Some Cards In The Mail

*sits down, coffee in hand to get ready for a long-winded start to this post*

*takes a sip*

It's been a busy month since I joined the world of coaching, so I haven't had much time to catch up on a lot of posts and there are actually some cards sitting in my drafts.

Not that life wasn't already busy before that.

Now I just add extra cups of coffee to my daily regimen.

But it's been a blast coaching this group of girls and we recently added another person. There are now 17 girls, 3 coaches, 2 hours of practice a week and only 5 of those girls have any experience playing basketball. It's probably why they needed another person to join, and I still feel it's hard to jam everything in that needs to be taught. So far, we have only one play in the playbook and our first game is two weeks from today. With the team being so large, we had to split the team in half to create two game day teams (we still practice together as one team) and guess who the game day head coach for one of those teams is, yes, you are reading his writing. 

But don't call me Phil Jackson quite yet. These are just 3rd/4th graders. We are just there to teach the basics and to have fun. Winning isn't the top thing, even though I am a very competitive person.

*takes a competitive sip. yes, I am competing against your sip*

As for regular life, I mentioned I had my yearly doctor appointment in one of my last posts and wanted to leave an update on that. My blood work mostly looked good, and a quick assessment was fine, but my A1C went back up to 6.3 and I can only contribute it to the 12 pounds I have put on since July. 

Everyone knows I have had a rough year, and eating was obviously for stress. It's been extremely tough trying to lose the weight again even with daily exercise, so I asked the doctor for a little help for the first time in my life. I tried to get put onto one of those weekly shots to help with weight loss and wanted just to be on it for six months to get me some momentum again. But, with health insurance companies being health insurance companies, they wouldn't pay for it so that plan went out the door. They refuse to pay for any weight loss help unless I have diabetes. It sounds a little backwards to me, why wouldn't they want to help prevent me from getting diabetes first? With all of my health problems that worsen with weight gain and the fact diabetes runs on both sides of my family, I really could have used the extra help.

I did finally get put on a pill that treats my A1C that has a little underlying weight loss tie in, but not sure how successful it will be overall. Hopefully some help at least.

Now that I have rambled on about the past month, I am sure you are ready to read something about cards. The reason you came here.

Besides giving yourself an excuse to drink coffee.

*takes a sip*

The following cards were all separate mail days I received.

 

For some reason, I felt the need to add this card even though I know Devito will probably never start another game again with his struggles this season.

 

I added the relic because I didn't have one of him yet. I try to add an autograph and relic card of every Giants player I can.

Shiny new Griffeys are always welcomed! Stadium Club has a few Griffeys I would love to add this year.

 

Future Giants QB? Maybe? Will be interesting to see how this upcoming draft goes. I still see them drafting a QB this upcoming draft. But who knows. Everything with the Giants is up in the air.

And that does it for this random mix of cards.

*takes final sip before ending today's post*

I have been posting more recently despite the busy life, but that's only because I am doing it the night before. This won't last forever as I am brushing off the actual art of collecting cards by blogging instead since my time is very limited. I also am skipping out on my occasional relaxing video game doing this.

Hopefully can find a better balance in life to do everything. It's probably why I am still considering retiring in May from blogging.  I will see how things go until then.

Anyways, two days til Christmas! Who's excited?!?!?

I am!

Have a great Monday!

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Coffee Break:2021 Donruss Baseball Blaster Box #1

2021 Donruss Baseball Blaster Box

88 Cards Per Box

11 Holo Purple Per Blaster

5 Rapture Parallels Per Blaster

$19.99 Per Blaster

Summary:Donruss comes hard hitting with shiny inserts and parallels once again. I know the logos don't exist but I am huge fan regardless especially of the inserts and this years Unleashed.

The base set consists of 262 cards which is base, Diamond Kings, Rated Rookies and 1987 Redux. 

There are also multitude of parallels to find, which many you will find in a blaster box. These include, Holo Blue, Holo Orange, Holo Pink, Holo Purple, Holo Red, Independence Day, Liberty, Red /2021, Career Stat Line /500 or less, Season Stat Line /400, One Hundred /100, On Fire /75, Presidential Collection /50, Mask Emoji /19, Artist Proof /10, Press Proof /5, Number One 1/1, and Printing Plates 1/1.

