A Bit of A Rant And An A&G Comedian With My Name

 Wow I should do Blogiversary posts every other month. My Blogiversary post got over 400 views (414) in the first week. I olny have 116 followers so that is a lot of either new people or people who unofficially follow. Amazing!. Actually some of my numbers are helped a little bit by being on the blog roll at TCDB that tracks whenever I make a new post on my card blogs.

Now onto whatever this post is going to be about.

Lately more pressing things in life have forced my blogging to take a back seat. At times I'm not even sure if I'll get around to doing any blogging from now on out. I used to bust my butt trying to make sure I had a monthly post for all 3 of my blogs. Now I can't even guarantee that for myself let alone even one of the blogs. Life goes on and now maybe sometimes the blog.

Enough about that here is a card I got from a group box break. I wonder if it was a legit random card or if the host remembered that I collect cards of people with my name (and similar names) either way I like this card.

2023 Topps Allen & Ginter - 221 Daniel Van Kirk Comedian

One thing I don't like about this card is the pattern of the shirt Daniel is wearing. I didn't notice it at first, it was only when I looked at the scanned image that I noticed how the shirt design looked like the scan was bad. This time it wasn't the scan image doing crazy things. It is probably time to get a new scanner I forget how many decades I've had my current Epson flatbed scanner. But it continues to work well enough and I hate having to get new electronic and computer equipment. 

Washington Wednesday: RIP Redskins HTTR

WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY:

RIP Redskins: HTTR4LIFE

Redskins Super Fan Chief Zee crying (date unknown)

Well they went ahead and did it. The NFL's Washington Team The REDSKINS gave into the pressure to change their controversial Nickname. I won't go into all the history of the name and the periodic attempts from outside entities to force the team to change the name they have held for 87 years. all that can be found on the interwebs. Along with all the Pros and Cons. Sure some people are now not offended but now a different group of people have been offended and some angered.

I will say that I am far from happy about the whole thing. I've been a life-long fan of the team, growing up with an older brother who was a super true blue fan, even my father who wasn't much of a sports fan enjoyed watching the occasional Redskins game on the telly and kept track of them during the season from time to time (mostly I think to please his fan family). What ticks me off the most is it appears to be that the owners were being blackmailed by FedEx one of their biggest financial supporters, investors and others. The delivery service sent a letter saying basically "Change the name or move to another stadium", they have about 7 more years on the stadium's lease so that isn't really one of the pressing issues. Also several big named merchandise retailers such as Amazon, Target and Walmart to name a few have pulled all Redskins merchandise from their shelves and have stopped selling them.

A couple of weeks after announcing that the name was going to be changed and the old name dropped the team now has a temporary name for the 2020 season "The Washington Football Team". They will keep the maroon and gold colors, but will be logoless. The helmets will be plain maroon with large gold numbers on the sides. Apparently they will have a permanent as yet unannounced new name and logo starting in the 2021 season.

I guess to a non-fan the best analogy would be if the high school you and your siblings graduated from, maybe even one of your parents and their siblings graduated from as well, was forced to change their mascot's name and/or even the entire school name. That is how it has affected me. After several generations of history.  It just "always was the way it was". It is part of the fandom intangibles. You don't know exactly what it is unless you have it. Even then it seems to be different for every fan.

As a fan of the old team I am not in the mood to attempt to become a fan of whatever the new team will be. Collecting cards for this year/season will be bittersweet. I'm not sure what I will do for next season. Do I stay with the team trading group I am a part of once the new team is established and cards baring the new team name and logo are made? A big part of me doesn't want to. 

OK rant over for now here are some historic DC Football cards that are sure to offend some people.

Lets start with one of my fave QBs of ALL-TIME Sonny Jurgensen. This one is from 1991 a special Quarterbacks set. I chose to show it because of it's original old school looks, especially the back pic with the original arrow helmet design (not the 1990s retro version)

1991 Quarterback Legends: 24 Sonny Jurgensen Washington Redskins

These next two cards I picked to show are of the same Player Jim Lachey. Both are very cool photos the first is a portrait from the 1991 Pro Set Football set, 

1991 Pro Set Football: 381 Jim Lachey Washington Redskins

Next Card. Check out the cool up close and personal pic. I picked this card to show because of the peeling of the stripe stickers on his helmet. Thought it was very cool looking.

