Out with 2025 and onto 2026

GOALS 

I don't think I assigned myself any blogging/collecting goals last year other than to keep posting. And while I didn't post a lot, I did keep posting, so I'll grade myself an A- there. I hit my quota of 12 posts on the 1991 MusiCards blog (though I did miss one month and had to double up later). A couple late NYE posts got Baseball Card Breakdown up to my goal of 37 posts for 2025, one more than 2024, and two better than 2023's all-time low of 35. So my goal for 2026 is 38+ posts to keep trending upwards here and another dozen on the MusiCards blog, adding up to a nice round 50 post goal for the year. If you're reading this, then I've got 49 to go! ha.

-   -  -o

WALLET CARD

2025's wallet card didn't see much action. This was my first year using an Upper Deck card (wait no, I used a Masterpieces card before, but that doesn't count), and as I suspected, it didn't really wear down in a very interesting way thanks to the glossy/UV stock keeping it together for the most part.

 
I think the only trips I took out of town in 2025 were coincidentally a couple flights to Kentucky midyear. First to Bowling Green (above) for a funeral on my wife's side, then to Versailles for a wedding on my side of the family.

I tried to take a wallet card photo among the fireflies in action on the evening of the reception (fun times), but none of the pictures really came out, so here's a water tower instead. But yeah, other than that, I didn't think to take many wallet card photos last year.

I'm going with 1986 Donruss for my 2026 wallet card. While not a favorite set of mine, it doesn't bug me as much as it does Night Owl. I remember ripping my share these cards (actually the Leaf version) back in the early 90s because my childhood LCS had an old box with packs at a decent price. Figured I'd celebrate the design's 40th anniversary with a wallet card nod. And as far as junk-era Gwynn cards go, it features one of the more unique photos, with Tony taking a knee on deck.

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CHRISTMAS WRAP

Gone are the days I'd ask for new boxes of cards for Christmas and my birthday, but I still received gifts that could fit in the scope of this blog.

My mother-in-law surprised me with a cool Petco Park framed print.

Hard to get good photos of it thanks to the reflection on the glass, but you get the idea.

Nice to get more San Diego love on my walls.

Also received a $50 ebay giftcard from the in-laws, which will of course most likely go towards cards.

Technically speaking, I did get cards for Christmas/my birthday. While not an official/wrapped gift, my wife's brother's wife was kind enough to ask if I had any interest in a stack of cards they got from a local pizza joint.. I guess the place sells repacks for a buck at the counter or gives them away with certain orders or something. I'd never turn down free mystery cards, even knowing they're probably just junk, and indeed I found a few cards I could use.

A few 2025 Topps cards mixed in with the older stuff.

I've always been kinda fascinated by Fleer's dual rookie cards, even when neither dude really goes on to do much.

Several of the cards were in rough shape and, gasp, I tossed a few damaged junk commons in the recycling, but figured I might be able to salvage the Grace and surface-dented Brett appearance by cardart methods at some point.

So yeah, thanks to my sis-in-law for the cards. One year I gave her a few random Oregon Ducks cards because she's a big fan of that football squad, so now I feel like I've officially "exchanged cards" with a family member. Neat.

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ANIMAL LOVERS CORNER 

I haven't posted much cute animal content in a while. Still seeing neighborhood bunnies occasionally. At one point last year I saw a coyote during the day while walking my dog near the golf course! Also had some coopers hawks in the area for a few weeks over the summer. Needless to say the rodent population was booming over the summer too, but let's not get into that unpleasantness (I lost count of how many dead critters I disposed of in 2025, but I'm sure it was my all-time high. So gross.)

I also recently decided to start up the hummingbird feeder again after a couple years break. Yeah, I had seen a couple tiny young hummers buzzing around my front lilac lavender in November or so, and figured I'd try to help them out. Lucky for me, one little guy quickly took to it and set up homebase in a close by bush where I have a great view of him from my living room window. So even if I don't catch him at the feeder, I can often peep him in the bush five feet away, just being cute looking around, occasionally grooming, but mostly keeping watch over "his" feeder. It'll be tough getting through these next couple of cold months, but hopefully I can help the little guy make it to springtime.

Howbout some cute dog pictures to close out on? 

Ruby always has a blast at the holidays. 

Silly family tradition of decking the dog Christmas morning. Ruby takes it like a champ.

Five-and-a-half and still not much sign of slowing down. Blame her for me not blogging more, as she takes up a large chunk of my available time and energy.

But on the plus side, walking the dog is my main source of exercise these days, so I suppose she's trying to help keep me healthy and not sitting on my butt all day. Gah, that reminds me, I really need to schedule a colonoscopy this year. :(

Anyways, thanks for reading, folks!

Some photographs I've been meaning to post

I've given the reusable grocery bag full of cards from Rod a first pass, but still have another round or two of sorting before I snap pics of some highlights (lots of good stuff!), but in the meantime, here's a post of photos from the past couple months or so.

