Night Owl Cards

I am not the most positive person in the world. Even when the Dodgers make seemingly intelligent decisions like they did today -- scrapping Scrappy McScrapperson, Ryan Theriot, after only a couple of months to land a much needed middle reliever -- I expect it to come with a catch. Instead of being relentlessly upbeat, I am relentlessly examining the fine print. So even though I haven't been as happy to see a former Giant come over to the good side since Brett Butler changed his evil ways, I'm certain the bad news will come in the form of a pudgy strikeout machine that is now the Dodgers' starting second baseman. Sure, Uribe can come through in the clutch -- he's demonstrated that against the Dodgers -- but there is a whole lot of padding his un-base percentage in between. But that's me being negative again. I'm trying to cure that character flaw. It's hard to do so when being negative actually produces positive results. In fact, very recently, I won a...

My blog is a happy oasis away from the idiocy that I deal with in everyday life. I work damn hard in just about everything that I do, but it doesn't seem to pay off a lot of the time. It pays off more often with my blog. The blog is my baby, my creation, and I try to make sure it's working as smoothly as I can. The successes on Night Owl Cards far outweigh the failures. But there is one issue that my diligence can't seem to fix. I have received complaints periodically that it takes a long time for my blog to load. At first I shrugged off these comments. Anything worth having is worth waiting for, right? Besides, this blog was for me, not anyone else and their damn computer. But as blogging continued to connect me with collectors around the country and beyond, I began to place greater importance in what others had to say, to the extent that the periodic complaints of the "slow-loading" Night Owl Cards started to bother me. Finally, I decided to do somethi...

I haven't written one of these "team colors" posts for a little while, so how about if I slap one on here while I'm still recuperating from ... well, just about everything? The Tigers' team colors interest me because both of their primary colors are up for debate. Officially, I believe, their team colors are navy and orange, as you see displayed on the 1974 Topps Al Kaline card here. But the "navy" part always threw me off. Much like the Yankees, which also lists its primary team color as "navy," I don't read the color as navy. I read it as black. All during my time growing up, I thought the Tigers wore black caps and white uniforms with black piping. Stuff like this didn't help: In 1981, Topps used caps of each respective team on its cards. It attempted to replicate the color of the cap, too. But that cap there is definitely not navy. It is black. It's not until you get right up close to a Tigers player that you rea...

The Awesomest Night Card Tournament continues to put up impressive numbers, if you consider "impressive" to mean lopsided results usually reserved for September college football scores. This latest week of night card voting was another merciless beatdown. It turns out we have many Johnny Vander Meer fans. Or fans of dimly-lit 1930s ballparks. The '94 Upper Deck card celebrating Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hit achievement advances easily and might do very well in future rounds. Here is the tally: 1. 1994 Upper Deck Johnny Vander Meer's 2nd no-hitter: 40 votes 2. 2005 Topps Fan Favorites Joaquin Andujar: 7 votes 3. 1975 Topps Game 4 of 1974 World Series: 5 votes 4. 2002 Topps United We Stand Astros vs. Giants: 3 votes 5. 2007 Upper Deck Jason Bay: 2 votes 6. 2004 Topps Tim Worrell: 1 vote Thanks, as always, for voting. I appreciate every last vote and voter. Even the guy who voted for the Worrell card. All right, onto to part 11. Here are the next ...

I've just returned from my journey over the river and through the woods. I'm totally disoriented and will never eat pie nor watch the Detroit Lions again. For me, the Thanksgiving holiday is a series of tests regarding how much self-control I can exhibit in a given situation: a) Will I have a third helping of pumpkin pie after downing practically an entire bag of fun-size, autumn-themed, dark chocolate candies? (Yes, I will. Self-control loses that battle) b) Will I finally tell a certain in-law to stop complaining incessantly about their lot in life and shut the hell up? (No, I won't. Score one for self-control) c) Will I stand in a parking lot at 4 a.m. with a group of ill-behaved strangers the following day? (You've got to be kidding. That's not self-control. That's drawing the line at "crazy.") During my time away I barely blogged, but tried to view other bloggers' holiday posts. I commented very sporadically, because it's ...

Trying like mad to catch up on these "Worst Card" posts after slacking just about the whole year. So, either you'll see a whole mess of these in the next month, or I'll just give up and ignore the thing -- which actually sounds like the more probable option right now. But I can't wrap up the Worst Card segment without addressing dear Topps Update/Traded & Highlights. It always has some clunkers in it. This is a classic example. It's not even the only one in the set. There are several of these "dudes just standing around" cards. And Topps has been doing it in Topps Update/Traded & Pick a Name and Stay With It for a few years now. It's a big reason why I don't collect this set (well, besides the "no money" reason). Why would I go out of my way to collect cards that look like they were taken by some fan in the stands? Even if the fan showed me the photo that they took -- if it looked like this -- I'd say, "it ...

(A very happy Thanksgiving to everyone that I've come in contact with through this blog. On the ultimate Appreciation Holiday, I hope everyone is thankful for the people they have in their lives. I know I am. This is Cardboard Appreciation. It is the 91st in a series): You may have gathered that I'm not a fan of expansion teams. I think they dilute major league talent. I think they water down the game. I think they play in areas of the country that can't necessarily support the team. However, I do understand why people feel a connection to an expansion team. I felt that connection in 1977. For me, the Toronto Blue Jays were "mine" in the sense that I was a witness to their birth. All of those other major league teams had been around long before I was born, or at least began when I was barely out of diapers. But the Blue Jays were different. The Blue Jays presented the chance for me to chart the progress of a team from Day 1. I would be around for ever...

Sadly, my own little diamond anniversary party is coming to a close. That went by awfully quick, didn't it? That's the way I like it. No long, drawn-out affair like that Awesomest Night Card thinga-ma-role. When's that ending? Anyway, I have cards 41-60 coming up in a second. I'm just showing ol' Don Mossi here to illustrate that there are many, many, many cool cards that I do not have that would be just as worthy contenders for bumping out half the Mantles that Topps has nominated as anything else I'm featuring. It's just that my collection is focused mostly in the '70s and '80s so that's what I happen to think is the best. Feel free to nominate your own top 60. Then Topps can take credit for spawning a thousand lists and everyone will be happy. OK, the final cards on the list. Again, these are in total random order. Observe: 41. 1975 Topps Steve Yeager: First Dodger card I ever pulled from a pack purchased with my own money. A "...