Look What The Mail Dragged In

Bit by bit and little by little, collecting goals are being filled, even as the goalposts themselves continue to move. In fact, I've had to talk myself out of continuing to collect certain players - guys whom I really like & whose cards I'd normally love to collect in their entirely - just to keep myself sane and to keep my finances under control. Vladimir Guerrero, for instance.  

I'm not even sure how wholly committed I am to collecting the cards of Shohei Otani, either, but then stuff of his keeps finding its way into my mailbox, like this 2018 Topps Chrome Future Stars card (#FS-1), and well, the Otani collection just gets a little bit better each time. I'm rooting for him to have a landmark season this year and to do something we haven't seen since the days of Babe Ruth - and so far he's off to a great start in that regard.

I've got a trading pal in Missouri name Ken who just continually sends me stuff I both want and need, and I try my best to reciprocate. He's been in this game much longer than I have, and so has an extensive collection of doubles and castoffs from the 1960s - the decade I'm most interested in the baseball cards of. Here are a few 1969 gems that just arrived from him:

Speaking of fellas from the 1960s, here are two after-the-fact Willie McCovey cards I recently grabbed. The KMart card is from a 1982 series, and the Topps Platinum Players card is a 2021 (!). I'll collect McCovey anytime, anywhere. It was he and Jack Clark who were my first baseball heroes, and forever shall they be.

Also from Ken are two 2020 Topps Heritage Chromes from the SF Giants collection....seriously, the only two 2020 Heritage Giants cards I didn't have, outside of some of those ridiculous 1/1s or autograph cards (wait - they're not ridiculous - I'd love 'em if you don't like yours....). Alas, these are purple chromes, but the scanner doesn't recognize them as such.

I also found Jo Adell's first Bowman card (2017) - with him just out of high school, and very much looking it - on eBay a couple of weeks ago:

I also still collect Max Fried - I mean, I just started this collection a few months ago, so am not quite ready to abandon him - and got this 2020 Topps Big League orange parallel recently:

Finally, the 2021 pinch-hitting hero of the Atlanta Braves, and my favorite player of the 21st century, Mr. Pablo Sandoval, on Topps Now card #213 from 2020: