Blog Post 100

This is the 100th daily post I have published in a row.

This lockdown project started on Tony's birthday back in May and here we are three months later, over 270 cards blogged, and really chasing down that 394-card target.

It's not always easy to maintain a focus on blogging. (My own personal blogs are rather neglected.) Here are the things I've found helpful over the past 14 weeks and 2 days.

I batch-write my posts, often on a weekend, so I just give them a quick check and publish them in the morning.

I've adopted a rough structure for half the week. One Card Only on Sundays, three random cards in the Monday Mixer, comparing cards that differ only in tiny details in the Tuesday Twins. Having those three daily themes anchor the week really helps. 

I play around with post themes. Sometimes it's a run of cards from a particular manufacturer or a certain set. The Back to Base posts are the best examples of these. Sometimes I slice it another way and do a few cards from the same year, or showing a particular action. Cards that feature other players appear in Sharing the Spotlight posts. I don't have a rigid schedule for these.

I've also tried to mark special occasions, like Tony's debut date, or the date he recorded his 3000th hit.

And I celebrate my own milestones, like the 100th card on the blog, or this, the 100th post!

There are a lot of people I would really like to thank for their help getting this far. The UK baseball card collecting groups are a supportive community of people who love baseball and love baseball cards. I'm grateful to a lot of them for supplying cards for this blog. Some of the people who have helped me out are Dean, Jasper, Ian, Rodney, Allan, Jack, Fraser, Marc, Matt, and especially to Gawain and Laura who have both been singled out for shout outs before. Gawain in particular has kept me very busy with a giant stack of cards to sort through. A special thanks to Bill from New Mexico who also sent me some cards.

I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to leave a comment on the blog, but especially to Mark, whose blog, The Chronicles of Fuji, is one of my favourite card blogs. I think he has commented here on almost every single post which I have found massively encouraging. It's a lot of small things that have added up over the course of 100 posts to a really meaningful thing! 

And finally, a huge thank you to my wife, Cathy, who has let me disappear off to write blog posts on so many occasions. Cathy is a big baseball fan too. When we decided to do a road trip in 2016, she organised it so we could go to Cooperstown and visit the Hall of Fame. She also timed it so we went to Fenway Park on Star Wars night! This blog probably wouldn't have happened if she hadn't said, 'Yes, go for it!'

Here's a picture of her enjoying some ballpark fries at Fenway!

I don't want this to be the first post on this blog without a baseball card in it, and I wanted to be a bit of a special one, so here is the only card in my collection from a range that is perfect for a post where I mentioned going to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Card Number 272: Topps Museum Collection, 2005; #70

Tony is running, eyes on the base, he's going to make it!

That's some write up on the cardback!

Thank you for reading, whether this is the first post you've read or the one hundredth!

Total: 272/394