I Hate AI Suggestions, But...

 I hate that googie/computers/phones try to force feed AI to us. You should at least be able to opt in of you want it.  I have found a good use for some AI though, just not the forced upon kind. 

I use the AI picture search all the time for cards. While organizing my oddball sized Red Sox i has to figure out what this was.   

Turns out it is from Valentines Day 2002.  I got this on a blogger trade at some point.  I don't remember who sent it but I still had the post it stuck to it. 

I had these stamps in a sleeve but knowing what they were except for Boston Herald Stamps. 

AI gave me this:

1983 was exactly right, I was able to use that to find a checklist fit the team set.  I have 21 of the 50 stamps in the team set.  

My next project is going to use AI picture search a lot! I have s whole snap case of Red Sox stickers I've accumulated over the years.  They never have a year date on them so I just throw them all in the same box to figure out at a later date.  Well that's now. 

One 1968-1972 Fleer Sox down aa whole box more to search. 

Baseball Card Blog Interrupted

This post had been in the works for a few weeks because I've seen it coming for a while.  For the last month it's kind of felt inevitable but at the same time it's still pretty freaking unbelievable. 

No baseball cards today. I don't share really personal stuff very often.  Except for when I announced moving to Arizona I have never made a post without cards until today. Today is all about me and this post is going to be really long. 

I have never really thought of myself as having a weight problem.  I've been a bigger guy sure but I've never been a candidate for Biggest Looser or anything like that. When I would go to the doctor he would tell me everything looks good but you should lose some weight.  I considered myself fat but it's not like I wasn't getting sideways glances when getting on a ride at an amusement park or anything. I was just bigger, I would see dozens of me every day. 

In March my pants got feeling a little tight and it made me think I should probably make some changes that were not just buying bigger pants like the least half dozen times my pants got tightd, so I came up with a goal for myself.  (That goal has changed like five times over the last 7 months.)  My initial goal was to go down one pant size.  Not just make my tight pants not tight anymore but go down a whole size from 44 to 42.  It took me a month and a half but I dropped that pant size.  In that time I learned a lot, things about myself I didn't know.  

That first month and a half I took Ozempic (generic Ozempic) and with that I lost 30 pounds and dropped a pant size.  I was told that stopping the prescription I would gain most of that weight back, however I didn't because being on the medicine taught me the cheat code(s) that I needed.  The drug doesn't just make you loose weight, it makes you not hungry. That time of not being hungry all day every day was a real learning experience.  I could not have lost all this weight without learning those things about my self.  

I was addicted to food.  Headache - some food will make that feel better.  Stomach hurts - it probably just needs some food on it.  Can't fall asleep - a full stomach will help.  Tired - I probably should get a snack to keep me awake.  Food was my answer to just about any problem.  It's way deeper than that though.  On the meds I found myself getting up in the morning and eating breakfast even though I wasn't hungry.  Wake up get dressed and eat breakfast was so ingrained into me that I would robotically do it even when I wasn't even hungry.  Breakfast was just one of the things I instinctively did in the morning to get really for my day no different than brushing my teeth. 

The really big thing I learned and one of the hardest to overcome was learning to stop eating.  My whole life I was told finish your food.  No matter what I had to finish that plate every time, can't waste the food.  That in itself isn't so bad just put less on the plate to begin with, right?  Well not for me.  One, you can't at a restaurant, you get what they serve you and you have to eat it all, every bit of it.  I can't tell you how many times I was at dinner with someone and watched people ask for part of their food to go and just thinking, what is wrong with these people, how can they not finish their food?  Because it was every day worse than the restaurant was having a family and eating at home.  Not any of their faults, all my own.  We could finish eating dinner at home and there be two scoops of mac and cheese left that nobody wanted.  Well I couldn't let it go to waste, so even though I was full I would finish it off.  And there usually wasn't just some mac and cheese left, there was always a extra piece of chicken, or two, maybe even three and none of those could be wasted either.  

Finishing all the food was just the beginning of my not being able to stop eating problem.  When you stuff yourself full every meal your body eventually says, unless I'm stuffed I'm still hungry.  So I would eat every meal, three meals a day (sometimes four), seven days a week like it was Thanksgiving Dinner.  And then I would finish everyone else's food so it didn't go to waste.  Looking back, so stupid, but it was a part of me and I didn't even realize it was happening like that.  Of all the changes I made this was the hardest, don't listen to your stomach, eat one plate and stop.

Those were the cheat codes that I learned that first month.  I was told I was going to gain some of that weight back and I didn't want to so I implimented all those things I had learned about myself plus some other changes.  Salty snacks are my kryptonite.  Chips, crackers, pretzels, Chex-Mix (man I crush some Chex-Mix right now!) anything like that was my go to.  It was quick and fast to just grab out of the pantry, instant gratification.  That stopping eating when full thing always got me with snacks too, chips aren't really supposed so be a single serving size but they were for me.  So I got rid of all that kind of stuff and replaced it with nuts and dried fruits so I could still have my snack and still have my salty and it not be so carb heavy.  Once I stopped the meds I didn't gain any weight back like they said would happen I was actually still slowly losing weight for a while.  So I changed my goal, no more getting a pant size back I was gong to just keep going.  Everything was great for a bit and then I got stuck not losing anything for two weeks.    

Something had to change for me to lose any more.  I remembered taking a health class in school where they taught that to lose weight you just had to limit yourself to a certain amount of calories per day.  I went searching for that number and how I could do that and you know what I found out, just like everyting else they have an app for that.  You plug in what you weigh, you give it your goal and it tells you how many calories to limit yourself to so you can reach your goal.  Plus it tracks them for you.  So I started logging in my food.  All of it, meals, snacks, drinks everything.  You know what it was that was stopping me?  The kinds of foods I was eating.  Those nuts and dried fruit they had to go.  If I had a snack it had to be less that 100 calories.  Spagetti is my all time favorite food but pasta had to go. Once I started counting the calories the weight really starting coming off.  

This is the app I used. 

Then I hit that brick wall of life I posted about a few months earlier.  Everything was in chaos.  Things at work, things at home, everything was changing.  I needed something I could control, something that no matter what was happening around me I had something steady and constant.  That became my calorie count.  I couldn't control the people around me but I could control my calories.  It was my lifeline while my whole world changed around me.  So I changed my goal again. I was gong to get down to 190 pounds by October.

The calorie count was a huge difference maker.  I couldn't have done it without first learning my overeating tendencies but I wouldn't be here without counting calories either. I hit my 190 goal on August 19th. I was still counting calories and still loosing weight so I changed my goal again. I wouldn't change anything I was doing but I was now going to try and get down to 175.  I thought if I can get to 175 by Thanksgiving I'll give myself a cheat day because I haven't had one since June.  

That was October 13th.  I haven't weighed 175 since my early 20s.  I was down 90 pounds and Thanksgiving was still over a month away.   So of course I changed my goal again, 100 pounds by Thanksgiving.  And let me tell you those last ten were tough. There were a bunch of times I doubted I could make it.

I started my journey at 265 and today I hit 165. That initial goal of going down one pant size got blown out of the water. I went from a 44 waist to a 34 waist and lost 100 pounds. 

So what now? I'm done loosing weight but I'm still going to count calories so I'm changing the app settings from lose weight to maintan weight.  Thanksgiving will still be my first cheat day where i ignore calories but since my calorie count is 600 higher today than it has been in going to tray myself to an ice cream this evening. 

New Binder

My oversized cards have always been in disarray. They were stored mostly in my Red Sox card boxes laid under the lids and on top of the cards. I decided to do something about that. 

I started a new binder of just oversized cards. It is a work in progress because I don't have every size page that I need yet. 

This is a 1934 Butterfinger Premium R310, far and away my oldest oversized card. 

I have lots of these Exhibit Sox cards, four card pages are easy to come by. 

I didn't realize they made Red Man cards multiple years until I put these in the binder and figured out the Sammy White wasn't a 53 like the others.

I'm not sure what this is, it came from Red Sox Super Collector Mark Hoyle and it's a really odd size.  It fits in an 8x10 page but there's lots of extra room. I doubt they make a page out actually fits. He sent me a whole stack of those years ago. 

Another oversized from Hoyle I can't identify.  At least it's a standard 9x11 size. 

Not everything is going to have a page that fits it correctly but at least i have a place to put it now. 

These need three card pages instead of two card pages but I'm out of those right now.  I know my LCS has them because I have bought them before for my Virdon collection.

Except for four card pages two card pages make up the bulk of the binder. 

Not sure what these are or even where they came from.  They are double sided with a different player on the back.  One Rice is backed up by Cecil Cooper and the other is backed by Johnny Bench.  The Yaz has Rick Monday on the back. Bogges is showing through from a few pages below. 

