2025 Collecting Goals and trip to K n T Sportscards

 Last year, I posted some collecting goals. I figure now would be a good time to see how I did. I’m going to try to do this quick. 

Little goals accomplished:

Complete a 1990’s Topps run- I did when I acquired a 1996 Topps John Mabry in a trade. 

Finish my 2002 Topps set- This is technically complete, but some of the cards are in my SportsLots box. 

Finish my 2021 Topps Update set- As I guessed in the goals post last year, the last card I needed was indeed sitting in a Phillies team box. 

Big goals accomplished:

Complete an ‘80’s Topps run- Another one technically completed and just needing to have SportsLots cards shipped

Put all of my cards into TCDB- All of my baseball cards are in. Random non-baseball cards in baseball sets like Allen & Ginter ones, random sets like Topps American Heritage, and stuff like that aren’t, although if I have some free time and need trade bait, it could be worthwhile. 

Big goal not accomplished- Put all of my cards into binders. This was not possible due to the sheer number of complete sets I’ve purchased towards the end of the year, but I have put most of my newer cards in all of my binders besides the Padres, Giants, Expos/Nationals, and most of the AL teams. Not bad, just considering the enormous task it was. 

I even accomplished a life goal of having some of my music published on a CD and out on iTunes, although it wasn’t quite how I envisioned it. In the fall, the comedy band my brother in law and I started called ‘The Younger Griffin’ released our first CD, a collections of songs with our collective original lyrics and music done by AI. While I really wanted my original music published to the song, ‘Liberate the Penguins’ is written entirely by myself, with other songs ‘Credit Misery’, ‘Soccer is Death’, and ‘Megan still doesn’t answer her Phone’ having some lyrics by me. Still, not too shabby. I also got a pineapple to bloom, the Bankee$ lost the World Series, and the Criminal Tide just got their 4th lost of the year today!!!  

Goals for this year are just going to be listed as Card Goals and Personal ones. 

Card Goals

Complete a set from the 1970’s. 

Get my Topps runs of 1980-2002 and 2019-2025 closer to being connected by finishing a set like 2003 and 2018. 

Complete a Rays parallel set.

Personal Goals

Get the mesh surgery with Karen done and have it work. This will open up so many doors in my life. She won’t have to worry about having to breathe doing mundane tasks. No worries about having to cancel plans. Less responsibility for me around the house. Hopefully not having to rely on her mom for things. This will help me out tremendously with number two. 

Get her Mom to move out or have our credit improve so we can  move out ourselves. I don’t care. Just something to separate us so she’s not constantly in my personal bubble, trying to make conversation, or creating mess. 9 months are damn long enough. 

Get going to some doctors again. My therapist ended up quitting, and I haven’t got around to making another appointment. I also missed one with my endocrinologist when Karen had her last surgery, and I just haven’t got around to making another one. I’m hoping with the holidays being done that I can just settle into a routine and get better at mundane things like calling people to schedule appointments. 

I feel like if Karen can get her health better and cut the cord with her mom that everything else will settle into place. We can probably take a good vacation and not worry about having to make it short in case of breathing problems, and a vacation means a good chance at a ballgame, perhaps a new stadium. There’s a chance I could record some music this year, and that big custom card project is finished, just waiting for final word on the product it goes with. 2025 has the potential for some great things. Might even be enough for me to not really even care if my boss stays another year. We’ll see. 

Before 2024 ends, I was able to get some new cards. I managed to go up to Ormond Beach after work yesterday and stopped by K n T Sportscards. I had left my wantlist folder there a couple weeks ago, and John from Johnny’s Trading Spot was going to pick it up when he was scheduled to swing by. He ended up not making it down there, but called the shop, and let me know that they had it. They had it when I got there. 

My plan was to spend an hour or so going through dime boxes, but some teenaged flipper brah’s were hogging the area. One of them had a briefcase, and I wondered why they would even be in the area. The place was busy, and a variety of people were there. Some guy who had apparently driven from St. Louis was there loading dollar boxes into his van. He had a buddy who must’ve recognized him but was from a different area talking to him. There was also a family there who flew into town from Soutb Africa. They were there for baseball cards, and said that most people from South Africa follow soccer. 