1991 Upper Deck Football - 102 Jim Lachey Washington Redskins

This next card I chose because of the retro looks with the airbrushing/photoshopping (or maybe it is just unbranded spring training gear). It is also close to what the "temporary" helmets of this 2020 season will look like, with the exception that the new temporary helmets will have the player's uniform number in gold on the sides.

2004 Score Football: 330 James Thrash Washington Redskins

The final card I'm showing is one of the cool retro cards from 2004 Fleer Tradition Football set. Not only is the card design retro but this was the year the Redskins were sporting an anniversary retro uniform with the Arrow Helmet and a retro looking jersey and their return to the mustard colored pants.

2004 Fleer Tradition Football: 196 LaVar Arrington Washington Redskins

*UGH Due to the recent formatting updating changes that Blogger did, on my ancient computer at home I can no longer edit posts on blogger. It just gave me a blank page, well it had part of the editing "frame" of the page but the part where content was supposed to be it was blank. An incomplete page. I think it is because of something with my outdated Chrome browser. I didn't think about checking with Firefox (or Internet Explorer) until after I had shutdown my ancient Windows XP laptop/notebook. I'll try seeing if my ancient Firefox or IE works sometime later. Probably not because I think they had problems ages ago preventing me from using them then. So I won't be able to directly upload from my laptop to Blogger. I will have to use other sites or do what I did this time and transfer the images to a thumb drive and do it old school. Not to mention I will have to use my work laptop to do all the post editing, not just some of the last minute corrections before the scheduled Noontime posting. Yeah Yeah Yeah I need to get a new up-to-date home 'puter/laptop.

Niche PC 001: Some Tennis Lovin

Niche PC 001:

Some Tennis Lovin'

[No Niche Logo Yet]

When I was a kid I used to pronounce the word niche as "Nitch" since I had never seen the word written and had only heard a mispronunciation of the word.  I associated it with a similar word "Nook" as in a book nook. Personally I think the nitch mispronunciation sounds better for the physical divots when referring to the word's noun usage as a "shallow recess" like a nook. When referring to the adjective use of the word's "small specialized appeal" the real pronunciation of "neeesh" is preferred especially with trading card PCs. OH maybe it was being pronounced as "niissh" and I heard a T.

When it comes to collecting cards there are many collectors who have niche sub-collections in their PC, or they may concentrate only on their niche. There are as many niche categories as there are collectors. Just as there are team collectors and player collectors there are odd ball collectors, perhaps that is the biggest type of "niche" collection? There are collectors who niche collect their local college, or their college Alma mater, players from their hometown or state, players from a specific country, players with the same first name, last name, birthday, birth month, birth year. Cards that show their sport's championship trophy, players chewing bubble gum (or chewing tobacco), players not wearing a cap or uniform, players in a different sport uniform, Baseball players with a gigantic glove, Baseball players with two or more bats, players holding a ball, Well you get the idea.

For many years I didn't have what I would call any niche PCs. Sure I PC'd my homie DC and Baltimore teams and many many too many players I liked. For the most part I still collect those same players and a bunch more. I have always been into some of the "odd ball" cards of various kinds. It wasn't until recent years after seeing several bloggers talk about their niche PCs that got me into the more obscure or finer detailed niche collections. I forget who the first blogger was that coined the "niche" category but at first I thought some of the categories were very silly even some of the categories I now collect myself. At one time I tried to niche PC players from the general DC area (including Maryland and Virginia Suburbs) but that is too large a scope for a niche PC, I now limit the local "homie" players (from my home area) mostly to those who attended The University of Maryland or are originally from Silver Spring Specifically.

Other than My Homie Teams (DC and Baltimore teams) and Players I PC my niche collections include: My birthday 04 April, Players from the University of Maryland (preferably in a Terps Uniform), mascots, players with similar names to myself both first and last name. Sometimes it opens the scope of the niche up a bit too much. It also opens up my collection to other sports and more odd ball things.