Donruss also brings back plenty of past insert themes along with new ones in 2021 along with a powerful lineup of hits with autographs from Sammy Sosa to relic cards of Babe Ruth.

Here are the key cards I found in this break:

 

 

The New Mentality

*brews his cup of coffee, pours the last little bit of Peppermint Mocha creamer that's in the bottle and decides that's probably it for the Christmas season on that.*

  

The New Mentality in the hobby is spreading and spreading fast.

When I got my father back into the hobby three years ago, he was all about adding cards to his collection and opening packs for the thrill of the chase. 

Then 2020 hit and he caught The New Mentality.

He started to see how others were making big time money off from retail flips and decided to dip his feet in. That's the starting point of The New Mentality. First it was a fat pack. Then a blaster. Then a blaster and a hanger. And then he started to do the thing I hate most, clearing off most of the shelves of products and even attempting to flip the unflippable products like Score. It had gotten so bad where he wouldn't even tell me what products were on the shelves when I texted for him to pick me up something. He preferred to flip it for more than have me be able to open some. 

That was a painful realization.

The New Mentality is an ugly disease in the hobby. It's when greed and money means more than card collecting. It's all about the money and not about the fun. I believe the only cure for people who have caught The New Mentality is to show them how to have fun collecting again.

I am currently working on that with my father. It's a slow, slow cure especially if someone has had that mentality for awhile.

*takes a sip of coffee while game planning the next part of my cure*

Before The New Mentality fully hit him, I was able to land myself one more blaster box from him in trade. It wasn't the hottest product on the shelf but it was better than nothing at the time.

*takes a sip, begins to rip*

In every blaster box of 2020 Panini Optic baseball, there are 27 cards. There are 6 packs of 4 cards of Optic then an extra 3 card pack of Pink parallels. Each blaster is $20 unless you are buying from a flipper.

There wasn't much in terms of names of note for base, so I will skip to the rookies which I was impressed with. There was almost two in every pack which seems odd to me. Feels like the last time I ripped Optic on here there was maybe a couple total. 

Even found a Gavin Lux Rated Rookie. He's no Luis Robert in terms of value, but maybe down the road he will be.

*takes a sip happy at what I have seen already*

 

Now onto the shiny stuff and inserts

Nelson Cruz Silver

Inserts of Illusions with Trevor Story, The Rookies AJ Puk and Stained Glass with Ketel Marte

This Lindor was my favorite designed insert of the group, Mythical.

*takes another sip before another rip*

Now onto the bonus Pink Pack Parallels.

Each of these have three cards. Could be insert parallels, subsets or base. It's all a surprise.

Andres Munoz. Not sure who this is.

Acuna! 

Hiura

Not too bad at all!

*finishes up cup of coffee with the remaining Peppermint Mocha creamer, now back to Hazelnut for the next cup and to finish up this post*

Remember above where I mentioned the spread of The New Mentality is fast, since my father started doing that, others around the area caught it. They have the disease much more than my father does as they follow the vendor store to store to store taking all they can and leaving the scraps. Scraps are known as Hockey cards. This has helped me out some in trying to fix my father's catch of The New Mentality. He isn't getting the opportunities as much to flip anymore and I have been trying to take advantage of that and remind him how great the hobby is just collecting again.

And believe me, collecting is great. So isn't coffee.

Before I close, I wanted to give you some insight on what to look for when you or someone else you know has caught The New Mentality.

Here are the signs to look for to know if you or someone you know has caught it, it's as simple as one, two, three.

1. Buys a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found
2. Looks up value online to see what it goes for.
3. Flips it.

It will be pretty obvious when you have or someone you knows does.

How do you know if you are cured or don't have it? Well, that's as simple as one, two, three as well.

1. Buy a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found.
2. Barely make it to the car before ripping it. It's okay to rip it just outside the Walmart or Target door. We all have been there.
3. Enjoys the cards that were opened.

I hope this helps. If you or someone you know has caught The New Mentality, remember to remind them why they got into collecting in the first place. It may or may not work but it's worth a try.