Night Owl Cards

Today the Dodgers beat the Cardinals to catch the Giants. That might be my favorite sentence ever. In the latest example of you can't predict ball, the Dodgers won 3 of 4 from the Cardinals and are now tied with the Giants for first place in the NL West after San Francisco once held a 9-plus game lead. Oh, and Andre Ethier, who I think is hitting in Rob Deer territory -- minus the home runs -- delivered a three-run blast in today's game. I'm so elated all I can do is show these cards. They are from Chris at View From The Skybox , who I wish the best of luck in his job search. The Triple Threads Captain Clutch card is actually from last year, not 2009 when Ethier really was a clutch hitter. The card back reports that he's had 12 walk-off hits in his career. I'd be stunned if any of them happened since people admitted to watching "Glee". Clayton Kershaw exhibited his usual domination that will prevent me from ever acquiring another autogr...

I don't miss Upper Deck. There, I said it. I just don't. Maybe it's because I grew up on Topps, long before Upper Deck came to be. Maybe it's because I'm not all that interested in modern cards anymore (I passed up the card aisle again today) and "competition" isn't as urgent a need to me as it once was. Whatever the reason, I don't miss them. But that doesn't mean I don't suffer, along with every other card collector, because Upper Deck isn't making MLB-approved cards anymore. Upper Deck's innovation and especially its photography is missing from today's cards. And then there are other things that went by the wayside when Upper Deck's agreement with MLB died in 2010. One of the most notable was the fact that Orioles catcher Matt Wieters didn't appear on baseball cards anymore. As you know, the currently disabled Wieters signed an exclusive deal with Razor back in 2008. I wrote about that once before . Upp...

As you know, I'm not a Bowman guy. I don't buy a lot of Bowman. But each year, for the last few years, I've tried to sample a couple of packs at least, just to see what I am missing. After a few go rounds of that, I decided that I'm not missing anything. It's still a pack of cards in which I've never heard of half of the players, and on the other half, I don't care because Bowman's designs never do anything for me. Last year, I cut my ridiculous habit of buying cards that bore me to one pack . This year, I'm trying to cut it to none. I'm doing an excellent job at it. I haven't looked at Bowman even once when I've been in the card aisle. And I don't think I'll look at it again ... ever. Well, at least in years when the "it" rookie of the year isn't a Dodger. The stupid part of all of this is that I still want Dodger Bowman cards. Because I have a sickness. A disease. It really needs a name. Something like...

So, the United States has advanced to the World Cup's "knock-out round" -- if that's what it is really called -- despite winning one of its three opening matches. I'm not going to pretend to understand a lot about soccer. I'm not a fan, even during this time when I could use it as an excuse to flout my nationalism, or at least drink beer. I don't get the flopping, biting and head-butting; I'm mystified by "injury time" (please don't enlighten me); and a game with ties turns me off instantly. Soccer isn't the only game with puzzling quirks. Football, I think, has so many rules and ever-changing ones that it is king in its ability to confuse the non-fan and regular watcher alike (I will complain about the pass interference penalty until I can't complain no more). But before I climb any higher on my "baseball is the greatest game" horse, let's face reality. Even baseball has its odd little rules or idiosyncrasi...

If you missed last night's post because of the problems with Blogger's reading list, you might want to wander down there for some quirkiness. I also added to the post at the end, by recording the total number of "balls in flight" for several sets. And I hope to add others. OK, now ... this card. I've received this particular card in well-meaning packages a few times now. I like it a lot. Who doesn't love a bank of illuminated lights? And the "thank you" on the jersey sleeve, well that could work for a variety of posts, and it just leaves a warm glow all over everything when you see it. But it's not a night card. You can see blue sky in the background. And clouds. This is a dusk card. I don't collect dusk cards. I've gotta draw the line somewhere. So are there other lines drawn in my random and arbitrary rules for night cards? I'm glad you asked because I've been getting my share of cards lately that hover on the ...

We take cards like this for granted. No, I don't mean the fact that baseball teams wear purple these days, or that grown men are named Jordan. I'm referring to the ball. It's nothing now to see a ball in mid-air on a baseball card. You can spread all your 2014 cards on the ground, throw a rock at them, and the chances are good it will land on a picture of a ball in flight. But it wasn't always that way. I know. Because when I first collected cards, seeing a ball in the air on my picture cards was an event. Oh, we didn't know why that particular card was so cool, but it was the underlying reason. THE BALL WAS IN MID-AIR! That got me curious. Exactly when did cards with balls in flight actually start happening? And when did it become so commonplace that nobody cared anymore? Well, balls in flight actually go back farther than I thought, and they probably go even farther back than I can show. I'm suspecting back to cards from the '30s or '...