2015 Tour of Somerville Cycling Races

A beautiful weather wise Memorial Day Weekend here in central New Jersey.

I made my annual trek to downtown Somerville for the bike races.  Not really a trek but less than a 10 minute car ride!

There are about 5 or 6 races for different classes of riders.  All are very entertaining and the riders put in many weeks are hard work, some even a lifetime's worth.

Here is a video I took as the riders in this race approached the home stretch in one of their many laps around the course.

I only saw one accident during the day and it did not appear that there were any significant injuries.

1968 Topps Empty Baseball Card Box

For Christmas, my step-daughter and her husband got me a gift certificate from Ebay.  I recently found an item that I've been looking to acquire  at a decent price and ended up winning it.

It is a 1968 empty box that contained the individual packs of baseball cards that year.  I am especially fond of it for 2 reasons:  The first is that as an 11 year old in 1968, it was at the peak of my collecting youth.  Second, there is a picture of Mickey Mantle on the box.

Incidentally, the packs I put in the box are not from 1968 but rather 1979.  I can't afford even one 1968 unopened pack of baseball cards.

The box will forever be special to me for another reason.  I won it on the day my step-daughter gave birth to her first child, a precious baby boy named Wyatt.

Thank you Jason and Laura for both gifts!

1966 Topps Rub-Offs Set - 80% Complete

I just picked up this 1966 Topps Rub-Off of Eddie Fisher, it is the 96th one I have gotten which means that I now have completed 80% of the total 120 in the set.

Most of the remain ones I need are very difficult to find.  They do not come up for sale or auction frequently and end up selling for a higher price.

These rub-offs were printed in rolls of 20 and my theory is that one of the rolls was printed in shorter quantities than the others thus accounting for the difficulty in trying to acquire the last 20.  Just my own theory.