The king of all night cards

So, there was this dude who worked for Upper Deck once. He didn't like the Dodgers. He was a Mariners fan or something. And this was before Randy Johnson and A-Rod and Buhner came along, so you know the dude really had issues.

But according to Pete Williams' book, Card Sharks, the Mariners fan thought it would be really funny to designate a Dodger card with the No. 666 for each Upper Deck set. And so it went for the next four years. Card no. 666 was a Dodger. Jose Gonzalez one year, Mickey Hatcher the next, Bob Ojeda the next, Jim Gott the next. Hilarity ensued. But then they realized it was ridiculously juvenile, sent the whole Upper Deck team in for counseling and emerged with a set in 1994 that didn't even go up to 600 cards.

But the last laugh is on Mariners fan. Because the card above, No. 666 in the first Upper Deck set ever made, is now the King of All Night Cards.

As voted on by The People, Gibson annihilated the Carlton Fisk Masterpiece card:

1. 1989 Upper Deck World Series Kirk Gibson, 47 votes
2. 2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces Carlton Fisk, 16 votes

After all that, Gibson gets the No. 1 spot in the Dodger fan's new night card binder. How fitting.

Look, I even have the first page ready for the ceremonial binder-opening (scheduled for 9:30 p.m. March 9. Please RSVP).

The first four cards are placed in order by how they finished in the Awesomest Night Card Tournament. The other five are all quarterfinalists. But since not all the quarterfinalists would fit on the first page, I picked the ones I liked the best.

I can't wait to fit the rest into pages and get them in a binder. Unfortunately, I still need to acquire doubles of some of the cards because as much as I enjoy night cards, I'm not breaking up complete sets to fill this thing.

As for the binder itself, it's a simple black beauty. I've printed up my blog banner and once I feel an artistic moment coming on, I'll apply it to the binder and have my very own personalized night card binder.

You just got chills, didn't you?

Me, too.

A big thanks to all who voted in the tournament. Participation always makes it more fun.

It's sad to see the tournament and the polls go away, but I'm also glad to be getting back to the regular night card segment, which I haven't done since September. (Yes, it was a five-month long tournament. That's just out of control).

Meanwhile, I have many, many more night cards ready to go. Hopefully, I'll have something interesting to say about all of them.

If not, well, I'll just start up another tournament, slap a poll on the sidebar, and we're off!

As for that Mariners fan who didn't like the Dodgers? His name is Tom Geideman. He ended up becoming president and co-founder of SAGE Collectibles, which puts out football cards. At least there are no Dodgers in a football set. Isn't that right, Tom?

Oh, and by the way, the Dodgers STILL won the Series in '88.

Seattle, meanwhile ...