So this post is labeled as the first episode of a series of "Niche PC" cards.

The FIRST card for this post I got from Sportlots from an auction in their "other cards" section since it is of a sport that is not in the Big Four of Baseball, Football, Hockey and Basketball. As it is a Tennis card, yes Tennis I'm not into that sport (even though I love the women's short short short skirts) but this is a niche card so specific sport be damned.

This tennis star has my first name incorporated into her last name. Jessica Kirkland.. So it falls into the Kirk Name Niche Collection.

2013 Leaf Ace Authentic Grand Slam Tennis: Autograph: BA-JK1 Jessica Kirkland

I got the card for the opening bid of 25¢ + $3.39 shipping. It was one of three packages or PWEs that arrived on my Birthday (04 April). This particular PWE or rather PYE (Yellow/Mustard/Gold instead of plain white) came from Ontario, Canada with a cute little stamp.

On a side note I do find Miss Kirkland attractive. Now now maybe its just the little white short skirt. Since starting the draft for this post I have added another Jessica Kirkland card to my Name Niche PC

2007 Ace Authentic On The Line: Autograph: OT-8 Jessica Kirkland RC

This one came from Ebay for $5.99 Free Shipping on the First of May. Not from Canada but from the Other Washington, Washington State. From Shoreline to be more specific (Approx 9 miles North of Downtown Seattle according to Wikipedia). Believe it or not the sticker is silver/chrome not lime green as it appears due to the reflective scanning. I'm not sure if my scanner has the ability to adjust light refraction, it might, I haven't really bothered changing many of the settings for fear of putting my ancient Epson Flatbed Scanner permanently out of alignment.

Man those Tennis card makers sure do love those silver/chrome stickers for the autographs. Of course I prefer real ON-CARD Autographs, but for the card makers the sticker-autos are more efficient. Topps and the other big boys mostly use clear stickers now, the silver ones are more often for higher end products. The On-Sticker Autographs or Stickergraphs as one blogger calls them. I forget who coined that one, or was it Labelgraphs?

As I said this is the first of a new post series that may or may not have any additional posts. I like the idea of a series of niche PC cards. My first draft of this post I had titled it "Name Niche PC 001: Some Tennis Lovin'" but that would mean I would have to start some other Niche PC series: Birthday Niche, U o MD Niche and maybe a few others. 

Watts in a Name? Football Glass

Every once in a while I run across a name that strikes me as being funny, ironic or sometimes unfortunate. From time to time I will try to show some of the cards I have with these names that stand out.

This first card I'll mention I got first because of the name and second because I need to complete this particular set that I am leagues away from completing. I got this card from Ebay for 99¢ + $3.00 shipping

CHIP GLASS

1973 Topps Football - 203 Chip Glass RC Browns

(Front and Back)

This is Chip's Rookie Card, and apparently his only card. Guess Topps doesn't like to pick up broken glass off the floor? Chip made his NFL Debut in 1969 playing for the Cleveland Browns he was traded to the New York Giants in 1974 his last season. According to the back of his card he makes spectacular catches and in 1970 caught a 78 yarder vs. The Houston Oilers.  At the time it was the Browns longest pass. The cartoon is interesting in that it is totally unrelated to the player featured or his team. That is typical for Topps it seems. It has a trivia question about which stadium the New Orleans Saints play in A: The Sugar Bowl. The Superdome was under construction as it opened 2 years later in 1975.

Mr. Glass reminds me of commedian/actor Bruce Mahler who is best known for being in the Police Academy Movies as Sgt. Doug Fackler.

Bruce Mahler as Sgt. Doug Fackler in Police Acedemy 2: Their First Assignment 1985 Warner Bros.

I remember Bruce from the sketch comedy show Fridays, which was ABCs attempt at a Saturday Night Live. It only lasted 3 seasons from 1980-1982, I thought it barely lasted one.

Edit: Yes I borrowed this idea from another blog. That one when they do make funny name posts I think they concentrate on the more unfortunate ones