I ended up looking through the dollar team boxes until the brah’s left. They had a few good cards, not much different selection from the last time I was there. I found a few cards to go into some blogger care packages hopefully this month. I went through 1 or 2 dime boxes, picking up most Tigers, Rays, and players I collect that I saw, since I figured they would be basically free. I spent a few minutes going through the 2-5 dollar boxes, and found 2 Rays autos for 2 bucks. I think I had about 30 bucks of cards plus the dime ones, and I paid 20. I got home, and we ended up going to Wal-Mart, and while there, I picked up another Topps Holiday ball thing. 

The Holiday ball had some nice cards. Out of 2 Holiday balls and a blaster, I managed to pull 3 Skenes cards, 2 De La Cruz cards and 1 blue parallel, and a Merrill base and metallic. If I didn’t have so many doubles, I’d be tempted to get more. 

The rest of the basic team cards. 

I found a number of guys I collect at K n T’s. A number of Lakeland guys in fact, with Sale, Taillon, and Yarbrough. I almost complete the 2022 Bowman Platinum Prospects Ice parallel Rays set, and am only missing the guy on the bottom left, Kyle Manzardo. The Zunino Chrome Platinum auto was one of the 2 dollar autographs I got. I’m a Wily Adames autograph away from having most of the autographs of key guys from the 2020 AL Champion team.  

The Rays were nice ones. A few refractors, an Xavier Isaac rookie (people on Rays boards are always high on him and Caminero. I hope they’re right), and a Heritage SP of Mejia. I found a Torkelson rookie for the Tigers, and both Riley Greene Chrome rookies. 

The rookies hit hard in the Holiday ball. Another Junior, the Skenes and De La Cruz from earlier, and the Merrill metallic one. Also had a Henderson Santa hat SP. Not shown is an AJ Smith-Shawver Blue metallic card I had set aside for John. 

We’ll see if I can accomplish my collecting and life goals for 2025. I’m going to bed, and am going to have a great first day of 2025, as I will be working on the slowest day of the year, and might go on a date with Karen that night, which could lead to a Target run with more cards, and who knows what else. We’re both off the next day, so 2025 should start off nice. 

Happy 2025, and thanks for taking the time to check out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

2025 Topps mock-up

Just a short post that I really need to make before Topps makes it obsolete. 

I've been waiting for 2025 Topps sell sheets to come out, but I honestly don't expect them to come out before early February. I do think that they may have given us a clue on what they will look like when they advertised the Vote for card #1 promotion. Take a look at one of the photos for the promotion.

Not much to go on, but check out the bottom. It definitely emphasizes the lettering inside a rounded square kind of thing. You can also make out a font style in the 'voting is open' part that could be a font for a player name, ala the 1995-96 Topps hockey design.

I am not totally sure that the ad photo actually came from Topps, but it certainly looks like it could have. At the risk of looking totally stupid, I coupled some things from the ad photo together, and came up with this.

Definitely not the best adaptation of what I think the design will look like, but you can get the gist of it. Maybe the team area will be transparent, and I could see a team logo somewhere as well. Maybe even more of the design will have the rounded circle element. 

We'll see how close this is to the actual design in a few months. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

A bunch of McClanahan’s and Caminero’s

 I had a pretty busy last few days. It all started Wednesday. I rushed through work so I could get out at a decent time and meet Karen at her work. She had a work party in Tampa, and we had to get there around 6. Karen took 2 of her staff, and we all took the drive down to Tampa. Leaving from Daytona (where I-4 ends), we almost drove the entire highway (got off at exit 2). Her company’s ownership rented a yacht for the party, so we got to the hotel, changed clothes, and headed to the dock. 

The party was your typical work one. Food, some mingling, and an award ceremony. They had a bar, and I drank pretty good. Had a Modelo, Landshark, some IPA in a green can, and then a strawberry lemonade ale, and some berry cocktail at the hotel bar. The food was decent. Some really good potatoes, and a cheesy chicken. 

The award ceremony turned me off a little. You could just tell the ownership only cared about making money and wasn’t all about their staff, unlike the previous ownership. It did end on a good note, as Karen won the Executive Director of the Year award. I stood up, gave her a hug, and cheered like crazy when they called her name. Probably one of the greatest moments I’ve had this month. 

We got back to the hotel, spend an hour at the bar, and then went to bed. The hotel was huge, about 2 floors high, and was right across the street from Amalie Arena, home of the Tampa Bay Lightning. 

Amalie Arena behind the parking garage. 

We were up at floor 11 of 20. 

The view of the first floor from the 11th floor. 