I have all the years of Oversized Donruss Red Sox teams complete. The just never had a home until now.  

I have duplicates of most all of the oversized Donruss stuff if anyone needs Red Sox cards.  I even have complete duplicate team sets in multiple years.

Lots of random stuff that fits in a two card page. I thought I had more of those Stadium Club box toppers but this is the only one I've found and I'm out off places they might be stashed.

I have had this Bobby Doerr probably since it came out in 2007. Somehow I didn't realize it was autographed until I put it in the binder, i thought it was the regular version.  Also I have two of the oversized Dice-K cards of someone needs one. 

I know that my LCS has three card pages but i still need to find something for long skinny cards.  I know they make them because I have seen the old game day football cards in pages before but I don't know where to get them yet. If you know what the Upper Deck BAT set is you know what size I'm taking about.  There are like 30 Red Sox in the BAT set and they store terribly in a box. 

New Virdon Odds and Ends

My 50 time a day Virdon ebay search has bore fruit over the last few months.  No new cards but I did get some odds and ends

This is a 3.5x5 photo. It's dated July 84 in the bottom corner.  This is the only photo I have where it's dated like that in the photo itself. I own a white 1984 Virdon jersey and hat, it might be the exact one in this photo. 

Another 3.5x5 photo.  This one has Manager Bill Virdon 1983 handwritten in pen on the back. 

I don't know when this picture came from. Blue  with Astros on the front with a blue hat wasn't worn by Houston until 1983 and by that time Virdon was on Montreal. I was thinking it must be some mystery spring training only uniform. Then I realized it's not a jersey at all because there are no buttons, he's wearing a pullover. The trees in the background does mean it was taken spring training though. It really irked me though because it looked so familiar. That's when it came to me. 

He's wearing the same thing in his 82 Donruss card.  I would bet it was taken on tree Dave far even. 

Those Pesky High Numbers

When I first moved to Phoenix there was a blog called Pack War ran by a guy that went by Corky. Since he lived on Phoenix he sent me a list of all the card shops on the area that he knew of. The very first one I visited was called the Hot Corner in Mesa.  It's kind of far away from where I live so I haven't been back there for probably 10 years. I was in the area this past week though so stopped in.  

Really what I was looking for were three row PSA height boxes. (Evidently these have been discontinued  because I can't find any except for a guy in ebay that has them for ridiculous prices)  The thing is I don't want them for graded cards I only want them because the dividers that I use between years don't fit in a regular size box because they have to be taller than a top loader. I can use two wide but the wide fits better in an Ikea cube shelf without wasting a bunch of space. 

What they had instead of the boxes was a couple monster boxes of vintage.  I searched through two whole monster boxes and I only found two cards I needed, both high numbers. 

This Reggie Smith In Action card was the first card in the 1972 section of the box. An easy score like that got my hopes up but it wasn't to be tar was the only 1972 that had that I needed. 

Those monster boxes went from 1962 to 1975 and there only other card I found that I needed was this 1965.

Since they were both high numbers I was kind of scared to ask how much they wanted for them.  The Jay Ritche is in exceptional shape so I figured for sure they were going to add a premium to it.  But when I asked the guy he said only $1 each.  Yes please! If only they had a bunch more I needed. 

A Minor Problem

 I mentioned before that I used to have cards shipped to me at my work.  Cards would languish there for extended periods of time before I would get them put away.  I have been catching up on that recently and came across some stuff I forgot about.  I'm not sure who sent it but I recently found a complete 1998 Pawtucket Red Sox Team set in my stuff to put away. (I suspect it was friend of the blog and Red Sox super-collector Mark Hoyle but it was so long ago I just don't remember for sure)

The team set was already in nin card pages and just needed to be put into the correct binder.  Only there was this.

The holes are in the wrong page.   I have never seen a page like this before.  Actually I have never seen any problems with any Ultra Pro products before.   Because of that, Ultra Pro is the only kind of supplies I buy.  I'm still going to use this page but it is going to used for a PWE instead of card storage. 

The aforementioned 1998 minor league team set doesn't have much going for it.  If you are not a Red Sox fan the only player you might recognize is Trot Nion.

There are a few others that eventually got a call up too but none that made a big impact.  The one that is recognizable to Red Sox fans is Lou Merloni but not for his exploits on the field.  He is now the Red Sox color guy at NESN.  

