Night Owl Cards

I was going through some posts on my blog from May of 2010 the other day when the total number of posts written that month caught my eye. I wrote 44 posts that month. This is not a surprise to me. I know I used to post to Night Owl Cards twice a day as often as I could and averaged 40 posts a month. But when my old habits hit me out of the blue like that, I am stunned. What kind of cyborg was I? This May, I will have written 16 posts. This is post 16. That is one more than my record low for posts in a month, which happened twice last year. Some may think I have gotten too "big" for this blog. Life is far busier due to my family health issues. Also there's the matter of writing for Beckett magazine. "Perhaps Mr. Big Shot Night Owl doesn't have the need for this particular writing exercise anymore? Perhaps he can't be bothered with those blog basics: trading, updating want lists, boasting about card acquisitions, etc?" Well, maybe. But I'm g...

I've spent the last few days driving back and forth from the hospital where my dad is. He has a host of health issues, many of which were ignored for years, that basically came to the surface once my mom had passed. The news isn't good and, really, after all that's gone on, I've accepted that. I don't want to dwell on that here though. Even though just about every holiday since Labor Day has come and gone with very little meaning or ritual, I did find a small amount of joy yesterday on Memorial Day (of all days, right?). After leaving the hospital, I took a trip to the main shopping drag in the Southern Tier to hit the Barnes & Noble. I was looking for the June/July issue of Beckett Vintage Collector, which contains my article on the 1975 Topps mini set. I didn't expect to find it because I've had more success finding the magazine at the B&N's in Syracuse. But after some pained scanning of the large magazine display, I suddenly saw it,...

There are baseball players throughout one person's career as a fan who always seem to be fighting for the right side. No matter how many times they switch teams (well, maybe this isn't the case if a player has worn 7 different MLB uniforms), they seem to land on the side of good. Unfortunately for Bill Buckner, I haven't exactly rooted for teams who are both "good" and "successful." Buckner, who died yesterday at age 69, came up with my favorite team, the Dodgers. He was a second-round draft pick of L.A. and played with them for eight years. I've stressed this on my blog: Buckner was a Dodger for as long as he was a member of any other team. Yet his time with L.A. -- when he was young, vibrant, talented and exciting -- seems to be forgotten. Buckner was a poster boy for 1970s virility, all chest hair and stache and bushy brows. That '77 Topps card came with its own sound effect when I pulled it as an 11-year-old. So many of Buck...

This month is quickly becoming the most unpleasant month of my life. If I was an alcoholic, I'd be in so much trouble right now. But I'm not. Which means I do stuff like buy a bunch of baseball cards instead. Binge busting replaces binge drinking. Life definitely owed me something yesterday. It owes me for the whole month, heck, the whole year, and about all I could do to get at least some payback is charge down the street after work and see if the Target had some of that 2019 Big League Baseball. I haven't bought any current cards since sampling a pack of Opening Day in March. I wasn't missing them much either. But this Big League looked like a little more fun, even more fun than last year's product, which I liked well enough. My appreciation for this year's Big League comes naturally from the design. I've read some bag on this year's design. I don't get it. I find it more appealing than last year, which was a bit too bland. This year...