Defining moments

The 2016 season is Toronto's 40th.  I am looking forward to this season more than I have any other in probably the past two decades.  Why you ask?

Because the city of Toronto, and Jays fans everywhere are going to find out if this team is really a contender, or a pretender.

Now, I've watched a lot of those games over the 40 years and I would say that there are a lot of defining moments that this franchise has had.   Good and bad.  

Carter's home run to win the '93 World Series.

Dave Stieb's no hitter.

The '85 AL East championship. (the first is always the sweetest)

Then there's this..

A bat flip for the ages.  I don't know if you could even really call it a flip, as Jose more or less threw the bat aside.  But that moment, in the bottom of the same inning that the Jays fell behind because of Russell Martin's errant throw, Jose hit a monster home run that sent the Dome into a frenzy.

Defining moment?  Indeed.

Which is why I had no problem buying 5 of these at once to make sure I had them for my Jays collection and for my series 1 set.  This card would look great enlarged on my wall once I buy a house and get settled in.

I have a couple of extra copies, anyone need one?

thanks for reading, Robert

Just can't keep my trade partners straight

Last night when posting about the Blue Jays I received from Jon at the A Penny Sleeve for your thoughts blog, I mistakenly identified him as John from the Johnny's Trading Spot blog.  I guess this is what happens when you have multiple trade partners at one time, something that has been a rarity for this blogger for quite a while.  I honestly couldn't tell you when the last time I sent out 9 envelopes in a month.

No matter, these two envelopes were both great in their own ways, and John's had a nice selection of cards for my player PCs.

After removing the dupes, I was left with 4 Sakic's to add to the collection.

The card that elicited a chuckle from me is the 93-94 Parkhurst East West stars card in the upper left corner.  I laughed because I had recently bought the card on COMC.com, but fortunately I hadn't had the card shipped to me as of yet, so I promptly put it back up on the site for sale.  I was surprised that I didn't have the 92-93 bloodlines card of Joe and his brother Brian in the binder.  No worries there anymore...

Another card in the pile that I couldn't believe I didn't own was the '94 Collectors Choice silver signature that you see in the upper left corner of this scan.  The '96 Score photo on the upper right is another good one, it features Thome sitting around the batting cage on a bucket. 

My favorite of the whole envelope was right on top.  The Christie Brinkley collection card of Thome on the top right features him with a pair of boxing gloves, which I didn't get at first until I read the back.

Now I'm sure that Pinnacle has a valid point when they say that Thome's great slugging percentage helps pack a punch to that awesome Tribe lineup.   But don't you guys think that the gloves should represent the fact that Christie is a knockout?
 











Maybe it's just me...

Thank you for the cards John, they are greatly appreciated!

thanks for reading, Robert

A couple of penny sleeves worth of Blue Jays

A couple of mailers came in today with varying degrees of greatness.  The best part about both of them is they came from new trading partners.  It's always great to get some cards from some new people from the blogosphere.

Jon from a Penny Sleeve for your thoughts asked last week (maybe longer ago than that..) about the pair of buyback cards I pulled from the series 1 box from this year.  I was all too happy to send those to him, and in return he sent me a PWE with a nice helping of Blue Jays.

How about knocking off one entire set from my Blue Jays want list!  The 1983 Topps stickers set is suddenly gone thanks to Jon; these 8 stickers are in the books.  The one that made me look twice is in the lower right; the Jesse Barfield sticker photo almost doesn't look like him.  I was also very shocked a while ago when Jesse followed me on twitter (@JesseBarfield29).  I don't make it a habit of following a lot of pro athletes, so when Jesse followed me out of the blue, I quickly followed back.

The other penny sleeve in the envelope contained this '99 Black Diamond double diamond Roger Clemens card.  I had to look at the Blue Jays have list, because I didn't remember seeing any of these before today.  Sure enough, this is the first black diamond card I have.  Makes sense since there are only 2 Blue Jays featured in the set (Jose Cruz Jr. is the other).

For just a few pennies, some great cards made their way here.  Who says a penny can't get you anything anymore?

Thank you Jon!  The cards were greatly appreciated.

thanks for reading, Robert

Keep your eyes on your eyes

My days are spent in front of computers.  8 hours a day at work, and on days I'm blogging probably another 2-3 at home.  That's a lot of strain on the eyes.

The last two to three months, I've really had the desire to blog, but once I've sat down in front of the monitor in the evenings, I could feel the tiredness in my eyes.  The right one especially (which I can feel right now while I'm typing this), just hasn't been the same over the past few months.

One of the challenges of moving has been finding doctors that I like.  Today, I hit the eye doctor (who looks a lot like Bob Saget) and he told me flat out "I don't know how you've been managing lately".

My eyesight has really deteriorated, and my right eye is developing a cataract.  That diagnosis really explained a lot for me.  It's time to take better care of my eyes.

No more waiting 2 years for eye exams.  If I feel I'm tired in the evening, I'm not going to force myself in front of the computer to type. 

I can't afford to miss items like this when they come along. 

I'm also hoping that the cataract doesn't develop further to the point where I require surgery.  Maybe managing my time in front of the computer and protecting my eyes better while I'm in the sun will help that as well.

Yep, a little bit of a scare for my Saturday morning, but I'm better off now that I know what's going on.

Maybe it will help improve my blogging.....

thanks for reading, Robert