2025 Softball Season Review

Here's a note that I could have hung on my locker during most of the 2025 softball season.

 

 

 

 

Okay, that's a slight exaggeration.

 

I did play some softball in 2025. But it certainly was a little bit. Here's my total stat line for the year:

4 games played, 3-for-10, 1 walk, 1 sac fly, 3 RBI, 4 runs scored.

 

So why the short stat line? 

Well, I had a bit of a shoulder issue early in the year. And it was my throwing shoulder. 

This is something I dealt with once before, about 10 or 12 years ago. And I think the same thing was behind it both times: consistently long hours at the job, which led to a decrease in stretching and weightlifting at home, which led to an imbalance in my shoulder. More specifically, spending so many hours sitting at a desk all winter long can cause poor posture and a rounding forward of the shoulders. When that happens, the tendons and ligaments in the front of the shoulder begin to get tighter than they should be, while the ones at the back of the shoulder get stretched out. If you've got that anatomical image in mind, you can imagine that it would become difficult to grab a softball, reach back, and really throw one—especially from the third base position, where I most often play.

So, after a few games I decided to pack it in, get some rest, and then refer to my rehab notes from the last time this happened and get to work. The Summer season was just around the corner, and even though I'd probably miss the first few games, it was fine.

However, that stat line above tells a different story. So what happened? 

First influencing factor

I learned that our team captain wasn't going to assemble a team for the Summer. Too many players weren't able to commit, whether it was because they had travel plans, other obligations, or just didn't want to play. So, that left me scrambling to find another team. 

Second influencing factor

I'd already started playing golf. (Thankfully, the shoulder issue didn't affect my golf swing very much, because most of the golf swing happens below shoulder level. And I play left-handed, which also meant less of an impact from the particular shoulder issue I was dealing with.) I was really enjoying golf, and started to think that instead of posting to local softball message boards and asking former teammates if they knew of any teams with openings, I might just stick to golf for the summer. I was playing pretty well, and [spoiler alert] I'd just upgraded some of my equipment for the first time in about two decades!

Third influencing factor

Going back and forth between swinging a softball bat and swinging a golf club on a weekly basis can affect your consistency in both sports. And that's not to mention switching your mind from softball mode (situational hitting, baserunning, fielding, etc.) to golf mode (getting your yardage, accounting for wind and slope, choosing a club, and so on). Playing only golf was helping my game, for sure. 

Hey, no one said it was easy to be a two-sport guy.

So, I stuck with golf over the Summer, and into the Fall as well. Stay tuned for the 2025 golf season wrap-up.

Back to softball now. I'm going to add my 2025 stats to the "back of the baseball card" record, just to be thorough and honest with myself.

And here are my fielding stats.

I'm not going to read too much into those numbers. It was the very beginning of the year, after all, and I'd had no practice time.

So did I miss playing softball during the year? Yes, at times. 

Will I get energized about softball over the winter as I continue to work my shoulder back to full strength? Maybe. But I have to say, it was also nice to have a little more time at home on the weekends. Work remained extremely busy the entire year, which certainly wore on me.

Anyhow, the whole thing is a bit of a conundrum. We'll see how I feel after a winter of rehabbing and rest. I'm also going to consider an over-40 softball league next year. I'm getting fairly close to 50 now.

As for softball goals, I'll list a few. 

Stop Lunging at Short Pitches

This was a fault I exhibited in 2024 as well. Maybe it's because with golf, you're always swinging down at a ball on the ground. So when a pitch comes in short of home plate, it seems like a good thing to me. 

 

See the Bottom of the Ball and Hit Line Drives
This is related to the goal above. If I can see the top of the ball as the pitch is coming down from its apex, that means it's probably coming in too low, and increases my likelihood of hitting a grounder. If I can instead focus on the bottom of the ball, and then try to make contact just below center, it should induce more line drives. I've got to let more of the low pitches go for balls and just wait for the next one.

