Moving On

The labor situation in baseball has been depressing this week.  However, it is even more depressing locally when you consider that we are probably not going to get Minor League baseball this summer.  North Carolina does not have a Major League team, but we do have a whole bunch of Minor League teams, including several that are within an hour of my house. 

I am all about keeping people at home, and staying safe.  Still frustrating not to have baseball. 

This week was my first time off of work since January.  It was a weird school year working from home, but I have been on roughly the same year round school since 2006.  You really get used to the schedule.  Every year for the past fourteen years, I have worked the last week of January, all of February and March, and had a vacation sometime around the first week of April. 

I have been slowly recovering from the change in schedule.  I did not hand write any posts this week.  I turned my computer on, but I also managed to get outside and enjoy some fresh air.  I ended up putting in over 40 miles of walking around my little corner of central North Carolina. 

I also did a bunch of work with my cards this week.  I have really wanted to do a post about sorting cards and organizing for more than a month, and I am finally going to get to that this week.  Somewhere in there I also picked up a few new cards.  Seems to have slowed to a trickle in recent months.  I was excited to see someone on Twitter unloading a card of one of my favorite recent Durham Bulls players.  

I had to grab this one.  

This is from the Diamond Kings set in 2018.  That little logo in the top right corner did not immediately register with me when I first saw the card.  I guess Panini is trying to fancy things up. 

I went through an Anthony Banda phase two years ago.  The Rays got him in a trade for Steven Souza, and he spent part of 2018 pitching in Durham.  He did not pitch much last year, and ended up having Tommy John surgery.  Hard throwing left handed pitcher, misses a lot of bats.  Hopefully, whenever we get to watch live baseball again, I will get to see Banda pitching for the Rays. 

The serial number is hard to read, but it is 02/15.  Nice patch piece on the side too. 

Back of the card. 

Love the phrase "player-used material" in the small print underneath his height and weight.

The person who sold me the card also sent me some bonus cards of Banda and Paul Goldschmidt. 

It was nice to move on from the school year and spend a little more time with my baseball card this week.  The best part is that I have another month and a half off before I have to go back to work.