I know it's been a long time since Rod last dropped off cards on me.. because back in May he asked if I was going to be around one weekend to receive some cards, but sadly that was the weekend I was out at the coast for a family getaway. And it wasn't until just recently that Rod was finally able to swing by again, and so it was a glorious card-show-comes-to-me type extravaganza several months in the making. But anyways, back in May, I was a little upset with myself that I forgot to take my customary beach photo of my wallet card being dipped into the Pacific Ocean, but at least I grabbed this shot with the water in the background as we were starting the drive home.

Now here's some cute wildlife photography, mostly bunnies and my dog..

This bird spent a few minutes in my Mark Fidrych Memorial Bird Feeder recently, and seemed to really be giving a thoughtful look to the faded '77 Fidrych rookie that graces the feeder, and I had to try grabbing a photo.

I wore my Card Belt the other day, not to brag. :) They're all the rage, with a player wearing one during All-Star Game festivities or something. (Thanks again, Bob!)

The annual free concert in our neighborhood park was a good one this year, with local cover band Covered Structure performing for a solid turnout. I only caught a few songs during a dog walk, but they sounded great. Highlights included "elderly woman behind the counter in a small town" by Pearl Jam and the Fleetwood Mac favorite "Dreams".

Our neighbors across from our backyard aren't coming back, and so an estate sale was held at their house. I didn't go the first 2 days, but I stopped in on the last day. The final-day deal was $20 for whatever you could fit into a paper grocery bag. I got a nice bag full of stuff I can use. No cards/sports stuff, but some crafty stuff that I have cardart plans for. Also some other household stuff and yard stuff and a hanging shelf thing. I grabbed some tea and kitchen stuff, too, along with snapping this above pic. It was cool to see the inside of a house I see the outside of everyday (and to see my house from a new perspective). What's odd is we rarely saw the elderly couple who lived there. They seemed nice enough the rare times we noticed them about, but it must've been a seldom-used second home for them or something. I gotta admit it was nice having a mostly-empty neighboring house. Hopefully whoever moves in there next is cool and quiet. 

Speaking of old people dying, let's squeeze in at least one card photo before ending the post. Sad about Bob Newhart passing, but like I said recently about Willie Mays, I think he got the most out of life that one can get. Score the man a 10/10 in life fullness, right? A few years back (back at the old house) I was hankering a certified autograph of Bob the comedy legend, and ended up settling for this reasonably priced check cut-auto from Leaf with the intention of making a custom overlay for it, though I haven't gotten around to that yet, so here it is with a sparkly background to help it out instead for now. RIP, Mr. Newhart.

Welp, back to sorting the cards from Rod. Thanks for reading!

A Completed Page of Wallet Cards

I'll nearly always "like" any social media post that pops up in my feed with the #walletcard hashtag. I love to see meaningful cards out there playing an active part in someone's life. 

I still think of myself as "the wallet card guy", but nearly a decade on, I realize I'm probably alone there and most people today don't make the association anymore. Sure guys were putting cards in their wallets since the tobacco card days, with the most famous example being Bob Costas doing so with a certain Mickey Mantle, but for what it's worth, the "wallet card craze" wasn't a thing in the modern hobby until my post on January 2, 2015, which took off further thanks to attention on social media and was really buzzing for a hot minute there. I had made it into a contest those first two or three years, sending out heavy-hitting cards as prizes to the Junior Junkie and Bo Rosny, but I don't try assume any "authority" over the concept anymore. 

But yeah, I still keep a card in my wallet and am happy to see other people doing so, too. 

It's now been 9 years for me having an annual wallet card. You know what that means: Completed page!

Looks great, fuzzy corners and all!

Tony Gwynn's 1987 Fleer was my co-pilot for 2023, and while it didn't get into a ton of adventures, it does have the distinction of being my first international wallet card, accompanying my wife and I to Greece this past September. I'll go ahead and post some photo "outtakes" that weren't good enough to be included in my big Trip to Greece post recapping the vacation, but are fine for this walletcard-centric post:

lol, I was trying to center the card.

Good times!

As for 2024, welp, I'm back with a 10th wallet card. I decided to stick with Mr. Padre, why not.

What the heck, guess I'm going for a second page!

That'll do it for today.
Are you carrying a wallet card these days?

Trip to Greece

My wife and I went to Greece last month. My original "live journaling" draft of this post was really just a bunch of complaining leading up to the trip-- hey, I'm a homebody who doesn't like to leave the house if I can help it-- but it turned out to be a very nice vacation so I'm going to delete the intro bitching and just share some pictures I took. A few incoming baseball cards are at the end, too.

We made it to Athens after a super long day of traveling-- basically a "double stuff'd" day for us flying into tomorrow. We stayed in a small, but nice enough room in the city. Lots of honking during the day, but walking distance to historic Greek sites like the above pic.

After 3 days in Athens, we took a ferry over to the island of Naxos. This cat, the apparent reincarnation of Hitler, gave me an inauspicious greeting, violently regurgitating moments after this photo was taken. But overall, the feral kitties were cool and my wife tried to befriend them all. 

After I die of probably a heart attack in a few years, I totally expect her to promptly enter "crazy cat lady" territory. (Only reason we don't have a cat is I'm allergict [sic]).

Had really nice beach day in Naxos. Hell, I even popped off my shirt and ventured out a bit. (No sunburns for me for the trip, thankfully, though my wife did get a little too much sun one day.)

Gorgeous sunset viewing from the roof of our hotel in Naxos.

Naxos was my wife's favorite of our vacation's 3 or 4 legs. The only thing that ruined it for me was an annoying barking dog who lived across the way who did no favors to our already-wacked sleep schedule.

One day we took a bus tour up into the hills to check out some more sights. It was a hot one, nearly 90 degrees American. Got some awesome caramel ice cream in a small town, checked out an ancient olive oil pressing place, watched some pottery get made, hit another nice beach. Another highlight was seeing a couple donkeys hanging out. I mean, I know there are donkeys back in the states, but still..

Just a little off-center on the wallet card photo with this Naxos landmark known as Apollo Temple's entrance (Portara).

Of course I gotta do the traditional dipping-of-the-wallet-card in any body of water I encounter in my travels. Aegean Sea here.

After that we took another ferry over to Santorini, another Greek island.

Our place in Santorini had a personal hot tub in the back balcony. That was pretty swanky. Wallet card Tony didn't get dipped, but makes an appearance nonetheless.

Perhaps my favorite moment of the trip, I was just getting out after a soak, looking up at the skyline of illuminated church towers when all of a sudden everything flickered and went dark. Cool, surreal moment.

The power came back on after an hour or so. We had some downloaded Simpsons episodes on a iPad to help wait out the outage. Then later in the wee hours of the morning, my bad luck with neighbors disrupting peaceful sleep continued yet again, when the occupants of the room next door cranked up loud music for a while. groan.

My wife is more of the food photographer, occasionally snapping pics before we'd dig in, but the one food I photographed was this calzone I got for lunch one day. I'll keep fond memories in my heart for years to come of "the terrific calzoné I had back in the old country." Sure, that might be more of an Italian thing, but whatever. Had some nice baklava, too, and a little ouzo. Did I mention the winery tour in Santorini? That was a lot of fun. Chatted with some fellow American couples there via cruise. They had to rush back to the ship after the last stop, but lucky for us, our hotel was a 5 minute walk up the road so we were able to hang back and take our time.

Here's one last beach pic from when we were killing time on our last day in Santorini before a short flight back to Athens where we spent one last night in Greece in a weird airbnb type place (I was expecting a standard hotel room, but it was more like somebody's house who wasn't there) that only had one little trash can (in the bathroom)-- Oh yeah, one crazy thing about Greece is the plumbing isn't great so people don't flush their TP but rather throw it away. God bless the U.S.A!

Then the next morning we took a crazy taxi ride to the airport-- and btw, I'm really glad we didn't end up renting a car because the roads are often insane. Big old flight back to DC then a short layover and a big flight back to Portland. That must have literally been the longest day of my life, packing several hours onto the standard 24.

Now I've been home over a week and finally back to a decent sleep schedule. Honestly I'm fine not traveling again for the rest of my life other than the occasional trip to Hawaii (and we'll probably hit Canada at some point since I've got a passport now and it's not too far), but maybe my wife'll be able to talk me into another overseas vacation one of these years.

-  - --o

Now let's squeeze in some incoming cards.

I got a nice PWE from gcrl shortly before my trip that I wasn't able to mention yet. Here we've got some vintage set needs for me plus a pink mini Ryan Helsley RC which is of interest to me because...

it's a Christmas Card!

Great stuff.. thank you, my friend! I hope my return was sufficient. (I really need to build up my trade fodder).

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When I came home, I didn't have too much of a "mailhold mailday" bonanza to dive into, but I think I received a couple small eBay pickups and one box from Best Bubble Bob which was pretty neat.

Thanks to this lot of 1992 Leaf Black Gold, I've passed 75% complete with my parallel setbuild. I've never been much of a binder guy, but I might have to page up the set eventually. Damn near every card is a work of art in that black and gold frame.

Bob knows the Four G's to my heart/collection-- Gwynns, girls, glow-in-the-darks, and Gavins.

Even a miscut Pee-Wee card. I've ripped a lot of this 1988 set and can't recall seeing one so off center, making it a great addition to my "super OCD master set" of this product where any excuse to consider a card "unique" works.

Uncut magazine cards! Lots of good ones here. Tempted to cut this into separate cards.

Finally, a sealed San Diego Chicken board game from the early 80s. That'll kick my little PC of the legendary mascot up a notch!

If I had kids (or if there were cards in it), I'd be tempted to open it up and give it a go, but as it stands I'll plan to leave it in "collectable" condition.

pic from eBay

The star of the game are the little rubber chickens, which I had to find a picture of for curiosity's sake.

Thank you, Bob! I was already in your debt and now I'll really need to work up a respectable return soon.

That'll wrap up this long post. Thanks for reading!