Be a Better Situational Hitter

In one of my last at-bats of the season, we had a very slow runner at first base with no outs. I decided to try to get on base by smacking a grounder through a hole in the infield. Well, an infielder scooped it up and forced the easy out at second base. I just barely beat the throw to first to avoid the double play. Regardless, that's just bad hitting. I had no situational awareness. The smarter play is to try to hit one hard into the outfield, because even if you fly out, it keeps a double play off the table. I've got to do better with that next year. As a hitter, you have time to assess the situation as you're walking up to home plate, before the first pitch comes in. You just have to think a little bit.

Let's keep the goals list there for now.

 

Well, that was a lot of text for a very short softball season. But like I've said in the past, posting everything here will help keep me accountable and help me reach my goals. And I appreciate you reading along.

How about you readers and collectors?

 

Did any of you get out there this past year and play a sport, be it softball or anything else? 

 

Share in the comment section, and thanks again for reading!

You Can't Stand It, You Know I Planned It

Back in 2020, I designed a custom card that remains a fan favorite to this day. 

 

 

 

The following year I added a counterpart, featuring another rap trio who might come right out and call you a Sucker M.C.  

 

 

 

I had so much fun with it that I immediately designed a related card, showing those three guys "in action".

 

  

Got to love seeing DMC in their element.

 

But after that card was finished, I moved on to other projects. And time kept going by. Years, in fact. And then, finally, my creative mind started to nag at me. 

 

What about those Beastie Boys? I mean, they certainly put forth their share of action, right? Why don't they have a card to prove it?

 

It was a good question. So I got to work. And now the Beastie Boys finally have that card.

 

 

 

That 1980s-style typography. Those red and blue stripes. Washington Square Park. Adidas sneakers. A skateboard. The Beastie Boys. MCA leaping in the air. 

 

Yeah. That all comes together very nicely, doesn't it?

Here are all four cards together.

 

That's a lot of '80s hip hop goodness.

As for the modified lyric that appears in the title of this blog post, the Beastie Boys wouldn't create it until quite a few years after that photo shown on the card was taken. (Sabotage, 1994) But you can almost picture them saying it there, can't you?

 

And just a reminder: The Beastie Boys weren't just lyricists. They played instruments, too.

 

 

 

I'm happy to have a new custom card in the stable now. Should have designed it sooner!

 

Thanks for reading along, as always.  

 

Box Break: 1991-92 Score Canadian Bilingual, Series 2

Earlier this year, I shared a cool story about buying a couple of hockey wax boxes from a facebook marketplace member and receiving a third box for free. It was 1991-92 Score Canadian Hockey Bilingual (Series 1). And although that set wasn't anywhere near my radar for completion, the box got me close enough to provide all the motivation I needed. Within a couple of months, Series 1 was done and dusted.

Since then (and thanks to some encouragement from commenters), I've tossed around the idea of building Series 2. Sure, I could have just purchased the complete set and then added it to my finished Series 1 set, but I just didn't see the fun in that—especially because I built Series 1 myself.

And considering that Series 2 was only another 330 cards, and that wax boxes were readily available on sites like ebay for around $30, shipping included, it didn't take too long for me to make the decision.

 

 

Wax box acquired.

 

I've got to say, the nostalgia factor was higher than expected. It went up another few points once I opened the lid.

 

 

I'd forgotten about those wrappers. Even their plastic "trash bag" quality, which was a nuisance back then, made me happy somehow. 

You'll notice that all four wrappers feature Canadian teams, which is fitting for this Canadian version of the set. Series 2 had Calgary, Winnipeg, Québec, and Toronto. Series 1 wrappers featured the other three Canadian teams of the era: Vancouver, Edmonton, and Montreal. The fourth variant featured Pittsburgh, which I'd assume was chosen because they were the defending Stanley Cup champs going into that season. 

So, did I dig right in and voraciously open all the packs in one sitting, hoping to find all the big stars of the era or one of the Bobby Orr insert cards?

No.

I thought it would be much more fun to open them gradually. So, on a rainy weekend morning, or if I wanted a little break from work during the week, I'd open a pack. Or three.

Here's how it often went:

 

"Time to take a quick break and open a pack."

 

Takes box off shelf, takes a pack out, and opens it.

 

"Nice. Let's do one more."

 

Takes another pack out. Opens it.

 

"Nice. Okay, back to work."

 

Five minutes pass.

