1. I hope you’re all well, and stay that way. If I haven’t heard from you in a while, or even if I have, drop a line in the comments or via email, when you can. I think it’s pretty important to keep in touch right now.
2. I will be finishing My Year In Hobbies 2019 relatively soon. I plan on not leaving the house for a while, if I can help it, so it shouldn’t be that hard to make time for.
3. I’d say that we’re still looking for teams for my fantasy baseball leagues, but there kinda might not be sports for a while, so feel free to apply, but who the hell knows?
4. I plan on killing some time at Heck if the sudden downtime allows for it, and have also been playing No Man’s Sky on PS4 again of late (email if you want to meet up).
5. If you’d like to get notified when this site updates, there’s an email subscription form in the top right hand corner (or, on mobile, wherever this blasted unresponsive WordPress theme puts it, until I redo the layout). It’s relatively low-traffic, and will keep you in the loop, if you’re not one of the 3 people who are subscribed to my RSS feed.
That’s it for now. If I think of more, I can always post again (and annoy the email subscribers).
A green tin of 2020 Topps Series One baseball cards (featuring Vladimir Guerrero Jr., a man with brown skin and blonde dreadlocks, wearing a grey and blue Toronto Blue Jays uniform and holding a baseball bat), and a black hanger box of 2020 Topps Heritage baseball cards (featuring Cody Bellinger, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Manny Machado, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Mike Trout on the cover) sit on a brown table.
It took me weeks on either purchase, but I finally bought some 2020 cards.
By now, you’ve seen ’em all, and they’re really nothing to write home about visually, so I’m not gonna scan ’em. No, really. I can tell you that my Series One gets were much better than my Heritage ones. I got Vlad, Acuna, Paddack, a bunch of other rookies and stars, the Clemente 35th Anniversary card, Greinke and Josh Bell in my Turkey Reds, and 2 Vlad insert set cards in Series One. I got a Don Sutton Baseball Flashbacks insert in the Heritage box. No high numbers, no players I collect, not much in the way of interesting-to-me rookies or stars. The Heritage cards look a *little* better in person, but not that much. The photography’s almost painfully generic, which I’ve seen other people complaining about more than the font issues. I just don’t get how you can take a sure thing like ’71 Topps and screw it up. Biggest disappointment of a Heritage set since 2012 (and that one was just me not liking the base design/card stock), and I got a crappy box of it, to boot.
On the Series One front, if you’re looking for the following inserts, they’re available for trade:
Decade’s Next Kyle Tucker 14
Turkey Red Willson Contreras 19
Turkey Red Justin Verlander 38
Turkey Red Blake Snell 85
Turkey Red Chrome Jacob deGrom 65
Decades’ Best Tony Gwynn 56
Decades’ Best Chrome Phil Niekro 40 (How often has Phil Niekro been on a Chrome card of any kind?)
High priority will be given to anyone offering up these cards from the 2020 Topps 35th Anniversary insert set (not building the set, just want these singles): 8-9, 14, 19-23, 38, 48, 51, 53, 55-56, 61, 64-65, 70, 72-73, 77, 79, 83, 88, 96-98, 100
I probably won’t buy too much more, if any more, of either of these. If you’re looking to get some old cards for some new cards and have a bunch of doubles (or the 35th Anniversary stuff I’m looking for), get ahold of me, and we should be able to do some trades, at least on the Series One. I honestly shouldn’t trade doubles of cards I like for 2020 Heritage. It is REALLY disappointing stuff.
Before anyone asks, I’m keeping the Vlad Jr. tin, to put my weed in or something. (No, I don’t actually smoke weed. I’m an old square. It’d be a cool box to keep your weed in, though, if you do that. Not that I’m recommending that anyone do drugs. You have Hollywood to do that for you, or the TikTok, if you’re one of the youngsters.)
Also, and I don’t think I’m alone here this weekend, but I ran into the 2020 Series One tins in both stores I went to tonight, one of which was a Target, so I’m not sure if they’re as hard-to-get as people tried to make them out to be, initially, and they’re obviously not Walmart exclusives. I didn’t run into any Prizm basketball, though, so that’s probably really sold out everywhere.
A list of settings for a Yahoo Sports Fantasy Baseball league. If you need a full text description of the settings, please email scott@ineednewhobbies.com, and I’ll be happy to send it to you.
So, yeah, it’s that time of year again. We had a long-time owner bow out because he’s not watching much baseball or playing fantasy sports these days, and were kinda lookin’ for some more people to begin with, so we’re up for adding 1-3 expansion teams to this, and another thing we’re working on, which you’ll read about below.
