The stuff that is really complicating the next few weeks is that my wife's Aunt, Uncle, and one of her cousins and her fiance here. Her aunt and uncle aren't that bad, but the 2 cousins drive me nuts. Her aunt and uncle are going to be here for 2 weeks starting today, and fortunately for me, her cousin and her fiance are only going to be here from Thursday to Monday. If I can milk a fake headache for a day, drink some alcohol before they come, I might just be able to get through the week with a little energy left. I've probably posted about it before, but they just always expect us to do things with them, and I really just want to go home and relax after work. I'm working the next 4 days, and the last thing I want to do is make food for 10 people, and then entertain people. They always expect to do things at our house, and just never want to leave. Anyone else have relatives like this?  I think Karen's brother and his wife and 3 kids are going to be spending a few days at our house as well, so I'll have all of them there when I get home, too. I'm just not ready for it.

On top of that, Karen's headaches have been really bad, so we went up to Shands in Gainesville today to get a spinal tap. They measured her opening pressure, and it is supposed to be between 10 and 15, and hers was 32. Her neurosurgeon called a few hours ago and wants to do surgery on Monday. Not sure if it's on the shunt in her back or head, but probably exploratory. She kind of wants to put it off until the family is gone and her work is slower, but I really hope she just gets it Monday. That will kind of give the family a reason NOT to come, and maybe all of us can relax. I love my wife, but it's just hard caring for her after surgery, trying to convince her not to do anything and follow the doctors orders on resting. Preparing food for us and Kyler has got a lot easier now that Kyler is a little older, so that won't be as bad. I'm not getting my hopes up for this surgery, but maybe they will find something and fix it. It would be amazing to be a normal American family where if we have a date night planned that it actually happens and we don't have to worry about her headaches being to bad, where she can go to work every day and not have to force herself to go in even if she doesn't feel well, or just something simple like not expecting to go to church by myself because a headache is bad in the morning. So many things I took for granted when we first got married. 

I hate posting all kinds of stuff about operations, but I want my readers to know the guy behind the cards, as well as the cards. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy