La Dolce Vita

In the last four years before I met my wife and had far fewer demands on my time and money -- 2006 to 2009, to be specific -- I traveled frequently both for fun and for work. I took trips over Memorial Day weekend in North America and took trips overseas around Christmas.  I did that because I wanted to see the world and, frankly, I had a lot more free cash laying around then in the days before baseball cards, changing law firms, getting married, buying bigger houses, etc.

So, in 2008, I decided I wanted to go to Rome. To prepare for that trip, I used Rosetta Stone to try to learn Italian. I had had problems communicating in Paris the previous year, so I wanted to have the ability to speak the language at least a little bit just in case. I was okay at it, but I frequently thought of the Spanish words rather than the Italian words when trying to speak Italian. For the most part, though, that learning was not necessary -- nearly everyone in the Italian hospitality industry around Rome speaks English.

There was one day, though, when I needed the Italian I learned...or at least it seemed that way. I took a tourist bus tour from Rome to Florence for a day to see that city's architecture and art. We had small earpieces that picked up our tour guide's microphone on a short-wave FM system to guide us along and hear him over the din of the area around Il Duomo. A second solo traveler asked me to take her picture in front of the church, and I obliged. When we looked around for our group -- poof! -- they were gone.

The woman whose photo I took recalled that the guide had said that we were meeting for lunch at a restaurant called "Fantasia" on Via San Giuseppe. We found a police officer in the area around the church baptistery, and in my best Italian I asked, "Scusi, aiutame per favore. Dove la Via San Giuseppe or il ristorante Fantasia?"

The police officer replied to me exactly as follows: "ristorante fantasia? No. Via San Giuseppe -- you go up three blocks and take a left!"

Molto Grazie, signore!

Now, 6-1/2 years later, I find myself saying, "Molto grazie, signore!" That is because The Italian Completist reached out to me and asked if I would like to trade some cards back and forth across the Atlantic. I agreed and, though I am delinquent on sending cards to him, Riccardo sent me a 400-count box via aerea.  

While I never made it any further north than Florence, how about I turn this into a travel blog meets baseball cards?  Careful, y'all -- this one will have a lot of photos!

Rome

I stayed at an InterContinental Hotel in Rome, and I got a room on the top floor.  It wasn't huge, but it had a small balcony from which the view did not suck:

Yes, that's the dome on St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. My first impressions were positive of Rome -- it's a great city, but it's a crazy city. There's an old joke that goes around about the divide between north and south in Italy that the northern citizens of Milan complain that the Romans do not know how to work and, in return, the Romans complain that the Milanese do not know how to have fun. I can tell you -- the Romans do not know how to drive either.

What cards go along with first impressions?  2009 Topps, of course. 

I say "of course" for these because all of these were new to me. 2009 cards generally seem to have eluded me more than they should have for cards of such a recent vintage. I'm pretty sure I have purchased or received more cards from 1971 than I have from 2009.  It's not a bad design, but that gold-on-black for the name plates sure doesn't scan well.

Naples

What a dump. Okay, I didn't spend enough time in Naples to be so cruel to the city as to stick with that thought, but the parts of Naples I saw (again on a bus tour) were dingy, dirty, and filled with graffiti -- which, bear in mind, is an Italian word meaning "scribblings." But at least the view out to the Isle of Capri was pretty cool.

What goes along with this sort of "well, it's better than a sharp stick in the eye" talk?

The well-traveled, frequently swinging-and-missing Jose Hernandez. He spent three years in Milwaukee; in two of those years, he led the National League in strikeouts with 185 one year and 188 the next. Famously, in that 2002 year with 188 strikeouts, then-manager Jerry Royster held Hernandez out of the lineup for four of the last five games so that Hernandez would not set a record for strikeouts in a season.  

At least the card has a Brewers logo on it, I suppose.

Pompeii

No, I won't subject you to the video for the song by the band Bastille again. 

Pompeii is an incredible place to visit, because you really get a sense of how people were living their day-to-day lives almost 2000 years ago. Everything from brothels with sex scenes on the wall to what look to be restaurants with pizza ovens all are still there -- and historians and archeologists work daily to try to preserve it. One of the most incredible parts of the tour there is the storage area where castings of people who were caught unaware by Mount Vesuvius's explosion are kept. Here's one.

Just chilling to think that someone could have been just living their lives, carrying out their errands, flirting with someone, and suddenly, they are balled up in a fetal position hoping that their pain ends quickly. 

It's not a good parallel by any means, but Brewers fans viewed the early 2000s similarly. We just wanted each season to be over quickly so we could get our high-round draft pick and rebuild for the future. And yet, people still had to play those games for the Brewers. One guy whose career came just a bit early for Brewer glory was Ben Sheets.

There were more Sheets in this incredible box than just these 8, but this gives you the flavor. It's too bad for Sheets that GM Dean Taylor and managers Davey Lopes and Jerry Royster and Ned Yost decided to expend Sheets's arm toward the greater good of avoiding 120 losses, but that's neither here nor there.

The Vatican

If you have ever been to the Vatican and taken the tour there, you know that, just before you walk into the Sistine Chapel, you are warned about two key rules.  First, you are to be quiet. Second, you are not supposed to take photos.  So, when my tour group walked in, of course we were greeted with a loud buzz not unlike the moments before a rock concert starts and literally hundreds of shutters on cameras snapping.  Who am I to argue with that?  

Sorry it's blurry -- I drew the line at using my flash and the photo suffered accordingly. 

This was 2008. I was doing selfies before selfies were a thing.

So what cards can measure up to the Sistine Chapel? Um, there aren't any. Topps tried to go for art with its "Gallery" brand -- which I actually like, but it's not art -- so how about a Jeff Cirillo from that brand:

Florence

Ah, Florence. My favorite city of the whole trip and not for the story I told above. No, it's the art and the history.  Seeing Michelangelo's David is incredible -- it's absolutely huge. Giotto's Bell Tower is pretty cool. Brunelleschi's dome on the church is amazing. But the Basilica di Santa Croce was my favorite. I'm a sucker for seeing where historic figures are buried -- I guess it's like I feel I'm in their presence, and it's awe-inspiring to me. I mean, who wouldn't want to me in Michelangelo's presence?

Being in the presence of such greatness calls for great players' cards to be shown.

Molitor and Spahn are in the Hall of Fame, just as Michelangelo would be in any artistic Hall of Fame for which he would be eligible.

Tivoli: Hadrian's Villa and Villa d'Este

Perhaps my favorite day on my Italian trip was the day I spent just 30 km outside of Rome in Tivoli. It was a combination of a beautiful day with beautiful scenery. Two noteworthy former residences are located there. First, you have Emperor Hadrian's Villa and the stunning view of the early morning sun on the Canopus.

After walking around that complex for a couple of hours, the next stop was in Tivoli itself at the Villa d'Este. This residence was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, the son of Alfonso d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia (and grandson of Pope Alexander VI), who had been appointed Governor of Tivoli by Pope Julius III. d'Este had marble appropriated from Hadrian's Villa to help build some of the stunning water fountains in the gardens below this incredible house.

To go with these views and this beauty?

Y'all know what a sucker for full-bleed photograph I am -- even if Dave Nilsson looks pissed off and Jeff Cirillo looks like he is training for a speedskating event rather than running the basis on his 1996 Fleer card.

Riccardo, thank you very much for the huge box of cards. I hope some day to make it to Milan, the Cinque Terra, and the north of Italy so that I can be taken aback by the beauty of the Italian Alps in the same way I was so impressed with Tuscany and even parts of Lazio.

Viva l'Italia!

Where Was I When?

I recently received a big package of Brewers cards from Pat at Hot Corner Cards. Many of the cards were duplicates for me, though in that vein many of them were needed for my team collection. All of them are greatly appreciated. 

But, seeing the years on these cards flash by made me start to think. I've been very reflective lately for a number of reasons, and that reflectiveness had me contemplating this question:

When these cards came out, what was I doing instead of collecting cards?