 

"Who am I kidding? Let's open another one."

 

I don't think I ever opened more than four in one sitting, though. And it was a worthwhile endeavor, for sure. Knowing I had a little reprieve was good for the collecting soul, especially since I'd also be building a set in the process.

In my first pack, I found a Sergei Fedorov card and a Mike Modano card back-to-back, which was a great start. Soon after, though, it seemed like collation might be an issue. Some packs contained at least of few of the same cards, in the same consecutive order. But I didn't let that bother me too much.

It's largely because just like Series 1, there's some good carboard to be found in Series 2.

Look here:

So I kept opening packs, the weeks went by, and the stack of cards kept growing taller. Eventually, I neared the last pack and started collating, wondering how close I'd come to the complete set. Here's a reminder of how the numbers crunch:

15 cards per pack x 36 packs = 540 total cards

 

Series 2 = 330 total cards (#331–660)

As long as the number of duplicates could stay under 210, and as long as I found at least one copy of each card in the set, I'd get there.

How close did I come?

 

Here's the final result of sorting, in stacks of 70, 100, 100, and 60:

Looks like a pretty good amount of cards in each stack, right? So what are the results? And how many duplicates did I accumulate? 

Card Range	Number of Unique Cards Obtained	Number of Duplicates
330–400	70/70	46
401–500	100/100	95
501–600	93/100	36
601–660	60/60	40
TOTAL	323/330	217

Impressive! 

If you're familiar with Score products from the late '80s and early '90s, you'll know that their collation across packs and boxes left a lot to be desired. But this box was certainly different. I only need 7 more cards to complete Series 2!

For my Series 1 build, the numbers were skewed much more toward duplicates. I needed 43 cards to complete the set instead of 7, and I had 253 duplicates instead of 217.

 

In any case, I'm sure some folks on TCDB will be happy to rid themselves of a few junk wax cards in a trade. I should have Series 2 finished in no time.

 

For now, here are a few more well-designed cards to whet your appetite for the set completion post:

Oh, and now for the big, dramatic moment.

Did I pull a Bobby Orr autograph?

         

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                    |

                    |

                    |

                    |

                    |

                    |

                    |

                    V

                   No.

Did I at least pull one of the non-autographed inserts?

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                    |

                    |

                    |

                    |

                    |

                    |

                    V

                   No.

(Sad Trombone)

That surprised me a little. Would have been fun to pull one. 

Despite that, the whole experience was fantastic. Opening up a bunch of packs and collating a set by hand brought back a lot of fun childhood memories. And for only $30 or so, it was totally worth it. 

I guess you can say it's one of the positives of the junk wax era. Here we are, 30+ years later, and you can still buy a sealed wax box at an affordable price and try to build a set.

Stay tuned for set completion.

Now here are two questions for you readers and collectors:

When was the last time you opened an entire box of cards with the goal of putting together the complete set?

If there's a junk wax set out there that you'd consider building in this "old-fashioned" way, which set would it be?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading along!

A Smorgasbord! 1993 Yoo-Hoo Baseball Legends

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

It's November in the early 1990s, and it's been quite a weekend. You're excited about the Thanksgiving break that's coming up, and after school on Friday you headed to dad and stepmom's house to stay over. On Saturday morning you watched some cartoons and then went out to the driving range to whack some golf balls, which is always fun. Now it's Saturday night, and dad and stepmom are going out to dinner. By themselves. 

Oh, to be a kid with a few hours of freedom, a TV, a Nintendo Entertainment System, and some food in the fridge.

The night starts out well. You take your plate of food out of the refrigerator, set it on the counter, and then go back in for the real star: 

Stepmom bought a six-pack of Yoo-Hoo! 

 

Glass bottles, twist-top, and everything. Oh, yes.

You tear one bottle out of the cardboard wrap and bring it with your dinner into the living room, where you power on the television encased in its big, furniture-like wooden cabinet, and eat your dinner to the sights and sounds of American Gladiators.

It's not long before you clean your plate, finish the Yoo-Hoo, and bring your dishes to the sink. Life is good, and you decide to go back into the fridge for a second Yoo-Hoo. I mean, The Eliminator challenge is coming up. If there's any time to drink a second bottle, it's while watching a Gladiator fire tennis balls out of an air cannon at contestants who are scampering through an obstacle course below.

Well, the battle ends in spectacular finish, as usual, and now you flip through the channels with gusto. (They've got cable TV here.) Soon you're on your third bottle of Yoo-Hoo.

Meanwhile, dad and stepmom have enjoyed a nice dinner, and after a little more conversation and relaxation, they start heading home. It's pretty late in the evening when they arrive and open the kitchen door. It's fairly dark inside, but they notice that the television in the living room is still on, so they walk through the kitchen to have a closer look. 

And there you are.

On the floor. Face down. Sleeping hard. Three empty Yoo-Hoo bottles lined up next to each other on the fireplace hearth.

"You know it's rough when you've had a three-Yoo-Hoo night." stepmom exclaims.

Dad laughs under his breath.

The next thing you remember is waking up Sunday morning in your bed upstairs. You're not sure how you got there, but when you get out of bed and groggily walk downstairs, both dad and stepmom are sitting at the kitchen table, eagerly awaiting your arrival with smirks on their faces. You tell yourself that you'll just have to take the ribbing that's about to come.

What makes that ribbing a little easier is that the six-pack of Yoo-Hoo has revealed a bonus.

A set of baseball cards!

After the jokes subside, dad points out a special offer printed on the side of the six-pack: You can send away for a cello pack containing the entire 20-card set. (You must have missed it during your wild night.)

And if that Willie McCovey card up there is any indication, the set's going to be a good one. What an image. The smile. The sunshine. Blue sky. Bat and glove. Green grass. Stirrup socks. The pose. It's just all-around great. Doesn't matter that the Giants logos have been airbrushed out.

Here's the card back:

I like the alternating columns of red and blue text. It really helps you track the particular stat you want to track. (Actually, why haven't more trading cards utilized this design?) As for the rest of it, I think the yellow border works—not only because it's pretty thin and unobtrusive, but also because it's Yoo-Hoo's main color.

So let's get to the company now.

The Yoo-Hoo brand has been around since 1928, when a man named Natale Oivieri, a bottler of orange and raspberry sodas, thought to add some chocolate syrup to milk and bottle that, too. Over the next two or three decades, the drink became quite popular, and more bottling plants were opened.

Then, in 1960, the drink made its first baseball connection, when Yogi Berra became an official spokesman. Berra would appear in many of Yoo-Hoo's television commercials and print advertisements, along with other Yankee superstars like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. (There's a 5-card set of Yoo-Hoo Yankees cards from this era—distributed in the New York area with the purchase of a six-pack.)

I think the recipe for Yoo-Hoo at that time was a little more palatable. The formula that I remember from the 1990s consisted of water, corn syrup, whey, cocoa, and dry milk powder, which doesn't sound that appealing now. But back then, it sure was a treat. 

 

Here's a commercial some of you might remember:

Good times there, friends. Good times.

 

Postscript

So far, this smorgasbord series has consisted of fictional stories featuring a young, card-collecting protagonist who is excited about various food-issue cards of the 1970s and '80s. The "three-Yoo-Hoo night" account that appears above, however, is different. 

It actually happened. 

To me. 

In my card-collecting youth.

It's the first time in the series that one of the featured food-issue cards has brought back such a specific memory from those days. The only fictional part of the story involves the set of trading cards. My actual experience probably occurred two or three years before the 1993 Yoo-Hoo set appeared.

In other words, after my wild night, I took the good-natured poking from my dad and stepmom without the bonus of the baseball cards. I'm happy to have that McCovey card in my collection now, though.

So how about you readers and collectors? 

Have you ever had a Yoo-Hoo? Think you might add one or two of the 1993 Yoo-Hoo cards to your collection?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

Completed Set: 1980 Topps Baseball

 

What is Pete Rose thinking about here? 

 

That he and his Phillies—Schmidt, Luzinski, Trillo, Maddox, Carlton, and company—have a shot at the World Series title in 1980? That in a few more years he'll set the all-time hits record? Or, if he's waiting for his slot at batting practice, he's probably focusing his mind on the scouting report of the pitcher he'd be facing during the game, and how he's going to approach each at-bat.

