Straight Fire

Coming soon. 

Can you believe it? It's February already. Pitchers and catchers will be reporting soon (unless they strike.) Weather is already getting warmer (that might not actually be a good thing... we didn't really have a winter here in Portland.) 2018 baseball cards are out! Ehh... I wish I could be happy about that last one.

Alex Reyes is on the way back to the mound and the Cardinals will, presumably, be playing baseball soon. The latest word is that he's eyeing a return at the beginning of May, which means his recovery from Tommy John surgery sounds a little more reasonable and not on the Lance Lynn timeline. I picked up this Topps Fire relic card on Listia recently, as time may be running out on finding affordable Reyes cards. Of course, the market for cards of pitchers usually seems to be a bit fickle, so you never know.

As far as 2018 cards goes, I think I'm going to stay away from the Topps flagship product again. The design seems better, but I can't get over the lack of stats on the back. Stats are what drew me to baseball cards in the first place. I pored over box scores as a kid, and was fascinated about the little documents of player statistics from year to year even more than the pictures on the front. It's just not as fun to look at Baseball-Reference.com, even though I do it often.