View from the glass elevator. 

I’ll have to stay at a nice place like this for my 50th birthday. 

The plan on Thursday was to drive back to Daytona, and I was off, so I figured I would hit up K n T’s Sportscards in nearby Ormond Beach. 

The drive home was a headache for me, as the GPS took us on a few different roads instead of I-4, and I feel like it took longer. Then, the girls decided they wanted Starbucks, and they got some bad directions, and it added another half hour to the trip. I got to the shop probably 2 hours later than I wanted to, but still had time to dig through maybe 6 dime boxes, and the Rays and Marlins section of the dollar cards. Before I left, I went through a few piles of 5 dollar cards. I had about 15 dollar cards, 3 5 buck ones, and 91 of the dime ones at the end. He charged me 25 for the dollar and 5 dollar ones, and gave me the dime stack for free. I had my wantlist with me, and ended up leaving it there, but John from Johnny’s Trading Spot said that the owner has it, so he will either get it next time he’s there, or I’ll have an excuse to come back. 

The dime cards had a few binders that were organized by team, and that really helped me out. There were some good cards in them, too, as there were a handful of ‘98 Topps Minted in Cooperstown parallels. I found 3 Shane McClanahan rookies, including a ‘21 Topps rainbow parallel. If he can come back from injury this year, he could be a 20-game winner. The autograph came from the 5 dollar box, and was numbered to 50. I think the Arozarena rookie was from the dollar box. Man, I miss him already. 

Most of the Bowman refractors were from the dollar box. Caminero 1 was a ‘23 Prism from the dollar box. The ‘24 Chrome was from the dime boxes, and I got pretty close to getting the Rays set. 

The last 2 5 dollar cards were Johnny DeLuca and Osleivis Basabe autographs. DeLuca has a lazy autograph. I wonder what earlier ones look like. Caminero’s 2 and 3 are from ‘24 Optic, and a ‘24 Bowman insert. TCDB says I have 18 of his cards (plus some from my SportsLots order that I will add to the site when I get them shipped). I could’ve spent a lot more time (and money) at that box, but one of the owners kids was there and kind of in the way, so I took that as a sign that I needed to finish up. 

The Tigers cards helped me get more cards of their prospects. One of my favorites from this group was the ‘23 Donruss Sparky Anderson parallel. The blue, coupled with the colors of that era’s Tiger uniform are just great. 

I got close to finishing the ‘24 Chrome set of Tigers as well. 

I got some nice cards of some favorite players. DeLand native Nick Fortes had a number of cards in those dime binders, so I scooped them up. Stetson University alum Patrick Mazeika had a card in the dime box, which I needed. I was stoked to find the ‘99 Upper Deck checklist of Rolando Arrojo. The card highlights the Rays first win, and I almost picked it up on eBay after seeing it. After collecting cards since 1989, I figured I would’ve known this card existed, but the first time I saw it was on eBay a month or so ago. Now I have one in my collection. I wasn’t sure if I had the Quinton McCracken Minted in Cooperstown parallel, but I took a gamble, and it turns out I needed it. I might be able to complete the Rays team set of the parallel, as I have probably 6 or 8 of them already. McGriff and Boggs might be the toughest and most pricy, but it’s definitely doable. 

The Ryan Howard just snuck in the photo, as it was part of a stack of nearby cards I was putting into boxes. 

While not in my catergories of Rays, Tigers, favorite players, or Topps base cards that I usually collect, the last 3 cards were part of the (free) dime box cards, and I felt they were worth more than a dime. The Nola is a black and white parallel, which are always good trade bait on TCDB. Heaton Kjerstad could turn out to be a nice player, and a Chrome rookie is always a nice card to have of a player. When I saw the Robertson card, it just felt like something special because the photo was not your normal Topps photo, so I figured it was an SP or something. I flipped it over, and the all gold back revealed it was a Golden Mirror variation. Another nice trade bait card in the dime box. 

That covers it for the shop cards. On the way home from work on Saturday, I needed to pick up Christmas lights, and ended up going to both Target and Wal-Mart to find them. It was a good situation for me, as I picked up a Topps Holiday ball from Wal-Mart, and a ‘23 Panini Prism blaster from Target. The best card from the Holiday ball was a Cedane Rafela SP, along with a base Yandy Diaz and a foil parallel of him as well. The Prism box gave me an Alan Trammell base card, a Drew Jones base card, and a Blue Ice Jones parallel. I believe the Jones cards were rookies. 

