Catching up the past 2 months

 It’s been probably close to 2 months since my last post if I were to guess. It seems like one thing after another has just come upon my plate. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing card things.

A few months ago, I finished uploading all of my cards to TCDB.  I was hoping to make some trades after that, but the process of putting cards on my trade list was a little daunting.  After all, how do I input my whole collection on it, but take away any Topps card, any Rays card, and Tigers card, as well as 50+ guys that I collect? Shortly before all of the uploading was finished, I made a post about Heritage SPs that I had and was willing to trade, and it had been widely ignored for a month or two.  About a month ago, someone messaged me about trading for some of the SPs, I figured out how to put my Heritage cards only on my trade list, and that has opened the floodgates.  I’ve made about 12 trades and have 3 or 4 pending approval, and another 5 or so in the in between stages. Every other day or so I get an offer for something. It is kind of overwhelming, but I have been able to pull it off, and have been able to add missing Topps cards to my lists. The 1981 (13), 1982 (29), 1983 (32), 1984 (79), and 1985 (28) Topps sets are all within striking distance of completing soon, with 1980 (201) lagging a tad behind but totally doable. 1982 (23) and 1984 Traded (Gooden RC) are also close to getting finished. One set I did complete was 1996 Topps, and that gives me a complete run of Topps sets (including Traded) from 1986-1999.  The ‘85 set would give me a run from ‘85 since I have that Traded set complete. Traded sets like 2000, 2001, and 2002 will give me some problems, as I don’t have many from ‘00 including the Cabrera, the ‘01 cards have some rookies I am missing (I do have the 2 Pujols cards though), and 2002 has the veterans all are SPs. 

Besides the trading, I have been doing a ton of creating. The biggest thing has been a HUGE custom project that I have been trying to find the right time to work on. It is over halfway done now, almost 75% of the way done, actually. Just a few more batches of cards to make, and it should be finished, I’m hoping 2-3 weeks, but you know how life gets. Once it is finished, I’m going to let the recipient give me word, but I’ll have a cool announcement to make regarding the set, as well as something to go with it that you might want to pick up. It is definitely very cool and something I will be proud to add to my resume. 

I’ve been writing music with my Brother-in-Law JT since 2005, and while we haven’t recorded too much, we’ve formed a comedy band called ‘The Younger Griffin’, and a serious more Christian-themed band called ‘Resiliency from Obscurity.  I am more of the music writer, and JT does more of the lyric writing and singing. With the recent AI craze, JT has taken some lyrics that the both of us have written for the Younger Griffin and put it to AI music, and cobbled an album together. While I am a little disappointed to not have recorded my own chord progressions or melodies and riffs to the lyrics, the AI music is definitely more polished than anything I could ever record by myself. We should have some Younger Griffin social media pages up soon, as well as an 11 song first album that is 20 years in the making. Songs that I’ve written majority of the lyrics for include ones called ‘Liberate the Penguins’, ‘Soccer is Death’, and ‘Credit Misery’. They are different than what I have envisioned musically, but again, AI got us a legit album that probably wouldn’t have came together organically for another 5-15 years. Stay tuned to get some links to our pages and bring money. 

I’m just treading water right now at the house. Living with Karens mom is an enduring struggle, and Karen is just cold or colder health wise with more of the barely going a few feet and getting out of breath. In 8 days she finally gets to go to Mayo for an appointment with pulmonary, and hopefully they will decide to do a broncoscophy and clear her out, as well as try a new type of stent to try to keep her lungs from collapsing so much. Those things could help her just kind of get back to normal, maybe even better like living like a normal person who can just breathe. Then maybe we can fry bigger fish like the shunt stuff. 

I had totally forgot requesting some cards from David of Tribe Cards when he did his 12 Days of Christmas giveaway.  I got an email from him a few weeks ago and yesterday got a huge box full of cards. Probably 500-700 cards worth. 

Just a ton of cards. The usual Tigers and Rays from all kinds of different eras and sets. 

The favorites out of the batch included a ‘24 Bowman Curtis Mead rookie. I had totally forgot about the 2022 Topps 3D set, and I scored almost the whole Rays team set. 2 rookies of (I’m sad to say) former Ray Randy Arozarena and current Ray Junior Caminiero were nice additions to the package that David could have easily kept for himself and hoped for the values to go up, but he sent them to DeLand. There were some cool 2020 Donruss Hilo Red parallels, including a Hunter Renfroe, and a 2024 Topps series 2 card of Jose Siri.  I spent 3 or 4 seasons getting autographs at Lakeland Tigers games in the early 2000’s, and Joe Coleman was the teams pitching coach. I don’t believe that card is his photo, but I never had it back then, so I couldn’t show it to him and ask. He was a generally quiet guy, but I asked him about golf one time and if he hit a hole in one. He said he did, and I asked him what it felt like, and he replied ‘exhilarating’. Maybe I can pick up golf when I retire and go to enough par 3 courses that I’ll get that exhilarating feeling. The Torkelson is a ‘24 Big League SP, and the Verlander is a blue refractor from ‘12 Topps Chrome. While most people wouldn’t consider a mascot autograph a ‘hit’, I’m thrilled to add this Paws autograph to my collection. Kyler and I are trying to get mascot autographs at different stadiums, and sometimes it’s even more difficult than getting actual players. We struck out on Paws at Comerica, and Raymond is the only one we’ve gotten in fact, out of the 6 parks we’ve see in person. The ‘19 Verlander relic made me do a double take as I was seeing Verlander Astro cards in 2018, so I’m glad they still made Tiger cards of him even after he left them. The 1960 Topps Ray Semproch was easily the oldest card of the batch, and I cut off a 1976 Topps record breaker of Mickey Lolich. In the last week I found out Lolich had almost 3,000 Ks from an article online as well as this card. With guys like Kaat, Jack Morris, and others getting in the Hall, Mickey Lolich needs to get a good, hard look. The ‘68 postseason and career numbers are worth double checking. 

I got this ‘23 Jason Adam card from the Rays team set in 2023, and got it signed in June when I went and saw the Rays play the Cubs. A few weeks ago, I got an email on TCDB from a Rays employee who wanted to know where I got the card.  I told them the team set and that there might be one at the team store. Apparently the set is nowhere to be found online and is sold out at the Trop. I offered to just send them the card since they seemed like they would enjoy it more than me, and I sent it out a few weeks ago. It turns out they work in the scouting department analyzing video and sorting it by pitch type and then sending a report with tendencies directly to manager Kevin Cash. As much as I don’t care for Cash’s overanalyzing and the love of spin rate, it is definitely interesting. In return for the Adam card, they offered me tickets to a Rays game next year, which I plan to pick out when they release the 2025 schedule. 

One last note and I’ll put you out of your misery. My pineapple plant started turning yellow 2 days ago, and I decided to try and twist it off the plant today. 

It came off, but didn’t come off too easy, and I was expecting it to be sweet like the one I had 3 or 4 years ago. Unfortunately, I should’ve probably let it go a few more days, because it had very little sweet flavor to it. On the bright side, there are 6 or 7 more pineapple plants around the house, and one of them is bound to bloom next spring. 

That was the one I picked 4 or 5 years ago, and you can see it was probably a few days more ripe. 

I think that was about all of the important things worth noting since my last post. I picked up a blaster of ‘24 Donruss, was impressed with the foil and thought it was funny how each pack had cards in order numerically (like 20-30 or 42-52). Haven’t found Topps Chrome in the wild, but the complete set will be out in about 2 weeks, so that will have to do. 

Stay tuned for custom project news as well as shameless Younger Griffin plugs and more trading. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy