Blue Jays Reorg #700: 2016 Opening Day Devon Travis

If he ever can stay healthy for an extended period of time, he'll definitely show that the Jays won the trade that saw Devon come from Detroit for Anthony Gose.  Gose has been converted to a pitcher and is in Rookie ball in Florida for the Tigers.

Devon's latest injury?  Knee cartilage surgery.  He's been out just over 2 months, and his timetable to return is by the end of August.  He's a better player all around than any of the substitutes the Jays have marched out to 2nd base during his absence (Goins, Barney, Refsnyder) and if they've gained any ground in the Wild Card race by the time he gets back, he might help them make a push for another post season birth.

The card really is true, Devon could be a future star for the Jays.  He grew up about a 30 minute drive north of where I live, in West Palm Beach, FL.  Devon then played college ball at Florida State before being drafted in the 13th rd by the Tigers in 2012. 

His first two seasons in Toronto were also injury plagued, but hitting over .300 in his limited time gave Jays fans some hope that Devon will be the answer at 2nd base for years to come.

Thanks for reading, Robert

A rant even though the Jays won

I don't make it a habit of commenting on current sporting events when writing this blog.  I like to keep it about the cards as much as possible.  But while sorting through my Blue Jays box this evening I came across this card from '16 Opening Day.

In one of the most thrilling games I've watched in the new millennium, the Jays pulled off a 5-2 win over the Orioles last night in the AL Wild Card game.   Seeing Edwin Encarnacion run around the bases with his imaginary parrot along for the ride brought a smile to my face that I hadn't felt since last year's playoffs.

However, I do want to address one thing that happened last night, and that was the beer that was thrown onto the field late in the game by a fan at Orioles left fielder Hyun Soo Kim.

Was it a shameful and deplorable act?  You better believe it.  I still can't believe that stadiums sell cans of beer that can easily become instant projectiles.

Should the guy be charged?  You better believe it.  It's assault.

Should Toronto fans be lumped together with the one last night, along with the crazies that did similar shit last year?  No.  Because 99.9 % of sports fans in Toronto are caring, decent people that wouldn't think of trying stupid crap like what transpired last night.

Yes, I'm biased.  I'm from Toronto.  I've been to the SkyDome during the AL Playoffs, and the fans can blow the roof off the place given the chance.  The atmosphere is beyond belief.  The passion is incredible.

But I think it's high time that teams, especially the Blue Jays, step up security during the playoffs.  The frenzy that surrounds these games is so intense, it causes certain people to snap.  This has been magnified the last couple of years in Toronto, because the city is starved for another major championship, something that hasn't happened since '93.   I know this because I'm starving along with everyone else in Toronto, even though I'm about as far south as you can get in the contiguous 48 states.

So the next time you go to trash a country because of the actions of a few, remember that the majority of fans that cheer the blue and white teams from T.O. are people like me.  Crazy fanatics that enjoy seeing their team win.  Without launching projectiles.  Remember, this could happen at any stadium, at any time.   

Because nowadays, you just never know.

Bring on the Rangers!

thanks for reading, Robert

Double digits is fine with me

I just happened to read Night Owl's post about the writing doldrums from yesterday, and it reminded me of part of the reason I don't write as much as I used to.

I just don't have the push to sit down and write longer blog posts like I used to.

I've been off the past 3 days this week, and this is the only post I'm going to write during that time.  My how times have changed.

I actually fired off a few tweets on Monday, including the Jose Bautista bat flip card that I pulled 2x from Opening Day packs I bought at Target.  What I enjoyed the most about the tweet was that I had 4 offers for the flagship Bautista card (even though I already had it) from that single tweet.  It appears that the card community on twitter is just a great as the one I've dealt with for nearly 5 years in the blog world!!

I also tweeted about the blue parallels from Opening Day.   To save characters I should have tweeted this:

Blue Parallel> Gold Parallel #parallelcrazy

I really do like the blue parallels in Opening Day.  I found that they were easier to spot than the golds from flagship.  The Pineda above is heading to The Lost Collector once I round up a few more Yankees cards to send his way. 

I also have the Stephen Strasburg blue parallel if anyone is interested.

I also tweeted about the mascot cards, nothing special really, but I got a re-tweet from Beckett, which was very surprising.  These are available by the way if anyone needs/wants them.

What I've ended up doing with this post is turning a minor post about 2016 Opening Day cards into a post about my lack of blogging over the past several months.

I'm happy with posting 10-15 times during a calendar month now.  I'm not putting pressure on myself to be creative like I used to.  My player PC blog is becoming a very good outlet at churning out posts.  3-4 lines about the card, or the player, or the value of the card is much easier and less time consuming.  With my PCs now approaching 1000 cards total, posting one card a day over there is going to keep me busy for quite a while. 

Maybe one day I'll get back to writing something of reasonable quality on this blog.  But right now, double digits is fine with me every month. 

thanks for reading, Robert