Off-Season Projects Are Keeping Me Busy

I got a call over the weekend from a great teammate and friend asking me for a new blog post. I got to thinking and realized it’s somehow been six weeks since my last one. Whoa! That’s a long time between hellos! So what have I been up to? I’ve been weathering this annual period of time with no games by attending to a number of baseball-related projects and activities. Here are just a few of them: 

As my regular readers know, earlier this season I loaded up on 2012 Topps Heritage baseball card packs. The Heritage issue utilizes different card formats from the past. The 2012 set shows current players appearing on cards using the 1963 Topps design. The packs contain a variety of inserts including autographed cards, reverse-images, stickers, glossies, limited additions and many other cards that keep collectors busy, or dizzy, depending on which side of  the argument you’re on.
One such insert card fell into my possession while I was opening up a number of packs not too long ago. It’s a Lenny Green card that was issued in 1963, when he played, purchased by Topps from the secondary card market, stamped with a 50th anniversary seal. placed in a 2012 Topps Heritage pack and released to the card-purchasing public, just as it has been back in 1963. That’s the journey taken by the Lenny Green card that appears here. My mission? I want to give this card to Mr. Green.

My first effort is to go through the Minnesota Twins, one of the teams he played for back in the day. I’ve already made a call to the Twins offices and have in hand the name of an individual in their Community Relations Department. I’ll follow up on this in short order and will update you on this endeavor in a later post.

Another prominent off-season activity involves the trading of baseball cards. I have discovered numerous baseball-card blogs whose owners add to their collections the old fashion way, through swaps. Most of them have want lists for their readers to review. I started doing so and found I had a lot of what they were looking for, so I dove right in and started trading. It’s fun, enables me to connect with other baseball-card collectors, helps me find cards I’m looking for and gives me the satisfaction of knowing that I am helping other collectors. Thanks to these gentlemen, my 2012 Topps Heritage 500-card base set is now only four short-print cards away from completion.

Then somewhere along the line I found a baseball-card trading group on Facebook. In the photo section each members places albums of cards for trade. I’ve found team collectors who want any card of players from their team and will send you cards of your team’s players in exchange. As a result, my Mets and Giants team sections are bulging. Because I have been proven to be a fair trader, sending along near mint to mint condition cards in plastic cases to ensure no damage in shipping, other collectors have been adding me to their groups. I am now a proud member of Baseball Cards Only, Baseball Card Trading & Auction Spot, Joshua’s & guy’s hobbie shop and Baseball Cards Rule. I have a feeling this list will continue to grow.

Yet another activity has me connecting with artists whose work includes baseball. I have met Nidhi Chanani, the talented and charming Bay-Area artist who painted the whimsical number you see to the left. I love the young couple who seem to be celebrating both a positive development on the field and the affection they have for each other as they enjoy the experience of watching a game at AT+T Park, the beautiful ball park by the bay.

There’s one more project I’ve launched, but I’ll keep that one in my back pocket for now. I won’t wait too long however, because now that I’m back in the game, I’m remembering how much I enjoy being a baseball blogger.