A few details not listed in the above image:
1. We’re a dynasty keeper league. For the past 5 years, we’ve actually let people keep their entire rosters (it wasn’t a hard requirement, but people could keep up to 25 players), but this year, we’ve dialed that back to letting people keep up to 20 of their players.
2. We’re probably not going with Batters Grounded Into Double Plays as a pitching category this year, but it’s there right now because it’s been a category for about a decade, and because we haven’t decided on a new one yet.
3. After this season’s over, we may be moving this league to Fantrax, as they give leagues year-round access to their keeper leagues, and, even more importantly, the league message boards. I left Facebook recently, which means that right now, this league doesn’t have a true year-round community forum. I’ve been testing Fantrax for that, and it works pretty solidly, but it’s tough to get people to adopt, as some of us have been on Yahoo for over 2 decades. We’ll always be sentimental about Yahoo, and may stick around, but the feature set has gotten more and more limited and broken over the years, so we’re at least considering a permanent move at this time.
4. So, in addition to the Yahoo league this year (and you don’t have to be in both leagues; it’d be fine if we had some new, different owners in each), we’re going to draft a new, non-keeper (at least as of right now) league from scratch on Fantrax, too. We’ve got the same 9 owners over there, most of the same settings (Fantrax has Inherited Runners Stranded as an available pitching category, which we’re using instead of GIDP there) and we’re drafting the same night (March 21st), right after we each draft our 5 players on Yahoo.
As for the league’s history, this is our 19th season, largely with the same crew of owners (2 of us have played every season, and about half the league’s owners date back to the mid-2000s). We switch team names a fair deal during the season, but aside from that, we’re relatively stable and well-behaved in our old age.
If you’d like to join either league, feel free to comment, or drop me an email, and we’ll talk about it!
After spending my summer watching New Japan Pro-Wrestling, I jumped at the opportunity to see a show live when they announced their Fighting Spirit Unleashed U.S. tour.
A promotional image for New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s Fighting Spirit Unleashed tour. Against a grey background, to the left, a red and white fist appears above the words “FIGHTING SPIRIT UNLEASHED NEW JAPAN PRO-WRESTLING BOSTON PHILADELPHIA NEW YORK”, with New Japan’s red, yellow and black Lion Mark logo at bottom center. To the right, clockwise from top, pictures of Japanese wrestlers Kazuchika Okada (a Japanese man with short bleached blonde hair), Hiroshi Tanahashi (a muscular Japanese man with shoulder length messy blonde hair and a short black goatee, shown from the neck up), Kota Ibushi (a muscular Japanese man with short brown hair that hangs over his eyes) and Tetsuya Naito (a Japanese man with dyed red hair, wearing and tipping a black baseball cap, and wearing a red wristband on his right arm) appear. (Image Credit: New Japan Pro-Wrestling)
I made it to the first night, which was labelled as being in Boston, but was actually in Lowell, MA at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium.
Professional wrestler Lance Archer (left), a tall man with white skin, several arm tattoos, a dark brown beard, a hint of dark brown hair with a red braid weaved into it, and a black t-shirt that says “ARCHER” across the top of it in bloody looking red letters, raises his right hand above his head in a claw position and makes a mean looking face, next to the author of this piece (right), a man with white skin, brown hair with black sunglasses on top of it, a brown goatee, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a black t-shirt with a black and white picture of a man on it that’s obscured by a black bag strap. The man is also making a mean face, and is making a claw gesture with his left hand. Bronze laques are visible on the marble walls behind the two men.
Not only that, I got to meet a few of the wrestlers! Here I am with Lance Archer, who did the first of what would be a couple surprise meet-and-greets in the lobby of the venue.
After I met Lance, I headed up to my seat, and was talking to the people in my section, when one of them casually mentioned that Tomohiro Ishii was also taking pictures and signing things for people downstairs, in a part of the venue that I didn’t make it over to.
An animated gif of the beginning of the Tomohiro Ishii/Katsuyori Shibata fight from NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10, 2016. Two Japanese wrestlers try to beat the living hell out of each other at extremely high speeds, matching each other move for move, to start a wrestling match. “Red Shoes” Unno is your referee.
?!?!?!?!?!
You have never seen someone with bad knees and equally bad feet traverse two flights of stairs quicker.
