Night Owl Cards

  I started scanning my latest arrival of 1975 Topps buybacks the other day to plan for a future post. I hadn't intended to publish it today -- I tend to write about these a lot and I like to rotate topics a little more frequently.  But then someone mentioned in the comments yesterday that they were wondering about my progress and, heck, that's a sign if I ever saw one. A question about buybacks as I'm scanning the buybacks? You're getting a buybacks post!   What's more, I'm also going to answer some of the questions I get about this collection all the time. It produces more questions than any other thing I collect so I'm not going to worry whether I'm boring someone right now. Obviously not everyone is bored.   Most of the latest group of buybacks came from COMC, because it's easily been the most productive outlet for a crazy pursuit like this. But these two arrived from other places:   The Grabarketwitz arrived from Sportlots, which hasn't offe...

Circumstances over the past 24 hours have me thinking about legacies, specifically how you will be remembered and what you will leave behind. There was a shooting in my city yesterday, one of those horrific workplace shootings in which two people died senselessly and the entire community was turned upside down. This type of thing is disturbingly common now but it's an awful first for my city and it took place on the same block where I work. One building away.   It makes you think about a lot of things. One of the big ones is "have I done enough to be remembered?"   Oh, there are those who think that type of talk is selfish and "who cares" and "I'm going to live how I want to live and who gives a damn if anyone remembers me." Great. Enjoy that train wreck. I think it's natural to think about your legacy, your contribution. Legacies aren't just for famous people, celebrities or sports figures, Kirk Gibson limping around the bases on video for...

  There's been a lot of moaning about not be able to go out and about, and when people are able to go out and about, they can't find what they went out and about for (i.e. baseball cards). But when I think about it, I prefer it this way. I actually don't enjoy going to stores that sell cards (or sold cards). My sole mission once I found myself inside a Walmart, aside from finding cards, is "how do I get out of here?" Target isn't any better. Slow people. Packs of people. Screaming kids. Running kids. Messy aisles, blocked aisles, people-filled aisles. Long lines. Judgy cashiers. Wind-blown parking lots. Crazy drivers in parking lots. I could go on.   I'm not a fan of most communal events. It's probably why I'm attracted to a solitary hobby. And I've found, in the last year, that I much prefer ordering my cards in the quiet of my home and then, once they arrive safely and without any potential for exchanging insurance information in the parking ...

  I've been trying very hard to enjoy baseball this year, to ignore the tweaks and weird alterations to the game. I'm trying to be quiet about all of it, too -- or relatively so -- and just appreciate the game that I love. But I can't do it. I can't watch extra innings anymore. The moment a game moves to the 10th inning and that runner magically appears on second base, I have to turn the game off. It's suddenly become illegitimate to me. Sunday's Padres-Dodgers game ended that way and at the conclusion a whole bunch of people gushed over what a great series it was and OMG we get to do this 12 more times. But that last game wasn't great. It wasn't even baseball. And I stopped watching after the ninth. I hate -- hate -- that I'm saying this. I want to be one of those fans who likes it all because baseball is awesome. But I don't think I feel this way because I'm old and crotchety, although I am both of those things. I think the reason is becaus...

(Greetings, I'm back after a rare two-day break from posting. While I appreciate out-of-town visiting more than ever these days, I still feel lost without my cards. So let's get back into it. It's time for Cardboard appreciation. This is the 301st in a series): As much as I loved baseball cards as a kid, I wasn't very observant about them. The aspects that stayed with me back then were the design, the player on the card, what team they played for and probably the pose, or the action shot. On the back, I noticed the stats and the cartoon, if there was one. I glanced at the bio sometimes, too. That was about it. The elements that jump out at me these days -- that the player was airbrushed into a different uniform, that there is a teammate in the background, that there is a piece of equipment in the background, that a word is misspelled or incorrect information provided -- almost always sailed over my head. I'd like to think I was like most kids in that way. Too many i...

  Twitter, I don't need to tell you, emphasizes the negative. I think it comes with the territory. It's a social media forum that broadcasts people's thoughts and views indiscriminately. My grandmother often said, a long time ago, that "fools names and fools places often appear in public places," and that was uttered way before the internet. But she was so on point. Obviously, I'm one of those fools. I try to be nice and I try to be positive, and I often fail. I also try to be honest and I think I do a better job on that than the others. I see a lot of dishonesty online and on Twitter in particular and it bothers me quite a bit. Twitter has been filled with hobby dishonesty lately. There is the flipping mentality and the folks who try to tell you there is nothing wrong with it. There is the NFT craze with folks trying to convince you that you'll get rich off of digital images. There is so much dishonesty in that, and that's when I fail at being positiv...