Now, I'm not going to be able to pick out all of the years successfully, but let me highlight a few.

1991
The cards:

What was I doing/where was I?
Some of these are easy. 

Assuming these cards were released around April of 1991, I was finishing up my freshman year of college and worrying like hell that I wouldn't pull my grades up enough to stay in school on a scholarship. It was close, but I pulled through. Otherwise, I was your typical 19-year-old -- hanging out with friends, staying out late, drinking at each other's houses sometimes, and generally trying to avoid all responsibility for as long as possible.

1992
The Cards:

What was I doing/where was I?
By this point, I had navigated my way through as easy a couple of semesters as I could find at my school to pull my grades up enough so that I wouldn't have to worry any more about my scholarship (so long as I didn't screw up...I didn't, either, thankfully).  I was dating a girl from Texas, had gone snow skiing for the first -- and still only -- time with her and her family, and otherwise life was pretty good. I helped coach my brother's little league team too while working for an electrical contractor.

In other words, it was a very good year.

1999
The Card:

What was I doing/where was I?
I started working in Atlanta as a lawyer in 1999, and I thought I knew a lot at that point. I did know a lot, but I could have learned more by not talking about how much I knew.

It was a good year, though -- lots of hanging out with new friends and old, lots of times hanging out at an Ally-McBeal-like watering hole near our office with other lawyers, and lots of money spent on beer. 

2006
The Cards:

What was I doing/Where Was I?
I changed jobs at the beginning of 2004 after a stressful time looking for that new job. I'd moved from a smaller, specialized firm into a much larger general practice firm in the world of what is called -- sometimes derisively -- BigLaw.  I had learned by this point to keep my mouth shut more, to avoid socializing every day with co-workers, and to pay more attention to what others had to say.

That gives context to what I did in 2006, which is change jobs again to an even bigger firm that paid more money. I thought I had it made.

I also had bought a condo five years earlier and moved into the heart of Atlanta. I loved living there, and there are days that I miss it. I was single, 35 years old, in walking distance of great restaurants, grocery stores, and my office. 

Finally, I even left the country for the first time, spending my 35th birthday freezing my butt off at a soccer game in London:

That is the game between Fulham and Charlton, at The Valley (Charlton's home ground). I got to see American Carlos Bocanegra score a goal for Fulham, even. Both teams have since been relegated to the Championship.

2008
Bear with me...I won't hit everything along the way:
The Card:

What was I doing/Where Was I?
My busiest year to date, workwise. I got involved in the largest case in my career, I thought about moving overseas, and I traveled a ton. 

I thought about moving to Dubai:

That's me in front of the Dubai History Museum.

I visited Italy:

And, to be honest, I wasn't happy because I was doing all this alone. I didn't move to Dubai -- I honestly hated the place. I liked Italy, but Rome was terribly seedy in many respects and had so many places covered in graffiti (that is, after all, a world from the Italian). And while I enjoyed all my travels, I found myself a bit lonely.

That would all change soon enough.

2010
The Cards:

What was I doing/Where Was I?
I met my now-wife in 2009. We got married in 2010 and went on a great honeymoon to Spain and Morocco -- yeah, we did it up. 

Hams at the market in Barcelona

Olives at the market in Tangier. Hey, we like markets!

Life was great in 2010. It still is pretty good too.

Why did I go through all this?
The cards that Pat sent were from so many different times that it got me pensive again. Next time, I'll put on some more Frank Sinatra! 

Seriously, though, it is interesting to me to contemplate what it was I was doing with my free time in the days before I came back to collecting. I was definitely traveling a lot -- both for work and for fun. When I was in town, a great night for me on a weekend often involved music, a book, a bottle of wine, and hanging out with my dog. I didn't have space for much more than a bunch of bookshelves at my condo, though I'm sure I could have come up with something if I had had to.

Anyway, I hope I didn't bore you too much with my brief reminisces.  

More to the point, a big thank you to Pat for your kindness and for the cards. I'm putting together a package this weekend for you.