Those of you who don’t care about pro wrestling, or who are unfamiliar or uninterested in NJPW might not get why I ran, so I’ll do my best here, above and beyond what you’d read at the Wikipedia entry, or see in that so-fast-it’s-blurry GIF of him and Shibata: Tomohiro Ishii is maybe the toughest, most shit-talkingest, punch way above his weight class badass in the world. He’s a billed height of 5’7″, but built like a tank, impossibly strong (I’ve seen him throw around Bad Luck Fale, who’s around 400 pounds), deceptively fast, and fearless. Due to the scripted nature of pro wrestling, he doesn’t win the big matches quite as often as many of us feel he should, but I can guarantee you that everyone he’s in those matches with walks away feeling like they got their ass kicked, and with their self-esteem pretty wounded by the demoralizing things they’ve had him say about them, but probably strangely proud and grateful for the experience. My Japanese isn’t good enough to pick up on all of what he says, and Chris Charlton, the resident Japanese translator on the English broadcast team, doesn’t repeat some of what he says, for what I assume are obvious reasons. He’s one of the people who the wrestlers themselves tend to stop and watch, because he’s great at his craft (he can carry just about anyone to a very good to great match), seemingly able to turn off his pain response at will, and also incredibly entertaining.
At left, the author, a man with white skin and brown hair (with sunglasses in it), wearing black clothing, holding a yellow New Japan Pro-Wrestling shopping bag. At right, New Japan Pro-Wrestling wrestler Tomohiro Ishii, a stern-looking Japanese man with a bald head and a faint black goatee, wearing black shorts and a black t-shirt that says “STONE PITBULL BITE YOU” on it.
Holy shit.
I also met TJP outside before the show, as he’d come outside to meet up with a super-fan of his, then ended up talking and posing for pictures with what seemed like about 100 people before he found her. I didn’t get a picture with him, but I did get to say hi for a minute, and he liked my Orange Cassidy shirt.
All of the wrestlers I met were totally cool to me and everyone I saw them spend time with. Not a shocker, as, generally speaking, when I’ve met pro wrestlers, they’ve been solid citizens.
In a wrestling ring, New Japan Pro-Wrestling wrestlers Kota Ibushi (far left, a shirtless Japanese man with short, dark brown hair) and EVIL (just below Kota Ibushi, a Japanese man in black and white singlet with purple ponytail) stand head to head at left, with referee “Red Shoes” Unno (a Japanese man with black hair in black and white referee uniform, black pants, and red shoes) and wrestlers Hiroshi Tanahashi (a Japanese man with long bleached blonde to brown hair, in black and white spandex pants) and Kazuchika Okada to their right (a Japanese man with short bleached blonde hair, in red tights and boots, holding the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt over his right shoulder).
As my seats were pretty far back, I didn’t get many pictures (I also wanted to watch the show without pretending to be a photographer), and the ones I got were not great (it was tough to balance the dark arena/bright wrestling ring thing, clearly), but I figured I’d give those of you who are familiar with NJPW one shot that should give you an idea of the star power at this show.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, a pretty strong case can be made at this point for Kazuchika Okada being the best professional wrestler who’s ever lived. Hiroshi Tanahashi‘s really not far behind him, and carried New Japan for many years. Kota Ibushi has singles wins over both of them (though he fell short in his match vs. Okada at Wrestle Kingdom last month), and he still has a good chance of catching up to both of them. EVIL is also an awesome, and still very steadily improving wrestler with a great gimmick (think of him sort of like a Japanese version of The Undertaker) who’s a member of New Japan’s most popular stable of wrestlers, Los Ingobernables de Japon. If the people in this picture weren’t enough, LIJ’s leader, Tetsuya Naito (who beat “Switchblade” Jay White for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship, then beat Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on consecutive nights, becoming a double champion on this level for the first time in NJPW’s history at Wrestle Kingdom) and EVIL’s partner SANADA (who many feel is a future IWGP champion, and is also one of the best wrestlers in the world right now) were both in the match, as well. (Oh, and “Red Shoes” Unno is more or less the present-day god of refereeing.)
Full results for the night are here, and it was a great night. Along with the main event, Lance Archer vs. Ren Narita, and Tomohiro Ishii and Amazing Red vs. BUSHI and Shingo Takagi (which Ishii did win) were my favorite matches of the night.
If you have the means (and you will at least have the opportunity; NJPW have announced an expansion of their company, New Japan Pro-Wrestling of America, were just over here for a tour of the Southeast, and will be back in Tampa over the first week of April when seemingly every wrestling promotion on Earth are in town to capitalize on Wrestlemania week), I highly recommend catching a NJPW show.
The day after my visit to Brimfield, I went to the Tampa/St. Pete area.
Exterior shot of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tropicana Field is an off-white domed baseball stadium with an angled roof that resembles an orange juicer. Cars are parked in front of the stadium, and trees can be seen just past the cars, off in the distance.
Look! It’s Tropicana Field! Active MLB park #13 for me, and #15 overall (Yankee Stadium II and Shea Stadium are no more).
Interior shot of Tropicana Field, taken from right-center field. Green artificial turf and brown infield dirt can be seen, and blue seating is visible on the other side of the field, as well as an off-white roof.
