Dispatches from the Quarantine

2014 Topps Heritage #208

How is everyone doing?

Our family has reluctantly settled into our new routine, staying home and only venturing outside for exercise or a very quick trip to the grocery store.  With everything going on, I consider ourselves extremely lucky as we're all healthy and keeping relatively busy throughout the week.  My wife is a fourth grade teacher and she's essentially running three classrooms throughout the day - her own (virtually), and then assisting with our two boys' homework whenever one of them has questions.  I'm fortunate enough to have a job that can be done just as effectively most of the time from home.  While this is typically my busiest time of the year at work, it's been somewhat slower as the regular pace of my day-to-day job has changed.  I'm on calls or in online meetings for most of the day, and I'm trying to establish healthy barriers between work life and home life.

I miss baseball.  I never took for granted the daily cadence and the mundane regularity of the baseball schedule, as it has been a daily part of my life for the past 40 years between April and October.  I published my first posts on March 30, 2009, and for the past 11 years this blog has served as a daily outlet for me and I miss that routine.  I toyed with the idea of daily posts reliving the 1985 Phillies season through my meticulously kept 1985 Phillies scrapbook, but then two thoughts struck me about this potential project.  First, it was a project that would hopefully not be completed and I don't like not completing things.  I could post the boxscores and write about daily Phillies games from 1985 through April and probably most of May, but then it would halt abruptly when the 2020 season got underway.  Second, what if I did complete this project?  I truly believe baseball will return this season, but what if it doesn't?  Do I want to lock myself into a project where I'm reliving a season 35 years ago, between now and October?  Not really.  So this blog will go somewhat dormant with the occasional post until baseball comes back.  If nothing else, the postponement of the 2020 season has allowed me to focus daily on my other two blogs celebrating the cards from the 1956 and 1965 Topps sets.  I have posts for those blogs scheduled and ready to go through May.

2015 Topps Archives #244

I'm hopeful, trying to stay positive and more and more frequently avoiding the news.  I hope you're doing well too.  Stay healthy, take care of your family and friends and go wash your hands.

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I originally sat down to write this post solely to thank Section 36 for the package that arrived in the mail last week.  The package was dominated by Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels cards, which is somewhat prescient given our family's viewing choices the past few days.  We re-watched the Roy Halladay perfect game on Thursday (what would have been the 2020 Opening Day) and we re-watched Cole Hamels' no-hitter from 2015 on Saturday.  Typically, I would have received Phillies cards from 2010 with this annual shipment, but I'm told there was a tragic accident in the basement of Section 36 headquarters involving water.  Still, it was great to get new baseball cards in the mail, and I'll gladly take what I can get these days.  Thanks Section 36!