Next 2 days at work are going to be the 3rd and 4th toughest days of the year, but I have a good team around me I believe, and I think I’ll get the help I need this year. Going in at 2 AM tonight and midnight tomorrow night. It works out for me, as practice for our Christmas Eve service at church starts at 2, and I’ll get out early enough to not only make practice, but maybe get a short nap. Maybe I’ll video some of the songs. The last one has the potential for a nice piano solo. 

I’m honestly looking forward to putting this year to bed. The appointment with the New Jersey doctor for Karen is January 9th, and I’m hoping the surgery will get scheduled soon after. If it can just go well and fix her breathing, that’s just going to be such a help. She can put all her effort into whatever she does, work, helping out with the house stuff, and we just won’t have to worry about if she can handle a full night out shopping, going on a date, or whatever. I hope she can recover very quickly, and after that, it might be enough to convince Karen’s mom that she’s not needed, and for the love of God, she might move out. If those few things can happen, my year would be 100 times better than last year, and I would give up getting any cards in 2025 to have that happen. 

I’m hoping for a nice 2025 Topps design. From seeing the ‘vote for card #1’ advertisements, I think I might have a little clue to what the design might look like, and if I have a free day off in the next week or two, I might try my hand at making a mock up of what I think it will look like, and we can see how close I was when the design comes out. 

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

Happy Bama Elimination Day, and lots of cards

 It has been a good while since I’ve posted last. Lots of stuff has been going on in my life. It has been a great time in sports for me. On Sunday, Bama got eliminated (Happy Bama Elimination Day!!!!!), and later in the day, the Bankee$ lost out on Juan Soto. If only they miss out on Bregman, Alonso, Burnes, and Fried!). 

I feel like Karen's health problems just keep getting more confusing. She got in a car wreck about a month ago, and the effects of it have made her head hurt to the point where she can barely function. We think the jolt from the wreck may have got her shunt out of whack, and we have an appointment on Monday to get everything looked at over at Shands in Gainesville. Hopefully they can adjust some settings and get it where it needs to be. *Update on that, we just got back, and the shunt setting in her head was off a little and they were able to change that. The back one looked like it was off from scans she had done, but they were unable to read its setting (or change it) with an electronic device. Her neurosuegeon is going to get back to us and they may end up having to open her up so they can check the setting and set it at where it needs to be. Hopefully they can get that done asap and get her some pain relief and squeeze it in between the holidays and before the surgery for her lungs in Jan 2025*

I've been picking up cards from tons of places, and I don't know where to start. On Friday night, I went to Wal-Mart, and they had boxes of '24 Topps Holiday, and although I really don't see the need for the set, I bit. The box was a winner for me, so it was a good choice.

A few of the mid-tier rookies and my Tigers and Rays. Another Caminero for what may be a player collection. On to the bigger rookies with Pete Crow-Armstrong and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

I got the Elly De La Cruz and Paul Skenes, which are probably the 2 best cards to pull from the set. Only 1 guy I collect, but I'll take a Jordan Hicks card any day. The relic from the box was a Tiger, Spencer Torkelson. The 5 silvers I got were nothing special, and really disappointing with 2 Padre$.

Here's where it starts to get good. The SPs (I guess that's what they are) were cool. Mookie Betts has a holiday hat (it's yours if you need it, Night Owl), Corey Seager has a light necklace, and Yuki Matsui has antlers (I spent about 10 minutes trying to find them). 

Here comes the BOOM!!  I pulled a blue parallel of Elly De La Cruz. If I was a flipper, you would already be seeing this card on Tik Tok, Instagram, X, and the like. I also got an ornament box topper, but that shall remain a secret as it will be going in a trade package.

One of the strangest ways I have got cards to date has to be this next one. Karen works at an assisted living facility, and unfortunately, one of the residents passed away on Wednesday. He was a football coach (not sure of his name, but Karen said he was a coach at the University of Georgia. Aparently, he was into cards, and he had some in his room, and one of his kids let Karen have them when they found out I collect. 

It was some of what I expected with the cards being from 1988-1997 (almost), but it looked like his collection was more of a player collection with many cards of a few different players. That was good for me, as it helped me out with a bunch of '90's inserts, parallels, and sets I hadn't had much of in my collection. I will take '94 Stadium Club Golden Rainbow cards all day, especially a sunset card of Nolan Ryan, and the card of Frank Thomas giving us the bird. I finally have the iconic bubble blowing Griffey card, as well as some '94 Donruss inserts that I have been drooling over since I was a kid.

