Junk Wax Jay: Odds'n'Ends

I haven’t been buying much in the way of cards lately.

That’s an odd thing to write the week of the National.

And it’s not a retreat from The Hobby.

Man, life just keeps getting in the way.

On Monday, July 3^rd, my mother-in-law died. She was in the hospital with pneumonia. In all honesty, she hasn’t been good snice my father-in-law died in March of 2021. Just a lot of trips to the hospital. The hope was that she’d finally consent to move to Florida with her eldest daughter. My wife was flying up on the 4^th to help take care of her mother, and try and convince her to move.

But then the 3^rd happened.

As an adult, you deal with a lot of shitty things. Waking up my wife and handing her a phone at six in the morning, so her sister could tell her that her mom was dead…that ranks up there with shitty things.

Then on the 7^th, I had a rat run into my office. Yes, a rat. At my job, we’ve been dealing with this fucker for weeks. Exterminators the whole nine yards. But then there he was at 3:15 PM racing toward me (most likely to his hole in the wall behind my desk). I’ve never jumped out of a chair so quickly in my life. My co-worker thought I was having a heart attack. To be honest, my office is a glorified closet. In the commotion, I ended up severely spraining my right foot. Could hardly walk on it for two days. And here on July 28^th (the time of this writing), it still kind of hurts.

But the rat is dead.

I have photographic proof.

I’ve also been trying to finish a novel.

It’s done.

It’s about baseball cards and Wiffle ball and dealing with middle-age.

It’s 374 pages long.

So…not much time to buy cards.

Enough about me…how are all of you?

But not buying cards doesn’t mean not doing anything with cards. I’ve been essentially doing two things with cards this month. One, I’ll mention in a post about a month of now.

The other is…well…this.

Yeah…it’s not just this year’s Heritage.

I’ve gone full throttle again.

I’ve been buying Heritage since 2019, building and then, out of frustration, dismantling each year’s set. It’s those damned short prints. This month I’ve been spending my time rebuilding the sets, reprinting the checklists, and spinning on the Heritage mouse wheel again. I’m playing the long game this time. While I’m actively buying 2023 Heritage, I’m slowly putting together 2021 and 2022 or, as I like to call them, the Heritage sets that don’t put marquee rookies and star cards in the short prints. 2019 and 2020…you’re going to have to wait.

And the cards that I did buy this month, reflect that dedication.

Okay…and I got this.

…but just because I LOVE it so.

With everything going on this month, the card Gods did decide to have some fun with me. The reason? Well, the Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Club are a back in last place. Not where they should be, but, thanks to inept coaching and a highly OVERRATED GM, that’s where they are. Anyone who squanders a 20-8 start belongs in last place. But along this hapless journey, I started going into my card boxes and pulling out the cards of this guy.

And this guy.

Full disclosure, I’ve been a Ji-Man Choi fan for years, and this year’s Heritage card might be my favorite card of the year, if only, because he’s in a Pirates uniform.

But I’ve come to greatly respect Carlos Santana if, for nothing else, his leadership (especially with the Latin players) on a team that had seen 11 players make their Major League debut this year.

I had some Santana cards in a Pirates uniform for my 2023 team sets, but I wanted them for an individual PC. So, with the same order that I bought the Heritage and the Henry Aaron, I got myself a couple of Santana Pirates cards.

They arrived on the 27^th.

The day Carlos Santana was traded by the Pirates to their goddamned division rival Milwaukee Brewers. For an 18-year-old who we’ll maybe see six or seven years down the line.

Look, I’m not fooling myself. The Pirates have been trad deadline sellers for the bulk of the 43 years that I’ve been a fan. But I was hoping with Carlos Santana, and Ji-Man Choi as well, that they keep these guys around, If, for nothing else, that they’d be a continued leadership presence for these kids us Pirates fans are betting the whole farm on.

But Santana is gone.

Choi is here…for now.

Or he won’t be by the time you read this.

And this guy will be the sole first baseman.