The Red Sox had some great color guys over the years in Remy, Eckersley, and then Youkilis.  Merloni is ok, he has grown on me the longer he has done it.  I still think Youkilis, who filled the gap after Eckersley, was better but even then he was only a part time announcer.  Youkilis is a respected former team player and at the same time he is modest and self depreciating in a way that is just perfect for TV.  Eckersley was the exact same way and Eck was my favorite color guy that ever covered baseball and the playoffs are REALLY missing him right now. (I don't count Vin Scully as color because to me he was mostly a one man booth otherwise my all time favoritewould be Scully)

Oddly enough the only card in the set with multiple players on it is Merloni and Nixon. It's like they knew who was going to be best remembered. 

More Decorations

 I made some more small room additions. 

I've bought this frame the same day i bought the shadowbox I posted about a week ago.  This is one of the old style ones that are not user friendly. The only way to change out the cards is to force them out the sides and over the frame.  The new ones are at nicer and the banks come off so the cards slide out real easy.  With this one,  half of the cards slip out of the hard cases when you put them into the frame and you have to pull the out and redo them.  The cases themselves are c4appy and slip down in the cases after time too. These are all doubles acquired over time. You can't tell from the fronts but two of them are Venezuelan even. 

This road sign sits over top my bathroom door.  It's from my home town but I didn't take it off the side of the road I bought it off ebay like two years ago. Of the Bill Virdon Blvd signs I could have ended up with this one not close to home, literally.  I used to live maybe 200 yards from the corner that this sign came from. 

Cards From Cards on Cards

How's that for a title. This is only the second time I've used it. 

Kerry recently sent me a batch of Red Sox cards.  I'm really late getting to this post, this recently was actually over a month ago.

This is my first Little Papi card.  I don't know if that's really his nickname but as the son of David Ortiz it should be. He was drafted in 2024 and has only played A ball so far. 

Without these two guys the Sox wouldn't have made the playoffs, if Roman had still been around I think they would have got a lot further than they did too. 

I don't know what this card is.  All I can come up with is 2023 World League Promo. I see there's an Otani and an Acuna but that's all I have figured out. I don't even know what company put then out. 

I don't chase refractors but I sure do collect them. 

This finished off a team set for me. When I buy team sets they usually don't come with the leader cards so I end up having to chase them all. 

When these cards came out, if you would have asked me which one still played for the Sox in 2025 and gave me two guesses, I would have got them both wrong. 

Opps, accidently scanned Xander twice.

Relics are another thing I don't chase but I sure do collect them. Kerry sent me two different color swatches even. 

Another team set finisher. No more chasing 2021s.

New to me Pedros are some of my favorite cards. 

My daughter started a new school this year. She came home one day and said there is a kid in her class who's dad played for the Red Sox.  Turns out it is Pedroia's son. 

New to me Nomar cards don't show up at my house very often. 

My collection is seriously lacking in stickers. Panini Topps all of them in just about every year. 

Thanks for the package Kerry, I'll be starting a new stack of Cardinals for you. 

Weirdness Or More?

Signa Cut cards are ugly they always have been but I still chase all the Virdons. In 2012 they put out a bunch of Bill Virdons.  

The were two Signa Cut sets in 2012: Regular and Bronx Edition.  Both were advertised as Gold/25, Green/10, Red/5, and Purple/1. That means there are eighty- two of them out there.  I completed the rainbow in the regular version long ago. 

The Bronx Edition has been totally different story.  I've never seen the Purple card numbered to 1,  which is totally understandable.  It probably got ripped by someone and it stayed in their collection.  Here's where the weirdness comes. 

That is the Bronx Edition numbered to 10. I've never seen the other 9 that are numbered to 10 and i search more than daily. I recently got the one numbered 4/5.

The 2012 Bronx Edition cards numbered to 25? I've never even seen one of them. It's crazy that a card numbered to 25 has never shown up when a /10 and /5 had shown up.  I call BS on there actually being ten of them numbered to 10 and he's why.  That cards numbered 4/5 i just got, it was my 5th one numbered to 5.

In thirteen years I was able to acquire every single one of the cards #/5 but not a single #/25 have shown up and only one of the #/10 has.  That seems like more than plain weirdness too me  I think maybe those 34 other cats may just plain old not exist. 

For 2013 I have /25, /10, /5, and I've never seen the #/1.