Why can't card makers make inserts and cards like they did in the '90's?

This '95 Elite Greg Maddux would've been the star of the show, but there was 1 card that topped it. That was hard to do, as this card is absolutely beautiful. I never realized the Elite inserts were die cut.

Serial numbered on back to make just an amazing card. 

This 1961 Topps AL Home Run leaders card, though, was the star of the show, as it was in fabulous condition considering the age. How many times do you just get gifted a collection with a '60's Mantle in it? Thanks, and RIP, Coach. 

I've been on an eBay binge lately, picking up things like a partial '95 Topps Cyberstats set, autographs of guys in my favorite player collection, and some autographs of some Rays I didn't have. 

Austin Meadows, Shane Baz, and Yandy Diaz are the latest autographs I got (along with a Blake Snell that came in the mail on Tuesday, and a Junior Caminero that in in transit). Speaking of Junior, I figured I should pick up a jersey to put the icing on his collection. Mason Miller isn't a Ray, but he is a Type 1 diabetic, so I was happy to add his autograph, and will be adding his All-Star game jersey card when it gets delivered in a few days. 

But that's not all. I went to visit John from Johnny's Trading Spot a few weeks ago, and got to dig though some of his trade boxes. I landed a bunch of cards from 2006 Topps, 2014 Topps, 2015 Topps, and 2017 Topps that will help me complete some sets eventually. I must've found a box that had some extras from when he was updating his player binders, because I found about 20 cards of a guy I collect because he is on the Dutch National team, Xander Bogaerts. 

I also picked up my prize for winning one of John's latest constests, and ended up with a 1983 Donruss Wade Boggs rookie, and a 2019 Topps Heritage Miguel Cabrera relic. Thanks, John,  for letting me come over and for the cool cards you let me snag.

Among the most unusual ways I've got cards this year was from an actual player himself. In August of 2017, I sent an autograph request to former Big Leaguer Danny Boone. I had made 2 customs and sent them with my letter, and added my phone number in case he wanted more. Well, years went by with no response, and I figured it was lost. On Monday I was driving home from work, and felt my phone vibrate. I usually don't get texts that time of day, and though nothing of it, and didn't check my phone until like an hour later. It just said 'Hi Jeremy, are you still at this phone number? Dan Boone' At first, I thought it was spam, but I responded, and he mentioned I put my contact info with my letter, and that he had found a pile of mail that he misplaced and wanted to verify my address. We swapped a few more messages, and I told him to contact me any time he wants to talk baseball, and I really think he will. I am expecting those cards back in the mail any day, and I've added a few more of his cards in my SportsLots box as I think I will add him to my favorite player collection. 

I had to mention SportsLots, as I have probably close to 900 cards that will be in the box. I'm just waiting on it to be filled. As soon as my SportsLots box comes, I will have the 1995 Topps Spectra, 1981 Topps Traded, 2001 Topps, 2001 Topps Traded, 2002 Topps, 2002 Topps Traded, 2003 Topps, 2005 Topps, 2007 Topps, 2007 Topps Update, 2008 Topps, 2012 Topps, and 2016 Topps Update sets completed. That will be nice, because I need to update my TCDB list and perhaps start trading again.

Just a ton of places I've been gathering cards from, and I am grateful to have been lucky enough to get such a smathering of cards lately. It helps me take my mind off of the crap life throws at you sometimes. 

Tons going on the next 2 weeks. Work will be getting busy, I’m sure. I’ll get to hang out with Karen on Wednesday as she will be getting her IVIG infusion in the morning, and I always enjoy going with her when I’m off. A week from Thursday she has an office Christmas party on a yacht with an open bar, so there is no way I’m not going to that. I might hang out with my youngest sister and brother in law at some point before Christmas, and there are always all of the hundreds of family members wanting to get a piece of you during the actual holidays. I’m sure we’re invited to some Christmas parties we are invited to,  and we might make an appearance, who knows. The band will have a service to play at church on Christmas Eve, and I’ll probably rush to that after work. Probably have at least 1 more event, but that’s just the name of the game during this time of year. 

If I'm not back on before Christmas, I wish everyone Merry Christmas and may you have a great holiday season and a Happy 2025!

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy