I've Been Bit

A couple nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night. That's not exactly irregular for me - occasionally I need to use the bathroom (getting older sucks), or I'm just uncomfortable and need to turn over in bed. Neither circumstance had awoken me, however. Instead, my ankle was itchy, and my body's reaction to whatever had bitten me was strong enough to disrupt my sleep and keep me up for a good 15-30 minutes afterward.

It wasn't until I got up in the morning that I realized I had been bit by... something. Instead of a normal bite, I had along red mark that looked like a scratch. It was itchy like a bug bite, so I just assumed that I had been bitten at night by some rogue agent (mosquitoes in freezing cold weather?!).

Fast forward to this morning. I'm picking up my futon, as I usually do, and out from under my sheet crawls a spider. Needless to say, that life has ended thanks to a nearby tissue and a large amount of pressure. And the rogue agent was discovered.

Mosquito bites in Japan affect me bad enough, but this isn't my first spider bite, either. In fact, when I first moved into the apartment I live in now, I must have let in a few spiders, because I ended up killing four of them over a weekend last summer.

My only guess as to how it got in (other than squeezing through a crack somewhere) was that it jumped onto the sheet while it was drying outside last weekend and remained hidden for a few days before finally attacking me.

I guess it's time to get some anti-spider spray for the windows and doors, just in case.

So what does that have to do with baseball cards? Well, returning to blogging has resulted in being bitten by another bug - the complete-all-of-your-goals bug. I'm a better collector when I'm actively blogging, there's no doubt about that. I've completed six of my twenty collecting goals already, and I'm working hard toward finishing the others.

While I didn't have an explicit goal to get minor league cards, a seller on YJA listed a bunch of singles from a variety of sets and I couldn't resist. Minor league type cards are the most-neglected part of my collection because they're difficult to find at a decent price. So here are the latest additions to that dark, dusty alley.

 There are some "big" names in this lot. I don't know if any of these cards are explicitly valuable because of the players, but I was happy to get cards with recognizable names. And one of my former students has a thing for Corey Seager.

 I love minor league cards because I get to see a bunch of obscure team names and logos.

 Some are better than others, that's for sure.

 And some are more original than others.

 And as far as the card designs go, they are generally pretty simple, but it's nice that there is some variation in the design from team to team and year to year, especially given that most of the sets are issued by just a couple manufacturers.

 However, as you can see, sometimes photos get recycled for multiple sets in the same year.

 How about this: two Rougned Odor cards from 2013. From two different sets. Issued by two different manufacturers (Grandstand on the left, Choice on the right). Same photo. I guess this is what happens when teams supply only one photo for trading cards each year.

 Carlos Gomez is too cool for you.

 That Alex Gordon card feels like it fell out of 1994.

 Chance Sisco's card, on the other hand, feels like it's from 1982.

 Does Zach Britton have an unusually small head, or an unusually large hat? Something just seems wrong there. I'm guessing it's the former.

 Another two-cards one-photo party. This time, both from the same manufacturer for two different non-team sets. And a recycled design... but it is for the Top Prospects set for different leagues.

 That Tampa Yankees jersey looks cheap. Just sayin'.

This whole purchase was initiated by this single card. Jose Altuve is my one of my favorite players, and has been since I saw him play in the Astros farm system in 2011. The other minor league cards are just icing on the cake after winning this card.

Until next time... avoiding the spiders.