Today Is My Birthday!!! Happy Birthday to Me!!!

My Birthday Breakfast. Thanks to Zeb and the kids for making it for me.

My facebook feed has been exploding all day, and I couldn't figure out why.

Then I looked at the date.

I'm kidding of course. I know why I've been getting phone calls and comments on my FB timeline.

It's my birthday today. I am now 38 years old.

Let's put that into perspective. In 2013, there were 43 MLB players who played at least one game during the season who were older than me. That number has decreased as a number of them announced that last year would be their last active season. Guys like Mariano Rivera, Ted Lilly, Andy Pettitte are now among the list of retirees. The "youngest" player who is older than me now is Paul Konerko (born March 5, 1976). And it could happen this year that a guy born after I graduated from high school (in 1994) might make it to the bigs (for the record, Jurickson Profar was born in 1993, when my brother graduated high school).

Feel old yet?

I have every eponymous Topps and Traded/Update set since 1976, including the set from 2014 that I just completed and put into sheets last weekend, I have 39 Topps of the 64 Topps sets. As of right now, every player who has appeared on a Topps card from 1951 through 1990 are no longer in baseball. In 1991-1992 Jason Giambi made his first appearances in the Topps Traded set as a member of Team USA. He would then again as a prospect in 1994. His first "solo" Topps card can be found in 1996. Darren Oliver's first Topps card can be found in 1995. And of course, Derek Jeter made his first Topps appearance in 1993.

Today, I'll be working (thank goodness for this...last year at this time, I was still trying to find work). I am blessed to have the ability to work from home. With the winter we've had (and yes, it snowed again in Chicago even after we had two days of 50+ temps), I've been fortunate to be productive at my new job.

For my birthday, I have five packs of unsearched 2014 Topps cards, and a blister pack that contains four more. I am getting more and more disgusted with the pack searchers. It's been more than a month since this stuff came out, and last night, I see packs that have these tiny tears on the bottom from people trying to find that "hot pack." I have never seen it so blatant as I did last night. It's a shame.

Let's open one of those packs now...

• #157 Matt Adams, Cardinals
• #051 Kyle Lohse, Brewers
• #105 Ryan Howard, Phillies
• #320 Hector Santiago, White Sox
• #174 Bobby Parnell, Mets
• #149 Miguel Cabrera 2013 Season Highlights
• #SV-2 Miguel Cabrera Super Veterans (Retail Exclusive)
• #089 Jarred Cosart, Astros
• #127 Yusmeiro Petit, Giants
• #326 Khris Davis, Brewers
• #120 Kevin Correia, Twins
• #325 Trevor Plouffe, Twins

Overall, a pretty typical pack, although the odds of getting a SV card does come 1:8 packs.

So Happy Birthday to Me!!!

And Happy Birthday to Bryan Hebson.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama