Sick kid/distracted post

I am up at an ungodly morning hour (it is currently 9:32 a.m.) tending to my daughter's illness.

Actually, there's not much to do. But her coughing is keeping me awake. Between the sneezing going on at work and the coughing here, my white blood cells are placing bets on my impending demise.

These aren't optimum conditions for free-and-easy posting. So I thought I'd clear out my images folder and try to think of something clever to say about what I find. That sounds like fun, right?

I know. Nothing at 9:32 a.m. is clever or sounds like fun.

Grimly pressing onward ...

Here is a card that conveys how most of the people around me feel. It's a 1972 Topps Graig Nettles card folded approximately 483 times over the course of four decades. I received it from Spiegel and it's prompted me to construct a cardboard mutilation timeline:

4:02 p.m., May 14, 1972: card pulled from pack by young collector
4:03 p.m., May 14, 1972: collector sees photo is in Yankee Stadium and proceeds to fold card in half
4:17 p.m., May 14, 1972: collector's brother sees card photo is in Yankee Stadium and folds card again
4:19 p.m., May 14, 1972: addicted to the thrill of folding cardboard, the two proceed to fold the card several more times, then enter a 12-step recovery program called Creasers Anonymous
8:02 a.m., Sept. 5, 1972: card discarded on sidewalk by recovering creaser who is suddenly obsessed with mint cardboard
10:14 a.m., March 29, 1999: card somehow ends up in card store in California
5:23 p.m., Oct. 27, 2011: Card dealer's direct quote: "OMG, someone finally bought that nasty Nettles card!"
2:51 p.m. Nov. 20, 2011: Card arrives at Night Owl's nest. Night Owl sees photo is in Yankee Stadium and folds the card again.

Keeping with the Graig Nettles theme, here is a rather annoying cartoon offered by Topps in 1973.

MOST sportswriters? Who wrote this, Nettles' mom?

I will have you know that THIS sportswriter has spelled Nettles' first name correctly here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here, and has spelled Nettles' first name incorrectly no times.

However, this card featured a famous version of Nettles' first name spelled incorrectly. And that wasn't written by a sportswriter. It was written by someone affiliated with a card company. Granted, it's Fleer, not Topps. But go pick on a profession where people actually make money.

Here is one of my most favorite team yearbook pages ever. It shows the 1977 Dodgers performing various leisurely pursuits.

I love how Bill Russell, Burt Hooton and Tom Lasorda just decided to head out to the mall together. No body guards. No entourages. Just a nice tie by Tommy. Meanwhile, Steve Garvey is taking his Lego man hair out for a spin in one of those late '70s celebrity superstar competitions. I remember being more proud of Ron Cey because he was playing tennis, a sport I much preferred to track.

Don Sutton is doing a little job foreshadowing and Reggie Smith is the first ballplayer I ever saw play the drums, long before Randy Johnson and Mike Piazza made it famous on cardboard. Nice shorts!

Here is the other page: Steve Yeager showing off his wife, Davey Lopes showing off his armpit hair, Dusty Baker performing his best Studio 54 moves, Rick Monday doing something that I wonder if his contract allowed, and Tommy pretending that Hollywood people enjoy his company.

"Big Innings." Yet there are no scores on the scoreboard behind Beltre.

Collectors notice stuff like this, card people.

I'm sure at one time I thought this would've been cool as an avatar. Then I probably freaked out about copyright issues, as I tend to do every other week or so. Obviously, this is not during one of those times. Cool photo, eh?

I've got a couple cards of Gorman Thomas as an Indian in the draft folder. I'm sure these were saved for a post about players featured on teams that I don't associate with the player. But that theme has been covered numerous times by numerous bloggers. So, I'll just say this once: "I don't remember Gorman Thomas as an Indian!"

There, I'm done.

I can't explain this other than that I had the hots for this particular news broadcaster when I was in college in '85. I probably found this during a nostalgic binge on youtube and had to email the image to someone I knew back then.

I can't believe we acted like hair like this was normal in the '80s.

But it gets worse.

Same gal. But after someone had Sheena Easton-ed her. Yikes.

Speaking of things we put up with in the late 1980s, here are several Orel Hershiser cards featuring strikingly similar, strikingly awful photographs. I scanned it crooked just to continue the whole theme of incompetence.

Dave Cash is pissed that he's airbrushed as an Expo.

OK, he's really an Expo now. Still pissed.

I have no idea why I would scan a card of Willy Taveras. I have never had one, single, solitary thought about Willy Taveras.

More items I can't believe I scanned. Two absolutely disgusting pictures. I'm glad to get them out of the draft folder.

Of course, now they're here on the blog. But nobody reads this thing.

Famous players who appear on other players' cards. This is another popular blogging topic that has probably seen better days.

Hey, look, it's George Foster!

There, I'm done.

At one point, long ago, I was going to do a post on how awful my fantasy league teams were back in the 1990s. But I can't find any of the copies that I used to receive each week that would update us on how our teams were doing (I'd be hovering somewhere in last).

I've wasted a huge amount of time looking for those copies. Kind of like the time I wasted on fantasy baseball. So I'll just tell you that the above three players were on my team -- and I expected big things from them. Throw in Al Martin and Shane Mack and you have a pretty good idea of how much I sucked at this pursuit.

OK, that's enough I think. I've cleaned out enough images for now. Besides I've got to find some vitamins and get my immune system mobilized.

Oops, too late. I've already found something that made me sick.

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P.S.: The answer to the card question at the top of the post is:

NOTTUS NOD

The card came from Bo. More from him later. Hopefully, after sleeping.