Arbitrariness

As a lawyer, I have to do a lot of legal research.  Many times, that includes determining what standard of review applies when a judge has to make a decision.  Is the judge constrained in what she or he does by particular standards that must be followed? Or, can the judge exercise significant discretion?  If the judge has discretion, then the appellate courts view their decisions with a great deal of deference, and they will overturn the lower court's decision only if the court below abused its discretion or acted arbitrarily.

Perhaps it is an insight into the way my brain works, but my internal word-association tends to equate "abuse of discretion" with "arbitrary and capricious."  It's a tough standard to meet to overturn a judge's decision.  If that is your standard of review and you tell the trial court that, you pretty much are telling the court that it can do whatever it wants so long as there is some reason or logic behind the decision.

In our baseball card blogging world, though, a much more pleasant association has been established thanks to Brian's excellent blog, Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. Recently, he tore through a box of the 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes to backfill some holes in his collection.  One of the inserts he pulled was a fantastic Jean Segura "Sportdisc" -- perhaps a tribute to the old 7-Eleven Slurpee coins from the 1980s.  I asked for the Sportdisc, and Brian sent it to me along with some other surprises.

First, here's the Segura that started it all:

That by itself would have been a great PWE to receive, but it was accompanied by some friends, including another round card:

Master Bread Company no longer exists as far as I can tell, and I don't think I'd ever heard of Master Bread before this disc came my way.  As the "Oddball guy," I'm disappointed in myself!

Brian also pulled another insert from that Panini box that he sent my way.  It goes right into my Yount collection:

...along with this little beaut:

This was a PWE from Brian, but he really did stuff it as full as he could with just one Forever stamp on the envelope.  Here are three more of the cards that came my way:

To close off the envelope with a flashy flourish, how about two of those "white ice" Bowman refractors from last year?  

How about that, indeed.

Brian, enjoy your epic road trip on which you're about to embark and thank you very much for the PWE.  I'm thinking that some really cool stuff will be coming your way soon from Georgia.  Soon.