Night Owl Cards

It's pretty obvious that I enjoy '70s baseball and baseball cards more than baseball and cards from any other decade. I think I've made that rather clear in seven-plus years of posts. But because I enjoy self-examination so much and because I thought it might be handy to have it all in one place, I decided to review the reasons why I like '70s baseball and cards so much. These are solid, concrete reasons that need to be known. And I'm going to do this with some cards that I received recently from mr. haverkamp that all relate to the '70s. First, let's get the big one out of the way: 1. I was a kid then. Most of us view our childhood years through a nostalgic filter. The days were carefree, candy was 5 cents, the sun shined every day and the snowstorms were epic. We don't even notice that those last two memories conflict with each other. I'm not immune to this. In fact, I roll around in nostalgia too much. My childhood was pretty a...

Dave Roberts was named the Dodgers' manager last week, reuniting him with the team he played for from 2002-04. Roberts debuted with the Indians, ended with the Giants, had his best season with the Padres, and is probably most known for his steal of second base and sprint home for the Red Sox during Game 4 of their epic ALCS comeback over the Yankees in 2004. But he solidified himself as a major leaguer with the Dodgers and now they're depending on him to help fix what ails L.A. on the field (hopefully without using anything referenced by the Beatles). The Dodgers don't have too many problems in the talent department, but their decision-making in the field, on the bases, at the plate, has been an issue for years. Combine that with a rash of injuries, bullpen problems and a manager with the dopiest decision-making of all, and, no, it's not a surprise that the Dodgers are eliminated in the playoffs each year. I don't know if Roberts is the answer, but I'm...

A month or two ago, I documented how well the Nebulous 9 worked by recounting how four different people had sent me this Maury Wills In Action card in a very short span of time. Obviously, I needed just one Maury Wills In Action card, so three of the senders didn't meet their objective. None took that more to heart than one of the senders, Keith, a.k.a., EggRocket. I received a package from him recently with the accompanying note: Ah, so you really wanted to send me some cards that I needed, huh? All right, I'm game, let's see what you've got. I opened the wrapped stack and nearly 30 cards off my 1972 Topps want list came out. This is so much better than a single Maury Wills card. Let's look at these card-by-card from lowest number to highest: #297 - Claude Osteen I recently revamped my '72 want list because I discovered I needed several more cards than I had listed there. I'm not sure what happened the first time I wrote the ...