Interior, from center field! I liked the park a bunch, and think it sucks that people shit all over it like they do. It was a comfortable, fun park.
The roof of Tropicana Field, and the catwalks that run near the top of it.
The catwalks!
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Brendan McKay warms up in the bullpen of Tropicana Field. Just in front of the bullpen, fans and Rays staff circulate in the picnic area of the ballpark.
Rays pitcher Brendan McKay warming up, taken from our seats. He pitched really well, and is as good as the hype suggests, even if the numbers don’t bear it out yet.
I didn’t get any in-game shots (I use an iPad primarily, which mostly rules that out, and I still don’t travel with a battery pack, so I was screwed by the end of warmups because I’d been out all day), but I saw the Rays beat a Blue Jays team that didn’t seem to have much left in the tank. It was a fun game, regardless, and my friend Dain and I enjoyed it (Dain especially enjoyed the “JI-MAN CHOI!” chants).
I got to hit the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame while I was at the game, because it’s inside Tropicana Field these days. It was crowded, so it was tough to get pictures of the Ted stuff, but I got a couple pictures from the Hitters Hall of Fame section.
Wade Boggs’ case in the Hitters Hall of Fame section of the Ted Williams Museum, located at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. A Devil Rays jersey, several baseball bats, 2 baseball caps, a glove, a baseball, and several pictures and plaques are visible in the case.
The Wade Boggs display case!
Sadaharu Oh’s case in the Hitters Hall of Fame section of the Ted Williams Museum, located at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. At center, a large picture of Sadaharu Oh batting is visible. Just below it, a signed Sadaharu Oh Yomiuri Giants jersey is visible, as well as a magazine, a plaque, and a baseball bat.
And the Sadaharu Oh display case!
While in town, I also went to the Dali Museum. Here are a few things that I saw there.
Salvador Dali’s “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” painting. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum’s page on the painting, and gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.
Salvador Dali’s “Portrait of My Dead Brother” painting. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum’s page on the painting, and gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.
Salvador Dali’s “Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid (Homage to Crick and Watson)” painting. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum’s page on the painting, and gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.
It’s hard to tell from the photographs themselves, but the paintings themselves are enormous (for instance, “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” is 11′ long and x 13′ tall), and I don’t know that there’s a photograph that’d really do any of them justice.
Salvador Dali’s “Aphrodesiac Telephone” sculpture, which is a sculpture of an ivory-colored rotary telephone with an ivory-colored lobster replacing the phone receiver. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum’s page on the sculpture, and gives a detailed description of the sculpture and its history.
Photo of Haslam’s Book Store, St. Petersburg, Florida, taken from across Central Avenue South at 21st Street. A beige building with brick red painted letters that say “HASLAM’S” at the top level (obscured by a tree), and “BOOKS” near the top of the ground level in five different spots. Green curtains cover the windows of the building. A number of cars are parked in front of Haslam’s, and the Central Av. S. and 21 St. S. signs are visible across the street.
If you’re in the St. Pete area and looking to shop a bit, I highly recommend going to Haslam’s Book Store. It’s a great old book store that smells like old books and has a ton of stuff.
Mannequins stand outside ARTpool Gallery, St. Petersburg, Florida, in various poses. At front left, two mannequins in brightly colored clothing stand up against a tree.
I also recommend ARTpool Gallery in St. Petersburg (which, as you may be able to tell from this picture, is right across the street from Haslam’s, and both are not far at all from Tropicana Field) is awesome, too. They sell vintage clothing, music, comics, and all sorts of other things, and the staff are super friendly.
The cover to Dalbello’s “whomanfoursays” album. On the cover is a close-up of Lisa Dalbello’s face, in yellow, red, blue, black and white tribal warpaint. the name “Dalbello” appears in black faux Cyrillic lettering at the top of the cover, and “whomanfoursays” appears in the bottom left in white scrawled lettering.
By popular demand, here’s a picture of the best purchase I made at ARTpool, a vinyl copy of Dalbello’s “whomanfoursays”, one of the more adventurous pop records of the ’80s. Have a listen, if you like…
Back to the trip on the whole: we could have a discussion about how I was in an area with a ton of natural beauty (for instance, I saw an amazing Gulf Coast sunset on the beach right before I had dinner at Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill in Clearwater, which was also amazing…), but didn’t post any pictures of that natural beauty here. However, 1. we covered this recently, and 2. when I got home, I was also kind of struck by how I really didn’t take many pictures of scenery. Some of that definitely had to do with my aforementioned constant battle to manage battery power (before my next serious trip, I really need to get an external battery pack), but some of it had to do with my desire, in the moment, to just appreciate what I’m seeing, rather than worrying so much about documenting it all. Sometimes, you just gotta look at stuff and take it in.