 

But maybe he's really thinking about Topps baseball cards. Like this:

1974 Topps?

Banner.

1977 Topps?

Banner.

1979 Topps?

Banner.

1980 Topps?

Banner.

 

That's a lot of banners on baseball cards in a short span of years.

And our fictional Pete Rose makes a good point, doesn't he? I mean, it was the start of a new decade. New stars were emerging in the game. You had Rickey, of course. And soon after you'd have Baines, Gibby, and Fernando Mania. Then Ripken, Gwynn, Boggs, and Sandberg showed they came to play. 

 

By the midpoint of the decade, there'd be Mattingly, Strawberry, Gooden, Puckett, and Clemens. Then guys like Bonds, Bo Jackson, Will Clark, Jose Canseco, and Mark McGwire would really usher in a whole new ballgame.

 

However, Topps stuck with the banners. It was solid. Standard. Familiar. Just like their 1980 set.

 

As with any set from the previous decade, there are some pleasant headshots.

 

 

And a good amount of batting poses.

 

 

 

More than that, there are some good poses in the batting cage.

 

Just look at all the steely focus on display. And those aren't just run-of-the-mill MLBers. 1980 Topps tells us that once you get to the top, you have to work even harder to stay there.

There's also some good action to be found. You'll find a handful hitters hitting. 

 

 

And a few fielders gettin' dirty and workin' hard.

 

 

But more than anything else, you'll find pitchers doing their thing. Flip through the entire set, and the quantity might surprise you. In fact, there were so many pitching shots at so many different points of the delivery that I created some frame-by-frame action sequences.

 

Proceed left to right to check out some righties:  

 

  

 

And now go right to left for some lefties: 

 

 

 

Now go left to right again, but watch out—these pitchers are comin' right at ya! 

 

 

 

And let's not forget about the catchers. Topps did a great job portraying these men in their natural habitat. They're grinders. Grunt-workers. Lunch pail guys.

 

 

There's no glamour there. Just grit. And I love that. This was back when infield dirt was dirt. And sand. And dust. There ain't no perfectly groomed clay here. No.

 

And I think the card design lends itself pretty well to those guys. It's simple. No frills. You get a name on top, then a player position in one banner, and a team name in the other banner. That's all. 

 

What else do you need? It's a baseball card. Enjoy it.

 

Besides, the uniforms of the day provided more than enough bright colors and eye-catching design. Check out these classics.  

 

 

 

On the subject of bright and eye-catching, how about the rookie cards?

 

Well, there's one big name in the 1980 Topps set that we know and love. He's right down there in the middle, paired up with a couple of underrated examples. 

 

 

Now let's look at a card back.

 

The black text on a light blue background is pretty decent for readability. The stats section, placed atop a pale gray color, is even better. You also get some career highlights, oftentimes from the player's minor league career. I like that, because it provides a reminder that a lot of MLBers—even the "commons"—were big men on campus during their minor league days. Just look at all of Bill Fahey's accolades up there!

 

And let's talk about the cartoons. After a two-year hiatus, Topps brought them back. Here are a few that I like. 

 

 

 

1980 Topps had a few subsets, as well.

 

The league leader cards were nice and clean, with a modified banner design that contained the year and the league designation.

 

 

Team cards were spread throughout the set. Nothing says "vintage baseball card set" quite like a team portrait card with the team's checklist on the back.

 

As for the future stars, I like how 1980 Topps numbered them consecutively, toward the end of the set. Kids must have had a lot of fun flipping through all those stars and wondering which ones would pan out. Jesse Orosco and Mike Scott over there did pretty well for themselves.

Finally, on the left you'll find a sample of the Highlights subset that started off the set, a checklist in the middle, and an example of a card featuring the all-star banner on the right. 

 

And that's 1980 Topps. It's a simple, straightforward design. (With Fleer and Donruss about to join the game, Topps would need to get a little more creative going forward.)

Now that I've completed the set and flipped through the cards, I think I've taken a little more of a shine to it.

How about you readers? Are you a fan of this set? Where would you rank the design among all the sets of the 1980s?

Let me know in the comment section, and thanks for reading!